A More Perfect Union

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

If you had a moment alone and away from the cameras with Sherrod Brown or Bernie Sanders or Jay Rockefeller, they’d probably tell you in confidence that the current Senate Healthcare Reform Bill is not what they wanted. And so, you might reasonably ask, why are they voting for it? There have been posts on this board to the effect that the Senate should do nothing until they can “fix” the problems with the current legislation and include such features as a Public Option.

At that point, one of the three senators would probably do a face palm and then patiently explain to you that if they had the votes to do that, then the current Senate Bill would include those features already. Don’t you think if they had the votes to include a Public Option, that all three of these gentlemen would be fighting to have it included?

Right now, there are 58 Democratic votes in the Senate. To that we can add the vote of Bernie Sanders of Vermont (but exclude the vote of Joe Lieberman of Connecticut). So that’s 59 votes, which is not enough to end a filibuster. What’s more, we have eight to ten conservative Democratic Senators who, depending on the issue at hand, are just as likely to vote with the Republicans as with their own party.

So we’re down to the slimmest of majorities and, again depending on the specific issue, maybe we don’t have a majority at all. Remember that we have ten Democratic Senators from states that DIDN’T go for Obama in 2008 and few more that are from swing states like Florida and Ohio. If you’re expecting these Senators to simply join hands and jump off a cliff because a first-term President asked them to do so, then you really don’t understand much at all about politics.

The simple political calculus boils down to this. The Healthcare Reform Bill that will pass the Senate is the best that we can get under the circumstances that we’re under. The Republicans need 41 votes to effectively block any legislation in the Senate and they already have 39 votes under lock and key. Add to that Sen. Lieberman and just one – ONE – stray Democrat and you’ve got an impasse. It’s frustrating. It’s infuriating. But it is what it is.

That’s not so say that it will be this way forever. A combination of public pressure and legislative enticements (such as those Ben Nelson’s state will receive) will make it possible for us to improve upon whatever comes out of the conference committee. To use a medical metaphor, think of it as arthroscopic surgery. You don’t have to “open up” the patient, but you can still achieve great results. That’s the task that lies before us.

For those of you who feel betrayed for getting watered-down healthcare reform after having worked so hard to elect this President, did you think the war was over on November 5th, 2008? Did you not understand that the conservatives would mount a furious rear-guard action to prevent a progressive agenda from becoming law? The Republican Party has been trying for decades to kill Social Security – their last attempt as recent as 2005 – did you think they would simply come over to our point of view because Obama was in the White House?

This fight is not over, and it never will be. The goal of our Founders was to form “a more perfect union,” and that means the goal of a democratic society is always off in the distance. It lies ahead. The burden of being an American is that we’re forever striving to improve our society and to make it worthy of the sacrifices of those who came before us. And we’re forever striving against those forces that would drag us backward.

Flawed as this legislation may be, it’s what we could achieve with the votes we had available, and it moved us down the road toward our goal. But understand this if you get nothing else from this post, the work is not completed. Not until every American has access to affordable health care, not until we eliminate the fear of physical and financial ruin that haunts so many of our fellow citizens, not until we form a more perfect union.

I believe this is a fight worth fighting, and I’m in it for the long haul.

[MineralMan]

1. Yup. Now the battle is on, or should be, to replace the

DINOs with genuine Democrats. There are those, however, who are saying, "We can't" elect progressives. They said that in Minnesota, and we almost got Norm Coleman. We didn't, though, because some people who said, "We can and we will" worked their heinies off to get Al Franken elected.

"We Can't" is just another way of saying, "We Won't."

[Tailormyst]

4. I agree with you on electing more progressives

My money and time are only going to real progressive candidates from now on.

http://www.pdamerica.org/

I hope everyone goes and checks out that site today.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

6. Electing more progressives will take years....

Of the conservative Democrats, I believe that only Blanche Lincoln is up for re-election in this cycle. To replace all the conservatives, you're talking at least six years, and that assumes that the voters of Arkansas and Montana are chomping at the bit for a chance to elect a more liberal Senator. Flawed as this Bill is, it's going to happen next week, not six years from now.

That being said, I totally agree that we need more (and better) Democrats in both the House and Senate.

[Tailormyst]

7. Well we have to start somewhere

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

8. While that's true enough...

if we're going to wait for the day when we have enough votes to get precisely the legislation we want, we might be waiting an awfully long time.

[Tailormyst]

13. I agree- I just don't have any other answer

My response to the behavior of our leadership is to inform them that I will not donate one more dime or one more hour to any candidate that does not represent my liberal, progressive ideals. Not one more dime to bigots, not one more dime to support anti-choice candidates, not one more second of my time to elect chartlatans who use wedge issues to try and gets votes from fear.

[MineralMan]

17. So, what is your alternative suggestion? What's your plan

for shortening the process?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

19. There is none....

There's no such thing as microwavable legislation. BOTH tactics -- and I don't want to appear to be opposing Tailormist's suggestion, we need more progressives in Congress -- are going to take time. Expand and revise whatever comes out of the conference committee AND elect more progressives to both keep the process going and defend the gains that we've made.

