Lesser Of Two Evils-- And You

These numbers aren't random-- there are reasons

If I lived in Virginia I'd be facing a real dilemma-- to vote for someone with as conservative a record as Ralph Northam as a way of preventing a potentially catastrophic Republican victory in the gubernatorial election in 2 weeks. There's no doubt who the lesser of the two evils facing Virginia voters. Lobbyist Ed Gillespie is a garden variety corrupt Republican and in a period when checking Trump and GOP power is tantamount, stopping Gillespie is crucial. But yesterday there was a little dust-up on Twitter because Our Revolution endorsed 6 progressive candidates-- Elizabeth Guzman, Kimberly Tucker, Joshua Cole, Lee Carter, Jennifer Carroll Foy and Will King-- for the House of Delegates without saying anything about Northam one way or the other. [Blue America has also endorsed Lee Carter, Elizabeth Guzman and Kimberly Tucker and 5 other House of Delegates candidates-- but hasn't endorsed in the gubernatorial race.]

I can't speak for Our Revolution but I can tell you why we've endorsed in the legislative races and why Northam is not on our gubernatorial page. Blue America's endorsement is tantamount to asking our members to contribute to a candidate. And endorsement is not about asking for someone for a vote-- most of our members don't live in Virginia-- it's about asking for a contribution. I'm not even sure if I would vote for Northam and I know for certain I wouldn't contribute a dime to his campaign. I would much rather give that money to our House of Delegates candidates or to gubernatorial candidates like Tom Wakely (TX), Ben Jealous (MD) or Daniel Miss (IL), proven progressives.

Northam is a proven something else-- a proven conservative. He admits he voted for George W. Bush-- both times. Is that your kind of Democrat? In his 2013 campaign Northam said "I don’t consider myself as a liberal... I think the less government, the better" and said he is "very conservative fiscally." He has a record to back it up. He's also been generally anti-immigrant over the course of his career until very recently.

Soon after Northam was first elected to the state Senate in 2007 he announced he was leaving the Democratic caucus and joining the Republicans, throwing control of the state Senate to the GOP. He said the reason he was switching was because of his fiscal conservatism. I don't know what the Democrats promised him-- plenty, no doubt-- but they persuaded him to change his mind. Whatever political calculus you decide on in regard to voting, if you live in Virginia, do you really want to back Northam without holding your nose?

The two most recent polls--Oct 17-- show him winning. Quinnipiac predicts a very substantial Northam win-- 53-39%-- and Fox News has Northam up a more modest but still definitive 49-42%. The reason Northam is up is because he's killing Gillespie among independent voters and among women. He has a favorable rating of 51% to Gillespie's 39%. And when respondents were asked "If a candidate for governor supports President Trump, does that make you more likely to vote for them, less likely to vote for them, or doesn't it have an impact either way," only 18% of likely voters said more likely, while 51% said less likely. Among independents 15% said supporting Trump would make them more likely to vote (for Gillespie). All the national pundits rate the race as "lean Democrat." And as of August 31 Northam had spent $10 million to Gillespie's $7.8 million. Northam had $5.6 million on hand, more than double Gillespie's $2.6 million. All that makes it easier to recommend to Blue America members to concentrate scarce resources on races that could flip the state legislature blue and do whatever they want about Northam.

OK, let's leave Virginia on the side for a moment. Look at these two, the picks of the Democratic establishment bosses in the Arizona and Nevada Senate races, two of the absolute worst Democrats in the House. (In the case of Kyrsten Simema, the worst of all.) Same dynamic as the Northam race-- supporting the lesser of two evils. I don't want to go into what pieces of crap these two are and how unfit they are for elected office-- you can read about that here and here-- and here. Or listen to Alan Grayson discussing it in a more theoretical way in this video:



