The Public Option wasn't a policy of the left, Medicare for all or Single Payer was

[CreekDog]

The small public option in the House Bill was an extremely unsatisfying compromise.

That was either never taken seriously by the White House or was being abandoned as Obama was simultaneously saying it was necessary.

It was probably good that Obama brought up the issue however, because it highlights the main criticism people on the left are having with him:

1) huge compromises are being made BEFORE negotiation ever starts
2) the people often negotiating his policies are often opposed to them in some significant way, to the extent that nobody thinks these policies had a chance of getting to a vote anyway.
3) and the left is being chided for being unhappy with a stimulus that wasn't strong enough, a health care bill that wasn't strong enough, economic and financial measures that weren't strong enough...and by "strong enough" what do i mean? "Strong enough" to actually work and improve the health care system within Obama's term, provide economic recovery within the President's term, etc. etc.

In other words, if the left got even just a bit more than they did, the end result would've been more successful policies that would strengthen Obama's electoral and political prospects.

By negotiating (or prenegotiating) away anything more than necessary, we get left with policies that are less able to help the President accomplish what he says they will and that makes him look weak.

I think he's complaining about the wrong problem.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[personman]

2. How many more would have supported these if they were actually talked about?

(This was deleted with the sub-thread above)

Do you remember that single payer advocate on that political TV show? Yeah, me neither. Ok, maybe two exceptions: Michael Moore and Democracy Now!

The democratic party is half the machine. They have as much role in what the dialogue is as the republicans. Maybe more because we have/had a majority.

Maybe if it was "on the table" and people actually talked about it, enough republicans would be pressured by their constituency to change course, or at least accept a robust public option as a compromise.

Maybe if the DP had taken a stand, spoke out, it would have been the obstructionist republicans facing the people's wrath rather than dems last election. Just a thought.

Maybe the democrats should have hired a PR firm of their own to counter the "government run healthcare" meme...

Yes, lots of maybes, because we don't know, because we never tried.

http://anarchismtoday.org/DF_Multimedia/page=watch/id=56.html">Video: Noam Chomsky on Healthcare

-Andy

[Tansy_Gold]

3. Thank you.

(no sarcasm) :hi:

[JamesA1102]

4. Expect no one ever campaigned on Single Payer

no candidates in the last several Presidential elections has single payer as part of their plans. That's like saying when the did NASA's budget, why wasn't a mission to Jupiter funded.

[DirkGently]

5. Excellent points. /nt

[vaberella]

6. What are you talking about?! Obama never had the votes in the Senate for the PO.

That is common knowledge. There's no need to go on all these assumptions and find ways to criticism on the tax thing through the public option. Most on the left didn't even like the public option----only a small number did. Those who were screaming and shouting about it after wards on the left were using it as a way to justify their anger about not getting single payer.

In any even he had no votes then and it looked to me as though he had no votes now. There were several Congressman on the Democratic side who turned on him. You realize he can't pass anything with just Dems and it gets even worse when we have blue dogs who are turn coats sitting around in congress wanting to fuck him over. Get it together here.

[CreekDog]

7. you don't get credit for reading the title of my post

i said that the public option was NOT a position of the left --Obama was incorrect in stating that it was.

[vaberella]

9. Actually as I consider myself part of the left---albeit pragmatic part it was part of my position.

n/t

[displacedvermoter]

8. But I thought the HCR shortcomings were "going to be fixed later,"

Are you telling me that that was a lie then, and is even more of one now?

[vaberella]

10. I don't even know what you're talking about.

If you're talking about changes in the healthcare bill over time...well yes, they've even done a few in regards to the language for children since Sebelius took her title.

[displacedvermoter]

14. I am saying that when the HIR bill was being debated

we were told not to worry about major flaws, they would be dealt with later on.

It certainly won't be happening any time soon now, as the GOP has control of the House, and the boogeymen have control of the Senate.
So were your mispeaking then, and do you agree now that there never was hope of meaningful change to what we have been stuck with now?

And as the waiver process takes hold and millions of burger flippers get screwed out of health care, is this also considered tweaking or just another failure resulting from the crappy bill that the President himself says he got passed?

[slipslidingaway]

11. Bingo!!! THE HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC OPTION

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6456383&mesg_id=6456383


"...One key player was Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America's Future. Hickey took UC Berkley health care expert Jacob Hacker's idea for "a new public insurance pool modeled after Medicare" and went around to the community of single-payer advocates, making the case that this limited "public option" was the best they could hope for. Ideally, it would someday magically turn into single-payer. And then Hickey went to all the presidential candidates, acknowledging that politically, they couldn't support single-payer, but that the "public option" would attract a real progressive constituency. Here's Hickey from a speech to New Jersey Citizen Action in November 2007:


....Starting in January, we began to take Jacob Hacker to see the presidential candidates. We started with John Edwards and his advisers -- who quickly understood the value of Hacker's public plan, and when he announced his health proposal on "Meet The Press," he was very clear that his public plan could become the dominant part of his new health care program, if enough people choose it.


The rest is history. Following Edwards' lead, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton picked up on the public option compromise. So what we have is Jacob Hacker's policy idea, but largely Hickey and Health Care for America Now's political strategy. It was a real high-wire act -- to convince the single-payer advocates, who were the only engaged health care constituency on the left, that they could live with the public option as a kind of stealth single-payer, thus transferring their energy and enthusiasm to this alternative..."

[CreekDog]

12. That's worthy of it's own thread...and it would be timely to post it again now

(if you haven't already)

the history of the public option is important for people to understand, especially so now that Obama has characterized it the way he has.

[slipslidingaway]

13. Yes, the position of the left was sold out before 1/09. n/t