[MineralMan]

21. Absolutely. It all takes years. It took years to get civil right legislation

that worked. It will take years to get proper health care legislation, too.

There was never any possibility of sweeping healthcare reform that included a serious public option or single payer. Not in 2009. We got what we could get through.

The future is up to us. FUD isn't going to get it, but that's basically all I'm seeing right now, for the most part.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

23. Civil Rights is a good analogy...

It took years, even after the Emancipation Proclamation, to secure basic civil rights, and those rights are imperfectly protected, even today. It's a battle that does not end.

[MineralMan]

16. Yes, it will take years. So, let's get started, eh?

That it will take years is just a statement of fact. I guess I don't see how it alters what needs to be done.

[lapfog_1]

2. Question for the "we'll fix it later" crowd

Given that I agree with the points made in the OP, do you

a) believe that someday later we will have larger majorities in the Senate?

b) believe the the forces of the reactionary right will let us "sneak one through" even with fewer seats at a later point?

c) believe that the public will so love this reform (and the mandates) that they will demand more progressive changes later?

Just curious.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

5. Something sort of like Option C....

I don't think the pressure to revise the bill will come from what voters "love" about this bill. It will come from what they hate the most.

What I think will happen (and if I were better at seeing the future BELIEVE ME I'd be investing in lottery tickets): The insurance companies are going to find sneaky loopholes that will allow them to continue denying coverage -- they employ busloads of lawyers, so I think that scenario doesn't require a great stretch of the imagination.

Pressure will build on Congress to close these loopholes -- it was the intent of the law that everybody has access to insurance. As Eugene Robinson has noted in this column today, what the current legislation does is frame health care as a right, not a privilidge. But the insurance companies will lobby furiously that they can't afford to insure these people because they're high risk.

That's the opening. Congress can craft legislation that says anybody denied coverage by a commercial plan will be allowed to buy into Medicare. Anybody. Regardless of your age. If the private sector won't do it, the public sector will. From that point, it's just a matter of expanding eligibility to create a genuine public option.

[lapfog_1]

10. Two problems...

If people so dislike this because of the outcome, you believe the demand will be to "fix it", whereas there might be a demand to "junk it" from those same people. Why trust Congress to fix it given how long the process to create it took?

Second problem, Taking all the people the insurance companies don't want (i.e. people who cost them way more than they make in premiums from those people) and dumping them into Medicare (and ONLY them) is a great way to

a) fix what's wrong with HCR

or

b) Bankrupt Medicare

I think option b is the more likely outcome, and doing something like that will just really piss off the most solid voting block in the nation, the seniors.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

12. Number Two is more likely than Number One

I don't think that the people who benefit from receiving access to health care are going to demand that we "junk" the system. Bear in mind the people in Canada and England will bitch and moan about their healthcare systems, but no serious persion there advocates eliminating them. Even Margaret Thatcher, who privitized a host of government functions in the 1980's, never touched the healthcare system. So think think Number One is not terribly likely.

Number Two, however, is a very good point. If the system takes only the high-risk (and high-cost) patients, then it will place a huge strain on Medicare. That's where the political dealing becomes important -- the insurance companies can't expect to simply dump their least-profitable patients on the government. They're going to have to give up something that is lucrative enough to partially offset the costs that are being absorbed by Medicare, and that would mean providing for an expansion to other populations. And an expansion to other groups creates a broader public option.

They would deny it, but I think the insurance companies are looking ahead to a day when health insurance is no longer a viable product (at least not in its current form). They can delay and obfuscate only so long -- we're moving in the direction of some kind of single-payer system. But the insurance companies can earn a few billion dollars in profit between now and then, they're going to do just that.

[Tailormyst]

3. Of course we didn't think the fight was over

But we assumed the Dem leadership would be fight along side us instead of AGAINST us. That is where the anger is coming in. We are screaming for change and the Hope and Change brigade instead of saying "YES, WE TOO WANT CHANGE", they are constantly telling us to sit down and shut up. That is the disconnect and that is where the anger is coming from. I don't think any of us expected change immediately, but we also did not expect our leadership to go in almost the exact opposite direction.

I also believe Healthcare is worth fighting for, but you and I have a very different idea of how this is going to work out. I see this as worse then what we have now, except for the ins companies, and a real blow to womens reproductive freedoms.
I hope you are right. I hope it all works out to be a great plan and that down the road they fix the bad parts. I really, really hope that happens. The problem is that I have seen nothing from the Dem leadership that makes me even remotely feel like they are on the same side as I am or that they care at all what happens to the working class of this country. or to the GBLT citizens. Or to the women.

However, I do see them caring an awful lot about the RR and other RW groups. That bothers me. Abstinence only pandering, that bothers me. Anti-Gay people being embraced and held up as role models, that bothers me. Avoiding DOMA and DADT like the plague, that bothers me. Escalating wars, that bothers me. Bombing Yemen, that bothers me.

