The best explanation of how health care reform got totally f'd up-By Matt Taibbi

[kpete]

The best explanation of how health care reform got totally f'd up
by John Aravosis (DC) on 9/05/2009 10:32:00 AM

Matt Taibbi has the best explanation I've seen of how we got to where we are in the health care reform debate (i.e., who's to blame). With all due respect to Rolling Stone, I tried to take just a short excerpt. It was impossible. It's a great article, and a long one, please go and read the entire thing - you will finally understand the health care debate, the details of of the actual plans and who screwed us:
http://www.americablog.com/2009/09/best-explanation-of-how-health-care.html

Sick and Wrong
How Washington is screwing up health care reform – and why it may take a revolt to fix it

MATT TAIBBIPosted Sep 03, 2009 11:33 AM

We might look back on this summer someday and think of it as the moment when our government lost us for good. It was that bad....

The House versions all contain a public option, as does the HELP committee's version in the Senate. So whether or not there will be a public option in the end will likely come down to Baucus, one of the biggest whores for insurance-company money in the history of the United States....

Last spring, when he met with Rep. Lynn Woolsey, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Obama openly said so. "He said if he were starting from scratch, he would have a single-payer system," says Woolsey. "But he thought it wasn't possible, because it would disrupt the health care industry."

Huh? This isn't a small point: The president and the Democrats decided not to press for the only plan that makes sense for everyone, in order to preserve an industry that is not only cruel and stupid and dysfunctional, but through its rank inefficiency has necessitated the very reforms now being debated. Even though the Democrats enjoy a political monopoly and could have started from a very strong bargaining position, they chose instead to concede at least half the battle before it even began....

Once single-payer was off the table, the Democrats lost their best bargaining chip. Rather than being in a position to use the fear of radical legislation to extract concessions from the right — a position Obama seemingly gave away at the outset, by punting on single-payer — Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Democrats suddenly realized that they had the upper hand. Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would now give away just about anything to avoid having to walk away without a real health care bill....

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/1

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Off to the greatest with you. n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. .

:grr:

[joeycola]

3. and giving points away is what is happening..............

...........Once single-payer was off the table, the Democrats lost their best bargaining chip. Rather than being in a position to use the fear of radical legislation to extract concessions from the right — a position Obama seemingly gave away at the outset, by punting on single-payer — Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Democrats suddenly realized that they had the upper hand. Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would now give away just about anything to avoid having to walk away without a real health care bill....

[Amos Moses]

9. They could have made single payer the target all summer.

The Birthers and Palindrones could have gone on their hysterical rants at the town halls over that instead of a public option.

Those of us that advocate for single payer wouldn't have minded it being targeted because we're not ashamed to defend our positions on the issues like the "moderate" corporatist Democrats are.

A meaningful public option, open to anyone that wants it, and helped lower costs could have been our compromise, but no.

They had to arrogantly dismiss it from the start as just another silly idea from the "loony left".

[Nicephorus]

52. Why not try and get something done?

Single payer ala England isn't going to happen here--ever. But we could get a "public option" if it were implemented correctly.

You can't have a public option that is

a) available to everyone, including people making 500k a year.
b) paid for with tax hikes on 10% of the population (or less).

The way you get a public option is to limit it to families making under a certain annual income, say 150k. It needs to be paid for by EVERYONE, because virtually everyone benefits from it. How do we do this?

National sales tax
Reductions on the mortgage interest write-off

Health care reform will also require that everyone carry insurance, that everyone gets insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions, and most of all, it needs to include TORT REFORM! 90% of doctors are against the current plan because it does not protect them from lawsuits.

Obama's failure to embrace tort reform, his inability to admit that health reform will be expensive (no getting around that), his failure to find a source of funding for his ambitions, is causing health reform to go down in flames.

This isn't rocket science. You either pony up for a public option, or we don't get it. Bill Gates isn't going to pay for your health insurance.

I am more than happy to pay a 10% tax on my morning coffee for the safety net that a public option will give me if I lost my job.

Time for the president to get a pair

[Laelth]

4. As I remarked elsewhere, it looks like this was intentional.

I have to believe that the leaders of the Democratic Party understand basic negotiation strategies. The fact that they didn't start with single payer, but started with the public option, instead, suggests to me that they never intended to even get a public option. They intended to compromise and abandon the public option all along.

:dem:

-Laelth

[truedelphi]

11. +1 n/t

[riderinthestorm]

25. Oh no! Doncha know Obama's just playin' chess? No need for basic negotiation strategies!!11!!!

I've been saying this for months now and been flamed over and over.




(says riderinthestorm, MBA and professional horse trader for 20+ years)

[Fumesucker]

46. Not just chess ... *eleven* dimensional chess..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

String theory is of interest to many physicists because it requires new mathematical and physical ideas to mesh together its very different mathematical formulations. One of the most inclusive of these is the 11-dimensional M-theory, which requires spacetime to have eleven dimensions, as opposed to the usual three spatial dimensions and the fourth dimension of time.

