The general impression I get from watching news programs these days is that Barack Obama’s popularity is slipping away, and that conversely, Sarah Palin is more popular than the Beatles and Elvis Presley combined at their respective primes. For those of us who admire Mr. Obama and hold little regard for Ms. Palin, it would seem that we are headed for some politically bleak times. This picture may not be completely false, but it is probably much less true than it might seem at the moment.
President Obama’s halo is a bit tarnished, which is inevitable for almost any new president, especially one who entered office accompanied by such high expectations. He has made a few missteps (which will be the subject of a later essay by yours truly) during his first year in office, but nothing he cannot recover from. As long as unemployment remains high – and realistically there is no quick fix for that – President Obama will get the blame. It appears that the economy is already in recovery, and when unemployment goes back down to more tolerable levels, it will likely get Obama’s public approval ratings back to the solidly favorable range. It may not happen soon enough for his party to avoid getting clobbered in the mid term elections next year, but it will happen.
As for Sarah Palin, she is going to make millions of dollars selling her book, but I cannot see her as a credible candidate for President in 2012, or any other year. There is an old cliché about how we underestimate her at our peril. I believe I used that line myself, in reference to Palin, during the campaign last year. Some of Palin’s conservative admirers like to compare her to Ronald Reagan, who also showed great skill with a right wing populist appeal, and was also underestimated by his political opponents. One of my favorite conservative pundits, Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, has a great column comparing Sarah Palin with conservative patron saints Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Here is a link to that column:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped1119chapmannov19,0,4222240.column
To me, Sarah Palin more closely resembles Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, and in my opinion, Ms. Palin combines the worst qualities of each of them. Mr. Nixon had what I believe psychiatrists would call a paranoid personality. He was obsessed with the idea that anybody who criticized or disagreed with him was a personal enemy, and therefore, because he was the president, a traitor to the U.S. The fact that Nixon was also very bright, well read, and hard working was not enough to compensate for the serious deficiencies in his character. Mr. Bush was (is) almost the opposite of Mr. Nixon. He is more at ease with himself as a person, but was one of the most intellectually lazy presidents we have ever had. He acted out of a gut feeling of what he thought was right, and (being the “decider” as he famously put it) pursued his policies without much serious analysis. When he did receive advice that did not fit into his preconceived notions, he ignored it, often with tragic consequences. Sarah Palin has managed to combine Nixon’s persecution complex with Bush’s incredible ignorance and lack of curiosity .
Ms. Palin has a devoted following – enough to make her a rich author, and if she wants it, she could probably get a very lucrative job at Fox News. However, while perhaps 20% of the country absolutely loves Sarah Palin, I cannot see her ever making serious inroads on the other 80%.
Liberal pundit E. J. Dionne has an excellent column in today’s Washington Post. Regarding the ongoing health care reform efforts in Congress, there has been a lot of chatter about “perfect” becoming the enemy of the good. This has been a concern of mine for some months. Here is a link to Mr. Dionne’s column:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111122256.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
If any kind of health care reform does get passed into law, the one certainty is that the final product will not be ideal by anybody’s reckoning. I have said in previous blog posts that the biggest obstacles to health care reform are those who insist that the bill contain certain characteristics, such as a “robust public option.” These people – including former Democratic Party leader Howard Dean and interim U.S. Senator Roland Burris (the choice of disgraced former Illinois Governor Blagojevich to fill the unexpired senate term of Barack Obama) – have made clear that they would rather see all reform efforts fail than to have what they believe is half-hearted reform pass. In a way, I have more respect for somebody like Senator Jim DeMint, who at least makes no serious pretense to being anything other than a political enemy of President Obama. If Obama’s presidency fails to achieve its major goals, it will be more due to his supposed allies (such as Dean and Burris) than to his overt opponents (such as DeMint). Reform can pass without any Republican support, but in order for that to happen, the Democrats have to able to unite behind something. As a practical matter, this means accepting the reality that many Democrats representing relatively conservative states and districts cannot support all the provisions favored by their more left-leaning colleagues.
If there is going to be any kind of health care reform bill that clears Congress, it will almost certainly contain some degree of restriction on taxpayer-financed abortions, and it will quite likely not provide for a public option, except perhaps one based on future contingencies. It would still be a major achievement, both in terms of politics and public policy, to get health care reform that extends coverage to all Americans, is fiscally neutral, and controls overall health care costs. This can be done, but not if side shows about the availability of abortions and the public option control the debate.
Information: The newly-forged 1990-page “Affordable Health Care for America Act” (HR 3962) offered by the House of Representatives is filled with mental health provisions intended to prop up psychiatry as well as the pharmaceutical industry with billions in future income. Key mental health components of this House bill:
MOTHERS ActThe bill includes the language of the MOTHERS Act, to “expand treatment for postpartum conditions” and calls for the development of “improved screening and diagnostic techniques,” but makes no provisions to ensure any entities doing such research are free from conflicts of interest or pharmaceutical funding. For example, Screening for Mental Health, Inc., and its sub-organization Signs of Suicide, who heavily promote and conduct mental health screening, received $4,985,925 from pharmaceutical companies prior to 2008, and ten leading psychiatric researchers have been exposed in the last year for failing to disclose millions of dollars in pharmaceutical payments. Despite their conflicts of interest and biased research, many pharma funded psychiatrists and researchers have been used by so-called advocacy groups (Screening for Mental Health, NAMI, etc which are also heavily funded by Pharma) to promote the need for federal laws that will only increase the number of Americans being needlessly targeted for psychiatric treatment and drugged. Yet this bill contains no provisions for full disclosure of conflicts of interest for any “entity” that could receive federal taxpayer funded grants, do research or promotional campaigns – such as the provision in the bill calling for a national PR campaign using TV, radio public and other public service announcements to urge women be screened and seek treatment for postpartum depression. The bill also calls for “clinical research” for the development of new treatments (drugs), but again, no guidelines for ensuring that any researchers/research entities are free from pharmaceutical funding or conflicts of interest. Section 2529, Page 1418
Mental Health ParityThe bill mandates Mental Health Parity, or equal insurance coverage for mental disorders as what are covered for physical diseases, whether under their regular health insurance or whether a person gets their new coverage through the Health Insurance Exchange. Psychiatric patients are traditionally “cured” when their insurance benefits run out. In this bill, those benefits never run out. Considering there are no medical tests to verify the existence of any psychiatric disorder, and without anything other than a psychiatrist’s opinion about whether or not the person’s “illness” is “cured,” this legislation becomes nothing more than taxpayer funded billions to the psycho/pharmaceutical industry who will continue their jihad of mass drugging of Americans. This provision could easily encompass all 374 diagnoses in psychiatry’s diagnostic manual, covering everything from Phase of Life Problem to Arithmetic Disorder. Section 214, Page 100
Home Visitation Programs for Families with Young Children or Families Expecting ChildrenThe bill creates a home visitation program for families with young children or which are expecting children or who have certain “risk factors.” The program provides assessments regarding matters of “age appropriate behaviors,” for children, prevention of family violence and referral to outside services. – Section 1904, Page 1177
School Based Health ClinicsThe bill includes funding for School Based Health Clinics that will include subjective psychiatric mental health screening (called mental health assessments) of children, and “referral to a continuum of services including emergency psychiatric care, community support programs, inpatient care, and outpatient programs” as part of their “comprehensive primary health services.” This is a direct feeder line for the psycho/pharmaceutical industry directly into our schools. – Section 2511, Page 1352
Wellness Program Grants for small employersThe grants in the bill serve as an incentive for employers to include “mental health” as part of the Wellness Program Grants to businesses. Part of the program entails a “Behavioral Change Component” that encourages “healthy living through counseling” and may include programs relating to “tobacco use, obesity, stress management, depression and mental health.” – Section 112, Page 67
Federally Qualified Behavioral Health CentersThe bill creates new “Federally Qualified Behavioral Health Centers” and in order for existing community mental health centers to qualify, they have to provide, among other things, “mental health screening, assessment, and diagnosis,” as well as “outpatient clinic mental health services, including screening, assessment, diagnosis, psychotherapy and medication,” in addition to “crisis mental health services including 24-hour mobile crisis teams.” - Section 2513, Page 1367
Your voice needs to be heard in Washington on this outrageous bill. Call, fax, or email your Representative and tell them that you are opposed to the above points in the Health Care Reform bill. To find your Representative and get their contact information, go tohttp://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt to look them up (you need to enter your zip code). You can also call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
One of the points made by President Obama in his speech to the joint session of Congress to advocate health care reform was that he would be receptive to good and constructive ideas from any source, including Republicans who oppose nearly everything he does. It was a fine speech, and it succeeded in raising the prospects of enacting some kind of significant health care reform. If he really meant what he said about considering good ideas from the political opposition, he should make that more clear.
