Whittling Away At Health Care Reform

The last couple of days haven't been very kind to supporters of a strong public option health plan, including bloggers of the left, some members of Congress and, apparently, most Americans.

Wednesday evening, Politico's Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei wrote

Obama will address a joint session of Congress on health care reform in prime time on Wednesday, Sept. 9, a senior official tells POLITICO, and the president plans to give lawmakers a more specific prescription for health care legislation than he has in the past, aides said.

And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said....

On health care, Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.

“We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition,” an aide said. “There are lots of different ways to get there.”

(Can anyone say Sister Souljah?)

A couple of hours earlier, firedoglake's Jane Hamsher reported

My colleague Dana Bash and I have learned from a source, each one of us, that this White House right now is very quietly in serious conversations with Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, a key moderate.

She is basically the last Republican out of those gang of six senators who have been negotiating, really the last Republican that has an open line to this White House right now.

What we're hearing that she's talking about with White House staff is sort of a scaled-back bill that would focus on insurance reforms that both sides could agree to, but would not have a full public option, instead, would have a so-called trigger. What that means in layman's terms is basically that the insurance companies would have a couple of years to make some dramatic changes.

If they do not make those changes, then a public option would be triggered. So, it would be used down the road. They would hope that this would appease liberals by saying it's not completely off the table. And the big hope is that this could bring along another moderate Republican, like maybe Susan Collins of Maine, some conservative Democrats, like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu in the Senate, who don't want a public option, but would sort of potentially be open to a trigger like this.

Thursday, The New York Times observed

With Congressional Republicans standing almost unanimously in opposition to the Democratic approach, the target now for Mr. Obama is primarily a handful of moderate Democrats and the one Republican who seems open to a deal, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.

“It’s so important to get a deal,” a White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid about strategy. “He will do almost anything it takes to get one.”

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Senate leaders (presumably Democrats)

are rethinking their strategies on the issue. One option, leading Democrats said Wednesday, is to tailor a bill to the demands of Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), a key moderate who has displayed the most willingness to continue negotiating with Democrats.

Another option, lawmakers said, is to attempt to make any package that comes to the Senate floor more attractive to Republicans by including tighter cost controls and slowing the pace of providing coverage to the 47 million Americans who have no insurance.

This evidently mirrors (coincidence? I think not.) thinking in the White House, which, according to Ezra Klein Wednesday, falls along two lines:

The first camp could be called "universal-lite." They're focused on preserving the basic shape of the bill. They think a universal plan is necessary for a number of reasons: For one thing, the insurance market regulations don't work without universality, as you can't really ask insurers to offer standard prices if the healthy and the young don't have to enter the system. For another, it will be easier to change subsidies or improve the benefit package down the road if the initial offerings prove inadequate. New numbers are easier than new features. Creating a robust structure is the most important thing. This camp seems to be largely headed by the policy people.

The second camp is not universal at all. This camp believes the bill needs to be scaled back sharply in order to ensure passage. Covering 20 million people isn't as good as covering 40 million people, but it's a whole lot better than letting the bill fall apart and covering no one at all. It's also a success of some sort, and it gives you something to build on. What that sacrifices in terms of structure it gains in terms of political appeal. This camp is largely headed by members of the political team.

These latter two analyses omit discussion of one option: the public one. That's not surprising, given indications that President Obama, who has spoken several times to ranking Senate Finance Committee member Charles Grassley of Iowa is partial to the Senate bill.

You know Chuck Grassley, member of the Gang of Six, who has written "The simple truth is that I am and always have been opposed to the Obama Administration's plans to nationalize health care. Period."

Now all the talk is of Obama negotiating with Maine's Olympia Snowe, another Repub member of the Gang, presumably to bargain away the public option in favor of ineffectual co-operatives or the chimera of a trigger provision. In a Congress with a heavy majority of members of the President's own party, that is hardly leadership. Unless, of course, it is what Mr. Obama and Mr. Emanuel had in mind the whole time.

And While We're At It, How About That Anne Frank?

Here it was Monday, August 31, 2009 and an argument between two United States Representatives, Duncan Hunter (R.-Ca.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.) took place on MSNBC's Hardball regarding torture. Suddenly, the exchange took a suspicious turn:

HUNTER: OK. Let me talk.

Debbie, what you should really concentrate on is the fact that the Israelis use a much more stringent method of interrogation. I look forward to you asking for the Israeli prime minister to step down, because they do it. Do you think they should stop doing it to protect the country?

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: This is America. The last time I checked, this is the United States of America.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTER: So, you‘re not going to ask the Israeli leadership to step down?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Mr. Hunter, that is kind of ridiculous, the comparison.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNTER: That‘s not ridiculous.

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We‘re—we‘re talking about practices in the United States.

And the United States doesn‘t torture. No one is above the law, including Dick Cheney...

(CROSSTALK)

Two questions pop into one's mind, although apparently not into Chris Matthews' mind:

1) What does Israel (which hadn't been mentioned in the discussion) have to do with the charge that the U.S.A. tortures detainees?

2) Would Hunter have made the reference had he not been tussling with a woman named Wasserman Schultz?

Answers: 1) nothing; 2) We'll never know. But it would have been nice had Chris Matthews asked Representative Hunter what he was getting at.

