We are governed by adults

In case you were worried that our health care debate wasn't consumed enough by childish spite and political gamesmanship when it wasn't being consumed by corporate cronyism, Joe Lieberman, the Only Senator That Matters, stepped in to remind you that the Senate is a serious place for serious thought by serious individuals.

But in the interview, Mr. Lieberman said that he grew apprehensive when a formal proposal began to take shape. He said he worried that the program would lead to financial trouble and contribute to the instability of the existing Medicare program.

And he said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.

“Congressman Weiner made a comment that Medicare-buy in is better than a public option, it’s the beginning of a road to single-payer,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Jacob Hacker, who’s a Yale professor who is actually the man who created the public option, said, ‘This is a dream. This is better than a public option. This is a giant step.’”

That's right, Joe Lieberman scuttled a plan to expand Medicare that he supported as the VP Candidate of the Democratic party and one that he was advocating as little as three months ago, because he thought some liberals liked it too much. That was the basis for denying Medicare coverage to everyone in this country aged 55-64, making liberals angry. And not only was he so oblivious to how childish that was that he openly gave it as the reason he got the Medicare expansion dropped, the debate and the media coverage of the debate has degraded so much that he'll still be treated as a serious man of principle who has coherent thoughts on important issues.

So when you look back and wonder why a major initiative to take some of the most at risk and expensive people in the insurance market off the private rolls and onto Medicare, reducing risk, costs, and premiums in everyone else's plans, remember that it wasn't because it was a bad idea, or because analysis showed it wouldn't work, or because it was unpopular. No, you didn't get cheaper and better access to health care cause a guy wanted to stick it to liberals an punish them for liking something. Well done, Joe. We're all very sorry voters actually said they preferred Ned Lamont to you in the Democratic party. I can't even think of why they would think that. Well, you sure showed us. Thanks for acting like an adult.

Who could have foreseen?

And it's over. Just as quickly as Joe Lieberman said he'd block a bill with a Medicare buy in, it came out just as quickly. No public option, no buy-in, and nothing to replace it. Liberal Seantors walking around glum faced talking about how "things could have been worse". Yeah, I guess Joe could have released a biological agent in the caucus meetings. That would have been worse. In the end Democrats completely roll themselves, furiously piss off their base, capitulate to a man who is going to o this again and again out of spite, and made a health care bill measurable worse in a way that will bankrupt people and get them killed. Who could have foreseen that this would ever happen?

Joe Lieberman has forced his will on the Senate Democratic caucus and the nation as a whole. After the party reached a compromise last week to effectively drop the public option in exchange for allowing 55- to 64-year-olds to buy into Medicare, that compromise is now in doubt.

Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, told Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Sunday that he will block any bill that includes the buy-in. As the 60th vote needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, he can do that.

Following a caucus-wide meeting Monday evening, the measure was all but scuttled.

So why did they finally cave now? We can blame Rahm Emanuel if we want, but that misses the point. He was just carrying out the wishes of a White House that thinks any bill is a good bill and that they have to pas it nowonwnow so they can turn the focus to fucking up a jobs bill in 2010. The greater source of blame falls to the institution of the Senate, which, as presently constructed, is almost useless in terms of addressing large problems. Or small problems. But they do a good collegial, old boys network, circle jerk like no one else.

And so we finally move to the voting... unless Lieberman wants more cut out and is willing to leverage his sociopathic indifference to humans against 59 other Senators again. Unless some other Senator sees this as an opportunity to strong-arm their way into attempting to get whatever they want in the bill. That'll only probably happen. So congratulations, we all have to buy insurance now and the only things that were going to provide competition to the groups that everyone seems to agree are the problem are gone. I'm sure that and wishing will lower prices. Remember to get out a vote for Democrats in 2010!

Actually, yeah, the health care bill could get worse

Hey, remember that whole point in time last week when everyone was pretty sure that the last painful compromise had been made in the health care fight? When the public option was dropped for a Medicare buy-in and some people were holding out hope that, depending on how things were structured, this might turn out to be better than a weak public option? Yeah... then Joe Lieberman started speaking.

"We've got to stop adding to the bill," said Lieberman. "We have to start subtracting some controversial things."
...
"You have to take out the Medicare buy-in," said Lieberman. "You have to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the CLASS Act..... If you did that, you'd have an enormous accomplishment. Thirty million Americans who can't afford insurance today would get it. Insurance companies would be more aggressively regulated and costs would be bent down. It's time to get reasonable."

Great news, right? Joe Lieberman wants more compromise, for no discernible reason, and will continue to lie about his motivations for doing so, and the financial and human costs of what his changes will do. So, to the surprise of no one, Lieberman vowed today to filibuster any bill with a Medicare buy-in... despite supporting it when it was part of a little something called the Lieberman/Gore Health Care Plan.