Why is ObamaCare so unpopular? Among sane people, it's because there is no public option. Why is there no public option? Lesser of two evils Democrats defeated it. That simple. During the battle over the public option polling predicted a 2010 landslide for the GOP is the Democrats failed to pass the public option-- a prediction that came true as dozens and dozens of Democrats were defeated, primarily the Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who opposed the public option. The polling found that

• 68% of voters want a public health insurance option
• By 5 to 1, voters want their Representative to fight to add the public option over simply passing the Senate bill
• By 3 to 1, persuadable voters are less likely to vote for local Democrat if Congress doesn't pass a public option as part of reform
• 55% say Democrats need to do more to fight big corporations
• 56% say Democrats haven't done enough to fulfill Obama's 2008 campaign promises
• 52% of Democrats less likely to vote in 2010 if Congress doesn't pass public option-- Republicans more likely

There were 39 Democrats who joined the Republicans to vote against the public option in November of 2009. Almost all were defeated or forced to retire. But the DCCC is currently recruiting the exact same kind of garbage candidates for Congress, as if they want to reenact the same disaster in 2022 that befell the Democrats in 2010. Here's the list of the anti-healthcare "lesser-of-two evils":

• John Adler (Blue Dog, NJ)- DEFEATED
• Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)- DEFEATED
• Brian Baird (New Dem-WA)- RETIRED
• John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)- DEFEATED
• John Boccieri (Blue Dog-OH)- DEFEATED
• Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)- RETIRED
• Rick Boucher (VA)- DEFEATED
• Allen Boyd (Blue Dog-FL)- DEFEATED
• Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL)- DEFEATED
• Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)- DEFEATED
• Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS)- DEFEATED
• Artur Davis (New Dem-AL)- DEFEATED/Switched to GOP
• Lincoln Davis (Blue Dog-TN)- DEFEATED
• Chet Edwards (TX)- DEFEATED
• Bart Gordon (Blue Dog-TN)- RETIRED
• Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL)- DEFEATED/Switch to GOP
• Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (Blue Dog-SD)- DEFEATED
• Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA) DEFEATED IN PRIMARY
• Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC)- DEFEATED
• Suzanne Kosmas (Blue Dog-FL)- DEFEATED
• Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD)- DEFEATED
• Dennis Kucinich (contrary-OH)- DEFEATED IN PRIMARY
• Betsy Markey (Blue Dog-CO)- DEFEATED
• Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA)- DEFEATED
• Eric Massa (NY)- RESIGNED
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)- RETIRED
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)- RETIRED
• Mike McMahon (Blue Dog-NY)- DEFEATED
• Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA)- DEFEATED
• Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID)- DEFEATED
• Scott Murphy (Blue Dog-NY)- DEFEATED
• Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA)- DEFEATED
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)- DEFEATED
• Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)- RETIRED
• Ike Skelton (MO)- DEFEATED
• John Tanner (Blue Dog-TN)- RETIRED
• Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS)- DEFEATED/Switched to GOP
• Harry Teague (Blue Dog-NM)- DEFEATED

There was no reason for the Democratic base to turn out and support most of these shitheads-- so it didn't and they lost and the Democrats lost the House and... well, you know. There's a cost to allowing these conservatives pretending to be Democrats to get into Congress. So far this cycle the Blue Dogs and New Dems-- usually with the connivance of the DCCC-- are backing a large list of conservatives. Among them:

• Gretchen Driskell (MI-07)
• Brad Ashford (NE-02)
• Jay Hulings (TX-23)
• Anthony Brindisi (NY-22)
• Roger Huffstetler (VA-05)
• Brendan Kelly (IL-12)
• Dan McCready (NC-09)
• Paul Davis (KS-02)
• Dave Min (CA-45)
• Hans Keirstead (CA-48)
• Harley Rouda (CA-48)
• Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11)
• Elissa Slotkin (MI-08)
• Angie Craig (MN-02)
• Jana Lynne Sanchez (TX-06)

