The dark storm clouds that surround the Obama White House on health care "reform" may have a bright spot. We have seen dithering from the administration with conflicting pronouncements coming from top officials as to the fate of a public option. The president himself downplayed the public option a week or so ago in Colorado when he referred to it as a "sliver" and not too important to his goals. Just yesterday, a New York Times story indicated the White House would do anything just to get legislation, no matter what it contained, passed:
"It’s so important to get a deal," a White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid about strategy. "He will do almost anything it takes to get one."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Maybe the lack of will--what Bill Moyers has called the Democrats needing a spine transplant--has left an opening for Howard Dean who unlike Obama has real ideas and convictions on health care reform. And also unlike Obama, Dean is ready and willing to fight.
Let's be blunt. The Obama administration shafted Howard Dean who did more than anyone to come up with a strategy for a Democratic win in 2008. But Obama turned his back on Dean, turned instead to his fellow DLCer Rahm Emanuel, and froze Howard Dean out of his administration. Maybe in retrospect that's a good thing for Dean since Obama's approval numbers are now below 50% at the respected www.pollster.com
Obama needs a deal, any deal, on health care "reform" otherwise he's toast. Dean and progressives like him have suddenly become much more important in the system, IF THEY STICK TO THEIR GUNS. The Progressive Caucus in the House especially has shown its teeth with a strongly written letter to Obama on the importance of keeping a public option. Even Nancy Pelosi has told the president to buck up. Here's a report, under the revealing headline, "Health Care Idea Has Public Plan Only as Backup" using unusually harsh words about Obama from today's New York Times:
If Mr. Obama has new ideas about the public plan, he has not shared them with his allies in Congress.
In an apparent effort to stiffen the president’s spine, Ms. Pelosi said Thursday: "Any real change requires the inclusion of a strong public option to promote competition and bring down costs. If a vigorous public option is not included, it would be a major victory for the health insurance industry."
SOURCE: (emphasis added)http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/health/policy/04health.html?hpw
But what happens if, as I suspect, Obama next Wednesday makes a big ass, pretty speech (par for the course for him) that is all fluff and no substance. I believe it is likely his "reform" in reality will be a further sell-out to insurance companies. What if Obama, in Sherrod Brown's words, pushes "some namby pamby bill so we can check a box and say we did health care reform." Obama and Rahm seem to really believe in insurance companies (think of all those campaign donations) despite this unsettling news from democracynow.org that California insurers deny 21% of all claims:
Study: California Insurers Deny Over One in Five Claims
In other healthcare news, a new study shows the top private health insurers in California rejected more than one in five medical claims over the last seven years. The California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee says California’s six largest insurers rejected over 31.2 million, or 21 percent, of claims from 2002 through this past June. The groups’ co-president Deborah Burger said, "The United States remains the only country in the industrialized world where human lives are sacrificed for private profit, a national disgrace that seems on the verge of perpetuation."
http://www.democracynow.org/...
Now, wouldn't it be nice if Howard Dean made some choice comments after Obama's Wednesday speech? And if the Obama "plan" turns out to be a pig gussied up to look like reform, wouldn't be a hoot if he really called it that? So in a sense, Obama and Rahm have given Howard Dean an opening. Let's hope he makes wise use of his opportunity.
UPDATE #1: Howard Dean's non-negotiable position on the public option.
The following is from Dr. Dean's website and has a petition that can be signed by those who wish to express their sentiments that a line-in-the-sand must be drawn on this issue:
Sign the petition
Give America a choice. We support healthcare reform that allows individual Americans to choose either a universally available public healthcare option like Medicare or for-profit private insurance. A public option is the only way to guarantee healthcare for all Americans and its inclusion is non- negotiable.
Any legislation without the choice of a public option is only insurance reform and not the healthcare reform America needs.
SOURCE: (emphasis added)
http://www.standwithdrdean.com/
NOTE: This diarist has no links to Howard Dean other than his having been a Dean supporter in the past.
UPDATE #2: Kucinich on need for public option.
Although the following, taken from Dennis Kucinich's website, is a bit dated (August 18, 2009 to be exact) it provides a good commentary on the present situation and the need for single payer:
The masquerade is over! The "public option" is ... dead.
Health care reform is now a private option: WHICH FOR PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANY DO YOU WANT? You have to choose. And you have to pay. If you have a low income, under HR3200 government will subsidize the private insurance companies and you will still have to pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
The Administration plan requires that everyone must have health insurance, so it is delivering tens of millions of new "customers" to the insurance companies. Health care? Not really. Insurance care! Absolutely. Cost controls? No chance.
You will next hear talk about "co-ops." The truth is that insurance company campaign contributions have co-opted the public interest.
I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true healthcare reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without breaking our nation's bank! Your contribution will empower our efforts to continue to fight for the single-payer, not-for-profit health care bill, HR676 "Medicare for All," which I co-authored with John Conyers.. The bill now has 85 sponsors in the House.