So not only is the Senate health care bill going to get worse, much much worse, it's going to get worse to the point where it's not even a sure thing that it could pass in the House or even keep on some of the Senator who are actually concerned with people's lives; killing reform. Which seems to be Lieberman's actual goal. At what point does catering to his random whims make the bill worse than what going through reconciliation would fashion the bill into? I'd like to find out. Plus, we all found out that the prayers we made to have Joe hit by a flaming sky rock or fall into a wheat thresher... were made to the wrong God. Oh, the indignity.

You know I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to regret electing Joe Lieberman King of the United States and Emperor of Health Care.

The final compromise

Well, to the surprise of no one, Democrats huddled together, thought things through, and came to the conclusion that once again weakness should rules the day and 4 Senators should be allowed to strongarm 56. Yes, the public option is finally out. Oh, they'll claim it wasn't abandoned and that it's still in there, somewhere, and you just have to squint, tilt your head, unfocus your eyes, and believe, then you'll see it. So what's in the deal?

As has been widely reported, one of the trade-offs will be to extend a version of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan to consumers in the exchanges. Insurance companies will have the option of creating nationally-based non-profit insurance plans that would offered on the exchanges in every state. However, according to the aide, if insurance companies don't step up to the plate to offer such plans, that will trigger a national public option.

Beyond that, the group agreed--contingent upon CBO analysis--to a Medicare buy in.

That buy-in option would initially be made available to some uninsured people aged 55-64 in 2011, three years before the exchanges open. For the period between 2011 and 2014, when the exchanges do open, the Medicare option will not be subsidized--people will have to pay in without federal premium assistance--and so will likely be quite expensive, the aide noted. However, after the exchanges launch, the Medicare option would be offered in the exchanges, where people could pay into it with their subsidies.

There's more, but that's largely the meat of it. A public option trigger. A mish-mash of national non-profit plans administered by private insurance. Some form of Medicare for the 55-64 set.

Problems? Well, the Medicare buy-in, is pretty much for Medicare in name only and not the real thing. They were unable to expand Medicaid. The public option is in there so people can point at it and say "Look!", but it will be in a form that will not only not be useful if it was enacted, but could never really be triggered. Finally, the "national non-profits" will be run by national for-profits who are the big, giant problem that this health reform was supposed to fix in the first place.

S0, mediocrity wins the day. The grand plan to move our health care system from a 3 out of 10 to a 4 out of 10 is scrapped to just try to make it a 3.1 or, more likely, a 3.09. As more details come out, actual specifics are leaked, and the CBO gives them their "this saves a dollar" cover, we'll likely find out how bad this actually is and all the loopholes that exist. But, for now, it looks as if this is pretty much on the same level of reform as the bill was with a utterly neutered public option that was previously in the bill. Once again, things seemed to have been negotiated on the basis of "looking like you're doing something" as everyone pretends that making a bill worse, arcane, and more confusing to placate 4 people who can't string together a coherent thought or honest statement on health care is a grand achievement. Twas ever thus. So get happy, the last big disappointment and compromise is finally over. *sniff* I'm going to miss getting mad over this stuff.

Thanks for all the help, Ben

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is up for confirmation again as our nation's chief money overlord and coin czar. So, in the face of high unemployment, a Fed that is viewed as completely uncaring as to the suffering of actual people/subservient to Wall Street/an unthinking cash spigot to the financial sectors that shitted our economy/completely abdicated it's oversight capabilities, and the fact that Jim DeMint, Jim Bunning, and Bernie Sanders have all placed holds on his confirmation, Benny is probably going to try real hard to show that he cares and fight for his job, right? Not exactly.

In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee today, where he's seeking re-appointment as the Fed's chairman, Bernanke called for cutbacks in Medicare and Social Security even as unemployment rises and the middle class is endangered.

And there was this, on efforts to create a stimulus that targeted jobs and employment.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday threw cold water on efforts to push a major new fiscal stimulus package.

Well, it's not like it's in the Fed's mission statement to "promote effectively the goals of maximum employment" or anything.

So let's see, in his bid to get reconfirmed he not only advocated for cutting Social Security and Medicare, but decried a second stimulus to address the whole employment problem our jobless recovery is having, all while the Fed isn't really living up to it's mandate to deal with unemployment, is freaking out over a non-existent inflation threat, is a non-existent regulatory authority, and is a money funnel to our financial betters. Is there anything else he's like to do? Perhaps sodomize all of our mothers while pouring sugar in our gas tanks? Maybe I'm naive, I just thought he'd maybe try to do something other than yell "Fuck you peasant, don't look me in the eye" before advocating the Fed's "go pound sand" posture towards America's jobless masses.

Thanks for all the help, Ben. I'd be nice if we had a Fed Chairman that had a better plan for unemployment than "do nothing", but I guess I was just hoping against hope. Luckily, this will probably cost him a less than unanimous confirmation. He'll probably only get 90 votes now.

