Political Convergence: Bank Bail Out Profits and the Public Option

[Tom Rinaldo]

The great Wall Street Bail Out, TARP and the various programs associated with it, continues to breed deep levels of resentment and cynicism in the American public who footed the bill for rescuing the financial sector in America. The resentment is easy to understand. The fact that there really were no good options left by the time Obama was elected President helps to explain his Administration's actions in that crisis, all taken under duress and incredible pressure with virtually no time for full contemplation let alone careful detailed planning. Those facts do almost nothing though to deal with the publics anger, which repeatedly flares up like a California wild fire facing El Nino winds. Huge Goldman Sachs bonuses and Wells Fargo record profits are merely the latest gale wind gusts. All the while cynicism keeps growing that our government is in bed with giant financial interests writing sweetheart legislation as Valentine Day presents for corporate Sugar Daddies in a ritual that repeats as often and predictably as Groundhog Day in Hollywood.

That is the backdrop against which the fate of a strong Public Option in health care reform must be viewed. Without it the Democratic Party stands on the virge of delivering multiple billions of dollars of new federally mandated business to perhaps the only private sector in America with negatives that rival Wall Street's financial charlatans; private for profit health insurers. They, as a group, have done as good a job at undermining our nation's physical health through the invention of concepts like "pre-existing conditions", as the investment bankers did in undermining our fiscal health by creating a fake paper economy in derivatives. These are not "good guys" to an increasingly angry American public, and those who legislate to prop them up do so under great electoral risk.

The Republicans are shameless when it comes to exploiting a political advantage. They are the Party that last crawled back into Congressional power through a Contract with America that promised voters term limits and a balanced budget amendment. Only after regaining power did we learn that their Contract with America was written with vanishing ink. If Democrats succeed in imposing on citizens the mandatory purchase of health care insurance from private insurers without at least offering a credible public alternative as a bailout from complicity in the way that industry operates henceforth, know this. Democrats will "own" that industry in the public mind as surely as the Feds own General Motors. At least most GM car owners are relatively happy with their cars, even with occasional safety recalls. But how will Americans react to continually increasing private insurance premiums, and the "death panels" those insurers will continue to employ the next time someone they love must face one?

Do Democrats really want to be known as the Party that bailed out the Private Insurance Cartel?

[Tom Rinaldo]

1. We already see Tea Baggers railing...

...about Federal bail outs of Wall Street, even though we all know that important Wall Street interests back the tea bagger "movement". Count on the Republicans to milk right wing populist anger against any poor results from health care reform. Here is one prediction about what will happen if we mandate private insurance without a real alternative. Republicans will fan the public anger that arises at private insurers by saying everything would have been fine if Democrats had allowed private insurers to compete across State lines.

[slipslidingaway]

2. kick nt

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. Thanks for the kick

I originally wrote this OP well over a week ago. Today I have very positive feelings for our entire Democratic leadership. They are fighting together for a public option, they have rejected the "let's put off to tommorrow what we can put off again then" trigger proposal. They deserve real credit for making that decision.

[slipslidingaway]

4. You're welcome, guess we'll find out what kind of option or options we'll...

get soon enough.