Obama's speech was one of the best I've heard him give. It made my heart sing to hear him call out the Republicans and the insurance companies, even if I (as a progressive) did have to take a hit on the chin as well. And no one is more delighted than I that the early polling shows he gained some ground for health "reform."
But the devil is in the details. And the details are a loser for our side.
I have been working for the Democratic Party for almost 30 years. And when I say work, I mean it. I am a canvass trainer and I put my boots on the ground. I produce print and TV and radio spots. I handle all the design and logistics associated with local and in some cases regional mailings. I develop and institute plans for rounding up early and absentee voters. I lick envelopes. I recruit, train and financially support Democratic candidates. I help raise money and give money I can barely afford. I work GOTV. I helped turn my county from red to blue over a period of decades and in spite of a strong Republican registration advantage. I bake cakes and cookies. I send sympathy cards to fellow Democrats who lose a loved one.
I was around in 1994, doing the thing. It was the worse political experience of my life. When we were finally able to round up enough people to make phone calls (and that in and of itself was a bear), we started with the "base." It wasn't pretty. Phones were slammed down on us, Democrats screamed that we were no better than Republicans and that we had sold out. If we were lucky, the Democrat on the other end of the line told us in a nice voice that they just couldn't vote this year. There were no Democrats at the polls that year. We were being punished.
The Democratic Party is bigger than Obama, and with any luck it will stand long after he is retired and building houses for the poor. But we are currently on a fast track to ruining our Party for generations to come.
Things were bad enough before the health care debate. If I only had a dime for every time a solid Democrat said to me, "Why are we bailing out the banks? Why are we borrowing money to bail out corporations?" If I only had a nickel for every time I hear, "Why does the White continue to allow mountaintop removal?" You get the picture, and I'm sure you can add to the list. Now, I stand up for Obama each and every time, even if it is to say simply that he has made some mistakes, but that his heart is in the right place.
But I see the train coming, and and we progressives need to do everything in our power to put a stop to it.
Mandates were always going to be hard enough to sell even without a public option. I get it. I understand the reasoning and the math behind the mandates. The Republicans want mandates, of course, but you can bet your sweet ass they are going to use them against us in whipping up populist rage. Get ready cause here it comes!
Our only shot to stop the train coming right at us to to insist that there be no mandates without a strong public option or kill the mandates altogether. If there's going to be a trigger, it needs to be that a public option trigger is tied to the mandates. When the mandates kick in, so does the public option. That's the only acceptable trigger.
That's because Americans know that mandates sans public option are nothing but huge tax payer subsidies to corporate insurance companies with absolutely nothing whatsoever in place to hold down costs. Massachusetts has taught us this already, and yet, for whatever reason, we seem to determined to stroll down that same failed railroad track, banners flying.
I know a public option isn't the be all, end all. I know its problems. But the short and sweet of it is that the inclusion of a non-profit choice for insurance needs is our only hedge against selling out the American public to corporate interests by demanding they buy what will inevitably be junk insurance with money they don't have. Yes, there will be subsidies, to be paid by borrowed money to the same insurance companies that are digging us into early graves as we speak.
I know a scam when I see it. Americans know a scam when they see it.
I'm no pollyanna, and I say the public option got sold out last night. It's up to those of us who will hopefully still be around when Obama is long gone and who believe that the Democratic Party is the Party of the people and not of the corporations to stand up and insist that no bill pass without a strong public option.