Are they talking us down now...softening us up to accept a lesser health care plan? [View All]

[madfloridian]

Reporters and bloggers are doing it. I have seen much about it the last few days. They are getting the word out that there will be no public option, that we don't need it anyway to have good health care.

Who is "they"? Not sure yet. Could be the centrists who control party policy. I don't know for sure, but I saved a few I have read. Bloggers get the word from on high and pass it along, certain ones do.

From a Huff post blogger:

No Public Option is Still Much-Needed Reform

There is a lot of anger from the left about what's being seen as Obama capitulating to the Republicans on Health Insurance Reform. During the campaign Obama favored a Public Option. Now, the Public Option appears in danger and many liberals don't think "real" reform is possible without it.

In a perfect world, I'm for the most progressive health reform possible. But, our world is far from perfect and politics is the art of the possible. There are 47 million people in America without health insurance and they don't care if it's a public or private option that provides it. They just want access to quality health care.

..."But if in the final standoff we get a choice between mandate-regulate-subsidize and the status quo, I would prefer to take mandate-regulate-subsidize.

Also Ezra Klein of the WP talking down the public option by pointing out that Dean did not include one in 2004... a rather puny argument.

He is in effect saying that if we do get a public option it might be terrible.

The goal posts have moved in recent years. And they've moved in the right direction. This year, Dean is, as he was then, on the left of the conversation, arguing fiercely and persuasively for a public plan, and more generous subsidies, and an array of other improvements. On Thursday, he threatened that Democrats who don't support the public plan will face primary challenges. That's a healthy threat.

But you can't survey the landscape or read the polls without recognizing that the finished product might be worse than many of us, including Dean, hope. But reading his proposal from 2004 is a useful reminder that it's almost certain to be far better than what we had imagined only five short years ago. That may not be success. But it is progress.

And here goes Matthew Yglesias trying to talk us down from our goals. Settle..is the message.

Where I stand on health care

— But even though mandate-regulate-subsidize without a public option wouldn’t be as good, I still think it would be an improvement over the status quo.

— I don’t think reform advocates should “drop” the public option; I think they should fight for it and try to bring practical pressure to bear on members of the Senate to vote for one.

— But if in the final standoff we get a choice between mandate-regulate-subsidize and the status quo, I would prefer to take mandate-regulate-subsidize.

Notice the underlying theme...anything would be an improvement over the status quo. That is dangerous talk, because if there is nothing to force the insurance companies to compete things will go right back to where they were before.

Even Donna Edwards who won with much support from the netroots, grassroots, appears to be wavering. She is one who signed the letter saying she would not vote unless there were a public option.

From Firedoglake today:

Is Donna Edwards catching the Rahmflu

It was somewhat disconcerting when Donna Edwards would not confirm to the Hill this week that she would vote against any bill through conference that did not have a public plan:

Edwards, who signed the letter, declined to speculate on whether she would vote against a conference bill without a strong public option.

“That's a long way down the line,” Edwards said. “I am talking about the House vote.”

So Howie Klein asked her if she'd like to clarify that. Donna released a statement, saying she is "unequivocal, unwavering, and unapologetic" about supporting a public option. But:

It is important that we stay focused on getting a robust public option included in the House version of the bill-- nothing watered down. As a progressive member of the House of Representatives, I can't spend time guessing or speculating about what the Senate will do. I do know that if we don't do our work to get a strong bill out of the House, we won’t be able to beg, borrow or steal a robust public option from the Senate.

Steny Hoyer went against his own Speaker of the House. She said there would be a public option, he said maybe not.

A day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that health reform won’t get through the House without a public option, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Friday that the public option may have to go in order to get a bill passed.

“I’m for a public option but I’m also for passing a bill,” Hoyer told reporters on a conference call
. “We believe the public option is a necessary useful and very important aspect of this, but we’ll have to see because there are many other important aspects of the bill as well.”

Hoyer says maybe no public option

Then there go the Blue Dogs playing follow the leader and announcing there may not be a public option. Slinkerwink covers it well in a diary at Daily Kos

You know where this started from? When Rep. Hoyer said that the public option would have to go for the passage of the bill in the House, it was a clear signal from Steny Hoyer to the Blue Dog Caucus in the House to get them to block the passage of the bill in order to strip out the public option.

Now, as if on cue, some of the Blue Dog Democrats are picking up on Steny Hoyer's message about the public option "having to go" for the passage of the bill in the House of Representatives:

The House's healthcare reform bill will have to be changed before it can even win a majority among Democrats, one centrist, Blue Dog Democrat insisted Friday.

Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), who opposed the health bill on the Ways and Means committee, signaled that Democrats may not even have the votes to force through a preliminary health bill without any Republican support.

"And in order to get a majority even among the Democratic Party, we're going to have to change the way that House bill is formatted right now," Altmire said during an appearance on Fox News.

We worked and donated and voted and gave them a majority, a good one. Today at DU I saw a post that was talking about how if we get everyone covered and they can't be dropped by insurance companies...it would be good enough. Trouble is what is missing is competition. We won't have that without that government plan side by side with the private plans.

If the insurance companies are powerful enough and own enough Democrats to keep us from getting that option...then they sure as heck are not going to voluntarily lower prices even though they use pretty words.

We won't have a majority like this again...maybe not ever in this political climate. We should not waver.