Maybe you should read a very interesting OpEd in the WaPo (which I rarely do anymore) by Norman Ornstein. You may then reduce all the hand wringing, rending of clothing and gnashing of teeth. Sheesh, you guys are making the healthcare nervous nelly factor into a Code Orange on the Homeland Security register.

Because Obama let Congress take the lead and never pushed them. The Congress is unworkable except by regular beatings.

I think it is time for an address to a joint session of Congress. News Conferences do not receive the same level of attention. Town halls even less. Also, news conferences and town halls do not provide a great format for laying out the details of reform and how they will affect ordinary Americans. They are rather scatter shot in the topics they hit on. A formal speech to Congress can hit on all the points, address the objections, and reach many more people since coverage would be wall to wall and the moment would be dramatic enough to attract the attention of even disengaged voters.

But when it comes to explaining what reform is all about, I'm less sure what more is Obama supposed to do.

File under woulda/coulda/shoulda:

1. In February, Obama should have had the Dem congressional leadership in, presented his proposals, taken their input, and then made a public presentation of what was going to be done. A little collaborative leadership at this point would have been extremely useful.

2. OFA should have been activated in February, holding meetings and town halls across the country, building support for the President's proposals.

3. Travel to the Middle East by the President in June, when the committee votes were being done, should have waited - it wasn't like the Cairo Speech needed to be made then, it could have been any time. Obama should have been on the phones every day with every Senator and Congressman on every committee.

4. Obama should have let the congressional Dems know the "red lines" - tell them he would veto a shit bill.

Instead, we got nothing. Obama provided no leadership, nothing. OFA didn't start e-mailing people until early August on this, if my e-mail is any example. Nothing was done to keep asshats like Balk-Us from balking the jump.

When this fails, there is going to be one place to look when assigning the blame.

The right won August. You can lose every battle but the last. Show real people suffering.
Lost job, lost insurance.
Pre existing condition denials.

And remember, you don't win in a democracy by converting your enemies you win by keeping your friends.

Himself is one the right track: what obama could have done is to say we're going to pass health-care reform, and the gop can join in or it can resist it, the way it resisted social security, medicare, and civil rights.

the Obama admin is playing both sides: the corporations and the people.

and they are saying different things at different times (and making different deals, like with Tauzin and Big Pharma) and all of this scrambles the thoughts of even those who try to pay attention.

particularly if they aren't privy to the fact that half the Obama admin. is on a dog leash to corporate power...

Such confusion is not the fault of the President. It's the fault of the confused.

In a democracy/republic, we have to take responsibility for getting informed and staying informed instead of depending on others to do it for us. The president has a website with all the information people need. Detailed online and published articles abound about the proposals.

I say lazy-ass Americans need to quit whining and wallowing and their ignorance. Instead, they need to start doing their fucking homework. That's the only way this experiment (i.e. America) can succeed.

Anybody know an Obama advisor who can get through?

Tell him there's science on this -- very good clear science. They're making a bad mistake. A very easy one to fall into.

Click the link, read the post. I'll give an excerpt below. This matters.

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/09/deck_is_stacked_against_mythbu.php

Don’t repeat bad information; that’s its way of spreading, taking you over long enough to replicate. Defend yourself from the passionate urge to repeat bad information — even if you think you’re combating it. It wins when you let it repeat through you.

“Correcting misinformation can backfire.
“… within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.”

"... Obviously, this has implications for correcting these myths. The article suggests that, rather than repeat them (as the CDC 'true and false' pamphlet does, for example), one should just rephrase the statement, eliminating the false portion altogether so as to not reinforce it further (since repetition, even to debunk it, reaffirms the false statement). Ignoring it also makes things worse, as the story noted that other research '... found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true.'

Of course, all this is easier said than done--and not everyone wants to 'bust' these sorts of myths. Indeed, politicians and others interested in getting their (maybe not wholly correct) message out there can take (and have taken) advantage of this phenomenon--get their mantra out there first, and it's reinforced even when an opponent tries to correct it."

"wallowing and their ignorance" was supposed to be "wallowing in their ignorance".

Get your Democratic ducks in a row, damn it...

Obama needs to get the Dem leadership together and decide what is going to be in the bill. Period. Do not leave the room until this is precisely defined. Make it coherent. Next come up with an ad campaign and talking points. This isn't rocket science; but it is power politics...

As Reich wrote yesterday:

Obama and progressive were outmaneuvered in August-- not because the right had any better idea for solving the health care mess but because the rights' attack on the Democrats' idea was far more disciplined than was the Democrats' ability to sell it.

It is way past time for party discipline.
The guy at the top has got to crack the whip.
That's what guys at the top are suppose to do...

Does anybody doubt that FDR or LBJ could make this happen?

Instead Obama pisses away August on bipartisanship. You almost expect him to piss away September by letting the Democratic cats try to herd themselves. That won't work either. This has got to be a top-down organized push with everyone staying on message. Barack Obama is failing to provide that leadership.

