The ad below cost $460,000, and was funded by the Democratic National Committee. In it, Ben Nelson reassures his constituency that the health care reform will not be “government run.”

Democrats: Can’t live with them, can’t kill them.

Some suspect there is a payoff here for Nelson’s vote on the Senate bill. Progressives might wonder why they never get offered payoffs … I don’t wonder about that at all.

The Senate election in Massachusetts goes down today. I don’t know the outcome, and don’t much care. One of the candidates is interesting, the other as boring as Wonderbread. One is a radical right winger, the other a nothing. One will fight for the things he believes in, the other not. Massachusetts won’t long tolerate a right wing nutjob in office, and so if Scott Brown wins, he’ll he ousted in 2012. He’ll probably be replaced by another good-for-nothing Democrat. Where’s the upside here?

For a brief while I hoped that a Brown win would help defeat the corporate-written Senate “Health Care Reform” bill, which is meant to be the final version. But word has leaked out that if Brown indeed carries the state, as I hope he does, that the Democrats will abandon reconciliation of the House and Senate bills, and push the Senate bill through the House. This would negate the need for another vote in the Senate.

They can be clever. Democratic leadership, so often seen as weak and ineffective in fighting for progressive reform in health care, can make things happen. They can bring pressure on members of the House, they can force a majority, they do know how to make deals, they do know how to threaten and intimidate members. Obama will weigh in, he will use the hammer. Our last hope, the “Progressive Caucus”, will shrivel under the heat when it comes down to passage of that awful bill. The Democratic leadership is strong and resourceful, and effective. It is simply misunderstood. People think these people to be …liberals? Whatever. They are corporate, and that phrase encompasses hacks and poseurs of both parties.

Democratic hacks and poseurs are a little more dangerous, as they are supported by the rank and file of the party, who simply don’t understand corporate politics.

There are differences between Democrats and Republicans. Russ Feingold and Pat Leahy are different animals than Jim Inhofe and Jim DeMint. But the players in the health care debate, the appointed spearchuckers, have been people like Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. These men have played a skilled game of chess, and are not only effective, but managed to undermine reform efforts before they got off the ground. Each played a critical role in carrying forward the “reforms” sought by AHIP and PhRMA.

The reason we will have a bad bill signed into law, why it will be shoved down our throats despite protestations of Massachusetts voters, is not because of Democrat weakness. It is because Democratic leadership knows how to manage its left wing, just as Republicans know how to manage their Christians. Progressives and liberal reformers, who thought they had a voice in the process, were actually steered to a predetermined outcome by some very cagey politicians.

Democratic leadership plays chess, and plays it well, while the Democratic followship is mired down in Chutes and Ladders.

There can be no reform of this system from within this system. Those who say we must join the Democratic Party to change it do not understand how the Democratic Party works. Non-corporate Democrats do not gain leadership positions, while progressives are routinely marginalized. Since Obama’s election, new Senators have been appointed in Colorado, Illinois, Delaware and New York. Rahm Emmanuel has worked hard behind the scenes to make sure that each new appointee had appropriate corporate credentials. No liberals were allowed. Only Roland Burris managed to sneak through in a comical in-your-face maneuver by then-Governor Blagojevich. But Burris has been given his walking papers, and the heir apparent, the corporate hack who was meant to fill that seat, Tammy Duckworth, will ascend.

How do you change so corrupt an organization from within? You don’t. Corporate paymasters own that party, and its leadership works closely with Republican leadership to orchestrate events – that’s how we get this bizarre phenomenon we now witness where legislation so extreme that Republicans could not possibly pass it will be rammed through by Democrats.

The problem is money. The rest is all show. Deal with the problem, and we might have progress. For so long as the parties are corporate, reform is impossible. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were each seen as dependable, and were consequently touted as the “front runners” by corporate media, all others ignored. There cannot be reform when corporate media effectively performs a coronation of the eventual winners before the vote. Think back to 2006 when Howard Dean had his character assassinated, his candidacy destroyed – not by his own actions, as his “I have a scream” speech was not in the slightest significant. The media torpedoed him. That told me that he was a worthwhile candidate, and he has since proven to be a good man. But he could not succeed as a Democrat.

It’s a long hard road, things have to get much worse. We need popular movements, dynamics that spring up by groundswell and lead to popular explosions. That is how it has worked throughout history.

