It’s happening…

Two final holdouts, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, announced in speeches a few hours apart on the Senate floor they would vote to clear the way for what is expected to be a bruising, full-scale health care debate after Thanksgiving.

At a 10-year cost approaching $1 trillion, the measure is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny benefits, and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

“It is clear to me that doing nothing is not an option,” said Landrieu, who noted the legislation includes $100 million to help her state pay the costs of health care for the poor.

Lincoln, (pictured above) who faces a tough re-election next year, said the evening vote will “mark the beginning of consideration of this bill by the U.S. Senate, not the end.”

My bet is the final bill will have co-ops (not the public option), cost around $900B and have some sort of modified abortion provision that’s less restrictive than the Stupak amendment.

What say you?

And it’ll achieve 94% coverage.

And it costs $849B.

CNN has more about some of the key points in the new bill…

Among other things, they’ve agreed to subsidize insurance for a family of four making up to roughly $88,000 annually, or 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

They’ve also agreed to expand Medicaid and create health insurance exchanges to make it easier for small businesses, the self-employed and the unemployed to pool resources and purchase less expensive coverage.

They also would limit total out-of-pocket expenses and prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Insurers under the Democratic plans would be barred from charging higher premiums based on a person’s gender or medical history.

But can Dems avoid a filibuster?

I think so, and here’s how that could be accomplished…

Reid met Wednesday afternoon with Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, three moderate Democrats who have expressed concerns about the cost and scope of health care reform proposals. [...]

Landrieu said she has concerns relating to the bill’s costs to small businesses and individuals. She also expressed opposition to a public health insurance option “that will undermine the private insurance market.” If that’s included in the measure, she said, “it needs to come out at some point.” [...]

Nelson released a statement Wednesday noting that the likely weekend vote represents an opportunity “to commence debate and an opportunity to make changes” to improve the bill.

So the public option and the cost are the two big sticking points.

What’s new?

One last note…about the Stupak amendment…it’s being changed slightly…

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who supports abortion rights, said Reid’s new provisions would preserve the Hyde amendment while enabling people to buy insurance plans with abortion coverage on the exchange.

More as it develops…

If you’re a progressive like me, and you’re upset by the Stupak amendment, which bars federally subsidized insurance from covering abortions, consider this: What if we had a single-payer health-care system and someone like Jeb Bush or Sarah Palin were running the country?

The Stupak amendment is often described as an extension of the long-standing Hyde Amendment barring the use of federal funds to directly fund abortion. Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has enjoyed broad support among the public, including among many pro-choice people. The sentiment seems to be summed up in the statement that “you can have an abortion as long as you don’t ask me to pay for it.”

But the Stupak amendment, part of the recently passed House health bill, the “Affordable Health Care for America” act, HR 3962 (PDF file), actually goes much farther than just banning direct funding of abortion.

HR 3962 sets up an “insurance exchange”, where private insurers would bid on individual coverage. The intent is to give individuals the same buying leverage as a large company. Sounds like a good idea, and pretty close to the “free market” solution many of us would like to see. The insurers would be standard health insurance companies like Kaiser, Aetna and Health South. Because some of the people looking for insurance would get a federal subsidy based on income levels, none of the policies issued, by private companies and paid for by individual citizen’s funds, could cover abortion services.

So if you earn $200,000 a year, and pay for every cent of your insurance policy, the federal government is stepping between you and the insurance company to prohibit coverage of abortion. Yet, many of those policies do currently cover abortion (it is, after all, cheaper than a live birth, and these are insurance companies we’re talking about).

As a pro-life Republican, I’m delighted by this amendment. But I also see the same danger as Mahar, perhaps for a different reason. I see the reach of the federal government into health care decisions as necessarily chipping away at personal freedom. Freedom to do legal things, to have an abortion, smoke a cigar, or be fat.

Mahar provides an example:

With such an administration in power, social conservatives might move to exert pressure on health-care decisions beyond abortion. For example, could women be told that their government insurance won’t cover birth control? In 2001, President George W. Bush proposed eliminating the requirement that all Federal Employees Health Benefits plans include coverage for contraception. At the time, Susan Orr, who would later become Bush’s deputy assistant secretary of health and human services for population affairs, applauded the president’s suggestion, saying: “We’re quite pleased because fertility is not a disease. It’s not a medical necessity that you have [contraception.]”

