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 Obama Pressures Senate on Public OptionPosted on Oct 5, 2009
Like a reluctant Sisyphus, the president is still pushing the public option up Capitol Hill. According to a report in the L.A. Times, Obama has been trying to sell moderate Democrats on the idea. That’s no easy task, as many have taken gobs of money from the private health industry and coincidentally oppose meaningful reform. We all know by now about Max Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman, who has consistently managed to block the public option while raising millions from the health industry. His partners in crime, so to speak, include Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat who in effect killed (for the time being) the proposed Employee Free Choice Act. You know you’re in trouble when it turns out that Charles Schumer, the New York senator who appears to be on board, raised more money from HMOs this term than any other senator. Should he get the benefit of the doubt? Not when he’s already proved to be such a reliable proxy for his Wall Street patrons. Make no mistake, this is about political contributions, not angry voters in conservative districts. Sen. Richard Durbin made the point to his colleagues, as reported by the L.A. Times below: As long as Americans are going to be made to buy insurance, as the Baucus plan mandates, they want a public option. —PS
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By Virginia777, October 6, 2009 at 9:37 am Link to this comment
to Commune115:
Obama is a “corporate clown”?
Then why is he pushing a public option to the Senate?
Give me a break. The cynicism of the Left is so self defeating.
Report thisBy ocjim, October 5, 2009 at 4:50 pm Link to this comment
Obama needs to risk his popularity for this one. No one who opposes the public option is too stupid, too morally challenged, or too rich to vote for him anyway.
For the Republicans, it is beyond spite that makes them oppose anything Obama or the Dems do. It is the right’s belief that they know what’s best for all of us, and it’s gaining power at all cost. The neocons demand a unified Machiavellian approach and thru black-mail, withholding of campaign funds, etc they get their way.
Report thisBy Louise, October 5, 2009 at 4:41 pm Link to this comment
tropicgirl,
“This is just more of the same from Obama. Its not the Republicans that have been stalling, shaping the bill. Its the Dems.”
~~~
And then who will you blame ......
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Report thisMartin Luther King, Jr.
By tropicgirl, October 5, 2009 at 12:54 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
(...Removing the “public option” from a public bill paid for by public money
leaves a “private option” paid for with public money…)
Louise—
Duh. THis is what everyone is trying to say. This is corporate socialism. Now
you get it?
This is what Obama has been doing since day ONE. We gave trillions to Wall
Street and trillions in stimulus WITHOUT ANY REFORM.
This is just more of the same from Obama. Its not the Republicans that have
been stalling, shaping the bill. Its the Dems.
Why do you blindly tell yourself what your eyes can’t see?... The Obamas have a
long history with health insurance companies. He would have dropped the
public option had it not been for a public outcry.
Are you trying to say that the health insurance companies give more to
Republicans? Why do you single them out? It’s Obama that keeps deferring to
them because he has no moral ground himself to go it alone. Because its a bad
bill and he knows it.
Now its his and Shumer’s job to see that the public option is watered down.
You have a view of Obama that does not meet with reality.
Let me guess, you also think he is against war, rendition and spying on
Report thisAmericans?
By Commune115, October 5, 2009 at 12:24 pm Link to this comment
Comparing Obama to a Sisyphus? Seriously? Come on now guys, this man is a corporate clown. He’ll probably just get slapped down again as in Copenhagen.
Report thisBy Louise, October 5, 2009 at 11:22 am Link to this comment
Removing the “public option” from a public bill paid for by public money leaves a “private option” paid for with public money. In other words, guaranteed profit for the private “for profit” Health Care Industry, paid for with tax-dollars! And enforced by a law that says we have to have it!
A true public option would provide 30% savings immediately which would then cover the 1/3rd of the population who have no health care.
A “private option” paid for with public money, would provide an increase in profit to the private corporations and under the current Bachus bill would actually DROP some insured from the rolls! Like the kids in Chip!
Obama gets that!
When you have a clear majority you don’t need bipartisanship! And you don’t need to throw away that hard-won power on the likes of a Bachus, or a bunch of Repubs who care only about Corporate profit! Obama gets that too!
And Obama understands, for those whose very political life depends on profiteering, putting people ahead of profit is impossible! That bipartisonship with repubs is impossible! And passing Health Care Insurance reform without a Public Option is impossible!
And Obama is smart enough to understand any bill, even a bad bill is NOT the best way to treat our sick health care system. If anything done, does not improve and only makes things worse, what’s the point? To satisfy a campaign promise? I think the people are smart enough to understand what’s going on with Bachus and his gang. And I think Obama knows the people get it! Besides, there’s that other campaign promise. The one that says any Health Care Insurance reform bill must be debt neutral or he wont sign it!