If there is a groundswell, if popular movements do indeed form, they must by all means avoid the Democrats, who only mean to destroy them. That’s their role in our “two party” system.

Now and then I get something right, not so often that I can brag. But here is a piece that I put up on June 20, 2009, that indeed turned out to be prescient. We are in the final throes now of health “reform” defeat, and the Democrats have decided that the joint reconciliation process is too dangerous to corporate interests, and have shut off that avenue. It is all going to be done behind closed doors, and you know they are looking out for us. Chortle!

Now, as from the beginning, our only hope in avoiding this nightmare is the Progressive Caucus. Chortle!

We’re screwed, dude. Totally.

Anyway, I likened having Democrats negotiate health care reform for us to us renting out our house last summer.

House for Rent

We have our Bozeman home up for rent, and asked some local Democrats for advice. Here’s the newspaper ad they came up with:

House for rent outside Bozeman. It could be a whole lot nicer, but it’s the best we could afford. We’d like $1,695 rent. We don’t really want $1,695! We’ll take $1,000! We’ll take less than that even if you’re really insistent. Please don’t be mean.

There are other houses for rent in Bozeman, so the Democrats suggested that we ask the other owners to be in charge of renting our place. “It’s a collaborative process”, they said. They also said that we weren’t very clever about asking for $1,695, since we wouldn’t get it and that we should leave it to them to get us the best deal possible.

Last night the owners of other rental units had a party on our front lawn, and scattered beer bottles and kept us up till 4 AM. But we’re nice neighbors, and didn’t complain. I peeked out the window at one point, and there were other owners and Republicans and Democrats too – a lot of Democrats, and they all seemed like really good friends. That really surprised me. But I guess that’s how the rental business works.

So far, we’ve had one offer – we pay our renters $500 a month, and we also pay utilities. The Democrats thought it was worth consideration. After all, they said, it’s not a pretty process, and that we should not expect to get everything we want.

“80% is better than nothing”, said one.

I said that I thought (but wasn’t sure) that 80% of $1,695 was $1,356.

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”, I was told.

And anyway, it could be worse. “Imagine what it would be like if you had a Republican property manager!”, said one. He spoke with kind of a stutter.

The 14 comments below are from June of ’09.

I mentioned at some other website that the victory for AHIP and PhRMA in the “health care” battle has been total and complete, an awesome display of power.

However, President Obama says that he only got 95% of what he wanted. I wonder what the missing 5% is?

Here’s a prediction: Many people send their prescriptions up north to Canada to fill, to avoid cartel pricing down here in the States. I think this is technically illegal, but the pharmaceutical companies have had to endure this insult for fear of sparking a firestorm.

Now that they have what they want, now that there is no more to get from Washington, I predict that they will clamp down, and people will be prosecuted for filling prescriptions in Canada.

It’s bad enough they are screwing us. Now comes the PR blitz. They are hitting the airwaves, all the Clintonites Obamanites are out talking up this horrible bill.

This is an unsolicited email I got from Tester today.

Think I’m gonna puke.

Dear Mark,

As the holidays arrive, we are hard at work in the U.S. Senate passing a health care reform bill that will save lives, save money, and save Medicare.

There’s a lot of information going around about what’s in the bill and what it does. While some of the information out there is good, some of it is unreliable or flat-out false.

Here are a few key things you should know about the bill:

– It *keeps the government out* of your health care decisions

– It *stops insurance companies from denying coverage* for pre-existing conditions or illnesses in new plans

– It *lowers the national deficit* by hundreds of billions of dollars

– It *cuts waste and fraud in Medicare*, which will ensure that Medicare is around for future generations

– It *drives down the cost of health care* by providing more competition

– It *limits out-of-pocket expenses* for new insurance plans

I explained my support for health care reform — and shared real stories from Montanans — on the floor of the Senate today.

*Click here to watch my speech.*

The bottom line is, without this bill, we will keep paying too much for health insurance and for health care. Without it, too many will be left out, without any options if they get sick. And without it, insurance companies will continue to run roughshod over the system. You can find the whole text of the bill on my website at tester.senate.gov/health.

As always, thanks for your interest.

Senator Jon Tester

This man is going down in two years. I can feel it. Partisan politics is shown now to be a complete sham. Therefore, it will not hurt to elect a Republican. Nothing will change.

Republicans, have you got a candidate lined up? There’s a lot of beef on the hoof here. He should be an easy target.