I’m glad someone on the left has seen that centralizing power necessarily means that freedom is lost, bit by little bit. Trading freedom for security is often a poor bargain, even when the security is “health care for all”.

Cross-posted to FrankHagan.com

Check it out…

Hmmm, what happened in 2008…I can’t really think of anything.

Republicans can not like Obama all the want, but this smacks of “Soreloserism.”

Why, just look at how this drop has effected the overall opinion on this topic…

So in 2007 nearly 70% of the population thought government be responsible for health care, but now that a Democrat is in office we’re sub 50%?

Come on people…don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.

The bill has several “immediate reforms” in Title 1 that are interesting. The first such reform is the “National High-Risk Pool” program described in Title 1 Section 101, a $5 billion dollar “temporary” program intended to bridge the gap until the “Health Insurance Exchange” program is implemented.

Many states have “high-risk pools” already, and HR 3962 builds on that idea.

So how does the “National High Risk Pool” work? Like many state programs, it prohibits denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. The list of qualifications for enrollment seems daunting, but are mainly to limit participation to people who cannot obtain group health coverage and are not eligible for other subsidized programs such as Medicare. Because COBRA eligibility does not disqualify someone, people between jobs could take advantage of the pool.

It is the cost structure I find interesting. Monthly premiums cannot be greater than 125% of a similar private plan. Annual deductibles cannot exceed $1,500 per person, with “cost sharing” (co-pays, co-insurance, etc.) limited to $5,000 per year per person, or $10,000 per family. Not cheap. The intent seems to provide health insurance at about the same cost to those who have been denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions, or have lost their group insurance coverage.

And what if the money runs out? From page 24 and 25:

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.—If the Secretary estimates for any fiscal year that the aggregate amounts available for payment of expenses of the high-risk pool will be less than the amount of the expenses, the Secretary shall make such adjustments as are necessary to eliminate such deficit, including reducing benefits, increasing premiums, or establishing waiting lists.

Wait, isn’t that what those evil health insurance companies do? Hey, everybody, jump into the Pool!

Cross-posted to FrankHagan.com

Yes, it’s not even close.

Gee, I wonder why we’re going bankrupt…

And those are just 3 graphs! Want to see the other 19? Click here to download the whole report (.pdf).

I’ve already asked the question, but I’ll ask it again…why do we pay so much more for health care????

Just watch…

Here’s the thing, the reason these folks can get away with nonsense like this is because congressional districts have been so gerrymandered as to be almost completely red or blue. And given that Rep. Foxx is from North Carolina’s 5th district (very safely Republican) she can keep on talking like this till she’s blue (or red) in the face. And it’ll get her famous, quick.

Just look at Michele Bachmann, a virtual nobody before she started talking crazy on shows like Hardball and Glenn Beck’s cavalcade of crazy. Now she’s being favorably profiled by George Will? And let’s not forget Foxx’s South Carolina cousin Rep Joe Wilson. He jumps so far over the line that even his fellow Republicans chide him, and yet he becomes a folk hero and raises $1M in donations online in short order.

And trust me, this isn’t limited to just Republicans. Dems have said their fair share of nonsense too. But why are these folks being applauded, promoted and revered? Why aren’t they seen as the sideshows they really are?

Yes, yes, I know I’m posting this video and so I’m part of the promotion of this meme, but I point this out to raise the broader topic question….How in the hell did we get here? And is there any way back?

Slowly, but surely, we’ll be getting health care reform in a matter of months. That is, if Democrats don’t overplay their hand.

From NY Times:

The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Max Baucus of Montana, described “a sense of inevitability, the sense that, yes, we’re going to pass health reform.” In interviews, senior advisers to the president said the progress on Capitol Hill vindicated Mr. Obama’s strategy of leaving the details up to lawmakers, though they are wary of sounding overconfident. [...]

In the House, where leaders have vowed to pass a bill by Nov. 11, a fight over abortion coverage could still imperil the legislation, and Mr. Obama could lose some votes from liberals upset that the bill includes a weakened “public option,” a government insurance plan to compete with the private sector. Mr. Obama, trying to keep progressives in line, met with them Thursday night in the White House Roosevelt Room.