And even if you decide that a New Demo or Blue Dog is better than a Republican-- which on many things they are, even if not on many of the most important things-- this is still primary season we're talking about, when the best thing to do is to make sure progressives are nominated, not Blue Dogs and not New Dems. Here's a New York version of what I'm trying to get across:

2016-- And The GOP Is Still Playing Their Voters For Fools Over Obamacare And Planned Parenthood

Rubio has been boasting on the campaign trail and on Hate Talk Radio that he killed Obamacare. Since it isn't dead, he must be lying. Although he is trying. What he's trying to do is to lead an effort to deny requests to reimburse big insurers some $2.5 billion for unexpected losses suffered in 2014, which falls under a key Affordable Care Act provision known as risk corridors, included to help insurance companies that suffer higher-than-expected losses. Rubio with a cynical ploy persuaded Republicans to insist on "budget neutrality" and has engineered a $2.5 billion loss to insurers (like Blue Cross, Humana and Coventry. His objective is to drive up insurance rates so as to deny coverage to low income workers and their families. Half the state health cooperatives have closed as a result, which will also drive up costs, this time for consumers and diminish competition. And this snide little asshole is running for president, bragging to neanderthal audiences that he killed Obamacare.

Oddly enough, when ideologues suddenly become executives responsible for real people's lives-- Christie, Bush and Kasich love pointing out how Rubio has never actually done anything in his life except suck up to rich donors and pontificate-- things change. Kentucky's new far right governor, Matt Bevin campaigned on killing Obamacare in his state. Yeah, Tea Party avatar Matt Bevin understands that poor families need health care too. Kentucky will continue with Medicaid expansion (just like Kasich's neighboring Ohio and Christie's New Jersey).

After taking a beating from the far right before Christmas for not shutting down the government, Paul Ryan is trying to save face with another Death To Obamacare bill which he knows the president will veto. If the president wasn't a Democrat, however, we're back in the Republican land of no more coverage for preexisting conditions with a big donut hole sucking up money and at least 16 million currently insured people with no insurance. Paul Ryan can hand out as many Ayn Rand books as he wants, he's not going to get around those facts.

Today Ryan had his zombie Rules Committee teeing up a bill to make-believe defund Planned Parenthood and make-believe kill Obamacare, which he plans to have the House do another show vote tomorrow or the next day. Trumpf was making fun of Ryan in his standup routine in Massachusetts last night. All the little GOP robots will vote for it but it will be interesting to see, which Republicans do a different kind of calculus and decide not to. And it will also be interesting to see which Blue Dogs and New Dems go along with the Republicans. How many Hillary endorsers in Congress will cross the aisle and vote with the GOP to end health insurance for millions of families and to deny healthcare to women? Maybe none... maybe she's had a good influence on them. We'll soon see, won't we?

It's a shame that the childish Tea Party politics of the GOP prevent a mature look at the Affordable Care Act to actually fix some of the flaws. A study by Professors Tim Jost and Harold Pollack for the Century Foundation points out 6 ways to improve Obamacare. They start off by pointing out that "the ACA has largely succeeded in its principal task-- enrolling tens of millions of people in health insurance coverage. Indeed the period from 2010 to 2015 may be the most successful five years in the modern history of health policy" while achieving a great deal in the way of significant accomplishments. Three of many examples:

• Even with 20 Republican states refusing Medicaid expansion, the ACA has reduced the ranks of the uninsured by 17.6 million since 2010.

• Hospital expenditures for uncompensated care have plummeted by $7.4 billion, with the decline particularly great in states that embrace the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

• Public health care expenditure growth has markedly slowed, which suggests the change extends beyond transient economic patterns associated with the Great Recession. The ACA is now projected to reduce budget deficits far more than was projected at the bill’s passage.

