one-note-johnny here... reminding that both the repugnants and the dims are the house slaves of corporate america, and we, my friends, find ourselves outside -- either in the fields of the masters, or hunkered down trying to glean enough to survive.

obama is quickly morphing into the big dawg role of "slick willie" and any progressive leverage looks to be fading quickly to affect this administration.

i'd say the axe comes down one way or the other on wednesday night.

obama, by articulating what he stands for with regard to healthcare in this country will -- more importantly -- articulate where he stands in the unannounced civil war raging in this country:

for or agst the citizens;
for or agst the corporate profit-making war criminal, imperialist, cannibal machine.

simple as that, my friends. at this critical juncture, at this moment in the long crisis of our times, it is either/or.

Stevem

Thank you so very much for this post.

I have been saying this for weeks, and all I get is that I am an Obama kool-aid drinker and apologist.

Nice to see someone as well respected as yourself express this point of view - and I KNOW you have not been tainted by the Kool-aid!

well done.

Just wanted to add the quote from the President below from his March Health Summit . . . he pretty clearly articulates what we have been witnessing for the past months here:

"During the campaign," Mr. Obama said, "I put forward a plan for health care reform. I thought it was an excellent plan. But I don’t presume that it was a perfect plan or that it was the best possible plan."

...

"If there is a way of getting this done," he said, "where we’re driving down costs and people are getting health insurance at an affordable rate and have choice of doctor, have flexibility in terms of their plans, and we could do that entirely through the market, I’d be happy to do it that way. If there was a way of doing it that involved more government regulation and involvement, I’m happy to do it that way as well."

http://www.nytimes.com/...

=============================================

So from the very start, the President has stated in clear terms that his PREFERRED method of achieving affordability and competition in the health insurance marketplace was the public option, but he was more focused on the RESULTS than the mechanism.

The President has repeatedly expressed support for the public option and the impression that he has changed his position has been created by the microanalysis of any minute change in phrasing from him or any of his advisors, not an actual change in anything that he so cleary stated in March.

So even if you disagree with the President's approah, he HAS NOT changed his mind and he HAS NOT sold you out.

He has done what he said he was going to do.

What "ambitious reform plan"? Maybe I blinked.

the "ambitious reform plan" is called "single payer"

the obama administration and the democratic Congress are fighting for that.... except on an alternate earth in an alternate universe...

Jonathan Cohn wrote a while back that what we need to do is tell the Conservadems that we will back any primary challengers to them if they support a Republican attempt to filibuster the health care bill, even at the risk of their seats going Republican in the end. Anyone know where there is a petition to that effect (as opposed to Moveon's useless campaign to contact Obama) or know how to start one?

Obama's smartest move would be to let Congress pass a dog's-dinner healthcare bill, veto it, then to call Congress back into session to produce an acceptable alternative -- "change we can believe in" with some teeth.

Yes, but....it absolutely IS the president's fault that the White House has repeatedly pushed back and told progressive groups to stand down. We know reform is hard, and we know why. But if the President isn't willing to just stand up and say, "you're being given a lot of excuses as to why some representatives and senators can't support public health insurance, but really there's only one: they're more concerned about the stock value of the 3 million Americans who own stock in health insurance companies than they are about the health and well-being of the 50 million who have no insurance," then he needs to get the hell out of the way and let others make the argument. Because we all know this is what everything boils down to, but as usual, in Washington it's considered uncivil to point out that something stinks and in fact it's that big turd floating in the punchbowl that everyone is trying to pretend they didn't see.

I've been a lobbyist. I know how these hard things get done, if they get done: it always happens because someone stands up and says, "look, none of ya'll want to talk about this, but that damn turd stinks to high heaven and you can scoop all the punch out of the bowl and add fresh and do all this messing around the edges, but it's still going to stink until you DEAL WITH THE TURD. So someone needs to man up and get the damn turd out of there or this thing isn't going to be fixed." I remember in one committee meeting listening to the shockingly dishonest testimony of an electric company lobbyist, and then when it was my turn to testify, just flat-out saying (in nicer words) "wow, this guy was up here 2 years ago selling you on the benefits of deregulation for consumers, about all the competition in the market it would generate, etc etc, and now today, he just said that what you essentially did for him two years ago is give his company a deregulated monopoly. How do you like being his bitch?"

It didn't make me popular with the majority of committee members, and of course that particular lobbyist never spoke to me again (big loss there) but WE WON on the issue. We can win on this one too, but the president is either going to have to take the gloves off or take the leashes off those of us who don't fear laying out the unvarnished truth.

You just can't seem to understand, "one-note-johnny", that you and your ilk are as much the problem, if not more, than the fringe republicans.

Keep up the self-fulfilling prophecy. You'll end up with nothing, once again.