Without a doubt, health care reform is a very difficult challenge. As the saying goes, if it was easy, it would have been done long ago. Obama’s allies in Congress (the Democrats) have major differences among themselves, regarding the merits of different aspects of reform. The Republicans are almost 100% united in opposition, both for sincere ideological reasons and for pure political motives. Obama would like to have a bipartisan bill, but (with very few possible exceptions) congressional Republicans will refuse to back any bill, even if it contains several provisions to their liking. By temperament and political background, Obama has always tried to build a consensus, but neither party in Congress is in the mood. What is a president to do?
In apparent opposition to all conventional wisdom, I still believe that the best solution – both for policy and politics – would be a moderate health care reform bill that uses some of the better ideas from both parties. For the reforms to work, they will have to expand access and reduce overall health care costs, regardless of how payment of those costs is distributed. Reforms that focus on one of these issues while ignoring the other will ultimately fail.
With my usual disclaimer about not being an expert on this or any other subject, the best health care reform at this time would have the following characteristics:
1) No legal resident of the U.S. can have his/her coverage denied or revoked due to personal health issues. [The issue regarding illegal residents is trickier. My inclination is to believe that illegal residents should be included, but I would not insist on it as a condition to support an otherwise good bill.]
2) All persons eligible for coverage must be covered. There can be no “opt out” for individuals or families. Tax credits or similar assistance should be available for those who are too poor to afford coverage, but they have to get the coverage. If insurance companies must accept all applicants and all preexisting conditions, then it makes no sense to allow healthy Americans to stay out of the system before the need for insurance becomes obvious.
3) The tax favored treatment for employer-sponsored insurance should be ended, or at least sharply reduced. People who cannot get health insurance through work should not be disadvantaged the way they are now.
4) Individuals and small groups should be able to join large risk pools, in order to remove cost distortions due to underwriting.
5) Sensible tort reform is necessary. This includes caps on non-economic damages and an effective distinction between ordinary and gross negligence. In return for setting limits, the medical profession must do a better job of policing its members. The current practical necessities of defensive medicine and huge malpractice premiums greatly add to overall health care costs, while doing very little for patient well being.
6) End the interstate prohibition on selling medical insurance. Most states need more effective competition among its potential health insurers. Allowing the sale of insurance across state lines would be a big help.
7) Emphasis on prevention, as opposed to treatment and cure, needs to be a component of health care reform. There needs to be financial incentives for people to participate in wellness programs and annual physical exams.
8) For all the talk about “death panels,” the fact is that a large chunk of health care costs take place in the last six months of the patient’s life. I am not about write off somebody for being terminally ill, but there needs to be more honest discussion about the costs associated with extraordinary measures to keep somebody breathing for a few extra months, or weeks, or days. I don’t know what the appropriate answer is, but this is a big element of the national health care bill, and the issue must be faced with more honesty than it has had so far.
9) The public option is not as great an idea as its advocates suggest. This is especially true if there is an “opt out” provision for each individual state. It would likely have the effect of denying coverage for many vulnerable Americans. It will do nothing to contain actual costs, and the notion that it will “save” money by paying doctors at Medicare (or Medicaid) rates makes no sense. Doctors and hospitals can presently treat Medicare as a loss leader item, pushing up the costs to everybody else. They cannot do that if there is no everybody else. The public option either works like Medicare, providing a short term illusion of cost saving, or it works like a private insurance company, with no saving. The “trigger” provision suggested by Olympia Snowe and some other senators, where the public option would be created something like five years in the future if demonstrated to necessary by conditions at that time, might make sense.
Anyway, the status quo cannot continue indefinitely. We need to have some sensible health care reform, but we need to get something that can pass both the House and Senate. Passing a feel good measure that passes only one house of Congress is useless. I believe that a health care reform bill with the characteristics outlined above would be good public policy, and can pass Congress if President Obama makes clear that this is something he supports. It may seem to be too much of half-hearted reform for the liking of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but even a half-hearted reform now leaves open further reforms in the near future, if those are believed to be needed. The reverse is not true. Failure to pass something now will almost guarantee a very long delay in passing any reform. It will also seriously weaken Obama’s presidency. I do not want that to happen.
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court is to hear a case involving alleged misconduct by prosecutors in Iowa in a case dating back to 1977. An editorial today in the Washington Post titled The right not to be framed provides useful background on the case. Two black men convicted of murdering a retired white police officer are suing the prosecutors for fabricating evidence to frame the two men, who each spent 25 years in prison for the crime. The convictions were overturned by the Iowa Supreme Court, which concluded that the star witness was a “liar and a perjurer.” One of the two defendants was cleared. The other one initially sought a new trial, but eventually agreed to a conviction, with the sentence limited to time served.
