All Life Is Problem Solving

Sometime during the past 32 years many prominent Democrats forgot the lessons of the Great Depression, or never learned them, and, instead, absorbed the lessons of Hooverism, in part from Ronald Reagan who believed in the religion of free market capitalism, and also in the derivative idea that real economic growth always come from the private sector, but also, in part, I think, from Democratic opposition to Reagan’s deficit’s, which they opposed, not simply because they were incurred to give tax cuts to the rich, but also, on the old-time religious grounds that balanced budgets and surpluses should be the norm for a virtuous America.

Bill Clinton reinforced the old-time religion when his restrained public spending coupled with good economic fortune in the private sector, led to higher Federal revenues, and to surpluses in the last years of his Administration. Democrats since have taken these surpluses as points of pride, and proof that it is the Democratic Party that is fiscally responsible, and not the Republicans, who shortly after the accession of George W. Bush returned to deficit spending. In taking pride in Clinton’s “achievement,” Democrats have conveniently ignored that the very end of the Clinton Administration was marked by a recession following the collapse of the Internet bubble of 1999. They make no connection between the appearance of that recession, and the Administration’s insistence on managing for budget surpluses rather than for economic development and job growth. [Read more →]

Many progressives, even though they’ve been working for a PO-based health care reform bill, have 1) never given up Medicare for All as the goal of their activity, and 2) decided, in the first quarter of 2009, that Medicare for All could not pass the new Congress. They then reacted to their realization by concluding that since Medicare for All couldn’t pass, they would not advocate for it anymore politically, but would transfer their activist commitment to getting a strong public option. Last Spring, they had in mind a Jacob Hacker-type PO, which they saw as the road to Medicare for All. So, in short, they took Medicare for All off the table as something to push for, and they did so because they thought the impossibility of its passing was “reality.”

In my other life, in the field of Knowledge Management, I sometimes work on the idea of reflexivity, a favorite notion of George Soros’s, and also on complex systems, a field having to do with the rise, maintenance, and fall of various types of systems, including human organizations of various kinds. Both of these notions are closely related to the idea that to some degree at least we make our own realities, or, as some in systems theory put it, we constantly “bring forth our world.” [Read more →]

It’s important to sharply distinguish strategy from tactics in health care reform. I think strategy is about your goal and overall orientation toward getting health care reform, while tactics are about the low-level things you do to get from point-to-point in getting the strategy implemented. Tactics are influenced by strategy in the sense that tactics need always to be evaluated from the viewpoint of whether they advance strategy or not. If they don’t they’re counter-productive and need to be put aside in favor of other tactics.

In my view, much of the health care reform movement made a great strategic error in this fight. And that error was to make the strategic goal a Public Option (PO) solution, rather than to make it a Medicare for All solution. That error has shaped everything else that much of the health care reform movement has done for the last year, and is the one thing primarily responsible for the sorry outcome we have on our hands now in both Houses of Congresses. I think we have to learn from the experience of the past ten months and stop boosting the PO, even a very strong PO, as if it were a strategic goal. Medicare for All, should be our standard, and we should evaluate our success or failure in political activity by how far we’ve moved the ball toward this goal, not by how far we’ve moved the ball toward getting a PO. The PO, even a Jacob Hacker-type PO, is at best a tactic relative to the overall strategic goal of getting to Medicare for All, and we should never forget that, or let other people forget that. Since it is a tactic, we should be treating it as a tactic, something we resort to in order to overcome blocking or resistance, not something we pre-compromise on, before even testing the strength of resistance to our efforts to get something better. [Read more →]

Absent a substantial change in direction by Congressional Leadership and the President, I think it’s time to do whatever progressives can to kill the health care reform legislation currently moving through Congress, and then to immediately reset to Medicare for All, single payer.