The hotly-debated HR3200, the so-called "health care reform" bill, is nothing less than corporate welfare in the guise of social welfare and reform. It is a convoluted mess. The real debate which we should be having is not occurring.
Removing the "public option" from a public bill paid for by public money is not in the public interest. What is left is a "private option" paid for with public money. Why should public money be spent on a private option which does not guarantee 100% coverage nor have any cost controls? A true public option would provide 30% savings immediately which would then cover the 1/3rd of the population who presently have no healthcare.
Unfortunately, under HR3200, the Government is choosing winners and losers in the private sector; proposing to spend public funds on subsidizing insurance companies who make money not providing health care. This process wil insure only one thing - the expansion of profits. Gone is the debate over cost.
As a result of current negotiations, the Medicare Part D rip-off will continue for another decade, further fleecing senior citizens. Drug importation has been dropped, so no inexpensive drugs can be accessed from other nations.
Instead we are told the pharmaceutical companies will accept a 2% cut in the growth rate of their profits - this they call cost control!
If the matter were not so serious, it would be farcical: The executive branch pretends that the proposed health care reforms are something they are not. The legislation is being attacked for something it is not. Congressional leadership and the White House defend the legislation, pretending it actually is the very proposal that is being attacked. But it is not.
A commonsense government health care reform policy would insure that every single American has full access to healthcare by expanding Medicare to cover everyone under a Single Payer System. We are already paying for a universal standard of care, it is just we are not getting it.
I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true health care reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without subsidizing insurance and pharmaceutical companies and breaking our nation's bank!
My voice in Congress will continue to challenge the special interests who do not want single payer to succeed. I need you to join me in combating the special and corporate interests who spend millions to try to win this Congressional seat. With your help WE will win again. With your help I will continue to represent your concerns, be YOUR VOICE in the United States Congress, and be the voice for health care for all Americans!
SOURCE: http://kucinich.us/...
UPDATE #3: FDR & Obama.
Some posters to this diary, especially fervent supporters of Barack Obama, have posted ahistorical and factually untrue statements and comparisons about FDR. They should read the following from a leading biographer of FDR:
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S apparent readiness to backtrack on the public insurance option in his health care package is not just a concession to his political opponents — this fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead.
This was not true of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Congresses that enacted the New Deal. With the exception of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 (which gave the president authority to close the nation’s banks and which passed the House of Representatives unanimously), the principal legislative innovations of the 1930s were enacted over the vigorous opposition of a deeply entrenched minority. Majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission.
When Roosevelt asked Congress to establish the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide cheap electric power for the impoverished South, he did not consult with utility giants like Commonwealth and Southern. When he asked for the creation of a Securities and Exchange Commission to curb the excesses of Wall Street, he did not request the cooperation of those about to be regulated. When Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act divesting investment houses of their commercial banking functions, the Democrats did not need the approval of J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers.
Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard and Congress enacted legislation nullifying clauses in private contracts stipulating payment in gold over the heated opposition of many of the nation’s wealthy. The Agricultural Adjustment Act setting production quotas and establishing price supports was adopted over the fierce opposition of the nation’s food processors. Establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps was fought tooth and nail by organized labor because of the corps’ modest wages. Social Security became law over the ideological objections of those who believed that government was best which governed least and that individuals should fend for themselves or rely on charity. And the authority of the government to set maximum hours and minimum wages, as well as the right of labor to bargain collectively, was established despite the vociferous opposition of American business.
Roosevelt relished the opposition of vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favored the status quo. His opponents hated him — and he profited from their hatred. "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today," he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. "They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred."
There's much more from Professor Jean Marshall Smith, author of FDR, here:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
I especially enjoyed this from Professor Smith:
Roosevelt understood that governing involved choice and that choice engendered dissent. He accepted opposition as part of the process. It is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices.
UPDATE #4: Keith Olbermann and Eugene Robinson discuss possibility of Obama being primaried in 2012.
Recently on Countdown, Keith Olbermann interviewed Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson about the growing rift between Obama and the progressives in his own party. Putting his question in almost biblical terms, Olbermann asked: "What good does it profit a man to win a bill and lose the base of his own party"?
Robinson replied: "It doesn't strike me as a great idea." He also said that Obama could continue to argue that this is the best bill we can get under present circumstances but that progressives have a beef with the president on lots of other issues on the table. "He's involved in Afghanistan, he's deepening, we're talking about Iraq, about Guantanamo about a lot of issues on which the Progressive Caucus has a lot to say..."
Olbermann closed down the relatively short interview with this telling observation:
"He's [Obama's] compromised on everything so far and as self-defeating as it may be, the progressive caucus and progressives would abandon him if necessary, if this was to be the policy of this administration into 2012. If it's necessary to find somebody else to run against him. I think they'd do it, no matter how destructive that may seem on face value."
To see the clip, check out the video at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The above transcriptions, with some editing to make meaning clear and clean up the language, are my own.