It appears that the prosecutors are not seriously disputing the allegations of their own misconduct, because they are emphasizing not their innocence, but rather that “there is no freestanding constitutional right not to be framed.” According to the allegations, the prosecutors knowingly coaxed supposed witnesses to fabricate testimony against the suspects. The justification for claiming immunity to lawsuits based on malicious prosecutorial misconduct is based on the idea that if you let this suit go forward, then you would have to allow it for every acquitted defendant and every defendant whose case was subject to minor mistakes by the prosecution. That is ridiculous, and the U.S. Supreme Court should say so.
Prosecutors are an important part of protecting the public from the bad guys, and they should be immune from lawsuits based on innocent errors and “gray area” incidents of possible wrongdoing. Sometimes, the wrongdoing is apparently clear in hindsight, but seemed reasonable at the time it happened. Personally, I am not sympathetic to lawsuits based on alleged misdeeds of this kind. For a lawsuit based on prosecutorial misconduct to have legal standing, the alleged misconduct must far exceed the usual kinds of activity that might be of dubious legality. For the lawsuit to be successful, there should be a high burden of proof by the plaintiff. However, it is outrageous to suggest that such a lawsuit should never have legal standing, no matter how badly the public official abused his authority.
Readers of my past OFA postings might recall that I was opposed to bringing criminal charges against President Bush and/or Vice-President Cheney, as some of my fellow bloggers were inclined to do. As deplorable as some of their (Bush and Cheney) actions were, they can at least make the credible argument that they acted with the motive of protecting the American people from terrorists. I believe that some of their methods were illegal, and they deserve a very harsh judgment by future historians, but I have never thought that criminal charges against them would be appropriate. I mention this now, in order to make clear that I am not a big advocate for legal punishment of government officials for abusing their office. This appears to be one case where it is appropriate.
Here is a link to the Post editorial:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/01/AR2009110101950.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Some weeks ago, The Washington Post announced an op-ed writing contest, where non-professional writers were invited to submit an essay of 400 words or less. The essays would be judged by the clarity of writing, and content with an interesting message, but not on whether or not the editors agreed with the content. There were thousands of submissions, including one from yours truly. Out of these thousands, only ten of these amateur writers would advance to the second round, and the process would gradually whittle down to a single winner, who would get the honor of contributing a regular column for something like ten weeks. The winner would receive a fairly modest fee for his/her columns, but the main prize would be the prestige, not the money.
My essay was not one of the ten that made it to the second round, and of course, I was well aware that my odds were very remote. Anyway, now that I am officially out of the running, I would like to share my essay with my fellow OFA bloggers:
With multiple international crises and a serious economic recession to address, along with an ongoing effort to accomplish major reforms in healthcare, other issues have understandably been set aside for now. It can wait awhile, but I hope that some time before the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, there will be a serious examination of the various laws enacted, and enforcement methods used, in the name of “getting tough on crime.” We have the infamous war on drugs, which generally criminalizes the casual possession and use of various drugs, some of which are relatively harmless. We have the “three strikes” laws in many states, which in some circumstances impose long prison terms for minor offenses. Capital punishment is as popular as ever. Politicians frequently try to outdo each other in the contest to appear tougher on crime, because that perception is always a big advantage in elections. Conversely, an American politician who dares to suggest that these measures are ineffective in combating crime have as much chance of getting elected as would a candidate for the Iranian parliament who publicly doubts the existence of God.
I have no problem with being tough on crime, but I believe that many of the actions done with that supposed objective are ineffective at best, and in some cases counterproductive. Smarter and wiser people than yours truly may disagree, but let’s at least challenge some of the cherished assumptions.
Problems with the war on drugs include wasted resources (police, courts, jail), drug classifications which defy common sense (tobacco cigarettes are legal, marijuana is not), enrichment of organized crime (because lawful merchants cannot supply the people with what they apparently want), and the lost opportunity for excise tax revenue.
The three strikes laws remove the ability of a trial judge to use common sense in sentencing a convicted defendant. By imposing a mandatory twenty year sentence (for example) when a much shorter sentence is appropriate under the circumstances, the prisons become overcrowded with inmates who should not be there.
The usual justifications for capital punishment are false. They do not generally deter crime or save the taxpayers money, nor can we be sure that an innocent person is never executed. Execution undeniably does serve one purpose, which is to satisfy our collective thirst for revenge for an especially gruesome crime.
Let’s have some open an honest debate on these issues.
Now, back to the present day (11/2/09). I wrote the above words about a month ago. The Post editors had to sift through thousands of submitted essays – most of them undoubtedly well written – and it cannot have been easy to select the ten best. For the second round, they asked the would-be pundits to write a 750 word essay, on a different subject matter from the one they used in the first round. Two examples are provided in today’s on-line edition of the post:
http://views.washingtonpost.com/pundits/contestants/mara.gay/2009/11/mom_in_chief.html
http://views.washingtonpost.com/pundits/contestants/darryl.jackson/2009/11/sarah_palins_second_act.html
The OFA blog today contains a post from somebody, apparently with the moniker “Worship,” with an interesting message:
While I respect the sincerity of people whose admiration for President Obama seems to extend to the level of elevating the president into a deity, I cannot share the attitude. I want to be clear about my own attitude. I do admire Barack Obama as a person. He is the first presidential candidate to get any direct financial support from me. His campaign was also the first, since I was an idealistic high school student forty years ago, where I volunteered my time. I shared in the excitement of his 2008 election victory. This was not merely a victorious candidate who got my vote, but also (for the first time in my life) my enthusiastic support.
To be realistic, however, it is far too early to be sure that Obama will be a great president, let alone the greatest world leader the world has ever seen. For one thing, a great man (or woman) who happens to be the president is very different from being a great president. The qualities are not the same.
President Obama has, in my opinion, qualities that potentially can make him a great president. He is highly intelligent, a well read student of history, and trained to understand and appreciate competing viewpoints regarding a particular issue or problem. He is secure enough about himself that he does not take political attacks personally. He understands, maybe to a greater degree than nearly any of his predecessors (on a level with the senior President Bush), the role of diplomacy in international relations. While not historically a good predictor of presidential performance, Barack Obama is also (by all available evidence) an excellent family man who lives by an admirable personal moral code. Maybe that is not very important, but if nothing else, the absence of any scandal in his life at least precludes his being a target of personal blackmail. It also could give him some additional credibility when he is trying to push some moral cause.
Great presidents have to be excellent politicians. This means sometimes compromising with ideals in order to achieve something important. It sometimes involves choosing the least bad of several unappealing alternatives (the war in Afghanistan comes to mind). It involves making mistakes. Most historians have judged (correctly, in my view) Franklin Roosevelt as one of our greatest presidents. Despite that, however, there is absolutely no justification for FDR rounding up large numbers of Japanese-Americans and putting them in concentration camps. That is just one example. Jimmy Carter had, and still has, many of the same admirable personal qualities as we see in Barack Obama. Unfortunately, Mr. Carter was not a successful president.
Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker has an excellent op-ed in today’s (10/21/09) Washington Post. Ms. Parker is generally conservative, but not right wing, and this column concerns the Obama administration’s decision that the federal government will not interfere with states which permit the use of medical marijuana. I think it is an excellent column, because it articulates the case I have been trying to make in some previous blog postings, but in this case with the skill of a professional writer. She praises the administration for making the first step toward sensible drug policy, but she also advocates going further.
The usual arguments in favor of legalizing (or at minimum, decriminalizing) weed note that it is less harmful and addictive than some other currently legal products, that its illegal status means a huge waste of police/court/jail resources, and various other ways that the “war on drugs” is counterproductive, at least regarding marijuana.
In addition to these things, although the foolishness of the “war on drugs” has a long bipartisan history, self-described conservatives should oppose the long standing U.S. policy on ideological grounds. It is a case of government interference with an individual’s choice regarding a recreational activity. Besides that, it is (or at least was, when the supposedly conservative George W. Bush was president) a case of the federal government overruling the states on matters of social policy. True conservatives should be appalled by such arrogance of big government.
Anyway, here is a link to Kathleen Parker’s column:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/20/AR2009102003084.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&sid=ST2009102003110
I have zero respect for Fox News, and in my own opinion, that organization deserves nothing but contempt. Then again, I can say that, because I am nobody of significance. For President Obama’s top White House aides to say it is quite different. Contrary to the assertions of David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, Fox is a news organization. It may be highly slanted and lacking in integrity, but it is still a news organization. It contains legitimate journalists, in addition to the ranting pundits. In my opinion, it is a big mistake for the Obama White House to openly carry on a campaign against Fox News. In doing so, he lowers himself to their level. Maybe I don’t personally think so, but that is the way it looks to a lot of people.
One of the qualities I most admire about Barack Obama is his ability to stay above most of the petty verbal trashing. There can be no serious doubt that at least some of the anti-Obama rhetoric is based on racist motives. By “some,” I do not suggest that most is based on racial fear or anger. A lot of opposition to Obama’s policies is based on pure political differences, and would be no different than if the same policies were being articulated by a white president. On the other hand, I doubt that the ridiculous “birthers” would have gotten much attention if Obama’s ethnic background was similar to mine. Anyway, despite the likelihood that some of the unfair attacks on Obama are based on racism, Obama has never made that accusation against any of his political rivals, nor has he said or implied that the opposition from ordinary voters is based on racism. This is very much to Obama’s credit. Of course, racism still exists, but President Obama is right to never use racism as an excuse for political difficulties or defeats.
So why does he declare war on Fox News? It just makes Obama – or his White House staff, which amounts to the same thing – look as petty as Nixon and Agnew did when they basically accused much of the press of being unpatriotic. Obama should not bring himself down to Nixon’s level. During the campaign, Obama did an outstanding job of remaining good-natured and calmly shaking off the taunts of his political opponents. As a result, he was the one who looked like a statesman, while the others looked like low-class political hacks. President Obama should remember how Senator and presidential candidate Obama handled political attacks.
Here is a link to an essay by somebody who apparently does not agree with me. The writer says the White House is acting appropriately in “fact checking” the various lies by Fox News. That statement may be true, when it comes to false statements of apparent fact, but that does not extend to general disparaging characterizations about Fox News. That goes far beyond fact checking.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200910090010
Hello:
My name is Dr. Julien Arbor and I have an Acquired Brain Injury that was the result of such over-the-top medical malpractice and human rights violations that it is inconceivable to me that such a thing would occur in the United States!
A bit about my background:
I am a Licensed Clinical Psychologist specializing in Health Psychology, experience in evaluating and working with patients with TBI, a Wellness Counselor, a Natural Healing Consultant, a Researcher, an Author, and a 7 year Volunteer Health Educator & Moderator for one of the largest natural health websites on the internet.
I have not seen anybody discuss the issue so far, so maybe the answer is so obvious that it is not worth the brief time to address this question: Is it really necessary for a healthcare reform bill to get the support of 60 senators? I understand the business about filibusters and cloture votes, but the press has implicitly assumed that, without exception, every senator who does not support the Senate legislation will automatically support a filibuster against the bill. Maybe this is true, but have our Senate leaders (along with former Senators Obama and Biden) even considered the possibility that one or a few senators might behave differently from what is assumed?
One famous TV newsman, who should know better, brought up the issue again yesterday about Barack Obama's "present" votes while in the Illinois State Senate. The implication was that Obama was too much of a weasel to vote for or against a proposed bill, so he voted "present" in a cynical attempt to avoid committing himself. The context of yesterday's reference was in relation to Obama's taking some time to consider his alternative courses of action if Afghanistan. In the Illinois state legislature, "present" has a specific meaning, of which most of Obama's critics are either ignorant or else willfully distorting the picture. In effect, "present" means the same thing as "nay" (or "no"), but is basically a signal that the legislator supports the intentions of the bill, but that the bill as written is too flawed to support. I bring this up now, only to illustrate that what may seem obvious is not necessarily so.
Back to the subject of getting healthcare reform through Congress, it appears that the House will pass some kind of a bill, the Senate will pass a very different kind of a bill, and hopefully a conference committee will work out some unified bill that the president can sign. This process is clearly difficult, and it is not yet certain that anything will eventually pass both houses of Congress. It would be a difficult task in any circumstances, but it is made much more difficult by the fact that a determined group of 41 senators can block any legislation. Even getting unity among the Democrats in the Senate seems impossible. Some of the progressives have indicated that they will absolutely refuse to support a bill that does not contain certain provisions, while some moderates in the same party apparently will refuse to support a bill that does contain those same provisions.
Is it at least possible that a small number of senators could be persuaded, even if the bill that emerges is personally disappointing to them, to invoke cloture? In other words, they might not vote in favor of the legislation itself, but they would agree to kill a filibuster that would prevent the Senate from voting the bill up or down. President Obama's popularity may not be as high as it was when he first took office (those poll ratings were never going to be sustainable), but he is still by far the most popular and admired politician in the country. There have got to be some senators who owe him, at minimum, the opportunity for a Senate bill to come to a floor vote. In addition, some "blue state" Republicans, most notably Olympia Snowe, might find it to their own political advantage to kill a filibuster, even if they do not support the bill. The Senate bill may not really need 60 votes.
I have previously written about my own preferences about what healthcare reform bill I would like to see enacted into law, but I will not rehash the arguments here, because that would confuse the more basic issue. Politically, Obama needs some kind of healthcare reform bill to pass, and I would rather see a disappointing healthcare reform bill pass than to have no healthcare reform pass. While the task is difficult, I believe it is at least possible that support by a slightly under 60 senators could be enough.
