Dean Dumb

Dear Joe Klein:

When this not perfect bill passes and my insurance premiums go up (self employed, have to buy an individual private policy) because Blue Cross or whoever has to find the $$$ to account for the pre-existing conditions they have to cover, etc. can I ask you for a loan?

I’m going to be too rich for the subsidy but too poor to afford my new, higher premium.

And for this liberal, therein lies the problem with no public option or Medicare buy-in. No competition and no way to control costs.

Have a nice day.

“This means he would scuttle a bill that would benefit the vast majority of Americans (by forcing insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions and chronic illnesses) and the vast majority of lower-income Americans without health insurance…”
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…and vastly benefit the insurance and pharmaceutical industries (by forcing American citizens to buy their grossly over-priced products) and the vast majority of lobbyists who get paid to ensconce corporate desires in US law.
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Just helping you finish your thought.

Howard Dean has a vote??

Howard Dean is suffering the post-medicare letdown. He has been optimistic about this bill all along, and the extension of medicare was a creature of his own. Not hard to share his disappointment. I’m not sure what should be done at the moment. My guess is that Bernie Sanders may well vote no without either the public option or medicare extension.

What. a. mess.

Joe, you’re mischaracterizing what Dean said. Dean said to scuttle this unflushable floater of a bill and pass pieces through reconciliation:

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

So while he is calling for this bill to be defeated, he is also suggesting that important portions of it be passed, one at a time, using reconciliation where only 51 votes are needed and self-important jackasses like Joe Lieberman become neutered.

This is a perfect opportunity for one liberal senator, if any actually exist, to kill this thing and shift all the blame to Lieberman and Nelson. Hopefully, the fallout will run both of them out of office.

My bet is there isn’t one single real liberal in the Senate and Lieberman will probably get a promotion.

This is Romney-care. You MUST have health insurance and you MUST pay whatever the insurer wants to charge. It’s still not too late to load up on health care stocks – this bill is a guaranteed cash cow for the insurance industry.

Nice going, Senators!

Why not take this deeply flawed bill and then use a separate budget reconciliation bill to remove as many flaws as possible? Why not a two stage process? Get what you can in this bill — much of which could not be obtained in budget reconciliation — and then proceed with budget reconciliation to add a public option. A public option saves money making it eligible for the reconciliation process. Lieberman, et al will be unable to block the public option in a budget reconciliation bill. Is this being considered?

“Dumb” is attempting to pass this stupid bill from the beginning.
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It is NOT reform, Joe Klein. Nothing about it is health care reform, get it?

Joe Klein:

This is not a perfect piece of legislation. But it is not the last word on health care reform, either; it is just the necessary next step.

Do you centrists ever, ever stop to ask yourselves why it is that compromise measures that infuriate everyone (besides a handful of you Third Way lunatics), and that don’t ever actually solve real problems are such political losers that your kind of Democrats require more and more industry cash to retain office?
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The only opportunity you New Democrats had to f*ck things up after Bush/Cheney was if you then made a Katrina out of health care legislation, continued nation-building Central Asia, and literally forgot about jobs for a year after a depression-level economic downturn.
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It’s just so sad for our country when you centrists make Bush, Cheney, Delay and Frist look like competent professionals. Great work!
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I sincerely hope you love the job of cheerleading this grand, historic “not the last word on health care reform”, Joe Klein.
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I can’t wait until somebody catches you and the rest of your Third Way ideologues talking out of both sides of your mouth:

“So, if I’m hearing you correctly, people who like things the way they are can keep the health care reform exactly the way it is, but yet our system will also radically change at some point in the future?
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Is that right, Mr. Klein?
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Have all of these Democratic assurances about folks keeping what they have been false? Have Republicans been correct all along when they criticized Democrats for dishonestly inserting Trojan Horses for a Canadian style single-payer system into health care reform?
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Well, Mr. Klein…?”

