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New Poll: Majority of Americans Reject ‘Obama-Lieberman’ Health Care Bill

by on Friday, December 18, 2009 at 2:46 pm EDT in Healthcare, Politics

New results from a national poll, conducted by Research 2000 between December 16 and 17, reveal that a majority of American voters are now AGAINST each and every aspect of the Senate’s ‘Obama-Lieberman’ health care bill — which President Obama is now urging for a quick passage.

The questions asked in the poll follow below:

  1. PUBLIC OPTION: Would you favor or oppose creating a public health insurance option administered by the federal government that would compete with plans offered by private health insurance companies?


    All Americans:   59% FAVOR
    , 31% OPPOSE, 10% NOT SURE
    Democrats:  88% FAVOR, 9% OPPOSE, 3% NOT SURE
    Independents:  57% FAVOR, 29% OPPOSE, 14% NOT SURE
    Republicans:  24% FAVOR, 64% OPPOSE, 12% NOT SURE

    So naturally, the Obama-Lieberman health care bill offers:  NO Public Option.

  2. PUBLIC OPTION + MEDICARE BUY-IN: If Congress proposed passing a strong public health insurance option PLUS allowing people age 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare, would you favor or oppose this idea?


    All Americans:   58% FAVOR
    , 31% OPPOSE, 11% NOT SURE
    Democrats:  88% FAVOR, 8% OPPOSE, 4% NOT SURE
    Independents:  57% FAVOR, 27% OPPOSE, 16% NOT SURE
    Republicans:  22% FAVOR, 69% OPPOSE, 9% NOT SURE

    So naturally, the Obama-Lieberman health care bill offers:  NO Public Option + NO Medicare Buy-In.

  3. MANDATE – NO PUBLIC OPTION, NO MEDICARE BUY-IN: Would you favor or oppose a health care bill that does NOT include a public health insurance option and does NOT expand Medicare, but DOES require all Americans to get health insurance?


    All Americans:   33% FAVOR
    , 56% OPPOSE, 11% NOT SURE
    Democrats:  37% FAVOR, 51% OPPOSE, 12% NOT SURE
    Independents:  31% FAVOR, 57% OPPOSE, 12% NOT SURE
    Republicans:  30% FAVOR, 61% OPPOSE, 9% NOT SURE

    So naturally, the Obama-Lieberman health care bill includes a Mandate with penalty, but with NO Public Option + NO Medicare Buy-In.

  4. OBAMA vs LIEBERMAN: President Obama has said he favors a public health insurance option. Senator Joe Lieberman is widely credited with forcing Senate Democrats to take the public option off the table in order to win his vote. Do you think President Obama should have done more to pressure Lieberman to allow the public option to move forward?


    All Americans:   63% FAVOR
    , 29% OPPOSE, 8% NOT SURE
    Democrats:  87% FAVOR, 10% OPPOSE, 3% NOT SURE
    Independents:  72% FAVOR, 18% OPPOSE, 10% NOT SURE
    Republicans:  13% FAVOR, 76% OPPOSE, 11% NOT SURE

    So naturally, President Obama — who was awarded a clear mandate for meaningful CHANGE from the American people — pressures his party to defy the will of the people and bend over for a single politician, Joe Lieberman, who takes a staggering amount of money from the health insurance industry.

What this poll reveals is that our government is no longer functioning as the democracy it was intended to be.  When the will of a clear majority of the people, including a staggering overwhelming majority of the President’s own party, are being undermined so brazenly — as shown above — it tells you that special interests have successfully hijacked our government.

UPDATE:

Please sign the MoveOn.org petition:

The petition reads: “America needs real health care reform—not a massive giveaway to the insurance companies. Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressives should block this bill until it’s fixed.”

Click HERE to sign.

Health Care Reform: GOP’s “Kill Everything” vs. Obama’s “Pass Anything”

by on Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 12:53 pm EDT in Healthcare, Politics

This entire legislative debacle is proving to be nothing more than inner-Beltway political gamesmanship where the peoples’ interests have been entirely ignored — subverted to the self-interests of politicians and parties.