In a famous Sherlock Holmes story, one of the important clues was a dog that did not bark. In evaluating the early stage of the Barack Obama presidency, one of the significant achievements may be the depression that did not happen. Sure, unemployment is 9.8%, the highest rate since Ronald Reagan's first term, and the U.S. economy at this time is hardly the backdrop for bragging rights. What we will never know for certain is what would have happened in the absence of some of the controversial measures taken by Barack Obama during the first year of his presidency. The U.S. has experienced a nasty recession, but it could have been a great deal worse. It looks like the recession may be technically over, in the sense that the economy could show positive growth in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, 2009. The numbers are not in yet, but it looks likely that the recession is over, or about to be over. High unemployment will continue to be a fact for some time to come, and for those who are unemployed, it has to feel more like a depression than a mere recession that may be technically over.
Former Vice-President Dick Cheney tells anybody who will listen at Fox News that the previous administration kept America safe for 7+ years after the "9/11" terrorist attacks in 2001. Given the rest of the legacy of that administration, there is little to brag about. The most significant achievements of the Bush "43" record are the tax cuts and the Iraq War. Both were presented to the American public on a foundation of lies, although I really do not want to rehash the arguments here. My point is that the main positive legacy that Bush "43" officials emphasize is the disaster that did not happen: a major terrorist attack in the U.S. after 2001. I have always thought that this was an overblown claim, and that their careless disregard for constitutional rights was not a necessary component for keeping America safe. Still, for the sake of the moment, let's concede the argument that Bush-Cheney kept us all safe from the terrorists after you-know-what. It is obvious that Bush administration officials, who want to portray their record in as positive terms as possible, are counting on the absence of later terrorist attacks in the U.S. as an important positive element of their legacy. Their biggest credit, in other words, is not for something that actually happened, but for something that did not happen.
In a similar line of thinking, I believe that a major achievement of the first year of the Obama presidency is a disaster that did not happen: an economic depression reminiscent of the 1930's. There has definitely been a serious recession, and unemployment will remain uncomfortably high for many months after the resumption of positive economic growth. The recession was brought on by the collective actions of governments, companies, and individuals over a long period of time. President Obama inherited a bad recession, and irresponsible stewardship from the federal government during both Republican and Democratic administrations contributed to the problem. A long period of very low interest rates discouraged saving and encouraged increased debt. In effect, presidents and congresses continued to put off the needed changes, because it was easier to put off the day of reckoning and let their successors get the blame than to assume the responsibility themselves. It does no good for Obama to blame his predecessor(s) for the conditions confronting him. He knew what he was getting into, and he wanted to be president anyway. The U.S. economy is badly in need of certain adjustments, and there is no way to make those adjustments painless.
The U.S. economy may be starting to recover, but it will not feel very satisfying for quite some time. This would be the case, no matter who was president. Where I believe that Obama deserves some major credit is that the recession did not turn into a 1930's-style depression. It could have happened. The stimulus bill, which I thought was basically a good idea but not well executed, is criticized for being ineffective. It may have been ineffective in bringing down unemployment, but its main effect - and I don't know if Obama will ever get credit for this - is that it prevented a far worse economic downturn than what actually happened.
Economics columnist Robert Samuelson, who is hardly an apologist for Barack Obama, has an interesting column on the subject. Most of us, including yours truly, are not old enough to remember the 1930's, so we may sometimes be naive in characterizing a modern recession as being similar to the depression. This is not at all the case. Here is a link to Samuelson's column in today's (10/5/09) Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/?nid=top_opinions
First i want to thank President OBAMA for an outstanding job for the last 10 months in office and when you read this Mr President,i want you to know that all my thoughts and prayers are with you.God Bless you and your family,and God Bless America.
Mr President,these thoughts i am about to outline are both to you and to the American people for as a keen observer of all the ongoing events,i think a good percentage of Americans are either lost in translation,or they are just stupid and stuborn.Mr President i want you to know that you are doing a phenomenal job for some of us who got a brillant mind like you and are great free thinkers.To those of you who don't understand,i am going to help you Mr President,to break it down for them so they can let you go further with your agenda,and achieve these brillant visions that we have for America.
To all readers of my thoughts from the Balcony,you should know by now that RESISTANCE WITHOUT A PURPOSE TO ME IS CONSIDERED FOOLISH AND STUPID.Why?
What is your problem with a PUBLIC OPTION in the Healthcare reform plan?
What is your problem with President OBAMA'S Birth certificate?
What is you problem with LIFE?
Are you DELIBERATELY stopping the President elect from doing his job?
Now let me break it down for those of you who got all these so called issues with President OBAMA.You guys are just IGNORANT,and have idle minds which is the devil's workshop.You don't think,You don't VISUALIZE,and You REFUSE to learn.My fellow WORLD CITIZENS,this is a RECEIPY FOR DISASTER.When i see and read the way some of you critisize him,deform his character and image with no better proposals in return,i feel like we are driving ourselves pretty close to what we call ARMAGEGON TODAY.People let me remind you this:
"Ignorance leads to ego,ego to selfishness,selfishness to resentment,resentment to anger,anger to hatred,hatred to annihilation."Heart of a Buddha.
But this fellow concerned citizens is not going to happen because of ignorance,because we have a President in the person of BARACK OBAMA,who has a perfect VISION for this country and the world as a whole.You have a President with the brightess mind ever,You have a good man who is sacrificing alot for his people,You have a Presidentwho is willing to give you everything you want and as he promissed during his campaign,He is willing to work for America and the World to get better,SO CAN YOU PLEASE UNDERSTAND HIM ,AND GIVE HIMA CHANCE TO WORK FOR YOU THE PEOPLE.Open your eyes,ears,hearts so your minds can be free and you would understand him better.
"Hear what is said,retain what is important,speak what is worthy.Attach to nothing."Heart of a Budda.
President OBAMA came to power at a very crucial point and time in world history.He inherited not only a very HUGE DEFICIT,but also a POWERFUL ECONOMIC RECESSION,TWO UN-NECESSARY WARS,and as if it's not enough,CRITICISM from a group of people with unthinkable not to say stupid and crazy reasoning faculties.
"Peace is not the absence of WAR,it is a VIRTUE,a STATE OF MIND,a DISPOSITION FOR LOVE,HONESTY and TRUSTWORTHINESS."Heart of a Buddha.
President OBAMA is here to let his people free.When i say his people,i know very well what i mean.All around the World,peopl are looking up to him for a better situation for everybody i.e Parents,children, and even future generatiopns to come.But the amazing thing is that all Resistance against him is comming from the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,which is considered the greatest Power and Democracy in the WORLD.Now i have another question which is WHAT DOES THAT POTRAY ABOUT AMERICA?Peolpe again let me remind you of this:
"In our interactions with others,gentleness,kindness,respect are the source of harmony."Heart of a Buddha
"I THANK GOD HE IS A GOOD MAN,AND HE IS HERE DURING THESE VERY DIFFICULT TIMES TO SET US FREE."
