"Whose Side Are You On?"

A prominent Ohio Democratic politician recently commented on what he considers to be the crucial question in any election. The question is: "Whose side are you on?" That question is really at the heart of most domestic policy and political disputes. It is seen in the health care debate.

If you are opposed to the Obama plan, then you are for maintaining the status quo. Sure, you can say that you want a single-payer plan, or Medicare for all, or some other plan, like the plan offered by Senator Ron Wyden, but the reality is that its either the current plan or the status quo.

Why do I say that? Because it is obvious that there aren't the votes in either the Senate or the House to get a national payer plan. There aren't the votes to expand Medicare to all Americans, regardless of their age. As far as the Wyden plan goes, there probably aren't the votes to pass that plan either, especially once people realize it does away with the employer paid health insurance benefit.

So, its either the Obama plan or the status quo. Now, if you are for the status quo, then you are on the side of the insurance companies. You are on the side of those people who don't care if 30 million Americans are without health insurance, or if Americans are denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, or if insurance companies try to rescind coverage just when people need it most. If you are against the Obama plan, then that's the side that you are on.

Now, if you are on that side, then you are not on my side, or my family's side, or my friends' side, and, if you are a U.S. Congressman running for re-election, then I am not voting for you. If this attitude results in the election of a Republican, I can live with that. The Republican won't be on my side, but either are you, so there's really no difference. Further, if you are defeated in 2010, then there's a chance the Democrats can nominate and elect a Democratic who is on my side in 2012.

Think of it as a example of single-issue voting, only from the Left, not from the Right.

Call John Boccieri and Tell Him to Support Health Care or You Won't Support Him

The Columbus Dispatch ran a story yesterday that said that Congressman John Boccieri is now "undecided" on whether to vote for the Senate healthcare bill when it comes back to the House. If you live in the 16TH Congressional District, and want healthcare reform, now is the time to make sure that Bocceri hears from you. The numbers to call are:

Boccieri District Office

300 W Tuscarawas St.
Suite 716
Canton, OH 44702
(330) 489-4414
(800)826-9015

Boccieri DC Office

1516 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-3876

As always, be police and civil, but let the staffer know that you are willing to consider not voting in the Congressional race if Bocceri votes against healthcare reform.

Game Over in Massachusetts

Yesterday we published a piece called "Game On in Massachusetts". Well, as you can see from the headline above, the game is over in Massachusetts and we lost. Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley lost by about 2% of the vote. So now the junior Senator from Massachusetts is a Scott Brown who is determined to take America back to the Bush-Cheney years.

Now, part of the blame can be laid on Coakley herself. According to an online article, while Brown conducted 66 campaign events between the primary and election day, she only held 19. She came across as elitist and out of touch. Combine her campaign style with a bad economy, and it is easy to see why she lost.

Part of the problem is the way the Democrats handled health care. The Senate took way too long to pass the legislation; the need to get all 60 Senators who caucus with the Democrats to vote in favor of cutting off debate meant that conservative Dems like Nelson, Landrieu, and Lieberman had an enormous influence on the final product. This led to a dropping of the public option and pork-barrel politics that wasn't pretty to watch.

So was the refusal of the Obama administration to put the argument for the health-care reform issue in moral terms. For some reason, Democrats are reluctant to do that, while no such reluctance hinders their opponents. This is rather amazing because the moral argument is easy to make.

Studies from respected institutions like the Harvard Medical School put the number of Americans who die because of a lack of health insurance at 18,000 to 44,000 per year. This means that at least six times the number of people who died on 9-11 die each year because of how we structure medical care in this country.

So, this is what Republicans who oppose the Democrats on health care are for:

-Thousands of people needlessly dying
-Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions
-Medical bankruptcies
-Families devastated by uninsured illnesses

They recognize the political vulnerability of their position. You can tell it from the mantra they keep repeating, "We aren't against health care reform, we are just against this health care reform. We want to do it right." Which was exactly what Brown said last night during his victory speech. Only, guess what, he never tells you what that health care reform would look like because they don't have a plan. The shock isn't that Republicans campaign by being nihilists, the problem is that we don't call them on it.

Was Bobby Kennedy Right About Liberals?

Years ago I read a biography of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy in which the author wrote about Kennedy attending a liberal Democratic meeting on the West Side of Manhatten. After listening to them bicker among themselves for a long time, Kennedy, who had been invited there to talk about supporting a reform candidate for Judge of the Surrogate's Court, told one of his aides that he thought that his father had been right about liberals all along. What he meant by that was that his father believed that liberals demand too much perfection from candidates they support, and when they don't get it, they stop supporting them.

Flash forward to the 2010 special election in Massachusetts for the seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy. On the political blogs there is a lot of talk about whether liberals such as Jane Hamsher of Fire Dog Lake would rather have Martha Coakely lose then win. The reasoning goes that a victory by Brown, who is a very conservative Republican, and who is dedicated to stopping the health care bill, would actually be beneficial. Their thinking goes that the defeat of a bill they see as too corporate friendly would then lead the Democrats to somehow get together and pass a much more liberal bill, say, one that had a public option.

Here's my take on this issue. The defeat of the health care bill won't result in a better bill, it will result in no bill. Democrats like Nelson, Lincoln, and Bayh won't come for a more liberal bill, they will take the position that the status quo is what they should support. Why? Because they are not going to be persuaded that the loss of a Senate seat in Mass. means that people want a more liberal bill. They are going to think to themselves, "If freaking Mass. voters don't want a health care bill, then the residents of my state, which is far more conservative, don't want a health care bill."

I saw this in 1980, when liberal friends of mine supported first Kennedy over Carter and then John Anderson over Carter. What did that get them? Eight years of Reagan. Then in 2000, people like Nader said there was no difference between Gore and Bush. What did that get us? Eight years of Bush. Now, the same types are saying that there is no difference between Obama's health care bill and the status quo? What will that get us? More of the status quo.

If you are against this health care bill, and there is plenty of things I don't like about it, then this is what you are for:

1. Continued discrimination based on pre-existing conditions;
2. Continued caps on medical insurance benefits, which will result in more Americans going bankrupt;
3. The unavailability of medical insurance to the approximately 31 million people who would be covered by this plan; and
4. The continued deaths of 44,000 Americans per year because they don't have health insurance, according to a study from the Harvard Medical School.

That's your choice. The choice is not between some hypothetical health insurance bill that is never going to get passed, the choice is between the current bill and the status quo. That is what is at stake on Tuesday in Massachusetts.