Health care is like your taxes. You hate the effing paperwork, don't understand the language or rules, think the people behind the system and forms are out to get you and for 2 goddamned cents you'd blow your brains out rather than deal with it. How are you supposed to clearly explain exactly what's wrong with the current system and exactly what it's going to take to fix it when from the public's point of view (just like their taxes) nothing is really going to change and they're still going to pay more money for more amorphous reasons to ever more gaping maws wanting fed their hard earned wages? I have great insurance from work, all kinds of coverage, dental, optical, major medical. It's through a major insurer and to read what they should pay for you'd think a trip to the doctor or hospital would cause minor costs out of pocket. Hah! I went for the recommended "after 50" colonoscopy. It theoretically could save my insurer thousands if colon cancer is caught early. Does my insurer want to encourage me to get this test by paying for almost all of the procedure? Hah! I was writing goddamned checks to doctors and labs and the hospital and people I've lost track of for months. Did I truly owe every one of them what they asked for? Could I have negotiated downward some of the charges or eliminated them altogether? Maybe. But I fricking WORK for a living! A person could spend their two week vacation on the phone trying to cut the fees for something like this. My co-workers get regaled with my tales of woe. Do you think any of them are going to go get their colonoscopy after hearing my experience. Some, not all. "Damn, Steve spent as much of his own money as the damned insurance company, screw that." If nothing else happens I'd like to see procedures and tests exposing diseases in their early stages, or preventing them altogether, be fully paid after a minor deductible. Why discourage people from possibly saving you huge sums down the road? I don't understand. And neither do 300 million other people.

What Obama is supposed to do is point out what the status quo provides now and what the proposal would do instead.

Appointees of the president who answers to the public, who are confirmed by Congress who also (theoretically) answers to the voters determine what treatments will be paid for by the public plan which is funded by a combination of premiums, and the taxpayer. Procedures and drugs that are deemed by the appointees as wasteful (low benefit and high cost) must be paid for out of the patient's own funds.

Currently, insurance policy underwriting lawyers determine what procedures will be paid for based on cost. Costly but effective treatments will be denied whenever possible in order to boost profits. Any costly procedures will be paid for out of the patient's own funds, or paid to lawyers who must force the insurance company to honor their own policy agreement. This is because these lawyers answer to corporate boards of directors. These board members answer to stock shareholders. These shareholders answer to .. who? Patients?

Letting a faceless bureaucrat get between you and your doctor is an uncomfortable thought, but far less so when you realize, it's only a question of WHICH bureaucrat gets in the middle. A corporate bureaucrat whose goal is to make money for the company whose plan you belong to, or a public bureaucrat whose boss every patient votes for, along with all that patient's friends and loved ones who will hear about mistreatment by a public plan. (Witness the uproar when the VA fell down on the job under the negligent watch of George W. Bush.)

Its simple really. We don't have a concrete bill to discuss. There are numerous red-headed step children floating around, but no current bill, and Obama has not put his imprimatur behind any of the options, likely pushing for what's behind door number three come September.

TCinLA's assessment is extremely harsh. It's also 100% accurate. The GOP "death panel" onslaught was completely predictable. We've been through this before, remember? It's as if 1994, or indeed the entire Clinton presidency, has disappeared from the memory of Obama and his staffers.

Steve said, "When it comes to explaining what reform is all about, I'm less sure what more is Obama supposed to do."

It would help if the message was much simpler. The easiest way to do this might be to break this into several bills.

For example, one bill could be called "Medicare for Kids" and expand Medicare coverage to everyone under 18. That's easy to understand, appealing to most people, and hard to vote against.

Another bill could be called "Buy into Medicare" and allow anyone who wants to, regardless of age, to buy into Medicare coverage.

Another bill could be called "Consumer Protection for Health Insurance" and could prevent health insurance abuses like screening for pre-existing conditions and dropping people once they get sick.

Keep it simple, use things people already understand (like Medicare), and stick to things with wide public support (like helping children and protecting people from our deeply unpopular health insurance companies).

I was gonna say Medicare for All...

I have to admit that Medicare for Kids (Greg, above) would be a shoo-in though!

I nominate Greg for Sec. of Health and Human Services.

I second Greg's nomination. The man knows how to sell policy. The Obama people ought to read his posting. I'm serious.

Dr. Richard Carmona, the Surgeon General under George W. Bush, participated in a town hall last night with Gabrille Giffords (D-AZ) in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Carmona came out in favor of health care reform, as both a cost savings method and improving preventative care. The crowd was rowdy, but no guns. Remember Gifford was the first representative to have a gun incident, when a gun fell out of a man's pants at one of her events, also held in Sierra Vista (southern Arizona).

I disagree. HR 3200 is the house plan, it melds the three committee plans into one bill, they were essentially the same to begin with. The HELP Committee plan isn't much different, only a few differences like 300% or 500% of poverty level qualifies you for Medicaid, tax hike for those making over $350,000 or $500,000 etc.

