Holy crap! Someone told the truth about health "reform"!

[lwcon]

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/15873

If you have concerns about the process and result of this health-care bill, this is a must-read.

A brief excerpt here:

In each case where there was disappointment, the progressives revised downward their notions of what was possible, and prepared to bring forth a world with a weaker PO-based reform. Each time they did that, they took action that was part of a more global process that led to an even weaker PO. This process is a classic example of reflexivity: one’s judgment of what is possible leads to one’s choice of action, which impacts a later judgment of what’s possible, which impacts one’s choice of a similar action as before, and so one goes round and round in a deflationary cycle that ends with action defending a PO-based reform that is only a shadow of what one started out to support.

Please K&R if you want more DUers to read this.

[Cleita]

1. Yes.

:kick:

[kentuck]

2. In other words...

A race to the bottom.

[graywarrior]

3. Everything is so muddled now the only important thing left is to win

I don't understand what we're fighting for anymore.

[glitch]

29. I know what they are fighting for: the APPEARANCE of a win.

http://www.democracynow.org was very good this morning, Naomi Klein talking about the stage being set for an appearance of a win in Copenhagen as well.

If people weren't dying and the planet wasn't melting we might find comfort in the appearance, or at least humor in the farce.

What we need to be fighting for is keeping them and their results REAL.

[graywarrior]

31. Funny how something starts out with good intentions but attracts bloodsuckers and

con artists turning it into shit.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. It is amazing that the Dems, even now when they are in power, are trying to "win"

by being more like those that lost...the repukes.
They have been doing this for years now! WHY!!!??????

[rhett o rick]

10. Because the battle isn't Democrat vs. Republicant. That struggle is a smoke screen

to cover up the real battle between the classes. Almost all in Congress are members of the ruling class and only give lip service to helping us poor bastards.

[bertman]

11. Brklyn Liberal, in purely medical terms the cause is known as Legislative Injections. In plain speak

it's due to massive infusions of corporate donations into campaign funds, resulting in limp, flaccid spinal columns.

[lwcon]

27. Let's be fair

It was pretty macho for Max Baucus to call the cops and get single-payer advocates arrested.

That took some resolve!

[BrklynLiberal]

36. LOL. Resolve is one word for it.

:rofl:

[inna]

5. kr

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7062279

[patrice]

6. K + R

[slipslidingaway]

7. knr - excellent piece, a few more snips ....

"...Imagine if, at the first stage of this process, the progressives had not agreed to take HR 676 off the table in the House and S 703 in the Senate. The first thing that would have happened is that the MSM and cable news would have talked about Obama’s rebellious Party ideologues who were contradicting all the tenets of pragmatism, who were allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good, who were insisting on single-payer, and who were refusing to accept his leadership and undermining his newly-elected authority. Since this opposition in the ranks would have been big news back in January and February, the progressives would have gotten interviews. Single-payer, enhanced Medicare for All, would have been presented to the broader public back then. It, and not the PO, would have been touted as one of the main reform policy positions, even while it was also characterized as the ideologue position. The support for Medicare for All in Congress, however, whether ideological or not, would have connected to a popular movement for Medicare for All, very early on, and enabled that movement. To avoid a fight with the progressives and lots of press articles about how ineffective he was being as a leader, President Obama might have concluded that the best way to go was to feed this popular movement, to find its leaders, to get them into the White House, and to help them to mobilize the public in favor of Medicare for All.

Why would he do that? Because every good politician knows that when the crowd starts to move, you need to get out in front of it, if you expect to have any control over it at all. The crowd needs to trust you as one of its leaders. And after all, any health care reform bill is a great victory for his Administration, even if it destroys the insurance companies as a viable political force that can’t provide campaign contributions either to Democrats or anyone else.

The insurance companies would have fired on Medicare for All very early, of course, and the pharmaceutical industry too. Both would have attacked it as “socialized medicine.” But everyone knows about Medicare because their grandparents and parents have it, and 86% of them like it. People know that it’s not socialized medicine; but only Government-funded insurance. It can be easily communicated to them that if Medicare for All is enacted, they won’t lose their providers, but only their insurance companies, which a heavy majority of them hate and mistrust anyway.

What about the polls? Well once the MSM had made the very early progressive insistence on Medicare for All, a popular narrative, they would have included Medicare for All in their polling. In fact, there’s a good chance that their framing would have suppressed polling of the PO entirely, because the progressives would not have had it on the table, as something they were pushing. Even if that had not happened however, both Medicare for All and a “Medicare-like PO” would most probably have polled 75% together, with Medicare for All itself at around 55-60%. That support probably would have been maintained throughout the Summer, because the tea bag movement would have had a lot more difficult time tagging Medicare with “death panels” and “Government takeover of medical care,” than they had doing that with PO-based bills that no one understood..."