What fantastic politicians and policy-makers you Third Way technocrats are!
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What a glorious victory for everyone involved!
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Huzzah! Huzzah!
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Sizable Democratic majorities passed a historic “not the last word on health care reform!”
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Do you centrists have any idea at all what goes on in the real world, Joe Klein? Is that remarkable out-of-touch-ness the reason why you’d rather debate the neo-conservatives than us any day of the week?
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Let’s see in 2010 and 2012 what the American people decide is “just the necessary next step” after this abortion passes, shall we, Joe Klein?

I’m with JK. If we can ream Holy Joe out for putting lives at risk over his pettiness then threats to scuttle the bill from the other side are just as irresponsible. If you think in terms of who you’re helping rather than who you’re punishing then the course is clear. Pass a bill.

If Americans were aware of the actual cost of their employer-provided health care insurance, they would hit the roof.

Because the MSM has failed to do its job, many Americans are not aware that their premiums are just a drop in the bucket of the actual cost of insurance and that one reason take-home wages remain stagnant is that their “compensation package” includes whopping insurance costs that come out of their potential earnings.

My premiums are only $150 but my employee is paying $450 for, money that I never see on my paycheck, money that is not a part of my pre-tax earnings, and the reason that I have not had a raise (I get meager cost-of-living adjustments) in about eight years. Because my potential raise is money my employer is using to pay for my healthcare insurance.

As somebody who pays 100% of their health insurance premium, thank you for your comment.

Not to mention the fact, stuart, that Howard Dean is a reviled figure within the DLC/Third Way confines.
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They hated him when he ran for president. They hated him when he ran the DNC. And they still hate him.
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Rahm Emanuel would probably love to pop Dean in the beak.
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And that is a feather in Dean’s cap.

This is proving to be an incredibly traumatic process, to say the least. I had always been wondering about Lieberman–I was finding it too good to be true that he was going along with the supposed deal struck by Reid and Schumer on medicare buy-in. This guy wears “devious” on his forehead, and he is way, way too chummy with John Mccain and Lindsay Graham who want nothing but to kill this whole process. I think people are misreading his intentions entirely; he is not out to get liberals, or to have his “concerns” met; his aim is to start a firestorm on the cusp of the bill’s passage, possibly derailing the process completely. He and Dean actually have something in common–they want to kill the bill. This is his final “f&%$k you” farewell card to the Democrats, before he leaves the political stage in 2012. Now it is up to the Democratic caucus to call his bluff: give him what he wants, and hold the liberal wing together, and then let’s see what he comes up with. However, in final analysis, the problem is with the Senate as currently structured. This 60-majority or filibuster rule is rendering the country ungovernable. There is a huge agenda on the pipeline, being held up by these children squabbling over little bits and pieces of health care. If health care is taking a year, how long will climate change, banking regulation, immigration reform, etc. take? The world is looking at us and laughing. How are we supposed to be leaders in this era of globalization with such a corrupt, dysfunctional Senate? How are we supposed to guide America into the twenty-first century with this kind of crazy, undemocratic, extreme political system? Leave health care aside for the moment; let’s reform the Senate, or else.

” .. a “no” vote on the Senate Health Care bill now that the public option and Medicare buy-in have been dropped .. because it doesn’t include provisions that might benefit a few million Americans ..

Like 45 million?

” .. This is stupid above and beyond the call of duty. ..”
Many, indeed most, of those August’s town-hall-howling middle-class Americans – and maybe you and your loved ones – will, in future, get to that uber-stupid beyond when you will wish for better.

“American Exceptionalism”? That sounds like something that should be self-evident in even the least fortunate of us. That an observer would expect that we do better for each and all our exceptional American citizens than other countries do for theirs – countries like UK and Canada and … and most African countries …
[Else it may as well be said that British Exceptionalism or French Exceptionalism or Zimbabwean Exceptionalism trumps our Ameri ... perish the thought.]

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it is up to the Democratic caucus to call his bluff: give him what he wants, and hold the liberal wing together
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Because…we can’t use reconciliation to pass a bill?
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Because…the Democratic caucus can’t hold the centrist wing together?
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That’s why we must let Joe Lieberman dictate policy and legislation…because we don’t have 50 votes in the Senate for a bill that centrists wrote?
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Dean’s personal faults aside, he’s just saying the same kind of thing that pissed off New Democrats in 2004 when he mentioned that the capture of Saddam didn’t make America safer…he’s telling the truth about what the DLC wing of the party did to make this bad legislation.