[spooked911]

49. you're kidding, right?

[WillyT]

5. Thanks !!! - K & R !!!

:kick:

:hi:

[seafan]

6. Thanks for posting. Here are some choice bits from that article:

Here


It's crunch time now.

[European Socialist]

7. Great article. Obama needs to come out with his own plan and...

get all the crap out.

[gopsucks1]

8. Tabbi doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground!

Sorry but that's just a fact. He another up and coming writer trying to make a name for himself by spewing on about things he knows NOTHING about.

[Journeyman]

10. Do tell, but better yet, please explain. . .

tossing out mindless insults is easy and fulfills a cathartic need, but giving reasoned rationale provides the basis for discussion. Got anything more than your own mindless "spewing" to share?

[gopsucks1]

15. You first. n/t

[rug]

18. Match to Journeyman.

[freddie mertz]

29. No, you first. YOU made the accusations.

Now back em up.

[Selatius]

30. You made the claim he knows nothing. The burden falls on your shoulder to prove it.

Prove it. Or prove yourself a fool.

[Joe Chi Minh]

51. He's a fool. No great secret there. What perhaps folk didn't know was

that he used to be a cretin, and now he's tumbling back down down the ladder.

[rpannier]

42. You have nothing I see

Good for you

[OwnedByFerrets]

34. Nice winning post

:toast:

[paulk]

31. speaking of a hole in the ground...

[Amos Moses]

36. empyreanisles?

[WildEyedLiberal]

43. I usually agree with that, I've never liked Taibbi at all, but he's RIGHT about this

[Enthusiast]

47. Tabbi is right on the money.

If you can't see this your head is already in the sand.

[truedelphi]

12. Thanks Kpete. I am always happy to be pointed to

Anything Mr Taibbi does.

[pleah]

13. K& R

[ProSense]

14. More faulty logic from Taibbi

Instead of twisting in the wind over single payer, he should be standing up for a strong public option.

[BlooInBloo]

20. Maybe, but in any case, it's worth thinking about what he says....

As I don't think he is one of the liar-pretending-to-support-Obama-then-show-true-colors-later kind of people we see so much of these days.

So while he might be wrong (or not), I think it's worth thinking about, because he's got an entire story to tell, rather than simply snipping out pieces that make ihateobama people happy, and posting them as OPs.

[ProSense]

23. I thought about what he said.

I have a problem with people who have to distort the facts to make a case. Support the public option or not, but using the claim that single-payer was taken off the table to build some elaborate tale of sabotage, is BS. While everyone, including the progressive caucus, is trying to preserve the public option in these bills, there are too many people trying to fan the flames of opposition to it.

That is not pushing for a stronger bill. Making the case for a stronger bill would be to show the merits of such a bill, not shouting about Democrats being wimps for supporting the current HELP and House bills.





edited for clarity.

[IrateCitizen]

40. I think you have completely missed his point...

... which was laid out in plain language in the article's introduction. His central argument seems not to be to specifically argue in favor of one plan or another (although he certainly offers his opinion in this matter). Rather, it is to tell the story of how the intersection of our horrible health care system with the way in which the majority of our elected officials are so hopelessly wedded to the status quo in order to better protect their self-interest is creating an out-of-control train wreck of mammoth proportions.

Taibbi's performing the job of a good reporter. He's describing the train wreck in excruciating detail and with considerable aplomb, turning a topic that could be eye-numbing into a page turner, while explaining the issue in a way that just about everyone can understand. After all, what sense is a public option if it betrays everything that a public option is supposed to be about?

[BrklynLiberal]

16. Has Taibbi ever won a Pulitzer? He should. This is merely one of his many superb articles.

[bemildred]

17. If you are opposed to it, screwing it up is good strategy.

I don't understand why this needs to be explained.

[Vinnie From Indy]

19. I think Taibbi is spot on!

K&R

[Uncle Joe]

21. I believe this is an outstanding analysis of the situation and well worth the read!

I do disagree with Tabibi regarding one major political point regarding Limbaugh factions of which I bolded on the last paragraph. Should the Congress and Obama Administration pass a health care "reform" aka; dog-shit bill/law with the toxic "health" insurance and big pharma corporate friendly, non-cost reducing elements and individual mandated purchasing of for profit insurance etc., those lunatic protesters; at the town halls will be politically vindicated in the eyes of many Americans and then I believe the Democrats in control of the Congress will get their subliminal subconscious wish of Republicans rebounding in 2010 so as to take the heavy burden of leadership from their frail shoulders, and thus enabling the Democrats to more conveniently use future excuses in avoiding representing the best interests of the American People.