Long story short, voting for Democrats in Congress is a waste of energy and time-their promises are empty. All they want are the lobbyist bucks and the nicer offices and parking spaces of the majority.
My guess is in 2010, the electorate will indicate it has gotten that message.

I'm going to restate something I said yesterday which is the more modestly phrased version of Neill's point.

The Democrat's don't have an ideology divide. They don't even have a conservative constituency vs liberal constituency divide. I think Ben Nelson is the only Democratic senator from a state where the public option is a net loser. And Nelson, may be the one senator with an actual philosophical objection. The 'moderates' like Lincoln, Landrieu, Baucus, Conrad et al. are not philosophically moderate so much as they are from states that are relatively small and apparently relatively susceptible to manipulation by malefactors of sizable wealth. You want to buy Schumer? OK, you need to be a malefactor of great wealth. Conrad is more of an entry-level buy.

People buying votes look at stuff like cloture votes. They have a legislative strategy. The Republicans are bought lock, stock and barrel. The Democrats still have an ability to take a stand one way and then lose when some of the caucus splits off. The Republicans get things done because they're going with the money stream, not against it.

At this point, Obama's legislative team has to look at the Congress and decide who they can flip either in the progressive caucus or in the Blue Dog / Gang of Whatever caucus. My argument would be that the 'conservatives' on the one hand have already demonstrated they can be pressured but on the other hand presumably demonstrated to their financiers that once bought, they stay bought. I would still fish in the conservative pond, but this isn't about 'loyalty' or a solid argument, it's about how much pressure can you apply. And if you can't apply pressure, it's game over and time to start thinking about the next game.

Steve, for God's sake, Obama can take a stand. Make himself count in the debate, you know? He doesn't have to answer all the tactical questions he can't control. He just has to come out and support something good! That makes something good more likely to pass -- is that too hard to grasp?

The important thing to make clear is that he will not sign "whatever." That is death for the Democrats in the midterms.

Thank you. If I read one more blog post or comment that begins "All Obama has to do ..." I'll throw the keyboard through the monitor.

The atavistic desire for a monarch runs deep on both sides of the aisle.

hey converse:

the whole progressive agenda is built on mountains of failure from hundreds of years of slavery, child labor, patriarchal misogyny, european culture become world civilization, and on and on...

i'm just a little squeaker here, squeaking my truth to power... what are you up to?

i'm quite willing to go to my grave as a failure -- that's the deal until, you know, victory!

meanwhile, you keep clipping your coupons... and watching for the sales in the newspaper...or wev.

Ezra Klein recently noted that that FDR, Truman, Nixon, Carter, and Clinton all tried to reform health care, and all of them came up short. "[I]t's not a matter of presidential messaging, or toughness, or will, or strategy," Ezra said, adding, "The executive simply has limited power here."

For such a smart guy, he sure says some dumb things. The very fact that the executive has limited power is *exactly* why messaging, toughness, will, & strategy are crucial to getting reform through. The fact is that Obama still doesn't have an elevator pitch for health care reform, and what he has been able to say about the issue has been almost completely drowned out by the crazy. He's shown precious little will & absolutely no toughness in the face of opposition, dropping (and threatening to drop) sensible & meaningful provisions simply because the most extreme elements of an already radical party distorted them beyond recognition. And, very simply, you're an idiot if you think that there wasn't a better strategy available than putting all your eggs in the basket of the Baucus caucus.

Stop acting as if this is completely out of his hands.

I have been saying this for weeks, and all I get is that I am an Obama kool-aid drinker and apologist.

I've been saying it since his FISA vote but those here still yelp like beat babies every time he opens his mouth. Honestly, I can't decide which is worse on his numbers: blatant bigotry from the right or perpetual whining from the left.

Willpower + Deviousness = Getting Things Done

Ezra Klein tells the tale of how Bush and the Republicans managed to get the Bush tax cuts through reconcilation:

As Kent Conrad told me, reconciliation "was designed solely for deficit reduction." The Senate parliamentarian, predictably, objected to the Bush administration's effort. He was fired and replaced with a parliamentarian that blessed the procedure.

Bush's 2001 tax cuts was the first time the budget reconciliation process had ever been used for a bill that increased the deficit. Ever. Democrats were appalled. When they retook the Congress, both the House and the Senate passed a rule barring reconciliation from being used for bills that increased the deficit.

I have no desire to litter this post with other examples of presidents bending rules to serve their interests. Except one: FDR's willingness to pack the Supreme Court. Good lord, democrats where iron back then weren't they? What do we have today? Wimps who don't understand that "we can disagree without being disagreeable" is flushing the democratic majority down the toilet. And only a nice-guy fool suffers being called a socialist in modern American politics...

Now consider the "death tax." It took a long while for the Republicans to get that done. Did anyone ever hear any of their presidents: Regan, Nixon, Ford, Bush I, or Bush II EVER acknowledge that the other side had good points?

