| What is the fall out from the Massachusetts special Senate election? Well, you can’t get too cute. You can’t get too far ahead of the troops. You can’t play political games and not expect people to look at you and say: “Say what?” |
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The White House and Democrats everywhere should thank both Mrs. Coakley and Mr. Brown. Thank Mr. Brown for showing you Democrats that the wheel is loose and it is on its way to come off the wagon, unless you stop and fix it. If not, the wagon and you Democrats are going to tumble into a ditch. Democrats should thank Mrs Coakley for showing that you Democrats can’t sit on your behinds and do nothing, and expect the faithful to come out and to support you like automatons. The faithful are faithful to the faith, but are not robots for you.
This morning’s Washington Post has a fair discussion of the issues involved, warning of the foreseen fallout from the Massachusetts election, the effect it will have on health insurance reform, and reporting on Democratic leaders plans to move forward with the Senate Bill, as if the election hadn’t happened. Check these links: (link) <link).
My take on the Massachusetts result is as follows: KILL THE SENATE HEALTH INSURANCE BILL!
The Democrats should remain determined to enact real health care reform that will make health insurance affordable. The Senate Bill won’t do that, for that reason health reform has become unpopular. Now is the time to re-tool and to deliver what can be gotten now, with the promise that the fight isn’t over for what is needed.
The Democrats should deliver on making improvements, getting low-cost, affordable health insurance coverage for the millions of working poor, making insurance policies available across state lines and portable from job to job, shoring up Medicare & Medicaid, encouraging small business and nonprofits to form collectives that will offer low cost health insurance to their employees, while reminding the public of the larger goal of universal coverage. The Democrats will only lose if they throw up their hands and do nothing, or go the in-your- face-you-Repub-retards crazy move and ram through an unpopular bill.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
J Byron & Matt
Not that I disagree with you in principle but you appear to be forgetting the way in which this was presented to the public. Initially they were to vote on the 1,200 page bill the day after it was released. The Democrats didn’t want anyone to read the bill since they knew it wouldn’t be liked. Take a look at the TARP bill for example. Bonuses for AIG execs were in that bill, but no one read it before they forced a vote on it 24 hours later. So now they have to deal with the public blow back about bonuses. In fact Geithner is supposed to testify before congress this week about it.
We (the public) were told that bills would be made available to read 72 hours prior to a vote. And we were told that we would get to see it all on CSPAN. Well currently they are trying to reconcile both bills in committee behind closed doors. Obama only begrudgingly allowed one hour of the hearings to be televised. This is not how you run a representative government. This is not transparency.
As for the Republicans I agree that their bill was too weak. However did you hear ANYONE talk about it on the nightly news? No. Did you have to go out to the web to find the proposal? Yep. Did the Republicans even get to submit their proposals in committee? Nope. Why do you think during the first state of the union all those Republicans were holding up paper? It was their bill that they wanted read. A bill that congress didn’t even bother to pick up and read. Not that it would have been any better, but at least it could have been considered. It wasn’t. I believe the quote from Pelosi was; “We won the election, we write the bill.” So they were excluded at every turn. Even physically locked out of committee rooms during debates. A fact not widely reported. Again, that’s not representative government.
Nicely nutshelled Matt.
Books will be written on those short paragraphs of yours.
You are so right, the Dems know how to sell sizzle, but instead of steak they deliver D.C., big government solutions (which they exempt themselves from, as well as those they pay off, i.e., big union, federal employeess, even some states).
The last part of your comment is what caught my eye. We Americans are a charitable and giving people (reference Haiti). We see hurting people, alot of them 17-20%, and we say something has to be done.
Ner-do-wells in the gov see this as an opportunity to gain more power for the government and take advantage of our compasion.
Like a girl who is promised dinner and flowers, but soon realizes her escort is interested in date rape, Big Gov tries to convince us we want the unexpected, and acts if he doesn’t hear the cries of stop. If enough people pay attention, a very bad ending can be avoided.
Kind of a sick analogy, but I assure you our very free market nation is at stake.
Early on polls showed the people in slight majority supported the public option. As the reform bill evolved and more learned of the details aproval plummeted. There are two ways to look at this:
1. People want the public option but not the package it was in.
2. The dems and others were successful at selling the public option as a solution, but the details killed the excitement. The people wanted reform and the public option had a better case behind it as an answer.
When it comes to issues like this polls show what the majority believes to be true not what will work the best. The people want reform but reform that works. The repubs have failed to make a good case for their reform bill and failed to illustrate how important maintaining the remnants of the free market are. The dems simply made the more persuasive arguement, and Obama spearheaded the effort during the campaign. The people want a solution and they deserve to know every detail and the full aftershock.
The reason for this lapse in judgement on the part of the people is because our society is great at knowing what they want but not adept at understanding what it takes to get there; and where some of the alternatives may lead.
George,
Apparently you are among the American people then in regards to short memory. I recall obstructionist Democrats preventing Medicare reform while the Republicans were in power. It’s hard to say no when you are being locked out of conference rooms and your legislation not even being considered. Search the news in the last year and you will find where it’s been reported of the complete lock out of Republicans by Democrats. While you are at it you can look up this quote too.
“hey, I won the election, not you, we are in charge and we are going to do this, either you are going to jump on board and help us, or you are wasting your time, and ours. The American people have chosen us to lead”. – Barak Obama
And they have lead us down a path the 58% of the American public doesn’t want.
