What Obama Needs to Say: "This is Exactly Why We Need a Public Option, or Medicare for All." nt

[grahamhgreen]

[Cleita]

1. Yep.

So wondering why he doesn't. It seems obvious.

[grahamhgreen]

5. Ya know, it's just so freaking sad. This is a perfect wedge for real HCR.

[PeteSelman]

2. Yeah, except he doesn't believe in either.

Else he would have at least proposed the idea last time around.

[lostincalifornia]

3. and of course then I am sure the whole congress will rally around him and immediately pass it

Perhaps if he raises his arms the Red Sea will open while he is at it

[grahamhgreen]

4. For God's sake - you DLC types need to understand us progressives have the

solutions to all your self-made problems!

Your straw man arguments are old and tired.

I say with much love!

[lostincalifornia]

10. "You dlc types". Who the hell are you referring to?

You may not be aware, but unless we control both houses how would that happen?

Perhaps you didn't notice, but the repukes are batshit crazy, and a large segment of them would of let the government default


Unless more progressives are elected it isn't going to happen, and it sure wont happen in the red states anytime soon

[grahamhgreen]

12. In my view, you simply couldn't be more wrong. Not advocating for it in the first place is exactly

Last edited Thu Nov 14, 2013, 10:18 PM - Edit history (3)

why you're in this mess

Let me break it down:

WE DID CONTROL BOTH HOUSES WHEN WE WERE TRYING TO PASS HCR.

2) The majority of Americans favor medicare for All.

3) How do we make it happen? Obama asks for a million people to march on DC for Medicare for All.

PS - If your not a DLC/corporate dem, thank goodness, I sincerely apologize!

[HuckleB]

6. But he didn't even advocate for it in the first place.

[NuclearDem]

7. If that ends up happening, we'll never hear the end of the eleventybillionth dimensional chess crap.

[grahamhgreen]

8. HAHA! I'd give it too them!!!

[DJ13]

9. And eliminate any possibility of a $500,000 to $1,000,000 speaking gig at an insurance convention

Last edited Thu Nov 14, 2013, 09:27 PM - Edit history (1)

once out of office?

Not gonna happen.

[PragmaticLiberal]

17. I doubt very much that Obama will be offered many speaking engagements.

Considering the things the insurance industry is saying about him......

[muntrv]

11. Medicare part E, the E standing for everyone.

[phiddle]

13. Yes!

President Obama could have initially proposed Medicare for all, and then bargained down to a Medicare buy-in with subsidies instead of this jerry-rigged exchange plan. That way, Medicare itself would work as a de facto public option in the individual market. Medicare would effectively be setting standards for copays, deductibles, etc. which private insurers would have to meet if they were to be able to compete for buyers in the individual market. This move would also have strengthened the funding base of Medicare by bringing a younger population into it.

That Obama didn't propose such a thing, but rather sent his employees (Robert Gibbs, Rahm Emanuel et al) to insult those who advocated such a course of action speaks volumes about his allegiances. Now he is reaping the butter fruits of ignoring his supposed base, who appear to have been right all along!

[dionysus]

14. uh, you can only bargain down to what your own party will vote for.

our "60" senate votes had of half a dozen blue dogs and Lieberman, who alone would have vetoed single payer.

it's the best system but to think if it wasn't for Obama we'd have it is delusional thinking. even Bernie sanders claimed we had only 10 or so votes in the senate for single payer.

why does this get rehashed a zillion times?

[phiddle]

16. Straw man--the issue should have been Medicare buy-in, rather than subsidizing the private market.

Obama (Baucus, Rahm et al) would not let advocates of other approaches even make their case. He was pushing Romneycare from the beginning, AND TO THE EXCLUSiON OF ALL ELSE. In doing so he gave up all leverage and ended up with an unworkable mess.
Maybe there were only 10 votes for single payer, but Medicare buy-in would have been tremendously popular.

[pnwmom]

21. Wrong. Joe Lieberman was the one who stood between the public

and the public option. As an Independent Senator in the insurance capitol of the world, he opposed the public option and prevented the Democrats from having the 60 votes they needed for cloture.

[grahamhgreen]

24. There was, of course, something we could have offered Lieberman or one

Of the other 40 senators for their vote.

But the point is now that Ibama can push for a public option and put us on the attack, rather than being put on the defensive by trying to remove the mandates for quality care.

[DevonRex]

15. No. That is what every damned Democrat in the United States has to say. ALL of us

including President Obama, every goddamn Senator and Representative, every candidate, every pundit. And the more examples of insurance company greed we have, the louder we say it. I agree and have said this myself.

[gulliver]

18. This is an amazing leap.

There is absolutely no way on Earth that it would do anything but burn him and the Democratic Party politically to the ground. He would be admitting defeat on ACA and would look like a failure. And you think that positions him to say we need a public option or Medicare for All? If the ACA fails, the Democrats won't be in a position to say anything about health care for a decade. It would be like George W. Bush talking about national security or the economy.

[grahamhgreen]

19. Quite the contrary. Intstead of him admitting mistakes, he should be

pushing solutions.

And everybody knows the solution is a public option or Medicare.

The majority of Americans want it.

It puts us on a strong attack instead of a weak position of defending corrupt private insurance.

Just as progs were right about Syria, we are right about this!

Wouldn't you like to win for a change?

[pnwmom]

20. Why? A public option would not have fixed the website.

The problem with the website is that the Fed govt. had to take over for too many states that refused to offer their own. Adding a public option to the private options would have done nothing to solve this problem.

It also would have failed to solve the problem of miscommunication about keeping substandard policies.

[grahamhgreen]

22. In my view, the website issue really involves the interface between the private insurers and the gov

site.

Signing up for a govt plan through the govt site would be straight forward and easy in comparison.

I also believe we would have heard very few complaints from people who lost a substandard plan to a plan that provided better coverage for less money

[pnwmom]

23. It still wouldn't have changed anything because the private insurers

and all the different state systems still would have been trying to link together. The fact that there were dozens of different state systems was a huge part of the problem.

[grahamhgreen]

26. Wha I see there is that everyone would have signed up for the cheaper, better

public option, and big insurance would be scrambling to bring a product to market that people actually want.

In fact, the R's often stated big insurance could not compete with the public option, so we might simply be seeing them collapse and good riddance.

But the real issue now is that by pushing a public option, it puts Obama on the attack and the R's on the defensive.

[Corruption Inc]

25. Then he needs to say "we're also going to hold a few torture camp trials"

"...followed by banking CEO trials".

Ah it's fun to dream about living in an actual democracy.