And yet there was Obama at the town hall in Colorado. Not only suffering the young fool's argument against the public option, but actually strengthening it. That isn't an example of deviousness. It sure the hell isn't willpower. It is naivete: You do not make your enemy's argument for them. Ever. That makes your policy choices look weak and it confuses the electorate.

Deviousness and willpower start at the top. If you got a wishy-washy CEO arguing with himself on teevee, forget about the troops below having any spine. And that's where we are right now. I hate to write this... but there is a reason why Americans tend to vote against cerebral candidates. Ever wonder what a Adlai Stevenson presidency might have looked like? Open your eyes.

Sorry Steve. I like Obama. I gave him money. But he is proving inadequate for the job. If this doesn't improve really quickly, I want to see Hillary run a primary challenge.

My problem with Dems flailing against Obama is that the polls really do look dim. If the netroots removes its support from Obama or any Dem in Congress, the Republicans may really win back Congress. Yeah, you say you'd rather lose the fight but keep on trying. Well -- get this people. This country is very, very, very close to being a fascist state. I think all we have to do is allow Obama to fail and to allow Republicans to retake Congress -- and we may never get another chance to get it back. I would've thought Americans would have learned by now not to believe the lies Republicans have been feeding them, but they haven't.

I live in Virginia. Right now, the crazies are out. Even though we have had two excellent Democratic governors in the last 8 years and now we have 2 Democratic senators, we are looking, very realistically, at losing the governorship to a Republican this fall -- even though the Dem candidate, Creigh Deeds, is a good man and conservative enough for all parts of Virginia. We are also looking at losses in the House of Delegates. We are so close to DC that Obama has to get the upper hand, and soon, or Virginia is going to go Republican again.

Healthcare reform is something we really, really need. But we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot over this thing if we can't get everything our way.

I didn't think it possible that Koreyel could actually be even more fickle.

There is nothing to add to these comments:

The boy must be bold.

So bold that old foggies pee their pants.

So bold that companies adjust their portfolios.

So bold that "the stoopid" ask a question.

So bold that the elected question their funding.

So bold that Obama himself fears doing the right thing.

Well said, Neil- several times over!-don't worry, I got yer back. . .

The President-any president- has limited power, being just one third of the government.

A more pertinent question is: Where is Speaker Pelosi? The Majority Leader? The Whip? I know, herding cats is hard, and herding Democratic cats is harder, but dammit, politics ain't bean bag.Make the deals in the dead of night, and get the G D votes!

Ditto over in the August Body. Where is a leader on healthcare, now that Teddy is gone? Round up the 49, lock 'em in a room, break out the whiskey and cigars, and GIT 'ER DONE!

Oh, I forgot. The "Leader" is Harry Reed. We're doomed, doomed, I say. . .

Sorry Koreyel, but if im not mistaken FDR took a beating with tryng to pack the court. Loyal Dems jumped shipped his vice pres took a prolonged vacation and the chief justice waded his way into politics to fight it. FDR won all but 8 electoral votes just the previous fall and he could only garner 20 votes. Though i am sure you have some idea about this episode your last sentence betrays your level of seriousness.

MissMudd:

Koreyel is fickle and the comment is feckless.

Hillary will not mount a 2012 primary f(r)ight because the GOP campaign will be repleat with a stage of stand-up comics.

Even Romney will bow out early against such stellar representatives as Huckabee, Palin, Bachmann, and Guiliani. We can only pray that the "White Hope" Barbour pays for an open bar in my neighborhood.

Maybe someone can answer my question. There are 59 Senators in the Dem caucus, counting LIEberman, and a good chance that Snow will join them when the time comes. If Leiberman joins the dark side, and we can get the rest of the Dem caucus to vote for cloture, that would still be 59 votes vs. 40. Wouldn't that amount to a tie? Couldn't Biden vote for cloture with his caucus, but breaking the tie?

Or am I missing something?

*

terrorist fist-bump, Bob

I still want to know, what happened to health proposals that charge a percentage of income like Medicare does. That is the only way to make it affordable to everyone.

"what happened to health proposals that charge a percentage of income like Medicare does"

That is exactly what HR3200 does. The subsidies are set so that people are limited to paying from 1 1/2% of their income up to a max of 11% on a sliding scare as you go up the income scale from 133% of Federal Poverty Level to 11% at 400%. While 11% looks high it is less than you would be paying in the individual market today even with 'affordable' insurance. For people making between 133% and 300% the deal is pretty damn good. The table is less generous under the HELP Bill and most of the current rangling in Finance seems to be over ways to get it less generous still. Because the income based subsidies are where the really big costs of the bill sit.

But they are there. For now.

To sum up: the House supports the public option. The vast majority of the Senate Democrats (46) support the public option. 5-10 of the remaining Senate Democrats are "open" to the public option. All 4 committees which have reported bills have included a public option. 77% of Americans support it.

