In the diary, I quoted Paul Krugman about a new Obama radio ad in Iowa:
It has a man and a woman talking, with the man leading off saying that health care mandates "force those who cannot afford health care insurance to buy it, punishing those who don’t fall in line."
snip
And whaddya know, now he’s running an ad that bears a striking resemblance to the infamous "Harry and Louise" ads, run by the insurance industry, that helped block health care reform in 1993. Call it the audacity of cynicism.
I was accused by some commenters in that diary of making up the ad. They demanded a link to the radio ad itself, but it was not on the internet. Because there was no link, they accused me of all sorts of things. Courtesy of JedReport, I now have that radio ad. Come around after the fold and let's watch that ad together. Then let's talk about the future of the progressive movement.
"Harry and Louise" was the name of a television commercial funded by the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA), a health insurance industry lobbying group, in opposition to President Bill Clinton's proposed health care plan in 1993. The ad depicted a white middle-class couple, portrayed by actors Harry Johnson and Louise Caire Clark, despairing over the allegedly bureaucratic nature of the plan and urged viewers to contact their representatives in Congress. It was widely credited as being a major factor in the plan's ultimate defeat"
Here's the Obama attack ad on universal health care.
Barack Obama attacks Hillary Clinton and John Edwards on universal health care, quoting right from the Republican playbook
Transcript from Jedreport:
MALE: Here's the big difference on health care: Senators Edwards and Clinton favor mandates, which the Daily Iowan says would "force those who could not afford health insurance to buy it, punishing those who don't fall in line."
FEMALE: Barack Obama believes the solution isn't making it illegal not to have health care, it's making it affordable.
That ad is damning. What a phony and disengenious attack. Obama is knowingly demonizing universal health care with Republican talking points.
Mother Jones magazine saw it coming with Obama's rhetoric and failure to offer a truly universal health care plan:
Invoking a vaguely socialistic big-government bogeyman is out of the Rudy Giuliani playbook. It was for this, and not for his original omission of a mandate, that Paul Krugman and others around the web—those same heavies who withheld their fire earlier—started coming out against Obama.
Here's the fundamental problem created by Obama's attack on universal health care. First, I want to take you back to February 2007. In what was my fourth or fifth diary on Daily Kos, I wrote about John Edwards introduction of a universal health care plan:
John Edwards, Universal Healthcare, and the Speech before the DNC
by TomP [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]
Sun Feb 04, 2007 at 07:14:04 AM PST
snip
Today, on Meet the Press, John Edwards announced a plan for universal health care. When asked if it would require a raise in taxes, he said, "Absolutely, yes." He also will work to repeal the Bush tax cuts. More details will be announced tomorrow on the Today show.
John Edwards offered a truly universal plan in February and a way to pay for it.
Obama had no health care plan for months, and when he announced it, it was not universal.
Paul Krugman identified the problems with Obama's plan and with his attacks on universal health care.
My main concern right now is with Mr. Obama’s rhetoric: by echoing the talking points of those who oppose any form of universal health care, he’s making the task of any future president who tries to deliver universal care considerably more difficult.
I’d add, however, a further concern: the debate over mandates has reinforced the uncomfortable sense among some health reformers that Mr. Obama just isn’t that serious about achieving universal care — that he introduced a plan because he had to, but that every time there’s a hard choice to be made he comes down on the side of doing less.
Obama will not expend any political capital to create universal healthcare. He has thrown the progressive movement under the bus BEFORE he even got to the table to "negotiate" with the corporate powers. Even his deficient plan will be negotiated away. With Obama, universal health care ain't gonna happen.
It's bad enough that the obscene heath care system will continue with Obama, but there's more. A true universal health care plan is essential for reinvigorating the progressive movement in the United States.
Q: Let me ask you to summarize your case for why health-care reform is so central to addressing the inequality problem in the United States.
A: "Well, first of all it is the most conspicuous difference between the United States and every other advanced country. No other advanced country allows its citizens to go without necessary health care because they can't afford it, or be financially ruined because of health care expenses. It's almost the quintessential example of what the social safety net should take care of. And it turns out also that universal health care is cheaper than our system.
