Health Care: Hoops Edition

from Daily Kos:

Eugene Robinson:

Here's the least surprising news of the week: Americans are souring on the Democratic Party. The wonder is that it's taken so long for public opinion to curdle. There's nothing agreeable about watching a determined attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Ed Kilgore:

Progressives are waiting for Barack Obama and his team to work the kind of political magic they seemed to work in 2008--except when they didn't. Cutting through all the mythologizing of the Obama campaign, the real keys to his stretch-run success last year were his legendary calm ("No Drama Obama"); his confidence in his own long-range strategy; his ability to choose competent lieutenants and delegate to them abundantly; and his grasp of the fundamentals of public opinion and persuasion. There was zero sense of panic in the Obama campaign itself late last summer, because they stuck with their strategy and organization and didn't let the polls or news cycles force them off the path they had chosen.

John Cole: Just Making Shit Up

Matt Yglesias catches Grassley and Enzi stating that any health care bill needs 75-80 votes in the Senate. Why? Just because! The new talking points must be out, because Bill Kristol’s personal puke funnel chimes in:

Maybe President Obama should stop wee-weeing and start trying to get some Republican support for his bill—as both Johnson and FDR successfully did. Getting a bill like this is not, in fact, always messy. Rather, there is clearly something particular about Obama’s approach that has created this mess.

At any rate, since 75-80 votes is what is needed, I guess we should move to repeal the Prescription Drug Act, which only got 54 votes in the Senate. Likewise, the 2001 tax cut only got 62 votes, putting it below the new requirement. The 2003 tax cuts only got 50 votes, which, under the “new” rules, means we have to roll those back. Finally, only Scalia and Roberts passed the 75 vote threshold for confirmation, so sorry about your luck Clarence and Sam.

These guys literally can say anything, and no one calls them on it. Ever.

Here's Rachel on the 75-80 vote case.
GOP moving the goal posts... er basketball hoops Aug. 20: With the help of former WNBA star Sue Wicks, Rachel Maddow demonstrates the way Republicans are trying to change the rules of Congress with the threat of filibuster to keep health care reform from passing. Former DNC chair, Dr. Howard Dean offers further analysis.

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Sargent: Poll: Majority Of Republicans Believes Health Reform Bill Will Force Elderly To Decide When To Die

Okay, forget about that poll from yesterday finding nearly half believe health care reform will empower government to withhold medical care from the elderly. This one is even whackier.

I’ve now obtained a new poll that finds a majority of Republicans believe the health care reform bill will force old people to decide in advance how and when they meet their maker.

The new poll, to be released later this morning, was sent my way by the Indiana University Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research, and here’s a chart of this key finding (click to enlarge):

The poll finds that 53% of Republicans believe that “the government will require the elderly to make decisions about how and when they will die.” By contrast, only 31% of independents and 14% of Democrats believe this, according to this poll of 600 adults nationwide.

Note the word “require.” A majority of Republicans believes that the health care reform will force old people to decide in advance “how and when they will die.” This is far more out there than anything we’ve seen polled before.

This goes even farther than Sarah Palin, who famously said that Obama’s death panels would be empowered to decide whether people “are worthy of health care.” This poll, by contrast, asked about the ultimate real fever swamp theory: That health care reform would empower government to force people to pick a date for their rendevous with destiny.

A majority of Republicans believes this. And, disturbingly, nearly a third overall, or 31%, believe it, too.

The Onion: Study: 38 Percent Of People Not Actually Entitled To Their Opinion

CHICAGO—In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago's School for Behavioral Science concluded that more than one-third of the U.S. population is neither entitled nor qualified to have opinions.

"On topics from evolution to the environment to gay marriage to immigration reform, we found that many of the opinions expressed were so off-base and ill-informed that they actually hurt society by being voiced," said chief researcher Professor Mark Fultz, who based the findings on hundreds of telephone, office, and dinner-party conversations compiled over a three-year period. "While people have long asserted that it takes all kinds, our research shows that American society currently has a drastic oversupply of the kinds who don't have any good or worthwhile thoughts whatsoever. We could actually do just fine without them."

In 2002, Fultz's team shook the academic world by conclusively proving the existence of both bad ideas during brainstorming and dumb questions during question-and-answer sessions.

