I think this is actually bad news. Reconciliation is a foregone conclusion now, and it will likely include a public option. But Landrieu would probably only vote yes without a public option, and we don’t need her vote…now is the time for FDL to pull their trademark move and push Landrieu into a corner until she cries and retires.

I agree with you, David, the main hurdle left is in the House. But Nancy does have votes in her back pocket, as well as liberals like Massa who will vote yes on final passage, maybe Kucinich. And they will do whatever they have to do on abortion to get however many votes they need from the Stupak gang. Nancy can do it, but it sure is tight. Too bad Wexler left for a new career banging his head against the wall of Apartheid.

Having spoken with Massa, I’m confident that there’s no way he votes for this bill, and the same with Kucinich. The House is the problem nobody wants to talk about.

[T]hey will do whatever they have to do on abortion to get however many votes they need from the Stupak gang.

Which means the Stupak Amendment would stay in. And that is acceptable how?

Jay dropping any push for the PO means it passes the Senate without a PO

But a strong regulatory agency with strong price control and strong coverage included control is a viable replacement option for the PO

The House must buy into the replacement of the PO – and they might – if the new agency is strong enough.

The public option is dead. President Change, who campaigned on the option, will not put into his Mighty Plan. What President Change has offered is the Senate plan with a few tweaks so his PR people can claim that it isn’t what it is, which is the Senate plan. The Senate plan in its own turn is about plutocratic and corporate wealth and power.

President Obama is offering us Liebercare. He is offering us Joseph Lieberman’s health care plan. Voluntarily, with nothing forcing him to.

The only reason this legislation is being moved is because the Democrats have an electoral need to “pass reform” so that the largely uninformed general election voters who swallow information through 30-second TV broadcasts will believe that the Democrats have accomplished something for the public.

The public option will not be part of this effort. Nancy Pelosi long ago signaled it was dead. The Senate won’t even pass a real jobs bill, and wouldn’t consider at all a public option because their corporate sponsors and dinner dates and spouses and golf buddies lose with such an option. The President has announced that his campaign rhetoric was largely lies intended to convince us to vote for him and he wants to keep hanging out with the Senate’s corporate sponsors, dinner daters, spouses, and golf buddies anyway.

The House Democrats simply need a foil to run against. They’ll pass the Senate bill and then tell their voters that the Mean Ol’ Senate made ‘em do it.

The chance for real reform is over, over, over. The best we can hope for is no legislation at all, rather than legislation that sticks it to the people in the kiester in order to provide an electoral device for a bunch of politicians.

If the PO isn’t acceptable, then I guess the price controls will have to give all the pricing power to a nameless faceless Liberal Democratic bureaucrat in Washington who knows nothing about insurance.

I’m reminded of Cool Hand Luke and the great speech “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” He goes on to say some prisoners don’t want to get along, so they get rough treatment. He says, “That’s the way he wants it, so that’s the way he gets it. I don’t like it.”

I’d rather see the Public Option provide a market competitor to private insurers. But, if they don’t want that, then he gets “it”, price controls. We aren’t simply going to walk away from the cost issue — especially not after Anthem’s 39%. We’ve seen the same thing with the credit cards and other financial products. It just hasn’t been working. At least the health care insurance companies can see the options before them: PO or price controls. They have a say.

And ,again, a refresher on why he is called ‘Jello Jay’.

Unless the 11 pages in the Obama fixes to the Senate Bill include the Stupak choice wording, the Senate wording – which also sucks – will be the final abortion wording.

Meanwhile the regulatory agency looks weak – “creating a new Health Insurance Rate Authority to provide Federal assistance and oversight to States in conducting reviews of unreasonable rate increases and other unfair practices of insurance plans.” – so the Fed Agency provides handholding to the states – and can not stop rate increases.

The Agency will be “ensuring that, if a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified, health insurers must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable. A new Health Insurance Rate Authority will be created to provide needed oversight at the Federal level and help States determine how rate review will be enforced and monitor insurance market behavior” – meaning there is no enforcement powers in this bill.

He also drops the house surtax that hits the substantial unearned income of the rich in favor of a payroll tax hike that was in the Senate bill – fairness?

But I see nothing that changes the current Senate abortion wording.

No, the pricing power will be in the hands of legislators whose pockets are lined by insurance industry lobbyists. I hope that’s audacious enough for President Hopey H. Changey.