“He is making the case to them that this isn’t the exact bill you’d write, however, let’s take a step back and look at what we’re about to do here, and what a historic moment this will be,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting.

Now, it was my understanding that Obama had let the health care legislation form in the early days, but now they were getting involved with drafting specific legislation. Maybe that’s not the case at this point, but one has to think they’re beginning to get more and more involved.

However, going back to my biggest concern, will the more liberal Dems get out of the way and acknowledge the reality that this isn’t going to be exactly what they want, but it’s a hell of lot better than nothing?

We shall see…

Well, at least the opt out version.

Here’s Joe…

“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”

And guess what? They don’t have the votes in the House either…

The House Dem leadership has conducted its preliminary whip count and has tallied up less than 200 likely Yes votes in support of a health care reform bill with a robust public option, well short of the 218 needed for passage, according to an internal whip count document I’ve obtained.

The document — compiled by the office of House leader James Clyburn — was distributed privately at a meeting between Clyburn and House progressives today where the fate of the public option was the subject of some contentious debate, with liberals demanding that House leaders push harder to win over votes.

Clyburn spokesperson Kristie Greco would only say: “We currently do not have the votes for a robust public option.”

So Harry Reid, who ignored all of the warnings, is now set to put forth a bill that will most likely get filibustered?

I don’t think so.

My guess was that this was one last public push to show liberal interests group that there isn’t enough support.

Back to the co-ops…

So it looks as if the Senate’s bill will be released tomorrow and WSJ shares the broad strokes…

Employers with more than 50 workers wouldn’t be required to provide health insurance, but they would face fines of up to $750 per employee if even part of their work force received a government subsidy to buy health insurance, this person said. A bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee had a lower fine of up to $400 per employee.

The bill to be brought to the Senate floor would create a new public health-insurance plan, but would give states the choice of opting out of participating in it, a proposal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada backed last week.

The bill is expected to expand health coverage to tens of millions of Americans by giving low- and middle-income Americans subsidies to offset the cost of insurance, and expanding the Medicaid federal-state insurance program to cover a broader swath of the poor. Most people would be required to buy insurance or pay a fine, though exceptions would be made for those deemed unable to afford it.

So this would be a federally funded plan that allows states to opt out if they so choose. That means we’re going to see the blue states adopt it and the red states reject it, plain and simple…even though the red states usually have the highest number of uninsured and underinsured folks.

Personally, I’m not a fan of a federally run system. I’d rather have the federal government give states seed money to build their own public co-ops and have the states figure it out themselves.

I also think it’s unclear whether or not Reid can get the 60 votes he needs to avoid passing this thing via reconciliation.

However, putting all that aside…let’s remember the most important part of health care reform…

Also expected are new rules on insurers to prevent them from denying coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions and from dropping customers’ insurance once they become ill.

Yes, the plan is bound to have flaws since politics is the art of the possible, not the ideal. But if we can outlaw the pre-existing conditions clauses and lifetime coverage caps, that will go a long way towards delivering the type of health care we all deserve.

In any event, I’ll have more once the final bill is released.

Danielle Ivory pens a shocking piece about yet another case of an insurance company acting completely immoral.

From Huff Post:

Christina Turner feared that she might have been sexually assaulted after two men slipped her a knockout drug. She thought she was taking proper precautions when her doctor prescribed a month’s worth of anti-AIDS medicine.

Only later did she learn that she had made herself all but uninsurable. [...]

Turner, 45, who used to be a health insurance underwriter herself, said the insurance companies examined her health records. Even after she explained the assault, the insurers would not sell her a policy because the HIV medication raised too many health questions. They told her they might reconsider in three or more years if she could prove that she was still AIDS-free.

A tragic case, but add it to the massive list of rescissionary tactics the insurance companies employ to keep profits high.

So here’s the deal…when folks complain that insurance companies will be put of business by this new health care bill, point to stories like this. Because that’s what private companies are allowed to do in this day and age, and consumers have little recourse.

Well, they can elect folks who will change the system so things like this can’t happen in the future. And, like it or not, that’s what they did last Fall.