Shaming

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is quickly becoming one of my favorite elected representatives in the health care debate. He fights for a robust public option, seems to understand obvious truths, tries to humiliate and shame liars in public forums, makes a hell of a lot of sense on the issues, stays within the realm of fact, and his last name is Weiner, which is of critical importance to someone as childish as myself. Now, he's also getting into the 'shaming Republican hypocrites' business, which is admittedly easy, but he still does a good job of it.

WEINER: It’s more another way of looking at this debate, this discussion about the public option, to put it in focus. We went, just out of curiosity, looked at how many members of Congress get the public option. And I know a lot of people have said, “Well under the new bill, how many of you members of Congress would choose the public option?”

Well there already is one; it’s called Medicare. And we found 55 Republicans and 151 members of Congress are on Medicare right now. So they’re already getting the same type of public option that we’d like people who are without insurance to be able to get. And I guess the purpose of this list was to kind of point out some of the hypocrisy of this debate.

Yes, he's done his own study, naming names on who is full of it on the health care debate. These 55 oppose a public option while they themselves not only have a public option, while they not only have government run health care, but are using single-payer government run health care in the style of the Socio-fascist League of Homosexual European Freedom Haters that they despise so much.

Now there is one critical flaw in Weiner's plan: he is trying to point out hypocrisy in politicians and shame leaders who have no capacity for acknowledging hypocrisy and had their sense of shame removed in a procedure paid for by Medicare. Plus he's doing it in a media environment that can't find time to give srious proponents of the public option interview time, but can find time to let Overlord McCain warble on and on about nothing for the millionth time. And why not, Gramps won so convincingly a year ago. Still Mr. Weiner (tee-hee), the effort is appreciated. Maybe next time you'll want to accuse the 55 leeches of seeking to kill health reform because they want everyone's grandmother to die bankrupt. It's pretty much the only way to get on TV nowadays. Unless you've got a precocious kid who is willing to hoax the media about a balloon mishap. Don't know how you'd tie that into the health care debate.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.25

The Baucus White Paper: The Plan
To be mad at Max Baucus for the way he has been handling the Finance Committee's health care negotiations is one thing. But if you really want to get mad at him, and I mean blindingly, white hot seeing red mad, just go back and read his white paper from November of last year for his own plans for health care reform. Employer mandates, a strong Heath Insurance Exchange, and a strong public insurance option. In short, a plan that is not only more liberal than any of the bills under consideration, but one that is considerably more liberal (and more helpful) than anything he's even allowing his own committee to consider. Boo this man.

CIA Bio Says 9/11 Mastermind’s Days in N.C. ‘Helped Propel Him to Terrorism
According to CIA reports, it seems that time that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed spent in school in North Carolina sent him on the path towards terrorism by proving to him that "the United States was a debauched and racist country". All I can say is thank God he didn't go to school in South Carolina otherwise those planes might have had nukes on them. Not that he would have had much of a chance at survival in SC. The treacherous mountain of Afghanistan are one thing, but the Appalachians are another.

GOP Tees Up Medicare Manifesto
The GOP is starting up it's campaign to vigorously defend Medicare and Medicaid from any tampering from nefarious Democrats. It's nice that heir contribution to health care is going to be to gin up another fake issue that isn't happening and vow valiantly to defend it from invisible menace. Though it is nice to see Republicans swear their allegiance to a government run single payer health care system like Medicare. If only that massive bit of hypocrisy could be used in some way.

Obama nominates Ben Bernanke for a second Fed term
Ahh, Ben Bernanke is awarded his rightful place and our Eternal Money Overlord. Why? Because I guess he cuts checks to the financial sector better than anyone else. It's certainly not for his predictive power or a magic ability to lower interest rates below zero. It's good to know that everyone thinks he's the right man for the job. Why? Because he has the job. And really, that's all we need to know about him or his many varied secretive actions that incur little oversight.

Hospitals May Face Severe Disruption in Swine Flu’s U.S. Return
Oh sure you thought Porcine AIDS was dead. That's just what the nasty little pig virus wanted you to think. Now it's just lying in wait and according to the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (fresh from their eight year exile at bible camp) infect half the US population within the next year. That's right: THE APOCALYPSE IS BACK ON!!!!! The only question is if it will take the form of the much discussed the Stand scenario, or have new movies like the Book of Eli and the Road presaged our impending post-apocalyptic wandering doom?

What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report
Glenn Greenwald compiles an interesting list of torture tidbits from the IG Torture Report that you should be exited to learn was done in your name. This ought to give you a nice base of outrage for the impending sham investigations of lower level grunts that Eric Holder and the Justice Department are about to undertake.

Refresher

Arthur Laffer, a former Reagan economist, on socialism:

LAFFER: I mean, if you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait until you see Medicare, Medicaid, and health care done by the government.

As it apparently needs to be said over and over and over and over and over again: Medicare and Medicaid.....are government healh care programs. Socialism! Run for the hills!

The black man isn't coming to take your shit, grandma. He's trying to extend similar benefits to the rest of us. So get out of the way.