In Two Days Time, Health Care Reform Went From Uncertain, To A Foregone Conclusion

I think that Obama needs to put in the budget bill for 2011 money so that states can start their own public plans which in turn states can bundle up together to fight insurance companies.

It's very odd to think back that the current polarization is a result of passing the Voting and Civil Rights Acts in the early 1960's.

With the newly-enfranchised southern black voters on the rolls and with them guaranteed to vote Democratic, the Southern political oligarchies were guaranteed to cross over to the Republican Party -- as they signaled they would in the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater election. This was institutionalized by the Nixon Southern Strategy in 1968.

This destroyed the Eastern Liberal wing of the Republican Party and removed the Southern Democrats from the ruling Democratic Congressional majority. According to Godfrey Hodgson, this would have happened as soon as the 1974 midterm elections if Watergate had not happened.

So ever since then, we've had to play out the drama of reactionary polarization and progressive frustration at a national level.

We've got to the current situation by a demographic shift. Younger voters supported Obama's presidency. Voters who grew up in a country without segregation and de jure electorally disenfranchised cultural classes.

The current polarization is potentially very destabilizing because the Republican Party is locked into what Chalmers Johnson called "elite intransigence" - a reactionary refusal to engage policies which would address the growing dysfunctional division of labor and status roles (which is essentially what the Tea Party is upset about but unable to comprehend.)

The exogenous shock of 9/11 and the resulting defensive war against Afghanistan followed by the aggressive war against Iraq pushed the country into reactionary nationalism. Now we are trying to rebound from that and restore harmony in social and economic roles.

The manifest insanity of some of the reactionary propaganda (birthers, death panels, concentration camps, gun confiscation, etc ad nauseum) will subside over time, provided there are not additional endogenous shocks (like the collapse of the finance capital system) or exogenous shocks like an attack from outside the country.

The overall situation will be dominated in the near term by the regional differences that dictate House and Senate races.

If you thought this health care ride was crazy, wait until we get around to immigration reform - which is unquestionably the greatest source of dysfunction in the division of labor and social status.

Given this analysis, what the optimal national and local courses for progressives to follow?

In Conference, they should at least drop the tax on "Cadillac Plans" (which would make people with good insurance get bad insurance) and the "Free Rider" tax on businesses, which encourages part-time employment and low-wages (because employers wouldn't have to reimburse cost of Medicaid but would have to reimburse cost of subsidies for private insurance.)

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/12/17-4

I'm not necessarily saying this is what progressives ought to do, but the fact is that the only way to have true leverage is to be willing to walk away from the table. If Rahmbama is not convinced that progressives will truly blow up the process, then progressives will get their shit sandwich and a bottle of ketchup.

At this point, I agree with the tone of some comments that the best action by progressives would be to trade support for the Senate bill for something more meaningful--whether it's health care or something else. But at some point, progressives are going to have to call Rahmbama's bluff and inflict some wounds if they ever want to be taken seriously.

"Those who would vote no on this bill need to look into the eyes of Americans who don’t have health care now and tell them they’re going to be better off without this bill — better off continuing to live without health coverage. They should explain to all those Americans who are denied coverage because they have pre-existing conditions or whose insurance ran out because of lifetime caps that they don’t need this..." Joe Biden, NYT 12/20/09

As soon as this bill is passed, children can no longer be denied insurance because they are ill.

Question: If Ben Nelson. Mary Landrieu or Joe Lieberman do not vote for the final conference bill do they still get the juicy deals they extracted by bald faced blackmail - so much for principles. They are all for sale to the highest bidder! What has gone on in Congress this year is beyond disgusting. They should ALL be voted out of office. We are the United States of Nothing.

I'm surprised they got the 60 votes. I mean the Republicans prayed their asses off to stop them, even prayed for 'something' to happen to a Democratic senator to keep him or her from being there for the vote. Does that mean that the Republicans don't own God anymore? Now that should be front page news.

There seems to be a logical disconnect here. It's "utter capitulation" that gets zero GOP votes. You're on the same soapbox with the Teabaggers, and Michelle Bachmann. It's just bizzare.

"Reform"?...."REFORM"???

Not.

why have senators at all? just let the lobbyists write the legislation! that would cost less, eliminating the middleman.

I guess my basic reaction to the Senate bill is like the old joke about what you call 100 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the sea: A good start.

Of course, if one of those lawyers was Joe Lieberman, I'd call it an excellent start.