There are only a couple things that have been done that seem to line up with progressive ideals. Stem cell ban being lifted and the Franken anti-rape bill come to mind right off the bat. The rest I see moving in a very different direction.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Very Well Said...And Zeros In On The Problem

I agree...if there had been the votes for Public Option in the Senate it would have been in the final bill. Last night I heard Tom Harkin estimate that there were really only 50 or so votes for Public Option...that getting those last 10 were the struggle...and the smaller that number became the steeper the price and concessions were. The stakes have gotten too great to turn back now...the need to get a bill done now supercedes whats inside the bill and thus makes it rife for a lot of misinformation. The one thing that almost all agree is the status quo isn't acceptable.

The lesson learned here is how ideals are trumped when faced with political reality. It exposed how Progressives and liberals need to keep moving forward...that the 2008 election wasn't the end but a starting point. To use a sports metaphor...it's one thing to build up a winning team, it's another to keep it on top. It's targeting strategic seats and races and enhancing our numbers and thus influence in the party. It's supporting primary challenges in places where a well organized and funded Progressive can win and make a difference as well as going after several open Senate seats (Florida, New Hampshire) that could help minimize the "centrists"...and then allow for a leadership change.

Yes...this fight is beginning...and those who want to give up do so at their own frustrations and peril.

Cheers...

[laughingliberal]

11. Good luck with getting the same bunch who did this to, somehow, "fix" it

If it was an impossibility to pass an acceptable bill due to the power of the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies, what chance will there be when we increase their power exponentially. We're handing them more money to fight us. It makes no sense.

I believe Harry had the votes to pass the bill with the public option with the exception of Nelson and Lieberman. He had 59 votes to pass it with the Medicare expansion. Reconciliation can't pass certain parts of the bill but it damn sure could have passed some of the better parts of the bill and those are the parts that could have given us the framework to build on. That would have been acceptable and, likely, effective use of incremental steps. Barring that, there was the chance of using the nuclear option. It has been used before to pass legislation and it could have been done. There are some asses in the Senate who need their hats handed to them. But there were ways to get around them. The problem is there was no support from the White House. The administration's priority was to pass something they could call victory while, most importantly, protecting their sweetheart deals with Pharma and the insurance lobby. Period. How much more obvious could it be in light of their work to kill the reimportation amendment? Even that little bone the Senate tried to throw us was quashed by the administration. How can people still be thinking they were on our side? I believed in the beginning, too. I was frustrated thinking it was really bad strategy or a disconnect from people or messaging gone wrong. I was suspicious but gave the administration the benefit of the doubt til the end. When I saw they went in and ordered Harry Reid to cave to Leiberman and then killed the reimportation amendment, it was no longer possible to deny what was later confirmed by Russ Feingold. This is the bill the President wanted all along and he was not going to allow anything else to get through the Senate. Lieberman is an ass but I think he was doing the President's dirty work. It's the only thing that makes sense of the President'snsupport for bringing Lieberman back into the fold, chairmanship intact after the betrayal during the election.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

15. A college professor of mine once said....

I'd rather right two thousand 16-ounce lizards one at a time than take on a one-ton, fire-breathing dragon.

Drug Reimportation on a HCR bill has both insurance companies and drug manufacturers fighting against it because they both hate the same bill. But a Drug Reimportation Bill alone? Sure, the pharmaceutical companies still hate it, but the insurance companies see lower costs for prescriptions. Instead of fighting two enemies on one Bill, you've split them.

[freddie mertz]

14. The battle now is to find new leadership and toss out the bums

That gave us this piece of crap.

Start at the head.

[MineralMan]

18. And how do you plan to do this, other than using the election

process? How do you throw out the leadership without electing new leaders?

All of this is so easy to say. What's harder is getting out and doing the required work to get more progressives into office. Now, that takes work, not empty declarations.

[freddie mertz]

20. Well I won't work for Obama anymore. I'll support any prog. primary opponent.

As for locally, I'll make my choices one by one.

I'm devoting myself anew to DFA and will try to influence the group's agenda here in central PA.

Started with a good donation last night. Going to Meet-ups next month.

It's something.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

22. I think you're missing my point...

This piece of crap is, under these circumstances, as good as you could possibly get. Tom Harkin was on one of the talk shows in the last few days, stating that in his opinion, the Public Option never had fifty votes to begin with. God knows I'm not a fan of Harry Reid, but I don't see how he (or anybody else) could have done any better with Democratic Senators threatening to bolt if they didn't get their way.

You have every right to be disgusted by the process, but understand that this process is still being played out, and it will be for several sessions of Congress to come. I don't disagree with you about supporting progressive candidates, and DFA is a good way to do that, but don't walk away from the table just yet.

With regard to Obama's leadership. Robert Byrd has been in the Senate for fifty years. Obama has been in the White House for just a little less than fifty weeks. Senators like Byrd know that Presidents come and go, so the President's influence on them is not nearly what you think. With the exception of a handful of Democrats who are appointees and subject to special elections, most Senators have been in the Senate longer than Obama has been in Washington (including his tenure in Congress). The fact is that if you're a Senator, you look at any President as a transient figure, and under those circumstances, it's hard to be of great influence.

[NJmaverick]

24. Well said!