From the very beginning the Republicans strategically decided to make Health Care Reform “Obama’s Waterloo,” by obstructing ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that the Democrats might come up with.  Public Option?  Republicans responded with “Socialism” and “Government takeover.”  When that didn’t work — as a majority of Americans still favor the public option — Republicans resorted to drumming up fear that America’s beloved Medicare — our government ‘Socialist’ health care insurer — would be hurt, because Democrats planned to cut benefits.  Suddenly, Republicans became self-appointed guardians of our socialist health insurer.

With no White House insistence that a public option be in the bill, health insurance-pocketed Blue Dogs were given the green-light to ensure its demise.  Democrats then proposed an expansion of Medicare — a buy-in for those 55 and up — and the Republicans do another 180, screaming “Government takeover!”  Blue Dogs checked back with their insurance industry masters to learn that a medicare buy-in would also be a “no-go” , and thus they ensured its demise.  With no public option and no medicare buy-in, Republicans still plan on voting against it; hopefully filibustering it.  The actual contents of a health care reform bill was clearly never an issue to the GOP.  They have no interest in improving the lives of Americans.  They just want Obama to fail, so they can reclaim power.  Period.

But Obama approached this legislative initiative with the EXACT same disturbing mindset as the Republicans.  If he were interested in improving Americans’ lives he would have insisted that either the public option, or an expanded medicare buy-in be included in any health reform bill.  He himself had convinced many of his supporters of the public option’s necessity during his campaign.

But to the astonishment of his supporters, he never insisted that anything be included in the bill, because — as we know now — he doesn’t really care what’s in the bill; whether it’s real reform or not.  He’s only been looking at this from a pure political angle (making him as sinister as the Republicans).  In some ways his behavior is even worse, because the Republicans never claimed to be ‘change agents’.  They didn’t run a campaign based on the premise that they were different; that they would not let entrenched interests control them and author their policy initiatives.

Obama proceeded to strike back-door deals with these entrenched interests — another broken campaign promise — precisely to ensure his own political longevity.  He didn’t want these powerful industries — with their profits at stake — funding Republicans to the till. So he cut his risks by cutting secret deals, and in doing so became THEIR ‘agent’ — a ‘status-quo agent’.

We are left with a meaningless health reform bill — one that would do more harm to Americans than good — as Governor Dean correctly described it.  And we’re now being forced to sit back and watch both political parties shame themselves even further.  Republicans want the Senate bill killed for all the wrong reasons, and Democrats want it passed for all the wrong reasons.  No one is advocating for the American people in this fight.  It’s all about them — the beltway elites.

All this has left the American electorate feeling more cynical about their Government than ever before.  Both parties continue to prove that the system is indeed broken — that they are incapable of doing the peoples’ business.  Which leads me to believe that we — as a people — have far greater problems on our hands than this bill’s passage.

Health Care Reform: WTF Just Happened? The Left Weighs In

by on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 6:49 pm EDT in Healthcare, Politics

The reaction to Obama’s Health Care Reform fiasco is getting rather explosive on the Left.  There seems to be somewhat of a prevailing sentiment that Obama’s Administration bears the lions’ share of the blame for Lieberman and Blue Dog intransigence.  Here’s some of the reactions:

Labor Unions:

Sam Stein from the Huffington Post is reporting that two of the country’s largest labor groups, the SEIU and the AFL-CIO, are holding emergency meetings, and are hinting they will formally oppose the ‘Lieberman-friendly’ bill.  He described the labor leaders as “fuming at the concessions that Democratic leadership made in the last few days to win the support of the caucus’s most conservative members, notably Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)”  Listen to how one high-ranking labor official described who is to blame for this mess:

“What is really frustrating folks here is that it’s impossible to make and implement plans to pressure senators when the White House and Reid keep undermining the efforts no one from the outside can put any credible pressure on Senators because they know the White House will back that Senator up whatever they do. If the White House is going to cave to a Senator who spent the entire election campaigning with McCain and calling Obama a traitor how are we supposed to have any leverage over anyone?

“If Lieberman — who has done so many horrible things directly to Obama — can get away with this on Obama’s signature issue it makes it infinitely harder for us to pressure senators, on issues in the future, because there is no fear of retribution or coercion from the White House. They only pressure progressives, not anyone in the middle.”

