Obama Made Deal to Kill Public Option

[SHRED]

Wow...some socialist/commie he is.
:sarcasm:

NY Times Reporter Confirms Obama Made Deal to Kill Public Option

For months I've been reporting in The Huffington Post that President Obama made a backroom deal last summer with the for-profit hospital lobby that he would make sure there would be no national public option in the final health reform legislation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html?just_reloaded=1


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[kstewart33]

1. Oh please.

We're on the verge of passing HCR. Cut the Obama hate for a few hours, will ya?

[Fumesucker]

5. HCR *without* a public option..

Not even a weak one..

[treestar]

13. It is my assertion

That had the bill contained a public option, the same posters saying they can't afford insurance on the mandates would be complaining about the rates they'd have to pay for the public option, still complaining it would not cover everyone and still complaining that it was not single payer.

If single payer had passed, there would be complaints about it, too.

The PO would still be "insurance" and a "sell-out" because it's only insurance, not health care.

So that is why I'm no longer taking complaints about no public option, at least on DU.

[Fumesucker]

17. Umm.. The *OP* was about the public option..

Which kind of makes your assertion that you're no longer responding to complaints about the public option a bit..err.. weak.

[treestar]

19. Op complains there is no PO

and I am saying if there were a PO, it still would not be good enough for the people who now claim that its exclusion is their problem.

Insurance not care, still have to pay for it, mandatory - they would still be making those complaints.

[Fumesucker]

22. Your mind reading act is not convincing..

Even in the UK, which has a mandatory national health service which is even more radical than single payer, you have to pay for it through taxes.

The nice part is though that you walk (or get carried) in and get treated with virtually no paperwork and no or minimal out of pocket expenses.

Wanna bet that paperwork in the US won't still be a major headache with HCR? Back when I had insurance there were usually more insurance forms to fill out at the doctor than there were medical forms.

[grahamhgreen]

7. It's not Health CARE Reform. It's a Private Health INSURANCE Mandate.

[fascisthunter]

12. yeah, what a nice guy for forcing us to buy something that won't help in the long run

no reason for people to object, it's just hate... keep telling yourself that.

[SHRED]

14. We are on the verge of...

...passing a trillion dollar wealth transfer.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7956377

---

[krawhitham]

2. NY Times Reporter Confirms?

because we know the NY Times has our best interest at heart

[Ean Juan]

21. The New York Times endorsed Obama and endorses health care reform

Let's not pretend the New York Times always behaves as a right-wing newspaper, or that 100% of their reporters are right-wingers who are out to get us. Kirkpatrick is not Judith Miller.

The progressive Huffington Post is convinced by the New York Times' account.

Kirkpatrick named names: Jim Messina (The President's Chief of Staff for Operations) as confirming the account too. Messina should deny this if it's untrue. He hasn't denied anything yet.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Only tea-baggers, the GOP, and conservative talking heads ever called him a socialist...

They wouldn't know a socialist if one bit them on the ass.

Not even Bernie Sanders is a socialist. (He is more in line with social Democrats of Europe in his philosophy.)

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[havocmom]

6. How charming of you

You get my vote for Miss Congeniality

[nightrain]

8. knr. The bill is a Republican Trojan Horse.

[nebenaube]

11. I agree... n/t

[msongs]

9. uh the true believers are gonna get u for this nt

[FourScore]

10. Where does the NYT report it? Quote it.

This has been debunked ad nauseum.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. Join the outrage!

It is so much fun, isn't it? Perhaps if we all throw enough fuel on this fire a republican congress can undo this bill. That is your goal, isn't it?

[EFerrari]

29. Do you really think this goverenment needs posts to DU

to lose the majority?

[Warren Stupidity]

38. No you are right it is managing to do it all by itself.

I fail to see the point of helping it along though. In fact, I am tired of it. My bagnut neighbor up the street is having a stroke over communism coming to america and my comrades on DU are having a stroke over being shackled to health insurance company mandates and I am just bored and annoyed with over the top idiocy from both sides.

[EFerrari]

43. I know. Me, too, even of my own.

lol

[branders seine]

16. yes, he did.

first round of kneecapping threats from the insurance banksters back before inauguration, and he took single payer off the table with zero debate.

second round of visits from Guido and Salami, and he agreed to kill the public option and grant the insurance banksters a bill of their choosing so that they'd win on policy while he could pretend to win on politics.

The whole issue has been a sham since Spring of 2009 when the final terms were accepted by Obama.

[FourScore]

18. I guess you were there since you know this with such certainty.

:argh:

[branders seine]

25. it has been well reported

and it supports his actions

and it supports his abandonment of campaign positions and promises

and it supports his shifting rhetoric on the issue

[FourScore]

26. Provide links from good sources to your claims. I'm sick of this bs. n/t

[branders seine]

34. in your little world, is there such a thing as a 'good source'?

salon.com
Rolling Stone
firedoglake
huffingtonpost
New York Times
Bill Moyers
Physicians for a National Health Program
Thom Hartmann
Keith Olbermann
Rachel Maddow


and others have reported on this.

Even the White House eventually 'fessed up to the secret meetings with PHARMA and the insurance execs.


