August 14, 2009
Crazy Americans, Disgraceful Britons and Healthcare Reform
I’ve wanted to blog more this week, but have been stupidly busy with work.
In the meantime, over at Liberal Conspiracy there have been a series of excellent posts concerning the attacks by the American looney-right upon Obama’s healthcare proposals…and a certain Tory MEP Dan Hannan who has been shamelessly joining in.
I recommend you read the pieces by Don Paskini, Sunny Hundal, Jason Sport and J. Clive Matthews.
The LibCon news posts are worth reading too (and here).
Peter said,
August 16, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Good piece in the NYT from Obama:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/opinion/16obama.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2
Paul said,
August 16, 2009 at 4:00 pm
It is a cracking piece…but it’s in the wrong paper.
Everyone who reads the NYT already supports healthcare reform (pretty much).
It needed to be in the Washington Times or the Wall Street Journal.
Except, of course, those papers would never take it.
So I suppose it’s better in the NYT than nowehere.
James Arnold said,
August 16, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I posted this article in the comments for the climate change post, then realised it would perhaps be better here.
Anyway, it basically follows on from our discussion about Obama’s public option vs. single-payer (preferred by the majority). ZMag has this to say:
‘[Regarding] the single-payer alternative, it has been ruled “off the table” by [Senator Max] Baucus. Obama initially excluded single-payer advocates from a White House “summit” on health care that was well-attended by top insurances and drug company interests. Mainstream media coverage has been narrowed to shaping the guaranteed choice plan, but virtually none on the public support for single-payer, as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has documented (3/06/09).
The lack of single-payer support by top politicians and elite media is striking. Numerous surveys have shown the popularity of the single-payer approach. A January CBS/NY Times poll showed 59 percent for a single-payer system described in vague terms. Business Week reported on a more specific question in a 2005 poll, which found “67 percent of all Americans think it’s a good idea to guarantee health care for all U.S. citizens, as Canada and Britain do, with just 27 percent dissenting.” In April 2008, a survey of 1,100 U.S. doctors published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed 59 percent backing among physicians for single-payer.
…
Obama had previously advocated a single-payer plan in a 2003 speech, but now argues that a single-payer system would cause too much turmoil in changing the economy. “If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense,” Obama recently told a New Mexico gathering. “The only problem is that we’re not starting from scratch…. We don’t want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we’re trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.”
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship offered a strongly worded retort to Obama’s argument. “So the banks were too big to fail and now, apparently, health care is too big to fix, at least the way a majority of people indicate they would like it to be fixed, with a single payer option,” Moyers and Winship argued (Alternet, 4/29/ 2009).’
Quoted from http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/21873
Paul said,
August 16, 2009 at 9:52 pm
James,
you know what I’m going to say though, right?
“Winable battles”
James Arnold said,
August 17, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Which are, apparently, not all that winnable:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/17/healthcare-obama-public-option-reform
So, to recap, Obama won’t even pursue his watered-down public option, which still doesn’t go as far as the change which a large majority of Americans want, and somehow he still gets counted as a progressive hero.
I like my heroes a bit more, well… heroic.
Paul said,
August 17, 2009 at 11:11 pm
You’re pointing to the tragedy of America, not Obama.
Your definition of “heroic” appears to be: “defeated, broken and with healthcare reform policies which (in the context of America) are indeed a great step forward, lying in the gutter. A President who not only fails, but becomes a lame duck for the next three years and leaves an open door for a Republican resurgence.”
Not sure I like that definition of heroic.
(I also don’t like the word “progressive”. I’m going to quote from someone who’s been around far longer than me but because it was a private email i’m not going to name them on account of it being, well, not appropriate to around quoting private emails in blogs. Unless it’s done anon. In the comments. And in good faith. Because they say it better than me:
“I think “progressive” is a fucking stupid label for anyone, even “progressives”, and it’s one I’d like to kick out of politics more generally. If the twentieth century was about anything at all, it was about the shredding of naïve narratives of “progress”, and the spreading of the term in England is another part of the rather stupid and uncritical adoption of labels from the US. There people called themselves “progressive” simply because the right did an effective hatchet job on “liberalism”; here people like “progressive” because they don’t feel comfortable talking about socialism or social-democracy. I say fuck the lot of them.”)