Then they get into what Republicans and Democrats should be working on together to improve for the people who pithier handsome salaries, at least their legal handsome salaries. But playing partisan games that lead nowhere is much easier and more satisfying for them. They propose 19 steps to strengthen the ACA and make it more effective on every level, improving the access and affordability, creating more robust provider networks, enhancing competition among insurers, improving the consumer experience, and strengthening Medicaid, none of which, alas, interests Ryan or most of his conference.

Despite these accomplishments, our health care system continues to face serious challenges, some traceable to flaws and weaknesses in the ACA. The ACA undertook from the beginning an ambitious reform agenda, but some of its approaches have turned out to be ineffective, poorly targeted, or not ambitious enough to address deeply rooted problems.

Many of the remaining challenges in health care reform reflect the inherent complexities and path-dependency of the American system and were beyond the reach of any politically feasible reform. Perhaps the most serious problem-- which this report will address repeatedly-- is the inadequacy of the ACA’s subsidies and regulatory structures to address the problems of low-income Americans, for whom merely meeting the costs of day-to-day essentials is a continuing challenge, and for whom even modest monthly insurance premiums and cost-sharing are often serious barriers to health coverage and care.

Last night, the L.A. Times explained 5 of the most important of the 19 suggestions:

1- Fix the Family Glitch. Jost and Pollack properly call this "the most glaring defect" in the ACA's subsidy structure. Under the ACA, a worker is ineligible for ACA subsidies if he or she is offered affordable health coverage by an employer. Whether because of a drafting error or inattentive rulemaking by the IRS, that ineligibility extends to all members of the worker's family even if affordable family coverage isn't obtainable from the employer.

The Rand Corp. has estimated that the change would add as many as 4.7 million Americans to the rolls of the subsidized insured at a cost of up to $8.9 billion, or about two-tenths of one percent of the federal budget.

2- Improve subsidies and otherwise reduce the burden of cost-sharing. Sticker shock in the individual health insurance market has shifted from premiums to deductibles, co-pays and out-of-pocket limit. These still leave too many working-class families with heavy medical bills, and discourage some from signing up for insurance at all, even given the existing subsidies. That's especially true of families earning over the eligibility ceiling for tax subsidies, which is 400% of the federal poverty line ($97,000 for a family of four).

Jost and Pollack endorse increasing subsidies for families below 400% of the FPL, and providing those over that line with subsidies that would bring down coverage costs to a given percentage of household income -- say 8.5%. One option is to give those families the option of fixed-dollar tax credits that would improve insurance affordability while still leaving them responsible for most of the costs.

3- On Medicaid, give states an option they can't refuse. The Supreme Court in 2012 saved Obamacare generally but threw a monkey wrench into a key provision mandating that states expand Medicaid to cover the poorest households. The court made Medicaid expansion voluntary, and 20 states, all with GOP control of the legislature or governorship or both, are still holding out.

One common rationale of the holdouts is that the federal share of the expansion, which is 100% through this year, will gradually ratchet down to a permanent 90% through 2020. Jost and Pollack call this "one of the most generous federal-state financing arrangements in the history of health policy," and observe that expansion has been a boon to state governments and economies that have accepted the change.

But in some states it remains at least an ostensible argument against expansion, which has left more than 3 million Americans uncovered in the holdout states. So they propose making permanent a federal share at 100%. This will cost about $5.2 billion in 2020, when 11.9 million adults would be covered.

4- Eliminate estate recoveries from the new Medicaid patients. The ACA drafters overlooked that traditional Medicaid rules allow states to recover the cost of care from the estates of patients who received expensive care on the public's dime despite owning homes or other assets that could be sold to repay the program.

That provision remained in place for patients gaining coverage from Medicaid expansion, even though they're a discrete population and uniquely charged for coverage among ACA beneficiaries. (The tax subsidies enjoyed by wealthier insurance enrollees don't have to be paid back.) Several states say they may try to recover Medicaid expenditures from enrollees over 55; others such as California say they won't do so, but have the right to change their minds.