Compare this to Obama's statements at an August 2008 town hall meeting on the economy that a single payer system would be best, even while his own plan was based on a strong public option (stronger than that eventually passed by the House). His election changed everything. By February of 2009, he dismissed single payer before it was ever even debated. Then, when debate started (after all his secret meetings with "them"), he immediately started talking down and then strongly abandoning even a weak public option.

I'm sick of this bs too.

[Bobbie Jo]

20. Dupe

[Orangepeel]

23. this makes it sound like he agreed to fight against it for a payoff

as opposed to, potentially, maybe, giving it up because he thought that was the only way forward. It is certainly arguable that he shouldn't have given it up to go forward, if, indeed, he did. But it certainly doesn't mean his motives were sinister.

The link in the OP links to a link to this August story from the NY Times:

Some Democrats and industry lobbyists now argue that, in negotiating deals through Mr. Baucus’s committee with powerful health care interests, the White House was tacitly signaling as early as last spring that it might end up accepting something more modest than the government insurer the president has said he prefers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/health/policy/13health.html?_r=2

[NYC_SKP]

24. Nah Ah. Did not.

It was Death Panels, Public Death Panels.

WTF Huffington Post?

Gawd, it's all Twittered up like a Hooker, can't go there anymore.

[HughMoran]

27. This was posted when it came out a few days ago

...there's still little substance to the story.

Perhaps if you post it again in 3 days it will suddenly be filled with actual attributed information, other than "he said that".

[berni_mccoy]

32. +1. So. Damn. Tired. Of. This. Shit.

[Born_A_Truman]

28. Here we go again...is the horse dead yet??

Many, including Skinner, have pointed out the part that keeps being left out:

Several hospital lobbyists involved in the White House deals said it was understood as a condition of their support that the final legislation would not include a government-run health plan paying Medicare rates — generally 80 percent of private sector rates — or controlled by the secretary of health and human services.

Again:
would not include a government-run health care plan paying Medicare rates - generally 80 percent of private sector rates - or controlled by the secretary of health and human services.

[EFerrari]

30. I think you must have missed it but this story was posted about a week ago.

[Marr]

31. It seems pretty obvious to me that he did, just obvserving the politics.

I've got no evidence, of course, but it seems pretty clear if you just put away your team spirit and step back a few paces. Politics is mostly show. It's like pro-wrestling.

I don't think Obama would need to be paid off to do something like this, either. If you listen to him talk, it's clear that he thinks change is something that should be confined to things that don't upset the status-quo. What did he say to Fox this week? Something to the effect of, 'I rejected a lot of ideas from the left because they would've been too disruptive to the system'?

[gulfcoastliberal]

33. K&R - this bill is fascist garbage amounting to yet another massive swindle of public monies. Sad.

Too bad so many posters supporting this ripoff refuse to acknowledge or discuss the reality of what this legislation will impose on us...

[Warren Stupidity]

39. Or a communist takeover as per my neighbor.

Maybe it is both?

[emulatorloo]

35. THE ONLY SOURCE IS A HEALTH INDUSTRY LOBBIEST. I WOULD NOT TRUST HIS WORD

if his tongue came notarized.

Seriously you need to read these HUFFPO things with a critical eye.

Why wouldn't a health industry operative lie?

[ProSense]

36. Based on the evidence presented in that piece,

BFD.

[freddie mertz]

37. Strong evidence that we were sold out last summer is a BFD.

We need and deserve to find out the true story, no matter how "inconvenient" the truth turns out to be for the talking points of certain people and organizations.

[ProSense]

40. Breaking

FAIL


BFD!

[freddie mertz]

42. We need to know more.

And your usual rudeness and recycled links are not an adequate response to that need.

In other words, it is you who have failed. Once again.

You are no longer an effective or convincing advocate for your cause, if you ever were one.

[mzmolly]

41. .

:spray:

[merkins]

44. Its a Kick in the Gut

"Obama used the exact secret processes that he railed against and which he swore he would banish. It was only because The Huffington Post's Ryan Grim uncovered the secret memo-deal the White House had entered into with PhRMA -- a deal they had publicly denied until then and until PhRMA demanded they publicly affirm it -- did we know that the administration had agreed to oppose drug re-importation and bulk price negotiations, measures Obama (and the Democrats generally) repeatedly promised to enact. Indeed, when it came time to vote on drug re-importation, the administration concocted false "safety concerns" about re-importation in order to whip against Byron Dorgan's re-importation amendment, rather than admit that they really opposed it because they secretly promised they would to PhRMA, which hates drug re-importation because it lowers prices. And it was only two days ago that we finally had confirmed what (at least to me) was obvious all along: namely, the White House had agreed in secret with health care industry representatives that there would be no public option in a final bill, even as the President publicly feigned support for it and pretended to be fighting for it.

In other words, this bill was negotiated using the standard, secret, sleazy Beltway lobbyist/industry practices that candidate Obama frequently condemned and vowed to defeat. And these industries extracted such huge benefits as a result of these secret deals -- a bill shaped to their liking and profit objectives -- that they are essentially in favor of it."

http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/03/20/health_care">Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com

[merkins]

45. dupe

yar i posted twice : slow server response