And yet, if Obama now pushes a public option, he's a "Monarch"?

Seems to me like the opposite is true. If Obama kills the public option to compromise with Snowe, he'd be acting like a Monarch, ignoring the will of the public and his party.

Dear Michael W:

Counting doesn't work because there is neither caucus nor cause.

You must begin by knowing every senator and most congressmen are rich. For them medical, dental, and eye care are free. Can you or your child walk into the dentist and expect relief? No. But they and their's can.

The cause is easy: Every American must have free health care.

On the other hand, every caucus is purchased.

You only need read current chapter by-laws where greed supercedes Christ's teaching to realize the temporal is no longer matches the ephemoral. Claims and names betray Steguman Christos.

Thanks Bruce, even for funny slip "sliding scare" - which it is to Beck and the wealthy etc. OK ... I was thinking, more like direct deduction from paychecks like Medicare/FICA, and not as "subsidies" - what's the difference? And when you and they say "cost", does that mean direct cost of government spending, or net cost of the plan minus what we'd pay to private insurers etc, otherwise?

"Jonathan Cohn wrote a while back that what we need to do is tell the Conservadems that we will back any primary challengers to them if they support a Republican attempt to filibuster the health care bill, even at the risk of their seats going Republican in the end. Anyone know where there is a petition to that effect (as opposed to Moveon's useless campaign to contact Obama) or know how to start one?
Posted by: karen on September 6, 2009 at 12:23 PM "
Karen, try ActBlue. At least for monetary support of progressive Dems in those states.

I don't agree with Chait's assumption, shared by just about everyone, that the Senate is in control of the process. This narrative was established by Baucus in his dual role as simultaneously master and victim. In reality Baucus serves as a road block and it is mostly only a matter of will that prevents him from being steamrolled.

If Pelosi and Reid sat down and agreed that the final bill would be whatever passed the House and then got Dodd and Rockefeller (head of the Finance Health Care Sub-Committee) to sit down with the Tri-Committee Chairs to hammer out an acceptable compromise bill PRIOR to House passage they could use Senate Rule 14 to place that House passed piece of legislation directly on the Senate Calender. At which time Reid could use his prerogative to manage the timing of floor legislation to bring it to the floor as the basis for negotiation and so bypass Finance altogether.

This is perfectly legal under Senate Rules and has been used before and as recently as 2004 when Domenici used it to push through a deal cut by Daschle and Frist on an energy bill.
http://energy.senate.gov/news/rep_release.cfm?id=218069

Under this scenario the Blue Dogs have two bites at the apple. First they can directly challenge Reid's moving the bill from the Calender to the floor. But this would be a direct declaration of war on the Leader's long acknowledged perogatives while equalling being a move to kill Health Care outright. Does Baucus have the balls to oppose the combination of the House, Senate Leadership and the White House by conducting a full out physical filibuster on a PROCEDURAL motion? I don't see it.

Once the House Bill is on the floor any amendments to it can be defeated by a non-debatable and so non-filibusterable Motion to Table right up to the vote on Final where Baucus et al would have one last change to kill the bill outright by filibuster. In full knowledge that Reid could simply bring it up again whenever he chose.

The ball is in Baucus's hands simply because Reid has allowed that to be so. It doesn't have to be this way and I have suggested elsewhere that what we need here is a touch of the Johnson Treatment as shown here from 1957:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fjW71B3WLTQ/Sp1ETNlLK6I/AAAAAAAAASM/B1HG0ZLjqEc/s1600-h/Johnson+Treatment.jpg

This

Every battle for legislation is unique. There is no such thing as difficult in general. Obama comes across as a surveyor who measures where every player on the field wants the ball to be. Then he runs it by splitting the difference. He seems to chose the path of least friction. That is why his team is hard to spot. In the end we will probably find the ball didn't move at all and we will know his team is the status quo. The great revolutionary of our time turns out to be Dick Cheney.

Thanks, Bruce. Lately there has been a trend here of commenters posting in defense of Reid. I call BS. Reid can threaten to pull Baucus' chair anytime he wants. Reid can say it is nonsensical to have 3 separate bills in the Senate and shut down Finance's process anytime he wants. Reid is showing exactly zero leadership on his party's signature issue for this term. Its easy to fault Obama -- and believe me, I can point out many things the WH should have done differently -- but Reid has had a role with much more direct impact on the process and has done even worse with it than Obama has. And part of the challenge for Obama is the mess that Reid less fester.

"I was thinking, more like direct deduction from paychecks like Medicare/FICA, and not as "subsidies" - what's the difference? And when you and they say "cost", does that mean direct cost of government spending, or net cost of the plan minus what we'd pay to private insurers etc, otherwise?"