The provision is unfair at best and counterproductive at worst, since it may discourage some households eligible for Medicaid from signing up, fearing that their meager assets eventually will be seized. The rule is a recordkeeping nightmare and the return is insignificant. Jost and Pollack rightly say that Congress should kill it.

5- Restore the "public option" by offering Medicare to the 60+ population. The original public option, which resembled Medicare for all, was killed during the ACA's legislative phase by opposition from the drug industry, hospitals and physician groups, and medical device makers who feared having to negotiate prices with Medicare.

Jost and Pollack propose a demonstration program offering Medicare to Americans in the near-retirement cohort-- say ages 60 to 65, after which they're eligible for Medicare anyway. This group tends to have high medical needs, pay the highest insurance rates under the ACA's limited age-based cost ratings and often earn too much to be eligible for subsidies. But they might benefit the most from early admission to Medicare.

House Progressives Making Another Attempt To Overcome Conservatives And Pass A Public Option

Chellie and Jared-- still fighting for real healthcare reform

As we saw the other day, virtually the only way to turn the Senate health care bill into a positive-- a positive that would help re-elect worried Democratic freshmen-- would be to restore the public option. This is fully borne out by Research 2000 polling data that shows a snapshot of voter sentiment in 10 contested freshmen-held districts confirming that:

• 68% of voters want a public health insurance option

• By 5 to 1, voters want their Representative to fight to add the public option over simply passing the Senate bill

• By 3 to 1, persuadable voters are less likely to vote for local Democrat if Congress doesn't pass a public option as part of reform

• 55% say Democrats need to do more to fight big corporations

• 56% say Democrats haven't done enough to fulfill Obama's 2008 campaign promises

• 52% of Democrats less likely to vote in 2010 if Congress doesn't pass public option-- Republicans more likely

Yesterday two of the more progressive members of Congress, Jared Polis of Colorado and Chellie Pingree of Maine, sent an open letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking him to put the public option back on the table. The body of their letter:

Dear Majority Leader Reid:

As the Senate continues to work on health reform legislation, we strongly urge you to consider including a public option.

Here are the reasons for this request:

1) The public option is overwhelmingly popular.

A December New York Times poll shows that, despite the attacks of recent months, the American public supports the public option 59% to 29%. And a recent Research 2000 poll found 82% of people who supported President Obama in 2008 and Scott Brown for Senate last week also support the public option. Only 32% of this key constituency is in favor of the current Senate bill-- with more saying it “doesn’t go far enough” rather than it “goes too far.”

Support for health care legislation started to fall as popular provisions like the public option were stripped out and affordability standards were watered down. The American people want us to fight for them and against special interests like the insurance industry, and it is our responsibility to show them that their voices are being heard.

2) The public option will save billions for taxpayers, speaking to the fiscally-responsible sensibilities of our constituents.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the public option will save taxpayers anywhere from $25 billion to $110 billion and will save billions more when private insurers compete to bring down premium costs. The stronger the public option, the more money it saves.

By including the public option, we can simultaneously reduce tax increases and the deficit. This is a common-sense way to temper the frustration of Americans who question whether Congress is spending their money wisely and fighting for the middle class.

3) There is strong support in the Senate for a popular public option.

It is very likely that the public option could have passed the Senate, if brought up under majority-vote “budget reconciliation” rules. While there were valid reasons stated for not using reconciliation before, especially given that some important provisions of health care reform wouldn’t qualify under the reconciliation rules, those reasons no longer exist. The public option would clearly qualify as budget-related under reconciliation, and with the majority support it has garnered in the Senate, it should be included in any healthcare reform legislation that moves under reconciliation.

As Democrats forge “the path forward” on health care, we believe that passing the public option through reconciliation should be part of that path. We urge you to favorably consider our request to include a public option in the reconciliation process.

