I thought the idea of dropping the Public Option was to get the Dogs on board, not the GOP?

What I don't understand is why Kennedy's example of compromise only applies to the Democratic party.

this is insidious bullshit and kerry and hatch are true clowns of the clown car senate.

god damn them for using a dead kennedy to weasel out of statesmanship -- but what do you expect?

the whole senate is an antiquated, pompous soap opera of narcissistic hackery and thorough submission to corporate fascism -- yes, darling, git out yer camphor, i said fascism...

For a long time now -- a good solid 70 plus years, the Democrats have been the party that looks out for the little guy, the actual people out there who live & work & struggle in America. There have been low points -- Dixiecrats come to mind -- but there have been plenty of high points too.

I do not see many Dems these days who carry this torch.

We have Republicans, who are willing to continue scuttling the country so that the rich get richer still, and Republican-lite, who talk a good talk, and don't mean 3 words in 10.

Shame on the whole lot of them.

The problem is that the Democrats keep making concessions without getting anything in return. They're using the "Kennedy would have been willing to give up the public option during negotiations" assertion to justify giving it up before they even start talking to anyone.

Why not just stick to your guns until it gets closer to deal-making time?

I can't quite fathom just how we reached this point: Democrats publicly negotiating away the most important parts of the legislation without getting anything in return, all in advance of real, concrete legislation. Kerry's statement is the death knell for the public option. Unreal.

The public option is NOT the most important part of the legislation. See Ezra Klein, among others, on this.

That said, I want it, but it is not everything. There is no assurance that it will work, either. People are way too attached to it.

Whatever Kennedy would have done, he certainly would not have telegraphed in advance his willingness to give up important provisions of the bill.

Steve,

Nicely thought out and nicely written.

Thanks

RepubAnon - That's the whole problem. The talk of what Kennedy would do misses the point: Ted Kennedy would want do get something passed, while getting the most out of it. Those who are invoking his name in the sake of 'bipartisanship' seem to favor 'compromise' over actually getting something passed. Democrats who want to give and give aren't daunted by repeated Republican assurances that, no matter what compromise, they won't vote for the bill. Even those in the 'Gang of Six', in charge of the 'bipartisan compromise negotiations'.

The whole thing is freakin' ridiculous.

Oliver James - The problem is, out of most of the bills and suggestions out of the board, the only ones that seem to avoid further screwing people require a public option to blunt the abuse possible by individual mandates and such. Requiring everyone to get insurances, and insurance companies not to drop people for ridiculous pre-existing conditions does no good if there's no way to keep them from screwing people financially, especially if they're shoehorned into getting a plan with no protection for them.

I can imagine a set of circumstances in which Senate Republicans said, "Look, reform is important, but the public option is a bridge too far. If Dems were willing to drop that provision, we could have a broad, bipartisan consensus on a health care bill."

Yes, and Republicans can imagine a world without hate, without war. And they can imagine us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

In other words, we can all imagine things - but as you rightly point out, imaginary doesn't = reality.

To Oliver James: I happen to disagree with Ezra, and you, wrt the public option, for one simple reason: can you (or Ezra) explain by what mechanism costs are going to be controlled once the public option is given away? I suppose the insurers are just going to retire their corps of well-heeled lobbyists and not bother with throwing millions around on Capitol Hill with constant chip-chip-chipping away at whatever parts of reform they don't like and just incidentally making sure that nothing ever passes which lowers their profits? The end result of reform without the public option is that we all continue to pay at least a third more for health coverage. It's the equivalent of the Medicare D bill which helped seniors a little, but didn't help them all that much because we had to make sure pharmaceuticals could continue making money hand over fist. But it cost the rest of us plenty - more than what even the most generous health reform plan proposed will cost. Feature, I suppose, rather than a bug.

The public option is important precisely because the health insurers can't lobby their way out of competing with it. Take that away, and all the issues associated with overpaying for medical care - as we do now - remain in place: businesses are less competetitve (and what about those small businesses? How do we handle "healthcare for all" while mandating that they provide coverage at inflated prices to their workers?) globally and health costs continue to drag down the economy and eventually, bankrupt the country.

Kerry, a Dem, opened by saying that Kennedy would have fought for the public option. Hatch, not a Dem, was the one saying that Kennedy would have caved on the Public Option. Kerry then failed to defend Kennedy. So Hatch is a Big Fat Liar while Kerry once again waffles.