Second question first. In these discussions and in CBO scoring 'cost' means 'government expenditure'. A large number of those people eligible for subsidies are paying for insurance now, for a large subset of them the subsidies would mean a cash savings directly. If you had to boil the debate down to its starkest terms: are we willing to charge people who pay income tax $583 billion to pay for health care for people whose income and family composition are such that they don't pay income tax. The question is not about future deficits, it is where it has been always, rich people by and large resist paying for social services to poor people.

The first question is more complicated. But under HR3200 people buying individual insurance through the exchange would have a credit which the PO or private plan would submit to the government for cash. The remaining premium could be set up as an automatic payroll deduction, that is how AFLAC generally handles supplemental insurance now but that is a detail.

Medicare is not a good model, not from the financing end, because Medicare recipients are not paying directly for their care under Part A (Hospitals) and only partially under Part B (Physicians), instead they paid for their parents' care from their own paychecks and now are having their own care paid by their children and grandchildren.

Medicare for All is a good slogan, but under the hood there would be some significant differences in financing between traditional Medicare and universal Medicare.

Thanks Steve. Your post is right on but I am afraid will largely be ignored even by our side.

In a strange way, some of us, though ostensibly saying that we believe in government -- don't really in terms of using its sytems and institutions.

The Congress IS and SHOULD Be the institution in charge of this huge change -- a change with major economic and social impact. We have watched and complained while over the last decade,the power of the Executive in this country, overshadowed and took over many of the prerogatives of the Congress. That has resulted in strong authoritarian and overly controlling Executive Branch and disrupted the link between the Congress and the people in protecting and promoting our national welfare.

So we now get a President who gets that,(ya know, he is a Constitutional scholar) and is patiently (maddeningly to some) nudging the Congress into taking its appropriate role again -- not just to pass this much needed legislation -- but to correct a horrible imbalance and distortion that was at the root of much that went wrong with our financial, economic and yes even social infrastructure. Do you think that we will be able to develop the strong economic and other regulations to safeguard us from future shenanigans unless we can get the Congress to perform its rightfull role? The role of the Congress is to freakin PASS LAWS and REGULATIONS!

While many may see this, they are still impatient and unwilling to understand the processes and monumental transitions that will have to be in place to get successful health care or any other major reform.

The transition will involve moving the system from where we are now, with all the key structure and incentives, to a new system. We cannot make up that new system out of thin air. Realistically the process that takes place here on earth using the normal laws of physics and science, will require using a large amount of the structure and resources of the OLD system of health care to create the new system. For that reason we cannot just destroy the current insurance corporations and framework, much as most recognize that is has presented a huge amount of the current problem. But we have to USE them and their resources and many other parts of the current system including the providers to get to the "new land". We can't just snap our fingers and wake up with it done just-like-that, clean as a whistle. Do you not get that? Many of you are pretty smart, but you seem down right clueless on this reality.

Remember when Bush dismissed the Revolutionary Guard? Not much later, they realized what a dreadful mistake that was in managing the transition to post war reality (not arguing for the Iraq war here so calm down). Just saying, that was a recent example of the reality of having to use the old system and structure to get to a new one.

Also, have y'all thought about what a profound resource impact this transtion will have on having adequate medical professionals to care for the additional people covered? Yes, it can and will definitely be done, but it will require a time frame and lots of planning and working with the organizations that educate, license and put these professionals into the flow of providing care...

So please, enjoy your blogging and bitching. We all wish it was much nicer, and smoother and quicker and just-like-that including ME. But it is dirty, wet work and will take huge effort and raise a lot of heat and smoke to make happen...

I see that the dynamics have changed.
The pres never wanted a public option. He had to put it in his plan because Hillary and Edwards did. He thought, with the aid of Rahm, that the Progessives would roll over and it wouldn't be a problem. BUT, it has become one, because many progressives are taking him for his word. I think these next weeks are going to be interesting to see if the progressive caucus can hold their ground and if Obama will actually hold to his promise of change.
And as much as everyone says the pres holds no power to move the debate, please. The pres holds the purse strings for everyone on the Hill. If he wants something done, really wants it, it gets done. This argument is such a cop out, and really smacks the face of everyone who is paying attention. And with the internet a lot of people are paying attention..

Thanks zeitgeist. There is a prevailing misconception that the Gang of Six is just how these things go and that for some reason Finance works differently than any other Committee and commits major legislation to evenly split sub-panels. This just isn't so.

Regular order would have had this Bill assigned to the Finance Sub-Committe on Health Care which is chaired by Jay Rockefeller. Since that Sub-Committee is only slightly smaller than the full Committee it might have made sense to assign initial negotiations to a smaller sub-group reflecting the overall make up of the Committee. For example I can imagine a Gang of Seven made up of the following seven people: Committee Chair, Committee Ranking Member, Sub-Committee on Health Chair and Ranking Member, Two Dems from Sub-Committee, One Rep from Sub-Committee for a 4-3 split.

