Media reports and insider buzz make it increasingly clear that key people at the White House have become obsessed with Olympia Snowe on health care, and are willing to do pretty much whatever she demands in order to get her on board. The price is looking more and more like this incredibly bad trigger proposal she has been pushing, a trigger that quite literally is written to automatically never trigger a public option. You see, Senator Snowe is writing language into an amendment that is literally a Catch-22. The legislative language says that a public option will be set up in a state in which health care is not affordable to 95% of the state's residents, but it defines affordability as after the new tax credits that are written into the bill to make health care affordable. Not only would this be an incredibly weak public option (doing it in one state will mean it can't get the market power to compete with the big insurers), but it would be a public option that is written by its definition to never be triggered. This is a trigger specifically, intentionally designed to kill the public option.
Some senior White House staffers are now beginning to try to sell this trigger to progressive groups as the compromise version of a public option, saying the White House doesn't want to have a floor fight in the Senate, and that they can always fix it in conference committee. That way they can pick up Snowe, satisfy that desperate urge for being officially bipartisan (even though Snowe can't bring a single other Republican with her), and not have to worry about procedural hassles in the Senate. But by finally winning Snowe over, the White House is risking something far more politically dangerous: an ugly fight within the Democratic Party, further erosion of Obama's standing with his base, the specter of more primary fights.
The AFL-CIO, Howard Dean and Democracy for America, bloggers, MoveOn.org, progressive media figures, and the tens of thousands of people coming to Obama rallies and cheering wildly for a public option will figure out quickly that this trigger proposal is a farce specifically written to kill any chance of a public option. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus already are angry at having legal immigrants thrown under the bus by Baucus, all will explode.
As someone who spends every single day working hard to build and strengthen the bridge between the progressive community and the White House, I feel like the White House is triggering a bomb to blow the bridge up from under me (pun fully intended).
This trigger will never trigger a public option, but I can tell you what it will trigger: a civil war inside the Democratic Party just when you most need unity to pass health care reform. I am convinced that there are deals that can be struck that will bring progressive and moderate Democrats, House and Senate Democrats together on a good strong health care bill that will pass. But a trigger designed to never trigger isn't even close to being one of them.
Fix it with whom? Senator Bunning of Kentucky? Old Man Grassley of Iowa? Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas? LOL LOL LOL
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/triggering-a-democratic-c_b_295954.htmlou've already lost in some committee later on
Survey and chat and apportion and chat and cull lists and chat and end in accomplishing nothing.
The more I see of committees, the more convinced I am that the only thing a committee can organize is a catastrophe!
Yeah. At this point its a bit weird for anyone who is paying attention to think Obama is anything but a corporate shill.
I've given up on Obama. We need to start finding a replacement and ways to limit the damage he is doing. Healthcare reform without reform will be a boondogle.
Maybe Obama is a traitor after all ? He sure is helping Sarah Palin
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/triggering-a-democratic-c_b_295954.html
We have already started the war via a first strike, we knew that Snowe was Rahm's secret weapon to kill the PO while keeping the Dems hands blood free.
That is why WE raised 72K in the last 48 hours to run ads against Rahm's favorite Republican:
http://www.healthcarecantwait.com/
Folks, if you agree, please try and donate 10$ or more, the ads against snowe are running this weekend, if you want to prevent the "civil" war please donate.
The ad will run in Maine and DC all weekend long.
Here is the ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZo3dtDp1qM
Fire Rahm - dismantle the DLC
Give it up Mike. Obama has made it abundantly clear that the progressive community will not influence policy no matter how much they influence elections. I respectfully suggest that you decide which side you are on. You are building a bridge to nowhere.
I've given up on Obama. We need to start finding a replacement and ways to limit the damage he is doing. Healthcare reform without reform will be a boondogle.
THEN, we'll talk
~Progress voters having bigtime buyers remorse~
"Members said [Emanuel] had a phenomenal knowledge of their districts, and he kept up to date well after the campaign ended. Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) said one of his supporters wrote a letter to the editor of a small paper in his district, complaining about his vote on a rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Walz mentioned the letter to the editor to Emanuel on the floor and was stunned by his response.
'You mean the one about how you should caucus with the Republicans?' Emanuel shot back. 'That's a good letter. Makes you look bipartisan.'"
I believe they want this "ugly fight." Even if it means sabotaging the HC legislation... It would save them the lobbyist dough, and, above all, make them LOOK bipartisan. As far as Health Care and politics goes, Billy Crystal nailed it: "It's not how you feel, it's how you look!" And Rahm has decided, bipartisan looks simply mahvelous!
And this article is right, if the Dems. keep doing this, their might be some civil strife amongst the progressives.
This 54 year-old Progressive is ready for the fight. The last time my party did anything for ordinary people, I was 10 years-old.
Bend over folks.
You better beg that this bill dies on the steps of the capitol.
Do you realize the mandates would start IMMEDIATELY, but the regulations (if any) for the insurance industry won't kick in for about 4 years?
I wish I could get 4 years to pillage communities for all they've got.