Also, just a quick note on competition from a commenter at True/Slant:

[...] insurance companies have profited from the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act (15 U.S.C. § 1011) which exempted the insurance industry from federal antitrust laws. It was passed after the SCOTUS ruled in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association (322 U.S. 533) that insurance was covered under the interstate commerce clause of the constitution. The entire health insurance industry is dominated by a handful of insurance companies, in Alabama 89% of all health insurance is supplied a single firm, Blue Cross of Alabama while in North Dakota, it is 90%.

Again, this must end.

Period.

They helped conduct it, but the backlash at the incoherence of the findings has forced them to place the blame back on the folks who commissioned it, AHIP.

From Politico:

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the authors of AHIP’s report, put out a statement last night that basically said, “Hey, we weren’t paid to evaluate the effects of the entire bill, but rather a small slice of it.” The statement only seems to reinforce critics’ view that the report is skewed precisely because it doesn’t take into account the totality of reform. PWC’s report estimates that insurance premiums will rise faster under the proposed reforms than under the current system.

The last, and key, line from the statement: “If other provisions in health care reform are successful in lowering costs over the long term, those improvements would offset some of the impacts we have estimated.”

Allow me to translate, “AHIP asked us to conduct an intellectually dishonest study and we did it because they paid handsomely. But we didn’t realize they were going to act as if this was iron clad evidence that premiums would skyrocket. That’s why we’re stepping in and calling BS on them so they don’t destroy our credibility.”

I said it yesterday, as if we were really going to believe this study anyway?

More as it develop…

Let’s run down some reasons…

• First, if the insurance companies want insurance to become more expensive, guess what? They can make it more expensive. For any reason.
• Second, the idea that covering more people and injecting competition into the marketplace will somehow drive up prices is frankly ludicrous on its face. Especially by the totals they’re claiming ($4,000 for families and $1,500 for individuals in 10 years).
• Third, the study claims that new levies will be passed right along to consumers without taking into account the idea that behavior changes along with new fees. Or, as economist Len Nichols of New America Foundation says, “[The study] assumed the tax would have no behavioral effect, contrary to every other tax in the history of civilization.”
• Last, the AARP, hardly a partisan organization, is speaking out (from the AP): AARP Executive Vice President John Rother told reporters Monday that he doesn’t think the report is “worth the paper it’s written on.” He said if anyone believes it, that’s a problem.

So what to make of all this?

Well, today the insurance industry made the case for government run health care better than any Democrat could have.

And perhaps not in response to this report, but others are making similar observations.

Moving on…

Commentary by Jackie Salit

NOTE To Donklephant Readers: This article by independent strategist Jackie Salit came across my desk and I thought it was too good not to share in full with you. -Nancy

When we finally get far enough down the road on health care reform, it will become clear that a driving force in the intensity of the fight was a heart attack. Not the medical kind. The political kind.

Independents swung decisively to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. And it is this shift by independents – who repositioned themselves from center-right to center-left – that gave the Republican right the political equivalent of cardiac arrest.

In 1992, 19 million independents voted for Ross Perot. In 2008, 19 million independents voted for Barack Obama. Over the span of 15 years, the largely white, center-right independent movement re-aligned itself with Black America and progressive-minded voters.

This did not happen out of the blue. It did not happen by magic. It happened because the progressive wing of the independent movement did the painstaking and often controversial work of bringing the Perot movement and the Fulani movement together at the grassroots. The Fulani movement refers to the country’s leading African American independent, Dr. Lenora Fulani, who exposed the black community to independent politics and introduced the independent movement to an alliance with Black America.

No doubt the dramatics that the right wing brought to the Town Hall meetings this summer were intended for the television cameras. But the organizers, strategists and radio personalities who orchestrated the theatrics had a particular audience in mind: Independents. If they could tarnish Obama’s image with indies, they could damage the black and independent alliance and re-establish the Republican Party as an influential force amongst independents. Some of that could be accomplished, they felt, by claiming Obama’s health plan would drive up the national debt – a concern that animated the early Perot movement. Some Republican strategists felt that if they simply branded Obama a socialist, it would scare independents away – not from the health care plan (everyone recognizes a plan of some kind will get passed) but away from the center-left coalition that elected him.

