Who will own lack of a (good) national health plan? Part Two

As stated in Part One of this essay, passing legislation that benefited the majority of Americans had became more difficult than ever by the time that Bill Clinton became President. In that atmosphere, a national health program likely would not have been attempted, except that health care costs were by far the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.

Even if both spouses had been covered by health insurance, a serious illness was likely to cause bankruptcy--a subject about which Professor Elizabeth Warren and others had written. Of course, in bankruptcy proceedings, creditors, such as lenders and credit card issuers, may take a financial hit, along with creditor medical care providers. And all those kinds of creditors lobby (and donate). So, a national health plan was on the agenda of America's very first Trojan Horse New Democrat President.

"Triangulation" by New Democrats seems to mean passing legislation that establishment Republicans want. A group of conservatives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, horrified by Nixoncare's employer mandate, had come up with an individual mandate health plan that the Republican Heritage Foundation had espoused. The Clintons attempted to get a Democratic Congress to pass a version of HeritageFoundationCare, aka Billarycare. That attempt, opposed ironically by the Republican Heritage Foundation, failed. However, Republican Governor Romney and Democratic Senator Kennedy did, at Romney's instigation, get a version of HeritageFoundationCare/Billarycare passed in strongly Democratic Massachusetts, aka Romneycare. (I'm guessing Romney was cluelessly hoping to use this to win the Republican nomination for POTUS.)

Then, along came HeritageFoundationCare/Billarycare/Romneycare/Obamacare. That it would implode was never a secret. For just one thing, during the 2008 campaign, Obama himself had accurately emphasized that a strong public option was the only way to control the very costs that were then already bankrupting Americans (implied: Obama had already ruled out Medicare for All). That a strong public option would inevitably morph into Medicare for All lulled the easily-lulled left. Instead, after Obama became President, the "only way to control costs" morphed rapidly in his mouth to "only a sliver." (His chief of staff, formerly Bubba's, infamously remarked on the native intelligence of anyone who clung to Obama's earlier, truthful statements.) Meanwhile, Republicans remained very busy continuing the Republican tradition of doing nothing at all about the health of Americans.

For Obamacare's lack of a strong public option, Democratic propagandists (middle) fingered, not the HIC (health insurance complex) that had lobbied the White House, but lone Democratic Senator Lieberman. Turns out, turncoats are unpopular with voters of both sides; and so Lieberman was not going to run for the Senate again. That made him a convenient scapegoat. Of course, his wife happened to be working for the industry and "Joe duh Joe" himself was looking toward feathering his post-Senate nest, but I digress..... maybe.

In order to scapegoat only one Democratic Senator, rather than implicate President Obama and all Senate Democrats, Democrats claimed that Joe's vote would be required for cloture (sixty Senator votes) and he would not give it. Inasmuch as a cloture vote was never actually taken, no one, including Joe, ever had to be truly accountable for dooming a strong public option and therefore dooming Obamacare and many Americans. Democrats also claimed that Senate rules would allow only a small portion of Obamacare to pass by reconciliation (as few as fifty Senator votes, after a cloture vote, if any).

Yadda, yadda, Democrats passed the self-destructing ACA (delaying the effective date), supposedly thanks to Ruthless Joe Lieberman. However, when Republican Senator McConnell recently claimed that he would pass Trumpcare/Ryancare/McConnellcare with the votes of only a simple majority of Senators, Democrats were eerily silent about all the Senate rules issues they had, in 2009, presented as insurmountable roadblocks. Remember, boys and girls, with kabuki math, one Democratic Senator foils a sixty-member Democratic caucus, but a forty-eight member Democratic Caucus is totally powerless over a fifty-two-member Republican caucus!

Although Democrats had lots of leverage at the start of the Obama Administration--and have a good degree of leverage as to health care right now--Democrats do not mention Medicare For All, except for the occasional mocking reference. There is at least one exception: Al Gore recently endorsed for Medicare for All--something I don't think he did while he was VP and the Clintons were drafting, then flogging Billarycare. However, Gore no longer has a Senate vote or holds or seeks any public office. (Amazing how liberal even DLC founding members become under circumstances like those, isn't it?)

Now, despite all Republican President Trump's rosy red campaign promises about Trumpcare, despite eight years of braying by Congressional Republicans, Republicans can't even seem to replace FatedtoFailCare with EvenMeanerCare. Some of them think EvenMeanerCare is just too mean (or just too likely to cost them votes), while others among them want only KochPetersonCare, also known as "sucks to be anyone who can't pay in full for health care on his or her own." Of course, if Democrats had passed Medicare for All in 2009, effective, say, 2011, no politician today would dare so much as whisper "repeal" or "replace" anywhere he or she could be overheard by voters.

Part Three (last part) tomorrow.

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divineorder's picture

have been ramped up for the last few months and some have changed their tune in the House but the Senate, well....they mostly don't give a sheet .

But hey, even the NYT says saves money !

