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By Sheldon S. Wolin
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By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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Flickr / a4gpa
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Germany is one of the world’s great welfare states, but the country’s health care system isn’t strictly socialist. Nonetheless, lots of options, tight regulation and universal coverage are helping Germans live longer than Americans. Might the German example offer a way out of America’s health care struggles?
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AP / Jae C. Hong
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By Bill Boyarsky — One way to give people a good deal on their health care is the so-called public option. A better way is the kind of strong regulation that isn’t even being discussed.
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Nevada Sen. John Ensign’s recent infidelity scandal lurks in the background of an ad for the public option running in parts of his home state this week, courtesy of the progressive coalition Health Care for America Now! The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder notes that the coalition has paid $100,000 to run the ad for a week to point out Ensign’s financial entanglements with the health care industry.
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White House / Pete Souza
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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.
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By Marie Cocco — The Senate Finance Committee’s health care debate has given Michael Moore hours of footage for his next cinematic assault on the system.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The strangest aspect of the debate over a public option for health coverage is that the centrists who oppose it should actually love it.
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AP / Susan Walsh
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and his merry band of legislators on Tuesday nixed an amendment proposing that a government-backed “public option” be included in Baucus’ contested health care reform plan, using the argument that the public option addition would further diminish the bill’s chances of passing.
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Those poor, beleaguered health insurance honchos would be totally out to sea without the help of Hollywood’s best and brightest—Jon Hamm, Will Ferrell and Olivia Wilde among them—to launch a dinghy of hope their way in the form of this timely PSA. Down with the public option!
Posted on Sep 22, 2009
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stateofthedivision.blogspot.com
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After receiving a less-than-spectacular reception from his congressional colleagues for his health care reform bill last week, Sen. Max Baucus is going back to the drawing board to work on some big changes in an effort to win more of his aforementioned peers to his side. Meanwhile, Sen. Olympia Snowe remains undeclared about his first draft.
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This just in from President Obama: Being rude is the easiest way to get airtime. Well, at least that’s his take on the lows to which public discourse has sunk of late, especially concerning the keenly contentious issue that is health care reform.
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Bill O’Reilly says of the very public option that makes his Foxy friends’ heads explode: “I want that. ... [I]f the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.” Quick, look out your window to see the flying pigs.
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finance.senate.gov
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Sen. Max Baucus bent over backward to please Republicans with his insurance-friendly vision of health care reform, which forces everyone to buy private insurance and has no public option, but the very Republicans he negotiated with now won’t have anything to do with the bill.
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By David Sirota — The “trigger mechanism” is gaining momentum after President Obama’s speech to Congress. Once again, lawmakers turn to legislative subterfuge to kill popular common-sense reform.
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White House / Pete Souza
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Remember President Obama’s reference during his health care address to “Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations”? Well, those expectations were apparently met by that same address. Insurance company stocks got a boost from the speech, which foreshadowed the death of the public option and promised to deliver millions of currently “irresponsible” customers.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By Bill Boyarsky — President Barack Obama’s health care reform speech to Congress Wednesday night was impassioned, but it also echoed a lot of ideas from insurance company lobbying.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — By joining specifics, a powerful moral argument and an unapologetic defense of government’s role in promoting social justice, the president sought to rescue the health care debate from the mire of a congressional system that has encouraged delay and obstruction.
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Listening to the president’s speech Wednesday night was at times riveting, at times like listening to an insurance salesman. He gave a strong defense of the public option, but also indicated he would settle for whatever he could get.
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house.gov
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Rep. Mike Ross, head of the House Blue Dogs, says he can no longer abide a deal he made with White House chief of staff (and Blue Dog patron saint?) Rahm Emanuel. Ross’ vision of the public option already made liberals queasy, but now the Arkansas Democrat says even that version is too much.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By Eugene Robinson — Politicians love to run to the center, but it would be a mistake for the president or the Democratic leadership in Congress to underestimate the passion for health care reform among their party’s activist base.
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senate.gov
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After months of tedious wheeling and dealing (mostly dealing), Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has finally unveiled his compromise health care proposal. To no one’s surprise, Baucus, who has raised millions from the health industry, has axed the public option in favor of nonprofit cooperatives.
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ABC
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The White House is about to relaunch its health reform campaign and some, including Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, are hopeful that the president will “more aggressively fight for a strong health reform bill with a strong public option.” Behind the scenes, however, his staff may be looking for the best way to kill it.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — President Obama can still secure major health care legislation this year if he learns from his mistakes in recent months and spends more time reminding Americans why they were once eager for fundamental change.
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By Marie Cocco — The summer of disinformation seems to have accomplished its goal: to preserve for the private insurance industry an effective monopoly over how much most Americans pay for health care, and on what terms they can buy it.
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Flickr / Elizabeth Washburn
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By T.L. Caswell — Constituents’ pressure on a fractious Congress is likely to be the only thing that can win the day for an effective overhaul of the health care system.
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Was Thursday’s election in Afghanistan a step forward for representative democracy in the South Asian nation? What exactly does President Obama aim to accomplish in Afghanistan anyhow? This week’s lineup of commentators explores the possible connections between the CIA and Blackwater and considers the current status of the health care debate.
