Democratic Party - 49th Ward

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Today we go a little off the direct health care and onto something that is essential to health care reform.  How strong is President Obama in the eyes of the American public?  We should by now have all come to the conclusion that health care reform will not come out of the Congress in any form we find appropriate or even marginally acceptable without a strong and direct push from the President himself.  Congress is going to see the choices wrought with negative consequences and they are going to steadily work to diminish the public option and perhaps even remove it.  The President needs to grab the bully pulpit and put as much preasure as he can muster on both the Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate.

Here are a few excerpts:

"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 33% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-two percent (32%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +1 (see trends). "

"Overall, 55% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance so far. Forty-four percent (44%) disapprove."

The President is in pretty good shape, but he needs the pressure that we as a collective group of citizens can put on him if we commit to trying.  I would urge you to make that pressure felt of the President and our Senators and your Representative in Congress.

President Obama

Dick Durbin

Roland Burris

Robert Reich on Health Care Reform

On his blog, Robert Reich explains that with out a public option the medical industry will have little to no incentive to bring down the costs of health care.  That is the core reason why so many health care industries have taken a position that either opposes the public option idea or tries to dilute it into small pieces that will not have the ability to have a role in changing the market place.

He takes a very thoughtful walk through the points that those opposed to the public option have raised and he provides solid counter-arguements that make the claims seem unwarrented and expose the industry for its true motivations.

As he moves towards his conclusion he discusses the role President Obama needs to play and why it is necessary as you will see in this excerpt:

"Mr. Obama says he wants a public plan. But the strength of the opposition to it, along with his own commitment to making the emerging bill "bipartisan," is leading toward some oddball compromises. One would substitute nonprofit health insurance cooperatives for a public plan. But such cooperatives would lack the scale and authority to negotiate lower rates with drug companies and other providers, collect wide data on outcomes, or effect major change in the system.

Another emerging compromise is to hold off on a public option altogether unless or until private insurers fail to meet some targets for expanding coverage and lowering health-care costs years from now. But without a public option from the start, private insurers won't have the incentives or system-wide model they need to reach these targets. And in politics, years from now usually means never.

To get health care moving again in Congress, the president will have to be clear about how to deal with its costs and whether and how a public plan is to be included as an option. The two are intimately related. Enough talk. He should come out swinging for the public option."

Robert Reich is a former Secretary of Labor and Professor at the University of California at Berkley.

Keep the Support/Pressure On The Decision Makers

In a nice piece in Newsweek Eleanor Clift drives home the point that health care reform is popular, the public option is popular with the public, but the real question is where does the public option actually stand in importance to President Obama.  That it seems to be a theme that runs through many stories regarding the possibility of enacting a "public option" as part of the reform package.

She also provides some background on one of the key players in the fight, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota who is the Senate Budget Committee Chair.

An excerpt from the article talks about the dilemma the Democrats face from a strongly anti-public option Republican party.  The Democrats need 60 votes but have lost a couple who are against the public option and others are not available to vote leaving them at a maximum of 55 Democrats.

"Here's the rub: Democrats need only 51 votes for passage if health insurance is combined in a legislative maneuver with the budget, which can't be filibustered. Do Democrats want to get 80 percent of what they want with 51 votes? Or will they settle for 51 percent of what they want in order to get 80 votes?"

"For Democrats who voted for change, that's a no-brainer. But Conrad cautions that the legislative maneuver known as "recision" isn't a free ride, that any reform measure would have to reduce the deficit by at least $1 billion over six years, and anything that doesn't have a positive budgetary impact could be stricken from the bill. "We'd be left with Swiss cheese," he warns."  . . . . More

This is a call to all of those who support the "public option" reforms to get on the phone, the computer or on to paper and in the mail your strong insistence that nothing less than a real public option is acceptable and the person it seems needs to either be convinced or shored up is none other than President Obama.  That should be followed by contact with the Senators, Durbin and Burris, as well as Congresswoman Schakowsky to make your concerns about compromise known so that they stand strong when the call comes to give in.

Public Opinion Remains Steady on Health Care Reform

Many feel that the sentiment of the American public has changed as the conditions realated to health care and its cost continue to mount.  On the Economix blog of the NYT the case is made that the opinion of the public is consistent with the opinion of the public in 1993 and has not changed significantly.

"Many favoring health reform have taken these numbers [current polling results] as a good sign — that Americans, at long last, are pushing for an overhaul of health care, and will finally pressure elected representatives to do so.

But has there really been a sea change in public opinion?

No, says Nolan McCarty, a politics and public affairs professor at Princeton."

That said, there are many factors that are pushing health care reform to the forefront of the Congressional and Presidential agenda as we see in the camment that follows:

“There are many reasons why health care reform may be more successful now that it was 16 years ago,” Professor McCarty writes. “But it does not appear that a sea change in public opinion is one of them.”

In the end, it seems that counting on increased public pressure is not going to be enough to reshape our health care system in America.  That makes it all the more important to work to develop sound, logical and practical reforms that will promote not only a healthy America, but a healthy American health care system.

Big Plans and Less Compromise Are the Way to Reform

The NYT has an OP-ed piece today written by Paul Krugman in which he makes a compelling case that compromise is going to kill the efforts President Obama is making towards reforming the health care system.  Citing the compromises made in the stimulus plan he suggests that the same will happen with health care.  Too many compromises that gain little or no Republican support and hurt the reforms to the point that they are not functional.