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder

By 2009, members of the House Progressive Caucus, then numbering one hundred reps, had all signed on as co-sponsors of HR 676, the Medicare for All bill that Conyers sponsors every year or two. They tried hard to meet with Obama, but he stonewalled them, even standing them up once. Unfortunately, I did not store anywhere the link to that story and I have been unable to find it since, though I did not try again today.

Anyway, I'm guessing that the House members you are referring to were among the supporters of HR 676 circa 2009 or newer members. I question whether any current House member who was also in the House then, but had not signed on to HR 676 or the Progressive Caucus by 2009 is now supporting Medicare for All.

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divineorder's picture

@HenryAWallace
the many groups that I get emails from on the issue. You probably know better.

Did quick search and found this but hey, what do I know, traveling for the last several months and just check in from time to time.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder

reps, if any, changed his or her mind. Also, the article says that Hr 676 now has 93 co signers and I do think all 100 members of the Progressive Caucus (which has since shrunk) had sponsored it by 2009. I'll see if I can find the bill from the right year.

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@divineorder

number as the truthout article to which you linked cites. https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/house-bill/676/cosponsors So 93 is indeed the highest number of co-sponsors ever, but the number in the truthout article does not set a record but only ties the record set years ago. The truthout article, while technically accurate, buries that fact a bit.

Like all Conyers' efforts, the bill died in Committee. Weiner and Kucinich had introduced Amendments. Weiner got Pelosi to promise to get it to a vote. However, in 2009, Pelosi broke her promise, citing Obama's efforts. https://www.healthcare-now.org/blog/action-alert-make-pelosi-keep-her-pr...

The next time Conyers introduced the bill, 2009-2010, there were only 87 co-sponsors, still a good number considering Obamacare and Pelosi's refusal to bring it to a vote. https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/676 Meanwhile, the number of members of the Progressive Caucus kept dwindling. So, to get back up to 93, maybe some changed minds and/or maybe new Reps made up the difference.

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divineorder's picture

@HenryAWallace I am most glad that groups have recently been presuring Dems in Congress and that public support for single payer/ medicare for all is higher as well.

https://hbr.org/2017/07/is-the-u-s-ready-for-a-single-payer-health-care-...

Decades of opposition have tinted Americans’ view of a single-payer system’s potential. But there is no reason to think that the status quo is immutable. It did not, after all, come about organically; it is the product of years of influence strategically wielded by powerful stakeholders in business, medicine, and politics. These stakeholders were able to advance their agenda in large part because Americans had not come to view health care as an essential collective right. This is changing. Turning this growing view into policy will require a national agreement that health care is a value worth paying for. The country is not there yet, but it no longer feels that far off.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder

of health care is important to me.

BTW, Americans of all parties polled overwhelming in favor of some kind of government health care plan when Obama was elected. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health/policy/21poll.html

It was only after Obamacare was enacted that the numbers went down. Nonetheless as of 2015, a majority was still polling in favor of "single payer." http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/229959-majority-still-support-singl...

(I bet if they had been asked about "Medicate for All," rather than "single payer," the number would have been higher. Yup, I guessed correctly about "Medicare for All" polling better than "single payer." Just found this, which includes a statement to that effect: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sorry-republicans-but-most-peopl...

It doesn't seem as though the country isn't there yet. Rather, it seems most politicians are not there yet.

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divineorder's picture

@HenryAWallace

Coalition

"Let's make Single Payer the official position of the Democratic party! "
orward to friends!!

"We'll begin by delivering the petitions to the DNC offices in D.C. on July 25. Then, when representatives return to their districts, we’ll be bringing these issues to their door step. We’ll offer lobbying trainings for local groups to organize around their members of Congress, connecting with representatives at town halls, through in-person meetings, and with petition deliveries. We’ll also take to social media, make calls to representatives – we won’t let up until we’re sure everyone knows, unequivocally, where Democratic members of Congress stand on Medicare for All!

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/s4p?source=healthcarenow

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder

http://www.gp.org/green_party_to_sanders_introduce_single_payer

I'm not optimistic about the Democratic Party.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/03/politics/medicare-for-all-progressives-rep...

But we can hope. '

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/medicare-for-all-is-coming-no-matter...

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divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder

If you didn't see it, I posted the last part over the weekend. https://caucus99percent.com/content/who-will-own-lack-good-national-heal...

Believing that activism works is having hope, IMO. And faith. In general, I don't know about action's having done much since the DLC swallowed the Democratic Party. I've thought about it and looked into it as much as I could, given that politicians have taught me again and again to discount very heavily what they say and I can't read their minds.

I've also polled people on other boards. People on boards usually start off getting angry at me when I post something like that, especially those who are the most activist. But, unless I can post what I believe, I have no reason to post. So, I never stop taking that risk. So far, no one has cited to me one instance in recent decades when activism changed the course politicians seem to have been headed toward. One poster mentioned Obama and Syria, but that was the House and Boehner, not us. https://caucus99percent.com/content/did-obama-draw-red-line-syrian-sand-...

Also, after the House dropped its opposition, the rest became history, horrible, horrible history.

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