Bachus and his gang suffer from Health Care Industry syndrome. they have a compulsive need to listen to, to please, and to gain Health Care Industry approval. They know the Industry makes no sense, so they wiggle and squirm, use double speak absurdities and keep chopping fractions off reality. Like most folks who sold their soul for money so many years ago, they cant remember why, and they cant understand the difference between a whole made of fractions and a pile of fractured logic! So they go on, clearly off the rail, always with a smile on their face. Completely out of touch with reality and the folks who put them there!
(Note: my opinion.)
But President Obama is stuck with reality! In spite of what anyone may think, the President of the United States does not have the authority or the power to remove anyone from Congress, or any Senator from the Chairmanship of a Committee! So, if anyone out there honestly wants a Public Option, they’ll quit bitching about the president and get behind him!
Do you know who your Senators are?
Report thisBy tropicgirl, October 5, 2009 at 11:20 am Link to this comment
Obama never really wanted a public option, he just wanted to mention it so
that the 70% of the people (and growing) that want it, could feel temporarily
better about what is about to happen here. If you listened to his (lying) health
care speech before congress, he just as much said so (... I don’t want to change
things that work (meaning insurance companies/profits) .... in the first 5
minutes of his speech)
1. Shumer will guarantee that there is no real public option, but he must put
something that sounds like it or the entire bill will fail because even the
Democrats won’t vote for it.
2. Medicare and Medicaid will be raped. No one knows how bad until it
happens.
3. The insurance companies will get trillions before it is all said and done.
4. The insurance companies will be mandated for change which they have no
intention of implementing nor can anyone make them. That is how BS/BS was
started and look what happened to them.
5. The American people will be fined and possibly jailed, whether now or later,
if they choose not to patronize the theiving companies.
6. Probably no change at all will happen (thank god) because by the time this
starts to be implemented, the Democrats will no longer have a majority and it
will probably be reversed (especially if the economy continues to tank). And
there could be a public revolt.
7. The “progressive” cable pundits will chirp its success because they never
had a clue to begin with.
In reality, its the same crap as the porkulus and bailouts. All money from the
Report thistaxpayer and not a shred of responsibility. Nothing new.
By Carl, October 5, 2009 at 10:12 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Some Dems put in provisions to help kill health care. Certain taxes and medicare cuts for example. The worst is the confusing “public option.”
They should pull back and slam dunk an easy reform, expand Medicare down to age 60 over the next four years. Slap the medicare tax of 3.1% on capital gains to pay for it. This would expand Medicare to cover another 10 million Americans with an established single payer system with a plan the insurers cannot stop.
Report thisBy Big B, October 5, 2009 at 10:00 am Link to this comment
Pres Barry, the ultimate lawyer and pragmatist, has once again done something half assed in the hope that if it succeeds, he can take full credit for it, and if it fails, he can distance himself from it and claim repugs and evil blue dogs were behind it’s demise. You have to admit, it’s almost a genius plan, except for the facts that if health care reform doesn’t pass, the status quo remains, and 50 million and counting won’t have insurance. Businesses and individuals will be going bankrupt at a break neck pace. Of course, it could be worse, the other fact being that if it passes it will be perhaps the biggest corporate give-away of all time, all the while assuring almost no real change.
Many of us out here saw this coming. I just thought Barry might have been thoughtful enough to provide us with petroleum jelly, but alas, my aim was once again too high.
Hopefully, this piece of legislative shit will die a thousand deaths, and real reform will rise from the ashes.
Holy shit, I have really got to stop drinking in the afternoon.
Report thisBy Journey Home by Paul Burke, October 5, 2009 at 9:10 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The smartest people in the world learn from everyone and everything - to dismiss what lessons can be learned in a foreign country - because it is a foreign country or has some other not so envious condition is to be blind - completely blind and closed off to ideas. That’s not a very smart way to find solutions. You pick and choose from the best of what works. You leave behind the bad habits or missteps and learn from the mistakes of others. Check your red, white and blue arrogance at the door if you really want to learn anything and live in a better more peaceful, stable, equitable and sustainable world.
The fact remains that big insurance by refusing care to patients and reimbursement to doctors over typos has ticked everyone off - both patients and doctors.
They have a virtual monopoly over the whole process a hugely well financed lobby team and representatives on both sides of the isle.
At the end of the day healthcare reform is about the take down of a system that is squeezing profits out of everyone so hard that it is crippling the economy.
A friend of mine recently laid off without children - just he and his spouse is paying $2,500.00 dollars a month for his COBRA - that is outrageous. Health insurance costs more than his mortgage - unbelievable.
If you think the status quo is going to self regulate - in any market sector, insurance, timber, big pharma, finance, coal, oil, or nuclear - then you don’t know how the “real” world works.
