Guess Who Really Won The Health Care Debate?
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
After Senate Democrats cleared the way for a vote on health reform legislation, the stocks of Cigna, United Health and Wellpoint rallied to 52-week highs. To be sure, the mini-bubble that's been in the stock market the last several months has helped push up the entire Dow. But the moneyed interests figured out earlier than most that any final "reform" bill would be a gift to this particular sector. They turned out to be prescient and rightly celebrated after the Senate dropped the provision for a government-run insurance plan while putting in place a mandate requiring health insurance for about 30 million Americans now without coverage. (As a measure of how great a deal they're about to reap, the left is beside itself with rage and some, like Firedoglaker's Jane Hamsher, are agitating to kill the Senate bill.)
After the Senate vote, Credit Suisse smartly raised its price targets on several insurers. The analyst covering the group noted that "the heavy lifting will come when Congress is forced to slow the rate of medical cost growth through more aggressive payment restrictions and utilization controls down the road." He got it right. Also, the fact that certain costs are capped in the bill while premium expenses are not is a green light for laissez les bons temps rouler. Considering the mosh-pit wrangling that went just to arrive at this point, there's little chance Congress might tackle that item any time soon.
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Left, Right War Over Terror: Merry Xmas
(AP Photo/Al Goldis)
Even before the authorities had concluded their investigation into the Christmas Day airplane bombing attempt by Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a Nigerian man who claimed to be acting on orders from al Qaeda, left and right were busy sniping in a predictable kabuki-like pattern of feigned outrage and finger-pointing. Goodbye 2009, hello 2010 - you'll never know the difference.
The latest episode flared after Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich. made in the Detroit Free Press that the Obama administration should "connect the dots" following the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit.
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Dump The Filibuster? Bad Idea
(AP /APTN)
Monday New York Times column, Paul Krugman triggered quite a reaction after suggesting that Congress neuter the current filibuster rules.
"Nobody should meddle lightly with long-established parliamentary procedure. But our current situation is unprecedented: America is caught between severe problems that must be addressed and a minority party determined to block action on every front. Doing nothing is not an option — not unless you want the nation to sit motionless, with an effectively paralyzed government, waiting for financial, environmental and fiscal crises to strike."
Are we that close to Defcon 1? Given the rawness of political passion these days, I suppose that many on the left may welcome Krugman's(purposely provocative) idea. Especially now, when the Democrats still enjoy commanding majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives. In the back of their mind is the question whether that advantage will last past the midterm elections next fall. But you have to wonder whether we really are living in a historically unique era, one in which hard choices about the nation's future are always going to be held hostage to narrow-minded minorities threatening to filibuster? (I didn't find his argument persusasive. You'll find good objections from Jazz Shaw as well as from Senate staff veteran Charles Stevenson (as quoted by James Fallows.)
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Getting Real About the Health Care Debate
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
"To defeat a bill that will bend the curve on this inexorable rise in health-care costs is insane," Senior White House advisor David Axelrod said on MSNBC Thursday morning. "I don't think that you want this moment to pass. It will not come back."
That message du jour was echoed by former Clinton advisor and now CEO of the Center for American Progress, John Podesta,
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Health Reform: What's The Holy Thing To Do?
The other night the Family Research Council and The Call to Conscience sponsored a "prayercast" to protest the "government takeover of healthcare."
This was some show. Among the pols who showed up, the headliners included Senators Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) as well as Minnesota Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachmann.
Here's a link to the full hour but if you just want the juicy excerpts, check out the above video clip and pay special attention to the pastor, Lou Engle, the founder of "Call to Conscience." MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who had a brilliant deconstruction of what got said and how it compared with the record of what's being proposed, included a prior clip of Engle referring to Islam as "demonic."
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Obama Finds New Way To Say Nada
(CBS)
But everyone turned out to hear what the president had to say and let's give the man credit: He is getting awfully good at this. The president said absolutely nothing but it still sounded, well, presidential. Mr. Obama allowed that while his meeting today with Democratic Senate leaders had been "very productive" and that they were on the "precipice" of reaching an accord, differences still remained. (Actually, the president stuttered as he said "s..s..still remain." Freud, anyone?)
Any liberals hoping that Mr. Obama might announce a last-minute Lazarus-like resurrection of the public option (or the Medicare buy-in) came away disappointed. Joe Lieberman, who wasn't invited to the White House kaffeeklatch, has already put the kibosh on that. Anyway, the president isn't interested in wasting any more time or political capital. Instead, the new plan is to play small ball and get whatever possible in the current circumstances where Democrats still can't command a filibuster-free majority in the Senate.
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Pot Legalization: An Idea No Self-Respecting Capitalist Can Resist?
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
No thanks to any epiphany in Washington D.C. Rather, pot legalization proponents believe the question is destined to become a states rights issue -helped in no small part by the lure of old-fashioned capitalism.
"To put it crassly, there's gold in them thar hills and people recognize that," says California state assembly member, Tom Ammiano. He added that there are increasing feelers from entrepreneurs in his state regarding the question of marijuana legalization. "They smell something important," he said.
Ammiano was speaking Thursday afternoon on a teleconference organized by the
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Time For Dems To Get Over Their Lieberman Blues
(CBS)
By now, it's clear that Lieberman is having the time of his political life dishing out payback after the left's support of Ned Lamont, his Democratic challenger in the 2006 Connecticut race for U.S. Senator. With his periodic Yoda-like warnings, Lieberman is driving his former colleagues up the wall - the latest instance being a threat to filibuster the bill over a provision for expanding Medicare to people between 55 and 64 (even though three months ago, Lieberman seemed to endorse the Medicare buy-in.)
This has led to all manner of public breast beating on the left. Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic, who has produced consistently excellent commentary on the health reform topic, laments that "Lieberman's opposition to the public option seems to reflect a determination to oppose--and, if at all possible, destroy--whatever elements of reform liberals hold most dear." For the Washington Post's Ezra Klein Lieberman is out to torture in order to "settle an old electoral score," adding that his obstruction is costing lives. As an example, Klein notes, "Lieberman was invited to participate in the process that led to the Medicare buy-in. His opposition would have killed it before liberals invested in the idea. Instead, he skipped the meetings and is forcing liberals to give up yet another compromise. Each time he does that, he increases the chances of the bill's failure that much more. And if there's a policy rationale here, it's not apparent to me, or to others who've interviewed him."
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Clinton's Human Rights Byword: Pragmatism
(AP)
And 61 years after the "world's leaders proclaimed a new framework of rights, laws, and institutions that could fulfill the vow of "never again," the events in Cambodia, Rwanda and any number of smaller "never agains" now mockingly mark the annual celebration of Human Rights Week.
But give her speech a good read before dismissing it as yet more rhetorical bloviation. There's that, of course. But Clinton also served notice on allies, enemies - and the myriad majority of nations that fall in between those two camps - that when it comes to furthering human rights, the U.S. intends to be pragmatically assertive. (She actually defined it as "principled pragmatism" but the meaning is identical. Reading between the lines, Clinton acknowledges that power politics will, by definition, limit the U.S.'s human rights agenda. when it comes to big countries that the State Department can't afford to publicly prod about human rights, like Russia and China, protests will take place behind closed doors. "In every instance, our aim will be to make a difference, not to prove a point," Clinton said. That doesn't mean we'll look the other way when bad behavior crosses the line. But you won't find either Clinton or her boss going out of their way to embarrass either in a prime time speech.
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Larry Summers Channels Paul Krugman
(CBS)
In fact, some leaks suggest that the president's State of the Union speech will make reducing the federal deficit in 2010 the major focus and "will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs." The administration, which apparently feels it's turned a corner, sent a message to undercut concerns that it's either-or. In fact, on CNN this morning, Summers did a middle age PhD's version of a victory dance for the cameras:
"A year ago, the question was would we have a depression? Today everyone agrees that the recession is over. And the questions are around how fast we'll recover. Experience is that it that these things -- that it takes significant time. First, GDP increases. We have seen that start to happen. Then firms ask the workers who are already with them to work more hours. That's starting to happen. Then, net job creation starts to happen.
We were losing 700,000 jobs a month when President Obama took office. Last month, we lost 11,000. So we are getting there. And most professional forecasters expect job growth by spring, and I think that's a reasonable judgment in an uncertain world.
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Where Pay Caps Fail
(AP)
So it was that White House pay czar Ken Feinberg issued a directive which would cap pay at $500,000 for the 26th through 100th top-paid employees at firms who received exceptional assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
As noted, I can't muster sympathy for the nimrods that got us into this predicament in the first place - not with the (official) unemployment rate hovering around 10%. But libertarians and conservatives aren't out of bounds when they express discomfort at the precedent. Do we really want Uncle Sam getting into the business of deciding pay scales? Yes, it is different this time because we're talking about billions of dollars in taxpayer infusions now propping up the likes of AIG, and Citigroup. I'll let the constitutional scholars out there parse that one.
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Sarah vs Al: The People Want This One
(AP)
Al Gore, who is making the rounds to hawk his latest book, gave the back of his hand to Sarah Palin when Andrea Mitchellasked him about the ex-Alaska governor's dismissal of "junk science" surrounding the Copenhagen climate change summit this week.
"Well, you know, the -- the global warming deniers persist in this air of unreality," Gore said. "After all, the entire north polar icecap, which has been there for most of the last 3 million years, is disappearing before our eyes. Forty percent is already gone. The rest is expected to go completely within the next decade. What do they think is causing this? The scientific community has worked very intensively for 20 years within this international process, and they now say the evidence is unequivocal."
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DeMint: GOP Establishment Is Too Left
(CBS/AP)
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, DeMint (R-SC) said his party deserves a better slate of candidates than the ones put forward to run against the Democrats
"I need some new Republicans, people who believe in constitutional government, a balanced budget and liberty and so I'm out across the country recruiting new Republicans who I think if they get here will not only challenge the institutions of government but be willing to even challenge the Republican Party and our leadership if they feel like we're going in the wrong direction. I think just a handful of new Republicans in the senate could help change the direction."
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GOP Speechwriter To Party: We've Got A Bad Script
Are Republicans overplaying a losing hand? Former Bush (fils) speechwriter David Frum thinks the GOP is screwing up big time - the latest example being the losing battle over health care reform legislation. I doubt Frum will make himself popular with party regulars but he contends that that the Republicans' near-solid wall of opposition to any compromise with Democrats - he describes it as a "furious rejectionist frenzy" - has boomeranged.
"We're getting worse and less conservative results out of Washington than we could have negotiated, if we had negotiated," he writes, adding that the party has made a bad assumption.
"As is, we're betting heavily that a bad economy will collapse Democratic support without us having to lift a finger. Maybe that will happen. But existing party strategy has to be reckoned a terrible failure. Most Republicans will shrug off that news. If polls are right, rank-and-file Republicans feel little regard for the Washington party, and don't expect much from it. But it's the rank-and-file who are the problem here! Republican leaders do not dare try deals for fear of being branded sell-outs by a party base that wants war to the knife. So we got war. And we're losing. Even if we gain seats in 2010, the actions of this congressional session will not be reversed. Shrink Medicare after it has expanded? Hey- we said we'd never do that. I hear a lot of talk about the importance of "principle." But what's the principle that obliges us to be stupid?"
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"We're getting worse and less conservative results out of Washington than we could have negotiated, if we had negotiated," he writes, adding that the party has made a bad assumption.
"As is, we're betting heavily that a bad economy will collapse Democratic support without us having to lift a finger. Maybe that will happen. But existing party strategy has to be reckoned a terrible failure. Most Republicans will shrug off that news. If polls are right, rank-and-file Republicans feel little regard for the Washington party, and don't expect much from it. But it's the rank-and-file who are the problem here! Republican leaders do not dare try deals for fear of being branded sell-outs by a party base that wants war to the knife. So we got war. And we're losing. Even if we gain seats in 2010, the actions of this congressional session will not be reversed. Shrink Medicare after it has expanded? Hey- we said we'd never do that. I hear a lot of talk about the importance of "principle." But what's the principle that obliges us to be stupid?"
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Palin's People Speak!
Many readers sent private emails in response to my Tuesday night post about Sarah Palin's Washington Post op-ed. More than a few of you took issue with my attempt to connect Palin with the "dumbing down of America." Fair enough. I'll shut up. So let's hear directly from vox populi. This video interview was shot a couple of weeks ago when Palin visited Columbus, OH for a book signing. As they say, pictures speak a thousand words.