James A said,
August 19, 2009 at 5:21 pm
> You’re pointing to the tragedy of America, not Obama.
I think it’s a problem about Obama, but also about American politics more generally, yes. I mean, the personal views of leaders aren’t all that important. Obama can say that he would support single-payer in an ideal world – fine. What matters is what he does in this world. And what he does in this world is governed and influenced and constrained by the institutional structure of American politics. This point does not absolve him from criticism over his stance on healthcare; rather, it is an argument for resisting and attempting to change, through public activism, the broken American political system. We shouldn’t admire the captains of this system for their expressions of noble sentiment – whether real or merely professed – unless they act on that sentiment in a way that promotes the will and interests of the people. And with Obama on healthcare, and in many other areas, we just aren’t seeing that.
> Your definition of “heroic”…
This is wrong on many levels. First off, I am bemused as to why you think there would be a “Republican resurgence” if Obama advocated a healthcare system that is supported by a large majority of the public, the majority of physicians, major labour organisations, and many more civil society groups.
Secondly, if he wants to avoid looking “defeated”, “broken” and becoming a “lame duck”, he might have made the case for government involvement in healthcare a bit more forcefully. Instead, he has attempt to marginalise and undermine advocates of single-payer, as was clearly demonstrated by his initial exclusion of single-payer advocates from a White House healthcare summit in March, alongside consistent and strong representation of the private insurance and pharmaceutical industries. He has also let Sen. Baucus lead the charge on the Democratic case for healthcare reform – this is a man who received more campaign contributions from pharmaceutical and insurance industries than any other Democratic member of Congress, excluded single-payer advocates from the hearings of the Senate Finance Committee, and had activists who tried to speak out arrested (he even joked that there weren’t enough police in the committee building to deal with them).
By allowing pro-government healthcare advocates to speak out, Obama might help counteract the media’s misrepresentations of “socialized health”. As it is, he has tried to prevent their arguments from being heard, which can only strengthen the position of those who deride government involvement as statism and detrimental interference with the logic of free markets.
Moreover, his campaign for a weakened “public option” has not exactly been as vigorous as it might have. There is a good article in The Nation on his climbdown, which argues that he “hands the insurance industry a huge victory” by doing so and “is deluded if he thinks this will win him any peace or respect or Republican votes.” (The article goes on to add that there is a “more cynical interpretation” of his tepid support for government involvement – whereby Obama “never really intended to do deep reform”, but wants “minimalist reforms he could sell as ‘victory.’”. I’m inclined to believe this, given his record.)
(http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090831/greider?rel=emailNation)
> I also don’t like the word “progressive”
Fair enough, but I’m not going to pretend that the terms “socialist” or “social democrat” might conceivably be applied to Obama. He is neither of those.
Paul said,
August 19, 2009 at 5:37 pm
James,
You seem to be confusing the statements
“Obama’s healthcare reforms are great”
with
“Obama is no different to Bush”
My point has been the long running one that you appear to hold the second, which is bizarre and difficult to reconcile with observable empirical facts.
I don’t hold to the first statement, either. I just think they need to be contextualised in terms of winable battles if we are going to talk about them, and make them relevant to the second bizarre statement that you adhere to.
And for all your arguments about being bolder, going further, being more heroic, have you considered this: look how much shit Obama is getting for weak, timid steps which fall short of anything like even what we have in the UK…and see how he is now looking like he is going to fail to get even those weak and timid steps through.
And you want him to advocate more radical proposals?
Hmm…
Also, have you ever considered that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and that Obama’s reforms, if successful, could lead to much better things? Or do you want one man to radically alter everything over night? Bearing in mind that, as we are seeing right now, in America that would probably require him to be a dictator given the way in which the democratic system (for all it’s failure to reflect popular will in many areas) is appearing to come down against Obama.
