I certainly have had very passionate opinions on the development path of the health care reform legislation. But the goal of this, my first diary, is to put forth (and hopefully receive) as dispassionate a discussion as possible. I have learned a lot from folks who shared a differing points of view on this, with the understanding that most of us would like the best possible HC reform possible, given our political system today. I believe that the most progressive HC reform bill possible to pass, would also be the best HC reform bill to pass.
I am curious to weigh the views and merits of two differing beliefs that I read a lot.
- President Obama and the Democratic leadership supports and would really like to include a Public Option in the HC bill, but for pragmatic reasons, it is not politically possible at this time.
- President Obama and the Democratic leadership do not want a Public Option included in HC bill, because of their view of how the PO has been dissed all along in the process.
I believe that President Obama cares about the middle class and the imbalance of wealth in our society. I believe that he campaigned strongly on bringing change to that imbalance. I believe President Obama has gotten many laudable bills passed that move the progressive agenda along in a positive way. I donated to and supported him strongly (in my very red neighborhood ;o).
On some issues that obviously go strongly against Capitol Hill’s will to maintain a status quo, I feel President Obama has had the political capital, certainly the personal popularity, the charisma and hence the real ability to garner support in congress and amongst the American people to deliver more than he has so far for better HC reform legislation. You may differ on this.
I do not want this discussion to be about degrading President Obama’s motives. What I need help understanding, is why the public option’s apparent wide support from Congress, the White House, and a strong majority of the American people, has not translated into the WH and Congress actually working to include the PO in this HC legislation?
As you may have guessed, I fall into the second belief above. I am unable to come up with any reason why the WH and Dem. leadership are not and have not been fighting to include a PO. Personally, I do not believe pragmatism to be the reason, because of the wide (purported?) support in Congress, the WH and from the American people. I believe that the American people want the PO because the polling says sixty some odd percent want it. I am left with trying to guess why in the heck the WH and Congress would not want something so basic to the Democratic platform as an option that would allow individuals a choice to not use for profit insurance corporations, and an opportunity to lower costs through competition.
I guess the basic difference of opinion boils down to: President Obama would want a PO in this bill vs. President Obama does not want a PO in this bill.
We could argue back and forth on if a PO would ruin chances for a HC bill to pass (I certainly do not see it that way at all). That certainly seems to be what is posited by the WH and (to my opinion) the rotating bad guys in Congress.
Over the past year + the WH and a majority of of dems have spoken of support for the PO. But there is always some new reason not to support it.
- We have 55+ sen. votes but not 60...
- Oh, now we don't have 50 sen. votes...
- Oh, if the Senate had the votes for a PO, we (the House) would put is in the reconciliation bill.
- Oh, if the House would add a PO, Durbin would whip for the PO in the Senate.
It just seems clear to me that no one (WH, Sen., House) wants to ‘say’ they do not want a PO, but they all sure are saying that if the other body strongly supported it, so would they. Both sides know that is a fools errand. It is clear to me that the Administration has not wanted a PO all along. The 'support talk' of the WH and most of congress has been simply window dressing, IMO. It could not be clearer to myself and a number of others.
You may disagree. If so, let’s agree to disagree on this issue. None of us know what is real behind the scenes. There may well be no black and white ‘reality’ in politics, just shades of God knows what. Believing that Pres. Obama (and the Congress) do or do not actually want a PO does not make anyone... a pile of shit, an idiot, a loony, BS crazy, unpatriotic, a DFH, or a center right whatever, OK?
I can only conclude that Pres. Obama believes that w/o corporate funding the Dems cannot stay in power to work towards what he believes can only be done through incremental change. I happen to disagree with support of corporations over support for say, a public option, which has the ability to lower rates by creating much needed competition. I am very disappointed that it appears that President Obama has chosen all along to keep the PO out of the realm of possibility to be included in a final HC bill. This saddens me immensely.
For me the bottom line question is:
- Do the WH and Dem leadership really want a PO, but believe they dare not try. It’s too risky?
- Or have both been against it all along, believing they needed to protect the corporate support in order to be able to be re-elected
My conclusion is the latter. What is yours and why?
Please, let’s try to be dispassionate and not attack each other’s character. I assume those here are for the common good.
Peace and best wishes to us all during these challenging times.