Here’s the President of the United Steel Workers, Leo Gerard, who gives President Obama the benefit of the doubt, by calling him naive, and suggesting he “got hoodwinked” by the Health Insurance Industry.  Leo, no offense, but I don’t think Obama is the one showing naivete.  He goes on to state:

“I can tell you this — point blank — if we don’t get a meaningful health care bill that reduces costs and has everybody in and doesn’t have an excise tax, has a pay or play for employers, has a public option, or a medicare buy-in, we’re not gonna campaign for any Democrat that voted against this bill, and we’re going to go out and try and defeat them.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcBD3vNSdhI[/youtube]

Blogosphere:

I think Glenn Greenwald has BRILLIANTLY NAILED what’s been going on here, as he usually does.  He doesn’t buy that Obama and Rahm Emanuel got bested, due to some sort of naivete.  He believes they got EXACTLY the health care bill they always wanted, and shows how they had no problem flexing muscle to get legislation through the Houses in the past when it was something important to them:

Indeed, we’ve seen before what the White House can do — and does do — when they actually care about pressuring members of Congress to support something they genuinely want passed. When FDL and other liberal blogs led an effort to defeat Obama’s war funding bill back in June, the White House became desperate for votes, and here is what they apparently did (though they deny it):

The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won’t get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday. “We’re not going to help you. You’ll never hear from us again,” Woolsey said the White House is telling freshmen.

That’s what the White House can do when they actually care about pressuring someone to vote the way they want. Why didn’t they do any of that to the “centrists” who were supposedly obstructing what they wanted on health care? Why didn’t they tell Blanche Lincoln — in a desperate fight for her political life — that she would “never hear from them again,” and would lose DNC and other Democratic institutional support, if she filibustered the public option? Why haven’t they threatened to remove Joe Lieberman’s cherished Homeland Security Chairmanship if he’s been sabotaging the President’s agenda? Why hasn’t the President been rhetorically pressuring Senators to support the public option and Medicare buy-in, or taking any of the other steps outlined here by Adam Green? There’s no guarantee that it would have worked — Obama is not omnipotent and he can’t always control Congressional outcomes — but the lack of any such efforts is extremely telling about what the White House really wanted here.

Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake weighs in with similar sentiments on the Administration:

“They were very good at making it look like they wanted a public option in the final bill without actually doing anything to make it happen,” said Jane Hamsher, publisher of the liberal blog Firedoglake. “It’s hard to believe that the two most powerful people in the country — arguably the world — could not do more to achieve their desired objective than to hand the keys over to Joe Lieberman. They would not be where they are if they are that bad at negotiation.”

Digby weighs in:

There are not a lot of good reasons why [Obama] wouldn’t use the power of his popularity when his numbers were stratospheric to insist on something other than cost controls. One can only assume he didn’t want to.

Even I knew that the Senate was full of a bunch of prima donnas who had to be deftly handled and given a tremendous amount of attention and engagement when you try to do something big. That’s just how it works in that chamber, especially when Democrats are in the majority. It was never going to be easy. But the president had a tremendous amount of good will and political power when he came into office and indicated from the beginning that instead of pushing through his agenda quickly and efficiently he would have the congress to “take the lead” and only inject himself when it was necessary to consecrate some (preferably bipartisan) compromise. That’s a recipe for slow action and bad legislation.

The president may not have the singular power to enact good domestic policy, but he is the only one with the power and public backing to knock heads and lead in his own party. And if the best he can do in that regard is tell the Democrats that they need to “protect him” by passing any bill, well, that’s pretty weak.

Liberal Democrats:

Most surprising of all, is the candor coming from Democratic politicians themselves.  No more putting a nice spin on things, for the sake of the President.  They are pulling-no-punches:

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) told POLITICO:

“It’s ridiculous, and the Obama administration is sitting on the sidelines. That’s nonsense.  The White House has been useless,” he said.

Rep. Anthony Weiner:

“Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge? It’s time for the President to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the President to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate.”

Senator Feingold weighed in to The Hill:

“This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don’t think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth,” said Feingold.

Here’s what John Conyers had to say about it:

“The president keeps listening to Rahm Emanuel,” he said. “He doesn’t listen to” the Congressional Black Caucus.