[laughingliberal]

8. Yes, we've caved a little more at each step

Started from a position of weakness. Listened to crap about the perfect being the enemy of the good. Wound up with a contest between the barely acceptable and absolutely disastrous.

[katandmoon]

9. The - the- the - good is the enemy of the SHITTY!

[saracat]

12. K+R But of course anyone who does that is the enemy. Some do not want anyone to "think".

[bertman]

13. A terminally long and tedious piece that could be summed up by saying that the bill

should be killed by the Democrats because in their usual spineless failure to stand for the right thing they have brought us the wrong thing.

But I do agree with the overall thrust.

[lwcon]

14. Well, please consider...

... that it's written to an audience that has heard nothing but non-stop hype about the awesomeness of "public option," so one does feel the need to build a case brick-by-brick.

[bertman]

16. I see your point, but having been a Dem for forty-plus years, I'm tired of rehashing this shit

with every Democratic President and Congress.

Just my personal peeve.

[Skittles]

15. look at how many DUers are celebrating this steaming pile

we're truly fucked

[bertman]

17. Yes. It's the "give us ANYTHING and we'll be happy" syndrome.

[lwcon]

23. The rationalizations for this are many... and amazing

My favorite one comes from MoveOn:

"If we lose the health care fight, Democrats will grow timid."

:rofl:

[bertman]

25. That's a DUZY for sure. Did they REALLY say that?

Unbelievable.

[lwcon]

26. Truly they did

I just don't know what I'd do if the Democrats went timid, all of a sudden. It would be such a shock!

[bertman]

30. I understand and sympathize with you. I, on the other hand, having been through enough

Democratic timidity and outright cowardice to choke a horse, am never surprised by what our party leaders do. Sad to say.

I'm seriously considering a third party option since it's obvious that the Democratic leadership is working for the corporate interests and not the people.

[lwcon]

33. In case it wasn't clear

I was being sarcastic. I'm painfully used to how timid and/or corrupt and/or right-leaning my lifetime party is.

[bvar22]

35. "MoveON" has been co-opted by Rahm and the White House.

MoveOn is now nothing more than a White House propaganda outlet helping Rahm to "enforce Message Discipline".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/rahm-emanuels-think-tanke_b_185203.html

Needless to say, I have stopped all donations and support for the propaganda outlet MoveOn.Org among others.

[bertman]

40. I recently noticed that MoveOn had adopted the Head Cheerleader role sometime

around the Max Baucus Senate Healthcare Debacle episode. Very disappointing. They have the ways and the means to do better--a lot better.

[lwcon]

41. OTOH, it's like a free "Joke of the Day" service

I'm ROFL every time I get one of their messages.

[Triana]

18. In other words the thing has been watered down beyond recognition and is nothing but

a giveaway to the for-profit insurance industry who practically wrote the piece of shit - and all because Democrats (most of them) are pantywaist ninnies who won't stand up for people (like Democrats are SUPPOSED to do) and the Blue Dogs are just Republicans who like to call themselves Democrats in order to get elected.

And US? Well, we get what we got: a watered down beyond recognition "health insurance reform bill" (interesting little turn of phrase, that one) that is nothing but a giveaway to the for-profit insurance industry who wrote the piece of shit.

Is it any wonder NO ONE trusts 'guvmint' to get ANYTHING done right? EVER? No matter WHO is in power? I think not. Democrats have "screwed the pooch" on this one. THIS WAS THEIR CHANCE - their BEST CHANCE IN HISTORY - to enact REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM.

And THIS is what they did with it. :eyes:

[sandnsea]

19. It is the same plan Howard Dean had

and the same people bitching today were thrilled with the plan then.

[lwcon]

20. Not me

I wasn't too impressed with Dean's advocacy for such a plan.

[jonnyblitz]

24. WRONG. i don't give a fuck about any of the DEM party politician,

sacred cow ASSHOLES. bullshit is bullshit no matter what famous DEM that everybody just looooves promulages or advocates it. fuck you all and your clashes of the personality cults idiocy. some of us care about the fucking (((ISSUES)))).

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

28. Except that it's not.

He wanted to link and subsidize HC via FEHI.

[sandnsea]

39. Which is an insurance exchange

He didn't even have a public option.

[JCMach1]

21. Quit 'organizing' the community in Washington and start kicking its a$$

I think this is a serious flaw in Obama's approach to things so far.

[leftstreet]

22. K&R

[slipslidingaway]

32. ....nt

[Individualist]

34. The whole thing has been a dog and pony show.

[smalll]

37. LOL - You've got THAT right!

They promised us ponies,
and they give us this "dog" of a bill!

[Uncle Joe]

38. Excellent article.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Iwcon.

[Stinky The Clown]

42. I am rec #60

I want everyone to read this.