Democrats in the House are stampeding to sign onto the letter. There were already 28 co-signers the last time I looked: Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Robert Brady (D-PA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), John Conyers (D-MI), Pete DeFazio (D-OR), Michael Doyle (D-PA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Sam Farr (D-CA), Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Bob Filner (D-CA), John Garamendi (D-CA), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), John Hall (D-NY), Alcee Hastings (D-FL), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), George Miller (D-CA), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH), Paul Tonko (D-NY), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Peter Welch (D-VT), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and David Wu (D-OR).

A couple things I noticed. Every Oregon House member signed except the two conservatives, Republican Greg Walden and Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. And I see Lynn Woolsey signed. What's so strange about that? Well, nothing; Woolsey always votes right and more often than not stands up and fights for working families. But last week she threw her lot in with one of the most reactionary Democratic members of the House-- also the wealthiest-- Jane Harman and used as an excuse that Harman was so helpful on healthcare reform. House whips tell me Woolsey was making it up and that Harman has been a bad faith player behind the scenes. Today, of course, she refused to sign the letter to Reid.

I would venture to guess that if progressive community activist Marcy Winograd were already in Congress-- she's challenging Harman for the southwest Los Angeles seat-- she would have joined Polis and Pingree in writing the letter. In fact, I called Marcy and asked her about the letter and how she felt about this approach. Her response didn't surprise me:

The only hope for passage of a comprehensive health care bill rests with the inclusion of a public option that allows all of us to opt out of the wasteful and restrictive private insurance system. To coerce Americans to buy private insurance is not just a tough sell, but an impossible sell because we all know that to mandate private health insurance constitutes a corporate raid on our treasury. Look at what happened in Massachusetts; voter revolt.

Democrats still have an opportunity to provide quality and affordable health care for all-- and to win in the mid-term elections-- provided they get out from under the thumb of the health insurance lobby and demand a public option along the lines of Medicare.

America needs hundreds of Marcy Winograds fighting for us in Congress. Alas, there's only one. Please join Blue America in helping her replace a disgraceful Blue Dog with a long career of representing corporate managers over the interests of her own constituents, consumers, workers and ordinary families. You can do it here.


UPDATE: Picking Up Steam

The latest to sign on to the Polis/Pingree letter is chastened anti-healthcare freshman and Blue Dog Scott Murphy. Maybe he's looked at the polling and wants to be a Democrat again. The other recent sign-ons are Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Corrine Brown (D-FL), Mike Capuano (D-MA), Andre Carson (D-IN), Judy Chu (D-CA), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Susan Davis (D-CA), Danny Davis (D-IL), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Barney Frank (D-MA), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Phil Hare (D-IL), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Mike Honda (D-CA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), James Langevin (D-RI), Rick Larsen (D-CT), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jim McGovern (D-MA), James Moran (D-VA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), John Olver (D-MA), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Laura Richardson (D-CA), David Scott (Blue Dog-GA), Bobby Scott (D-VA), Jose Serrano (D-NY), Brad Sherman (D-CA), and Diane Watson (D-CA).

And more: Bill Delahunt (D-MA), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Rush Holt (D-NJ), David Price (D-NC), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), John Sarbanes (D-MD), and Ed Towns (D-NY) all signe don this afternoon. Even reactionary Blue Dog Jane Harman has now felt the pressure and put her name on the letter! How about commemorating Marcy Winograd's ability to push Harman into working for her constituents for a change with a donation to retire California's most treacherous Blue Dog?

And now it's 78: As Friday ended Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Jim Oberstar (D-MN), and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) became the 3 latest signers!

Can The Public Option Be Resuscitated?

Yesterday many of us got ominous-sounding e-mail alerts from DFA and MoveOn:

Howie -

After one bad Senate election, most Democrats in Washington are on the verge of full-fledged retreat and everything we've fought for together hangs in the balance.

President Obama has signaled he's open to dramatically scaling back health care reform. The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee says he might gut the financial reform bill to appease Republicans. And on top of all that, the Supreme Court just opened the floodgates of corporate cash on politics!