I’ve been wavering back and forth on this (not like my opinion matters) but I’d trust Howard Dean over some other people I can think of.

Oh, and I like this:

“Democrats–and responsible Republicans”

Union with the null set is the identity operation.

Cookie, your insurance premiums ARE going up- that’s the whole point. Without any bill, your insurance premiums are skyrocketing. That is precisely the objective here, the reason why this whole thing started in the first place–to put a mechanism in place so that premiums can start going down. Already there are reports indicating that premiums, WITHOUT ANY BILL, are going up 10% next year. So, will there be unintended consequences, unpredictable variables, twists and turns to this Bill, possibly short-term increases in premiums (which would happen anyway)? Yes, probably. But doing nothing guarantees increases. The truth of the matter is that reform on this massive a scale is difficult to foresee. No one, not even the most Einsteinian experts, can possibly know what will happen, really. This is the beginning of an experiment, and this is how Americans will come to view it. This process will have to be deeply monitored and vigorously enforced, and, inevitably, adjusted and amended as we move on. This is just the beginning of health care reform, which will likely last the decade, or even more.

Joe-You know what’s dumb. The way you label your posts. When some one writes or says something you agree with you called it smart this or that. But when someone suggests something you don’t agree with you label it as stupid or dumb. And that’s dumb.

Come on, PD!
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You really can’t tell the difference between a guy trying to scuttle legislation (Lieberman) and a guy saying that it would be preferable to use an alternative procedural route to enacting legislation, i.e. reconciliation (Dean)?
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Those are equally blameworthy in your view?

Money, Joe. Money, money, money. What Lieberman did was very simple. He left in the requirement that everybody get insurance, but took out the provisions that would reduce the cost to the taxpayer.

Howard Dean is being fiscally responsible. He wants more lives saved with the money, and he wants stronger cost controls via Medicare and the public option. Far better for America in the long run.

Money, money, money. But you don’t care, Joe, do you? Your precious defense budget will never get cut.

No Dean is right. You wrote “it doesn’t include provisions that might benefit a few million Americans at most.”

What? a few million is a LOT. This bill wont due a damn thing to help my uninsured friends were in our 40′s. I have insurance but I know a lot of people from my generation who can’t afford it.

The whole point of lowering the medicare age to 55 was a compromise for getting rid of the public option. Now their getting rid of the medicare provision they might as well scrap the whole thing.

Time for the democrats to grow a pair and lead like they were elected to do. Dean’s suggestion of using reconciliation is exactly what they should do. The republicans thought nothing of using it and now it’s the democrats turn. If they pass this weak bill there won’t be any more reform in my lifetime.

And that phony self serving Lieberman should be stripped of his chair immediately.

But it is not the last word on health care reform, either; it is just the necessary next step.

You don’t have enough lipstick for the pig you are calling reform Joe. And how does “forcing insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions and chronic illnesses” help those individuals can not afford the premiums? Save your false outrage.

But do you agree with Joe about Howard Dean?

Reconciliation is no-brainer at this point. Resorting to Reconciliation means a delay of at least 6 months or more in an election year. Any political person knows that this is a non-starter. You obviously didn’t read my whole post. I think it is outrageous that Lieberman can do this, but we shouldn’t blame Lieberman. It is the Senate’s fault–basically, its crazy, undemocratic, dysfunctional rules. If the Senate had saner, fairer rules, requiring, for example, just a 55 majority and no filibuster to pass legislation, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, Lieberman wouldn’t be getting his fifteen minutes, and the President would have, probably, already signed this Bill into Law, the way Dean and other Progressives would have wanted it. The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in the Senate. I would like to see Joe Klein and his colleagues begin an editorial movement to reform the Senate. Already today, we have several commentators–EJ Dionne, Paul Krugman, and others mentioning the need for a drastic change in Senate rules. The Senate is on an 18th century time-cycle in a nanosecond, global universe. American can not continue to lead with this kind of system.