Benen: CHOICE AND A PUBLIC OPTION...

It seems some of the opposition to a public option in health care reform has to do with a misconception: that it would be mandatory.

Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), the Blue Dog point-man on health care, said yesterday he would not vote for a plan that would "force government-run healthcare on anyone. Period." But he added that the House contained a public plan that is "strictly ... an option."

Given the name -- "public option" has the word "option" in it -- I'd hoped that was obvious. It's not. When pollsters ask about a public option, lately, there's been a lot of opposition. When pollsters ask about the policy and ask if people want the choice, the results are far more encouraging.

More than three out of every four Americans feel it is important to have a "choice" between a government-run health care insurance option and private coverage, according to a public opinion poll released on Thursday.

A new study by SurveyUSA puts support for a public option at a robust 77 percent, one percentage point higher than where it stood in June.

This comes on the heels of an NBC poll. In June, the poll asked respondents if they thought it was important to "give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance." A total of 76% thought it was important. When NBC changed the wording, and dropped the concept of choice, support for the public option plummeted to 43%.

This should offer reformers a pretty big hint about how to frame the pitch: reform would offer Americans a choice between private insurers or a voluntary public option, which would compete to help lower costs.

Dems should also be prepared to press opponents on this. "I think consumers should have a choice between competing private and public plans. Why don't you want American families to have a chioce?"

Benen: OBAMA AND SMERCONISH...

President Obama sat down this morning with conservative radio talk-show host Michael Smerconish, who broadcast his show live from the White House today, for a substantive and interesting discussion. One exchange, in particular, stood out for me.

A caller from Philadelphia, who said he "worked hard" in support of the Obama campaign last year said he's "getting a little ticked off," because he's afraid the president's "knees are buckling a little bit" on health care. "It's very frustrating to watch you try and compromise with a lot of these people who aren't willing to compromise with you," the caller said. Obama responded:

"Well, look, I guarantee you, Joe, we are going to get health care reform done. And I know that there are a lot of people out there who have been hand-wringing, and folks in the press are following every little twist and turn of the legislative process. You know, passing a big bill like this is always messy. FDR was called a socialist when he passed Social Security. JFK and Lyndon Johnson, they were both accused of a government takeover of health care when they passed Medicare. This is the process that we go through -- because, understandably, the American people have a long tradition of being suspicious of government, until the government actually does something that helps them, and then they don't want anybody messing with whatever gets set up.

"And I'm confident we're going to get it done, and as far as negotiations with Republicans, my attitude has always been, let's see if we can get this done with some consensus. I would love to have more Republicans engaged and involved in this process. I think early on a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, 'Look, let's not give them a victory and maybe we can have a replay of 1993-94 when Clinton came in; he failed on health care and then we won in the midterm elections and we got the majority.' And I think there's some folks who are taking a page out of that playbook.

"But this shouldn't be a political issue. This is a issue for the American people. There are a bunch of Republicans out there who have been working very constructively. One of them, Olympia Snowe in Maine, she's been dedicated on this. Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, others -- they've been meeting in the Senate Finance Committee. I want to give them a chance to work through these processes.

"And we're happy to make sensible compromises. What we're not willing to do is give up on the core principle that Americans who don't have health insurance should get it; that Americans who do have health insurance should get a better deal from insurance companies and have consumer protections. We've got to reduce health care inflation so that everybody can keep the health care that they have. That's going to be my priorities, and I think we can get it done."

This was an interesting response -- to a great question -- for a few reasons. First, I don't think I've heard the president say he "guarantees" that health care reform will get done before this. Second, the more he reminds folks about how the right has consistently been hysterical about Democratic reform ideas, the better.

But the part about Republicans also seemed new -- he said some GOP officials are opposing reform simply to help the Republicans' chances in the 2010 midterms. That's obviously true, but as Greg Sargent noted, "I'm pretty sure Obama has not gone this far before."

DougJ: Donny, these men are cowards

I don’t agree with a lot of what Joe Klein is saying here but I think his central point is a good, important one:

Given the heinous dust that’s been raised, it seems likely that end-of-life counseling will be dropped from the health-reform legislation. But that’s a small point, compared with the larger issue that has clouded this summer: How can you sustain a democracy if one of the two major political parties has been overrun by nihilists? And another question: How can you maintain the illusion of journalistic impartiality when one of the political parties has jumped the shark? (See pictures of angry health-care protesters.)

