RSS Feed MenuMy latest column for The Week examines why the Democrats were able to break Senator Shelby’s hold on appointees within days, but seem unwilling to break the GOP’s filibuster on healthcare legislation.
[T]he Democrats’ problem with healthcare reform is not with the culture of the Senate. It is with the country – and with members of their own party.
The filibuster gives reluctant Democrats a perfect excuse for moving away from the president. “We’d love to be with you sir … but the GOP now has 41 seats, and we just can’t begin to figure out a way around that fact. So let’s drop the whole thing OK? Or postpone it until after our elections? Please??” They sound like lazy Boy Scouts inventing reasons to avoid the nature hike. “It’s cloudy – it might rain! No wait, the sun’s coming out and I forgot my sunscreen!”
If Senate Democrats really wished to adopt healthcare reform, no way would they surrender so easily.
Click here to read the rest.
sinz54 // Feb 11, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Absolutely!
If ObamaCare were wildly popular, not only would Dems of all political persuasions dig in their heels and demand that it be passed, but even Republican moderates like Snowe and Collins might be stampeded into going along with it.
The main reason ObamaCare is not passing, is that Dems know that it’s unpopular in their own states and districts, even among Americans who want to see some kind of health care reform enacted. Polls confirm this. And so Dems don’t want to fall on their swords to vote for it, only to lose to GOP opponents in the November 2010 elections.
The question the Dems have refused to ask themselves is: Why do the polls show that health care reform remains popular on principle with Americans, but the specific bill they’ve come up with is so unpopular? The answer is twofold:
1. The bill the Dems came up with will not contain the rising cost of health care premiums, which is what Americans who already have insurance care about most. If anything, premiums for group health insurance may rise even faster, as they did for MA residents after RomneyCare was passed there.
2. The bill the Dems came up with has sweeteners for every pressure group, lobby, and favored Dem constituency like labor unions and trial lawyers–but average Americans who already have group insurance from their employers get nothing.
3. The insufferable arrogance of liberals who assert that the American people are just too stupid to know what’s good for them. (Evidently they weren’t too stupid to elect Obama last year–or maybe that was also a sign of stupidity?)
What would sell with the American people? A clean bill without pork and special handouts and bribes, one that contained real cost containment provisions.
balconesfault // Feb 11, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I really don’t understand the equivalence.
Shelby deserved shame, and what he was doing was outrageous and incompatible with a Republican Party that had been trying to make a case that Dems are to blame for all the earmarks in legislation.
Are you saying that there was someone on the Dem side of the aisle who could have been shamed into not joining a healthcare filibuster back when the Dems had 59 votes plus Lieberman?
balconesfault // Feb 11, 2010 at 12:39 pm
The bill the Dems came up with has sweeteners for every pressure group, lobby, and favored Dem constituency like labor unions and trial lawyers
How does the bill favor trial lawyers? Simply by not effectively removing Americans right to sue for malpractice?
As for labor unions – under existing contracts, workers in unions would have suddenly lost much of the value of their negotiated healthcare benefits. Many would be locked in for a number of years in contracts before they could renegotiate, unlike the non-union workforce which could immediately renegotiate with employers on the effective loss of income.
Do you dislike organized labor so much that you consider this “comeupance”, or what?
The insufferable arrogance of liberals who assert that the American people are just too stupid to know what’s good for them.
OK, Sinz. I call.
I would bet that 70%-80% of Americans can’t tell you why any bill forcing insurers to recissions and denial of pre-existing conditions must have a mandate.
That’s not “stupid”. I say that they’ve been poorly served by the American media, which has largely discussed this as a screaming match, and not as a set of interlocking proposals to be carefully weighed
What do you say? Are people “stupid” for not understanding the relationship between recissions and denial of pre-existing conditions and the mandate?
Is that your final answer?
What would sell with the American people? A clean bill without pork and special handouts and bribes, one that contained real cost containment provisions.
I would bet that as long as it involves government subsidies for expanding healthcare coverage, it has absolutely no chance of overriding a Republican filibuster. The Republican leadership has already made that clear.
mlindroo // Feb 11, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Sinz54 wrote:
> Why do the polls show that health care reform remains popular on principle with Americans,
> but the specific bill they’ve come up with is so unpopular?