But in spite of that minor quibble with Tabibi, I'm kicking and recommending.

<Snip>

"To recap, here's what ended up happening with health care. First, they gave away single-payer before a single gavel had fallen, apparently as a bargaining chip to the very insurers mostly responsible for creating the crisis in the first place. Then they watered down the public option so as to make it almost meaningless, while simultaneously beefing up the individual mandate, which would force millions of people now uninsured to buy a product that is no longer certain to be either cheaper or more likely to prevent them from going bankrupt. The bill won't make drugs cheaper, and it might make paperwork for doctors even more unwieldy and complex than it is now. In fact, the various reform measures suck so badly that PhRMA, the notorious mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry which last year spent more than $20 million lobbying against health care reform, is now gratefully spending more than seven times that much on a marketing campaign to help the president get what he wants.

So what's left? Well, the bills do keep alive the so-called employer mandate, requiring companies to provide insurance to their employees. A good idea — except that the Blue Dogs managed to exempt employers with annual payrolls below $500,000, meaning that 87 percent of all businesses will be allowed to opt out of the best and toughest reform measure left. Thanks to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, we can now be assured that the 19 or 20 employers in America with payrolls above $500,000 who do not already provide insurance will be required to offer good solid health coverage. Hurray!

Or will they? At the end of July, word leaked out that the Senate Finance Committee, in addition to likely spiking the public option, had also decided to ditch the employer mandate. It was hard to be certain, because even Democrats on the committee don't know what's going on in the Group of Six selected by Baucus to craft the bill. Things got so bad that some Democrats on the committee — including John Kerry, Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez — were reduced to holding what amounts to shadow hearings on health care several times a week, while Baucus and his crew conducted their meetings in relative secrecy. The chairman did not even bother to keep his fellow Democrats informed of the bill's developments, let alone what he has promised Republicans in return for their support of the bill. "The Group of Six has hijacked the process," says an aide to one of the left-out senators.

<snip>

The much-ballyhooed right-wing scare campaign, with its teabagger holdovers ridiculously disrupting town-hall meetings with their belligerent protests and their stoneheaded memes (the sign raised at a town hall held by Rep. Rick Larson of Washington — keep the guvmint out of my medicare — is destined to become a classic of conservative propaganda), has proved to be almost totally irrelevant to the entire enterprise. Aside from lowering even further the general level of civility (teabaggers urged Sen. Chris Dodd to off himself with painkillers; Rep. Brad Miller had his life threatened), the Limbaugh minions have accomplished nothing at all, except to look like morons for protesting as creeping socialism a reform effort designed specifically to change as little as possible and to preserve at all costs our malfunctioning system of private health care."

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[ooglymoogly]

22. To read this (the complete article) is to know that most of the folks we trusted

with our allegiance our hard work to get them elected and our treasure are nothing but flim flam artists and corporate manipulators and puppets. We have been suckered on a herculean scale. The corporate hold on our government has increased exponentially by our own actions and inaction. It is as I have said from the beginning of this fiasco; You can concoct anything and call it a public option and fool most of the people again and again and again while our beloved country goes to hell in a handbasket.

[ProSense]

24. delete. wrong place. n/t

[fascisthunter]

27. corporations run our government (nt)

[Jkid]

26. So they were protecting the health insurance industry all this time...

...why didn't they just burn the industry the first time when they started health care reform?

[KoKo]

56. They were worried about the jobs in the insurance industry or the CEO's Pay

But, in fact many of the jobs could be saved or increased by having those involved in processing claims in the insurance agencies do the same claims work for Single Payer. It's the CEO's and their obscene paychecks that did the most damage. And, that Administration didn't make clear that jobs could be saved with single payer and even increased as you expand health care to those who don't have it now.

So, Obama either was too weak to make the case for Single Payer for all...or he didn't believe in it enough to support it.

[ihavenobias]

28. Now at least 1/3 of DU will hate Taibi.

Of course I'm not part of that irrational 1/3.

K & R

[colsohlibgal]

32. Matt Nails It

He does great work, just another guy/gal doing the job MSN is supposed to do instead of giving us non substantive middle of the road crap 24/7. But then again his parent isn't a corporation.

[OwnedByFerrets]

33. K and R, even though it hurts to do so

[zanne]

35. I worked my ass off to get him elected....

I'm not saying I'm giving up on him, but I wonder...where are all the fiery speeches he used to make that would make thousands of people jump to their feet and scream "OBAMA"! Has it been his plan to change his course after he was elected, or does he just need a better speechwriter? As Bill Moyers said recently, "Mr. President, we need a leader".

[dgibby]

37. I posted this on another thread today,

ANYONE not advocating for single payer is not serious about either economic reform or health care reform, and certainly does not care about the poor or middle class, and that's the sorry truth.

