Are they talking us down now...softening us up to accept a lesser health care plan?

Reporters and bloggers are doing it. I have seen much about it the last few days. They are getting the word out that there will be no public option, that we don't need it anyway to have good health care.

Who is "they"? Not sure yet. Could be the centrists who control party policy. I don't know for sure, but I saved a few I have read. Bloggers get the word from on high and pass it along, certain ones do.

From a Huff post blogger:

No Public Option is Still Much-Needed Reform



Also Ezra Klein of the WP talking down the public option by pointing out that Dean did not include one in 2004... a rather puny argument.

He is in effect saying that if we do get a public option it might be terrible.



And here goes Matthew Yglesias trying to talk us down from our goals. Settle..is the message.

Where I stand on health care



Notice the underlying theme...anything would be an improvement over the status quo. That is dangerous talk, because if there is nothing to force the insurance companies to compete things will go right back to where they were before.

Even Donna Edwards who won with much support from the netroots, grassroots, appears to be wavering. She is one who signed the letter saying she would not vote unless there were a public option.

From Firedoglake today:

Is Donna Edwards catching the Rahmflu



Steny Hoyer went against his own Speaker of the House. She said there would be a public option, he said maybe not.



Then there go the Blue Dogs playing follow the leader and announcing there may not be a public option. Slinkerwink covers it well in a diary at Daily Kos



We worked and donated and voted and gave them a majority, a good one. Today at DU I saw a post that was talking about how if we get everyone covered and they can't be dropped by insurance companies...it would be good enough. Trouble is what is missing is competition. We won't have that without that government plan side by side with the private plans.

If the insurance companies are powerful enough and own enough Democrats to keep us from getting that option...then they sure as heck are not going to voluntarily lower prices even though they use pretty words.

We won't have a majority like this again...maybe not ever in this political climate. We should not waver.

watch out for the black helicopters!!!

No conspiracy, that is silly and not what I meant.

We have a chance at real change for the first time in decades...we should not blow it.

Like they are still in charge.

It's all been theater for a very, very long time.

As long as a narrative can be constructed and ACCEPTED by the progressives and liberals, then legislation will continue to pass that benefit the corporations bottom lines at the expense of the overwhelming majority.

The "Business Plot" has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams...

The United Corporations of America has usurped the United States of America.

taking single payer off the table. now it seems he and dems are bargaining away the public option. what a mess.

want to do what's best for the American people.

health care reform have read it:

Here is why we have to have a public option. There can be no real reform without it. It has to do with economics, not political dogma.

Posted this before, but always at the end of a long thread:

The idea behind the health insurance companies was that they would create a pool of consumers to purchase health care services from providers at lower prices. Thus, insurance companies would take in relatively small monthly payments from many, many people and then negotiate low prices to purchase services from health care providers.

The problem is that, in reality, to create a pool of subscribers large enough to leverage good price deals with the providers while still managing the risks, an insurance company has to get a huge percentage of market share. If a company can't get a large enough market share, it can't compete.

Thus, mega-insurance companies emerge and dominate the market. Very soon, fewer and fewer companies are in the market and before long there is no or very little competition.

And without competition, there is no incentive for insurance companies to negotiate effectively with providers (such as pharmaceuticals), and a huge temptation for insurance companies to switch from competing in terms of offering lower prices to competing in terms of amassing huge profits and paying management huge salaries.

So, inherent in the whole idea of health insurance is the incentive to
1) create a huge pool of subscribers
2) get a monopoly or dominating share in the industry and thus abolish and avoid competition
3) take profits rather than give lower prices.

Thus, a monopoly on the health care insurance business is probably the only way to insure that people get good health care for a reasonable amount of money. In the health care sector, private companies can't work. They will always seek to grow, grow, grow in order to maximize profits. They will always deny care in order to maximize profits. They will eat each other up. They will spit out the lives of their customers.

How do those who oppose a public option or a government-run single payer plan hope to circumvent these facts of business life.

Thanks.

I hope he remains firm.

Plus his ENTIRE website revolves around public option.

I hope he does his usual fantastic job of telling people why we MUST have a public option.

but with bi-partisan efforts the politicians saved the public from exercising their option.

