Reich Breaks It Down. Public Option Is NOT a Dem v. Repub Fight!

[kpete]

beijingbetty
Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 01:11:36 AM PDT

Former Labor Secretary and UCB Professor Robert Reich lays out what is really going on in the health care reform fight --- which is about to become a pitched battle:

Friday, September 11, 2009
The Final Sprint for Health Care Has Now Begun, and Where the White House is Placing Its Bets
Robert Reich

The real political race for health care has just begun. The significance of the President's speech to Washington insiders was its signal about where the White House is placing its bets and its support... Think of the speech as the starting gate of a two-month sprint between two competitors -- and they're not Democrats and Republicans.

I've selectively quoted Robert Reich's blog, per site rules. But it is totally worth reading the original in full, and IMHO totally worth Reading Reich Regularly.

Recap: This fight is not between Republicans and Democrats.

It is really between big private insurance companies and big pharmaceutical companies on the one hand --

They're drooling over the prospect of tens of millions more Americans buying insurance and drugs because the pending legislation will require them to... The pending expansion of Medicaid will also be a bonanza...

And the Democratic base on the other --

... Organized labor, grassroots progressives, leading activists whose main goal is to make health care more affordable for a hundred million American families now paying through the nose... and affordable to the tens of millions who can't get it now.

more:
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/09/final-sprint-for-health-care-has-now.html
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/12/780916/-Reich-Breaks-It-Down.-Public-Option-Is-NOT-a-Dem-v.-Repub-Fight!

[WeCanWorkItOut]

1. Rob Reich is not an expert on health care or what is best for the working class

He seems like a nice guy, but it's not entirely his field.
Also I feel he's too close to other less-than-experts (IMHO) like Jacob Hacker
and various types at Berkeley who make money selling advice (bad advice, IMHO)
to organized labor. So there's a conflict of interest there.

For more analysis I suggest that of Alain Enthoven:
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Columns/2009/September/091009Enthoven.aspx
The problem here is that I'm skeptical of Enthoven's solution to the cost
inflation problem (he wants us to adopt the Mayo Intermountain Kaiser Geisinger system).
But Enthoven is very good about what's wrong with
all the plans being advocated.

(Thanks for keeping up a serious discussion of this)

[KoKo]

2. Not an expert on "what is best for the working class."

What? :shrug:

[rateyes]

3. He's an expert on politics. And, he knows what's going on.

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Yep. He has absolutely no experience in Government/Labor relations

:freak:

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. Excellent way of framing it.