Rattlesnakes, Progressive Bluffing and The Public Option
Baby rattlesnakes kill faster than their adult counterparts.
The little guys release all their venom in a single bite, while adult snakes use a small dose initially, having learned it's best to save lethal attacks for the end of a fight.
In Washington, the oldest snakes in the health care debate finally emerged this week. After months of dithering and slithering, the insurance industry is going in for the kill.
In the industry's new "frontal assault" on reform, as The Washington Post dubbed the effort, politicians must now counter more negative ads and voters have to slog through another round of specious fear-mongering.
While the days of "death panels" and "illegals" have passed, the crude code words are giving way to a decidedly highbrow misinformation campaign.
The new industry-backed health care report -- which marks a final, official rejection of President Barack Obama's conciliatory industry stance -- runs 19 pages with 17 charts and 22 footnotes.
It warns that insurers could jack up premiums by 111 percent -- a prospect that should actually drive people toward stronger reform proposals, as Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) noted Monday.
It overshoots the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office cost estimates by $7,000 per person -- with a quirky methodology that was swiftly panned by The New Republic and The Washington Post.
The report was written to confuse, not convince. And it reveals an important shift as the health care fight enters this lethal homestretch.
"The insurance industry is getting scared," concluded health policy expert Ezra Klein, in response to the report's release. The insurance industry spent months presenting an aura of "quiet constructiveness," he noted, only to launch a sudden "broadside" that rocked the Senate Finance Committee and "shocked" the administration. Couple that with how Obama aides were "shocked" by progressives' demand for a public option, and you might wonder what's wrong with the political thermometer at the White House.
Those two surprises are strategically similar, by the way. Both camps say they will thwart legislation that fails to meet their conditions.
The difference, of course, is that Washington knows the insurance industry is serious about obstruction. (Many observers were counting on it before the industry went negative.)
The Congressional Progressive Caucus, by contrast, loudly pledged to oppose any bill without a public option, but its resolve remains an open question.
"The weakness of progressives among House Democrats," observed David Waldman, a former congressional aide and liberal writer, "has always been that their threats are not viewed as credible."
Waldman cheered progressive members for shifting that perception "by insisting that no bill without a serious public option can get their vote." If the House does force a public option bill into conference negotiations, he argues, then the political pressure shifts to (more conservative) senators. They would have to choose between compromise and killing the entire proposal.
Darcy Burner, who has been huddling with members of Congress as head of the newly minted ProgressiveCongress.org, stresses that the liberal wing is "not bluffing" this time. "We don't have to bluff. Health care reform can't pass the House without progressive votes, and we are fighting for a [public option] policy that is supported by an overwhelming majority of the American public," Darcy said in an interview.
That promise was reinforced by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Progressive Caucus co-chairman, who says the caucus will not "blink" or "roll over" in this standoff. Last week, Grijalva joined five members of Congress in a private Hill summit convened by Burner's team for more than 30 organizations, including an alliance of faith and minority groups that have often felt sidelined in Washington's health care policymaking.
Once you aggregate all these countervailing threats, it's hard to understand Washington's conventional wisdom that "moderate" members of Congress are the only ones holding the cards to scuttle reform. The insurance lobby fills that bill now, too -- whether you already knew it or had to be shocked and awed into the realization this week. So does the Progressive Caucus, which insists it will never opt in to a public option that is merely opt-in.
The dispositive question is whether progressives' bark is worse than their bite. In Washington, of course, the bite is always most important. Just ask the snakes.
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This column is from Politico. Ari Melber Twitters news and politics at Twitter.com/AriMelber
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HR676...HR
but there is no payoff money in it, no place for bribes to "our representatives" .. who it seems are only interested in whoever can line their pockets the most. I am really sick about all the corruption and collusion and bribery and lying from our elected representa
Why is it none of our politicians have the strength or integrity to stand up for what's right any longer? The attempt by the insurance companies to scare or worse, blackmail the country is totally unacceptable and should be responded to quickly and severely, yet barely a word from our glorious representatives. Disgusting - Nero fiddles while Rome burns. Are we that far gone?
Why the rhetorical questions?
You already know the answer.
They've been bought and paid for.
The ability of executives of corporations to act on behalf of corporations - given fictional people as defined by the Supreme Court - to spend vast sums of money to "influence" legislation so that it improves their personal wealth (not society's) is now clearly well known. Until Congress puts limits on corporations, this will continue.
The fantasy that normal shareholders actually have control through the Board is laughable - since most corporations have no majority shareholders, the Executives pick the Board most likely to support whatever decision they wish.
More importantly, Politicians benefit greatly from the donations and gifts from these corporations.
Congressperson Grayson from Orlando Fl does.
Their family and friends are working in the insurance industry and they expect to get jobs there when they leave congress . The goose that lays the golden envelopes will not be harmed .
