For months I've been reporting in The Huffington Post that President Obama made a backroom deal last summer with the for-profit hospital lobby that he would make sure there would be no national public option in the final health reform legislation. (See here, here and here). I've been increasingly frustrated that except for an initial story last August in the New York Times, no major media outlet has picked up this important story and investigated further.
Hopefully, that's changing. On Monday, Ed Shultz interviewed New York Times Washington reporter David Kirkpatrick on his MSNBC TV show, and Kirkpatrick confirmed the existence of the deal. Shultz quoted Chip Kahn, chief lobbyist for the for-profit hospital industry on Kahn's confidence that the White House would honor the no public option deal, and Kirkpatrick responded:
"That's a lobbyist for the hospital industry and he's talking about the hospital industry's specific deal with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee and, yeah, I think the hospital industry's got a deal here. There really were only two deals, meaning quid pro quo handshake deals on both sides, one with the hospitals and the other with the drug industry. And I think what you're interested in is that in the background of these deals was the presumption, shared on behalf of the lobbyists on the one side and the White House on the other, that the public option was not going to be in the final product."
Kirkpatrick also reported in his original New York Times article that White House was standing behind the deal with the for-profit hospitals: "Not to worry, Jim Messina, the deputy White House chief of staff, told the hospital lobbyists, according to White House officials and lobbyists briefed on the call. The White House was standing behind the deal".
This should be big news. Even while President Obama was saying that he thought a public option was a good idea and encouraging supporters to believe his healthcare plan would include one, he had promised for-profit hospital lobbyists that there would be no public option in the final bill.
The media should be digging deeper into this story. Washington reporters should be asking Robert Gibbs if President Obama is still honoring this deal. They should be calling Jim Messina and hospital lobbyist Chip Kahn to confirm the specifics of the deal. They should be asking Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leaders Dick Durbin and Harry Reid the extent of their knowledge of this deal. They should be asking Pelosi if the reason she's refusing to include a public option in the House reconciliation bill to be sent to the Senate is that there are at least 51 Senate Democrats who would vote for it and she needs to insure that a final bill with a public option does not end up on President Obama's desk where he would then have to break his deal with the hospital lobbyists and sign it, or veto it to honor his deal.
More deeply, there are serious questions about the extent to which Obama, with the help of Rahm Emanuel, used a K Street strategy to pursue health care reform. The strategy seems to have been to make backroom deals to protect the interests of the likes of the drug industry and the for-profit hospital industry in exchange for campaign cash, even if this meant reversing campaign promises to include a public option to put competitive pressure on private insurance premiums, and to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices and Americans to buy cheaper drugs from Canada. The result is a health care bill that is generally unpopular with voters. Questions need to be asked, too, about the extent to which the White House is following a similar K Street strategy with Wall Street financiers when it comes to shaping financial reform and new regulations to rein in the banks who brought the economy to its knees.
Voters viscerally sense that the White House and Congressional Democrats may be as concerned with protecting special interests -- whether it's drug companies, private hospitals, or Wall Street bank -- than they are with protecting the people, and this is feeding a populist backlash against Democrats that resulted in Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts and is making a Democratic bloodbath in the fall elections increasingly likely.
Polls indicate that about 60% of voters support a public option while only about 1/3 support the overall Democratic healthcare bill. There still time -- very little time -- for Democrats to shift course and include a public option in the final bill, even if it means going back on the White House's backroom deal with the hospital industry. If the media picks up on this story, perhaps the White House and Congressional Democrats can be embarrassed into changing course. If, on the other hand, Democrats continue to honor these special interest deals, then passing an unpopular health care bill may just be walking into a Republican trap.
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RESPONSE TO COMMENTS: Whenever I write blogs which are critical of Obama and Congressional Democrats for making corporatist deals, I get numerous comments from people who believe they are progressive but say they will never vote for Obama or Democrats again, that they will stay home at the next election, or that they will vote for small third parties who have no chance of winning. It's not my intent to encourage those views. Do people making these comments really think bringing Republicans back to power would make things better?
My goal is to shine a light on these backroom deals in order to embarrass Obama and Congressional Democrats to put the interests of the voters over the interests of special interests so that Republicans can't play at being faux populists and use that to take back Congress in order to enact even worse corporatist policies.
Progressives need to have a sophisticated and nuanced relationship with elected Democrats. After the 2008 elections, too many progressive organizations demobilized believing their job was simply to take orders from the White House to support Obama's agenda, whatever it was. That was a mistake. It's equally a mistake for progressives to overreact in the opposite direction and think they can abandon electoral politics and do nothing to prevent the Republicans from regaining power. What's needed is a powerful grassroots progressive movement to force elected officials to do the right thing more often and to counter-balance the power of big money in politics. The periods of progressive change in American politics, like the Progressive Era, The New Deal, and the Great Society, have come when strong progressive movements have forced elites and elected officials to enact somewhat progressive legislation.
Back in June, 2008, I wrote a blog entitled "Obama Will Break Our Hearts--But Progressives Need to Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time" in which I argued that progressives needed to both elect Obama and create a strong grassroots movement or pressure him.