If indies are feeling somewhat disillusioned with President Obama over the health care reform fight, it has more to do with fears that he is being overly influenced by the partisans in Congress. Since independents voted for him to be a more independent president, it’s easy to see how some felt disappointed by his handling of the Republican onslaught. Obama’s independent appeal was based on his challenge to the prevailing culture of Clintonian opportunism in the Democratic Party and partisanship inside the Beltway. Put another way, the independent vote for Obama was an effort to define a new kind of progressivism, one that was not synonymous with Democratic Party control.

After years of hard work and organizing, independents have become a sought-after partner in American politics. They elected President Obama and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, arguably the country’s two most independent and pragmatically progressive elected officials. No wonder the Republican Party right wants a clawback.

Independents are vulnerable to being peeled away by the Republican right. The Pew Research Center reports that were the 2010 midterms to be held today, independents would lean towards Republicans by a 43 to 38 percent margin. But, the evolution of a 21st century independent movement is not that simple. First, the movement is very fluid and very new. Historical movements develop through twists and turns, not in a straight line. The far right has attempted to take over the independent movement before. In 1994, Newt Gingrich crafted the “Contract with America” to woo Perotistas back into the Republican tent. And in 2000, social conservative Pat Buchanan hijacked the Reform Party presidential nomination, though he was roundly repudiated by independents in the general election.

If Republicans are increasing their influence among independents, it’s also because the Democratic Party Left has not been a friend to the independent movement. Sure, Democrats were happy that indies broke for Obama. But they were disappointed that we didn’t become Democrats. They equate progressivism with being in the Democratic Party. But they’re wrong.

Neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party has been enthusiastic about the development of indies as a third force. For different reasons, surely. But they share a common goal: to maintain the primacy of two-value logic (where there is only one or the other, never neither) and make sure independents are passive companions. That’s one reason that the fight for open primaries – which allow independents to cast ballots in every round of voting – and the campaign to appoint independents to the Federal Election Commission are so important. Those fights are about our right to participate and our right to represent our interests in changing the political culture.

The independent movement went left in 2008, after many years of grassroots organizing to link it to progressive leadership. Now the right wants to peel it back. Obama, presumably, wants to hold on to the partnership, but must also privilege his own party, which turns independents off and makes them more susceptible to Republican attacks. Meanwhile, independents are working hard at the grassroots to hold our own.

Jackie Salit is the president of IndependentVoting.org and the campaign coordinator for New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s mayoral campaign on the Independence Party line.

Not only that it’s fully paid for.

That’s the latest report from the CBO and it’s encouraging to say the very least.

Here’s more from The Hill:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a cost estimate of the healthcare reform bill under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, concluding it would increase federal spending by $829 billion over 10 years but be offset by enough spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the budget deficit by $81 billion.

The net number of legal U.S. residents without health insurance would reduce by 29 million over 10 years, the CBO further concluded.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus hailed the CBO score as “very good news” that confirms Democratic claims that the bill can expand coverage to 94 percent of Americans and lower the deficit at the same time. He said a final committee vote would be scheduled once he consults with committee members. Baucus also said he trusted the accuracy of the score since the CBO has had the legislation for several days and that the next step after a committee vote is to merge the bill with the version passed this summer by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

We’re getting close to reform folks…it’s going to happen…

More as it develops…

Regardless of what you think about the current health care legislation being debated on Capitol Hill, being able to read it before it goes to the floor for a vote is the right thing to do and I’m glad to see a Senator from Missouri calling for it.

But will the Dems listen?

From Politico:

As the health care reform bill moves to the Senate floor, a key bloc of moderate Senate Democrats and an independent called on Senate Majority Leader Reid to increase the process’ transparency.

Specifically, the senators called on Reid to post legislative text and CBO scores online 72 hours before the first floor vote. They asked that all amendments be posted before debate begins. And the amended bill and CBO score should be posted three days before a final Senate vote and before the Senate votes on a conference committee report.

Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Claire McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, Jim Webb and Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman signed the letter.

“As their democratically-elected representatives in Washington, D.C., it is our duty to listen to their concerns and to provide them with the chance to respond to proposals that will impact their lives,” the senators wrote. “At a time when trust in Congress and the U.S. government is unprecedentedly low, we can begin to rebuild the American people’s faith in their federal government through transparency and by actively inviting Americans to participate in the legislative process.”