"We have the worst of both worlds—enormous personal insecurity combined with a system that's far more expensive to run than anyone else's, basically because we have the insurance industry that is seeking not to cover people at great expense. So it's something that, just in itself, is worth doing. Also, it's a demonstration—I quote William Kristol in the book during the failed Clinton attempt in the early '90s that we have to kill this plan, because if Clinton gets any kind of health-care reform it will reinvigorate the case for the welfare state. And he was right. Health care is a two-for-one: It's something you should be doing in any case, and it helps build the case for a broader progressive agenda."
So where one stands on universal health care shows where one stands on the creation of a New "New Deal." It shows whether there will be true progressive change or a continuation of the flawed system, albeit in a gentler and nicer way.
John Edwards sees clearly the differences here. In early December, Edwards compared and contrasted his stand with the others:
"I want to make sure caucus goers are aware that I was the first candidate to come out with a universal health care plan in February, and I'm proud that I lead on this issue. My plan is universal - I think that's a threshold requirement for health care reform in this country. That's why my proposal has a mandate that requires everyone to be covered.
"Senator Obama's plan is not universal. He does not require that everyone be covered. As many as 15 million Americans will be left without coverage. And I've seen an estimate that up to 90,000 Iowans would be left without coverage. So there's a fundamental difference between us on the policy.
"Senator Clinton's plan, which came out in September, is very similar to the plan I announced in February. But I haven't seen any specifics about how her mandate would work or how she would enforce the mandate.
"I have laid out exactly how my mandate would work. The fundamental structure of my plan provides subsidies and the subsidies go up to about $100,000 of income. So for lower income families they'll be basically 100 percent subsidized, and the subsidy decreases for up to about $100,000 of income. The way we bring people into the system is anytime they have contact with the health care system or the government they can enroll - they go to the hospital to the emergency room, they sign their children up to school."
This matters. It's more than a fight about mandates or even about universal health care, as important as that is. It is a fight about whether we seize this progressive moment or whether we let it slip through our hands.
John Edwards will fight for real change. Barack Obama is actually attacking that change now. Obama certainly won't create the change he attacks now.
The choice is clear: Real Change starts in Iowa tomorrow with a John Edwards victory.
Update I: Adam B, after implying I deliberately left out the full ad, offered a link of it. I am including that link.
But, first, I want to state that his implication in his comment is false. It also is typical of those who choose the politics of personal attack rather than reasoned argumentation. They choose to attack the person's integrity, sometimes overtly, sometimes in a weasely manner, instead of arguing issues. It's wrong.
For the record, I used the You Tube I saw in JedReport's comment. Furthermore, I stand by my comment that this ad is an attack on universal healthcare by Barack Obama. It's wrong. It functions as an attack on progressives and on real change.
Moreover, regardless of the personal insults on my character I receive, I will continue to post the truth as I see it, until or if I am banned. I wear these personal attacks and insults with pride. They show that the diaries I post are read and have an impact on people. You don't go into the gutter and insult the irrelevant.
In the end, it is up to each person to decide whom they support and how hard they will fight for real change. I just bring information and a point of view. I will do that so long as I am allowed to do so here.
Update I (a):
From a comment by Two Roads:
From the audio of the ad:
Robert Reich says quote I've compared the plans in detail. Obama's plan would insure more people than the others...
The actual 'quote':
I've compared the two plans in detail. Both of them are big advances over what we have now. But in my view Obama's would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC's. That's because Obama's puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who's likely to need help - including all children and young adults up to 25 years old. Hers requires that everyone insure themselves.
Interestingly, nothing is said about Edwards plan, which has subsidies.
But let's let Michael Moore talk about health care.
Update II: Michael Moore today says the Edwards plan is the only one that could lead to single payer:
A candidate who says things like this: "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy." Whoa. We haven't heard anyone talk like that in a while, at least not anyone who is near the top of the polls.
snip
Edwards is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal health care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other civilized countries have. His plan doesn't go as fast as I would like, but he is the only one who has correctly pointed out that the health insurance companies are the enemy and should not have a seat at the table.
But since he joined the senate, he has voted for the funds for the war, while at the same time saying we should get out. He says he's for the little guy, but then he votes for a corporate-backed bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a class action suit when his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made toy. In fact, Obama doesn't think Wall Street is a bad place. He wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan -- the same companies who have created the mess in the first place. He's such a feel-good kinda guy, I get the sense that, if elected, the Republicans will eat him for breakfast. He won't even have time to make a good speech about it.
But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that heart is in the right place.