The media will breathlessly report ... with a bigger paycheck in their hands.

the usual suspects will be here in our faces, screaming that the plan is actually the greatest thing ever and exactly what we wanted and anyone who thinks that a corporate giveaway is not reform secretly loves Sarah Palin, etc.

for incompetence and they will be correct. Democrats are allowing Republicans to fill the bill up with Republican amendments that from our knowledge of history we know will fail to do what needs doing and we do this so we can get one moybe two Republicans to vote with us..A bad bill is NOT better than no bill at all..

Bill Clinton was the same way, and it used to be so frustrating.

Clinton would knock his friends down into the dirt in his rush to make sweet, sweet love to those who despised him. He always seemed to think that if he just gave in one more time, they would finally love him.

Meanwhile, Clinton's friends, the ones who actually got him elected, had to make do with a handjob now and then.

Obama seems to have this condition even worse than Clinton did.

straight, no chaser.

These elected jackasses want to play games with the lives of humanbeings.

No, it will not fair well at all.

I share your frustration, and I agree that "some reform" is not enough. In fact, it will make the situation worth if we merely bail out the health insurance industry by giving them 50 million new, paying, and subsidized customers.

However, I can not agree that we won't again see majorities in Congress like the ones we have now. In fact, I expect the Democratic Party will pick up 3 seats in the Senate and between 3-6 seats in the House UNLESS Congress passes a disastrous "insurance reform" bill. At this point, I would rather do nothing than to pass any of the bills under consideration in Congress. 2011 might be a better time to get real reform.

:dem:

-Laelth

You cannot hear the number of people backing away rhetorically from "public option" without drawing some conclusions:

We have Sibelius,(ok, they tried to walk it back, but it was a definite trial balloon), we have Hoyer,

We have Obama calling it a "sliver", "suspenders"(when something else is the belt)and saying "I still think it's a good idea" - Why not just say "It's a good idea"? "I still think" is the preface for "other's don't".(And we know how willing he is to 'compromise' to the wishes of others) Why is it now just a good idea and not the centerpiece of reform like it was previously?

The phrase "non-essential",

the 'surprise' from the White House that the "left of the left" is so wedded to public option

Oh, yes, the knives are out for public option.

The irony comes in the fact that as poor a job as has been done so far, the concept of public option has been SOLD to the majority in a positive way and to a minority in a negative way.

Most Dems know it WAS the compromise and anything less is unacceptable. There will be no cost containment without it. Romney care (mandated private healthcare alone) is not working in Mass and there's no reason to think it would work nationally. It's a stopgap measure designed to protect the profits and structure of the existing status quo.

We KNOW we need : Public option and drug price negotiation if we are going to get anything that is close to real healthcare reform. Anything else in my opinion is close to being a complete sham.

The White House is far more responsible for reform being downsized than most realize.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/health/policy/13health.html?_r=1

Keep in mind that Obama and the dems are first and foremost: politicians. What do politicians want? To get re-elected, that's what. When they see something that might interfere with that, they tend to waffle.

D.C. The land of the waffle.

a line in the sand in my blog : http://americancommentary.wordpress.com/ and I expect them to hold firm. If they don't, it will be Democrats that defeat healthcare reform. I intend to vote or not vote in 2010 depending on whether we have a positive outcome or another betrayal of the hardest working group for the Democratic party and Democratic Party ideals.

If health care reform fails, we have our party to blame.

tweaks to health care insurance and allow the "democrats" to claim it was actual health care reform

--or private option that provides it."

Classic "begging the question". Textbook.

If it is assumed that 47 million people want health insurance under our private for-profit regime of healthcare delivery rationing, then there must be some reason why they don't have it already, yes? Could it be that the nature of a "market" based system to price a good out of the reach of some in order to maximize the profit margin of the seller? Just say "Yes" because any Econ 101 student knows and is taught this. The equilibrium of supply and demand dictates that some margin of buyer demand just doesn't get met because it can't chase the bid upwards to satisfy the seller. So those 47 million uninsured may not have an ideological preference between public and private, but if they care about ACTUALLY getting healthcare they need to recognize the public sector and govt. intervention is the only way they're going to get it. The whole point at issue is the failure of the private option to provide for the health care coverage of 47 million people, who either have insufficient funds for basic insurance, or are deemed a threat to the profitability of the insurance company. Saying that these people don't care whether they are covered by a private or public option and therefore the private option is "just as good" as the public option assumes the private and public models are equally suited for the task, which is belied by the most basic fact: 47 million people are shut out and left to fend for themselves by only ONE of these models, the private for-profit health insurance racket.

health insurers and keep costs down while insuring everyone will work like when Republicans got rid of Glass-Steagall and Clinton signing it away did for the mortgage market.