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.

Think Progress has a long list of bills that were passed by means of reconciliation, including the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy:

Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981
Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1982
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1983
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993
Balanced Budget Act of 1995 (vetoed)
Personal Responsibility and Budget Reconciliation Act of 1996
Balanced Budget Act of 1997
Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997
Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of 1999 (vetoed)
Marriage Tax Relief Act of 2000 (vetoed)
Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001
Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005

Reconciliation rules are rather complex- the senate and house pass a budget resolution, a long and complex process, but ultimately requiring only a majority vote and no presidential signature to pass. Then various committees are instructed to propose legislation to bring spending and taxation in line with that resolution. Any bill that falls in line with the budget resolution can be passed by mere majority vote.

So, with a little advance planning, it appears as though the budgeting for health care reform could have been part of the resolution process, and passed with 51 votes.

There is also the “Byrd Amendment,” which limits bills passed by reconciliation to a ten year span if they add to the deficit. So the Senate could conceivably pass a good bill and revisit in over the next ten years to either freeze it in place, or make it better. (This is why the Bush tax cuts are set to sunset in 2011 – they increased the deficit and were passed via reconciliation.)

So, the question is, is there any way that health care could have fallen under reconciliation rules and been subject to a straight up-or-down vote? The answer has to be yes, of course, by simply budgeting for the necessary revenues to fund a bill during the resolution process. Then a committee would be directed to produce a bill, and presto-up or down vote.

I could be wrong about all that. One cannot hope to learn arcane senate rules in one sitting. And surely if it were that simple, it would be done. (Please note, Democratic readers, this is sarcasm.)

This much I am fairly certain about: The Democrats did not want reconciliation from the very beginning of the health care process. They wanted to have to buy off Olympia Snowe, and Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson. It was a convenient way for them to hide their own reluctance to pass any kind of meaningful reform.

By the way, I say “them”, and “Democrats”. There are good Democrats, but probably not enough to pass even an up-or-down bill. I speak in general terms because the ‘Good Dems’ are at a disadvantage, having the Republicans, the Democratic leadership and the White House working against them. They are a distinct minority when one considers the numbers of right wing Republicans and Democrat beards, and Obama/Emmanuel.

—————-

So, they got their sixty votes, I read. It’s a sad day, and Democrats will be hard to endure for a while as they tell us what a good deal they did for us. The public doesn’t seem to go along with that – this is a complex issue, but there were two very clear and well-understood objectives that could have been achieved with even a modicum of leadership: a Public Option, and an expansion of Medicare. We got stuffed on both, with no support at all from the White House.

Polls indicate that the public is very unhappy with the Obama/Lieberman bill, but I have to think that those two don’t care. Nor do I. Democrat control of congress and the presidency has given us this bill. How can it get worse?

————

PS: It’s worth inquiring here about the prevalence of the filibuster and the ability of Republicans to use it so freely these days on virtually all legislation. This is probably triangulation – an agreement among the leadership of the two parties and the president that the Republicans are to be the bad guys and use the filibuster to kill important legislation. Filibusters could easily be avoided or defeated if Democrat leadership wanted it so. The filibuster essentially defeats the momentum for reform that came out of the elections of 2006 and 2008. The parties present to the public the appearance of rivalry, but agree in principle on which legislation needs to be passed or defeated.

In the case of health care, filibuster was used as an excuse to water the bill down to one acceptable to the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies – likely down to a bill they wrote themselves.

The Denver Post today ran three letters regarding health care topics, each making points that Democrats need to hear.

It’s pretty clear that not only the Republicans abhor the idea of health care reform, but so do Democrats. The fact that Joe Lieberman, senator from Connecticut, is holding up the current health care bill and the Democrats do nothing to stop him indicates that he speaks for all of them. Lieberman is just doing his job, obstructing health care reform so that both parties in Congress do not have to lose their corporate benefactors.

Good Democrats should leave the Democratic Party and send a message that votes have to be earned. Democrats have been betrayed too many times in the last few months.

L. Highland, Morrison

It’s a painfully obvious point to make – and yet so many Democrats that I read don’t see it. That makes it even more painful.

A single senator has managed to kill both the expansion of Medicare and any possibility of a public option in the health care bill. So what is left? A mandate for almost everyone to purchase insurance and a federal subsidy to help those who cannot afford it.

