Protests of Howard Dean and Earl Blumenauer by Single Payer groups...

[madfloridian]

that really surprised me. It's not like they are against us. I don't see how we gain anything by protesting those who really care about our party and work for change.

Hat tip to a Clark County Politics blog which covered Howard Dean's speech to the Jefferson Jackson dinner there yesterday.

It sounds like a protest was called for when Dean and Blumenauer held a rally the day before in Portland.

From the blog which links to the call for the protest.

What a coup landing Howard Dean as the featured speaker for the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner!

I had a chance to speak with Dean directly (thank you, Dena Horton), and check in on what he's doing now after wrapping up such a successful turn as the DNC chair. And yes, he does feel vindicated about the 50-State Strategy, which turned out pretty well during his tenure that saw Democrats taking back Congress and the White House.

What Dean is up to now is focusing on the public option for health care, having just spent the day earlier in Portland with Congressman Earl Blumenauer. He's definitely sympathetic to those who support single-payer, since it pulls the health care debate into a more progressive direction, but it's definitely a situation of not letting "the perfect be the enemy of the good". Advocates for single-payer are in many ways their own worst enemy, and protesting his visit in Portland will do little to help their cause.

Here's the link to the protest link.

Single Payer Advocates Hold Protest for Single Payer Healthcare at Howard Dean/Earl Blumenauer Town Hall

At 2:30, on Friday, June 5, 2009, advocates of a single payer healthcare system will hold a protest at the Town Hall on Healthcare, hosted by Howard Dean and Rep. Earl Blumenauer at PCC’s Cascade Campus (705 N. Killingsworth Street, Portland, Oregon.)
Participating in the protest will be advocates from Single Payer Action, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Healthcare-NOW!, the Portland Jobs With Justice Healthcare Committee, and members of local labor unions.

Rep. Blumenauer has said a Single Payer system is not politically feasible and Howard Dean has said it should not be “imposed on everybody.”

“We challenge Congressman Blumenauer and Howard Dean to tell us why an option that a majority of Americans and physicians favor is not politically feasible,” said Single Payer Action’s Philip Kauffman. “Congressman Blumenauer and Dean need to stand up to the insurance industry and not allow them to dictate the debate on healthcare. A single payer system will save tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars every year and is the only option that will cover all Americans."

Both of them have been upfront and honest about their stances on this issue. I do not see what protesting them will accomplish.

[DJ13]

1. Dean has been talking about a public option

Thats NOT the same thing as the single payer most want.

[madfloridian]

3. I know what he has been talking about. I have written a lot about it.

I am for the public option myself because I don't think we have the power to shut out the insurance companies.

I don't see protesting those who do care about real reform.

[DJ13]

6. Is the watered down public option real reform, or just another insurance co. welfare program?

The must buy provision seems to be a great boon to the insurance industry.

Personally, I would rather have no "reform" if these are the best plans offered.

Sure things as they stand will get worse as a result, but maybe it needs to get worse to force the real change we need.

[madfloridian]

7. Never mind.

We will get neither we are so divided.

[DJ13]

10. Better nothing than another perscription bill dont you think?

Trust is a funny thing.

We elect people to represent us, not to throw us bread crumbs after the gluttonous campaign donors get fat off of our taxes.

Im sorry, but theres few that are fighting to actually fix our health care system, to most its just an excuse to shovel more money at the insurance industry, so trust shouldnt be given freely.

[madfloridian]

11. Dean is trying to fix it. Yet he is protested. He is being shunned...

because he is trying for what we can actually get.

[DJ13]

14. because he is trying for what we can actually get.

Theres the problem.

We should try for more, then a settlement would be better than going into this with that fatalistic attitude that already has us in a prone position in front of the insurance lobby.

I dont know who trains national Democrats on the art of negotiating, but they are doing it wrong.

[madfloridian]

15. We should be able to do it without going after each other.

Without going after those who really are trying.