Interesting positions you seem to hold here…
Paul said,
August 19, 2009 at 5:43 pm
“Obama “never really intended to do deep reform”, but wants “minimalist reforms he could sell as ‘victory.’”. I’m inclined to believe this, given his record.)”
Well, it is much easier to sell a minor victory than a major failure, isn’t it?
James A said,
August 20, 2009 at 2:09 pm
> My point has been the long running one that you appear to hold the second, which is bizarre and difficult to reconcile with observable empirical facts.
That is not the bone of contention. I’ve been arguing that the Obama administration does not represent a fundamental break with the Bush administration, which is not to say there is no difference, whereas you think it does. In fact, I’ve blogged on what I think the major difference is, namely, that Obama is more susceptible to public pressure, and therefore his presidency represents a great opportunity for activism (by contrast Bush didn’t mind if he pissed off the whole world doing what he was doing).
> look how much shit Obama is getting for weak, timid steps which fall short of anything like even what we have in the UK…and see how he is now looking like he is going to fail to get even those weak and timid steps through. And you want him to advocate more radical proposals?
The reason Obama is losing the battle even over a public option is partly, as I outlined, because he and senior Democratic senators are suppressing groups advocating single-payer, which represent by far the strongest civil society force arguing for greater government involvement. Moreover, he is allowing the private insurance and pharmaceutical industries to have a strong input, especially by putting Baucus (who is in their pocket) in charge of leading the “campaign” for public healthcare. If he wants to get a meaningful public option passed – even if it isn’t full-blown single-payer – he needs these groups on his side.
You keep talking about the tragedy if Obama “fails,” but fighting for a public option isn’t an all-or-nothing battle; even if they can’t get single-payer (and I understand that the forces of darkness will mobilise all their resources to stop this happening) those campaigning for further government involvement need to be given a voice.
This is a precondition of any realistic discussion of what level of government involvement is “winnable”. Before Obama does this, there is simply no point discussing how much can be won.
James A said,
August 21, 2009 at 11:17 am
Also worth reading is an article by Glenn Greenwald that dismantles the idea that Obama needs to appease either the Republicans or the “Blue Dogs” in his bid for a public option. The conclusion is damning but just:
“The attempt to attract GOP support was the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill. But — given the impossibility of achieving that goal — isn’t it fairly obvious that a desire for GOP support wasn’t really the reason the Democrats were constantly watering down their own bill? Given the White House’s central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama’s clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm’s protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists “centrists,” it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the “public option” jettisoned, because that’s the bill they want — this was the plan all along.
The Obama White House isn’t sitting impotently by while Democratic Senators shove a bad bill down its throat. This is the bill because this is the bill which Democratic leaders are happy to have. It’s the bill they believe in. As important, by giving the insurance and pharmaceutical industries most everything they want, it ensures that the GOP doesn’t become the repository for the largesse of those industries (and, converesly, that the Democratic Party retains that status).
This is how things always work. The industry interests which own and control our government always get their way. When is the last time they didn’t? The “public option” was something that was designed to excite and placate progressives (who gave up from the start on a single-payer approach) — and the vast, vast majority of progressives (all but the most loyal Obama supporters) who are invested in this issue have been emphatic about how central a public option is to their support for health care reform. But it seems clear that the White House and key Democrats were always planning on negotiating it away in exchange for industry support. Isn’t that how it always works in Washington? No matter how many Democrats are elected, no matter which party controls the levers of government, the same set of narrow monied interests and right-wing values dictate outcomes, even if it means running roughshod over the interests of ordinary citizens (securing lower costs and expanding coverage) and/or what large majorities want.”
Read the article here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/19/obama/index.html
1 Way for Cameron to prove his “progressive” credentials « Bad Conscience said,
September 25, 2009 at 7:58 pm
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