Next they will order us to bend over.

I realize it is a massive job to run this government after Bush got through tearing it down, but the Democrats must stop denigrating the views of their base.

That is not about flipping us off.

Mon$anto people ruling at the Ag Depratment and at FDA.

The trillions spent for Wall Street, by Geithner and Bernanke. with taxpayers and taxpayers only being liable.

The decision to allow the RW whack jobs to bring their GUNS to town meetings. (You don't get to bring your gun to a Federal, State or County court house, no materr where you live in this nation. And you shouldn't have the right to bring them to a public meeting either.)

It gets worse each day.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090823/POLITICS03/908230318/1020/NATION/Senior-Democrat-warns-Senate-won-t-pass-public-health-insurance-option

"Washington -- A senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee said today that "the public option does not have the votes" to pass the Senate, underscoring the high-stakes political battle ahead as President Barack Obama tries to reform the nation's health care system amid a backlash in Michigan and across the nation.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., made his prediction that Senate Democrats couldn't reach a filibuster-proof 60-vote margin for a public insurance option on CBS television's "Face the Nation."

Health care reform dominated the Sunday talk shows, as a showdown nears in Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week she wouldn't be able to pass a bill in the House without a government-run option.

But in the Senate, Conrad came up with a compromise idea -- co-ops that would offer a non-profit, consumer-run alternative to the controversial government-run proposal. Conrad is a senior Democrat on the Finance Committee, which is working on the bill that the Senate will weigh.

"It's the only alternative that has bi-partisan support," Conrad said. "And if we're going to get 60 votes, we're going to need bi-partisan support."

Selling us out for bipartisanship.

He considers 60 votes "bi-partisan". He is as good as saying some Dems consider themselves Republicans.

I am getting so tired of that word...bi-partisan.

Video:

Howard Dean on Face The Nation August 23. "Health Co-Ops Just Political Theater"

masters to pay people to make the calls and canvass. If there is no public option--and a robust one at that--I will vote 3rd party.

It will be too expensive for many Americans to afford.

They have it in MA, and my middle income sister can't afford the mandated group insurance of 1,400 dollars a month for her family of three.

I don't know what people are thinking - mandated private insurance from the very companies that bankrupted the current system....

There is no public option, though. Not in any of the current bills, just a watered down political gesture.

It's pretty bad to require it from people who have no money.

The town hall right wing out cry will seem like a whisper. The defeat of the Democrats in 2010 will be icing on the cake. What do they think will happen when we neither volunteer or show up at the polls? I am over this. The Democratic leadership has to put up or lose and lose big in the upcoming elections. Obama's numbers will make Bush IIs look great.

The fact that Obama is losing at the polls is due in large part to the defection of his core base.

Perhaps we need to be sold out on health care reform in order to finally turn on all corporatists, no matter what their political label!

He says Obama is doing good with foreign policy..he had no complaints. Stephy pressed him: "You have no complaints with the President's foreign policy." McCain smiled his shark smile again and said: "Not now, I don't."

I'm sure McCain has no problems with Obama's "Health Care Plan" ..."Now"...he doesn't.

When it's "ONE PARTY" who could complain? Certainly not President "Shark Smile?"

period.

is worse than what we have now.

It will be sold that way and we better "Suck it Up" and get with the program or we will forever be known
as the "Crazy Left" who wouldn't accept the "Compromise" along with the equally "Crazy Right."

Progressive Dems lumped in with "Birthers, Gun Crazies, Deathers and the rest of the Beck, Limballs and the rest of them. Thom Harman, Mike Malloy, Sam Seder and Cenk folks are CRAZY LEFTIST...and "Code Pink" had guns concealed in their Pink Tu Tu's.

Yeah... it's what it is. SO DEAL WITH IT!

:sarcasm: EXTREME :sarcasm:

....When Rep. Hoyer said that the public option would have to go for the passage of the bill in the House"

Representative Hoyer never said that.