President OBAMA is not a politician for some of you who don't know.First of all he is a parent,then he is a man on the rise with an outstanding vision for AMERICA and the WORLD.He is a free thinker with a brillant mind,he dares to do what most of our leaders before him could not do,he is a GOOD TEACHER if you let him into you hearts,he is a good family man and to add it all up A MAN OF GOD.With his great commonsense,vision and wisdom, he understands the FUNDAMENTAL BASICS OF LIFE.Give him his chance to work and stop what i call "BLIND RESISTANCE"because it's not going to take us anywhere.
WE THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS,GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT FOUNDERS AND ORGANIZERS around the WORLD, are going to continue to give you Mr President,all the support that you need because we understand what time it is.This is a very crucial and important moment in WORLD HISTORY.
Politics is the oldest game in the book,so politicians should stop putting their interests before those of the peolple who pay their salary and put them into office because we the concerned citizens already know the games they are playing.These "POLITICIANS"are mad,angry at President OBAMA because HE DOES NOT WANT TO PLAY THESE GAMES WITH THEM.Another food for thought for you America:IF WE SPEND 1 YEAR ON HEALTHCARE REFORM,HOW LONG SHALL WE SPEND ON OTHER PRESSING ISSUES?Ther is still a lot of work to do for the BENEFIT OF ALL MANKIND,so politicians stop "PLAYING THIS OLD GAME"because we the people are sick and tired of it.IT'S TIME TO FACE REALITY.
"As human beings we chase after fleeting pleasures like a child licking honey off a sharp knife or a person carrying a torch against the wind."Heart of a Buddha
PRESIDENT OBAMA,CONTINUE THE GOOD WORK.WE WILL KEEP PRAYING FOR YOU'WE WILL KEEP SUPPORTING YOU,WE ARE THE PEOPLE WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.TOGETHER WE STAND,TOGETHER WE WE SHALL WIN,TOGETHER WE SHALL PREVAIL,FOR THE RULE OF LAW WHICH IS ALSO THE "LAW OF NATURE IS ON OUR SIDE."
"Natural laws are impartial.Only those who are virtuos are in harmony with nature."Heart of a Buddha.
GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GOD BLESS THE WORLD
Today, a group of progressive Senate Democrats led by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI, Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution) introduced the Justice Act, to fix the horid Patriot Act, protect your liberty, protect your privacy, and restore Constitutional principles.
A complete copy of their announcement follows. I will keep you posted as developments proceed; you will need to support this legislation with your own Senators and later, Representative.
- Mark Dorlester
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Press Release:
SENATORS INTRODUCE PATRIOT ACT FIXES TO SAFEGUARD AMERICANS’ RIGHTS
JUSTICE Act, Introduced on Constitution Day 2009, Would Fix Long Standing Problems with the PATRIOT Act and Other Surveillance Laws
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have introduced legislation to fix problems with surveillance laws that threaten the rights and liberties of American citizens. The Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act would reform the USA PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance authorities to protect Americans’ constitutional rights, while preserving the powers of our government to fight terrorism.
The JUSTICE Act reforms include more effective checks on government searches of Americans’ personal records, the “sneak and peek” search provision of the PATRIOT Act, “John Doe” roving wiretaps and other overbroad authorities. The bill will also reform the FISA Amendments Act, passed last year, by repealing the retroactive immunity provision, preventing “bulk collection” of the contents of Americans’ international communications, and prohibiting “reverse targeting” of innocent Americans. And the bill enables better oversight of the use of National Security Letters (NSLs) after the Department of Justice Inspector General issued reports detailing the misuse and abuse of the NSLs. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, September 23rd, on reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act.
“Every single member of Congress wants to give our law enforcement and intelligence officials the tools they need to keep Americans safe,” said Feingold. “But with the PATRIOT Act up for reauthorization, we should take this opportunity to fix the flaws in our surveillance laws once and for all. The JUSTICE Act permits the government to conduct necessary surveillance, but within a framework of accountability and oversight. It ensures both that our government has the tools to keep us safe, and that the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans will be protected. When he was in the Senate, President Obama was a strong ally on these issues, and I look forward to working with his administration to find common ground on commonsense reforms.”
“The Government must use every legal tool available to protect us from the threat of global terrorism. But when those tools override Americans’ fundamental rights and liberties, we run the very real risk of never getting them back,” Durbin said. “As we move toward reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, we’re proposing commonsense changes to better protect our most basic constitutional rights. Our bill strikes a careful balance between the law enforcement powers needed to combat terrorism and the legal protections required to safeguard American liberties.”
"Like a lot of Montanans, I have serious concerns about the PATRIOT Act and how it was implemented,” Tester said. “What this bill will do is add commonsense so we can fight terrorism without ignoring the Constitution and without invading the privacy and civil rights of law-abiding Americans."
“In recent years, I believe our government has failed to protect the constitutional right to privacy for American citizens,” Tom Udall said. “The JUSTICE Act strikes the right balance between respecting the needs of our law enforcement to pursue suspected terrorists and upholding the rights of law-abiding citizens to live free from unnecessary government intrusion in their lives. I firmly believe we can keep our nation secure without infringing on the inherent rights of the American people. ”
“We must provide law enforcement with the tools they need to protect our country, and do so in a way that also safeguards Americans’ rights. This legislation addresses both of these important objectives by ensuring our security and upholding our cherished constitutional protections,” Bingaman said.
“Every American understands that we have got to do every single thing we can to protect the American people from terrorist attacks. There is no debate about that. Some of us believe, however, that we can be successful in doing that while we uphold the rule of law, while we uphold the Constitution of this country, which has made us the envy of the world,” Sanders said.
Senator Akaka said: “The JUSTICE Act will allow intelligence agents to monitor terrorism suspects while putting checks in place to ensure that law-abiding Americans’ privacy and civil liberties are protected.”
“The JUSTICE Act rights some of the basic wrongs of the PATRIOT Act, which became a poster child for the Bush Administration’s lack of respect for Americans’ privacy rights,” said Wyden. “This bill is designed to keep every law-abiding American free from arbitrary government surveillance. At the same time, it gives law enforcement the agility needed to go after actual terrorists and spies who would do our country harm.”
Fact Sheet JUSTICE Act Of 2009
The Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act would reform the USA PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance authorities to protect the constitutional rights of Americans while ensuring the government has the powers it needs to fight terrorism and collect intelligence.