To say nothing of Joe’s wishful thinking.
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Unless, of course, he can predict the future! (And isn’t that a skill set of all pundits? Who will ever forget Thomas Friedman predicting that we would “turn the corner in Iraq” in six months — over and over and over?)

Or Reid could grow a pair and tell Lieberman to go stock up on cots and phone books.

But that would require, not only courage from Reid, but a desire to preserve the PO and/or Medicare buy-in.

Right. Costs are going up. Got that. So let’s pass a bill that does nothing about costs. And while we’re at it, let’s mandate the private insurance that is contributing to the rapid increase in costs. No thanks.

The vast majority of Americans will get no tangible benefit from this bill. They already have insurance through work. Premiums and deductibles will continue to rise. Most people should oppose this bill because it does very little for them.

Keep the public option, the buy-ins and everything else. Let a filibuster occur. Then, while the Republicans and Lieberman and everyone else is filibustering, start ticking off the number of people who died due to lack of insurance while the Senate was filibustering.
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I pretty sure last year’s figure was 27,000 people or so, which means it’s one American life every 20 minutes.

I don’t believe this bill contains any cost-reducing ideas for Americans. At all.

{The people and their votes} Vs {Pharma/Insurance- companies and the Senators}

You’d think that in a ‘democracy’, the people and their votes would win hands down.
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Smart people know when to walk away and know when to run.

People wanted a (robust) public option – the more inclusive and human-friendly the better. It is important to them.
They are not going to get it.
The peope should demand that we run away from this $Billion bill essentially sponsored by, and hugely enriching, the insurance and pharma companies.

We will try again another day. Meanwhile, there is work to be done – like evaluating our campaign financing laws, regulations and eliminating the influence of lobby groups, interest groups, industry groups, PACs etc in the election of our congressmen.

Then we will end up with only those who heed the call to public service.
[OK. In the USA's democracy, the candidate who has more money to spend on an election is MORE LIKELY to win. So by asking congresscomrades to forego their source of direct and indirect campaign funds and support, my proposal is a non-starter: I am asking Senators who are said to live for their re-election to eliminate what helps them get re-elected .. Can I believe in miracles one time?]

It’s hard to fault liberals for wanting to scuttle the bill. They’ve been forced to make compromises every step of the way, and are left with a bill that doesn’t do nearly as much to address the health care issue as they’d like. By passing a flawed bill, they become the healthcare whipping boy; as time goes by, costs continue to rise, and employers continue dropping benefits, republicans will point to this bill and lay the blame at the democrats’feet. It’ll be an ongoing symbol of liberal ineffectiveness, despite the fact that it’s not the bill the liberals want.
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By choosing not to pass (and therefore take ownership of) a bill that they know doesn’t solve any problems, liberals leave the blame for the continuing crisis squarely on those who have opposed stronger reform measures from the beginning. The chances of more liberal reform measures passing in the future are greater without this bill than with it, because as things continue to get worse, voters will remember it was the democrats who tried to take action, and the republicans who fought for the status quo.
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It’s a terrible shame that it’s come to this, but blaming liberals is exactly the wrong response. If there’s too much good in this bill to let it slip away, isn’t it time somebody else accommodated the liberals in order to protect it? Your post suggests it’s the right of republicans and centrists to be absolute in their opposition to the larger bill in response to what you yourself consider small potatoes in comparison, and the obligation of liberals to hold their nose and do the best they can to clean up everybody else’s mess. The right is just as beholden to the people as the left, whether they like it or not, but as long as liberals are willing to be left holding the bag, conservatives have no need to change their behavior.
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Jane Hamsher just posted this email from Dave Johnson:

“Most other countries provide health care as a right – a core function of government. But here privateers have seized it for themselves for profit. So to maintain this, to keep taxes low for the rich and keep the profits privatized we are ordered to buy it from companies instead of having it provided as a government service. This is the battle between democracy and corporatization.”