Public opinion is not carved in stone, however. I understand RomneyCare is quite popular in Massachusetts _today_, after becoming a tangible reality offering real benefits, but healthcare reform was less popular when Massachusetts politicians and voters were debating how to reform the system. Democrats are betting the same thing would happen, if ObamaCare passes.
> The answer is twofold:
How about a fourth point?
(4) Democratic partisans are bitterly disappointed since Baucus, Nelson & co. essentially have written a bill that is more conservative than HillaryCare *and* most Republican centrist proposals from the 1990s! And sorry, Sinz — anyone who regards the end result of this process as a wild eyed socialist scheme, IS simply a moron…
The end result certainly has flaws, but being “left wing” is not one of them.
MARCU$
Mandos // Feb 11, 2010 at 1:36 pm
All of sinz’s complaints could be resolved by instituting a single-payer system. Simple, cheap, efficient. And it would be wildly popular.
chicago_guy // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:09 pm
“All of sinz’s complaints could be resolved by instituting a single-payer system. Simple, cheap, efficient. And it would be wildly popular.”
Never gonna happen. Too many nutjobs who’d scream about “socialized medicine” and “higher taxes” (the argument I’ve never understood – why is it ok to be forced to pay Blue Cross $700 a month for coverage, but horrifying to pay less than that into a single payer health care system? aren’t you still SAVING money?).
sinz54 // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Mandos: All of sinz’s complaints could be resolved by instituting a single-payer system. Simple, cheap, efficient. And it would be wildly popular.
It would not be “wildly popular.”
I’ve been to town hall meetings in Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the nation, in which proponents of single-payer got an earful from residents opposed to it. Can you imagine what the reaction would be from Wyoming or Idaho or Texas. The only people who would love it are left-wingers like you, whom polls show represent about one-fourth of American voters.
Unlike Canadians or Europeans, most Americans have always been distrustful of expanding Federal power. It’s built into our DNA, from the American Revolution to the Western pioneers.
American individualism is something that left-wingers like you either don’t understand or work hard to destroy.
sinz54 // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:25 pm
balconesfault: I would bet that 70%-80% of Americans can’t tell you why any bill forcing insurers to recissions and denial of pre-existing conditions must have a mandate.
I don’t think they care.
I live in MA, which under Mitt Romney made that same Grand Bargain: Guaranteed issue in exchange for a mandate.
Just this past month, Blue Cross raised my own MA insurance premium by 44%. (!!!)
Most Americans already have health insurance. What they care about is rising costs of premiums, MORE than they care about universal coverage. The Grand Bargain may achieve universal coverage. But it won’t do a thing to restrain skyrocketing costs.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Frum is right. We don’t have healthcare reform because the Dems, and Obama in particular, have been downright foolish in trying to get it passed. As Bill Maher said last summer when the Tea Partiers, Palinites, Beck and Limbaugh were screaming about Death Panels, the President should have stood up for the 70% of the country that is not crazy. His failure to do so allowed the creation of an environment that now makes reform practically impossible.
balconesfault // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Actually, a bit more than one-fourth:
Kaiser Family Foundation Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. Sept. 11-18, 2009. N=1,203 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
“Now I’m going to read you some different ways to increase the number of Americans covered by health insurance. As I read each one, please tell me whether you would favor it or oppose it. Here’s the (first/next) one: [See below.] Do you favor or oppose this?”
“Having a national health plan – or single-payer plan – in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan”
Favor: 40
Oppose: 56
You want to flip those numbers? Adopt a Republican healthcare plan where employer provided healthcare benefits melt away. I guarantee that in 4 years of fighting with insurers themselves the public would be overwhealmingly ready to have at least a public option (which came out ahead 57-37% in the Kaiser poll) if not a single-payer plan.
balconesfault // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:32 pm
But it won’t do a thing to restrain skyrocketing costs.
Of course – because you’re dead set against the most important proposal to restrain costs – a public option.
MR FACE // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Sinz is slowing turning into Mi-GOPer
SpartacusIsNotDead // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Sinz wrote “What would sell with the American people? A clean bill without pork and special handouts and bribes, one that contained real cost containment provisions.”
