Beware Authoritative "Inside Washington" Sources Who Say The Public Option Is Dead

Friday 28 August 2009

by: Robert Reich  |  Visit article original @ Robert Reich's Blog

In the US Capital, authoritative sources often fail to reflect the broader public opinion of the nation.

Washington, D.C. is an echo chamber in which anyone who sounds authoritative repeats the conventional authoritative wisdom about the "consensus" of inside opinion, which they've heard from someone else who sounds equally authoritative, who of course has heard it from another authoritative source. Follow the trail to its start and you often find an obscure congressional or White House staffer who has seen some half-assed poll number or briefing memo, but seeking to feel important hypes it a media personality or lobbyist who, desperate to sound authoritative, pronounces it as truth. In any other place on the planet it would be called rumor, gossip, or drivel. In our nation's capital it's called "inside information." The process would be harmless except that it creates self-fulfilling prophesies. Since most of our elected representatives would rather not stick their necks out lest they lose their heads, they tend to rush toward whatever consensus seems to be emerging - which, of course, is based on authoritative reports about the emerging consensus.
   

In the last few days authoritative sources have repeatedly told me that the public option is dead, that the President won't be able to get a comprehensive health care bill, and that the White House and congressional leadership already know the best they'll be able to do now is move incrementally - starting with insurance reforms such as barring insurers from using someone's preexisting health conditions to deny coverage - with the hope of more reforms in the years ahead. The rightwing media fearmongers and demagogues have won.
   

Don't believe it.

The other thing about Washington is how quickly conventional authoritative wisdom changes, especially when the public is still in flux over some large matter. Rightwing fearmongers and demagogues thrive only to the extent the mainstream media believes they're thriving. Although polls continue to show that while most Americans like the health care they're getting, they also dislike their insurance companies, worry that they or their families will be denied coverage, and are anxious about the increasing co-payments, deductibles, and premiums they're facing. Most are still eager for reform.
   

In addition, we've come to the point where health-care incrementalism won't work. To be sure, the health-insurance industry is powerful and will fight reforms that threaten their profits. But they won't fight if they know their profits will be restored when everyone is required to have health insurance. (This isn't just conventional authoritative wisdom; it's political fact.) Obviously, in order to require everyone to have health insurance, tens of millions of Americans will need help affording it. The only way the government can possibly pay that tab is to raise taxes on the rich while also getting long-term health-insurance costs under control. And one of the surest ways to get long-term costs under control is to force private insurers - which in most states and under most employer-provided plans face very little competition - to compete with a public insurance option that can use its bargaining clout with drug companies and medical providers to negotiate lower prices.
   

When you go through the logic, it starts to look a lot like comprehensive reform.


Years ago, as the story goes, Britain's Parliament faced a difficult choice. On the European continent drivers use the right lanes, while the English remained on the left. But tunnels and fast ferries were bringing cars and drivers back and forth ever more frequently. Liberals in Parliament thought it time to change lanes. Conservatives resisted; after all, Brits had been driving on the left since William the Conquerer's charriot. Parliament's compromise was to move from the left to right lanes - but incrementally, on a voluntary basis. Truckers first.
   

Lest anyone in Washington repeat this story authoritatively, it's a joke - but with a kernel of truth. Sometimes reform has to occur in a big way, everything or nothing, if it's to happen at all. That's the way it is with health care reform at this stage. Every moving piece is related to every other one. That's also why a public option is necessary.
   

So forget the authoritative sources. Mobilize and organize. We can get comprehensive, meaningful health care reform if we push hard enough. And we must.

    --------
    Robert Reich, professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, is the author of "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Obama and the Skeptical Democrats

Not long ago, a group of skeptical Democratic senators met at the White House with President Obama, his chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. The six senators—most of them centrists, joined by one left-leaning independent, Vermont's Bernie Sanders—said that while they supported Obama, they were worried. 


The financial reform policies the president was pursuing were not going far enough, they told him, and the people Obama was choosing as his regulators were not going to change things fundamentally enough. His appointed officials and nominees were products of the very system that brought us all this economic grief; they would tinker with the system but in the end leave Wall Street, and its practices, mostly intact, the senators suggested politely. In addition to Sanders, the senators at the meeting were Maria Cantwell, Byron Dorgan, Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and Jim Webb.