I’d change the “is” to “was”

I’d also recommend Jon Walker’s piece about our lying president seeking a “win”

If I was a liberal or a Democrat, I would be flat-out embarrassed. You guys have a president who was just elected in a LANDSLIDE, have lopsided majorities in both chambers in Congress, and this is the best bill that they have come up with. Shame, shame shame.
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As a conservative/libertarian, I am angry that this does not do more to curb costs. The only wide bi-partisan agreement during this debate has been the need to curb costs, and this hardly does anything to solve this pressing problem. But don’t worry, we’ll fix it EVENTUALLY.
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I urge liberals and Democrats to not let your leaders off the hook on this. Remember, ultimately, the people are responsible for the government they elect.

Resorting to Reconciliation means a delay of at least 6 months or more in an election year. Any political person knows that this is a non-starter.

It’s a non-starter because centrists occupy leadership positions in the Democratic party, not because there’s some kind of law against it, or because it’s so procedurally complex for any other reason.
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Appeals to savviness don’t work when you’re operating outside of the pre-defined debate.
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Lieberman isn’t the only problem, it’s a centrist Democratic leadership that apparently loves to be held hostage so that they can compromise, thus succeeding in fulfilling their self-mandated role.
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It’s a non-starter because of the bizarre, unpopular ideology of a bloc of Democrats –New Democrats– and their positions in leadership, not because it’s the natural order of things.

And here’s Johnson from back in July:

“I said it the other day, and I feel the need to repeat it: the public does not yet understand that the government is about to order people to buy health insurance, with their own money. Yes, the government is about to order people to cough up hundreds of dollars a month each.
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When the Republicans start using their toxic message-machine magic on this, and the public starts to understand that they are being ordered by the government to cough up a huge amount of money every month, Democrats had better have good hiding places, because things are going to get really bad out there.
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This is the kind of policy that results when “centrist” Democrats give in to to the demands of Republicans and big corporations and the top 1% of the wealthy. Instead of just taxing the wealthy and corporations at reasonable rates and using the money to provide We, the People with health care — thereby vastly improving the economy for … the wealthy and big corporations — they instead come up with a scheme to order regular people to pay for health insurance because they don’t already have it because they can’t afford it.”

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/12/15-1

Yeah, and it’s going to be improved going FWD!? The worst deceit of all is that which we practice on ourselves folks.

“It’s a non-starter because of the bizarre, unpopular ideology of a bloc of Democrats –New Democrats– and their positions in leadership [including the White House] not because it’s the natural order of things.”
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Just thought I’d edit that a bit. Since a sizeable portion of our party seems to think Joe Lieberman and assorted blue dogs are the only corp. mercenaries. Until we start seeing things with clarity, there is no hope.
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And, if you really want to feel depressed SZ, read the piece by Bill Johnson I linked to on pg. 2
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http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/12/15-1

Just to finish your thought …
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I heard it said that this bill will cover 30 million more Americans. This bill, as I understand it, will NOT “cover 30 million more Americans.”
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Joe’s idea that the “vast majority of lower-income Americans without health insurance (by providing significant subsidies for them to buy it)” will benefit is pure bunk.
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This bill will force 30 Million or so Americans to BUY private insurance which they can not afford, even with the inadequate subsidies provided, while doing not much, if anything, to hold down costs for them or the rest of the public. I assume many of these so-called 30 million will, in the end, refuse to buy something they can not afford, so the 30 million figure becomes an illusion.
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How would you like to be forced to buy a product from a private, for profit company that you really can’t afford or be faced with a penalty? Not much? Neither would I, nor millions of voters.
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What would you think about politicians or a party that forced you to buy a product from a private, for profit company that you really can’t afford? Not much? Neither would I, nor millions of voters.
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Would you vote for them again? No? Neither would I.
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Last year Democrats were handed the electoral equivalent of a bowl of caviar on a silver platter. They have managed to turn it into a sh*t sandwich on a rusty hubcap. Good work fellas!

Dave!

If this bill were to get killed only the Democrats would pay a political price. Most of the country doesn’t even support the Democrats’push for health care reform so it’s impossible to imagine Americans outside of the Democratic base getting up in arms about its failure. We as liberals can talk about how thousands of people will die if the bill isn’t passed – unfortunately, the electorate will not moved. Independents and moderates will view as demogoguery any argument about people dying as consequence of reform being voted down.