Title I – Reasonable Safeguards to Protect the Privacy of Americans’ Records
Sections 101-106 – National Security Letters
The bill rewrites the National Security Letter (NSL) statutes to ensure the FBI can obtain basic information without a court order, but also adds reasonable safeguards to ensure NSLs are only used to obtain records of people who have some connection to terrorism or espionage, and to provide meaningful, constitutionally sound judicial review of NSLs and associated gag orders.
Section 107 – Section 215 Orders
The bill would reauthorize the use of Section 215 business records orders under FISA, but with additional checks and balances to ensure these orders are only used to obtain records of people who have some connection to terrorism or espionage, and to provide meaningful, constitutionally sound judicial review of Section 215 orders and associated gag orders.
Title II – Reasonable Safeguards to Protect the Privacy of Americans’ Homes
Section 201 – “Sneak & Peek” Searches
The bill would retain the Patriot Act’s authorization of “sneak and peek” criminal searches but eliminate the overbroad catch-all provision that allows these secret searches in virtually any criminal case. It would shorten the presumptive time limits for notification, and create a statutory exclusionary rule.
Title III – Reasonable Safeguards to Protect the Privacy of Americans’ Communications
Section 301 – FISA Roving Wiretaps
The bill would reauthorize roving FISA wiretaps, but eliminate the possibility of “John Doe” roving wiretaps that identify neither the person nor the phone to be wiretapped. It would require agents to ascertain the presence of the target of a roving wiretap before beginning surveillance.
Section 302 – Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices
The bill would retain the Patriot Act’s expansion of the FISA and criminal pen/trap authorities to cover electronic communications, but would allow pen/traps to be used only to obtain information about people who have some connection to terrorism or espionage. It would impose additional procedural safeguards to serve as a check on these authorities.
Section 303 – Telecommunications Immunity
The bill would repeal the retroactive immunity provision in the FISA Amendments Act.
Section 304 – Bulk Collection
The bill retains the new warrantless authorities in the FISA Amendments Act but would prevent the government from using that law to conduct “bulk collection” of the contents of communications, including all communications between the United States and the rest of the world.
Section 305 – Reverse Targeting
The bill would ensure that the overseas warrantless collection authorities of the FISA Amendments Act are not used as a pretext to target Americans in the U.S.
Section 306 – Use of Unlawfully Obtained Information
The bill would limit the government’s use of information about Americans obtained under FISA Amendments Act procedures that the FISA Court later determines to be unlawful, while giving the court flexibility to allow such information to be used in appropriate cases.
Section 307 – Protections for International Communications of Americans
The bill would amend the FISA Amendments Act to create safeguards for communications not related to terrorism that the government knows have one end in the United States.
Section 308 – Computer Trespass
The bill would guard against abuse of a warrantless surveillance authority in the Patriot Act that allows computer owners who are subject to denial of service attacks or other episodes of hacking to give the government permission to monitor trespassers on their systems.
Title IV – Improvements to Further Congressional and Judicial Oversight
Section 401 – FISA Public Reporting
The bill would require limited additional public reporting on the use of FISA.
Section 402 – Use of FISA Evidence
The bill would apply the Classified Information Procedures Act to the use of FISA evidence in criminal cases, and allow the use of protective orders and other security measures in civil cases, to ensure that courts have discretion to allow litigants access to information where appropriate while still protecting sensitive information.
Section 403 – Nationwide Court Orders
The bill would permit a recipient of a nationwide court order to challenge it either in the district where it was issued or in the district where the recipient is located.
Title V – Improvements to Further Effective, Focused Investigations
Section 501 – Domestic Terrorism
The Patriot Act’s overbroad definition of domestic terrorism could cover acts of civil disobedience by political organizations. The bill would limit the qualifying offenses for domestic terrorism to those that constitute a federal crime of terrorism.
Section 502 – Material Support
The bill would amend the overly broad criminal definition of material support for terrorism by specifying that a person must know or intend the support provided will be used for terrorist activity.
Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst ("You lie!") during President Obama's speech to the joint session of Congress this week was extremely inappropriate by any standard, and in my opinion, such conduct should be reprimanded in some manner. Even if the president was George W. Bush, and the congressman was somebody who I normally liked, there is no excuse for that kind of extreme rudeness on the part of our high government officials. The president is both head of government and head of state (kind of like the combination of temporary monarch plus prime minister). To some extent, I believe in the idea of respecting the office, even if not the office holder. I am not trying to legislate my idea of good taste. People who know me personally know that legislating "good taste" is just about the last thing in the world I would want to do. Hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have the legal right to carry on with their rants about Obama supposedly being a racist, or drawing idiotic comparisons to Hitler. Limbaugh and Beck have counterparts on the left who engage in similar over-the-top verbal attacks against so-called conservative leaders. In spite of the LEGAL rights of these people, which I have no intention of curtailing, I do think that it is reasonable to expect some degree of decorum by our elected officials. Joe Wilson clearly violated that principle. He can think whatever he wants, and if he privately trashes the president while talking with friends/family/congressional staff, I do not think that is a big deal. Within the halls of Congress, I expect better behavior by our esteemed representatives. Actually, I kind of wondered if Mr. Wilson was tempted to throw his shoes at the president. Maybe he was too far away to get a good shot, or maybe he did not want to lose a perfectly good pair of shoes. Mr. Wilson did apologize privately to Mr. Obama, and the president graciously accepted the apology. Then again, it also appears that Mr. Wilson's apology was very half-hearted, and he has indicated that he meant what he said. I think he also owes an apology to Congress, because his outburst is (or should be) an embarrassment to Congress as a whole.
The irony in all this is that Mr. Wilson's chosen moment to accuse the president of lying was in a context where the president was certainly not lying. This was over the question of whether or not the federal government would be forced to include illegal immigrants in its "universal" coverage. Some of the scare mongers make this claim, but it is not true, according to any of the pending bills in Congress, and President Obama made this clear. "You lie" was the shouted out response by Joe Wilson. Besides being in such poor taste, Mr. Wilson is also objectively wrong. I could even say that Wilson is the one who is lying.
One claim made by President Obama that I do find hard to believe is that passage of his proposals will not add to the government's deficit. While I would certainly not suggest that he is lying, I think it is fair to suggest that he is quite possibly being overly optimistic. The truth is that we cannot know with certainty what the effect on future government finances will be as a result of Obama's proposed health care reforms becoming law. I hope that he is right, that we can achieve all these desirable health care goals in a budget-neutral way. I believe that this is not very likely, and I know that nobody in the White House can say with perfect knowledge that this will not add to future deficits.
To take an example from recent history, recall that President George W. Bush assured us all back in 2001 that the budget surplus that he inherited was so structurally solid that his major tax cut legislation would, at most, merely reduce future suplusses by half. Mr. Bush and his top economic advisors were absolutely certain of this, and to emphasize the point further, he said that all this even provided for an economic downturn plus some other as-yet-unknown crisis (today is September 11; I am trying to think of what kind of unknown crisis they might have contemplated in the early summer of 2001). We all know how that turned out, don't we? The point is not that Mr. Bush was lying in his belief that the government would continue to be in fiscal surplus for years to come, but rather that he had no legitimate basis for his tone of apparent certainty. Maybe Obama has better economists than his predecessor did, and maybe their analysis is carried out with greater objectivity. Maybe, but not to the point where I am likely to believe any statements of apparent certainty about the long term future of government finances.