Retreat is exactly the wrong message for Democrats to take from recent election losses. The lesson from Massachusetts is that voters want more change-- not less. It's time for Democrats to stand up to corporate interests and fight for working families by passing healthcare reform and taking on Wall Street.

Amen! that. And then there's Congress-- which, alas, is made up of congressmen who are, alas, the very definition of "risk averse." And even worse than your typical overly cautious-- some would say, unkindly, "cowardly"-- congressman are your Democratic freshmen. They're bred-- or maybe "DCCC-selected" would be a better way to put it-- to never think of any good greater than next year's re-election race except for one thing: this year's re-election race. And when the Democratic freshmen caucus met last week the loudest and clearest message they had for leadership was that the Senate healthcare bill is one cup of poison they're not swallowing. Following that meeting, Speaker Pelosi announced she does not have the votes to pass the Senate bill.

What would make the Senate bill more acceptable to them? In other words, what would make it more probable that their constituents would vote for them? Well getting rid of the idiotic excise tax on what Corporate America and Fox have conveniently dubbed "Cadillac Plans" would make the bill less onerous and less unpopular but would it make it actually popular? Would anything, yes, all research-- short of Dick Armey surveys at astroturf events-- points to one thing: the public option. Look at that chart up top from Lake Research. Vulnerable freshmen have.

Our pals at DFA and PCCC are polling in several districts right now, districts represented by freshmen in shaky re-election races like Maryland Blue Dog Frank Kratovil (an opponent of healthcare reform) and Ohio progressive Mary Jo Kilroy (a supporter of healthcare reform). Here's part of a polling memo members of Congress have been looking at:

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that Americans are divided over congressional health reform proposals, but also that large shares of people, including skeptics, become more supportive after being told about many of the major provisions in the bills.

The January Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, conducted before the Massachusetts Senate vote, finds opinion is divided when it comes to the hotly debated legislation, with 42 percent supporting the proposals in the Congress, 41 percent opposing them and 16 percent withholding judgment. However, a different and more positive picture emerged when we examined the public’s awareness of, and reactions to, major provisions included in the bills. Majorities reported feeling more favorable toward the proposed legislation after learning about many of the key elements, with the notable exceptions of the individual mandate and the overall price tag.

For example, after hearing that tax credits would be available to small businesses that want to offer coverage to their employees, 73 percent said it made them more supportive of the legislation. Sixty-seven percent said they were more supportive when they heard that the legislation included health insurance exchanges, and 63 percent felt that way after being told that people could no longer be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Sixty percent were more supportive after hearing that the legislation would help close the Medicare “doughnut hole” so that seniors would no longer face a period of having to pay the full cost of their medicines. Of the 27 elements of the legislation tested in the poll, 17 moved a majority to feel more positively about the bills and two moved a majority to be more negative.

The DFA/PCCC polling should be out tomorrow is out now. Will it be enough to move the anti-reform Blue Dogs towards the plan for resuscitating the public option-- or even a Medicare buy-in for people between 50 and 65? It could happen although seeing reflexive aisle-crossers-- the ones who have voted with the Democrats less than a third of the time on substantive issues in the last year (like craven Blue Dogs Baron Hill, John Barrow, Ann Kirkpatrick, Chris Carney, Jim Matheson, Mike Ross, Heath Shuler, Joe Donnelly, Jason Altmire, Frank Kratovil, Jim Marshall, Glenn Nye, Scott Murphy, Walt Minnick, Charlie Melancon, Harry Mitchell, Dan Boren, Bobby Bright, or Mississippi reactionary Travis Childers who stood with the Democrats exactly 15.15% of the time, Boehner's favorite Blue Dog) seems about as likely as seeing Republicans make a move towards doing something to help working families.