Another thing that makes healthcare reform a near impossibility is the sheer ignorance and, in some cases, stupidity about healthcare of the American public. Sinz, who reads and thinks about healthcare policy way more than the average American, thinks it’s possible to get rid of special handouts/bribes while at the same time achieving real costs containment. The “costs” that need to be squeezed out are actually revenues and jobs for companies and their employees. Everytime there’s a reduction in a cost somewhere, some company will lose revenue and someone’s job becomes less safe. Is it reasonable to expect companies and their employees to go along with that without getting some kind of special consideration in return?
Moreover, it’s impossible to achieve real cost containment on a widescale basis without large-scale government intervention. We know this from the experience of most other industrialized countries as well as from the experience of the 23 states that have a public option for workers compensation insurance. It’s a well-established fact that a robust public option will help control costs while not adversely affecting outcomes.
balconesfault // Feb 11, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Sinz is slowing turning into Mi-GOPer
While they take different tones – there is a similarity.
For both, a Republican offered solution can work. A Democratic offered solution is inherently flawed.
Now, there is a difference. Sinz would end up supporting a healthcare bill offered by a Republican Senator that passed with largely Democratic support, and only two or three Republican votes. MI-GOPer would only support it if the majority of the Republican Party supported it, and preferentially if it could be framed as something that most Democrats opposed.
However, both will be satisfied if the health care system crashes and blame can somehow be laid on the Democrats. MI-GOPer will actually be overjoyed, while Sinz will be happy to say “I told you so”.
PracticalGirl // Feb 11, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Balconesfault:
“However, both will be satisfied if the health care system crashes and blame can somehow be laid on the Democrats. MI-GOPer will actually be overjoyed, while Sinz will be happy to say “I told you so”.”
The inherent danger echoed by way too many so-called conservatives, Americans and their representative pols. . Rome burns, but hey, if it can be laid at the feet of the enemy, who cares?
PracticalGirl // Feb 11, 2010 at 4:30 pm
For the record, I don’t really see similarities between Sinz and MiGOPER, or GOPROUD, or whatever he’s going by today. Sinz’s comments are almost always based in conservative thought, emphasis on thought. Confounding for someone with differeing ideology, but something to be worked with. MiGOPER, on the other had, posts as if he mainlines Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh-a charicature of today’s unthinking conservative, and the reason why nobody seems to know what it means to be one anymore.
LFC // Feb 11, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Here’s a good <a href="http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/10/the_national_anthem_–_and_why_we_need_health_care/?ref=fpblg" post by Robert Reich that shows the failure of the current system, with rate hikes of 39% which is about as bad as Sinz is seeing. For Reich, they are shafting individual policy holders and forcing them to make up for the drop in employer group policies. Sinz, is yours an individual policy too?
The Grand Bargain may achieve universal coverage. But it won’t do a thing to restrain skyrocketing costs.
Wrong. From a health provider cost standpoint, Medicare has the muscle to help restrain costs.
A huge national level insurance company might too, but they have no incentive to pass those savings on to the consumer, unless there is competition. Since we’ve already seen that competition in the healthcare market has failed miserably due to buyouts and the fact that you need to be massive to even get in to the field, the only other entity that can provide the competition is the government.
From a premium standpoint if we had a Medicare for all program, which would allow people to buy in at rates that would cover the expenses, an insurance company would not be able to jack up rates by 44% or 39% unless that was the actual increase in healthcare costs, in which case Medicare’s costs would skyrocket too.
MR FACE // Feb 11, 2010 at 5:18 pm
I just feel that Sinz seems to be making more and more negative stereotypical comments towards “liberals” in general. That is why I made the comment. Obviously Sinz is more independent minded than the biggest wingnut of them all Mi-GOPer.
balconesfault // Feb 11, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Obviously Sinz is more independent minded than the biggest wingnut of them all Mi-GOPer.
My observations is that Mi-GOPer isn’t so much a pure wingnut – as he’s as crazed a hyperpartisan as anyone you’ll ever meet. In any political system, he would be the apparatchnik defending his side, and demonizing the other side, no matter what the external realities of the situation. He is a pure sports fan written into politics … his team is awesome, the other team sucks …
He will actually discuss how this RB needs to fumble less, or how that tackle needs to get off the line faster – with people who are also fans of his team. But if a fan of the other team interjects into the discussion, it is back to “WE’RE #1 … YOU SUCK” mode.
His guiding principle is that Democrats are the root of all political evil. Accept that and it seems you can probably have a reasoned discussion with him.