I have a deep, dark secret to admit. I am a hopemonger. During the presidential primary one of the first things to sway me toward Obama (and I was on the Obama bus earlier than most, pretty much from the day the man announced his campaign) was the idea, espoused by many early Obama supporters, that the man could bring together both sides in a way Hillary Clinton could not. That Obama would be able to navigate the vicious, reef-filled, shark-infested waters of Washington in a bright, clean ship, unburdened by the accumulated decades of bilge and barnacles that would hamper the U.S.S. Clinton.
That wasn't my only reason for supporting Obama, of course. I had many. Foremost among them was that I thought he could energize the voters, especially the otherwise apathetic middle, and win the election. But the idea that Obama could lead to a more bipartisan atmosphere in Washington was certainly an early attraction.
Boy, was I wrong.
Glen Greenwald recently wrote, somewhat scathingly, but correctly, about this pie-eyed belief of some Obama supporters in a post a few days ago, in which he mentioned:
...the apparently genuine belief/hope of many Obama supporters -- alive as recently as a few months ago -- that, unlike Hillary Clinton, Obama would be a unifying figure who would cause the country to transcend its divisions and leave behind its bitter ideological disagreements (the Post-Partisan Age). I would hope that even the Truest Believer of that promise could now recognize that -- even if such an outcome were desirable -- no such thing was ever going to happen.
So, now that Max Baucus has finally announced that the Finance Committee's bill is ready to be voted on in committee -- and not a single Republican among the committee in general or even among the three in his Gang of Six (Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi and Olympia Snowe) stood by him in support -- can we finally be done with all this bipartisanship tripe?
The Republicans were never going to support a health-care reform bill. They have too much to lose. As I wrote here at HuffingtonPost back in June, the Republicans have to oppose any real health-care reform simply out of self-preservation. Not to mention that the GOP (and the Democrats to a lesser but still overwhelming degree, though that's the subject for another blog), is entirely beholden to their corporate funders. Between doing the bidding of their corporate overlords and keeping their own place at the feeding trough that is Washington, there was never any hope that the Republicans would support health-care reform.
Indeed, some of those very Republican senators in the Gang of Six showed their cards back in August's town-hell-meeting nightmare of mean-stupid depravity. As Huffingtonpost's Ryan Grim wrote in an Aug. 26 article, Enzi "told a Wyoming town hall crowd that he had no plans to compromise with Democrats and was merely trying to extract concessions." The Billings Gazette interview Grim linked to was rife with Enzi quotes like, "If I hadn't been involved in this process as long as I have and to the depth as I have, you would already have national health care."
Meanwhile, Chuck Grassley carried out the expected GOP maneuver given the idiocy of August. While still negotiating in the Gang of Six, he also demanded that Obama publicly renounce the public option to show he was serious about health-care reform, according to this interview in the Washington Post.
It was a classic bait-and-switch. The GOP claims it wants bipartisan health-care reform. Then, through astroturf organizations like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, it gins up an ill-informed, mouth-breathing backlash. Then, it acts shocked at all of this "populist" rage, and so it says that health-care reform must be scaled way back or abandoned completely. After all, it's what the people want, right?
The Democrats have to realize that this has been the plan all along. No Republican has ever negotiated in good faith on this issue, period. Indeed, Max Baucus, in his insistence on bipartisan reform, is almost entirely responsible for the brain-cell-killing month of deathers and birthers we have had to endure. Without him, we had two bills -- the Senate's HELP committee bill, and the House's tri-committee bill. Both are similar, and could have been worked out in conference after passing the HELP bill in the Senate through budget reconciliation. Both were ready to go before the August recess.
But noooooooo. Max Baucus had to have his own bill, his own "bipartisan" bill. And now, we are where we are because of Baucus' ridiculously naive notion that he could actually work with Republicans on health care, despite the fact that real health-care reform means near-permanent minority status for the GOP and a loss of untold millions for the party's well-heeled sponsors.
I'm reminded of the story of the frog and the scorpion. You're probably familiar with this. The frog agrees to take the scorpion across a stream on his back. But halfway through, the scorpion stings him. As they begin to slip beneath the waves, the frog asks, "Why did you do that? Now we'll both die!" And the scorpion answers, "I cannot help it. It is my nature."
Max Baucus, you are a toad.
But it's not too late, folks. Baucus' mistakes can still be undone. Budget reconciliation is still a possibility. Health care for each and every American is, believe it or not, still a possibility. But it will take some partisanship and some serious wheeling and dealing on Obama's part to get enough congressmen on board, something he should do while the iron is still hot -- while the Baucus bill is still being talked about as the dud it is. Otherwise, the greedheads and whorehoppers will have their way -- and they've been raping the rest of us long enough.
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I don't believe Baucus actually believed he could get bipartisan support. I think he's paying his debt after having sold his soul. I wish he would just go get a job with Big Medicine/Big Insurance and stop mucking things up! Maybe he should just marry them.
The Democrats of Montana (yes, I'm talking about all 12 of them - I used to be one) must be embarrassed! Vote him out!
That is the way Dems should frame the conversation. Dems should also point out that as a group - Republicans come from states that rank lowest in healthcare within the nation.
The cat's been out of the bag about how this is done for the longest, so the current administration must think it's useful to cater to this mindset - to preserve the status quo.
The debates are always phony because the frame of reference for arguments stays small.
The thing O's been most passionate about is college education costs. The most radical thing being proposed and that he would actually sign. It's the only place where I've seen him really go after corruption in high finance. Maybe because he can relate to that because he and his wife spent so much time paying off college loan debt.
Too bad they didn't get a subprime mortgage once.
Not that the Republicans have ever given a thought as to what might benefit Americans. I take that back. Gigantic corporations are often run by Americans and they think about them all the time.
You can't reason with an insane person, and you can't have bipartisanship if only one side is willing to play. It's time to forget that pipe dream and get down to reality.
Why is no one taking about the HELP bill?
Thanks for this post ! Like you I have been a big Obama supporter since day 1 and continue to be, however,I am sick and tired of his willingness to insist upon bipartisanship when it is obvious to anyone with a brain that there is and will never be with this group of Republicans. Too many times he is willing to give up everything to get support that just isn't there. Enough is enough. I hate to admit it but I am beginning to believe what Hilary said during the campaign...that Obama is not a fighter. He is either completely naive or overly concerned about dissatisfying the Repubs who could care less about him. I pray that he will get some backbone on SOMETHING without backing down for once...anything at this point !! Just take a position and show that you have something that you believe in enough to fight for !!
It is not. It is an economic recovery through insurance reform bill
Since the first days of the creation of the FDA and the Capitalist nature of BigPharma's creation there has never, and never will BE a true Health Care bill, until and unless we go with real full Socialism and put ALL medical R&D (what we with disabilities call REAL Health Care) under the control of the NIH and public university researchers, and fully government funded
People like Max Baucus define the reason I left that party almost a decade ago. They have forgotten that they are (or were) the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Pity.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2009/03/a-brokers-lament-we-brought-this-on-ourselves.html//
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2384993
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/21/6/195.pdf
I should hasten to note that Lamar Alexander is not alone in his ability to go solely with the political wind. Both of our major parties have a history of doing this. Now, given the recent political successes of the Democrats, the Republicans are in the lead in using the wind to express their beliefs on issues. But don't worry, eventually the Democrats will be back doing the very same thing.