On Health-Care Reform, Obama Looks to the LBJ Model

[Jennicut]

President Obama returned to domestic affairs yesterday after a weeklong overseas tour with a warning for skeptics of his stalled health-care overhaul: "Don't bet against us."

The tough talk in the Rose Garden gave way hours later to behind-the-scenes Lyndon B. Johnson-style lobbying, as Obama pledged in a pair of private meetings with Democratic lawmakers to stake his political capital on this year's top agenda item.

"I just want to put everybody on notice because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone," he said. "Inaction is not an option."

I liked this part...

In sessions with Democrats, Obama and his advisers remind lawmakers that the defeat of President Bill Clinton's health-care overhaul spelled electoral disaster for the party in 1994, costing Democrats control of both the House and Senate.

"Behind closed doors, he essentially says: If this sinks, we will have trouble in 2010," said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at the moderate Third Way think tank. "If this goes down, they will lose a whole lot of momentum on everything else. Clinton's whole agenda went down" after the reform's defeat.

In mapping its strategy, the Obama team chose to take its cues from another Democratic senator-turned-president: following the legislative model employed by Johnson to enact Medicare in 1965.

"He becomes Lyndon Johnson in a more graceful form but just as steely," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). "Obama isn't a toucher" like Johnson, Rockefeller said, "it's just intellect, this sort of streaming knowledge and a deep voice that never seems to get weary. It's clear he has to have this."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/13/AR2009071303342.html?hpid=moreheadlines

I think Obama knows how important this is to pass and how it must have a public option in it.

[Vincardog]

1. If the Universal Coverage Single Payer plan goes down, so dies the pretext of the Democratic party.

[Oregone]

3. Huh? There is no single-payer plan

They may be drawing parallels in terms of method of leadership, but it ends there.

[JayMusgrove]

4. How and why do you predict the future in such absolutist terms?

Just curious as to how you came to that conclusion about the "pretext" of the Democratic Party, over one issue.

[Vincardog]

5. If our elected representatives can not vote with over 70% of he population the sham is blown

[JayMusgrove]

6. Can you link me to a poll where 70% of the population want "single payer"?

Sham? What sham?

[lindisfarne]

8. Some people have lots of practice at doing it. They get better over time. lol. n/t

[quantass]

7. You mean "Public Option" not Single Payer right?

Cuz living in a country where we have the benefits of single payer (a country without it should be criminal) i can tell you its great but America's culuture and the constant barage of repubz (and blue dog) democrats telling u how its bad i can see no chance the american people wanting single-payer. You got to ease these people into it and the best way is a public option. Its a good compromise that will ultimately lead to single payer.

[JayMusgrove]

9. Very insightful comment.

Yes, I agree, single payer in the USA will take some time with a public option.

[avaistheone1]

11. It didn't take anytime at all for Wall Street to get our money.

Why is it okay to let 22,000 people a year wait and die for lack of health insurance and health care?
Why must we wait?

[Vincardog]

10. I mean single payer screw that incremental crap

[ipaint]

13. With public programs it works in opposite here

They will make a big deal out of a public option and how similar it is to single payer. They will finally get it up and running years down the road and it will be bungled purposely (defunding, no teeth regulations etc.) and fail. This will be used to discredit any public government run insurance option in the future.
There isn't a country in the world that is reasonably successful at providing healthcare to it's citizens that uses this approach. The several states here in the US that have tried this very type of public option have failed. The public option will be another 20 year clusterfuck at which point the populace will be so incensed at the governments handling of their healthcare that we will never see a truly progressive government run health ins. program.

The insurance industry paid for this plan. Unless they are cut out they will see a hefty return for their investment.

From Bill Moyers Journal:

BILL MOYERS: Sid, you've been watching this and involved in this since 1971. What happens if they pass comprehensive health reform that is really just more of the same in disguise? What happens to health care after that?

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Well, the country, whether it's the employers who have to pay for it, or the patients who are paying for it, is going to go bankrupt much more quickly. It is not economically feasible to pass anything other than a single-payer, government collecting the money and paying the bills, and provide health care. It's never been done in any country. Taiwan, of all places, said, we don't like the fact that 40 percent of our people are uninsured. They passed, essentially, single-payer plan and within a few years 90-95 percent of the people were covered.

So, we have lots of models to draw on. Learn something from Canada, learn something from Taiwan, from a number of other places. It's inexcusable that we do anything but that. Anything that passes is not going to work. I guarantee that, 100 percent. And David will agree with me.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/transcript2.html

[dflprincess]

14. There are polls that indicate half the public wants single payer

and 73% support a strong public option.

[backscatter712]

2. Bout fuckin' time!

IIRC, LBJ once grabbed a recalcitrant senator and took him for a ride on the Presidential yacht, then threatened to leave him out at sea until he agreed to vote for his bill.

I like those kinds of tactics!

[flpoljunkie]

12. Politico: Obama has summoned Chambliss, Murkowski and Corker to WH to talk about healthcare refo

SUMMONED: Republican Sens. Chambliss, Murkowski and Corker will all be at the White House later this afternoon to talk about health care reform, a W.H. aide confirms. -- Amie Parnes (12:38 p.m.)

http://www.politico.com/politico44/wbarchive/whiteboard07152009.html