Where Dems did fall down is letting the President do all the heavy lifting on tv and townhalls. Why haven't Waxman, Andrews, Miller, Dodd and Pelosi been on my tv from every Sunday morning gab fest to CNN and MSNBC every afternoon and evening explaining what the bill actually does? They crafted the thing, they should be explaining it and selling it instead of conceding the tube to the teabaggers and letting Chris Matthews, David Gregory and Wolf Blitzer ramble on about how "Obama is losing the debate".

koreyel, for the record, neither fdr nor lbj could make health-access reform happen. fdr foundered on racism; lbj settled for medicare.

and the times, of course, are considerably different.

other than that, you're right on the money.

Markg8 - but then McCain would have to find something else to do on Sunday mornings...

"Over all, the poll portrays a nation torn by conflicting impulses and confusion."

"Mission Accomplished!" - Team GOP and Corporate-Owned Media

But when it comes to explaining what reform is all about, I'm less sure what more Obama is supposed to do.

Obama hasn't shown much actual leadership on this issue. He is president; he should be dictating and directing what form this effort will take. Most of the confusion and lack of clarity is his fault (except for the mix of bias and journalistic ineptitude exhibited by the media).

... HR3200 is more a bargaining chip than a bill, and a bad idea, at that. It forces Democrats like Cooper to take unnecessary votes on provisions like the public option and taxes that can come back to haunt them, especially when those provisions won't be part of the final bill.

Perhaps Joe could tell us what will be in the final bill .. so at least then we that take aim at a meaningful target instead of this amorphous cameleon of a bill which always seems to make everybody simultaneously right and wrong when talking about it.

I put a lot of blame for the confusion on two things:

The mainstream press and their he said, she said "style" of reporting rather than some truthful analysis and fact telling.

The shameful behavior of house and senate republicans (and a few of the blue dog dems) who are fanning the flames of misinformation and fear when they know perfectly well they are lying. Shame on them.

markg8 -- You're crazy if you think having Waxman, Pelosi or Dodd out there on talk shows selling healthcare reform would build public support. I say keep them in the closet.

That's the problem., Obama is the only one with an ounce of salesmanship. He's going to need some help form Bill Clinton.

Shout it loud and clear. The Republicans voted into M'Care Part D legislation in 2004 to have end of life counselling. The REPUBLICANS insisted on it.

I thought the Democrats had learned from Hillary, but no such luck. Her proposal got shot down because it was too complicated. The man in the street could not understand it.

The proposals being floated, while simpler than Hillary Care, are still too complicated. The proposal must be so simple that 90% of the population can understand it.

Extend Medicare to all.

When the Congress returns from recess, Obama and the Congressional Democrats should have a unified message:

WE WANT TO PROVIDE ALL AMERICANS WITH HEALTH INSURANCE PATTERNED AFTER WHAT OUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES ALREADY HAVE

* SAME Healthcare Exchange

* SAME CHOICE of numerous for-profit private-sector plans, several non-profit private-sector plans, as well as a Public Option.

* With additional consumer protections to prevent discrimination against anyone with a preexisting condition, prevent the capping of benefits so you can no longer go bankrupt, prevent the rescission of coverage after you get sick, prevent the plan from not being portable, etc.

REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT

I'm just astonished at the lack of message discipline from the White House. During the campaign, it was nearly flawless, but every time Rahm or Sibelius speaks about health care, we get a different line than the one from the President. I follow this as much as I can every day, and I'm confused.

I am tired of this line of happy horseshit. Since Democrats took control of the House in 2006 they have passed just about every piece of important legislation presented to them only to have that blocked by Senate Republican obstructionist. And the same has been true for the House this session particularly in response to Health Care, the Tri-Committee Chairs got together on a single bill to be taken to each committee and after markup got their respective bills out of committee in a form that will allow them to be rapidly blended and past. Similarly the HELP Committee got its version done even earlier. ALL of the holdup is the result of Baucus deciding to sell out his party by turning over control of the bill to what was originally a Gang of Seven (including Hatch) comprised of FOUR Republicans to THREE Democrats and those three to the right of the caucus. In the process they have managed to make the whole Congress look impotent when that is not really true at all. Once that is you get beyond Baucus and his being enabled by Reid.

What we need is for someone to whip out a little Johnson Treatment as seen in this photo from 1957:
http://face2face.si.edu/.a/6a00e550199efb883301156fb7b650970c-pi

Stop the enabling and get in Baucus's face like LBJ did to poor Sen Green in this picture.

There doesn't seem to have been a major policy speech. I'm thinking along the lines of his speech on race during the campaign. I'd like to see something like that.

It's not so much that Obama hasn't "clearly explained his plans to overhaul the system". There have been plenty of explanations, but they are shouted down by loudmouth Republicans who have a vested interest in keeping the medical system the way it is. Their aggressive behaviour is in turn admired by a nation that values boorishness and pugnacity as attributes of patriotism and freedom.

Isn't it interesting that part of the news media, CBS News, commissioned this poll, which found that a majority of the people were confused on the issues? That suggests that the news media isn't doing its job very well. Unless, of course, their "job" in this case is to confuse the issue.

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