The new translation of the preamble to our Constitution:
We the corporations of the United States, in order to form a more
profitable union, enrich just us, insure domestic subservience,
provide for corporate defense, promote corporate welfare, and
secure the blessings of free markets to ourselves and our posterity,
do fund and control this Constitution for the DisUnited States of America.
As written by the health care-deniers insurance corporations, big oil and
energy producers and Wall Street and financial institutions.
Proposed changes to the Constitution by the Obama administration, right?
The only proposal they've made so far?
I mean, they can't seem to get their act together to control bad banker behavior or lead on healthcare. This would seem to reflect the Obama position.
"Liberals" in congress don't really have a choice but to torpedo any thing that doesn't have a public option. Let's put it this way, if "progressives" vote for a bill that does not have a public option, then Liberal voters like me stay home next election day.......
You betcha. Failure to take on the health insurance monster by presenting a public option plan to directly combat their tendencies toward profit making instead of providing care will destroy support for Democrats. Many will bolt the party and it will be a long, long time before they convince us to return.
Insurance companies are the "death panels". If the Democrats can't stop them now, with the numbers and support we voters have given them, the F**K 'EM!
The Progressive Caucus will not back down!
Progressives control the agenda in Congress.
Either the Blue Dogs and Centrists submit to our just demands on the behalf of the overwhelming majority, or they must kill the bill for their plutocratic corporate masters, and stand naked and helpless in the electoral bloodbath of 2010.
I don't think the conventional wisdom is that "moderates" are the only ones with the power to determine reform's path (how moderate is it to potentially threaten to blow up reform rather than institute competition for insurers?). Rather it is that they are the only ones willing to wield that power. Until very recently, that has been an objectively true assessment -- that's why it's conventional.
The shift in conventional wisdom is occurring as Congressional representatives start to reflect the will of the people who elect them, instead of exclusively following the money that flows to influence those voters. Funny how that works! This is why arguments about how to make an effective --dare I say, moral -- government always come down to the question of campaign finance reform. The strategic question of when to bring forward such reform is a tough one, for which I lack a good answer. Is it better to try it first off the bat, then in the likely case of a failure suffer through a weakened administration? Or to suffer a major policy failure (as could still happen with health care and/or financial regulation) to galvanize public interest, at the cost of real good for our citizens? Will the mere risk of these reform efforts failing be enough to drive attention and votes for change in campaign financing? Is there another way, that doesn't risk catastrophe on the road to success?
Galvanizing public opinion in the interest of pursuing an authentic, durable long term solution to the problems of health care and financial reform, even at the risk of blocking the passage of any reform bills the first time around, sounds much better than watered down proposals that will increase the perceptions that Democrats are incapable of doing anything other than appeasing Washington's influence peddlars. Hold the line, in other words, and suck up the short term costs in the interest of realizing long term benefits that will really matter.
Wrath of Khan morality; love it! Seriously, though, the short term costs are almost entirely individual -- legislators perceive themselves, some truthfully and some not, as putting their careers at risk if they vote for what we all know to be right. The long term benefits apply to a much vaster pool of interests, and last longer to boot, so they should clearly be weighted more strongly than they usually are in these decision processes. (I'm not denying the existence of long-term costs, but I do think their mere presence is insufficient argument against enacting laws that will create long-term benefits as well. There's a legitimate debate on how much budget impact would be appropriate, but that's exactly what we're not having right now.)
Well, the health insurers are rattlesnakes and have slithered too closely into the residences of Americans, so we should do what anyone would do to a dealy snake invading one's space, cut their heads off.
They MUST have progressives to pass this bill.
Our position is as strong as any other, and I would not make the mistake of underestimating the progressives. At least not this time around.
This needs a good editor.
At the start, we are talking about rattlesnake bites. And at the end, whether the bark is worse than the bite. Rattlesnakes don't bark, they rattle. Ari should have had a coffee break and a second edit before publishing, and this probably would have been corrected.
This also needs a good fact checker: the analogy of the baby rattlesnake bite being worse than the adult rattlesnake bite is true; the analogy fails on the reason. It is not because baby rattlesnakes inject more venom, being young and immature, but that their venom has more neurotoxic components as opposed to hemotoxic elements, so that they can use less venom than adult rattlesnakes to kill, not more.
You see, a good analogy makes sense all the way through. I'm sure the factual account of rattlesnake venom could be used in a good analogy, even replacing the analogy given here.
Yes--snakes are a good analogy. The insurance industry has ripped off Americans long enough. There have been several situations where insurance denies coverage for the smallest technicality. Bring on at least the public option, if not the single payer.
There have been thousands of documented instance where insurance have denied coverage based on a technicality. They have people who hunt for those details for the express purpose of denying coverage. The snakes need to be chopped apart.
Interesting that more folks from Maine support the public option than oppose it.
And that is why Snowe voted for reform instead of against it. Instead of kissing her ss the president shld be daring her to vote with the repubs on this issue. If Senator Reid allows a silent filibuster to cover conservative democrats who want to blck a public option then we need to work hard to defeat him next year. Even if we have to send his republican opponent some cash. If Harry cant get it done we need to get him out of the leadership position.