As for the Senate health care bill, Conyers went through a list of defeats: “No public option, no extending Medicare to 55, no nothing, an excise tax, God! The insurance lobby is taking over.”

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus:

“Since the Senate won’t use reconciliation, which only requires 51 votes, it doesn’t look promising for any real change.”  Grijalva said he would vote against the Senate bill unless the House is able to make significant changes in conference.

Rep. Peter DeFazio:

“There is unbelievable frustration with the Senate,” he said. “The Senate is a graveyard. They could run the place with 50 or 51 votes, but they don’t want to hurt the club,” he said. “They are relying on people like Joe Lieberman, who was thrown out of the Democratic Party by the voters of his state, to tell the Democratic Party what its agenda is. That’s a very sad state of affairs.”

Rep. Lynn Woolsey:

“Thirty percent of Democrats will not come out and vote if there is no public option in the health care bill,” she said. “What does that tell you?”

I think it’s safe to conclude that Obama and Emanuel have effectively divided the Democratic Party in two.  Instead of applying an iota of pressure on Lieberman and the Blue Dogs they are doing the very opposite: hitting back at the base.  Note: I didn’t say “hitting back at liberals or the ‘Left Wing of the Party’,” because 88% of ALL Democrats still favor a public option, as does 60% of ALL Americans.

The President has effectively been undermining the popular will of his own party AND country, and he’s furious that everyone isn’t bending over, and giving him his ‘political victory’.

Send President Obama A Loud Message: Unsubscribe From Organizing For America

by on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 1:07 pm EDT in Healthcare, Politics

I just got the following email this morning from Organizing For America, asking for my support in getting the Senate’s health insurance industry giveaway passed, so Barack can claim he delivered ‘health care reform’: Stan — If we don’t pass health reform, millions of Americans will be trapped in a broken status quo, unable to […]

War Crimes Catch Up With Israeli Officials: They Can No Longer Visit The UK

by on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 2:10 pm EDT in Middle East, World

Ha’aretz is now confirming that the United Kingdom had in fact issued a warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s arrest — for alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s Gaza offensive, called ‘Operation Cast Lead’: British sources reported late Monday that though a British court had issued an arrest warrant for Livni over war […]

Lieberman Threatens To Filibuster Medicare Buy-In, As New Video Surfaces Showing Him Endorsing It

by on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 6:51 pm EDT in Healthcare, Politics

I discovered this video (courtesy of the Connecticut Post) via Digby, originating back to Greg Sargent.  Hopefully, it will continue to make its way throughout the net roots.  Pass it on! In the video — shot just three months ago on September 8, 2009 — Joe Lieberman explains his support for a Medicare buy-in. The […]

Film Review: ‘Brothers’ — Directed By Jim Sheridan

by on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 9:50 am EDT in Arts & Entertainment, Film

In Jim Sheridan’s powerful new movie “Brothers,” he hits his audience with a subject matter that can only be described as emotionally explosive — gut wrenching, at times.  This is not a feel-good movie — not by any stretch, but it is an absolute must-see.  It draws you in, and manages to captivate you long […]

Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech Incites Neo-Con Cartwheels

by on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 9:38 am EDT in Afghanistan, Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, Iraq, Middle East, Politics, World

President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech, in my opinion, was an attempt to somehow mesh Candidate Obama — the principled, compassionate, mindful leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize — to President Obama — torch bearer of the neo-con commitment to open-ended warring. He started off on a semi-defensive tone, giving something of a […]

Obama’s Betrayal Of The Left Spells Problems For The Democratic Party

by on Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 4:44 pm EDT in Healthcare, Politics

Back when Candidate Obama was working the campaign trail across the country, his message of hope — of overcoming entrenched interests in pursuit of meaningful and necessary change — inspired and stirred a nation.  He marketed his message in an ingenious mantra, “Yes we can,” that conjured up the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.; […]

Progressive Reactions To The Senate’s Public-Option Compromise

by on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 4:34 pm EDT in Healthcare, Politics

While the Congressional Budget Office reviews the Senate’s new health care reform proposal, the key players are remaining tight-lipped about its details.  But news organizations are piecing together from their sources what this public option compromise is beginning to look like. Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC’s “Morning Meeting” outlined some key components he’s uncovered of the […]