--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity <no_re...@...> wrote:
>
> I am a supporter of Medicare for all but as a long time lobbyist on health
> care, I have to say that it never had a chance. There are a number of
> reasons for this, from the way senate rules work to the power of industry
> lobbies. There are something like 6 health care industry lobbyists per
> senator and representative. I had hoped we could phase in to something like
> that by allowing people over a certain age, like 55, to start medicare early,
> but that has gone nowhere either.
>
> It is tiring and hard work to make our way through all of this. I am working
> on trying to find ways for the GBO to quantify best practices savings. Muddy
> and difficult work and not very interesting to the public but of significant
> importance. Too much of the so called public debate and press coverage is
> not spent on important issues, but on rumors and side issues.
>
Ruth, hats off to you for doing yeowoman's work on health care. I understand
you have a nursing background, how did you get involved lobbying and what is
GBO?
Alegre's Corner posted Peter Daou's Huffington Post article "The debate over
health reform is playing out on the right's terms."
IMO Obama should have anticipated right wing resistance and clobbered them with
Single Payer from the git go. Daou's argument is more genteel. He blames the
Democrats for the mess but I think Obama could have provided better leadership.
Daou says that instead of letting the health care debate move into decidedly
right wing territory, the Democrats could have used the Overton Window. I love
this concept.
Wikipedia:
"...The Overton Window is a means of visualizing which ideas define that range
of acceptance where they fall in it...The idea is that priming the public with
fringe ideas intended to be and remain unacceptable, will make the real target
ideas seem more acceptable by comparison..."
With all his political capital, financial resources, political strategists,
media savvy people and access to a huge public forum, you have to wonder why
Obama didn't jump on Single Payer with both feet running from day one. Now he's
playing catch up to pass any old crappy bill. In a nutshell the Democrats ceded
use of the Overton Window to the Republicans. So as they happily push faux hot
button issues "death panels" "socialized medicine" "government control" to
agitate a grossly misinformed the public, health care reform falls over the
cliff.
Alegre's Corner:
"I disagree with Daou on one point. I don't think we are going to get something
"far weaker than we would have". I think we are going to get a policy Big
Media, Big Insurance and Big Pharma approved, [exactly what I have been saying]
that most liberals would protest if say a President Mitt Romney were proposing
it.
"Moving the Overton Window and Why Screaming "Teabaggers!" Isn't Helping"
Daily Howler also addresses the push right that health care has recieved for
decades and why just calling people stupid, sometimes racist, teabaggers, ain't
helping:
Via Daily Howler:
In one way, it's odd to think that we liberals may get our keisters kicked
again. It's odd because our side is so brilliant, while the other side is such
a gang of laughable wing-nuts. We liberals love to point this out, often
failing to ask ourselves how it is that the gang of nuts keep beating the gang
that's so brilliant. In the matter of health care, we've had fifteen years
since the last time we failed to get our talking-points and frameworks
together. But we keep playing the grasshopper on our side, as the ants on the
other side keep beaming out their messages. Very few citizens understand how
crazy our health care situation really is. They're satisfied with their own
health care, which makes reform hard. In part, they're satisfied because we've
never told them about the degree to which they're being looted.
We liberals are brilliant, but we somehow forgot to tell them over the
years. Now, too late, Obama tells them. (The last fifteen years are not his
fault.) But even Obama still can't seem to get his basic data straight. (Is it
really $6000 extra per person?) And he rushes through this point. When we rush
through basic points this way, we ensure that our points will not register.
In short, we liberals have done a miserable job over the past fifteen
years. But we remain very good at one thing; we're very good at telling
everyone else how stupid and foolish they are! Those who disagree with us are
"wing-nuts"—and now, they're "tea-baggers" too. We call them names every chance
we get, then marvel at the wing-nutty way they reject our advanced ideas.
We have not moved the Overton Window, and we don't have our talking points in
order, because us rank and file liberals have always demurred to our Party
Leaders to do the right thing without demanding they do the right thing. We
haven't moved the debate Left, because our leaders have never bothered much
with informing the public. They haven't told them about the looting.
Read More:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/olqjgp
http://alegrescorner.soapblox.net/showDiary.do?diaryId=3499
Black Agenda Report:
"Obama On Health Care: A Comprehensive Betrayal"
"The shrunken and eviscerated public option in the Obama health care plan may
now be discarded in favor of something called a health co-op. The mounting toll
of concessions to drug companies and bailouts of private insurers contained in
the Obama plan have transformed it, according to Rep. John Conyers, into
"crap," and threaten to make Obama a one-term president. Republicans, all the
while, are fighting Obamacare every bit as resolutely as if it were Medicare
For All, drumming up disinformed protesters for health care town meetings. And
the embargo of single payer media coverage continues, despite its being the
majority sentiment of Americans. This is the year of health care reform. Or
not."
Read More:
http://tinyurl.com/qvy8yx
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-health-care-comprehensive-betrayal-%E2%80%93-where-do-we-go-here