Simply put, this administration promised transparency and they should push the Congress to deliver…especially with legislation this contentious. Because it’ll expose anything truly controversial and save a lot of headaches in the long run.

Anybody disagree?

Stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight today is Dem Senator Tom Carper from Delaware. He’s offering a third way on health care that could garner enough bipartisan support to pass.

Essentially, it gives states the option to choose between private co-ops or a public option. Pretty easy.

Here’s more…

Carper wants to allow states to individually decide whether to create a private-insurance competitor such as a government plan and a nonprofit insurance cooperative, or to open up state-based insurance pools for government workers to every resident.

It could appeal to Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who has endorsed a similar trigger approach, while bringing in progressives who may not see a way – at this point – to pass a bill through the Senate with a public option.

All while publicly proclaiming to be agnostic on the government option, Carper has buttonholed President Barack Obama several times, shopped a one-page explainer to his Finance Committee colleagues, and huddled with Snowe. He began formulating his plan several weeks ago, and has been quietly talking it up since then.

“One thing I have focused on is to get Democrats and Republicans to work together on thorny divisive issues,” Carper said Wednesday. “And this is an area where we need to get a consensus.”

Folks, this is the ONLY way the public option can live on and the idea that it offers states more choices should be compelling for the red states

Still, my guess is that anything containing a public option, even if it’s not mandated, will be rejected by Republicans because that’s now been positioned as some stealth single payer and therefore is untenable on the right.

We shall see…

Personally, I think it gives a fairly unbiased view of what’s going on and what this reform debate means to all of us.

In other news, a government run public option is dead……..again.

I’m starting to notice some poll numbers that suggest an interesting trend. Basically, Americans aren’t necessarily happy with Obama’s health care plans, but they trust Republicans a LOT less.

Take a recent CBS/NY Times poll as an example:

• 52% of Americans trust Obama to make the right decisions for health, while only 27% feel Republicans are more trustworthy.
• 60% think Obama is trying to work with Republicans. Only 30% think Republicans are trying to do the same.
• just 30% have a good view of Congressional Repubs. 47% have a favorable view of Dems.

Next, Pew Research polls on the tone of the debate and finds that the majority thinks it’s rude, disrespectful and the GOP’s fault…

Then, a WSJ/NBC poll finds that if the health care bill fails…voters will blame Republicans:

More than one in three Americans, 37%, said congressional Republicans will be “most to blame” if the bill fails.

That’s almost four times the 10% of respondents who said President Barack Obama will be to blame, and nearly three times the 16% of respondents who said congressional Democrats will be to blame. Nearly a quarter, 23%, said all three will be to blame.

So why is this happening?

• First, Republicans don’t have viable alternatives and Americans aren’t buying the whole “loyal opposition” schtick. They want real ideas and they’re seeing nothing from the right.
• Second, the “Tea Party/birther/Glenn Beck/Obama is a socialist/racist/nazi/anti-christ” nonsense is wearing out the independents. And it’s not that the Indys think anybody who opposes Obama’s plan are racist. Far from it. But some of the folks in the opposition are CLEARLY prejudiced and Congressional Republicans aren’t calling them out. So voters think they’re cowards.
• Last, Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” scream may have turned him into folk hero on the right, but those two words encapsulated everything that Americans don’t like about the current GOP. That’s not to say that there aren’t genuine, thoughtful conservative voices, but they’re being drowned out by the Joe Wilsons of the world. And after a near cataclysmic economic meltdown last year, voters are having none of it from the Repubs. They want the GOP to play nice, compromise and have a little humility.

That’s my take…what do you think?

I write one, Jason writes one, I write another, and Jason writes another.

And so I write this…

I don’t accept the premise that because the conversation isn’t less strident in the extreme left blogosphere that it creates a “disincentive” for Republicans to back health care reform. In fact, there are many more reasons for Republicans to support the Baucus legislation than to not…so let’s get in to those now…

Most hardcore liberals, especially the blogosphere variety, are completely against the Baucus bill. What this means is that the legislation will probably appeal to most independents, moderate Dems and moderate Repubs. Who decides elections? Every pollster alive will tell you it’s the swing voters. What do swing voters look for? Politicians who compromise. It’s not a difficult electoral calculation.