Fuck Kerry,that clown LOST to George Fucking Bush. That flip flopper doesn't know what anybody else would have done.

Neill said "the whole senate is an antiquated, pompous soap opera of narcissistic hackery and thorough submission to corporate fascism -- yes, darling, git out yer camphor, i said fascism..."

Your words should be etched on the Senate wall.

The moderates, in and out of government, are just begging for a scrap from the thugs so they can put this oh so stressful issue to bed for another 30 years(good luck with that). Apparently, they think enacting tough legislation is like some PC kid's game where everyone wins a prize.

"I can imagine a set of circumstances in which Senate Republicans said, 'Look, reform is important, but the public option is a bridge too far'."

This assumes there is a bridge. Where is the bridge ?

As James Brown would have sang, "Can you gimme a bridge ?"

Ezra Klein had a good article in WAPO this morning. It really focused me on a different response to the anti-healthcare folks, in particular the elderly. Let's encourage congresswomen/men to start out the conversation about health care by changing the words to "the single payer system, Medicare" instead of plain old "Medicare". Going with resistance is often more effective than challenging a strongly held belief. Linking the widespread and oft voiced Christian "piety" among the over 65 constituency to the obvious un-Christian and anti-Golden Rule position of denying people under 65 health care would expose the self indulgent position that many of them have taken. Let's talk directly to them about their children, friends and grandchildren who may get sick, die or lose all their assets because of a lack of healthcare. Perhaps we have been wasting too much time trying to combat the billion $ lobbying efforts and not enough addressing the most powerful voting constituency on this issue. Respecting the elderly doesn’t include a pass for ignorance and self indulgence.

Splitting off the public option in a separate bill does not have to mean "scuttling" it. Without it we still get essential permanent reforms -- universal coverage, no rescissions, no denial or price discrimination for pre-existing conditions, exchange improving competition in basic coverage, subsidies for many more Americans to get covered -- and can force the Blue Dogs to put up or shut up. If they don't put up to eliminate universally despised pre-existing conditions, they may be dead politically even in the most conservative areas. Isolating the public option in its own bill later, with the Presdent still urging support, will give it a better chance of passage, too, since opponents misrepresenting it will not be able to shift to another anti-reform horror story as soon as they start losing the argument on the public option.

Clearly, if Kennedy were alive he would do the exact opposite of everything he did when he was alive.

Let's put this in it's proper prospective - passing health care reform with a universal mandate and without competition by a strong public option is the same as Bush passing Medicare Plan D "reform" - a huge taxpayer funded gift to an industry which has raised it's profits FAR in excess of the rate of inflation.

Is that the best we can do?

Why don't we just let people enroll in Medicare for a public option? It's an existing health care system with satisfied customers, start-up costs for the public option would be minimal and, it's a cost effective system which we can also continue to improve.

Given the public a clear picture of what the public option could be rather than a thousand page bill which can be negotiated away is a much easier way to get overwhelming public support.

This article and the comments are all right on...I have to just add a quote from Harold Meyerson from back in February..."data do not daunt them, nor fact compel reflection" This was a description of republican thinking...I love it!

Maybe I'm a romantic, but I'm still hoping Teddy left a letter or some other type of communique regarding his hopes of passing Health Care reform and how to accomplish it... he wrote to the Pope, why not his confused and misinformed colleagues? In fact why not to all of us?

I think the best comparison is the Medicare drug bill. A bill that Kennedy wanted very badly but was turned into a nightmare for seniors and a cash cow for the insurance corporations and the drug companies.
Kennedy voted against that very bad bill.

Quoth the famous logician Donald Rumsfield:"There are known knowns, etc."

Known known= every day that HC reform is delayed 49.3 Americans will die as a result of inadequete access to health care. Delay=Death Panel.

xpatriate - I like it. I can picture an ad: "Every day that health care reform is delayed another 50 Americans die thanks to lack of access to health care. Senate Republicans who have vowed to try to block any and all reform efforts are the real Death Panel."