Rockefeller slides off nail.

strong regulatory agency with strong price control and strong coverage… if the new regulatory agency is strong enough

papau, I guess I would support that too, and it might help to make a mandate more palatable, but that’s a big “if” in this Congress. Otherwise, without a public option that is available to everyone who is mandated, there can be no mandate.
Of course, these issues are already worked out in Medicare, which we could have simply opened up to all.

True – and the regulatory agency appears to have no power – it just talks to the states.

Obama also cut back the hurt of the various taxes/rules on medical equipment folks and insurance companies.

I doubt that any industry lobbyist – for any part of the health care industry – feels that Obama did not take care of him.

Rockefeller, wtf?

What – did that mess up your worldview?

watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: For Sale — One U.S. Senate Seat Representing the State of New York

Another sell out of the public for the benefit of investors. Shock Doctrine for good ol USA now is in full tilt. The Dems are not the party of the people any longer they get elected on corporate largesse and return the favor. California will pass a public option after Swarznegger leaves office.

Don’t get why anyone would be eager to pass this POS without a public option in it. It’s like they remember how angry and betrayed they felt when Liebercare was first introduced, and they could see it for the industry giveaway and political cowardice and bribery that it was THEN, but it somehow it became important to pass since then in order to save the Democrats in November… as if passing a POS will do -that-.

Well, fuck that. A piece of shit is a piece of shit. It doesn’t morph into a flower just because it’s been sitting there on the sidewalk for a month without garnering much attention and the politicians who crapped it out need to pass the piece of shit into law for their re-election runs. It was wrong then, it’s wrong now.

The public option being proposed wasn’t even that big, but the idea behind it was what was important. Obama even had EXISTING POPULAR GOVERNMENT HEALTH PROGRAMS laying waste to the bullshit arguments against government involvement in health care, and he scurried away from it as fast as he could. To not even bother lifting a finger for it is the an epic fail for a country that desperately needs more.

And I get to hear Obama wax on about how the solution to 39% rate hikes is to have the government examine each and every abuse like this, and fix them. Right after the insurance industry bought off Congress to carve up the health care bill into a bill that attaches a funnel from Treasury to their balance sheets, and axes the concept of any public competition. Shit, good thing we don’t provide people with a public alternative to curb those abuses.

To me, it doesn’t matter. Either one is unacceptable. Period.

No. What Jay Rockefeller does has not impact on my world view. His reasons don’t make sense. He was for the robust public option and is now worried about using reconciliation. It doesn’t make sense, but does not alter my perceptions of the world.

Well, there’s one good Yiddish curse I know:

Alle zores was ich hab auf mein haertzen, zollen aussgehen zu zein kopf.

All the problems I have in my heart, should go to his head.

I greatly respect Massa’s negotiating stance/principled stance. It will make the end result better. But, if the Senate votes 52-48 for a public option through reconciliation, and there are 216 yes votes in the House, and the entire Democratic Caucus is begging Massa to put them over the top, he’s going to say NO?! That’s the real question.

I mis read a summary – the detail in the 11 pages says a 2.9% tax on “interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents, other than such income which is derived in the ordinary course of a trade or business which is not a passive activity (e.g., income from active participation in S corporations) on taxpayers with respect to income above $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.

And at least this is progressive.

Jello Jay will be re-set into the right mold if it’s his vote that determines the end result. If his vote kills the public option reconciliation vote and the whole process, he too will eat his words like Massa.

Your political worldview – certainly, it is different than what you were arguing previously.

operative word – “arguing”

In my opinion Public option is the only viable cost-control solution if the bill has mandates in it. For eg. we have so many regulatory agencies like SEC, FED etc and on top of that I read that some people did mention about the madoff scam yet nothing happened till the whole thing collapsed with so many lives of retirees safety net reduced to social security due to lack of regulatory oversight. I worry that something similar might happen if couple of members board is responsible for price controls and they move the mandate rates higher and the income limits lower in future citing higher costs. In my opinion public option is the simple and effective cost-control solution.

Thank you, I was looking for a way to explain why a pricing regulator was bullshit.

Nicely crafted and written.

Troll on a payroll.

Dr. George Lakoff has developed some progressive framing for the public option to compete with the Republican false framing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/health-means-life-health_b_472469.html

- Tom

Citizen mikesong:

Ah Brother mikesong, your voice on the situation in the House is so clear, like the sound of the truth that everyone has been ignorin’ for these last few weeks while they chase Ron Paul through the mean streets of…now just where he’s located I can’t figure but he showed up on top of the CPAC fascist dream team straw poll yesterday. And just where is the Honorable Mr. Paul’s vote on healthcare in the House , do you know Citizen Songman?