Despite the unfounded hysteria (regarding alleged death panels, illegal immigrants, required abortion services, etc.) about the health care reform proposals, there are legitimate concerns regarding how the program will be paid for. I want to see President Obama meet the issue more forthrightly than I believe he has up to now. For many reasons, I am rooting for health care reform to succeed, but I do not personally believe the program is likely to be neutral on the budget. Hey, I like President Obama. I strongly supported him in his campaign, and I generally give him favorable marks on his performance during his first several months as president. If a supporter such as yours truly does not believe his proposals will not add to the deficit, what must the opponents be thinking? On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, very few of those in Congress who now emphasize the fiscal concerns with health care reform in 2009 expressed any skepticism in 2001 when they were told by Mr. Bush that his tax cuts would not lead to budget deficits. Call them partisan hypocrites if you want to, but the issue is still a matter of legitimate concern.
I do not know what President Obama is going to say in his address to the joint session of Congress tomorrow, but I am convinced that the success of his entire presidency is likely to depend on his ability to achieve some kind of health care reform by the end of this year. It is not critical that he get something passed that is as far reaching as he has sometimes suggested that he wants, but he badly needs something that can credibly be called health care reform... at least a good start in that direction. I am beginning to wonder if President Obama, who ran such a brilliant campaign for the presidency just last year and who possesses such extraordinary public speaking skills, has already become so isolated in the White House that he is losing his political touch just a matter of months into his presidency. I really hope that I am wrong in my suspicions. I cannot think of another public figure in America that I admire as much as Barack Obama, but he has not handled the health care reform issue very well. He avoided the Clintons' 1993-94 mistake of trying to dictate a detailed plan to Congress, but he went too far in the other direction by having Congress work out all the details. Now, it appears that we have multiple plans with irreconcilable conflicts, and the very real possibility exists that there will be no health care reform at all. I do not mean to dwell on mistakes already made, beyond noting that Obama should learn from the experience, and hopefully do a better job with his next major initiative requiring congressional approval.
What I want the Obama White House to do is to face certain facts. First, Obama has effectively staked the prestige of his presidency on accomplishing health care reform during his first year as president. Second, any mistakes (or political miscalculations) already done cannot be undone. The political situation is less favorable than it was a couple of months ago, but there is no turning the calendar back. Third, major reforms are often done in stages. Think of the landmark civil rights bills of the 1960's. There were several bills, passed over a period of a few years, enacted to give all Americans certain rights that for many had previously existed in theory but not in practical effect. Fourth, passage of some health care reform bill now, even if more limited than many of its boosters would like, would make possible additional reforms later. Fifth, in contrast to the immediately preceding point, failure to pass any health care reform this year will almost certainly make any reform impossible for many years to come.
I do not believe that any of these points can be seriously disputed. In case any explanation of the last two statements is necessary, look back to the early years of Bill Clinton's presidency. A huge health care reform bill was crafted in the White House, and was presented to Congress with the message, in effect, "Take it or leave it." We know how that turned out. The proposal was rejected, and the 1994 mid-term elections swept the Republicans into control of both the House and Senate, and no health care reform of any kind was even possible for the next fifteen years. If no health care reform passes this year, I think it is very likely that we will see similar political developments. Whether Obama serves four or eight years as president, he would be badly weakened by the failure to pass health care reform during his first year. On the other hand, passage of a health care reform bill, even a bill that omits some of the provisions that many advocates would like to see, will strengthen Obama's political standing, and will keep open at least the possibility that further reforms could be passed later.
The people who argue, as Howard Dean keeps telling us, that "health care reform without a public option is no reform at all" have it all wrong. In my opinion, the members of Congress who hold that attitude are the real enemies of health care reform. This is presumably not their intention, but it is their effect. We have already seen what happens with insisting on "all or nothing." They get nothing. Actually, it is worse than nothing, because the cause of reform is set back for many years, due to adverse political developments that follow this kind of political defeat. President Obama has some very smart political advisors (Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, etc.) who should understand these things, and I hope they are counseling the president appropriately.
What kind of health care reform should still be achievable this year? Drop the public option. Whether it is a good idea or not, it will not pass this year, and its continued presence in the debate makes any kind of reform nearly impossible. Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines. We are trying to encourage competition, but the current prohibition is a major impediment to competition. Allow all Americans to join large risk pools. This should have the effect of removing most, if not all, individual underwriting issues. Prohibit all companies selling health insurance from discriminating against any members or prospective members due to their personal health issues. Health insurance in America can remain mostly under private enterprise, but only on the condition that nobody's coverage can be denied or revoked due to personal circumstances.
Health insurance reform that has these characteristics, even though it does not contain the public option, would be a substantial achievement, blowhards like Howard Dean notwithstanding. There are other aspects of health care reform I would like to see, but they are less critical for immediate purposes. I would add them if doing so would help pass the bill. If not, I hope they can be put into place in the near future. In the long run, health care reform will only succeed if it has the effect of reducing overall health care costs. Enact some meaningful tort reform. Among other things, this should help attract Republican support to the cause. That would be good politically, but I also favor the measure on its own merits. Excessive malpractice insurance and defensive medicine add significantly to health care costs, without any incremental benefit to patient care. Make it easier to get rid of bad doctors. There are three major hospitals within five miles of where I live. I know of one sadistic and/or incompetent doctor who was booted out of one of the three hospitals. He transferred to a second hospital, then was booted out of that one, too. Now, he is practicing on unsuspecting patients at the third hospital in our area. I really do not know if this kind of situation is subject to a legislative cure, but something has to be done to prevent bad doctors from simply moving to a neighboring hospital with a clean slate. End the tax difference between health insurance from an employer versus individually purchased insurance. A tax credit to individuals should replace the current system where most employer provided health insurance is tax deductible for the employer but not taxable as a benefit to the employee. For people whose incomes are too high for Medicaid, but too low to afford private health insurance, provide tax credits or subsidies. It is bound to be difficult trying to determine the details that make the best sense, but as a general principle, some Americans will need some kind of subsidy.
Anyway, all this has been my effort to make the case that health care reform can still succeed, but at least for the short term, the public option has to be dropped. I hope that President Obama will make a good case to Congress tomorrow, keeping in mind the political realities he faces. In the Sept. 8 Washington Post, Matt Miller has a good essay on the subject:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/07/AR2009090702070.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
Arlington, VirginiaSeptember 8, 2009