That would conform to regular order and have a group consisting of Baucus, Grassley, Rockefeller, Hatch and if they went by seniority Bingaman, Kerry, Snowe.

Instead Baucus chose to kick Rockefeller to the curb and add Conrad (who is not even on the health sub-committee), simply toss Kerry over the side, and just ignore seniority to add Enzi to a new Gang of Seven with an originally Republican majority.

Reid just sat back watching his caucus get hijacked and to date has done nothing but wring his hands

Todd:

Is not that the President holds NO power, or doesnt have promises that he needs to uphold. It is acknowledging all the parts of this that have to happen. Certainly the President can move the debate, influence public opinion and has some control over the budget, but he has no direct control over the purse strings, as you term it. He does not hire and fire the Congress and though he approves the budget, its not HIS budget.

Why do you seem unwilling to acknowledge the role of the Congress and the needs for a process to undertake this change?

"I've been saying it since his FISA vote but those here still yelp like beat babies every time he opens his mouth. Honestly, I can't decide which is worse on his numbers: blatant bigotry from the right or perpetual whining from the left."

Perhaps what is worse for his numbers is his apparent willingness to break faith with those who put him where he is in the pursuit of exactly what? I knew tha Obama was going to disappoint me, but I supported him anyway. I did not know how early, how often, and incomprehensibly he would do so. So, pardon me if I start standing back and stop comforting myself that the disappointments are going to abate. Pardon me if I say "WTF?" outloud to actions that are inconsistent with what I believe Obama said when he was running for office. Pardon me if I say "Enough!" to the constant solicitations I get to send money to support a machine that most definitely is NOT delivering on its promises to fight for things that are important to me. Pardon me if I am NOT pleased with the muscle and fat being hung on the bones of "change" I can believe in.

I do not criticize those who are not disheartened by the direction Obama SEEMS to be heading with the health care thing. I wonder how you keep the faith, but I am not going to criticize. And, frankly, I hope those of you who appear to criticize those who feel as I do for jumping too quickly can appreciate this: the equation of expressed concern to whining makes the "whiner" disinclined to credit your POV - whatever that may be - whatever you think is going to be "won" here.

Finally, I feel pretty depressed when my only consolation is that "It could have been McCain and Palin." I wanted more than that. I still do.

I really hope Maddow and Olbermann hone in on what's at stake here.

Hope I'm wrong, but my guess is she'll be off again as she was Friday for the Labor Day Holiday..bummer--cause I DO think Maddow has some important ears well tuned her way, and her input makes a huge difference.

Tui:

I feel some of your same anxiety and depression.

The only difference is that I am thinking that it might play out more slowly and less obviously than what I had expected.

I think that like you we all thought that we would move symmetrically from one policy victory to another since we controlled both branches of government.

I was pretty surprised however with the intensity and craziness of the opposition and how much support it received in the MSM.

I was also surprised, though should not have been, at how corrupt the Congressional Democrats turned out to be.

That said, we had an election within the current system, not a revolution. Our President can do a lot, but not everything and we have a situation of maximal difficulty.

In jiu jitsu and other marshall arts, you rarely take on a very powerful opponent directly. The interaction and campaign requires staging and angles and not a few tactical retreats...

Not saying that is what is happening here but what do you get to be completely without hope that we can still prevail? If we just agree with you and others that Obama is Fail and there is no hope after 9 months, what do you do? Quit hoping and staying in the fight psychologically? How do we ultimately change those who need to be removed from the system if we dont test them to see who they are and take their measure?

If you want a revolution, that will require work and for the current system to show itself as completely failed. That might happen, but that too is a process and a feedback loop that is acted upon by those who want something different.

I do not disrespect those on the left/progressive who criticize Obama or the administration. As I said, I have many doubts and have my disappointments. That said, I like to actually think about what solving the problem within the system would require. We need the Congress to function properly and while I am not completely hopeful that it will, it is very important to find out so we know what our next steps might be.

Does that make sense?

Elie @ 4:15, that sounds logical, but I'm not sure it holds up to scrutiny in this case. You talk about major changes in systems etc - but the technology isn't changing, no one is saying bulldoze hospitals are rebuild them differently. For the most part, the actual provision of care would change very little. The availability of that care and how it is paid for would change, but it is hard to see why that should be so complicated.

Now, it may be that trying to accomodate various political forces has made it more complicated than it needs to be. Even without the philsophical fight over single payer, one could probably do a lot of good with four pretty simple, easy to describe changes: (1) ban preexisting condition exclusions, (2) allow wide-scale individual and small business pooling of risks to lower premiums, (3) tinker with COBRA and HIPAA so that people who lose their jobs generally dont lose their coverage, (4) allow a "coverage of last resort" option to buy into either Medicare or the federal employee benefits plan at a subsidized rate. Which is to say nothing has to be as complex, and therefore slow-moving, as your post makes it sound.

