Meeting Gillibrand, The Public Option, and Medicare For All

Despite much rhetoric to the contrary, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is quite charming in person, far more so than I had originally assumed prior to meeting her last Wednesday evening. I met her at a fundraiser scheduled by Young Professionals for Gillibrand, which was held at The Gates, a club on the West Side. As barely a young professional myself, I saw it as a unique opportunity to go there and, as our friend Joe Biden likes to say, “test her metal” – to see for myself if she was really ready for prime time. After the night was through, Zac and I were in complete agreement: she didn’t disappoint.

After an impassioned speech and a few questions, it was my turn to stick myself in there and see if she could speak to the issue that I cared most about: fixing our wasteful, inefficient and immoral health care system. The question I asked, though not verbatim, went something like this:

Senator Gillibrand, I’d first like to thank you the recent letter you signed and sent to Harry Reid demanding that we use reconciliation to bring back the public option and score a big victory for the American people. [Applause]

As for going forward on health care reform in the near future, what are our chances that we will get the public option, the government run alternative that will provide real competition to the exploitative, wasteful, and inefficient health care corporate cartel that is gauging American workers and holding this nation back from progress? [Applause]

Okay, maybe I didn’t pull a Keith Olbermann and use the word “cartel,” but I did say pretty much everything else. At this point, although I was very impressed with what Gillibrand had been saying prior to my question, I was expecting the same old politician/focus-group-tested-response, like:

Great Question. We are currently working very hard to bring back the public option, and we will all do our best. We need to remember that the most important thing is not the specifics, but that we have some competition, not necessarily in the form of a government plan.

But she didn’t say that. Read more

Obama Sends Unambiguous Message Re: Healthcare — PASS IT NOW

YES!

“So just in case there’s any confusion out there, let me be clear. I am not going to walk away from health insurance reform. I’m not going to walk away from the American people. I’m not going to walk away from this challenge. I’m not going to walk away from any challenge. We’re moving forward.”

His voice rising, he added: “We are moving forward!” [snip]

“Yes, we could continue to ignore the growing burden of the runaway cost of healthcare,” said Obama, wearing a suit jacket but no tie. “The easiest thing to do right now would be to just say, ‘Ah, this is too hard. Let’s just regroup and lick our wounds and try to hang on.’

“We’ve had a long and difficult debate on healthcare and there are some, maybe even the majority in this town, who say, perhaps it’s time to walk away,” the president told his party. “But here’s the thing, Democrats. If we walk away we know what will happen. We know that premiums and out-of-pocket expenses will skyrocket this decade and the decade after that, and the decade after that.”

Xpostfactoid via Andrew Sullivan

Nadler: How We Can Still Do True Healthcare Reform

Here we are, at the end of a week in which I’m sure I wasn’t alone in trying really hard to look away from what was going on in Washington (and failing miserably).  As someone who thinks that the Senate healthcare bill as is may not be worth passing, but does not want to see healthcare reform fail again, I’ve been stuck– I can’t really hate on those House members who are unwilling to pass the Senate’s bill, and I think that anyone who calls Rep. Raul Grijalva a “monster” for standing up for a better bill has kind of lost it.  But I still don’t want the reform effort to collapse – we need results, and we can’t wait another decade.

So all of that said, Manhattan’s very own Rep. Jerrold Nadler issued a great press statement today explaining how true healthcare reform is still possible, still do-able, and still needs to be done.  Read the whole thing.  If healthcare reform has been getting you down, this could make you feel a bit better.  Via TPM, Nadler’s statement:

"As Speaker Pelosi has said, the House of Representatives does not have the votes to pass the Senate health care bill alone. It is clear that the great majority of the House Democratic Caucus – right, left and center – is unwilling to pass the Senate bill as it stands. But we must not let this fact, or the election results in Massachusetts, cause us to abandon comprehensive health care reform.

"We must instead negotiate an agreement with the Senate to pass a few key changes to the Senate bill through the reconciliation process so that both Houses can pass a comprehensive bill. We can then take various popular insurance reforms that cannot be passed through the reconciliation process – dealing with such subjects as pre-existing conditions, rescissions and annual and lifetime benefits – put them in a separate bill, and see if the Republicans dare to filibuster them. The alternatives – giving up on comprehensive reform or attempting to only pass small pieces separately – are either unacceptable or impractical.

"Though the process of crafting and passing health care legislation has been frustrating and disappointing for many of us, we still have a rare opportunity to enact true reform, and we must not give up."

Several members of NYC’s congressional delegation have really stepped up to the plate during this long, drawn-out, ugly healthcare reform process.  Major props to Nadler and to Rep. Anthony Weiner (remember his public debate against Betsy “Death Panels” McCaughey?) for standing up for real healthcare reform, without giving up or giving in.