That March 23 gathering, the details of which have gone largely unreported until now, was just a minor flare-up in a larger battle for the future—one that may already be lost. With the financial markets seeming to stabilize in recent weeks, major Wall Street players are digging in against fundamental changes. And while it clearly wants to install serious supervision, the Obama administration—along with other key authorities like the New York Fed—appears willing to stand back while Wall Street resurrects much of the ultracomplex global trading system that helped lead to the worst financial collapse since the Depression.


At issue is whether trading in credit default swaps and other derivatives—and the giant, too-big-to-fail firms that traded them—will be allowed to dominate the financial landscape again once the crisis passes. As things look now, that is likely to happen. And the firms may soon be recapitalized and have a lot more sway in Washington—all of it courtesy of their supporters in the Obama administration. With its Public-Private Investment Program set to bid up and buy toxic assets, the administration is handing these companies another giant federal subsidy. But this time the money will come through the back door, bypassing Congress, mainly via FDIC loans. No one is quite sure how the program will work yet, but it's very likely going to make a lot of the same Wall Street houses much richer at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, the big banks that still need help will almost certainly get another large infusion once the stress tests are completed by the end of the month.

The financial industry isn't leaving anything to chance, however. One sign of a newly assertive Wall Street emerged recently when a bevy of bailed-out firms, including Citigroup, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, formed a new lobby calling itself the Coalition for Business Finance Reform. Its goal: to stand against heavy regulation of "over-the-counter" derivatives, in other words customized contracts that are traded off an exchange. Companies like these kinds of contracts, which are agreed to privately between firms, because they allow them to tailor a hedge perfectly against a firm-specific risk for a  certain time period. But in order to preserve  its right to negotiate these cheaper private contracts, Wall Street is apparently willing to argue for the same lack of public transparency and  to permit the systemic risk that led to the crash.


Geithner's financial regulation plan, announced April 2, does address some of these concerns. The Treasury chief wants all standardized over-the-counter trading of derivatives to go through an industry clearinghouse, which will give the government more oversight. Geithner said he wants to require "systemically important" firms to reserve more capital. He also wants to rein in "customized" derivatives contracts—those agreed to privately between firms. Whereas once these trades went totally unregulated, Geithner would require that they be "reported to trade repositories and be subject to robust standards" for documenting and collateralizing, among other new rules.


But it's unlikely this will do much to change Wall Street. Geithner's new rules would allow the over-the-counter market to boom again, orchestrated by global giants that will continue to be "too big to fail" (they may have to be rescued again someday, in other words). And most of it will still occur largely out of sight of regulated exchanges. The response favored by the administration, the Federal Reserve and even many in Congress is to create a new all-knowing "systemic risk regulator" with as-yet-undetermined powers. Is such a person sitting at 30,000 feet really going to be able to keep up with all this onrushing complexity, especially as over-the-counter trading resumes in quiet places around the world? It is a triumph of hope over experience to think so.

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Here we go!!!!

Break The Bank!!!!!

Jobless Checks for Millions Delayed as States Struggle

www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/us/24unemploy.html?_r=1&hp

 

 

A Million applicants have been slowed, and hundreds of thousands of needy people have waited months for checks. And with benefit funds at dangerous lows even before the recession began, states are taking on billions in debt, increasing the pressure to raise taxes or cut aid, just as either would inflict maximum pain. Sixteen states, with exhausted funds, are now paying benefits with borrowed cash, and their number could double by the year’s end...the number of unemployed Americans has doubled since 2007 to 15 million and the program is more than tripling in size. About 9.5 million people are collecting benefits, up from about 2.5 million two years ago. Spending is expected to reach nearly $100 billion this year, about triple what it was two years ago.

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Call Now...Single Payer....Like That's Ever Gonna Happen!

Who in hell are these Democrats, anyhoo?

Call Congress now: Imminent vote on Single Payer

www.democrats.com/friday-key-vote-on-single-payer-healthcare

A dedicated group of 86 Democrats are fighting for single-payer (H.R. 676), and they need our help today.

The battle over single-payer is in the House Energy & Commerce Committee (E&C). The committee was supposed to vote on Rep. Anthony Weiner's single-payer amendment on Monday, but chairman Henry Waxman keeps postponing the vote because it might pass - just like the Kucinich Amendment for a single-payer state option passed on July 17 by a shocking 25-19 bi-partisan majority. Today we're told the vote could be tomorrow (Friday). Can you call the 6 lean yes and convince them to become solid yes on Rep. Anthony Weiner's single-payer amendment in the Energy & Commerce Committee?