Kerry said no such thing. Here is what Kerry said:

for children's health care, et cetera. But if he didn't see the ability to be able to get it done, he would not throw the baby out with the bathwater. He would not say no to anything because we have to reduce the cost. We have to make these changes. And he would find the best way forward.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So he wouldn't agree with those like Howard Dean who say it's not worth doing if you don't have the public health insurance option?

KERRY: I think there is an enormous amount, George -- oh, here is what Teddy would do. He would say, I'm going to fight the fight, and if and when we get to the point that we can't get there, we'll see whether or not we can do enough to make good happen out of this.

And you can't make that measurement today. We have to go down that road.

Nothing in his statement implies that Kennedy would be willing to drop the public option. In fact, his statement strongly supported Kennedy as a fighter who would go to bat for the public option.

Sorry, here is Kerry's full statement:

KERRY: Let me just finish. Let me finish. He would fight for it, and he would do everything in his power to get it, just like he did for the minimum wage or like he did for children's health care, et cetera. But if he didn't see the ability to be able to get it done, he would not throw the baby out with the bathwater. He would not say no to anything because we have to reduce the cost. We have to make these changes. And he would find the best way forward.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So he wouldn't agree with those like Howard Dean who say it's not worth doing if you don't have the public health insurance option?

KERRY: I think there is an enormous amount, George -- oh, here is what Teddy would do. He would say, I'm going to fight the fight, and if and when we get to the point that we can't get there, we'll see whether or not we can do enough to make good happen out of this.

And you can't make that measurement today. We have to go down that road.

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Politics/Story?id=8443218&page=2

As Howard Dean points out it is possible to achieve a strong health INSURANCE bill without a public option. The AMA and Big Pharma want nothing more. But you can't get a health care COST CONTROL bill without it. The economic interests of the Health Providers diverges from that of the Health Insurers at that point. Surrendering by the Dems on the Public Option does NOTHING for the insurance companies as long as the profit controls of Sec 116 of the house bill remain in place.

So people who wonder why Repubs don't just accept a win based on Dems ditching the PO don't get that the big threats to the insurance companies comes in a different section of the bill. They hate Sec 113 but Sec 116 guts their business model. The resistance to the Public Option cuts at an angle against that.

The Republicans' idea of compromise on reform is, "let's not have any," not compromise, not reform.

Republicans didn't compromise when they held the majority, ever. They're working overtime to screw the Dems, and incidentally all Americans except the very rich in the process.

How much clearer can it get? The possibility of Republicans truly compromising on reform would be like being a little bit pregnant. Neither is remotely plausible.

Seems like there's been a fair amount of "compromise" so far.

The absence of the "quo" is the point, Steve.

It's what allows the minority party to maintain a one-up dominant position in the power dynamic, with the majority party assuming a one-down subordinate position by continuing to seek compromise. The GOP is, in essence, saying, "We're not even going to commit to compromising. But we'll keep on mentioning 'compromise' so you can scramble around, chasing us, in search of a compromise." Even if the Democrats pass some legislation without GOP votes, the Republicans, with Democratic acquiescence, will have managed to make the Democrats look subordinate throughout the process.

Well, so much for my thought that Kerry might take over Kennedy's role in the Senate. What a worthless PoS! And I say that as someone who knew him back in 1971 and wanted to see him run for President.

Unfortunately, the President - and Senator - I wanted was the Mark I Model 1971 John Kerry, the one with both brains and balls. The Mark X model 2009 Kerry has neither, and hasn't had them since at least the Mark V Model 1988 version.

How sad.

OMG! I love your post!And would like to share with you the great collection of
replica watches
at well priced.
Love your post and love shopping my replica watch there.

It would be awesome if the only Democratic Senator with a spine didn't just die. Kerry, you idiot, you are suppose to claim he would never compromise, it's how the game is played. And who gives a crap watch Hatch has to say, he is a lying sack of crap.

The D's could have easily parlayed Kennedy's death into a great health care bill. Nope, not the clowns I voted for, they are going to go out and claim that Kennedy would bend as easy as them.

What is the point in having power if your are too scared to wield it from time to time ?

The time for lovers is always precious and easily elapses from fingers. Since then, why not record the happy time with chic accessory. Designer couple watch is the best keepsake for lovers to memorize their happiness. However, the original high-end couple watches are all sold at hefty prices which are usually far beyond the reach of many couples.cheap replica watch In that case, I highly recommend you to buy quality replica designer couple watch.