Public Option

I agree there will not be a National Public Option passed because the President did not want it.

Karen if you get to interview the President or any top Whitehouse offical do you think you can ask them what the reaction was when they realised the President had sold the Public Option so well that it still was polling high until the Senate bill. He not only sold his base but also independants and Republicans. Even after the President gave it up for bipartisanship.

Other than lack of courage what would stop them?

I love the public option since it will place a non-profit government agency giving reasonable to low civil service wages head to head with CEOs with ridiculously high pay and as much bloating as any government agency.
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It will put to rest that Republican theory that the private sector is always more efficient.
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It will be a case in point that some things are best taken care of by government.
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Of course the biggest reason I love the public option is that is serves people just as well if not better for less money. Why would anybody not love it unless they see Communists in their cornflakes or in the pocket of an insurance company?

Well KT, despite all of your gloom and doom predictions about health care reform they managed to pass it anyway. I see your latest comic approach is slightly different than your usual chicken little antics, but alas the motivation seems eerily the same. Why not sully the Democratic victory by once again turning up the heat under the angst of the public option devotees. Well at least you’re consistent no flip flopping for you girl. The reason this bill, despite its obvious moderation and inclusion of Republicans principals had such a tough road was because too many whites in this country listened to the dog whistles and viewed this as an extension of welfare. Don’t you ever wonder why the individual pieces of the legislation polled so high while so-called Obamacare polled so badly? The public option helped to fuel the perception that this was just another public welfare program, which is why the administration chose to not allow it to become a deal breaker. For goodness sake, they’ve four years to set up the exchanges, don’t you think they know that there will be plenty of time to put it back once the public has had time to digest the bill and distinguish fact from fiction. Eventually, this bill will take its place aside the other third rails of politics — Social Security and Medicare and the Democrats will be able to tweak this thing into a robust public option that’s open to everyone not just the 32 million. You want to blame someone for not having the public option now, try the media who repeated mentioned how this reform legislation would help low-income and middle-class Americans. However, the public only ever hear the lo-income which translates to minorities in the American mindset. If course the media has still chosen not to cover that part of the story.

I agree, Dee.
The media has been misleading.
Also, unfortunately, unlike Clinton, the Democrats could not shape the debate.
When Clinton was in office, the message was “we need health care reform in case you [middle class or even upper-middle class white, protestant American] loose your job.”
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As a general rule, although it is not obvious, Obama is an even better public speaker than Clinton was.
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I think the media got too excited by the “Tea Party” movement.
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Eighteen years ago the Tea Party would have been openly laughed at by the media since the Tea Party is comically unaware of history, economics, ideologies, law, the constitution and personal hygiene.
(Okay, that last one was mean – I bet they do shower unless the water supply is city run and, therefore, comes from the evil thing called “the government”.)
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I think the media has been bending over for the right wingers.

To quote from another classic Monty Python skit: “I’m not dead! I’m feeling better! I want to go for a walk!”

Can the individual states start public options and then link them together through the exchanges?

Personally I don’t mind joining a public-option plan that includes, say, 30 states.

But the ruling might give Democrats another option — the public one.
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Democratic leadership no longer has to worry that additional amendments would send it back to the House, since it must return to the lower chamber regardless. The Senate is now free to put to the test that much-debated question of whether 50 votes exist for a public option. Democrats could also elect to expand Medicare or Medicaid, now that they only need 50 votes in the Senate and the approval of the House.

Ryan Grim assumes that Democratic leadership and the White House think that the public option is good policy, and would pass it if they could.
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That assumption is contradicted by the President’s own reference to the basis of the Senate bill being the Dole-Daschle plan, which specifically rejects the public option as a matter of politics, but also –and more importantly– policy.
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We were never going to get a public option.

Here is another Monty Python sketch that comes very close to describing the state of the Senate now that health care reform has passed along partisan lines, The Argument Clinic Sketch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM
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link to the Argument Clinic Sketch

No, that would upset Stuart Butler at Heritage, who is the wonk-itecht of this thing.

How do you post youtube link without embedding the viewer like you just did? When I type link in as is, it embeds.

I think it has to do with your browser type and version, because I can’t use the embed tags when I post with FF 3.6.2.

KT:
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I respect the hell out of Dave Waldman, who’s the premiere expert on Congressional procedure, but I think he suffers from the same highly questionable assumption as Ryan Grim when he says:

If Democrats can demonstrate their willingness to adopt a public option amendment in both houses and to bet on its Byrd Rule worthiness — and they were willing to make its inclusion the penalty for Republican points of order being levied against the bill as currently written — we might get through the Byrd Rule challenges a little quicker than we might otherwise, as Republicans opt to drop their points of order rather than face losing on the public option, to boot.
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But that only works if the leadership is willing to make a credible threat on the public option. And of course, that depends on whether or not they believe it would survive the Byrd Rule..

If not, there might perhaps be some other issue about which they’d be more certain that they could use to create the same leverage. Medicare buy-in? Medicaid expansion? Some other provision that puts a silver lining on having to deal with losing on Republican points of order?

It doesn’t occur to Waldman to weigh the risks as those who are happy with the Senate bill in policy terms see them, i.e. that the public option might actually pass and be popular!
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That would ruin the Dole-Dashle plan, the whole point of which is to lay the foundation for Medicaid and then Medicare recipients to be moved out of public programs into private insurers’ exchanges. The public option effectively re-introduces public insurance into the mix, which the wonk-itects of the plan are trying to avoid in the first place.

Thanks. Lately at some sites I’ve seen embedded youtube’s get kicked into a captcha page (it’s happened here too) but not when there’s link only. I wanted to post the Monty Python “Bring Out Your Dead” clip that KT resisted posting (per her tweet).

Dear KT: Thanks a million times for bringing in some Monty Python. Frankly, I’m appalled no one else has thanked. I mean silly is silly & we are surrounded by it. Always better to watch the pros do it proper than the amatuers doning it poorly. Cheers!!