In this excerpt, the author makes his central arguement:

"The point is that if you’re making big policy changes, the final form of the policy has to be good enough to do the job. You might think that half a loaf is always better than none — but it isn’t if the failure of half-measures ends up discrediting your whole policy approach." (More)

He has some advice for the Obama administration that I think may progressives have been making:

"So Mr. Obama and Democrats in Congress have to hang tough — no more gratuitous giveaways in the attempt to sound reasonable. And reform advocates have to keep up the pressure to stay on track. Yes, the perfect is the enemy of the good; but so is the not-good-enough-to-work. Health reform has to be done right." (More)

What America Expects In A Reformed Health Care System

In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post Michael Kinsley addresses something most don't think of when discussing health care reform, rationing.  He points out not only the obvious, but also the less obvious ways in which dedicating dollars to health care essentially rations other things those dollars could be spent on.  That is an interesting point, but what grabbed me was the very opening of the piece in which Kinsley discusses Americans expectations of health care.

 "Even though more and more Americans have no health insurance at all, Americans consider health care to be a right. Not just that: We consider the best possible health care to be a right. Few would find it acceptable for a poor person to die of a medically curable disease for lack of money. Even fewer would find it acceptable that they themselves should die because the system won't spend the money to cure them. This is all in theory, of course. In practice, people die all the time because some effective treatment is too expensive. But whenever an issue gets drawn into the political system and becomes explicit, it becomes harder. That is what health-care reform will do to the question of rationing." . . . . (Read more)

 This is a good article and worth the read.

Obama's Personal Physician Knows Best

In an op-ed piece today in the N.Y.T. Nicholas Kristof discusses the American Medical Association and its wrongheaded position on the “public option” in President Obama’s plan.  It seems that the AMA has a long record of taking bad positions on social and medical positions.  Because of that it is generally accepted that only 1 in 5 physicians is a member of the AMA.

Kristof urges the President to seek the advice of his long time person physician in terms of health care reform.  The following are some comment he made:

“They’ve always been on the wrong side of things,” Dr. Scheiner told me, speaking of the A.M.A. “They may be protecting their interests, but they’re not protecting the interests of the American public.

“In the past, physicians have risked their lives to take care of patients. The patient’s health was the bottom line, not the checkbook. Today, it’s just immoral what’s going on. It’s abominable, all these people without health care.”

Dr. Scheiner, 70, favors the public insurance option . . . . (Read More)

The article goes on to discuss some of the leading medical organizations that support the “public option” Obama is promoting.

Its Time to Stand Up for What Is Right Springfield

The budget cuts that the people of Illinois are facing are incredible in that they will leave people in desperate need helpless.  For anyone who thinks that most of this aid isn’t necessary because it goes to able bodied men who could work, GET REAL!  The following is from an entery on Daily Kos.  It talks in a very real way about what many are facing here in our own community if the current budget is not amended to increase revenue.

Here is a short excerpt:

“Imagine being told that you will lose your means to get to work, your home, your means to grocery shop, and all the people that make up your daily life.  Imagine being told this and being unable to read, unable to do your own banking, unable to take care of yourself in the ways most of us take for granted.  You can't just move home with mom and dad - you are 40, 50, or 60 years old and your parents, if they are alive, are in no position to take care of you.  You have questions, you have terrible fears, and none of the people you have relied on and trusted to help you have any answers.” . . . . (Click here to read the whole piece)

Most of us are fortunate that we don’t have problems like these to face, either in our own lives or in the lives of our family members.  But there are countless numbers of people who face these challenges.  What will happen to them?  Here will they go?  The idea that it is more important to save a few dollars each week by making helpless people suffer is a concept I simply cannot believe that most people in Illinois support. 

It is time for the games in Springfield to stop.  Let the good of the state prevail over the benefit of political careers that will take care of themselves just fine anyway.  I would hope that those Representatives and Senators who represent constituents in my ward are will to step up and make some waves.  Voting the right way is not enough when we face challenges of this proportion.

"Public Option" Intended to End Private Insurance Needlessly

George Will put together a piece in the Washington Post that makes the point a "public option" will do exactly what it is intended to do; squeez the private insurers out of business.  He then proceeds to make a case with a host of insurance statistics that what is really required is relatively minor adjustments and the vast majority of American's will be insured.  This is an informative article whether you agree with the opinion or not.

Here is an excerpt:

"The puzzle is: Why does the president, who says that were America "starting from scratch" he would favor a "single-payer" -- government-run -- system, insist that health care reform include a government insurance plan that competes with private insurers? The simplest answer is that such a plan will lead to a single-payer system." . . . . ( Read More)

and here is a second excerpt:

"Almost 39 percent of the uninsured are in five states -- Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, all of which are entry points for immigrants. About 21 percent -- 9.7 million -- of the uninsured are not citizens. Up to 14 million are eligible for existing government programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, veterans' benefits, etc. -- but have not enrolled. And 9.1 million have household incomes of at least $75,000 and could purchase insurance. Those last two cohorts are more than half of the 45.7 million." . . . . (Read More)

Public Option Is the Only Way to Cover More People and Lower Costs

Jonathan Alter, who was raised in Chicago, has a piece in the current edition of Newsweek (6/20/09) in which he has his two thoughts about health care.  He suggests that Obama is in a very good position to get a bill out of the Congress this year, but the real question is if it will create real change.

This leads to his second point that whether it be this session or down the road, a public option is mandatory to accomplishing real change.  It is impossible to ignore the administrative cost savings between the Medicare program (3%) versus the private insurance administrative cost which are (10-20%) as is outlined in the excerpt below.

"Three percent of Medicare's premiums go for administrative costs. By contrast, 10 to 20 percent of private-insurance premiums go for administrative costs. Roll that figure around on your tongue. When you swallow and digest it, you'll understand that any hope of significantly reducing health-care costs depends on a public option" . . . . . (Read More)

Jonathan Alter, Newsweek

It seems only obvious that in order to reduce costs and expand coverage a government run option is mandatory for our health care programs.