(banning deductibles, limiting premiums to a certain percentage of household income, banning rescission, keeping premium increases at or below the rate of inflation, banning age discrimination), then I can live with it.

I could absorb the actual PREMIUM for my current insurance. It's the deductible that is making most medical care unaffordable for me.

If there are no reforms and we have a Massachusetts-style "reform" jammed down our throats, I will commit civil disobedience by dropping my private insurance, and I urge others who can do so without jeopardizing their health to do so.

didn't just start recently. Many of us who work in health CARE, and/or have studied it for years, know the difference between getting what is needed and what has been proposed.

In their efforts to become more mainstream and tap into some of the passionate reich wing hate that Faux benefits from, Huffingtonpost isn't really all that liberal oriented anymore. Half the articles now either have very misleading headlines or quote articles from Washington Post/Wall Street Journal which shill for the reich wing all the time.

In my opinion Arianna Huffington is a hypocrit. She goes on any news show that will have her and bashes Obama just about every chance she can get while offering NO solutions of her own. She may know something about economics but seems quite naive as to how things get done in Washington. Lately she has been bashing Obama for not getting the message out about healthcare. The reality is a LOT of the blame rests with the media including her website which often whores out the well proven lies of the reich wing.

I even took the time to listen to Obama himself, in this week's radio address, and he was careful to lay out that the public option is only a consideration.

He made it sound quite superfluous.

And since I am a Dem, and I am on Democraticunderground, I will just say, "Gosh am I glad I am an American, and boy am I glad we will have that mandate."

After all, if Goddess had really wanted me to have insurance, I would have been born in France!

that tells us all we need to know about the real motivation behind this legislative clusterfuck. Anything else is "maybe" or "probably not". This is about shoving fresh meat into the insurance industry maw.

PO is controversial... WHO KNEW?

they're talking down...

And you'll realize the "public option" is now a wolf in sheep's clothing. The concessions made to Blue Dogs over not tying costs to Medicare mean it will now cost as much as private insurance - which makes insurance companies happy.

So I'm rethinking my support of the public option.

As I see it the only firm reason to support those still fighting for something called the public option is that maybe maybe some years down the line it can evolve into something better. It will surely start out dysfunctional since reimbursement is being forced to not compete with private insurance, as you noted, and also because the public at large will not be allowed to opt-in to the Public Option. It will be a shit sandwich - expensive in itself and unable to lower costs for those on private insurance, which was kind of the big selling point of the PO originally. But MAYBE it can be improved later on once it has existed for a time.

The other reason to continue support of the PO idea is that once it is declared a failure in practice, America will be moved to do REAL healthcare reform and enact Single Payer over the dead bodies of insurance company lobbyists. We will have exhausted every alternative to Single Payer and there will be no more excuses. As Churchill said, Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else. There is always the chance, though, that the failure of the Public Option to deliver on its promises will be used effectively to rule out any further government based reforms to health care delivery. It's a gamble. However, all options at this point are shitty.

Under the bus!

It seems we are.

Because there is a sect of people who don't believe its really about the best policy for the American people - they believe its about cheering on the president devoid of any analysis of policy.

There seem to be two broad schools of thought here. One school says that the Democratic party is the answer first, and then based on that assumption seeks to interpret everything that is done, that Democrats have a hand in, as "good" in order to fit that narrative - and become very agitated and down right obnoxious whenever challenged to look at policy from the perspective of the American working class....

The other school starts with consideration of the American working class first, and evaluates all Washington politics by evaluating how policy effects the bottom 80% of America that is not "rich" or the bottom 90% of America that is not super-rich, and by evaluating whose interests are being served first by Democratic or Republican politicians and their agendas.

The former school is more than comfortable with the working class being a second thought, and with interpreting policy that serves the super wealthy privileged interests first as a good thing, because some benefits may "trickle down" to ordinary Americans.

The latter school is only comfortable with policy and puts the majority working class Americans first, and is more than comfortable criticizing any politician, regardless of what letter they have after their name, when they support policies that exploit the working class or oppose policy that primarily (not secondarily) benefits the working class.

The former values Party loyalty and tolerates very little self-reflection. It's party first, with interpretation of anything the party does as "good" by definition to follow.

The latter, values the working class first, and aligns itself strategically with a party only insofar as that party puts the working class first.

Over at tinyrevolution.com

Sorta says what you are saying about being cheerleaders for a President.