Citizen SouthernDragon:

Brother Dragonman, I think that Phony Nancy Pelosi has the votes to make the Stupid amendment disappear…but whether or not she does it is the question and I don’t know that there might not be sumpthin’ like marchin’ Rahm Emmanuel’s head on a stick across the floor of the House that she’s lookin’ for.

ack. i don’t know if i can look. if it is was i fear it is, i’m going to think lakoff is bought and sold too. in 2007 he was warning about the po model of competion as neoliberal thinking that would move the whole conversation to the right. an now he’s doing it too?

well, i really should read the article before i go off half-cocked. thank you for the link tomr.

Don’t be so tough on Rockefeller: he probably needs the campaign contributions. It’s not like he comes from a wealthy family or anything.

What’s that, you say? THOSE Rockefellers? Oh gosh, never mind…

Normally I’m not much for Lakoff, but his rebranding of HMOs as “Health Terror Organisations is pretty damn good. That’s the kind of language the democratic party would have been pushing a year ago if they weren’t so fucking servile.

Looks like many Senators including Rockefeller speak through multiple orifices; it is hard to tell which if any reflects the person’s current position. Here is a little chat I had with Rock.

Hi Rock, you tout that each State Exchange has to have one national plan and one non-profit plan, which is sort of like a Public Option. How very disingenuous? Wait Senator I hear a voice coming from your rear orifice. Please turn around so I can hear clear. What did you say – the voice of authority keep shifting from orifice to orifice. Oh, I see. May be we have to record all of them and then see which one answers the questions best.

You have cut out the National Exchange – why so? Once again to feed the Insurance Co?

Who provides a National plan? How does that plan meet every state’s regulation?

And how do you create a non-profit to offer a plan? If it is a new one — who funds the startup costs. If it bootstraps – how can it negotiate best prices? How does it provide any competition to the other Insurance Biggies?

You talk about your efforts together kind of provide a Public Option. Why are you so bent on castrating the Public Option and than claim that all your pieces approximate the PO?

Since all your orifices have gone silent, let me offer u an answer to the last question. Since Insurance Companies have castrated their Corporatist Senators, they have in turn take their revenge on the PO. Say what, I got it right? Thank you, I wish you grow a pair soon – the country’s fate is in your hands.

It is a given that Obama is enthralled by the profit motive for private insurers so he is an obstacle to meaningful HCR. Because meaningful HCR requires at the very least an alternative to private insurers, a point that should not be conceded, nor does it need to be.

The process is too far along for Obama to walk away empty handed which gives the proponents of the PO or Medicare buy-in whether in the House or Senate a strong bargaining position and as much time as they chose to take to assure the inclusion of these provisions. There is no need for a Senate-lite plan to fall into place by the end of this week to accomodate Obama’s wishes.

One clear message that has emerged for the electorate is that Obama has revealed himself as a thoroughgoing corporatist and an opponent of plans that favor the public. He does not therefore deserve to be re-elected irrespective of the outcome of this health reform effort.

Another message is that no HCR plan is meaningful if it leaves private insurers in place unchallenged. It has to be unequivacally accepted that it is the private insurers that are the main source of the problems associated with the financing of health care and that they can not remain in place unchallenged if reform is to succeed.

ok, i looked. it’s as bad as i feared. using neoliberal logic just as he warned we should not. lakoff may be a genius for all i know, but when he takes the part of a political hack (which is what it appears to me he is doing in that article — when compared to his analysis from just a few years ago, but pre his apparent obama enthrallment) i have trouble taking his scholarly work seriously.

well, maybe glenn has a more forgiving explanation that can make better sense of this. i’ll try to remember to ask next time i see him post here.

yes, that part i did like.

How many more blunders on health care can this Democratic government afford? They showed their inability to govern with a super majority, and now they have the all the major media covering reconciliation. Both of these topics are now a year long swift boat ad of ineffectiveness. The Republican party will not even need to run ads this fall, the Democrats seem to want to beat this dead horse until they are out of power.

It is also possible the Rockefeller is a vote counter. He knew that he could be way out in favor of the public option, to the point of being righteous about it, while he Leiberman and Nelson and Lincoln as cover. Now that they are going reconcilliation with whatever bill is offered, they only need 50 votes. That means that he may be the vote that pushes the public option through or kills it. So the verdict is in. He was a phony. When pushed with the choice, where it counts, he wants the option killed. He is still in favor of the public option if they can get 60 votes for an up or down vote, because he knows they can’t.

“Public option is the only viable cost-control solution ”

I’m missing something here. How does a public option push back on provider prices?