Never mind...I knew it was useless trying to make a point.

[DJ13]

19. I knew it was useless trying to make a point.

Depends on the point.

Our economy is in serious trouble right now, I really believe asking (telling) people they have to buy medical insurance at this time is the wrong approach.

Our economy cannot compete with other nations that dont base their health care on a bastardized system of employers and forced private coverage, a true single payer program is our only hope in rebuilding our country's manufacturing base.

[madfloridian]

22. He is not advocating for mandatory.

[DrDan]

30. ahem - certainly headed in that direction

"President Barack Obama on Wednesday signaled new openness to the idea of the government requiring most Americans get medical insurance -- a position likely to increase momentum behind the drive to create a new coverage mandate."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-health-carejun04,0,4087729.story

[madfloridian]

32. I was not referring to Obama.

Dean has said he does not approve of mandatory, doesn't think it would work.

It really doesn't matter, you know.

Dean does not have a voice in the matter, and neither do we. Baucus, Wyden, the Emanuel Brothers, they are the big money players.

[DrDan]

31. the trends with insurance company's political contributions

are poised to hit nearly 60% next year for the 'D's - up from 45% last year.

They are not going to jeopardize that.

Just more selling-out.

We should be supporting these protests. They are justified - Dean or not.

(forgot to put in the link - http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F09)

[BlooInBloo]

2. I knew it. As soon as Dean came out strongly for Obama's plan a month or so back...

The clock was ticking on him for self-proclaimed "true progressives".

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. I don't have a problem with the protestors in this case.

I understand where Dr. Dean is coming from here. I believe he's planning strategically, that a TRUE public option would receive such an overwhelming public response that the insurance corporations would eventually be squeezed out.

Those who like to consider Obama a "chess player" might want to apply the same metaphor to Dr. Dean. After all, this is the guy who signed the first civil unions bill as Governor of Vermont, which was the catalyst for the process which eventually led to marriage equality in Vermont, and the neighboring states. Howard Dean knows how to play chess.

That doesn't mean the people should stop demanding single payer health care though. Let them - the corporations and the treasonous Baucus/Nelson types - know that we will no longer accept a corporatist system that leaves millions without any sort of coverage. The cowards will convince themselves that they're getting off easy by including a true public option.

And let them think so.... while we move the chess pieces.

[madfloridian]

5. I think we should protest those who are not even in favor of a public option.

And leave the ones who are trying alone to do what they can do for us.

[depakid]

8. "I do not see what protesting them will accomplish. "

It keeps progressive politicians honest, and it sends the message there are a substantial number of people (read: boots on the ground, $$$ on the net) who are likely to stay home in coming elections if the administration and Democrats in the House and Senate don't follow through with meaningful reform- rather than bandaids to appease their corporate clientelle.

Wyden for example- he may be in little danger of losing 2010, but if he sells everyone down the river on health care (again), he'll do so without quite a few progressive votes- including mine. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if that turns out to be the case that the Greens don't run a candidate who picks up a few percentage points (or maybe more).

[madfloridian]

9. Dean does not agree with Wyden. Why compare the two?

[depakid]

12. Why be defensive about Dean?

Believe me, folks are going after Wyden too-

The point is to be heard in no uncertain terms.

By all of the poli's- and let them discuss that among themselves.

[madfloridian]

13. I am defensive because they are protesting me for my position.

Why be defensive about my stance?

[Cleita]

16. We both love Dr. Dean, however, on this issue he has been

triangulating with the corporate insurers who are apparently running Obama's health care plan and the Congressional committees studying this, particularly the one chaired by Senator Max Baucus. I don't especially understand it considering how Obama treated him shutting him out of jobs in the administration that he should have gotten. We need him to lead us on the single payer universal health care issue. We need him to be our Cindy Sheehan for this battle, not part of the problem.