From the guy who runs a Kinko’s worrying about the Copy Connection opening up down the street - every single individual business man wants to “corner” the market.
It’s up to the people through the execution of laws to unlock their grip when it harms the overall markets.
Individual corporations work at cross hairs to the health of the overall market. Self interest isn’t good for the overall health of the markets when it runs rampant and chokes off the competition smothering and in some cases outlawing innovation, technology, advancement, and invention. We all loose then.
The “free market system” is a myth and if left to its own devise as so many corporatist trust it should - it leads to anarchy - boom, bubble and bust and hyper economic cycles once every 15 years.
The markets crave and deserve stability. That’s why foreign countries invest here in our Country. Stability for your hard earned cash is lucrative. And economic growth thrives on competition. You want a better return on your money you better hope for a robust, secure and vibrant market. Not one “cornered” by a stagnant antiquated status quo draining as much of the froth and discretionary income off the top for itself and itself alone.
You want venture capital you better make sure small business and the middle class are firing on all cylinders. 90% of the wealth concentrated in 1% of the population will dry up the economic engine - it doesn’t trickle down - it gets horded at the top. Yacht sales can not sustain 350 million people.
The “public option” using the bureaucracy of medicare that is already set up and running processing a billion claims a year is the smart, efficient way to go.
Pooling that many people together will incentivise the private sector to stop gouging us - as we lay on our sick beds.
As it stands right now the economic impact of getting sick to the individual is catastrophic and that effects the whole market system because lots of people get sick.
When Bush implored people to go out and spend - well that’s kind of hard to do when you are buried in health care bills, filling and refilling out forms and in foreclosure because you made a typo.
The system is broke and well heavily stacked in the insurance industry’s favor - with no incentive except global economic melt down to fix it.
Oh wait a minuter didn’t that just happen….
Paul Burke
Report thisAuthor - Journey Home
By felicity, October 5, 2009 at 9:08 am Link to this comment
The Repubicans lost the House in ‘06 because Bush had lost the confidence of the majority of the American people. If health-care reform fails, Obama will be blamed. Doesn’t it figure that in 2012 Democrats will, therefore, lose their majority in the House?
So why are some Democrats working to, literally, cut the legs out from under their president which will ultimately return them to minority status in the House? Pretty obvious that the opposing Democrats could care less about being in the majority but care a great deal about furthering their own political careers. Makes me sick.
Report thisBy Blackspeare, October 5, 2009 at 8:54 am Link to this comment
Watch out for the Baucus bill——its a Trojan Horse! It contains a zero sum provision that will take between $300-$400 billion annually from the Medicare budget——guess who’s going to pay for that——you can kiss grandma and grandpa good-bye!
Report thisBy jacksmith, October 5, 2009 at 8:40 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Why A Strong Public Option Is Essential - By jacksmith - Working Class
Robert Reich the pubic option: http://bit.ly/dDYSJ
The public option is ESSENTIAL because over 200 million of you are trapped in the forest of the wolves. Which is the forest of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! With no way out except through needless inhumane suffering, and DEATH. While the wolves tear at your flesh, and rip you limb from lib. Then feast on your lifeless bodies like a dead carcase for transplant parts.
At the most vulnerable times of your lives (when you were sick and hurting), millions of you have had to fight and loose cruel, but heroic battles. Fighting against the big guns of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! in the forest of the wolves. All because you have no place else to go. You have no other CHOICE!
But the PUBLIC OPTION will give you someplace safe to go. And it will give us someplace safe to take you. The public option will be your refugium (your refuge). Where the wolves cannot get at you when your down, hurting, and vulnerable. Where everyone who needs it can find rest, security, comfort and the care they need. Protected by the BIG GUNS of We The People Of The United States. THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE AND COUNTRY ON EARTH.
This is why it is so critical that we do not lead another 50 million vulnerable, uninsured Americans into the forest of the wolves, without the protections of a Strong Government-run public option. We The People Of The United States MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN to any more of our fellow Americans. If healthcare reform does not contain a strong public option on day one. YOU MUST! KILL IT. Or you will do far more harm than good. And millions more will die needlessly. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
To those who would continue to obstruct good and true healthcare reform for the American people, and who seek to trap millions more vulnerable Americans in the forest of the wolves. We will continue to fight you. We are prepared to wage all out war against you, and will eagerly DESTROY! you. Time…is…UP! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! No Co-op’s! No Triggers!
Healthcare reform can be the GREATEST! Accomplishment of our time and century. A time when future generations may say of us, that we were all, AMERICAS GREATEST GENERATIONS.
BUT WE MUST ACT!
I therefore call on all my fellow Americans and the peoples of the World. To join us in this fight so that we may finish becoming the better America that we aspire to be for everyone.
