BARACK OBAMA
Pragmatist with a LIBERAL Sensibility?
Change Agent or Chicago Politician Extraordinaire?
Damned If He DOES, Damned If He DOESN'T?
The Liberal Party never did take a stand for or against Barack Obama's Presidential run in the primaries. There were many reasons for this. The first is that there was little interest on the part of the Obama braintrust in a third party endorsement in New York State because Hillary Clinton, New York's Senator, would never lose to a newcomer from anywhere else in the country. Mrs. Clinton was the Liberal Party's candidate in both of her US Senate campaigns.
And in every way they simply backed away from any real effort to sell New Yorkers on the Obama candidacy. Special events for media coverage and grassroots fundraising, like a night of music at Madison Square Garden, don't count as an "effort."
Other reasons for our silence had to do with our concern about Mr. Obama's experience or lack of it. While he had served in the US Senate for almost two years, almost all of that time was about his early campaign for the Presidency - a campaign that some indicate took so much of his time that he'd only spent about 40 working days in the Senate in Washington, DC.
While his message of change had some genuine national resonance, few Liberal Party leadership people were comfortable with the lack of specificity both on his busy website and in his often fun-to-watch-and listen-to speeches. It seemed to many of us that his "We are the change America is looking for…" did not say enough to make us feel comfortable.
While it would have been impossible for a John McCain to gain the Liberal Party's support - if he'd ever asked for it - some of our leadership were more comfortable with what they knew than with what they didn't know.
But Mr. Obama is our President…and doesn't he look thrilled to have the job? The energy, boundless enthusiasm - he bounces on and off Air Force One - as if he can't wait to get to the next challenge, makes a strong, very American-on-the-go picture.
Challenged at every single move by a Republican Party that seems to have been totally captured by their strongest Right Wing forces, Mr. Obama cannot make a move without someone making a critical comment on it. This "keep hitting" approach to governance - where the party in power does absolutely nothing…NOTHING… that escapes the negative attentions of the party out of power, is a holdover from the Karl Rove eight year machine and Republicans play all of these cards very carefully and with great enthusiasm. Barack Obama seems to have no countervailing force but his own time and effort.
Withal he is faced with a set of challenges that would break many other potential Presidents. Whatever the Bush Administration did in its eight years, no one really thought that the country's financial structure would all but collapse in the months immediately following the campaign. Because Mr. Bush all but disappeared during that period, Mr. Obama had to act immediately to stave off a return of the Great Depression…even getting certain key votes from Congress while he waited in the wings for his swearing in ceremony.
Now a year later all of these problems - the lack of adequate health care insurance coverage, as well as the complete lack of quality healthcare in America (we are ranked 34th in the world in this area), the wars in the Middle East and now - staggeringly - the unprecedented increase in unemployment - all belong to Mr. Obama and his administration.
Unless he finds some answers that begin working (they will all be criticized no matter what they are) he is looking forward to a very bad off-year election in 2010 - an election which could well easily end the very wafer-like Democratic margin in the Senate. Then he must face the reality of a difficult run for reelection in 2012. And make no mistake, Mr. Obama does not want to be a one-term President no matter how tough the job really is.
So it's time to start talking to Mr. Obama and his people about all of the issues in a way that provides alternative liberal approaches and not just criticism.
We start today with an Open Letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, from former Labor Secretary in the Clinton Administration, Robert Reich . This is not the end of commentary on the forthcoming healthcare bill - just the beginning.
We'll also be commenting on the US war machine and on unemployment in America.
An Open Letter to Harry Reid on
Controlling Health Care Costs
Friday 13 November 2009
by: | Robert Reich's Blog
Dear Senator,
I know you're in a tough spot. It would be bad enough if you only had to get Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, and Blanche Lincoln on board, but anyone who has to kiss Joe Lieberman's derriere deserves a congressional medal of honor.
But Harry, you really need to take on future health-care costs. The House bill fails to do this. The public option in the House bill is open only to people without employer-provided health insurance. That will be too small a number to have bargaining clout to get good deals from drug companies and medical providers. And it will mainly attract people who have more expensive medical needs, which is why the Congressional Budget Office decided it would cost more than it would save.
You also know a public insurance option that's open to everyone would cut future health costs dramatically by imposing real competition on private for-profit insurance plans. That's why the private insurers hate the idea. Even if states were allowed to opt out of this robust public option, the big states would almost certainly opt in, giving it the scale needed to negotiate great deals from drug companies and medical providers. This would put pressure on any state that opted out because their citizens would soon discover they're paying far more.
In addition to the House's weak public option, the deals the White House and Max Baucus made with the drug companies and the AMA will force Americans to pay even more. If, on the other hand, Medicare were allowed to negotiate lower drug prices, biotech drugs weren't granted a twelve-years monopoly, and doctors had to accept Medicare reimbursements in line with legislation enacted years ago, Americans would save billions.
You know all this but you're also trying to get 60 votes in order get any bill to the floor. You have my sympathies, but unless you get these reforms into the final Senate bill you're not really helping most Americans afford future health care.
So what do you do?
First, try for the "reconciliation" process, which requires only 51 votes. Every one of the reforms I mention above would fit under the Byrd rule.
If that doesn't work, wrap these reforms together -- a public option open to everyone (allow states to opt out of this if they dare), Medicare-negotiated drug benefits, no 12-year monopoly for new drugs, and a major squeeze on Medicare reimbursements for doctors -- and have CBO score the savings. I guarantee you, the number will be large. Then you should dare anyone, Democrat or Republican, to vote against saving Americans so much money in years ahead. How is Ben Nelson going to face voters in Nebraska who would have to pay, say, 20 percent more for health care in the future if Nelson refuses to go along?
If neither of these tactics work, then take whatever bill you must to the Senate floor. But then introduce this reform package as the very first amendment to the bill. Call it the "Ted Kennedy Amendment for Helping Middle Class Families Afford Health Care," and whip the hell out of the Democrats. Get the President to help you. Surely Joe Biden will. If you can't get 51 votes out of Dems for this, publish the list of Dems who vote against it, strip them of their committee chairs or sub-chairs, and make sure the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee gives them zilch when they're up for re-election.
Nobody promised you this would be easy, Harry. But, hell, why are you there, anyway? Your responsibility isn't just to pass whatever will muster 60 votes and that the President and Dems can later call "health care reform." It's to do the right thing by the American people and bring down future health-care costs. Don't cave in to Lieberman or Nelson or the drug companies or the private insurers or the AMA or anyone else. Lead the charge.
All best.
Robert Reich was the nation's 22nd Secretary of Labor and is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His latest book, "Supercapitalism," is now available in paperback.
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