Dfunny,
You are making the same mistake I outlined the Dems are “The Dem had the support of the country for the public option.” You are assuming that you had a mandate of the people. From the very get go the Democrats and several authors on this blog derided the furor at the town halls over the summer of 09 as a Republican manufactured trend. As a “blip on the radar” and radical right-wing “tea baggers.” So the little old Grandma “tea bagger” that was dismissed as a bible thumping, gun toting kook let the Dems know just how far their arrogance was going to play with the real America that is out there.
In January of 2006, for example, 24% of those surveyed called themselves liberal, 38% called themselves moderate and 34% conservative. Two years later, at the outset of the year that brought Mr. Obama to power and expanded Democratic control of Congress, the numbers were virtually identical: 24% liberal, 37% moderate, 35% conservative. And a year later, amid the euphoria of President Obama’s inauguration, and much talk of change, the ideological remained unchanged: 23% liberal, 37% moderate and 35% conservative.
I thought healthcare reform was a “do or die” issue that was tied into the economy and needed to be dealt with now? Why the sudden change then to kill the bill and start over? Why all the talk from Washington for the past year of the need to do something now instead of doing it right in the first place? Suddenly it goes from “whatever it takes” to “take your time”? So again the Democrats will cave on their convictions to further their political careers. Barney Frank wants to change the rules now mid-stream and get rid of filibustering all together. I smell more politics as usual than I do compassion in this.
dfunzy,
We were so close to sharing a moment, then damn!
Your first response was logical and lucid but then in your second response you stated “the public option… is the only way to decrease the cost of health insurance.” Every idea in your first post would have lowered costs– and the public option wasn’t one of them. And none of them would require 4 years of prepayment with no service to balance the books after 10 years. Or removing 500 billion from medicare, while adding more people to medicare by lowering the age.
My Dearest George,
I don’t know how you managed to get so much wrong with so few words but let me just comment on one thing…
The GOP is not using “voters as an excuse”– they are REPRESENTING THEM. You see the use of the word “Representative”–as in the house of–it is a body of people sent their to represent the wishes and best interests of their constituents. The people have spoken and about 41% of their representatives are listening and doing what they want. The people do not want the 59% to do things that are counter productive– hence the outrageous idea about reading what is in a bill before voting on it.
Blowhard,
I still think the public option is the way to go,.The Dem had the support of the country for the public option. It is the only way to decrease the cost of health insurance. Decreasing the cost of health insurance is what the public wants. The senate bill became the face of health insurance reform. This bill has no public option and it has provisions that will force Americans to buy expensive coverage from insurance companies. The Dems need to win back public support by getting what they can get enacted into law now, and by working for the goal of what needs to be done.
As far as taking the credit, why not? You can’t stop a politician from taking credit for a success.
J ,
Thank you for your comment. I shall answer the issues you raised later.
dfunzy,
At last we agree on something. In your response you hit the nail on the head. The obvious cost-cutting changes you specify would be a good use of government effort. You stayed away from the public option, which is a monumental movement in the right direction. You lost me on the taking credit part because the Democrats are so wrapped up in the concept of government control that anything less than the public option will be a failure. But did you realize that the Democrats could have achieved all the things you mention without robbing medicare or creating more financial burdens for all American taxpayers? They just couldn’t stand the idea of doing some good without doing a lot of harm. They forsook the common ground while they marched to the promised land. They deserved to fail, because they were stupid and arrogant.
It would be easy to agree with all you have put forth. It sounds reasonable, but because you are afterall DFunzy, I thought further.
If the Dems followed your advise they probably could achieve the end goals you have called for, which again, sound great.
You however are more clever than the snake pit of a dem party. Should they follow your logic, we will soon have the public option, which would certainly create an entitlement, that is a noose unescapable. The greatest pharmas and hospitals and insurance companies the world has ever seen would be destroyed by government manipulation. Profit is dirty or it is not. I say look around the world, you’ll find it is what makes us great.
Either this is a free market economy with the charities that arise from properity or it is not. You cannot have it both ways. Cover the truely poor and needy and leave the rest of us alone. Make a gov program for the 17-20%, and get the gov off the back of the 80%. We may continue to have the best medical care the world has ever known if we stay “Free, and Free Market”!
The Senate bill should die. Having said the obvious, let me say: You are right that there will be no broad base reforms this year. Maybe this term. If the Dems are smart they will begin to go step by step and take credit for what they can deliver. If they can make health insurance portable from job to job, they should do that and crow about it. If they can make it possible to buy health insurance across state lines, they should do that. If they can come up with a workable plan to find a way to provide coverage for the 12 million working poor, they should do that, and have a victory parade. If they can get small business and nonprofits into insurance collectives, they should do that. There is a study released this week by Harvard Med that says 45, 000 Americans die annually because they lacked health care.
http://www.harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-lack-health-coverage
The Dems had the support of the American people behind them until the compromised with Liberberman, and his insurance company paymaters to produce the horrible Senate bill. All the Dems have to do is to re-tool and put the focus back where it belongs on the need for real reform, and work toward it as a goal, taking one step at a time.
There will be no health reform bill- period. The GOP will use the voters as an excuse to do nothing. Brown already did in comments. Meanwhile Wall St. was so happy that Dow went up almost 120 points, due to the perception that profits in healthcare were now safe.
The GOP will see to it that NOTHING gets done this year and between now and 2012. They have already shown that they place getting elected over making the changes the American people asked for and this country needs.
This election just goes to show how short people’s memories are- the GOP had better hope their memories lengthen before now and 2012.