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Keep Internet Open And Health Reform Alive

Right-wing broadcasters, who outnumber liberal/progressive talkers by more than 9 to 1, have been up in arms about the possibility that the Federal Communications Commission under Barack Obama might try to restore the Fairness Doctrine, which until the 1980s required the holders of broadcast licenses to provide some balance in the presentation of controversial issues of public importance. Ronald Reagan’s FCC in 1987 abolished the Fairness Doctrine and Reagan vetoed a bill to reimpose the doctrine.

We think changes in media technology have made the doctrine largely irrelevant but we still don’t understand why Senate Democrats knuckled under to Republican demagogues Feb. 25 to pass a measure that would prohibit the FCC from restoring the doctrine. The 87-11 vote was on an amendment to an unrelated bill giving the District of Columbia a voting member of Congress.

We’d rather see the Obama administration move toward promoting more diversity in radio and TV stations, including repeal of rules that allow media conglomerates to own multiple stations in a market and approval of community radio stations and low-power radio stations that operate at 100 watts or less.

We also think Congress should create a permanent, independent funding mechanism for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports PBS and NPR, and change the governance structure to prevent partisan meddling by political appointees, as occurred under the Bush administration when the CPB chairman sought to meddle in programming.

We also believe the FCC should support public access cable TV channels against telecoms such as AT&T that community media groups accuse of relegating the nonprofit channels to second-class status, in violation of the 1984 Cable Act and FCC rulings and policies.

But the most revolutionary new outlet for public media is the Internet, as technology makes it possible for any website or blog to reach across the World Wide Web.

Progressive talkers have gotten a hostile reception in the executive suites of media conglomerates, as the liberal Air America network hovers around 60 stations nationwide, along with other syndicated talkers such as Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, and Stephanie Miller. In most of the country, including the liberal bastion of Austin, Texas, the only way you can listen to progressive talkers is over the Internet.

An estimated 33 million people age 12 or over listened to radio stations over the Internet during an average week in January 2008, Edison Media Research reported. That was around 13% of the total American population over 12. And the Internet audience is growing.

Michael Bassik, chief digital officer of Air America Media, said the Internet is creating a new era of talk radio, allowing listeners to “stream” programs online and, in many cases, download “podcasts” to replay shows they miss. They also can engage with talk show hosts and producers by email as well as by telephone.

More than 700,000 people listen to Air America programming via airamerica.com, which streams up to 1.5 million hours of content every month. That does not include streaming from affiliated radio stations that carry Air America shows.

Approximately 70% of US households have some Internet access, but Leichtman Research reported in March 2008 that only 57% of those homes had broadband access, which is needed for quality streaming.

We need a national broadband policy that keeps the Internet open under the principle of Net Neutrality and promotes more broadband Internet access, particularly in underserved areas, such as rural areas and low-income urban neighborhoods that phone and cable companies choose not to serve.

The problem is particularly acute in rural areas. Megan Tady of Free Press recently reported that 61% of rural homes across the country are not connected to high-speed Internet. “This isn’t just a statistic. It’s a daily reality for the millions of people who can’t go online to apply for jobs, attend classes, start home-based businesses, get news and information, and participate in the global economy,” she wrote.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Stimulus Bill, allots $7.2 billion for expanding broadband connections to underserved areas. The US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service will get $2.5 billion to expand rural broadband services while $4.7 billion goes to the Commerce Department for assistance in expanding broadband access with the requirement that those Internet providers adhere to open Internet principles established by the FCC.

President Obama, whose campaign took advantage of the Internet, has pledged to “take a back seat to no one” in his commitment to Net Neutrality. His selection of Julius Genachowski as new chairman of the FCC has been hailed by Net Neutrality advocates. Genachowski, a former FCC legal counsel, anchored the drafting of Obama’s comprehensive media policy agenda that promotes fast and neutral Internet connections and more competitive choices for the consumer. “It is clear that he understands the importance of open networks and a regulatory environment that promotes innovation and competition to a robust democracy and a healthy economy,” said Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge and SaveTheInternet.com. This will be important as Open Internet supporters face off against telecom interests who would like to become the gatekeepers on the Internet tollway.

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President Obama deserves credit for getting interested parties together for his Health Care Summit March 5, even if the White House had to be pressed to invite Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), sponsor of HR 676 (the Medicare for All bill), and Dr. Oliver Fein, president of Physicians for a National Health Program, which supports Conyers’ single-payer bill.

Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, noted that Obama reached out to deficit hawks who disagree with him fundamentally on the budget, as well as insurance companies who want to preserve their role in the health system. The health insurance lobbyist promised to help pass health care reform this year. But sooner or later, Hickey predicted, the insurance industry will break with Obama, and he will have to assemble a majority in the Congress that supports his approach. Then he will need progressives to help him win.

One of the top priorities of the insurance lobby is to prevent the public from getting the option to buy into Medicare or a similar public insurance program.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has ruled out a single-payer solution, such as Conyers proposes. But Baucus has proposed creation of a public insurance plan similar to Obama’s that would compete with private insurers. The Commonwealth Fund recently reported that a public health insurance plan could offer premiums averaging 20% less than private insurance companies.

That’s the sort of competition insurance companies don’t want. At the close of the White House Summit, Obama asked Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, for his thoughts. Grassley said he would work for health reform but he added, “there’s a lot of us that feel that the public option, that the government is an unfair competitor and that we’re going to get an awful lot of crowd-out.” Other Republicans have taken to belittling “government-run” solutions.

Baucus also bears watching as he says he’d prefer funding health care reform by taxing workers’ health benefits rather than phasing out tax breaks for the richest Americans. Pray that Ted Kennedy can rise from his sickbed to pull this one out. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2009

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Time to Step Up

We should not talk ourselves into a Depression, but in a time when factories are shutting down because consumers won’t buy their goods because people aren’t sure they’ll have a job in six months and the banks are pulling back on lines of credit, the government must be prepared to step up as the employer and lender of last resort. And those of us who still have jobs should be prepared to step up and support programs to put jobless Americans back to work, fixing streets and bridges and investing in other public works, if necessary, to get the economy moving again.

President Obama stepped up Feb. 24 in his speech to Congress. “What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more,” Obama said. “[A] day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here. Now is the time to act boldly and wisely—to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.”

He outlined ambitious proposals to develop renewable energy resources to free the United States from dependence on foreign oil, to give working-class families a shot at higher education for their kids once again and to make health care available to everybody. We’ll use government to get us out of the current economic slump by proceeding with progressive initiatives.

Republicans, on the other hand, are still complaining that Herbert Hoover didn’t get a second term.

Obama has said he wants to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his current term. He would achieve the reduction in part through withdrawal of troops from Iraq and restoring higher taxes on the wealthy.

But he should not let the conservative mantra of “pay as you go” overwhelm the need to stimulate the economy and put people back to work.

Obama inherited a deficit for 2009 of about $1.2 trillion, and his stimulus package probably will push it over $1.5 trillion, or about 10% of the nation’s gross domestic product. That would be the biggest deficit as a percentage of GDP since World War II, but it is still considered manageable. He hopes to cut the deficit to $533 billion by 2013, or about 3% of the gross domestic product, which is considered a sustainable level.

The Heritage Foundation noted last year, when it was still defending the Bush record, that the public debt as a percentage of GDP was 38%, which was below the 49% average from 1940-2008. (The Heritage Foundation figures do not include funds borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund or other federal government accounts.) The national debt (including all federal accounts) peaked at 110% of GDP in 1947 and got as low as 32.6% in 1981 before the Reagan and Bush I administrations doubled the debt to 66.2% of GDP in 1993, according to the White House budget office. Bill Clinton got the national debt down to 57.4% of GDP in 2001 before George W. Bush turned things around again with his combination of foreign invasions and tax cuts for the wealthy. Bush pushed the national debt to $10.4 trillion, 69.3% of the GDP.

Obama proposes to let Bush’s tax cuts for the rich lapse after 2010. He also would tax income from hedge funds and private equity partners at ordinary income tax rates, which are as high as 35% for people making $250,000 or more and will return to 39.6% in 2011. Now the hedge fund managers are taxed at the capital gains rate, which is 15% and will increase to 20% in 2011.

Obama noted that the $787 billion stimulus plan provides tax cuts for 95% of working families. Republicans voted against those tax cuts.

If conservatives want to balance the budget, Congress should restore the tax rates for the rich this year, but it also should restore the maximum tax rates to the pre-Reagan levels of 70% for top incomes of $1 million or more. The government needs the money and millionaires are the best able to part with it. After all, they are the ones who profited during the Bush years.