I’m not going to try. I’ve written countless “Democrats in Disarray” stories over the years and been critical of the left on numerous issues in the past. This year, the liberal insistence on a marginally relevant public option has been a tactical mistake that has enabled the right’s “government takeover” disinformation jihad. There have been times when Democrats have run demagogic scare campaigns on issues like Social Security and Medicare. There are more than a few Democrats who believe, in practice, that government should be run for the benefit of government employees’ unions. There are Democrats who are so solicitous of civil liberties that they would undermine legitimate covert intelligence collection. There are others who mistrust the use of military power under almost any circumstances. But these are policy differences, matters of substance. The most liberal members of the Democratic caucus — Senator Russ Feingold in the Senate, Representative Dennis Kucinich in the House, to name two — are honorable public servants who make their arguments based on facts. They don’t retail outright lies. Hyperbole and distortion certainly exist on the left, but they are a minor chord in the Democratic Party.

Klein has made a career out of concern-trolling Democrats, praising “conservative intellectuals”, sucking up to Hugh Hewitt, and getting a boner every time The Decider gave him a new nickname. In other words, he’s a fairly typical modern day “liberal” pundit.

So, in some sense, he deserves credit for saying the obvious: that whatever flaws the Democrats have, the Republicans are completely worthless and any comparison between the two is essentially ludicrious, that say what you will about the tenets of the Democratic party, dude, at least it’s an ethos.

In another sense, it’s silly to think of Klein or others of his ilk as free-standing objects rather than as cogs in a big conventional wisdom machine. And that’s why I’m happy to see this column. Perhaps it marks the beginning of willingness of the media to speak honestly about what the Republican party has become.

Yglesias: Crazy Socialist Fairy Tales

Back on August 9 I found some nutty fairy tale about cutting-edge medical research allegedly happening in the United Kingdom allegedly financed by the National Health Service. In the real world, everyone knows that innovation can’t happen in the presence of socialism, so obviously the story was false. And now The Washington Post is publishing another obviously fraudulent story about some big government boondoggle called the National Institutes for Health, a little island of socialism right here in the United States, that they want us to believe is somehow responsible for innovation:

For more than five decades, scientist Thomas Waldmann’s cutting-edge research at the National Institutes of Health has resulted in significant advances in the treatment of patients with cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis, including new therapies for previously fatal forms of T-cell leukemia and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. [...] Like many accomplished federal employees, Waldmann could have sought private-sector employment, but his dedication to public science kept him at NIH.

Next thing you know they’re going to be trying to have us believe that big government invented a way for people to fly to the Moon and walk around!

From SGW:

Matt Taibbi went on the attack today on the set of Morning Joe over health care reform. He unloaded pulled out his can of whup ass on the whole crew but in particular he turned his sights on fellow guest Maria Bartiromo.

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DougJ: I’ll take things you won’t hear about on “Morning Joe” for $500, Alex

As Atrios says, no surprise:

Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

Benen: BARON HILL CALLS A LIE A LIE....

As Blue Dogs go, there isn't a liberal bone in Baron Hill's body. The Indiana congressman rarely endorses the Democratic agenda and just doesn't stick to the Democratic message. Ever. When counting votes for health care reform, Rep. Hill isn't exactly a lock.

And even he's sick of the conservative attacks on reform. Eric Zimmermann reports on a town-hall event Hill held in his district yesterday.

"You'll have choices, regardless of what the detractors tell you," Hill said. "They are lying. That's a strong word, but it's true."

Thank you, Baron Hill. When Blue Dogs get sick of conservative misinformation, you know it's getting out of hand.

As for what got Hill going, this exchange seemed to set him off.

"I'm not a Democrat or a Republican," the man said. "I consider myself a political atheist. But from what I've heard about the plan on TV, there's a lot about it that I disagree with."

"What part do you not like?" Hill asked.

"Well, just some of the stuff they have been talking about on TV," the man responded.

"OK, and what was that?" Hill asked.

But the person couldn't come up with an example of what he disagreed with.