Picking on Ezra again - Ezra writes:

I referenced it an earlier post, but this paper from Families USA outlining the 10 reasons to support health-care reform is a must-read. The public plan is one of the entries. But only one of them. And not the one that would help the most people.

Certainly spending more money on health care, particularly for the less well off, is a good thing. No one would or could argue otherwise. But let's not pretend that is health care reform.

In the end, if there can be no public option, why not instead strip out the "reform" part of "the bills," as the paper Ezra extolls refers to them, and just leave in the extra funding. In short, no public option, then no mandates. Just the extra money. For now.

Speaking for me only

Nothing annoys me more than reading those Very Serious bloggers who buy into premises for no good reason. Here is Kevin Drum (via anti-public option Ezra):

Quick background: Republicans will filibuster any healthcare bill that reaches the floor of the Senate, and it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. If a healthcare bill includes a public option provision, it's vanishingly unlikely that we can find those 60 votes. But budget reconciliation bills can't be filibustered, so an alternative is to include the public option but then introduce the bill via the reconciliation process, where it needs only 50 votes to pass.

Quick background - Republicans alone can not filibuster anything. So tell me Kevin, who are the Dem senators who are going to join a GOP filibuster of health care reform? Let's stick to the facts please. Even when you are shilling for a Dem capitulation on health care reform.

Speaking for me only

If you are so inclined, you can support the Progressive Caucus monetarily AND tell them expressly why you are so doing here:

These are the progressive members of Congress with the guts to stand up to Big Insurance, Big Pharma and to the pressure from their own party bosses. They stood with the American people and ordinary working families when push came to shove and both political parties decided propping up a disastrous health care system and a corrupt Insurance Industry was more important than keeping the promise made over and over to working families. These were the men and women who promised to vote against any health care reform bill that didn't include, at the minimum, a robust public option. 57 signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi and 18 took the FDL Pledge.

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I wish Ezra Klein would just come clean and say he does not care about the public option:

[Howard] Dean's point was simple: "If you're not going to have a public option, don't have health-care reform, and strip all the money out of the bill." . . . I asked Dean how he could believe this, given that his 2004 health-care plan didn't contain a public plan but did contain a lot of dollars to fund expanded health coverage. He replied that it did contain a public plan. "It actually did have a public option. It allowed everybody over 55 to sign up for Medicare if they chose to. It allowed everyone under 25 to sign up for a Canadian-style system. It was optional." The argument behind the public plan -- the argument Dean is using now -- is that it competes with private insurance companies and transforms the entire insurance market. But this is, as Mark Schmitt says, a very new idea.

Suppose for a moment, it is a new idea, so what? Is it a good idea? Why doesn't Ezra write about that? Two potential explanations - one, he wants to label any health care plan an Obama win or two, he does not really support the public option. Time to come clean Ezra.

Speaking for me only

Via Yglesias, Mark Schmitt demonstrates why Democrats are terrible political negotiators:

Some have suggested using reconciliation to install the rough skeleton of reform, and then fixing it later, but the act of using reconciliation in the first place is such a nuclear option that it is likely to poison the waters not just with the four semi-reasonable Republicans but also with the Democrats who are left out of the deal, and will be needed on subsequent legislation.

(Emphasis supplied.) I can only shake my head. Poison the waters? Are you effing kidding me? You mean Chuck Grassley might not vote for health care reform? Sheesh. I am also struck by Yglesias finding noteworthy this screwball idea:

Digby has two good posts on who has the most skin in the political game that is now health care reform. In the first she writes:

Charlie Cook just said something very profound (which is unusual.) Chris Matthews asked whether or not the Democrats would lose the House next year and he said he didn't think so, but that they might lose 20 seats. And then he said this:

But arguably the people they would lose would be the Blue Dogs who aren't voting with [the president] anyway.

That's the thing. It's the Blue Dogs who have most of the Congressional skin in this political game. They are going to need health care reform for their political lives. (They also needed a big stimulus so the economy would be seen as on the rebound in 2010). This is important for the progressive play on health care reform. The Progressive Caucus does not need health care reform politically. They come from safe districts. In fact, what they need is to be seen as fighting for progressive health care reform. They have leverage. And not just on the Blue Dogs. More . . .

Interesting thought;

On CNN's "State of the Union," Democratic strategist James Carville became the first leading Democrat to suggest publicly that there might be political advantage in letting Republicans “kill” health care. “Put a bill out there, make them filibuster it, make them be what they are, the party of no,” Carville said. “Let them kill it. Let them kill it with the interest group money, then run against them. That's what we ought to do.”

If the notion that the GOP killing health care hurts them politically, then I assume that also is true for Blue Dog Dems. It means that progressives can be much more aggressive with health care reform, including the public option. I do not know if Carville really thinks what he said, nor do I know id he is right, but I think if people start to believe it is true, then that strengthens the bargaining position of progressives.

Speaking for me only

Hey guess what? Via Brian Beutler, the GOP won't support Conrad's Coops.

BTW. Ezra Klein is all over my TV telling me that really, the President can't do anything. Funny sh*t Ezra.

Speaking for me only

Via FDL:

What that means is no public option means no health care reform. Whether Ezra Klein likes that or not, that's the reality that Obama needs to deal with.

Speaking for me only

During the Cold War, Richard Nixon employed what was known as the Madman Theory. It posited that demonstrating a willingness to consider "madness" in action would provide you with negotiating leverage. It is not much different than any negotiating strategy really in that a party may demonstrate that it is willing to scorch the rhetorical Earth in order to gain concessions from your negotiation opponents. George Bush and Republicans often employed the "madman" theory of negotiations with Democrats. The "nuclear option" was coined as a result of the similarity to Nixon's strategies. And the use of the reconciliation process was key to the GOP negotiating strategy. Of course there was no controversy among the GOP and the Media regarding the GOP's use of these tactics. But Democrats handwring over it. Kevin Drum writes:

He'll be speaking momentarily. Netroots Nation is being broadcast on C-Span. It is online at C-Span.org and of course at the Netroots Nation site.

Via Sam Stein:

Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean fired one of the clearest warning shots at hesitant Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, insisting that if the party was unable to produce a health care bill with a public plan, there would be electoral consequences.

As he has done before, Dean criticized talk of substituting a government run program with co-operative insurance plans, calling the latter a "fig leaf." "This talk about co-ops is a political compromise it is not a policy compromise," [Dean said[. . . .] "And I think most people, on both sides of the aisle know that co-ops won't work."

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