This has been a cluster fuck since day one. Had we started out advocating for single payer, then a public option would have been a fall-back position. By eliminating single payer at the beginning, we shot ourselves in the foot,and now we won't be able to cover the cost of treating our wounds.

It's obvious to me that a strong public option was never really the goal in the first place.

Sadly, whatever "reform" we get won't kick in until 2013. That means that another 144,000 men, women, and children in the US will die due to inadequate or nonexistent coverage.

[DirtyDawg]

38. Kill the hell out of Health Care Reform this year...

...don't allow a damn thing to pass, then put all our efforts into public financing of campaigns and dramatically reduced, and controlled, campaign financing...hell, eliminate the need to raise campaign funds at all. Then and only then will we be rid of this shitty system we have in Washington and elsewhere.

[Mixopterus]

39. But Obama is a Jedi Master!

He's playing Jedi Chess!

[IrateCitizen]

41. Vintage Taibbi!!!

"conservative douchebag George Will"

"Mormon glambot Mitt Romney"

Taibbi has a flair for taking on topics that can be overwhelmingly mind-numbing, and describe them in a way that makes them entertaining page-turners.

[fasttense]

44. Americans are hostages to be traded and mandated into a market for corporations.

Really, Washington and the powers that be see American citizens as nothing more than a bargaining chip. It is how the bush treated us, and though Obama has some sympathy for the common man, he is making no changes in that outlook.

Consider the "free" trade agreements that allow corporations to use America as their market place but give nothing back to the country in return. They give NO JOBS, oh sure a few stay here in the US, but the minute a Union decides to fight for better wages, the corporation moves overseas and yet they are still allowed to use our American markets. These same corporation that are dumping lead tainted toys on our children, avoid taxes through off shore accounts. They gladly take billion dollar government contracts yet don't even pretend to be American companies.

Now, with health care, we are merely a consumer who will and is, forced to buy insurance because the cost of necessary life saving treatment has gotten too expensive. The average middle class family can not afford to pay for grandmothers cancer treatment. Medical care is out of reach for most Americans. Most families are one life threatening disease away from bankruptcy. It's as if we are in Ireland during the potato famine. There is food everywhere, but it is being shipped off to England and the vast swath of tenant farmers are starving to death.

We are living through the potato famine of medical care. The vast swath of Americans see hospitals and doctors everywhere. But the health care is being shipped off to the uber wealthy. Doctors, who succumb to the greed is good mantra, are making millions. Yet the average American can not afford to buy the services. Each family is merely one life threatening illness away from bankruptcy.

See the food and health care being shipped off to the rich. See that we are now mandated to purchase overpriced ineffective medical insurance. See, the same corporation that allowed hundreds of people to die because of lack of medical care, is now opening their arms to take your money and pretend to provide health care.

Next tax day, why not just send your money directly to your favorite CEO, avoid the middle man.

[Enthusiast]

48. Well any effort to regulate

the behavior of these corporations, to force them to be good citizens, would be characterized as government interference and excessive regulation. The government would be overstepping their constitutional mandate. We are in quite a spot.

[susanr516]

54. +1

Great post. :thumbsup:

[PADemD]

45. Do you think I can get my money back from the Obama Campaign

if we don't get single-payer universal health care? I'm thinking of asking.

[truedelphi]

59. We should really campaign hard to get back our money

The WH needs to remember how much it needed us back in November.

Although for many households, the donations were tiny, when they are added up, I am sure that they provided a big difference.

The notion that Obama doesn't "understand" the complexities of Single Payer Universal went out the window when he made speech after speech admitting that it was the best solution. And then for whatever unfathomable reason, he goes on in same speeches to say, because we already have a health care insurance industry, we must work with that. What the F____?!?

Maybe it is not unfathomable. Maybe he has been offered a deal - eight years in the WH in return for Geithner/Bernanke in the top economic positions and the continued milking of our populace via the Health Reform MANDATE, which will do everything for the insurance industry and nothing for us.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/1

[ThomWV]

50. Indeed, and outstanding article. Please read it, read it all.

[Douglas Carpenter]

53. excellent article!! kick and recommended!!

[WillyT]

55. Excellent And Depressing Article !!! - K & R !!!

Thanks... I think, LOL.

:kick:

[tooeyeten]

57. when we didn't pressure the White House to include Gov. Dean

in any health care reform, we screwed ourselves.

[truedelphi]

58. Taibbi blames Baucus, and let's face it - someone

Like Baucus exists because of the fateful day when the Clintons threw their staff on meaningful campaign finance reform off their small table and into the big table where the dictate was to start working on what really mattered -- NAFTA.

And this nation has suffered for that decision ever since.

MEANINGFUL HEALTH CARE REFORM NOW! UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER HC!

MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM NOW!