Neo triangulation

Todd:

The pres never wanted a public option. He had to put it in his plan because Hillary and Edwards did. He thought, with the aid of Rahm, that the Progessives would roll over and it wouldn't be a problem.

I think you are absolutely right. His performance in the Colorado townhall is the key:

*He spent way too much time telling everyone that "he wishes everyone could have free health care." WTF? No one wants or expects 'free' healthcare. And we don't need to hear the "nothing is free" argument. We are grown ups. Let the opposition sell the "it costs too much" argument...

*He made the young republican's argument for him, and then spent a grand total of 20 seconds trying to convince everyone that it was possible to tweak the public option so it wouldn't put poor healthcare executives out of work. The message was clear: It was difficult but it could be done. Such enthusiasm...

*For the first time ever, and setting up Sibelius on the weekend he said: The public options was just one small insignificant sliver. WTF?

*He again tried to sell the public option with the worst possible argument ever: The post office is crappy and look at the way UPS and FedEx out hustle them. How insulting to postal workers. But worse: You do not point at a "crappy" govt. program and implicitly say: Don't worry we are just creating another inefficient govt. program. You don't make that argument if you truly believe in the public option.

So yeah Todd...

I got up from that Colorado townhall feeling totally flattened. The day before his townhall had left me elated. I thought he was enjoining the battle. Instead... he revealed he didn't give a shit about the public option. The sooner we face that fact the better. We got lied to. Or if you prefer: Triangulated.

The process is irrelevant. If there's a loud, national mandate for a policy, then it will pass no matter what. Wavering moderates will vote for their own re-election, debate will close in the Senate, and the bill will pass.

I don't buy any of these excuses about process. Obama and the Democratic majority should be focusing on building a popular mandate for real reform, and the process will fall in line on its own.

I just hope Obama lets it rip about the myths and propaganda and fear that have paralyzed far too many.

He has to. He has to let go of his fantasy of being a cool moderate, because it's only dug him deeper in the hell hole he's in.

AND--I agree he's not been nearly clear enough about the purpose of health care reform. He really needs a few buzz words to keep it focussed and clear.

The truth is the Public option is not some sort of freakish Orwellian thing--it's been out there and working well for Medicare, for Vets, for all county, state, federal govt. workers..

Why hasn't his staff drove this home?
Do they all really not give a damn?

Thanks again Bruce. (BTW, good way to get accurate summary of all this?) So I still don't see how that fits into employer-connected plans. I think entangling employers into health care was a bad idea, and still is. Anyone?

BTW, re Post Office etc., I think Obama was just saying that public and private can coexist, compete together etc. and not knock the USPS. We should be wary of him being too Clintonesque or whatever, but going overboard downing on him won't help the overall picture.

Meanwhile ... I don't think we can combine "choice" with "percentage billing" (like Medicare out of paychecks.) The richer people will opt out as soon as the percentage exceeds what they can get elsewhere. Many have said, you either require participation or the rich leave.

All those policy questions aside, it's real simple:
No guts, no glory.

The President has a LOT of power here, but it's all "soft" power.

Yes, the Senate is the choke-point. But let's remember, the Senate is designed to maintain the status quo. Senators, even liberal ones, tend to be slow-moving, cautious creatures ill-suited to making bold moves, no matter how urgently (in fact sometimes because of how urgently) such moves are needed.

Which is why they can't be left to themselves. If Change is going to come, the not-inconsiderable pressure of the Presidency matters.

The President has a power to declare a target, marshall public opinion, AND use his closed-door influence to make naturally cautious Senators decide that their best interests align with his agenda. Using the 'bully pulpit' and some tough horse-trading, he has the power to shape the political dynamic so that the safe, cautious move is to vote his way.

That's his job. That's what Change takes in our system. But I'm not seeing it.

I'm not seeing Obama on the bully pulpit. Worse, I've seen them let lunatics run up and spew nonsense from the stage. I'm seeing them run with the 'bipartisan solution' spiel long past the point when anyone seriously believed the GOP was interested in playing. And I'm not privy to the back-door corridors of power in DC, but I'm surely not seing any signs that the Obama White House has let anyone in Congress know there would be a personal downside for them to break ranks on a cloture vote, much less a committee one.

I thought we were hiring some guys who were from Chicago and knew about bare-knuckle politics, but I'm really not seeing it.

So, no, it's not the President can do it all himself, but he has considerable power to affect what the Senate does. If he cares to use it.

"Because we all know this is what everything boils down to, but as usual, in Washington it's considered uncivil to point out that something stinks and in fact it's that big turd floating in the punchbowl that everyone is trying to pretend they didn't see."

