The Fall Guy AKA Shitty Joe

[Daveparts still]

The Fall Guy AKA Shitty Joe
By David Glenn Cox


We used to play softball when I was a kid , and there was a kid in the neighborhood named Danny. Danny was kind of overweight and kind of dumb and kind of a momma’s boy, but he wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t want to fit in. Kids being kids we took advantage of Danny. If Danny wanted to play softball with us he had to move the lawn furniture and find and relocate any dog crap in the yard. You see, Danny couldn’t hit for shit and he couldn’t outrun a lawn ornament. The team with Danny on it was at a serious disadvantage.

Strange as it may sound, healthcare legislation made me think of Danny and Joe Lieberman. Mind you, before you get upset, Lieberman is a jerk, but no more so than a dozen or so other Senators. But, you see, Joe is their Danny. They give Joe the job of shoveling shit to the American public, so when asked about stripping Lieberman of his committee chairmanship, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown said, “Now is not the time for retribution.”

No, of course not. Danny, I mean Joe, isn’t through doing the dirty work for the committee. This has become a sick and twisted game that began with “You can’t have single payer but instead you can have the public option. I know that’s not as good as single payer, but we are going to regulate the insurance industry. A strong public option will create competition that will bring down costs, and without any cost savings health care reform is a hollow shell."

So, we spent the entire summer debating the public option, triggers and buy ins and subsidies for the poor/insurance industry. Then the President dropped the mandatory insurance purchase into the mix. Well, he argued that for health care reform to work everyone needed to purchase insurance. Just like owning car insurance, remember that? Don't forget though, we are also regulating the insurance industry. No more pre existing conditions or higher premiums for women, and all the insurance industry is getting are thirty to thirty-five million new, paying customers!

Boy oh boy, is that sticking it to the fat cats! Then Danny, I mean Joe, came out and said that he wouldn’t support the public option, no way, no how. The Democrats then made with the splendor and show, appealing to moderate Republicans like Olympia Snow. Yet, behind the doors of committee hearings were a host of Democrats all just as vile and servile to the insurance industry as Danny, er, Joe, who stand in the background and accept the same donations as Joe and Olympia.

Then the trumpets sounded! The grand compromise was reached; the public option was dead! The king is dead! Long live the king! Oh, it is going to be so wonderful! Americans over fifty-five would be able buy into Medicare! Only, however, if they didn’t already have private employer-based health care because God almighty would be offended if private insurers had to compete with Medicare.

So, we take this pool of the oldest and potentially the sickest Americans and make them eligible to buy in to the government program. Ask yourself, who is left after you cull those with private insurance? The rich and the poor. Can the rich buy in? Sure, if they want to. But can the poor buy in? Not hardly, but boy oh boy, does that sock it to the insurance companies! Screw you guys! We’re going to take the least profitable demographic out there away from you private insurers because we’re fighting for the American people (cue music) leaving behind a pool of only the young and the healthy and the poor.

The poor who can’t afford insurance will get subsidies, checks that will say pay to the order of United Healthcare or Aetna, but it is only the illusion of healthcare because the poor still won’t have the money for deductibles and co-pays. The insurance will protect hospitals against catastrophic illness and injury by the uninsured, because as it stands now they must treat them whether they get paid or not.

But now Danny, I mean shitty Joe, has come out against the Medicare buy-in, that butterfly on the battlefield. Downcast members of the Democratic caucus emerged from their committee rooms with wailing and gnashing of teeth. The Medicare buy-in is dead! They look in the direction of shitty Joe and say “It's always oe'sJay aultfay, uckerssay.”

“If you compared it to the alternative, it looks good,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse “If you compare it to the possibilities, it looks pretty sad.”

Tom Harkin added, “There is enough good in this bill that we ought to move it even without the Medicare buy-in.”

Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said, “If dropping the Medicare expansion is necessary, that’s what should be done.” He added, “There was some disappointment by some members that some of the provisions could not be retained.”

NY Times -- “The idea of expanding Medicare to cover younger members of the public ran into trouble this weekend when Senator Joseph I. (Shitty Joe) Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, said he would not vote for that proposal. Given the need for Democrats to keep Mr. Lieberman in the fold, Democrats sought to find ways to ease his objections. Mr. Lieberman and Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska and another potential Democratic defector, were both in the private meeting but did not speak, lawmakers said.”

First, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the New York Times for referring to those over fifty-five as “younger members of the public.” That’s as good a piece of inverted reporting as I’ve ever seen. The Times then blames it all on Shitty Joe. Ben Nelson was standing right there but remained quiet and let shitty Joe do their dirty work!

Tom Harkins seems to be of the Democratic consensus. “There is enough good in this bill that we ought to move it,” because the Democrats in Congress and the White House have staked all on one throw of the dice. They are willing to compromise a few yards on every set of downs for one long pass. Then kicking a field goal on fourth down and pointing to the scoreboard in the cover your ass bowl, Healthcare industry 47, Democratic healthcare reform 3.

Back in June the President addressed healthcare reform. “The American family has a bill of about $1,000 that is reflected in higher taxes, higher premiums, and higher health care costs; a hidden tax that will be cut as we insure all Americans. And as we insure every young and healthy American, it will spread out risk for insurance companies, further reducing costs for everyone.”

It will spread out risk for insurance companies. Say, who is this fellow working for?

“What I am trying to do – and what a public option will help do – is put affordable health care within reach for millions of Americans. And to help ensure that everyone can afford the cost of a health care option in our Exchange, we need to provide assistance to families who need it. That way, there will be no reason at all for anyone to remain uninsured.”

But the public option is gone, the Medicare buy-in is gone, so by the President’s own metric this bill is a loser, but wait. The President did say one more important thing, “My view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle: fix what's broken and build on what works.”

What’s broken is private health insurance and what works is single payer or Medicare for everyone. We have gone the long way around the block adding this and deleting that until what is left is thirty to thirty-five million new customers for the private healthcare industry with some token reforms to sugar the brew. Federal money going to private companies to do the job the government is already doing for those over sixty-five.

That’s not reform, that’s a sham, and shitty Joe’s not a traitor, he’s just the fall guy doing his job!

[midnight]

1. Brilliant analysis of this whole twist and turn of shaking loose meaningful reform.

[DemReadingDU]

2. yep, good analysis.