And now, for kicks, here’s Anthony Weiner explaining for a live audience how Betsy McCaughey is a liar whose pants are on fire:

 

Time To Fight

Lots of commentary on what the Brown victory in MA means for healthcare reform across the vast internets. After a quick scan, I agree with this:

People don’t like politicians who are weak and don’t know what they believe. If the bill was worth passing yesterday, it’s just as worth passing tomorrow. All the meta-politics about being for something before you were against it, knowing what you believe or not knowing, being able to get something done. It all comes down to stuff like this.

Here’s an unnamed “presidential advisor” quoted in Politico who should get a promotion: “The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall [because of what happened in Massachusetts],” a presidential adviser said.

“The best political route also happens to be the boldest rhetorical route, which is to go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may. We can say, ‘At least we fought for these things, and the Republicans said no.”

I cannot say this enough. The policy front speaks for itself. But the meta-politics is real. It’s a big. But it’s something Democrats have great difficulty with. For a whole variety of reasons voters clearly have a lot of hesitation about this reform. I think the polls make clear that the public is not against it. But the reticence is real. If Dems decide to run from the whole project in the face of a single reverse, what are voters supposed to draw from that? What conclusion would you draw about an individual in an analogous situation in your own life? Think about it.

Fire In A Crowded Theater: TPM

TAP: Why Massachusetts Doesn’t Matter

…even if Brown should prevail, there is a path — more than one, actually — for Democrats to lunge across the finish line and pass health-care reform. It might not be pretty, but after the last year of legislative ugliness, it won’t much matter.

The first path would be for the House — where they have this strange tradition in which the majority rules — to simply pass, as is, the bill that already passed the Senate. Obama would sign it, and the infrastructure of reform would be in place. Then [they THE HOUSE?] could attempt to correct some of the Senate bill’s weaknesses in the reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes (though it does limit which parts of the bill can be addressed).

The other path — and the preferable one, from a policy perspective — would be to get the bill done before Brown is sworn in. Keep in mind that the White House and congressional leaders are nearly done hammering out the differences between the two chambers’ bills. Though reports about what is in this version are sketchy, it looks to be a considerable improvement on the Senate bill. They have to get a score from the Congressional Budget Office, which takes a few days. Then depending on how the bill is offered in the Senate, a vote could come within a few days after that. In other words, no matter what happens in Massachusetts, if Democrats decide to move things through quickly, we could get a vote on health care within 10 days.

And:

Let’s not forget that the American people elected a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic president who pledged to reform health care when he ran. Does one election in one state change that? Is a 60-40 advantage in the Senate a mandate for action but a 59-41 advantage a reason the Democrats should fold up their agenda? The 60-vote filibuster requirement isn’t an expression of popular will; it’s a quirk of Senate rules, and a profoundly anti-democratic one at that.

Read the rest

Ian’s Law

State Senator Eric Schneiderman (UES UWS up through Inwood) has introduced legislation called “Ian’s Law” to close loopholes that allow insurers to drop entire lines of health care coverage in order to get rid of specific, high-cost patients.

Ian’s story, from Robert Harding on Kos:

Sickening stories like this make me think that no amount of regulation is going to change the ways of these rapacious insurers — they will always be one step ahead of the game to try and make money on people’s well-being. Note that Guardian was reporting $7.5 billion in profits while they erased lines of coverage to drop Ian and others in NY State. It makes me so angry and frustrated that such a broken system is allowed to persist while people are dying all over the country.

Read Ian’s Law here.

[Ironic] Photo of the Week + Healthcare Bill Passes House

Hat tip, Elizabeth Kanter–from the DC Tea Party protests:

Meanwhile, the House has passed its health bill 220-215. Here’s how reps from NY voted (Republicans in italics):

AYE
Ackerman
Arcuri
Bishop
Clarke
Crowley
Engel
Hall
Higgins
Hinchey
Israel
Lowey
Maffei
Maloney
McCarthy
Meeks
Nadler
Owens
Rangel
Serrano
Slaughter
Tonko
Towns
Velazquez
Weiner

NAY
King
Lee
Massa
McMahon
Murphy

TAP – A Historic Vote

“Nothing” Is Better Than The Public Option, Says Lieberman

Think Progress: Lieberman Would Prefer ‘Nothing’ To Health Care Reform With A Public Option

Politics 3.0: Some UGC On Healthcare Reform

OFA is running a video contest where you can vote user-generated videos about healthcare reform up or down to select a winner. I haven’t watched all 20, but I enjoyed this one because the grittiness reminded me of NYC:

And this one because well, it just speaks the truth:

Obama for America: Healthcare Reform Video Challenge

The Bailywick: What We Can Learn From The Healthcare Industry

The talented Chris Baily is also Chair of our Economic Issues Committee.

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