Congress also should adopt a tax of 0.25% on stock transactions, similar to a tax that has been in effect in the United Kingdom for decades. Such a tax could raise $150 billion a year, which would help pay for the bailout of Wall Street. Economist Dean Baker also has proposed a tax of 0.02% on the purchase or sale of futures contracts, which would discourage short-term speculation.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has a good proposal for a 10% surtax on the income of individuals above $500,000 a year, or $1 million for couples. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue.

Congress also should reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act and re-regulate the financial markets and the Obama administration should enforce anti-trust laws to protect small businesses.

Obama apparently is backing off on plans to “fix” Social Security, which is fine by us. The Village Idiots in D.C. have been calling for reductions in benefits or raising the retirement age as they seek to undermine support for the retirement program. The Social Security Trustees have projected that the system is funded at least through 2041. If any adjustments are needed, they can be accomplished by lifting the cap on taxable income, which is $106,800 in 2009.

(The elderly and the disabled should not be penalized for the greed of the Wall Street greed gang or the corruption of the Bush administration)

Obama has signaled that he plans to go ahead with health care reform and is calling for Congress to make coverage universal.

Medicare is under financial pressure because of the soaring costs of health care, but broadening Medicare to cover all Americans could restore stability to the program. After all, Medicare already covers the most expensive patients—those aged 65 and older—and many of the 47 million uninsured Americans are younger and relatively healthy.

There is popular support for universal health coverage. Even a Fox News poll conducted Feb. 17-18 found that 66% said the federal government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care. Unfortunately, Obama and Democratic congressional leaders appear to be focused on making private health insurance more affordable, along the lines of the Massachusetts model that mandates private insurance coverage. However, for advocates of a workable single-payer plan, there is still HR 676, the US National Health Care Act, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), which would expand and improve Medicare into a single-payer health plan that covers every American. The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Healthcare (guaranteedhealthcare4all.org) is leading the effort to get Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, to open the health reform hearings to consider a single-payer solution.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee has reported that expanding and upgrading Medicare to cover all Americans would create 2.6 million new jobs, infuse $317 billion in new business and public revenues and inject another $100 billion in wages into the US economy.

The economic recovery bill allocates $2 billion for community health centers. It also sets aside $300 million to provide incentive for physicians and dentists to practice in under-served communities and $200 million for other health-care professionals involved in primary health care. The bill includes $19 billion to develop a system of electronic health records and another $1.1 billion for research on which treatments work best for a particular disease. The measure allots $1 billion for a “prevention and wellness fund,” including $300 million for immunizations.

Now it’s time for Congress to show it is looking out for the general population instead of the insurance companies who are lobbying to keep their grip on the health-care dollar. Contact your House member to get him or her to co-sponsor HR 676.

From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2009

Let The Sun Shine In......

Health Care Reform Can’t Wait

If anything the Bush administration had to say can be believed and there are terrorists who are able to get their hands on biological wepons, shouldn't healthcare be a matter of national security?

Insuring employees is a heavy burden for American companies who must compete with companies from nations with universal healthcare (They actually get something for their taxes!)

Does the Right not realize that we already have national health-care? We just don't call it that. Who pays for the young, "invulnerable kid" who winds up in the E.R. of a hospital after a motorcycle accident? We do? Same for all the rest of the uninsured who present at the E.R. with the flu, an upper-respiratory infection, food poisoning or an irritating hang-nail. It costs much more to be seen in an E.R. than it does to be seen in a primary physician's office

Our broken health-care system is very much a part of the cause for the economic collapse we face. Something must be done no matter whose lobbyists don't like it.

A single-payer health-care system would be better than anything else, but if we can't get there because of the fear-mongers of the right screaming s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-m every five minutes, allow insurance companies to bid for contracts to administer the system effectively. If they screw up, they get fired and they can also be sued by patients whose rights to health-care are violated by greedy, penny-pinching corporate officers who deny proper health-care to citizens for no good reason.


http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090219_health_care_reform_cant_wait/

Posted on Feb 19, 2009

By Bill Boyarsky

Who needs Tom Daschle? The national health care crisis, intensified by the recession, is so bad that nothing can be permitted to stop reform of the system, not even the implosion of the former Senate Democratic leader. Daschle, remember, was paid big speaking fees by the health business before President Barack Obama chose him to lead the health reform fight.