Obama is the turd in the punch bowl.

Ok --

You guys are right...Obama is craven, cowardly and a fail.

Now what?

... This narrative was established by Baucus in his dual role as simultaneously master and victim. In reality Baucus serves as a road block and it is mostly only a matter of will that prevents him from being steamrolled.

If Pelosi and Reid sat down and agreed that the final bill would be whatever passed the House and then got Dodd and Rockefeller (head of the Finance Health Care Sub-Committee) to sit down with the Tri-Committee Chairs to hammer out an acceptable compromise bill PRIOR to House passage they could use Senate Rule 14 to place that House passed piece of legislation directly on the Senate Calender. At which time Reid could use his prerogative to manage the timing of floor legislation to bring it to the floor as the basis for negotiation and so bypass Finance altogether.

This is perfectly legal under Senate Rules and has been used before and as recently as 2004 ...

Under this scenario the Blue Dogs have two bites at the apple. First they can directly challenge Reid's moving the bill from the Calender to the floor. But this would be a direct declaration of war on the Leader's long acknowledged perogatives while equalling being a move to kill Health Care outright. Does Baucus have the balls to oppose the combination of the House, Senate Leadership and the White House by conducting a full out physical filibuster on a PROCEDURAL motion? I don't see it.

Once the House Bill is on the floor any amendments to it can be defeated by a non-debatable and so non-filibusterable Motion to Table right up to the vote on Final where Baucus et al would have one last change to kill the bill outright by filibuster. In full knowledge that Reid could simply bring it up again whenever he chose.

The ball is in Baucus's hands simply because Reid has allowed that to be so. It doesn't have to be this way ...

Posted by: Bruce Webb on September 6, 2009

So far there hasn't been this crunch time where product has to ship or the option you mention would even be considered. The time is near.

I can imagine a conference...

Nancy: The House must have a public option.

BlueDogSenators: There aren't the votes for it.

Nancy: So, you'll let it come to a vote?

BDG: There aren't the votes for it.

Nancy: If you aren't going to use that army then may we who wish to make progress borrow it?

Reid: We will put a bill up for a vote, as the president has requested, and if the Senate can't produce one then we have no choice but to utilize the House product. Meeting adjourned.

I feel certain Dodd & Rockefeller would be very happy to help make sure the final product would meet their standards.

Our poor little powerless President, with his poor little powerless majorities in both Houses. Boo hoo hoo.

It certainly isn't like when Big Bad Bush was President. Big Bad Bush wanted a war, and he got it. Big Bad Bush wanted torture, and he got it. Big Bad Bush wanted telecom immunity, more war, tax cuts for the rich (twice) and a bankruptcy bill, and he got all that, too.

To be sure, our powerless President and his powerless Democratic Congress friends aren't completely without power. They are still capable of sending more troops to Afghanistan. They can still transfer billions of dollars to Wall Street. I suppose that all amounts to something. But in the grand scheme of things, there's just not much our most powerless of Presidents can do but sit back and hope for the best.

You guys are right...Obama is craven, cowardly and a fail.

Now what?

I can sure tell you what I won't be doing next time around. I won't be cooking rice and beans one day a week every week and tuna casserole on another day of the week every week to squeeze some money out of a tight budget to donate to the Obama campaign. I won't be working the phones evenings and weekends either.
If he couldn't deliver real reform then he shouldn't have promised it when he was campaigning. "Yes we can" has become "Here's why we can't". Excuses are like assholes: everybody has one and they all stink.

as long as i got rice and beans, i'm backing political leaders who say they want progressive change, --backin' 'em with my time and my little money.

when they get there -- where obama's been for a little while and they dont do the progressive thing, then they lose me.

but there is always someone else to give time and money to -- national state and local.

and it always beats just sittin' around being taken.

so Dennis, kiss off obama if you must -- but stay in the game...

"whether reform comes...is we're told, a question of what Obama does next. He's the leader, and the effort will rise or fall based on his demands."

don't know what sort of political site this is, just ran across it, but strikes me as interesting (and just as wrong) that the war in 2003 was couched by the media in exactly the same terms - "Bush will look at the intel and determine ... whether we'll go to war over it."

as the OP so astutely states "HE MAY BE THE PRESIDENT, BUT IT'S NOT ENTIRELY HIS CALL."

The bottom line is about trust. If Obama had the trust of his part he'd be able to just about naything he wanted and not have to worry about anything. Instead, he made some incredibly stupid moves early in his term to reassure the right wing that spooked his left flank all to hell and he's lost all onctrol over the situation ever since.

If he hadn't flipped on FISA, invited gay bashers to the inauguration, or if he had gave a significant push on DADT or EFCA; then none of this would be happening right now. Trying to triangulate after the extremely difficult relationship the party (or it's establishment groups) had with it's base over the last decade was political suicide.