In essence, what will be created by this bill is a very effective mechanism for transferring money from the federal treasury to the insurance industry. In other words, corporate America wins again.

I suppose that it is pure coincidence that Joe Lieberman represents Connecticut and Connecticut is the home of so many insurance companies.

Niel Powers, Colorado Springs

This writer does not see that he is being played by the “Bad Joe” tactic, but does see the larger goal of the Democrats’ efforts – to create a pipeline of subsidy to the health insurance industry.

I don’t know how the senators who voted down a proposal to allow Americans to import low-cost prescription drugs can justify their actions. The amendment by North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan would have helped millions of Americans who are paying premium prices because our nation’s drug companies have a captive market. Where are the open competition and free enterprise that we like to hold up as American values? Do these values and the needs of our people simply get pushed aside when they come into conflict with the personal and financial interests of these senators?

When we see officials from other countries involved in these types of actions, we call it corruption. I don’t see the difference here.

Fred Buschhoff, Denver

There ya go. It really is that simple. We are corrupt, decadent, and on our way to collapse. And that’s not a bad thing. We need to collapse. We’re not worth keeping around the way we are.

Others abroad surely agree. Let’s take a poll, starting in Iraq …

Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota has introduced an amendment to the senate “Health Care” bill (apparently the names “Healthy Forests” “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution”, and “Clear Skies Initiative” were already taken). Dorgan’s bill would allow for the “reimportataion” of drugs from Canada.

Away from industry jargon, that word, “reimportation,” means that Americans would be allowed to buy drugs from a country where prices are regulated, and monopolies are not allowed to flourish. It means lower prices for Americans – a savings over ten years of $19 billion for us as “taxpayers”, and another $80 billion for us as “consumers.”

That’s considered poltical grandstanding, and is highly frowned upon in Washington. That $99 billion in savings would come from the pockets of “PhRMA,” the drug lobbying group also known on the streets of Newark as the “Drug Cartel.”

Said Sen Jay Rockefeller, D-AR, “Bad form, Byron – not done! Not done! Order! Return to order! Order in the senate!”

The White House, of course, opposes Dorgan’s amendment. President Obama supported drug reimportation as a candidate, but that was before he realized how really powerful these PhRMA dudes are (or, perhaps, was, just, well, you know, lying). He still supports reimportation in principle, but has alterted his stance a bit to suggest that even though it is a really good idea, it should never be implemented. That is considered, in DC parlance, a reasonable compromise.

Dorgan is making a mess of things, it appears. The White House and PhRMA had crafted a deal where PhRMA would offer up $80 billion in concessions over ten years, by first adding $80 billion to their pricing structure, which they can do as a cartel, and then giving it back. Maybe.

Dorgan is being unreasonable, and worse, he’s not backing down. Oh, he will eventually. They always do. Stuff goes on behind the scenes, and these guys always think better of behaving like this – there must be some sort of woodshed behind the capitol buidling where spankings are administered, and not the fun kind like Max Baucus does with his aides.

Dorgan has threatened to put a hold on all other amendments until his is voted on. He is really, really in for it.

There’s a rule in Washington known as the “order of feeding”, and Dorgan is violating it. It works like this: The carcass of the American public lies finally still after a long chase, eyes glazed, steam still rising from the nostrils. Wolves did the kill, but grizzlies eat first, filling their bellies until content, often resting on the carcass while processing carrion and making room for a later re-gorging. Then wolves feed, followed by coyotes and eagles, ravens last. Dorgan, an egotistical man who is not even thinking in terms of feeding rights, seems to believe that the beast should not even be killed, that there should not even be a feeding ritual. PhRMA begs to differ, and having higher standing in the senate than Dorgan, will prevail.

But in the meantine, it’s just embarrassing! Here’s what one senate aide said about the whole affair (this is true):

Of course, with Dorgan, it’s all about Dorgan.”

He will be chastised. Even as I write, PHrMa is looking for a suitable replacement for him in the coming elections. A mediocre man or woman of low character will soon have a high public profile in North Dakota, appearing in photos on newspaper front pages, having op-eds written by ghosts, and being sought out for wise commentary on the issues of the day by news stations. He/she will soon be thought of as senatorial timbre, and will draw quiet, behind-the-scenes attention from the real voting public in American politics, lobbyists, corporations, and wealthy families.

Dorgan is toast.