President Obama has been desperate to ditch the public option for weeks. Max Baucus did the job he thought he was supposed to do -- memorialize the deals that the White House cut with health care industry stakeholders. He left it to the White House to sell it, and now they have to.
But every time they tried to jettison the public option through surrogates like Kathleen Sebelius or "senior White House officials" speaking anonymously to media outlets, the base went haywire and Obama's poll numbers started tanking.
Well, now that Baucus has delivered his stenography, gotta get the base on board with the "goody bag" of benefits -- which basically means whatever was left over after Rahm Emanuel got done auctioning off the rest to the medical industrial complex.
So the new DNC ad fires up the "base" by trying to rally them around hatred of teabaggers:
Because hatred of teabaggers will, I guess, mean that nobody notices that Obama makes no mention of a public option in the ad:
It's meant to primarily signal our most ardent supporters and the base of the Democratic Party that we are with you -- and that we need you -- to get this done and accomplish the other big things this president has set out to do," DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse said.
Well, now there's the rub. Because it turns out that 44% of Democrats strongly support health care reform with a public option, but that figure drops to 12% without one. So passing the Baucus bill means stabbing the base and destroying 2010 turnout for the midterms, which is pretty much what NAFTA did in 1994 -- when there was a 54 seat swing to the Republicans.
Thank Rahm Emanuel for that one, too.
It looks like Obama's speech in College Park, Maryland the other day on health care also served as a spectacular photo-op, allowing the DNC to flood the air waves with "fired up, ready to go!" ads supporting generic health care reform.
I think they left out one key moment of the Maryland event:
That's the one where the crowd openly boos the Baucus bill.
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There will BE no change without the public option -- which is why the insurance companies and their paid-off Republican goons want it dropped.
And...there is NO RATIONAL for supporting a plan without one. If the public option remains out of the plan, we are much better off without one that requires everyone, under threat of a fine, to buy overpriced and uncontrolled private insurance. That would simply be a handout to the insurance companies.
Why don't progressives start a *real* discussion about the viabilty of a third party? The goal: 1) get attention, scare the dems 2) really think the idea through.
The debate over whether we should stick with the Dems or start a third party ALWAYS comes up --eventually. We get screwed, we talk about a third party, we don't do it. It is such an old debate. The third party idea is usually thrown out quickly... but what we are doing isn't working, either. (I voted for Nader in 2000 ONLY because of the funding we would have gotten to start a third party if we got 5% of the vote, which we almost did.)
Is there any serious talk among "progressive leaders and thinkers" on this subject? We need a "if this happens, then we..." kind of discussion. The tension between the two camps (do we stay or do we go?) isn't going away? I think it deserves serious attention.
Obama will disappoint -- already has, big time. That is a given. The question is, how bad will he disappoint and *what will we do about it*?
How well is the strategy of reforming the Democratic party working? IS that our strategy? We have had some success. But at what point do we say "no more!" to being screwed, taken for granted, lied to, marginalized, co-opted etc? It is time to think long term. We will get no where until this always-festering debate is settled.
A must see video.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10616
These congress critters are fighting not just health reform, they fight is against Obama no matter what he wants for our country.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10616
Given his very favorable treatment of banksters - his $350M from TARP II and continued support for Bernanke's Trillions - with not the slightest move to constrain the bankers, I'm very disappointed.
Now, he and Democratic congress have created a "huge ****job for the healthcare industry."
I was mislead. I wanted a POTUS that would fight for the people - Change I can believe in. Not a POTUS that fights for big corporations.
And what happened to Obama taking questions at these townhalls?
The speech seems merely a way for Obama to try to sell himself by telling an amusing story (that same old "Fired up, ready to go" story again). What's the point of this? There is no plan that's "ready to go"; nothing to get "fired up" about. Is Obama the intermission act that's supposed to keep us from ripping up the seats?
Obama's given this same speech, televised now for the fifth time, without taking any questions from the crowd, much less those "hard questions". It's one thing for Obama not to take questions from rightwing fringe groups, but why isn't he taking questions from Democratic voters? Or university students?
Come to think of it, why was he giving that speech at a university in the White House's backyard? Was it to use the students at the University of Maryland as a backdrop for his rally. How is that any different than Bush using the troops on the USS Abraham Lincoln for his "Mission Accomplished" photo-op?
Why won't Obama face legitimate questions from journalists on the left and answer seering questions?
I'd like to see Obama and other Democrats in office face a panel with Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Matt Taibbi, Ezra Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Rachel Maddow, Thom Hartmann, Glen Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, and a few others.
The problem with Obama's "public option":
Obama says that he won't sign a bill with a public option that isn't self-sustaining (paid for completely by those people in it).
If people get to pick and choose what plan they join, then the most impoverished and sickest people will pick the public option because it will cost them the least amount of money.
If that happens, then that option will not be self-sustaining.
Any insurance plan that draws an ever-increasing percentage of its membership from the very sick finds itself in a de@th spiral. It cannot sustain its expenses through membership fees.
And that's where Obama's being a we@sel. He's lawyer-speaking, saying things that mean something else entirely than what the People think he means.
Watch!
Democrats will turn out. Groups like move on and others will show ads
demonstrating the BLUE DOGS agenda and funding.
Registration drive havent stopped.
Politicians in bed with the insurance industry, satisfying their financial needs at our expense, are fraudulent and must be replaced.
A vote against the public option is a vote against you.