[lbo-talk] WH plans to apparently drop "public option"

[Michael McIntyre]

Deep down, I'm pretty sure that Obama would prefer the Conyers bill.
Hell, his personal physician for over twenty years was in practice
with Quentin Young.  (Young, for those who don't know, is the founder
of Physicians for a National Health Plan and has fought longer and
harder for national health insurance than anyone I know).  But even
deeper down, Obama is committed to discarding options he doesn't
believe are in the politically feasible set and, more disastrously,
doesn't believe that you can expand the feasible set by finding and
enemy and killing it in public.  This was the enemy to kill, Obama
invited it inside the tent instead, and now the monster has won.  This
is Clintoncare all over again, except that there will probably be some
face-saving legislation at the end of the day.

And fuck it all, this monster could have been killed.  I was invited
to give an Elderhostel talk on the economy a few weeks ago.  This was
in a very nice senior care facility NW of Chicago.  The people who
showed up were engaged, smart, and had money.  All of them, even the
guy with and MBA and JD from the University of Chicago who was a big
fan of Coase and Stigler, hated the insurance companies and the
pharmaceutical companies.  Not one of them disagreed when I said I
thought the best option was (improved) Medicare for all.  Jesus H
Christ, even John McCain, in one of the Republican primary debates,
called big pharma the enemy.  A more than two trillion dollar
industry, a mass constituency mobilizable against capitalist health
care, and Obama and his liberal pawns bleat about a "public option"
until they bleat "never mind".

At this point I guess the only hope is to pressure those 63 Dems who
say they'll vote against a plan without a public option to stand fast,
hope that we can get through 2009 with no legislation, and then see if
there's anyone left in this country who can organize.

Oh fuck it, who am I kidding?  Wojtek is right.

MM

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 2:28 PM, <knowknot at mindspring.com> wrote:
> On 8/17/09,  Wojtek Sokolowski  said
>
>> Methinks that most progressives and Leftists do not realize a
>> fundamental difference between the US and other industrialized
>> countries: while all other industrialized countries have corporations,
>> in the US corporations have a country.
>
> Maybe they didn't see or don't remember the exchange between the
> (semi)retired Mafioso charcter and the James J. Angleton-based CIA character
> played by Joe Pesci and Matt Damon  in "The Good Shepherd":
>
>   JP:   You know, we Italians have our families and the church,
>            the Irish have the homeland, the Jews their tradition,
>            the n-words their music.  What do you guys have?
>
>   MD:  We have the United States of America. The rest of you
>            are just visiting.
>
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