As for the Republicans, they would score huge political points if the bill were to go down in defeat. They would claim that the Democrats’push for health care reform failed because it ignored public sentiment and represented an elitist, grandiose belief in the power of social-engineering on the part of government. They would be able to use the bill to paint President Obama as feeble in terms of governing, and the bill’s defeat would play into the narrative that Obama is all about words but can’t actually deliver sound policy.

Members of the Obama Administration are absolutely right that this bill needs to be passed soon – and in whatever form necessary – before it sinks even further in the realm of public opinion. The Democrats would well-advised to get it done – after all, it’s a huge improvement from the current status quo in regards to health care – and move onto something else so they don’t get pummeled in the midterm elections.

This is the DLC formula, Joe, and you are one of their biggest shills. This is class warfare as a protection racket.

We citizens can have the social contract we desire, but only if it is provided by private actors who slice off a profit for themselves. Now, that may bankrupt America – and it certainly means that Americans pay ‘way, way more than they have to for desirable government services.

But that 25-50% markup is the price for buying off the moneyed interests. Which gives them more money to spend on lobbyists and campaign contributions, which leads them to new and better ways of manipulating Congress into giving them a bigger slice.

This year will be the biggest score ever! 30million new insurance payers, with the feds footing the bill. And none of that awful Medicare rates – no accountability whatsoever! At $5,000 each, that’s $150 billion new dollars for the insurance companies! Magic!

Every year that legalized corruption makes our country less competitive, because the cost of health care is loaded onto employment costs, and because the money is gone and can’t fund better child care and education, giving us the largest permanent underclass in the developed world, but hey, that’s a small price to pay for progress, isn’t it Joe?

Money, money money. It’s all about our slow path to looking like Argentina, Joe. And Evan Bayh and Holy Joe are the cheap whores leading the way for the big money guys. With people like Joe Klein protecting them.

Maybe the current administration is succeeding in its goal of bridging the partisan divide after all …. !

I know right? We need a good 3rd party now more than ever. Of course, due to ridiculous restraints and a rigid two-party system, that will never happen.

Do we really know that this bill won’t increase the cost of premiums for many people?

Thanks for the link, Oregon JC.
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Am reading now.

Why are so many in Congress prepared to use American taxpayers’money to fund universal healthcare for Israelis?

This is excellent analysis.

[...] waiting for his Lieberman prize, which, if done, will come on the backs of women. Ezra Klein and Joe Klein could care less. Women’s issues so petty, really. Dr. Howard Dean someone who knows health [...]

Too many uninformed people from both sides of the aisle are repeating this canard that there are no cost controls in this bill.

From Jonathan Gruber, a leading health economist at MIT who is consulted by politicians of both parties:
“I’m sort of a known skeptic on this stuff,” Gruber told me. “My summary is it’s really hard to figure out how to bend the cost curve, but I can’t think of a thing to try that they didn’t try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here….I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn’t have done better than they are doing.”

I know liberals are upset about the loss of the public/Medicare option. So am I. Nevertheless as Al Franken said so well in the Senate yesterday “You’re entitled to your opinions, you’re not entitled to your own facts”. This is a serious bill that could do a lot of good.

[...] the comments have any effect? It’s difficult to say. Joe Klein of TIME wrote “This is stupid above and beyond the call of duty.” Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com [...]

I strongly disagree with this assertion. My employer pays approximately $375 per month and I shell out approximately $1000 per month for HMO coverage plus dental for my family of 4. If I wanted to upgrade to PPO I would be paying $1400 per month. While not totally negligible, my employer’s contribution is relatively minimal.
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But I couldn’t get insurance any other way for my wife who has a terminal illness. If I were to lose my insurance we would be bankrupt within 6 months and her condition would deteriorate rapidly.
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I find the self-righteous indignation against the idea of requiring insurance companies to treat people with pre-existing conditions disgusting. I happen to really like my job, but if I ever wanted to become self-employed that would be impossible because my wife couldn’t get insured.
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Or would you conservatives argue that everyone sinks or swims based on their own hard work, so I should just think of myself and let my wife go without insurance.

I agree with Stuart, this is indeed an excellent analysis!