[madfloridian]

17. Oh, I get it. He's a collaborator with the enemy.

This is where we become our own worst enemy.

It really does not matter, you know. We do not have the power to purge the insurance companies.

Why should he lead on single payer when he has never been for it?

[Cleita]

20. Oh cut out the hyperbole.

He has said he's for it in the past long before he ran for President but he feels it can't pass today. Of course it can't if you are defeated before you begin. I want him to lead us. I want him to be our Gandhi in this. btw thank you for the information on your other post about Zeke Emmanuel. It should give us activists another target to get out of the way.

We have the power to get this done if we stand united. We are so many more than them.

[madfloridian]

21. Hyperbole is over stating.

I am not doing that.

We can not organize for fighting each other.

I should have known.

[Cleita]

23. That's exactly what you are doing and I'm sorry if you can't see it.

We cannot organize without leadership and Dr. Dean should be providing it to us but he isn't. It's as simple as that.

[madfloridian]

24. You have every right to your view. Few here share mine.

And that's okay also.

I post what I believe, and even today am catching flak here for speaking out for women's rights.

I post what I think, I back it up, and I try not to attack anyone ever.

I do believe that protesting someone who is fighting hard against those like Zeke is accomplishing little.

You have a right to your view. You are in the majority here. Now I am in the minority on believing that the public option is doable and single payer is not.

[Cleita]

25. Well, if you don't get single payer, you aren't going to get even a public

option that will be of any use. Your own post about Zeke Emmanuel points to that. A public option would have to be an improved Medicare like HR 676, but I don't believe it will be allowed. Thom Hartmann already outlined what a public option would come out to be. It would be shot full of holes so that the insurers could come in and offer to plug the holes, for a price of course. You see if the insurance companies are allowed to offer basic coverage, they have won two thirds of the battle. It will be a matter of a mop up operation to send any public option plan into retreat.

[madfloridian]

26. Zeke not advocating public option

What I resent is that Dean has spoken on a sensible option that would be a start on the road to minimizing the role of private insurance. I have posted videos of it and journals about it.

Yet we ignore at our peril the power of Zeke and minimize the efforts of one working for us as best he can in reality.

[Cleita]

27. You keep attacking me like I was one of those people who protested

Howard Dean. I'm not. I'm only stating that anyone who backs the insurance company crafted health reform is on a fool's errand. You know him. Talk to him.

[madfloridian]

28. The insurance companies do NOT want the public option.

Careful with the use of the word "attack". I did none of that.

Again I will say we are our own worst enemies.

[slipslidingaway]

18. Howard Dean at the AHIP convention...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5792680&mesg_id=5792680

"...Former governors Howard Dean, MD (Vermont), Jeb Bush (Florida), and John Kitzhaber, MD (Oregon), agreed that the current system is functionally flawed. And they agreed that health plans, employers, and consumers need to take more responsibility for their own healthcare...


But Dean considers public health insurance a necessity. "I think it is absolutely essential. And I don't think health reform is worth doing without a public option."

"What the president is proposing to do is say, if you like what you have, you can keep it. If you're comfortable with the private insurance market, you can keep it. Not only that, but we'll help you buy it. There will be a government subsidy based on your income, particularly helpful to small businesses, that you will receive to buy healthcare in the private market," Dean said. "But you will also have a choice of buying into a public plans such as Medicare or some other public plan. And I'm one of the few defenders of that in this room."

"Now I know people in this room, in this industry, are very, very fearful," he said. "This is the center of opposition."

He looked at the rows of representatives of Aetna, Blue Cross, and dozens of other companies assembled and said, "Your living is at stake here. But I don't think it's going to be as tough as you think it is."

The reason, he said, is that most of the nation's CEOs, despite "incredible inflation," prefer to have employer based health insurance. He emphasized that there is still a role for private health insurance, but one that would be shared by public plans.

[madfloridian]

29. Speaking out honestly.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/4105

On Rachel's show.