After losing his South Dakota seat in 2004, Daschle began a lucrative career based on his connections. He was an important early Obama supporter. He knew the Senate and understood the health care issue. But early this month he withdrew as Obama’s nominee for secretary of health and human services. He had failed to pay taxes on a car and driver provided him by the founder of a private equity firm where he worked as a high-priced consultant. The position had brought him, according to Politico, more than $2 million in fees. Politico also reported that Daschle received more than $200,000 for speeches to health care industry groups that will be affected by health care legislation.

Daschle paid more than $100,000 in back taxes for use of the car, but not soon enough to save his nomination.

That’s the way it works for financially ambitious officials who feel impoverished by the limitations of public service. After leaving the Clinton White House and before his election to Congress, Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made $16.2 million as an investment banker, according to The New York Times. And Richard Holbrooke, a former high-level diplomat, was vice chairman of an investment firm before becoming Obama’s special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Jodi Kantor of the Times reported Holbrooke had “what friends say was a relatively undemanding job and lavish compensation.”

Daschle’s entrance into this privileged world would have passed hardly noticed if tax troubles of other Obama appointees had not made the news.

And there was the opaque role of an old Daschle foe, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. His committee was screening Daschle’s nomination, and though Baucus eventually said something supportive about his old colleague, it took him a couple of days to do it.

Baucus’ slow reaction wasn’t surprising, considering his relationship with Daschle, as described by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada in his book “The Good Fight.” Reid wrote that “Baucus was the only Westerner to vote against Daschle in his race for Democratic leader in 1994, which Daschle had only won by a single vote, and they had been driven farther apart on the issue of taxes. ... [T]hey really couldn’t stand each other. …”

The Finance Committee will shape the health reform legislation in the Senate. Now Baucus, along with Sen. Edward Kennedy, will determine its fate. Baucus has proposed a combination public-private health plan along the lines of Obama’s.

Baucus said he doesn’t think Daschle’s absence will hurt health care reform. “I don’t think it sets it back very much at all,” he told NPR. “Tom Daschle is a terrific fellow. He knows more about health care than anyone else. But there is such momentum now for health care reform. The stars seemed so aligned.” (In politics, it should be explained, everyone is “a fine fellow” or “my good friend,” no matter how much dislike might exist.)

But what kind of health plan will emerge?

The best health reform would be something along the lines of Medicare, an excellent program for those over 65 in which doctors bill the government. We should have Medicare for everybody, administered by the government and without insurance companies involved. Anyone on Medicare will tell you how well it works.

It is, pure and simple, government health insurance. Advocates call it “single payer” in an effort to defang critics of government involvement. But the “single payer” is the government, supported by our tax dollars. It’s simple, it works—and we’re probably years away from it.

I talked about this with Dr. Len Nichols, health policy director for the New American Foundation, who has been involved in every recent effort to fix the health system, including the unsuccessful Clinton health initiative of 1993-94. “I want a bill passed,” he said. But he conceded the lobbying power of the insurance companies, which will fight any move to keep them out of the system. “We can’t get from here to there without the private insurers,” he said.

Nichols has been working with Sen. Ron Wyden, a liberal Democrat from Oregon who has a plan that would take employers out of the health insurance mix. You’d buy coverage from state and regional insurance pools. Insurance companies would compete for business in the pools. Insurers would have to cover everybody. Everybody would be required to be insured, with full and partial subsidies for the low-income and the unemployed.

This is just one proposal in the mix, but it seems to have more legs than most of the others because Wyden’s co-author is a conservative Republican, Bob Bennett of Utah. Seven other Republicans have joined Bennett as co-sponsors of the bill. Seven Democrats have signed up with Wyden.

Nobody knows what will come out of this. But with more people losing their jobs every day—and their health insurance—fear is spreading through the land. The many interests vested in the present system will fight to prevent change.

But logic leans toward the sentiments of Sen. Baucus and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., whose House Energy and Commerce Committee will also have a major role in drafting the legislation. “We need to get this job accomplished this year and get the bill to the president,” Waxman told Families USA, a liberal health reform group.

Health care reform is what Obama promised during the campaign. He made the pledge with increasing emotion as the recession worsened during the fall.

Despite the need, it won’t be easy. The ease with which Daschle moved from his position as a Senate health care reformer to a paid speech-maker for health business groups shows how deep this industry’s tentacles extend and how high they reach.

AP photo / M. Spencer Green

Those on the front lines of the health care mess, like neonatologist Dr. Dick David at Chicago’s John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, are forced to wait while politicians debate solutions.

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