So, actually, the left railing against the bipartisan legislation as not pure enough should be an incentive for Republicans to support it so they can show independents that they’re learning from their historic defeat last fall.

Here’s another incentive for the Rs…their ideas get into the most important health care reform legislation in the past 50 years. Listen, they had the opportunity FOR DECADES to do something about health care and yet they sat on their hands and let millions go without health insurance, go bankrupt as a result of skyrocketing costs or simply were refused insurance because of pre-existing condition clauses. Well, now Repubs are seriously outnumbered and they’re in danger of not having a say if they don’t back the Baucus bill…which absolutely gives them a serious seat at the table. And, by the way, Dems don’t have to do that. And yet they are.

Want another incentive? How about containing health care costs? Baucus’ bill makes significant cuts in Medicare and CHIP and replaces it with private insurance. It doesn’t have an employer mandate. And the CBO actually said it’ll reduce the budget deficit after a decade. So they could actually make a very strong case to their base that this bill represents fiscal conservatism in action since Medicare is KILLING us and driving up the budget deficits.

So there are some of the incentives to sign on. I’m sure there could be some more, but those are all the high level, apparent ones.

Now then…what about the incentives not to?

First, it’ll piss off their base. But at this point do they really think the base won’t show up if they’re extreme enough to question whether or not Obama is a citizen? Again, let’s reference the swing voter logic. Any support they lose from their base will be offset by independent support due to their bipartisan nature. I think we all agree that the politicians that fall more in the middle are those who have more electoral success. Still…they could piss off their base.

Second, it’s a smart political move to oppose this because they can demagogue health care in 2010/2012. This is the only real reason I can think that makes any sense why they’d be against it, especially after they signed EVERYTHING Bush put in front of them (including that drug prescription bill). So all of sudden they’re finding fiscal conservative religion after Obama gets elected? Consider me unconvinced that this sudden turnaround is prompted by a bunch of left wing bloggers.

(At this point you’ll have to read Jason’s post to gain greater context for the next part, but he calls me naive. I take this with a grain of salt because I know Jason, I consider him a friend and I know he’s prone to hyperbole. Nonetheless…)

As far as naive, well, I’ll take the bait.

Who’s more naive…

• The guy who’s telling Republicans they better wise up, play fair and sign on to a bill (that liberals are professing they hate) so they can have some say in the legislation and possibly win independents in 2010?

OR


• The guy who’s basing the entire premise of his argument on the idea that leftist bloggers who demand ideological purity are somehow shaping the debate and moderate Dem bloggers have to answer them to such a degree that we reshape the debate or Republicans will not have incentive enough to play bipartisan ball?

Also, and let’s just get this out of the way now…hyper partisanship was started by the right wing shock jocks like Rush Limbaugh back in the 80s, was picked up by Newt Gingrich and Richard Mellon Scaife in the 90s and only until blogging started did Dems fight back in any demonstrable way. That certainly doesn’t excuse the truly moon-battiest of them all, but Republicans authored this playbook and have been using it for decades to flood the media with misinfo to shape the debate and win elections. Long story short, if hyperpartisanship is really creating the mood for Repubs to oppose health care, well, isn’t that a convenient whipping boy.

One last point and then I’m ready to bury this topic and move on since it’s pretty obvious that Jason and simply aren’t going to agree…Moderate Dems like myself do not own the tone and tenor of the debate on the left, nor are we responsible for monitoring it and calling people out. I, and my reasonable blogging friends, started this mid-o-sphere as a place where real debate can happen. That’s our contribution. It’s not sexy and it takes a lot of work, but I think we do a decent job at it. Sure, on occasion I’ll call somebody out on here, as I did with Pelosi earlier this summer, but when I’m arguing policy and intentions (as I’m doing in this health care debate) I don’t think I need to take into account the effect that some bloggers on the left are having on the mindset and motivations of Republican politicians. There will ALWAYS be people yelling on both sides, and, as I mentioned above, that should be incentive for politicians to move towards the middle, not further left or right.

As always, thanks for reading and I welcome your thoughts.