His Pants Are On Fire

Repub Senators Kit Bond of Missouri, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and John McCain of Arizona visited Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri on August 31 for a non-town hall meeting on health care. Though the appearance was by invitation only, the media was invited and they got a decent photo-op out of it.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell alleged a public option would destroy the insurance business and "then the doctors and hospitals will be working for the government.” Reportedly, he whined "nothing makes me more angry… than the suggestion that America does not already have the finest health care in the world."

Of course, the public option as contemplated by the United States Congress and/or President Obama would not be accompanied by federal government employment of doctors or management of hospitals, a practice of England's National Health Service, which has not yet destroyed that country.

If you had received nearly four million dollars from the health care industry, you, too, would be "angry" if your generous benefactors faced the possibility of being inconvenienced by reform.

But what to make of John McCain's claim in Kansas City that "the quality of health care in America is the best in the world?" He might not be aware of Japan. Or Australia. Or Greece. Or Austria. But surely Senator McCain has heard of the usual suspects- Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom.

The quality of health care in the United States may have improved relative to that in other nations since the World Health Organization in 2000 conducted its last analysis of care systems worldwide. Perhaps if the W.H.O. were to survey systems in those 190 countries today, and gave greater emphasis to the variables in which the U.S.A. is particularly strong, our nation would rank higher than #37, as we did nine years ago. But 36 spots higher? Not likely.

Senator John McCain says the health care system in the United States is "the best in the world." Not good. Not among the best. The best.

It is untrue. He knows it is untrue. There is a word for that. You know what it is.

Clear, Partisan, And Clearly Partisan

At talkleft.com, Big Tent Democrat, who says he has "always found Bill Bradley to be the emptiest of empty suits," has flagged the column appearing in Saturday's New York Times by the former New Jersey Senator and (2000) aspirant for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In it, Bradley recommends "a grand bipartisan compromise (which) is still possible with health care."

Mr. Bradley, meet two of President Obama's favorite Republican Senators, Charles Grassley and Mike Enzi.

These are two of the three GOP members of the "Gang of Six," cited for helpfulness by the President, which has been working- er, pretending to work- on health care reform in the Senate Finance Committee. Therefore, it's of more than passing interest that Enzi, who gave the Repub response on Saturday to the President's weekly radio address, gave a statement (video below) on the floor the day after the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved its bill. Enzi claimed

The partisan HELP bill allows Washington bureaucrats to ration care. The bill lays the groundwork for a government takeover of health care giving Washington bureaucrats the power to prevent patients from seeing the doctor they choose and obtaining new and innovative medical therapies.

Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is the ranking member on the committee, has sent out a fundraising letter. As The Washington Post's Ezra Klein noted (pdf) on August 31 (two days after Bradley's piece appeared), Grassley writes

I'm sure you've been following this issue closely. If the legislation sponsored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives and Chairman Ted Kennedy in the Senate is passed it would be a pathway to a government takeover of the health care svstem. lt would turn over control of your health care decisions to a federal bureaucrat ... and take it away from you and your personal physician.

It would mean government rationing in the name of cost controls....

the simple truth is that I am and always have been opposed to the Obama administration's plan to nationalize health care. Period.

Always have been opposed to the Obama administration's plan. Not then. Not now. Always. Even Bill Bradley and Barack Obama probably don't need to get knocked over the head with a two-by-four to understand that.

Illegal, At Least

On ABC's This Week on Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos asked of his "roundtable" about "the information we gleaned from all this and whether it was worth the interrogations we conducted." Regular panelist George F. Will responded:

We ought to have a commission. Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post suggests this morning- Sarah Day O'Connor and David Souter- bring them down, set it up, and answer some factual questions. For example, Khalid Sheik Mohammed was reticent; he was waterboarded 183 times and became locquacious. Did it have something to do with that and was he useful? Because whether or not these techniques are immoral and how immoral they are surely depends on whether or not they worked.

This is quite a linguistic sleight of hand. If in fact morality is to be fused with effectiveness (as he argues in the last sentence), it cannot be detached from legality.

And no commission is needed to determine legality. It is prohibited by the Geneva Convention. The Army Field Manual. United States Code Title 18.2340A. The U.N. Convention Against Torture. Odd, isn't it, that Will would suggest a commission featuring two former Supreme Court Justices- not to determine legality, but morality and effectiveness of torture, which would seem outside of their area of expertise.

But Will is thoughtful and open-minded compared to one of the other panel members, Liz Cheney, who claimed "waterboarding isn't torture and we can go down that path." (See it at approximately 3:40 of the video from This Week.) She did not do so, presumably because she is probably aware it is torture, defined in the U.S. Criminal Code as

an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

Cheney went on to contend that these extreme interrogation tactics were thoroughly effective. Here, Glenn Greenwald argues effectively that the Inspector General's report concludes no such thing.

But it shouldn't even get that far. The tactics are clearly torture and torture is clearly illegal by international law and U.S. law. And as Greenwald notes,

If we want to be a country that uses torture, then we should repeal our laws which criminalize it, withdraw from treaties which ban it, and announce to the world (not that they don't already know) that, as a country, we believe torture is justifiable and just. Let's at least be honest about what we are. Let's explicitly repudiate Ronald Reagan's affirmation that "[n]o exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture" and that "[e]ach State Party is required [] to prosecute torturers."

If the right took that position, it would at least be principled and honest. And they would be demonstrating a little courage, instead of cowardly hiding behind claims they know are completely without merit.