I was reading Glenn Greenwald's piece today, The underlying divisions in the healthcare debate and I have to agree with him. HCR unfolded just as you would expect it to given Obama's governing strategy. I recommend you read the entire article and make up your own mind. This diary only presents some teasers to peak your interest.
First the reason the progressive voice was seemingly ignored in the HCR debate.
... if progressives always announce that they are willing to accept whatever miniscule benefits are tossed at them (on the ground that it's better than nothing) and unfailingly support Democratic initiatives (on the ground that the GOP is worse), then they will (and should) always be ignored when it comes time to negotiate;...
Greenwald argues that Obama's Governing Strategy is in essence:
...triangulating corporatism of the Clinton era, just re-packaged with some sleeker and more updated marketing. At its core, it seeks to use government power not to regulate, but to benefit and even merge with, large corporate interests, both for political power (those corporate interests, in return, then fund the Party and its campaigns) and for policy ends. It's devoted to empowering large corporations, letting them always get what they want from government, and extracting, at best, some very modest concessions in return.
If you are a Democratic strategist, this is exactly what you want. It is indeed the 11 dimensional chess we've been hearing about. It's manipulating the system to Dem advantage. If you are on the losing end of any resulting legislation, it's less than great news.
He gives a few examples of how private corporations and government agencies have linked together like jig saw puzzle pieces.
In the intelligence and surveillance realms, for instance, the line between government agencies and private corporations barely exists. Military policy is carried out almost as much by private contractors as by our state's armed forces. Corporate executives and lobbyists can shuffle between the public and private sectors so seamlessly because the divisions have been so eroded.
But with HCR, the strategy and its result are painfully obvious.
The health care bill is one of the most flagrant advancements of this corporatism yet, as it bizarrely forces millions of people to buy extremely inadequate products from the private health insurance industry -- regardless of whether they want it or, worse, whether they can afford it (even with some subsidies). In other words, it uses the power of government, the force of law, to give the greatest gift imaginable to this industry -- tens of millions of coerced customers, many of whom will be truly burdened by having to turn their money over to these corporations -- and is thus a truly extreme advancement of this corporatist model.
HCR is just an example of how this governing strategy is likely to manifest itself in other areas of legislation.
Even if one grants the arguments made by proponents of the health care bill about increased coverage, what the bill does is reinforces and bolsters a radically corrupt and flawed insurance model and and an even more corrupt and destructive model of "governing." It is a major step forward for the corporatist model, even a new innovation in propping it up. How one weighs those benefits and costs -- both in the health care debate and with regard to many of Obama's other policies -- depends largely upon how devoted one is to undermining and weakening this corporatist framework (as opposed to exploiting it for political gain and some policy aims).