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By Eugene Robinson — Here’s the least surprising news of the week: Americans are souring on the Democratic Party. The wonder is that it’s taken so long for public opinion to curdle.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By Joe Conason — Every mistake made by the Obama White House in the pursuit of health care reform can be traced to the political style and ideological prejudices of Rahm Emanuel, who has repeatedly sought to intimidate progressives and empower conservatives.
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green-rainbow.org
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By Laura S. Boylan, M.D., and Joanne Landy, M.P.H. —
Single-payer advocates have been excluded from debate not because our premises or facts are wrong but because special interests, including the private health insurance industry and the big drug companies, have been allowed to define the limits of “politically feasible.”
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Although news wires buzzed Monday with reports that President Obama had changed his tune when it came to pushing for the government to make a public health care option available to give private insurance companies competition, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs begged to differ during a press conference Tuesday.
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White House / Pete Souza
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Press secretary Robert Gibbs called the media’s determination that the president had abandoned the public option “one of the more curious things I’ve ever seen in my life.” Is this a case of spin or spine? Read Gibbs’ entertaining back-and-forth with reporters (full text after the jump) and come to your own conclusion.
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By Marie Cocco — Red-faced people are now hurling the same falsehoods at the nonexistent Obama plan that they hurled at Clinton’s plan—and Harry Truman’s national health insurance proposal, and Lyndon Johnson’s Medicare.
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By Eugene Robinson — It’s true that politics is the art of the possible, but it’s also true that great leaders expand the scope of possibility.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By T.L. Caswell — Obama, under political pressure, has softened his call for that element of health care reform, and a Congress awash in industry money is likely to be all too happy to bid it adieu.
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Reports that President Obama may change his position on his proposal to set up a system of government health care insurance for Americans under 65 caused ripples, mostly on the left, and critics continued to clamor Monday for an alternative to private insurance companies.
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White House / Pete Souza
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We keep hearing that the president can’t get his health care reform without the support of conservative Democrats in the Senate, but he also can’t pass anything without progressives in the House, who are none too happy with the administration’s hints that a public option could be dead.
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By Joshua Holland, AlterNet —
Forget the fearmongering scare tactics of the right, here’s how your life will actually be better.
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White House / Pete Souza
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The president and his lieutenants are on a whistle-stop tour of disappointment. It started Saturday, when Obama called the public insurance option “just one sliver of” health care reform, “whether we have it or we don’t have it. ... ” You don’t have to be clairvoyant to see the cave coming.
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The Nation’s Ari Melber has some ideas about how the president can turn around his slipping poll numbers. First and foremost: Take charge and fight for the public option.
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Media Matters caught CNN’s Erica Hill asking, “What are the real proposals here for public insurance? And why is it so unpopular?” Not sure where she gets her info, since polls here, here, here, here, here and here say a majority of Americans like the idea.
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Michael Snider, a small business owner from Nebraska, stars in a pro-public option ad currently running in opposition to the stand of “conservaDem” Sen. Ben Nelson on health care reform. Snider tells Rachel Maddow that Nelson called him about the ad, but didn’t change his mind.
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Sitting in for Keith Olbermann, an unusually stiff Howard Dean picks the brain of a former health insurance foot soldier about the government’s reform plans.
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finance.senate.gov
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Looks like the insurance companies are getting what they’ve paid for in the U.S. Congress. The Senate Finance Committee is closer to a deal with Republicans, which means no public health care option. The Blue Dogs, meanwhile, are still nipping at the heels of House Democrats.
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Jon Stewart interviews Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on health care reform. She’s pushing for a public health care option and looking to change this “unsustainable, unconscionable, unacceptable ” system. Check out this clip from last night’s “Daily Show.”
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speaker.gov
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Nancy Pelosi and her fellow progressive Democrats in the House have opened a can of health care whoop-ass that’s sure to drive Republicans and conservative Democrats nuts. The House bill, unveiled Tuesday, would tax the rich and businesses that skimp on health care coverage, provide a public option and require everybody to be covered.
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The progressive Democrats in Congress have had just about enough of all this bipartisanship, especially if it means scrapping a public health care plan. Rahm Emanuel recanted his hint of compromise to a room full of hopping-mad House liberals Tuesday night. Earlier, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made it clear that losing a public option was a deal-breaker for 10 to 15 Senate Democrats.
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White House / Pete Souza
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Rahm Emanuel may think his boss is open to alternatives, but the president released a statement Tuesday reaffirming his support for government-run health care. A separate e-mail from Obama’s permanent campaign, Organizing for America, urged supporters to write their local newspapers and lobby for health care reform that includes “the choice of a robust public insurance option.”
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Flickr / Paul Keleher
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President Obama and most Democrats see a government-run health plan that competes with private insurers as vital to real health care reform, but a veto- and filibuster-proof majority just ain’t what it used to be. In the face of a massive lobbying effort, the White House has indicated a willingness to shelve the public option.
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Collage from Fox and James Montgomery Flagg
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Health care reform is shaping up as astronomically expensive, but that’s only if private insurers and Big Pharma get their way, writes Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Without competition from the government—a public option—the health care industry will continue to gouge and Americans will still be in the weeds, a trillion dollars poorer.
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