SPREAD THE WORD!
I have been privileged to be witness as many of you fought, and struggled to take your first breath, and your last breath on this earth. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Life is precious.
Whatever the cost. WE! MUST SUCCEED.
God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings
jacksmith - Working Class
Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk&feature=player_embedded)
Report thisBy grumpynyker, October 5, 2009 at 8:13 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
You know, I willing to sit back and let Obama/public
Report thisoption fail until the 2010/2012 elections. Then put
pressure on the new Congress/President to pass single
payer/Medicare for All.
By don knutsen, October 5, 2009 at 7:47 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
There was apparently no accountability of D. Cheney or his sock puppet Bush for 8 years. Still none, and its a given there won’t be because our system of justice is terribly broken. If our media had kept the people even somewhat informed as to what they were doing perhaps things mightv’e been different. But its only about 6 wealthy republicans ( with the exception of Turner ) who run these media monopolies that just keep spewing out drivel keeping us all dumbed down and almost entertained. There is no pressure on them to change and the gutless politicians that make up our Congress can see that there is no accountability for the outright criminal behavior of the last administration. The sheer amount of graft that continues to go on in regards to our war in Iraq, that this last administration turned a blind eye to and in fact seemed to welcome is nothing short of treason and not only is their no accountability, theres not even a mention of the wasted billions. So there is no motivation for these politicians, democrat or republican to do whats right by the american people. Now the supreme court will hear a case setting a precident for campaign contributions by corporations. This is the last straw taking away the last of the pretense that our elected representitives are doing the people’s work. That fallacy is fast evaporating right in front of us. There is little difference between the two parties. They are both in there to enrich themselves. As long as there is no accountabilty for the treasonous acts of this last administration and all of their dutiful enablers along the way, it will continue to spiral down. Do people even bother to write their congressmen ? What fire are we putting under them to do our buisness ? Hell, even our voting system has been virtually privatized in many states. Its swirling down the toilet folks and the peoples are less informed then ever as to why.
Report thisBy dude, October 5, 2009 at 7:47 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
What is the deal with this guy, he either wants and requires a public option or he doesn’t. What is this “behind the scenes” stuff. This is too big of a question to be settled behind the scene.
Man-up Barack…whether you are for it or against it, man up and defend it. It continues to make him look like a chicago insider politician.
I’m not sure anyone should trust anything he says anymore.
Report thisBy G.Anderson, October 5, 2009 at 7:27 am Link to this comment
Ok, then how about some payback for those in congress who take money from lobbyists?
What not propose legislation that severely taxes, lobby money? Not only for those who give it but those who get it as well.
Wouldn’t it be great to use the money corporations have used to try and bribe their way free of health care reform, to help fund health care for everyone?
Let’s be creative, and make it really nasty, that’s what they deserve.
Report thisBy TheRealFish, October 5, 2009 at 4:41 am Link to this comment
First, I say it’s about time we see clear “pressure” from the president on the public option. It was already a week-kneed giveaway from the starting blocks to bargain-down from Medicare-For-All before the bargaining began.
Perhaps he really has looked at polls that not only show support surviving the corporatist/skinhead onslaught of August but maybe even increasing. A heck of a lot of independents support this choice (unless the Democratic party has swelled to 2/3 of the public—which I very much doubt).
He, and the swing-state DINO reps and sens, had best be watching and heeding those polls.
Second, a language/meme nit-to-pick: “Obama has been trying to sell moderate Democrats on the idea.”
These folks are anything but “moderate.” That’s a meme perpetuated by many reporters and other pundits to make their positions have the appearance of moderation or reason.
These folks are anything BUT moderate. While it may be most accurate to call them corporatists (neither a left/right thing: We know what they are and are just haggling over the price), their behavior is like all the other uber-conservatives who oppose the will of the public for the ideology that greed and possession is far more important than the quality of life of the great unwashed masses of US citizenry.
Report thisBy ardee, October 5, 2009 at 2:49 am Link to this comment
That we read a comparison between Barack Obama and Sisyphus seems a case of crocodile tears to me. I think this article, and the White House position that our President really wants a public option, is a response to the fact that all the GOP propaganda about said option has failed to convince a majority of our electorate.
While our legislators , Democrat and Republican alike, reap the harvest of Health Care Industry money the public will never get the kind of health care a nation as large, and as wealthy, as this one deserves. All the gnashing of teeth by the White House, attempting to say that Obama is on “our” side but evil Congress thwarts his efforts falls short of being convincing.
The money for real and comprehensive reform can be found amidst the bloated military budget, the trillion spent on slaughtering Afghanis,but, in the end it isnt about the health of all Americans, its about, as it always is, profit.
Report this