(crossposted at: GOPaint)
If you're one of the 48+ million Americans that are living without health insurance, or if you're one of the 20,000 Americans who will die of a treatable illness this year due to a lack of health coverage, and haven't been following the health care debate, you should familiarize yourself with these two bespectacled bozos:
On the left, we have the senior Republican Senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley. He's been in the Senate since 1980, in which time he has accomplished....well....not a hell of a lot. He's currently the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and pats himself on the back a lot for helping to curb wasteful spending. Hmm...guess he wasn't too effective under Saint Ron in the mid 80's and under the various high-spending, handout and kickback-loving Bush administrations. In fact, for a guy who has been around for nearly three decades, Grassley's only real noteworthiness came this fall when he claimed that AIG employees who took home huge bonuses after their company got bailed out should "resign, or go commit suicide."
Next to Grassley is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Hailing from Kentucky, Mitch McChinless has a reputation for being against anything that is actually good for the country. Take, for instance, the McCain-Feingold (aka the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act). On the other hand, if it's unConstitutional and/or damaging to this country, McChinless loves it. He introduced the loathsome "Protect America Act" which lets the Government tap your phone (or monitor your internet communications) without a warrant. He was also at the forefront pushing for the U.S. to go into Iraq. This past summer, when commodity speculation was driving oil prices past $4 a gallon, McConnell ignored the economists who said it was a speculation bubble and led the charge for "Drill Baby Drill!" and "Drill Here! Drill Now!".
These two guys are the leaders in the movement to kill meaningful health care reform. Grassley is all over the political news shows spewing his "No way, no how" bullshit:
Uh-huh. So, with 72% of Americans supporting a public option, Grassley's answer is "We need to make sure there is no public option". You couldn't make stupidity like this up.
Remember Grassley's bizarre meltdown on Twitter a month ago?:
"Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."
"Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."
With all that "workinWKEND" business, you'd think the GOP would "hve sum ideas". However, Grassley keeps spewing the same nonsense over and over. Check out his stumbling and rambling answer to George Stephanopolous:
Not to be outdone, Mitch McChinless:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said President Barack Obama's plan to include government-backed health insurance for the public is a "non-starter" for most Republicans considering health care reform...."All of that really ought to be put aside if we want to get a truly bi-partisan proposal"
If you have a strong stomach (or tolerance for Frank Luntz talking points), you can watch Senator McConnell discuss Health Care reform:
Tort reform! Government takeover! The private companies (the ones who raise your premium 20-30% every year and/or deny you coverage) will go out of business! Funny shit.
Or maybe not so funny, considering that these guys seemed to be driving the health-care debate. These 2 of 40 Republican votes are beating the 59 (now 60) Democratic votes in the message wars. If the polls are any indication, the public isn't having any of Grassley and McConnell's bullshit. 72% want a public option, and nearly 6 out of 10 are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The problem is that the Democratic Senators seemed to be buying into this garbage. Or, as the ever-brilliant Nate Silver pointed out, the Democrats seem to be getting nervous about losing their big contributions from the Health Insurance Industry:
Lobbying contributions appear to have the largest marginal impact on middle-of-the-road Democrats. Liberal Democrats are likely to hold firm to the public option unless they receive a lot of remuneration from health care PACs. Conservative Democrats may not support the public option in the first place for ideological reasons, although money can certainly push them more firmly against it. But the impact on mainline Democrats appears to be quite large: if a mainline Democrat has received $60,000 from insurance PACs over the past six years, his likelihood of supporting the public option is cut roughly in half from 80 percent to 40 percent.
And then....a funny thing happened. Democrats started to....get it? With Al Franken now officially seated, the Democrats have no excuse not to get meaningful (read: at LEAST a strong public option) health-care reform done. Are they feeling the heat? As the unreliable, but suddenly tolerable Chuck Schumer points out:
"I think Democrats, now that we have 60, it's an opportunity but it's a greater responsibility," said Schumer. "And unity among ourselves is very important."
Even more importantly, perhaps, is Schumer's swatting of the Kent Conrad "co-op" nonsense. From the same interview:
"I don't think the co-op way can work," Schumer added. "So let's go back and do what we should be doing: a public option."
Then yesterday, we got mixed signals from the White House. First, Rahm Emanuel issued a vague statement signaling that perhaps the administration would accept a "trigger" on a health-care option (the idea key Democrat Max "Bought by the Health Insurance Industry" Baucus seems to love), or even the aforementioned "co-op" plan:
Mr. Emanuel said one of several ways to meet President Barack Obama’s goals is a mechanism under which a public plan is introduced only if the marketplace fails to provide sufficient competition on its own.
Within hours, President Obama issued a statement from Russia:
"I am pleased by the progress we're making on health care reform and still believe, as I've said before, that one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest," read the statement. "I look forward to a final product that achieves these very important goals."
My man "America's Senator" Bernie Sanders, a true hero for working class folk in this country fired back at Emanuel's apparent betrayal:
"Emanuel is dead wrong," Sanders said. "The triggers are meaningless. The American people have shown in poll after poll their contempt for private health insurance companies. They don't trust them and for good reason.
"Now, where we are right now politically is the HELP Committee, of which I'm a member, is going to bring forth a public plan," Sanders added. "The House of Representatives is supporting a public plan. And President Obama ran for office talking about a strong public plan. Why, with that political reality of the American people wanting it, the House going forward, the Senate HELP Committee going forward, would Rahm Emanuel suggest that we would compromise on this issue?"
Nothing new from Senator Sanders, who has been taking on the ConservaDems for awhile:
"Emanuel is dead wrong," Sanders said. "The triggers are meaningless. The American people have shown in poll after poll their contempt for private health insurance companies. They don't trust them and for good reason.
Rahmbo is apparently quickly going into a backpedal:
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reassured House Democrats on Tuesday night that President Barack Obama strongly backs a government-run health insurance plan, seeking to quell a firestorm among liberals upset at Emanuel’s comments in the Wall Street Journal that suggested such a plan could be delayed.
More importantly (from the same article):
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said he was reassured by Emanuel. "He doesn’t stand by that trigger," Waxman said. "He said the president and his administration and he are for a public plan as one of the options."
The ultimate sign of snowflakes in Hades? Harry Reid, Mr. Milquetoast, is even (seemingly) starting to come around:
According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.
Lastly, I want to know why more media talking heads and self-proclaimed pundits aren't talking about the difference between voting for cloture and voting for passage. In the clip of Senator Sanders above, he brings it up - making him the only person I have seen raise the issue. The "Blue Dogs" like Landrieu, Nelson, Conrad etc can vote against passage of a public option if they want (assuming there are still 50 votes FOR passage, which there should be) as long as they vote for cloture on the bill. Will they? Despite tonight's seemingly good news, I remain skeptical. There is a ton of money (nearly $1.4 MILLION a day being spent to lobby against the public option) on the other side. Until the President himself draws a line in the stand - which, frustratingly, would be uncharacteristic - there is no time for us to let up.
As Thom Hartmann always ends his show with, "My friends, democracy begins with you, get out there, get active, TAG you're it!". Call your Senators and Congresscritters and let them know that you DEMAND a strong public option.