Every now and then, in all of our blog discourse in this small small blogging community, I stumble on something worthwhile -that is, something outside of the normal give and take and repetitive nonsense. It’s rare, and even more rarely comes from me.
Anyway, today it is this, and this may wrap it up for me, so far as wisdom goes, for the year 2009: In matters of public policy, such as health care reform, it is essential to follow power to its source if one is to understand what is going on.
So in the health care debate, forget abut Max Baucus, or even Obama/Lieberman/Conrad/Nelson/Emmanuel. They are mere players. Real power lies elsewhere.
In the case of the bill before the senate, and the one that will ultimately pass, power lies with AHIP and PhRMA. They wrote the bill, and have been guiding us slowly to it by use of politicians as actors. The create imperatives (must have 60 votes!) and bad guys to set up fake showdowns. Harmful amendments (state-level single payer or drug reimportation) simply disappear without public debate. All towards a final goal.
Where is public power? What can we do? Given that politicians are useless and the pwer behind them is hidden, we can only mount enough pressure on them by forging alliances among natural enemies, to kill the bill. It has to be negative power. They do not respond to anything else.
For that reason, progressives, teabaggers, fiscal conservatives, libertarians, socialists and people who fear socialism and objectivists, among other, all need to join forces to kill this bill.
Politicians live by divide and conquer, and die when forces unify against them. We have a common goal. It is time for progressives to show up at a teabag rally – not to ridicule them, but to join with them. We need a visible coalition.
Piece of Mindful 
From Jane Hamshire to your ears.
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Jane Hamsher’s big idea was as follows:
That’s her idea of putting fear in them-the spaghetti approach so common among Democrats.
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Didn’t she recently write a long missive where she outlined the commonality of tea partyers and progressives?
And not to poke you in the eye but haven’t I been calling for such a coalition on common themes for a while?
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I don’t read Firedoglake, and am only aware of the above quote because Koehler put it up at LITW.
If you pretend I thought of it, I will join you. It would have been my first original thought had you not come along.
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You can have all the credit. And I tell you what, this fucking bill stinks so badly that I concede that a Canadian style single payer system looks good in comparison. But we can fight about that later.
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Whoa.
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Mandates, cost increases, and now stock price and profit increases take most people right back to Wall Street and other bailouts. What isn’t a state-corporate bailout these days? Christ, (S & Ls, Chrysler #1) this has been going on for a long, long time.
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Almost forgot the IMAC. That’ll be a barrel of fun. The following is from the….
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
December 20, 2009
SENATE WOULD TURN MEDICARE OVER TO A FEDERAL RESERVE OF HEALTH CARE. . . AND NOBODY’S TALKING ABOUT IT.
With a few exceptions, that is -, like Klaus Files and David Broder last July. This provision in the bill represents another major step away from tripartite government and the U.S, Constitution. But these days, it’s hard to find anyone in government or the media who cares.
David S. Broder, Washington Post, July 26 – Americans are familiar with — if not altogether comfortable about — unelected officials exercising great authority over our lives. The nine justices on the Supreme Court and hundreds of other jurists exert their power from the bench. The economy is managed by the Federal Reserve Board, though no one ever forced Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke to campaign for a vote.
If President Obama has his way, another such unelected authority will be created — a manager and monitor for the vast and expensive American health-care system. As part of his health-reform effort, he is seeking to launch the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, or IMAC, a bland title for a body that could become as much an arbiter of medicine as the Fed is of the economy or the Supreme Court of the law. . .
Since 1997, the bureaucracy has included a similarly titled advisory body to Congress known by its nickname, MedPAC. But, as Obama has noted, its semiannual reports and recommendations have been quickly shelved, because it lacks any action-forcing mechanism. Its 17 expert members and small staff are conscientious but have no authority.
Obama is recommending that the successor agency, IMAC, be smaller and potentially more decisive. Under his plan, the president would name five physicians or other health-care-savvy members to serve for five-year terms on its board, picking one of them as chairman. Like the nominees to the Fed and the Supreme Court, they would have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Each year, IMAC would have two responsibilities. First, it would recommend to the president updated fees that Medicare would pay doctors, hospitals, rehab centers, nursing homes, labs, home-care and ambulance services, equipment manufacturers, and all other providers. That is now done by Congress itself, and the lobbying by potent hometown individuals and institutions is one reason Medicare costs keep growing. To control costs, IMAC’s recommendations could not exceed the “aggregate level of net expenditures” under Medicare. . .
Because Medicare looms so large in the overall health system, the changes required by IMAC would undoubtedly transform all private delivery systems as well. . .
But Congress will have to decide if it is willing to yield that degree of control to five unelected IMAC commissioners. And Americans will have to decide if they are comfortable having those commissioners determine how they will be treated when they are ill.
Labels: HEALTH INSURANCE, MEDICARE
12/20/2009
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