House Majority Whip Clyburn pitches 'half-a-loaf'---pushing "pilot programs" around the country

[seafan]

Clyburn pitches 'half-a-loaf', September 4, 2009

Via Jed Lewison at Daily Kos:

McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is pushing a compromise on the most contentious part of President Barack Obama's bid to provide medical benefits to uninsured Americans.

Instead of a nationwide government insurance program, Clyburn is urging other Democrats to accept a scaled-down public option that would be tested as a pilot program in several parts of the country.

"We ought to set up some pilot programs regionally around the country," Clyburn, the No. 3 leader in the House of Representatives, told McClatchy. "What you're trying to do is find out what works and what doesn't work."

Well, first of all, Clyburn's proposal is bad policy. The whole point of a public option is that its size will help keep costs down -- both in terms of negotiating leverage and spreading risk. If it's not national, it won't work, at least not very well. Why test something without giving it a chance to succeed?

Second, leaving aside the obvious policy objections, Clyburn's proposal is even worse politics. He's asking Democrats to negotiate against themselves. Why in the world would progressives do something as stupid as that? It's insulting that Clyburn would suggest it in the first place.

Clyburn says he supports a public option. If so, he shouldn't be trying to negotiate it away. Let the people who truly oppose the public option show their face. Let them make the case for why we shouldn't have it, and then we can discuss whether to negotiate. (Given the size of our majority, the answer is of course no.)

Clyburn wants Democrats to come to a table they shouldn't even be at in the first place with a watered down version of a position that is itself a compromise. Moreover, he wants Democrats to do it with without any sort of guarantee that such a re-compromise would be acceptable to reform opponents.

So the answer should be clear: no deal, not even close. It would be insane to agree to Clyburn's proposal. We shouldn't do it. And if we do, good luck ever getting anything we care about enacted, ever.

We've been the caucus that rolls over for far too long. It's time to take a stand.

Just unbelievable. Would his pilot programs include coverage for spine transplants in the House?


Churchill was absolutely correct:

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities."