View Full Version : AP sources: Dems reach deal to drop gov't-run plan
kwame k
12-08-2009, 11:57 PM
WASHINGTON – After days of secret talks, Senate Democrats tentatively agreed Tuesday night to drop a full-blown government-run insurance option from sweeping health care legislation, several officials said, a concession to party moderates whose votes are critical to passage of President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
In its place, officials said Democrats had tentatively settled on a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage, with the possibility of greater government involvement if needed to ensure consumers of sufficient choices in coverage.
Additionally, the emerging agreement calls for Medicare to be opened to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, a significant expansion of the large government health care program that currently serves the 65-and-over population.
At a hastily called evening news conference in the Capitol, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declined to provide details of what he described as a "broad agreement" between liberals and moderates on an issue that has plagued Democrats' efforts to pass health care legislation from the outset.
With it, he added with a smile, the end is in sight for passage of the legislation that Congress has labored over for months.
The officials who described the details of the closed-door negotiations did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them publicly. Several officials stressed that so far, Democrats had technically agreed only on submitting proposals to the Congressional Budget Office for their impact on the bill's cost and other analysis.
At its core, the legislation would expand health care to millions who lack it, ban insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and rein in the rise of health care spending nationally.
The developments followed a vote on the Senate floor earlier in the day in which abortion opponents failed to inject tougher restrictions into sweeping health care bill, and Democratic leaders labored to make sure fallout from the issue didn't hamper the drive to enact legislation. The vote was 54-45.
Taken together, the day's developments underscored the complexity that confronts the administration and Reid as they seek the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican opposition and pass a bill by Christmas. Despite their reluctance, some senators had talked openly and in detail earlier in the day about the progress of the negotiations.
The provision in the legislation to be dropped under the emerging agreement provides for a government-run insurance option to be available to consumers, with individual states permitted to drop out. Liberals have long sought such as arrangement, as a means of forcing competition on insurance companies.
One participant in the talks, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, referring to a deal among the negotiators, told reporters he didn't like it, but added, "I'm going to support it to the hilt" in hopes of securing passage of the health care bill.
Another senator involved, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., issued a statement saying, "I do not support proposals that would replace the public option in the bill with a purely private approach. We need to have some competition for the insurance industry to keep rates down and save taxpayer dollars." But he did not rule out voting for the measure.
The White House quickly applauded the developments. "Senators are making great progress and we're pleased that they're working together to find common ground toward options that increase choice and competition," said a spokesman, Reid Cherlin.
In his comments to reporters, Reid said the emerging compromise "includes a public option and will help ensure the American people win in two ways: one, insurance companies will face more competition, and two, the American people will have more choices."
It wasn't clear what he meant by a "public option," the Medicare expansion or a fallback in case private insurance companies declined to participate in the nationwide plan envisioned to be overseen by the Office of Personnel Management. One possibility was for the agency to set up a government-run plan, either national in scope or on a state-by-state basis.
Under the tentative agreement, liberals lost their bid to expand Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health care for the poor, elderly and disabled. But they prevailed on the Medicare expansion, and the negotiators appeared ready to maintain a separate health care program for children until 2013, two years longer than the bill currently calls for, according to officials familiar with the details.
Additionally, there was consensus support for a requirement long backed by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and other liberals for insurance companies to spend at least 90 percent of their premium income providing benefits, a step that supporters argue effectively limits their spending on advertising, salaries, promotional efforts and profits.
Reid — the chief architect of the health care bill as well as an abortion opponent — played a prominent role in the debate over attempts by conservatives to toughen restrictions in the Senate measure. "No one should use the health care bill to expand or restrict abortion," he said, arguing that abortion foes were attempting to do just that. "And no one should use the issue of abortion to rob millions of the opportunity to get good health care."
The current legislation would ban the use of federal funds to pay for abortion services under insurance plans expected to be offered in a new health care system, except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in jeopardy.
Individuals who receive federal subsidies to purchase insurance under the plans would be permitted to use personal funds to pay for abortion services — the point on which the two sides in the dispute part company.
"Segregation of funds is an accounting gimmick," said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., the chief Democratic supporter of tightened restrictions. "The reality is federal funds would help buy coverage that includes abortion."
Abortion rights supporters, Senate Democratic women most prominently, countered heatedly.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said abortion opponents were driven by ideology, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., called the proposed changes "a very far-reaching intrusion into the lives of women."
The amendment that Nelson, Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and numerous Republicans proposed would also have barred insurance plans from covering abortions except in the three categories if any of their policyholders received federal subsidies. It also would have required insurance companies that offer no-abortion plans to make available a policy that offers such services.
In all, 50 Democrats, two Republicans and two independents voted to kill the abortion proposal. Thirty-eight Republicans and seven Democrats favored it.
___
Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091209/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul)
kwame k
12-09-2009, 12:01 AM
In its place, officials said Democrats had tentatively settled on a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage, with the possibility of greater government involvement if needed to ensure consumers of sufficient choices in coverage.
So the government will oversee and buy Health Insurance from the Insurance Industry? The same industry that is completely flawed and corrupt. Lobbyist can pull off some amazing shit.
I hope I'm just reading this wrong:pullinghair:
Goddamn every useless piece of shit fake "Democrat" insurance CEO blowing tool in the DLC and the blue balled coward coalition.
This is BULLSHIT:wow2::fighting0066::fighting10::fighting0 043:
Get a job, welfare queen. Doctors dont refuse cash for sexchange reversals..
kwame k
12-09-2009, 01:42 AM
Move along little fella, the grown-ups are talking.
Reed: "We've reached an agreement, which we'll be totally open and forthwith about, but just can't talk about it until 3 minutes before a vote.
But first we're gonna burn-out the interns at Congressional Budget Office with threats and intimidation overnite to get them to cost it out about 15% of actual realistic cost before we go public with such a lie."
Lying fucking Democrats. Traitors!
Dr. Love
12-09-2009, 02:10 AM
I'm starting to think if there were 99 democratic senators and 1 republican senator, the republican would get his way every time.
WTF is wrong with the democratic leadership? Can they not keep their own people in line? Talk about fucking it up...
Spineless Harry Reid is a fucking joke. Chris Dodd's wife is an insurance whore, and to make matters worse, another one of these goddamn useless corporate blowing shills just won the primary for Ted Kennedy's seat.
I'm back where I was after the 2002 Iraq War Bullshit vote - about to leave the Democratic party entirely. Howard Dean was the only one who changed my mind in 2003. Sadly with him out of the party leadership (or should I say with him gone, the party has NO leadership) I doubt I'll change my mind again :(
I'm back where I was after the 2002 Iraq War Bullshit vote - about to leave the Democratic party entirely.
Split that vote!
You'll hear bullshit like I heard on Fox today, "oh the Tea Party splitting the Republican and Democrat votes will only ensure the Dems in control one more term:"
Its not about that, it's about sending a fucking message, you're fired.. and you, in my district, you're fired.. and you in county, you're fired.
Fire everybody. Vote wacky. And that's pitiful it has to be that way that you have to pull a Crazy Ivan to get anything done with your vote but its the only way I see it.
Show me a better voting theory and Im down for it.
ULTRAMAN VH
12-09-2009, 07:37 AM
Obama delivers change industry can believe in
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
December 9, 2009 With their apparent abandonment of the "public option" in favor of yet another program of government-endorsed private insurance, Democrats in the White House and Congress have revealed their health care "reform" as corporate welfare benefiting health insurers and drug makers rather than a populist assault on a greedy industry.
President Obama has portrayed his fight for new health care regulations, taxes, mandates, and subsidies as a reform battle waged against powerful industry lobbyists who want to preserve the status quo and obscene profits.
Despite early evidence that contradicted this narrative -- such as Obama's record fundraising from insurers and drug companies and his backroom deal with the drug lobby -- the news media have largely swallowed the White House's "people-versus-the-powerful" line.
Obama's campaign, for instance, said Republicans who opposed the health care bill in the House had "voted to put insurance companies first." This echoed Obama's rhetoric pitting himself against "those who are profiting from the status quo."
While many liberal journalists and activists grew upset with the corporate-welfare trajectory of the legislation, other leading liberal advocates of "reform" denied that the president and the health bill were doing the insurers' and drug makers' bidding.
For example, liberal blogger Matt Yglesias at the Obama-friendly Center for American Progress wrote Sunday: "The simple fact of the matter is that corporate America is doing what it usually does -- attacking progressive legislation, and promoting obstruction by conservative politicians."
But this fa?ade of Democrats-versus-industry is crumbling now that the final bill is being crafted. The measure still contains the insurers' grand prize, the individual mandate -- a federal requirement that every individual buy sufficiently comprehensive health insurance.
By late Tuesday, all signs pointed to Democratic abandonment of the one major "reform" policy that the insurers' hated: a government-run insurer, known as the "public option." Sen. Joe Lieberman said that in Senate negotiations, Obama didn't even bring up the public option as a bargaining point, which shows it's not a White House priority.
Liberal and moderate Democrats early this week were lining up behind an alternative "public option" that is not public at all, but just another government program to funnel Americans into private health insurance. As the Associated Press put it, "instead of Medicare-for-the-masses, it would be Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser Permanente, albeit with a government seal of approval."
And the drug makers? They cut their deal with the White House early. Obama promised not to go after their government favors such as the ban on reimportation of drugs and high Medicare payments and, in exchange, the drug makers offered $150 million in "Harry & Louise" ads rallying the public behind "reform" together with some discounts for Medicare patients.
Even outside of this deal between White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and top drug lobbyist Billy Tauzin, the drug companies stand to profit from Obama's plan, which subsidizes prescription drug purchases and will likely mandate prescription drug insurance.
Despite the president's rhetoric, the industry never seemed to believe Obama was their scourge. In the 2008 election, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Obama raised more from the health sector ($19.4 million) than any candidate in history -- by a long shot.
Obama also set records for raising funds from the drug industry and the health insurance industry. In fact, Obama's health-insurance haul was more than the industry gave to the last five Republican presidential nominees combined.
These numbers don't show that Obama was bought off by drug companies and health insurers. The numbers suggest that these "special interests" knew they could make Obamacare work for them -- and they have. The health lobby appears to be on the brink of victory.
Although Democrats overwhelmingly control all corners of the legislative process, liberals will not want to have this bill pinned on them or their president. But blaming Lieberman or the Republicans ignores the facts of life in Washington: Once Obama undertook to overhaul the health sector, it was almost inevitable that his "reform" would be captured by the industries affected.
If Obama signs a bill that looks like the current Senate deal, it will be a bitter pill for the Left. The lesson: Sticking the government's hands into new aspects of the economy triggers a lobbying free-for-all -- and he who has the best lobbyist wins. Despite all the hope, that fact hasn't changed.
Timothy P. Carney, The Examiner's lobbying editor, can be reached at tcarney@washingtonexaminer.com.
Hardrock69
12-09-2009, 09:41 AM
What a load of crap. It is quite obvious the tool lawmakers are doing the insurance companies' bidding.
Despite many people's reluctance to fund any sort of 'government option', that was the only thing in the legislation that was going to rein in the insurance industry.
Fucking politicians are all on their knees, either blowing the CEOs of the Insurance Industry, or begging to be ass-raped by them.
The end result is the American People will continue to be ass-raped by the Insurance Industry. :mad:
Nitro Express
12-09-2009, 12:20 PM
So the government will oversee and buy Health Insurance from the Insurance Industry? The same industry that is completely flawed and corrupt. Lobbyist can pull off some amazing shit.
I hope I'm just reading this wrong:pullinghair:
That's why I never bought into the so called universal healthcare scam to begin with. Big pharma and the insurance industry own our politicians. All the plan is about is using the government to force us with taxes/fines/and jail to buy THEIR insurance.
People need to get it through their thick skulls Obama isn't a socialist but a fascist. He is in the pocket of the big corporations and banks and they have taken over Washington and The Federal Reserve. So basically what we are in is Corporate America and the Military Industry using our government to force us to do what they want us to do.
Health care is a monopoly and turning the monopoly over to the government that is ran by those who already run the monopoly is just dumb.
Nitro Express
12-09-2009, 12:27 PM
What a load of crap. It is quite obvious the tool lawmakers are doing the insurance companies' bidding.
Despite many people's reluctance to fund any sort of 'government option', that was the only thing in the legislation that was going to rein in the insurance industry.
Fucking politicians are all on their knees, either blowing the CEOs of the Insurance Industry, or begging to be ass-raped by them.
The end result is the American People will continue to be ass-raped by the Insurance Industry. :mad:
Basically until we clean house in Washington DC. Right now all we can do is hopefully kill this horrid legislation in the Senate. With people losing their jobs at the rate they are, any tax increase will only cause a tax revolt in a few years anyways. People will just get fed up and say Fuck the government. You might see some insurance and drug companies on fire in a few years down the road.
Our senators here know what we will do to them if they vote for this. Not only will they not get reelected. Wyoming is a producer of tar and they don't want to be dipped in it.
Everyone needs to write their senators.
So basically what we are in is Corporate America .
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Nitro Express
12-10-2009, 12:01 PM
What's keeping Obama from ruining this country is the junior Democrats in the Congress. They are new to Washington and want to get reelected. The smart people who get the fact that Washington has been taken over by bankers and Obama works for them and not the people are made as hell and writing their congressmen and senators. Basically these guys want a long-term washington career but they can't have that if they can't get reelected. So what we have here is a showdown between Obama/the sell out senior Democrats/Wall Street and the fresh Democrats and the American people.
The only reason they want this healthcare legislation is healthcare is around 25% of the US economy. The biggest employer of a medium sized city is the hospital. This is all about the corporations seizing all the assets using the government as the thug. This is not socialism it's fascism which means the corporations and government merge and become a tyranny.
This is going on worldwide because the corporations are multinational. One reason Obama is being marketed as the president of the world. I might add he's in violation of the US Constitution by heading the UN Security Council. He's nothing more than a marketing tool of the banking elite selling fake solutions that only benefit the corporations. This guy a broken almost every campaign promise he has made. As far as I'm concerned he can be president of the UN but it's against the law for him to head the UN and the Executive Branch of the US. The man is a huge fake and a sellout.
Nitro Express
12-10-2009, 12:05 PM
All we have left is the US Congress. The banks/corporations own the executive branch. We can't fix shit until we get a president that works for the US citizens. So all we can do is hopefully kill this shit in the Congress until we can clean house in the executive branch. We need to stop voting for the big money candidates (Republican or Democrat) because we will just get more of the same. Obama is just another sellout. Change is what you will have left in your pocket if he gets his way.
Nitro Express
12-10-2009, 12:07 PM
Democrats and Republicans are like pro wrestlers. They get out in the arena and pretend to hate each other and sling mud at each other. Then in private out of the public eye they eat from the same special interest table and french kiss each other.
Nitro Express
12-10-2009, 12:14 PM
Some medical offices are going cash only. My doctor gives me a discount because I pay cash. He said 30% of his overhead is paying a staff to process all the paperwork the insurance industry and government generate. He also says time that he could be spending with patients is taken up by paperwork.
I got a $300 discount on some medical equipment because I paid cash. Where I bought it has a staff of six full-time people just to deal with the paperwork of the insurance industry and medicare.
So paying cash on the small stuff saves you but the insurance companies have a monopoly on catastrophic coverage because most people don't have hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in cash.
Dr. Love
12-14-2009, 09:07 PM
Looks like this one is working out well.
What a bunch of face-palm inducing morons.
kwame k
12-14-2009, 09:09 PM
WASHINGTON – The end game at hand, Senate Democrats appeared ready to jettison a proposed Medicare expansion from historic health care legislation Monday in hopes of assuring Christmas-week passage of the bill to extend coverage to tens of millions.
"Democrats aren't going to let the American people down," Majority Leader Harry Reid said after a closed-door meeting called to discuss last-minute trade-offs in the legislation that President Barack Obama has made a top priority. "I'm confident that by next week, we will be on our way toward final passage."
Liberals sought the Medicare expansion as a last-minute substitute for a full-blown, government-run insurance program that moderates earlier insisted be jettisoned. But it drew strong opposition from Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and quieter concerns from a dozen Democrats — all of whose votes are essential for Democrats to overcome implacable Republican opposition.
Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul)
kwame k
12-14-2009, 09:11 PM
Jesus Christ, when these pussy ass Dems get done cutting everything out of this fucking bill, the biggest question I have is.........Will there be anything Health related in the Health Care Bill:pullinghair:
The only hope now would be to get the 60 votes on the shit bill in the Senate, and then in the reconciliation process, strip the whole fucking thing out, substitute Bernie Sanders' original single payer Senate bill (or the Conyers/Kucinich HR676, either one works for me)
That's what a real Senate Majority leader would do. Unfortunately, we're stuck with Spineless Harry Reid :(
kwame k
12-14-2009, 09:50 PM
The only hope now would be to get the 60 votes on the shit bill in the Senate, and then in the reconciliation process, strip the whole fucking thing out, substitute Bernie Sanders' original single payer Senate bill (or the Conyers/Kucinich HR676, either one works for me)
That's what a real Senate Majority leader would do. Unfortunately, we're stuck with Spineless Harry Reid :(
Pelosi sure has earned her pay:umm:
ace diamond
12-14-2009, 11:28 PM
and people wonder why i left the democratic party and joined the GOP.
the dems can never get anything done and are so damned wishy washy it is sad.
the republicans, for all the shit most of you give them, at least they get things done.
even the majority of republicans hated george w. bush.
he was a major pox on our party.
kwame k
12-14-2009, 11:40 PM
and people wonder why i left the democratic party and joined the GOP.
the dems can never get anything done and are so damned wishy washy it is sad.
the republicans, for all the shit most of you give them, at least they get things done.
even the majority of republicans hated george w. bush.
he was a major pox on our party.
Dude, you had the Majority for six fucking years and look what you guys got done.....2 wars, 100 year set back in our rights, a depression and the rest of the World fucking hating us. That was done by the GOP and not just Bush:pullinghair:
Dr. Love
12-15-2009, 12:50 AM
At least they know how to get their people in line and voting the same way. Those dumbos in the Senate don't seem to have the stomach to do what it takes to get their votes in order.
kwame k
12-15-2009, 12:54 AM
Yup, I agree with that.
The only hope now would be to get the 60 votes on the shit bill in the Senate, and then in the reconciliation process, strip the whole fucking thing out, substitute Bernie Sanders' original single payer Senate bill (or the Conyers/Kucinich HR676, either one works for me)
That's what a real Senate Majority leader would do. Unfortunately, we're stuck with Spineless Harry Reid :(
How about if YOU buy YOUR own insurance, and shut your Speaker the fuck up!
How about if you go die in a fire?
.. thinking alot about your eternity as of late?
Nitro Express
12-15-2009, 02:59 AM
Dude, you had the Majority for six fucking years and look what you guys got done.....2 wars, 100 year set back in our rights, a depression and the rest of the World fucking hating us. That was done by the GOP and not just Bush:pullinghair:
Two terms of Bush was devistating but Clinton opened the financial industry up to corruption by eliminating the laws that kept comercial banks and investment banks separate. Obama is just adding fuel to the fire instead of cutting spending and inspiring real productive job growth.
sadaist
12-15-2009, 06:34 AM
Dude, you had the Majority for six fucking years and look what you guys got done.....2 wars, 100 year set back in our rights, a depression and the rest of the World fucking hating us. That was done by the GOP and not just Bush:pullinghair:
And the Democrats have had the majority for what? Less than half that time? Accomplished nothing but setting us deeper & deeper in debt. They have spent the last 6 months on nothing but the Health Bill. I suppose there are no other pressing matters that they should be working on.
Point is, 99% of all politicians are whores, crooks, liars, and just plain do not care about the average American.
And who gives a shit if the "rest of the world hates us"? That is false but what the media and Liberals would like us to believe. We should be worrying about our own citizens rather than what other countries might or might not think of us. If we are so hated, why are so many people still risking their lives to live here? Most people in the world if given a choice would choose to live here rather than anywhere else in the world.
Nickdfresh
12-15-2009, 11:07 AM
and the democrats have had the majority for what? Less than half that time? Accomplished nothing but setting us deeper & deeper in debt. They have spent the last 6 months on nothing but the health bill. I suppose there are no other pressing matters that they should be working on.
Point is, 99% of all politicians are whores, crooks, liars, and just plain do not care about the average american.
And who gives a shit if the "rest of the world hates us"? That is false but what the media and liberals would like us to believe. We should be worrying about our own citizens rather than what other countries might or might not think of us. If we are so hated, why are so many people still risking their lives to live here? Most people in the world if given a choice would choose to live here rather than anywhere else in the world.
c-/c+
Published on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 by The Plum Line
Howard Dean: 'Kill The Senate Bill'
by Greg Sargent
In a blow to the bill grinding through the Senate, Howard Dean bluntly called for the bill to be killed in a pre-recorded interview set to air later this afternoon, denouncing it as “the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” the reporter who conducted the interview tells me.
Dean said the removal of the Medicare buy-in made the bill not worth supporting, and urged Dem leaders to start over with the process of reconciliation in the interview, which is set to air at 5:50 PM today on Vermont Public Radio, political reporter Bob Kinzel confirms to me.
The gauntlet from Dean — whose voice on health care is well respsected among liberals — will energize those on the left who are mobilizing against the bill, and make it tougher for liberals to embrace the emerging proposal. In an excerpt Kinzel gave me, Dean says:
“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”
Kinzel added that Dean essentially said that if Democratic leaders cave into Joe Lieberman right now they’ll be left with a bill that’s not worth supporting.
Dean had previously endorsed the Medicare buy-in compromise without a public option, saying that the key question should be whether the bill contains enough “real reform” to be worthy of progressives’ support. Dean has apparently concluded that the “real reform” has been removed at Lieberman’s behest — which won’t make it easier for liberals to swallow the emerging compromise.
Howard Dean: 'Kill The Senate Bill' | CommonDreams.org (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/15-6)
Once again, Howard Dean proves that he is the ONLY true leader the Democratic party has had in decades. My only problem with his assessment is that I don't trust Spineless Harry Reid to bring a REAL reform bill through reconciliation.
kwame k
12-15-2009, 07:35 PM
Me either and this fucking bill is a joke......mid-term elections are just around the corner Dems.......hear that! It's you being voted out of office.
My useless Congressman has already announced he's not running again. I can only hope he's not replaced by somebody even worse.
First They Came For The Banksters Updated at 8:20 AM
by Thom Hartmann
With apologies to Pastor Niemöller:
First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in.
Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our children to die in faraway lands that had never attacked us in a way that was not change we could believe in.
And now they’ve sold out our hope for a national health care system not run by millionaire gangsters in suits. And who is left to speak for us?
President Obama is playing the Bill Clinton game of throwing people a bone and telling them it’s steak. Perhaps he’s doing it because he thinks it’s his only choice; perhaps it’s because he’s surrounded himself with Bill Clinton advisors (and Hillary as Secretary of State); whatever the reason, while it worked for Clinton, it won’t work for Obama.
It worked for Reagan, and for the first Bush, and even worked somewhat for George W. Bush.
But it won’t work anymore. Here’s why.
From 1929 until the 1980s, most Americans were “high information voters.” They were paying attention to politics. The Republican Great Depression of 1929-1938, World War II, the Korean War, Kennedy’s election, and the War in Vietnam were all Big Events that caused Americans to pay attention. Americans of that era needed to know what was up in Washington, DC, because they felt the consequences directly.
This is why in November of 1954, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote a letter to his John Bircher brother Edgar, “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
The voters knew. Even as late as 1977, when George W. Bush ran for Congress from Texas on a nearly singular platform of privatizing Social Security, he lost badly. The voters knew.
Then came Reagan. He seemed so nice. He talked friendly. At the very minute – to the second – that he put his hand on the bible to be sworn in, those nasty Iranians let go the hostages they’d been holding (a kidnapping that had so humiliated the Carter administration that Carter lost the election).
America was once again a “shining city on the hill” and even though there were a few small invasions, Panama and Grenada and all, and a small recession, and a few S&L bank failures, mostly people lost interest in politics. TV was going big, home entertainment was huge, blockbuster movies were coming onto the big screen, and America was prosperous. Americans partied on cheap debt. We went to sleep. It was the beginning of the era of the “low information voter.”
During the 1980s, the right wing was working hard. Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and most of the media Americans consumed was consolidated in the hands of about a dozen very conservative-leaning corporations. Top tax rates were cut from over 70 percent to around 30 percent, so salaries at the top exploded, including those of the stars on TV…including the “news” stars.
The newly-rich TV news people began to hang out with the becoming-fabulously-rich business people, never again criticizing them because they now worked and played together and were members of the same clubs and their kids went to the same best schools. Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous became our new religion, “greed is good” our new mantra.
Conservatives began a war on textbooks, stripping from them references to the labor movement, so that anybody who went to middle school or high school during or after the mid-1980s can’t today tell you why phrases like “Pullman Porter” or “Haymarket Square” or “Great Flint Sit Down” have any meaning.
Reagan, and then Clinton, serially deregulated the media so it came into fewer hands still, while right-wing voices exploded across the landscape. By the mid 1990s there was virtually no corner of America, not even the smallest town, where a person couldn’t hear Rush Limbaugh. After Rupert Murdoch lost $100 million a year for a half-decade, finally around Y2K Sean Hannity and Fox News began to turn a profit and became equally ubiquitous. They all made sure that voters were “low information” or “wrong information.” The labor sections of the newspapers had vanished; NPR and 60 Minutes no longer did corporate-expose investigative reporting.
Reagan used our collective somnambulance to cut taxes for his rich buddies and throw trillions their way in defense contracts. George HW did more of the same, albeit without the elegance of Reagan. Bill Clinton smiled nice and raised taxes a few tiny points – from 33 to 36 percent on the most wealthy – and just that was enough to balance the budget, and during all those years it seemed like peace and prosperity were here. Politically, people stayed asleep.
The attacks of 9/11 woke a lot of Americans up, but they didn’t know what to believe. Retired generals taking million-dollar payoffs from defense contractors were wall-to-wall on the corporate news, telling us we needed more wars and more contractors and more military toys. The two dissenting voices – Bill Maher and Phil Donahue – were immediately silenced. Keep the people asleep. Other than a few old lefties from the 60s who showed up for anti-Iraq-war protests, it mostly worked.
Then came Barack Obama. People were sick of Bush, and Obama’s campaign for the presidency reminded the oldsters of what it meant to be politically active, while it taught the same lesson to the first generation to really involve itself in politics since the Vietnam War. Weeks before the election, the Bush crew had to admit that the phony-baloney Reaganonics games played by Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush while we were all asleep were collapsing. The economy was about to disintegrate. A wave of foreclosures, followed almost immediately by layoffs, swept the land.
People woke up, just like they had in 1929. They began to pay attention. And they had more than just Limbaugh and Fox to learn from; this new thing called the internet proliferated information without corporate control; Air America was birthed and liberal talk radio is now heard coast-to-coast; MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann caught fire (followed by Rachel Maddow); and even the normally cynical and innocuous Jack Cafferty at CNN began to go off on screeds worthy of the movie “Network.”
The Great Depression of 2008 – or what was billed as such – and the election of an African American president who used a ground-up instead of a top-down campaign caused high information voters to emerge again for the first time in 30 years.
Many, of course, were high with the wrong information. They showed up at tea parties and Palin rallies. But their passion is real, and their grievances are mostly legitimate. Thirty years of Reaganomics/Clintonomics has destroyed the labor movement, hollowed out our industrial sector, put us on a permanent war footing, wiped out the equity of the middle class, and created an entire generation of college-loan-indentured-servants. Who are now fully awake and seriously pissed.
We slept while Clinton’s boys Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and the whole gang, Republicans and Democrats together, signed us up for NAFTA and GATT; created the WTO; moved our jobs to China; sold off our airwaves; and “financialized” our economy (fully a quarter of all corporate profits in 2007 were from the “financial services industry” – an “industry” that creates nothing whatever that can be used or eaten or has any other real-wealth value). We slept through the explosion of the private prison industry and the wars in the Balkans (who knows where Kosovo is, anyway?). Seinfeld was far more interesting.
But now both the Vietnam oldsters and the Hip Hop youngsters are awake. Even the Reagan generation is awakening, but confused, as they’ve grown up on Limbaugh and Fox, and didn’t learn much in school about politics after Reagan’s guys stripped most classes of in-depth civics requirements. (It’s interesting – when Michael Medved and I debated in Chicago last year in front of 1000 people, 500 tickets sold by each of our radio stations, my side of the room was mostly people over 50 or under 30. His side of the room was almost entirely 30- and 40-somethings.)
And that’s why Obama is heading for a disaster.
He’s betting that he can do like Bill Clinton did to us with NAFTA and the World Trade Organization – hand us a turd and tell us it’s gonna blossom beautifully if we’ll just wait a year or three or five. Rahm’s betting that if he can “deliver health care reform” – even if the fundamental system of gangster corporations standing between us and our doctors while skimming 40 percent off the top for their mansions and private jets is intact – we’ll be all excited at his “victory” and elect more Democrats in 2010 and reelect Obama in 2012.
Ditto for cosmetic repairs of the banks, which is really just trickle-down Reaganomics on steroids. Rahm and his DLC buddies truly believe that this “change” brought to us by Bush’s man Tim Geithner or Clinton’s man Larry Summers is something we’ll “believe in.”
We don’t.
We oldsters of the Vietnam era, and the youngsters coming up who see how college loan banksters are screwing them as badly as their Clinton-era parents were screwed by the mortgage scammers, are all now fully awake.
President Obama, sir: Meet what is in large part your own creation – the High Information Voters of 2009/2010.
We’re awake, we’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any more. Natalie Portman to Matt Taibbi to Arianna Huffington to Bill Moyers represent the span of our four awakened generations; generations who have figured out how the game is played. And don’t like it.
First Obama continued Bush’s policy of giving the banksters money, and we protested feebly.
Then he expanded Bush’s wars, and we protested more loudly.
Now he’s going to force us to give trillions to the gangsters who run the “health insurance” companies (while they promise to behave nicely in return) and thinks we’re going to go along with it and it’ll get him re-elected.
He’s wrong.
Please, President Obama, step up and lead. We’d like some that “change we can believe in” that’s actually the real thing.
Kill the bill.
Healthcare: First They Came For The Banksters - Democratic Underground (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x502943)
ELVIS
12-16-2009, 03:06 PM
People are waking up and Obama is soon to be laughed off the stage right behind algore...
This CO2 - climate change - healthcare BS is just that, BS, and people are starting to see it for what it is...
The bad part is that most of our representatives dont represent US anymore...
kwame k
12-16-2009, 03:06 PM
It is mind blowing that what started out as such a clear and concise need to reform an industry has turned into this....I do understand why people just throw their hands in the air and say fuck it, I'm not voting or even caring what happens anymore...it's just not worth it.
Apathy is the most dangerous thing we face in this country, not the lobbyist or the politicians....yes, they are the cause of our disgust but are only a symptom of the larger problem we face and that is the American people's apathy.....downright laziness to realize there is a problem with our government and choosing to do nothing about it.
Point your fingers all you want at the political leaders of this country but at the end of the day We The People voted these losers into office, I blame myself as much as the next guy.
ELVIS
12-16-2009, 03:09 PM
Evil prospers when good men do nothing...
kwame k
12-16-2009, 03:27 PM
Evil prospers when good men do nothing...
Yup!!!!!!
Dr. Love
12-16-2009, 07:45 PM
I swear to God, the next election I'm going down and voting out any person or party that contributed to this CF.
kwame k
12-16-2009, 07:54 PM
I swear to God, the next election I'm going down and voting out any person or party that contributed to this CF.
Me too!
Dr. Love
12-16-2009, 08:06 PM
Harry Reid sincerely pisses me off.
GROW SOME FUCKING BALLS
kwame k
12-16-2009, 08:10 PM
Nancy Pelosi..... useless.
letsrock
12-16-2009, 08:44 PM
Pelosi, would only be usefull if she was on a target range.
kwame k
12-16-2009, 09:05 PM
Yeah, you do need someone to serve your drinks out there......bam baby, I did just say that.....thank-you, I'll be here all week, enjoy the shrimp. :appl:
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