The Long Blunder

[SoCalDem]

Last January, people were in the mood for change... real change.

That was the time to push for a quick health care change..a BIG one.

It should have been fully-fleshed out, robust and ready to ram through congress.

That would have sent a signal to the (then) demoralized & weakened republicans.

A no-cap FICA change, a rollback of Bush taxation breaks, and a transaction tax for stock trades could have gone a long way to pay for it.

Even a pared down, 51-vote model could have been done as a precursor , and by now (a year later) we would be busily tweaking it & enhancing it.

A Medicare for all plan would have been the easiest to understand, and might have been the best way to go. A new president with 70% approval, and the good vibes he had could have persuaded the general public to accept it.

The year-long flopping & thrashing about, has given the republicans the opportunity they needed, and they never pass up those opportunities.

So now a year later we have:

1) No obvious path to a real health care plan for all
2) Emboldened insurance companies, about to get millions of newly mandated customers
3) A new "August Tradition" (no elected dem will ever again be able to have an ordinary town hall meeting in their home-territory)
4) Longtime "blue" districts/states are flirting with the pretty-faced republicans, hoping that change will happen.. apparently even bad change is better to many , than no change.
5) Instead of falling back into total insignificance, we have Joe Lieberman and his merry band of no-good-niks, apparently in charge, and more powerful than ever.

Health care reform has been "on the table" now for about EIGHTY YEARS. It's NOT a scary new thing. We have models all over the free world, to show us how well it works. It's NOT unknown territory. We voted for it last November, and now we have apparently pissed away our opportunity to finally have it:(

Teddy is not resting easily now, and we will not rest easily for the foreseeable future either.

[Mari333]

1. instead of Rammed, it was watered down and Rahmed

sadly.

[Captain Hilts]

5. Rahm works at the president's behest, actually. nt

[Mari333]

10. suuuure

[MisterP]

12. I remember the ecstatic cries of "Rahm is a fighter, he'll fight for us!"

now, this entirely ignored his actual track record, such as purging anti-war, pro-choice candidates (and, of course, it's not "purging" when the centrists do it). This pattern is visible in everything the centrists say: they only drag out readymade generic declarations: they could fit Ben Nelson into this pigeonhole and get all ecstastically cultish about him

another aspect is personalism: that's why they're so shocked when DU "turns" on a politician who does something liberal one day and something conservative on the next--as if the politico's critics were the fickle ones, and not the politician themselves. I remember Jon Stewart fanbois and -girls in 2006 shrieking that DU was hypocritical for criticizing Stewart's praise of the Cedar "Revolution" and the Israeli and US roles therein.

form, not content, is important to establishment Dems and centrists

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. K&R

:thumbsup:

[chimpymustgo]

3. THat's what they would have done if they'd been smart. And really wanted reform.

[villager]

6. The word "really" may be the key one in that sentence...

Alas...

[glitch]

7. They appear to be quite satisfied with the reform they are getting.

Or beginning to get. And that it doesn't appear to be the reform we the people (aka fringe Americans) wanted is only a minor nuisance to them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeke-emanuel/sustainable-health-care-r_b_114788.html?view=print

Sustainable Health Care Reform

When it comes to health care reform, the question is no longer whether, but what: What kind of reform is needed?

The current health care system is dysfunctional. The financing part -- how we pay for health care -- is inequitable, inefficient, and fiscally unsustainable. For instance, the McKinsey Global Institute concluded that selling insurance separately to each of the millions of employers wastes at least $64 billion in underwriting, sales commissions, marketing and billing costs alone. The delivery part -- how we actually provide services to sick people -- is costly and provides haphazard and poor quality of care. Many studies show that only about half of Americans get proven care, and thousands if not millions are unnecessarily injured.

A good test of reform proposals is whether they address both sets of problems. If a reform addresses either financing or delivery system problems but not both, it is not credible or sustainable. Incremental changes will not fix these problems and are not sustainable.

...

The Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan will be administered by a National Health Board and regional boards modeled on the Federal Reserve System with fiscal, administrative, and political independence to make tough decisions based on the merits, not special interest lobbying. There will also be an Institute for Technology and Outcomes Assessment to assess the effectiveness of new drugs, devices, procedures, and other interventions. It will also assess and make publicly available data on the clinical outcomes of patients in different insurance companies. This will permit comparative shopping based on real quality results.

No one receiving Medicare, Medicaid, or any other government program will not be forced out, but there will be no new enrollees. People who turn 65 will simply stay in the Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan. The special tax benefits related to employer based coverage will be eliminated and most employers will stop offering health insurance.

more from Madfloridian: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/3684

[leftstreet]

4. Excellent observation...

Health care reform has been "on the table" now for about EIGHTY YEARS. It's NOT a scary new thing. We have models all over the free world, to show us how well it works. It's NOT unknown territory. We voted for it last November, and now we have apparently pissed away our opportunity to finally have it

:applause:

[earthside]

8. I argued from the beginning ...

... of Obama's presidency that the administration and the Congress were way underestimating the hunger for fundamental change amongst the populace.

What may happen in Massachusetts tomorrow will be the strongest indication yet that voters are angry and frustrated and will vote for anything that even gives the vaguest hints of real change.

How the smartest Democratic advisers in the White House and in the offices of Reid and Pelosi missed this fact may turn out to be one of the greatest political blunders in recent American history.

Frankly, whether Coakley wins or not, I am stunned that Pres. Obama and the Congressional Democrats have worked themselves into this political pickle -- I never would have predicted that the big November 2008 victory could turn into such weak broth so quickly.

[LWolf]

9. "Teddy is not resting easily now, and we will not rest easily for the foreseeable future either."

I agree.

[SoCalDem]

13. There was probably a tremor out at Arlington tonight

:(

[LWolf]

14. Yes.

nt

[butterfly77]

11. Too bad this is what we got instead...

day after day,somebody is complaining. Didn't he say WE when before and after he took office.

I notice a lot of SO CALLED dems come on here day after day talking about what the President should and should not do,the same damn people who sat on their asses and did or said nothing while Dick Armey and the teabaggers took over the healthcare debate and now they want to complain...

Same thing goes for these SO CALLED dems who show up on tv wimping out and talking down our candidates and our President instead of knocking down these asshole republicons they sit there and agree with them..

[GumboYaYa]

15. I am flabergasted at how inept the Obama administration is.

He failed on health care while he sat by and let the treasury be looted by big business. I am extremely disappointed with his first year in office. If I could vote again, he would not get my vote based on the performance so far.