As HR 3962 bill sits now, it’s worse than no bill at all, and the Senate and Conference versions are likely to make a final bill still worse. If so, that bill will destroy progressive and Democrat credibility by associating us once again with reforms that don’t solve problems, and corporate interests, in opposition to the American people. [Read more →]

As I wrote in Part One of this series, “deficit hawkism” is the ideology that prioritizes bringing tax revenues and Government expenditures into balance ahead of other far more essential national needs and priorities. Right now, deficit hawkism is becoming increasingly prevalent, and its expressions very strident. It’s not limited to Republicans, but is bipartisan. It is not limited to blue dog Democrats, but is also espoused by some, like Senator Russ Feingold, who have unquestioned, and well-earned, progressive credentials. Despite all the politicians, policy makers, and pundits, who propound it, deficit hawkism is a false ideology, and following it now is something we ought not do. In fact, taking any serious action to reduce Federal Budget deficits in the foreseeable future, barring the return of inflation, is a form of slow national suicide, and is entirely inappropriate for Democrats, the party of the people, to even be contemplating, much less agitating for. In this diary, I will lay out the reasons why, by analyzing the assertions, reviewed in Part One, of both Evan Bayh and his Senate compatriots, and David Broder, and showing that they are arrant nonsense. [Read more →]

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Alan Grayson appeared on Keith Olbermann’s show this evening defending the House compromise health care reform bill presented last week by Nancy Pelosi. In a repeat performance of his interview on Ed Schultz’s show a few days back Alan gave us his interpretation of the bill. Here are a few quotes from his answers to KO’s questions, along with my own comments after each one.

”. . . the main thing is that we have to save American lives. . . .” [Read more →]

On reading my evaluation of the “band-aid” period between 2010 and 2013, specified in Nancy Pelosi’s compromise bill, Bonnie commented:

”I think the House ought to include a special subsidy for the 31,000 families of uninsured people who will die annually from lack of insurance during the band-aid period, so that they can afford to bury their loved ones.”

When I asked why, Bonnie replied by saying that: [Read more →]

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Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) is justly famous for saying that the Republican health care plan is for people to go ahead and die quickly when they get sick. But, a few days ago, in an appearance on Ed Schultz’s MSNBC show, he expressed his approval of Nancy Pelosi’s bill as “the only show in town” right now, and as “a good bill” that saves money, and he incorrectly claimed that the bill would save “the 44,000 lives” lost annually, that it would provide universal coverage, that its subsidies would start immediately, and make insurance immediately affordable (when he must know very well that the only reason why the bill is deficit neutral is because subsidies won’t start until 2013), and that it was “the only way we can save American lives.” Alan apparently doesn’t think that the same moral outrage he expressed at Republican intentions with respect to health care reform is merited with respect to the House bill. [Read more →]

We’ll see many policy analyses and evaluations of Nancy Pelosi’s compromise health care reform bill as it gets closer to a final vote. This one won’t be thorough, since the bill is one of daunting length (1990 pages) and complexity, and I haven’t had the time to do a really detailed analysis. But I’ll do the best I can now, because enough detail is available to get a general impression of the bill, and evaluations that are timely are sorely needed, if only to feed the very essential debate that must go on before such a consequential bill becomes final.

The thing that sets this bill apart from most, is that it specifies two distinct periods in which the legal structures created by the bill will be different. The first period is from January 1, 2010 to the date in 2013 when the exchange, the public option, the mandates, the subsidies, and the outlawing of denials due to preexisting conditions become relevant, and the period thereafter, when most of these conditions take effect, and when eligibility for the exchange and the public option will be gradually expanded.

I’ll begin this analysis and evaluation with the first “band-aid” period. Speaker Pelosi’s office has conveniently produced a list of 14 provisions that take effect immediately. There are three categories of provisions: those mainly focused on addressing the problems of coverage and cost we see in the present system, provisions which provide “goodies” to Medicare recipients, and provisions providing miscellaneous “goodies” to sub-groups in the population, or address long-term but not the current central issues of health insurance reform. [Read more →]

Harry, this is real simple. You’re making the American people pay much too high a price for 60 votes. You’ve got other fish more important than getting 60 votes to fry. The first is that you’ve got to get a strong health insurance reform bill with a PO that will cut costs. The second is that you need to establish your authority as majority leader of the Democratic Party and create party discipline in the Senate.

Let’s look at the second thing first. Throw Joe Lieberman out of the caucus. Tomorrow! If you do, you’ll have no more trouble from Blanche, Mary, Ben, Evan, or any other blue dog again. You won’t have 60 votes for cloture, of course. But let’s be honest. You never needed 60 votes anyway, and you don’t need it now. You can use either reconciliation or the nuclear option to pass reform with 50 + 1 votes. Which brings us to the first, most important, thing you have to do, and that’s pass a good bill for the American people. [Read more →]