More recently, I wrote a blog entitled "The Democrats' Authoritarian Health 'Reform' Bill and the Ascendency of Corporatism in the Democratic Party" in which I critiqued Obama's Clintonian New Democratic corporatist ideology of trying to use subsidized private sector entities to achieve supposedly "progressive" policy results, thus promoting a corporate takeover of the public sector. I explained why, in my view, this is likely to lead to failure both in bringing meaningful progressive change, and in creating a politics that can keep Democrats in power.
I will continue to write the truth, as I see it, and to criticize Obama and corporatist Democrats when I think they're wrong. But my goal is to create greater understanding and progressive mobilization, not to discourage readers or lead them to give up and stay home.
Norman Solomon: Zero Public Option + One Mandate = Disaster
Not long ago, the most prominent supporters of the public option were touting it as essential for health care reform. Now, suddenly, it's incidental; its supporters are no longer principled -- they're pernicious.
Paul Hogarth: Did Obama Kill the Public Option in July?
We know the White House cut a deal with hospitals and insurance companies last July on prescription drugs -- but as a New York Times reporter said this week, they also killed the public option.
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Besides, putting the Republican
I have been a voting Democrat my whole life. Never again. Never. The Democratic Party is now clearly a tool of corporate America. This HCR bill is a corporate giveaway. This is NOT progressiv
I think that you and many others will agree with me once you see the coming 'reform' that we get for Wall Street. I can guarantee that it will result in costs to the US citizen, and benfits for the wealthy and corporatio
I understand your comment on not wanting to dis-courag
I think that you have missed something. I am a human. I am more than a vote. My vote, to me, represents participat
Support the Democratic party=no meaningful change.
just shut the f*ck up.
The reason we are in this freaking mess is because we whored ourselves out to China for "cheap goods".
(I.E.: We gave away our entire manufactur
Nothing more, nothing less...
and before it is all said and done...
China will be the prominent manufactur
We are no longer "relevant"
Our Nation is on borrowed time...
yet not for ANY of the above reasons you have stated.
[pun intended]
No really. Look at them. They're maniacally [often times nonsensica
Sometimes [when Adderall/V
if we are to go by the excitement from many bloggers/c
Are we all dumb misled sheep (no, just the ones who listen to Fox "News")? Those of us who understand human nature realize that government at ANY level functions on the basis of deals, quid pro quo, compromise
On a smaller scale, how else do you think doctors/nu
Running this huge country is all that above, and much much more -- so, of course, deals are made that can be easily criticized
I see this HCR bill still in process, when it's signed into law, as Step 1 in a series of Steps over the long haul.
For my general take on passage of the Healthcare bill by the House, see my more recent blog "The Blind Side: Starring Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama":
http://www
Huffpo readers may also enjoy the accompanyi
You wrote: they will stay home at the next election, or that they will vote for small third parties who have no chance of winning. It's not my intent to encourage those views. Do people making these comments really think bringing Republican
First, what is the difference is between the Republican and Democratic parties? Continuing to propagate this myth is precisely what keeps us from having viable third parties that can actually win. I live in Europe and the US is the only wealthy country that believes that a democracy can only be work within a two party system. Saying these third (or fourth or fifth) parties can't win is already defeatist before it's been. What we really must do is forbid corporate donations to candidates for any office; outlaw the outlaws so to speak. Until you don't need $6 billion to win an election, the only road ahead of us is fascism. One other scene that will get their attention is a million people in front of the White House. I'm ready, are you? When do we meet?
That is because European systems use proportion
A push for a third party or third party candidates in the current system will only guarantee that the party on the other extreme gains control of government
Well, exactly. It’s time we did this and along with electoral finance reform, will start the US on the road to real democracy.
I HAVE looked very closely and fail see any difference
You wrote: the record shows that they (Democrats
What is your evidence for this unbelievab
I don't mind have a two-party system, my problem is that we don't use public financing for all campaigns. That's what's preventing us from making progress as a nation, when the oil industry can just pour money into politiciti
Where have you been for the past year and a half??
The media ignores ANY STORY THAT HURTS OBAMA, unless they are FORCED to run it!
Only if enough other media make it a big story, then it will be picked up and put in the best possible context for the President'
If you think a story will be reported just because it is TRUE or IMPORTANT, you are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the collusion of the media (95% of it) in supporting this administra
All Miles Mogulescu is point to his own repeated blogs about this subject, that is not proof of anything, except maybe that he can't stop blowing his how horn.
Pesky thing the truth, the Right Wing tends to ignore it 90% of the time.
If it ends up totally unaffordab
How about the short term solution?
If I were in congress I would have a meeting to keep proposing the Public Option until the People thronged outside the capitol and forced them to vote it in.
Then the people could SEE, by whether Obama signed it, EXACTLY what took place.
That really needs to happen.
.
Its enormously expensive and more expensive if we follow the GOP's do nothing road map and adhere to the status quo. President Obama should present his own plan and call out Congress, including members of his own party for their skulldugge
It would be nice if ZIGGRL's promise of a new type of Republican will emerge after the likely 2010 bloodbath, but any socialogis
We've deen dealing with the same greed and avarice since Cain and Able. Nothing has changed.
Pelosi and Boehner are both shrewd and short on integrity.
Its a shame what the President has allowed to happen.