She saw the handwriting on the wall and hopes that by supporting this half-hearted plan, she will be able to retain her seat. Personally, I want a progressive to replace she and Collins, but then I want all the Republicans replaced.
Half-baked legislation is a sorry answer by the super majority Democrats to this historic moment, not least because a mandate will be implemented no matter what, but it remains to be seen if real reform that facilitates coverage and reform of cost, public option, is seriously supported. Across America a Medicare plus type public option is seriously supported. If the Progressive are given a Hobson's choice of public-opt
This voter would like to be spared a nightmare with the government on one side hounding and the insurance companies on the other forcing a faulty - if not fraudulent - product.
Harry Reid is looking for 60 votes for his bill in all the wrong places. Baucus can't even count to 60.
President Snow will not be able to vote on her own bill, because by the time they are finished with it. She won't even recognize it. This baby has to go to reconciliation to have a chance and Obama knows that.
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Let our Congressional leaders clearly understand that lack of a condition-free Public Option in any successful Health Care Reform legislation will have negative consequences in the upcoming election.
Health Care Reform is MEANINGLESS without a strong condition-free PUBLIC OPTION, with clear unrestricted path to SINGLE PAYER.
A Public Option must be administered by the Federal Government.
A Public Option must be available to anyone who wants it, starting Jan 1, 2010.
A Public Option must be available to anyone, irrespective of Pre-Existing Conditions
A Public Option must be available to anyone at affordable rates.
A Public Option must be available to anyone whether employed or not.
A Public Option must be available to anyone whether his/her employer offers it or not.
A Public Option must NOT have any conditions placed on it by any private or for-profit entities.
A Public Option must NOT restrict anyone from opting in or out of it.
A Public Option must NOT be restricted from evolving into Single Payer.
A Public Option, and ultimately Single Payer, must be fully financed from federal taxes.
A Public Option must be made mandatory for ALL government employees, including Congress.
Don't bother to pass anything that does not have A CLEAR CONDITION-FREE PUBLIC OPTION.
~~~~~~IT'S WHAT WE WANT ~~~~ IT'S WHAT WE NEED ~~~~ IT'S WHAT WE CAN AFFORD~~~~~
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Let's hope that Obama has the instinct of a baby snake and when it counts uses his bite for a robust public plan. This boils down to American health vs. Insurance Co Wealth. We are tired of making sure the powerful special interests keep their profits and status quo while Americans die with and without insurance. The fact that most bankrupcies are due to medical bills and a large percentage HAD/ HAVE insurance should be enough to demand change. Insurance companies add no value to the system. Why do they have so much say.? This issue should be negotiated by caregivers and patients. Insurance companies just make a huge profit and do NOTHING to keep you healthy. Completely unnecessary.
The fix is in. The Public Option is the target of the new Health Insurance industry attack ads. You have to see it from their point of view. If they get a Baucus type bill, they win the brass ring. They get to keep their enormous profits, corral millions of captive customers, and with a feint to try and do better about costs, keep paying themselves huge compensation packages and remain the darling of Wall Street with their 30 point profits. In addition they get to retain their pre-eminent place as America's most profitable monopolistic cartel.
If a public option enters the arena, there's a possibility that the party might be over. If health becomes about delivering health rather than using people to gin money in a Wall Street perpetuated extortion racket, actual reform may become possible.
Thus enters the born again Republicans like Snowe and Collins. They hold out hope for Obama's wet dream, which is the bipartisan bill no matter if it stinks or not. They say, "Yes we'll play if you'll just dump the public option." Harry Reid says he can't get 60 votes to break a filibuster without dumping the option, everybody acquiesces and the health insurance companies win and laugh all the way to the bank.
Words of insight and wisdom
The lines in the sand are drawn and now it is time to see who crosses it. If the dems pass a bill without a robust public option then it is up to us progressives to make sure there are some dissapointed democrats in 2010. If the dems cant lead with a super majority then perhaps they dont deserve being the majority. It is obvious they dont believe the progressives will let them lose.
Do you not understand why most Americans oppose the proposed government health-care?
Let me list the reasons I oppose it:
1. The government has no money.
2. The government generates no revenue.
3. Government health-care will be insolvent (proven by Medicare).
4. We will all be forced to pay for it whether we use it or not (this is extortion).
5. As the cost increases, as it will, it will become too much of a financial burden for people to pay for the government plan and use a private policy.
6. Everyone will switch to the government plan.
7. Private insurance will become a distant memory.
8. Government health-care is now the only option.
9. Costs and Taxes increase continually.
10. Eventually we all bring home none of our pay, live in subsidized housing and thus become slaves.
Considering the insolvency of social security and Medicare combined with the fact that the government generates no revenue, why do you believe that universal health-care will be solvent?
Read my profile for more words of logic and wisdom.
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