In an article by Ceci Connolly appearing in WaPo yesterday, President Obama, in a “pre-holiday call” with a small group of six high-level Democrats from both Houses of Congress expressed concern over efforts by progressive advocacy groups in online campaigns and advertisements to target “moderate” Democrats whose positions on health-care reform have expressed opposition or lack of commitment to health care proposals lacking a robust public option. The President, according to three sources who were parties to the conversation, asserted that these groups ought to stop using their resources in attacks on the moderates, focus on “winning the debate,” and build support for legislation that will expand coverage, control rising costs, and modernize the health care system. And he also “hinted” that he was trying to “discourage them from future attacks on Democrats.”
While I can’t be sure how the progressive advocacy groups will react to President Obama’s displeasure and his calls for unity, I can certainly tell him what my reaction is. It is to ask what have I gained by supporting him thus far, and what will I gain by focusing on building support for health care reform legislation that either doesn’t yet exist or that he will likely sell out at the last minute on the alter of bipartisan compromise anyway? Let’s look at the record shall we?
So far, your administration that supposedly knows so much about how to get bills passed in Congress, has successfully passed the S-CHIP bill and the “Lily Ledbetter” equal pay bill, two good pieces of progressive legislation. Apart from that, you’ve passed a clearly inadequate stimulus bill, about half the size it should have been, with far too much in tax cuts, and far too little in really effective stimulus spending, which thus far has had very little effect on employment as far as anyone can tell. You’ve bailed out the banksters, when you should have taken them into receivership, and thereby are re-inflating the financial system that caused the crash of 2008 in the first place, without producing any real reform, and while you allow executives at some of the big banks to draw unprecedented levels of compensation. You’ve done nothing to prevent these same banksters from raising interest rates unconscionably on credit cards, while pretending along with Congress that the recent Credit Card reform bill is a great gift to the consuming public. You’re making progress on an energy bill that may be a beginning in climate change policy, but that is far too weak in its provisions, and far too kind in the advantages it gives to the coal industry. Meanwhile, in the areas of Civil Liberties, constitutionalism, and human rights, you are a grave disappointment to progressives and to many true conservatives, as well. You’re doing everything you can to fight transparency in this area, to defend the obnoxious and anti-democratic state secrets doctrine, and to prevent investigation of and trial and punishment for those in the Bush Administration who may have violated the Law by torturing people. And in preventing investigation and punishment, you yourself may be crossing the line into violations of International Law and US treaties.
Moving to health care reform, you along with your allies in Congress have taken single payer health insurance “off the table,” even though surveys show that a majority of Americans support single payer. By doing that you have deprived the legislative process around health care reform of transparency. You arrogantly, and disingenuously, talk about progressives joining with you in “winning the debate.” But we can’t win the debate, because, thanks to you, we can’t even debate in favor of the alternative we and the majority of Americans prefer, namely single payer national health insurance. Instead, we’re asked to defend the idea of a private insurance system with a public health care option, something that we don’t really believe in, and only grudgingly, and with resentment, accept as a barely acceptable compromise. Your strategy on health care has left us backed into a corner. We cannot advocate for, debate, and defend what we really want, because you and Senator Baucus have decided it can’t be passed, and have given other committee chairs their marching orders, and, in this way, have short-circuited a real and transparent debate. Instead, we have to advocate for the second best alternative you’ve left us, and now you’re even daring to complain about us insisting on that second best, which by the way 76% of Americans would find acceptable, by pressuring “moderate” Democrats to vote for that themselves, so that in the end we are sure to end up with something that isn’t even minimally acceptable to either us or most Americans. Namely, another health care bill that is a giveaway to an insurance industry that has been at war with the American Public for at least a quarter of a century now. This industry markets and sells insurance to Americans for a price, and then when it’s time to cover people, uses its legal power to deny coverage on grounds that may be legal according to the fine print in insurance contracts, but that appear to the recipients of this treatment to be plain and simple fraud, whatever the lawyers and judges have to say about it.
So where does an examination of the record leave us progressives? I think it leaves us with the strong impression, if not conclusion, that marching along in lock-step with you is not going to get us anything we want, or even anything worthwhile. And that our best bet to change that outcome is to stand with what we think the American people want and need, and what we think they elected Democrats to provide. And when we see other Democrats moving away from that or worrying about the welfare of the banksters, or the healthsters, or the coalsters, when working people are experiencing hardships unprecedented since the Great Depression, what we need to do, since you evidently won’t do it, is to raise money and use our resources to point out to their constituents that they are straying from the promises that we think the Democratic Party and you, yourself made to the American people last November. If we do that, perhaps those “moderate” Democrats will learn that “moderate” doesn’t mean being willing to support special interests, or giving up the vital interests of working people to serve banksters, healthsters, or coalsters who have been heavy contributors to their campaigns in the past. And even if they don’t learn that lesson, perhaps they’ll learn the simpler lesson that if they don’t vote for the interests of working people, their constituents will know that they are Democrats in name only, and that they are prime candidates for defeat in a Democratic primary the next time they run for re-election.
For your information, Mr. President, progressives aren’t just carrying on online and advertising campaigns against “moderates” reminding them of what it means to be a Democrat, we’re also starting to whip Congressman to take pledges guaranteeing that they will vote no on health care reform legislation that fails at least to provide a robust public option that will force private insurers to compete and lower health care costs and prices. If this restricts your freedom of action in bargaining to get a bill passed this year, well that’s our intention, and it’s just too bad. Your freedom of action in bargaining with moderate Democrats and Republicans has produced nothing worthwhile up to now anyhow. We progressives don’t want another piece of legislation from your administration that fails to measure up and solve one of America’s most serious problems. We’re not interested in legislative kabuki this year. Solve the health care problem dammit! Or let the people who don’t want to solve it go on record as opposing a real solution, so they can face the voters in 2010 with that on their record.
Republicans have gone on record saying that single payer was a deal breaker for them. They’ve also gone on record saying that a robust public option is a deal breaker. A number of “moderate” Democrats have expressed their doubts about a robust public option, and others have stated that they are opposed to one straight out. Most recently, some Democrats in the House have told Speaker Pelosi that any reform bill with provisions that cover abortion and reproductive health is a deal breaker for them. In none of these cases have you complained about the Senators or Representatives who have done this, or asked them to forget about their preferences or special interests, or appealed to them for unity. You haven’t gone to Chuck Grassley, or Dick Lugar, or Olympia Snowe and appealed to their patriotism to get them to support a robust public option. You haven’t pressured Mary Landrieu, or Joe Lieberman, or Max Baucus, who confessed a few days ago that he did not even known that Bernie Sanders had introduced a single payer bill in the Senate. But now you come to us progressives and say that we should get behind the sellout of real health care reform that is likely to take place in the scenario that is shaping up. I say, no thank you Mr. President, and I hope other progressives will say that too. In fact, I say, I’ve had enough, and with all due respect Mr. President, go take a hike. Go beat up on the other guys for awhile, and leave us progressives to fight for the American people by supporting a bill that has a chance to work, and that is not a turnover of taxpayer dollars to the health insurers. Even better, join us. With your help, I know this time we will win!