Is there an answer? Not in the short run, I'm afraid. In the long run? Replace conservatives-- from both sides of the aisle-- with progressives. Join Blue America's crusade to send the Democratic Party a message by defeating conservative, anti-working family Democrats and replacing them with real Democrats who support the legitimate aspirations of ordinary Americans.

Closer To The Endgame-- Yesterday's Healthcare Action

The nice news about the anti-choice debate yesterday that crazed Republicans and ConservaDems used to try to derail healthcare reform was that it failed and that the Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe crossed the aisle to vote to protect women's right to choice. On the other hand, seven anti-choice Democrats voted with the Republicans, two of whom-- Kaufman (D-DE) and Casey (D-PA)-- are otherwise pretty progressive. The ConservaDems who voted against choice were Evan Bayh (IN), Ken Conrad (ND), Byron Dorgan (ND), Ben Nelson (NE), and Mark Pryor (AR). The final vote was 54-45, tabling the bill and, in effect, killing it.

Then McCain's disingenuous motion to recommit (kill) the entire bill, which failed 42-57 crossover votes from ex-Insurance exec Ben Nelson and Jim Webb, who once again proved that Creigh Deeds isn't the only Virginia Democrat moronic enough to thumb his nose at the base and expect to live. Indeed, in the immortal words of Arkansas anti-choice Senator Mark Pryor, "you don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate. Anyone who's watched C-Span-2 knows that. Now watch this in preparation for how the day wrapped up:



What happened next is anybody's guess at this point, although AP's report says the Democrats are giving up on the widely popular public option concept. No one is talking about what went on in the council of 5 progressives and 5 reactionaries, although Harry Reid released a statement that claimed the public option isn't dead; no other sources are backing that up. Reid:

It is a consensus that includes a public option and will help ensure the American people win in two ways: one, insurance companies will face more competition, and two, the American people will have more choices.

I know not all 10 Senators in the room agree on every single detail of this, nor will all 60 members of my caucus. But I know we all appreciate the hard work that these progressives and moderates have
done to move this historic debate forward.

But last night Russ Feingold, one of the progressive negotiators, didn't sound like he would be partying as hearty as Insurance company executives and lobbyists:

While I appreciate the willingness of all parties to engage in good-faith discussions, I do not support proposals that would replace the public option in the bill with a purely private approach.  We need to have some competition for the insurance industry to keep rates down and save taxpayer dollars. I will base my vote on the bill on the entirety of what is in the bill, and whether I think the bill is good for Wisconsin.

What I've been able to piece together is that there's a trade off-- what was left of the worthless, tattered joke of a "robust" public option for an unsubsidized, expensive expansion of Medicare (the new age, starting in 2011 will be 55 instead of 65) and some kind of bogus faux-public option that will someday be triggered by Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson buttfucking each other on Glenn Beck's show. Actually TPM says the trigger isn't as bad as the one I foresee.

As has been widely reported, one of the trade-offs will be to extend a version of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan to consumers in the exchanges. Insurance companies will have the option of creating nationally-based non-profit insurance plans that would offered on the exchanges in every state. However if insurance companies don't step up to the plate to offer such plans, that will trigger a national public option.

We'll see how many House members have the will to vote no and break with Obama who still is looked at by some people in the DC branch of the Democratic Party as better-- even if just a teensy weensy bit better-- than George W. Bush. (No, really.)



Wanna be talked off the ledge? Chris Bowers makes some good points about why what we think the compromise will look like isn't nearly as bad as some of us think it's turning out.

While it looks like we didn't get a new public option program, we have received at least:

• 4 million more people covered by Medicaid, which is a public option, than the July version of the House bill

• 1-2 million covered by a Medicare buy-in, which is also a public option, and which was entirely absent in the July version of the House bill

• An increase, from 85% in the July House bill to 90% now, in the percentage of money companies receive on health insurance premiums that must be spent on health care.

These are all concessions directly made to progressives in return for dropping a Medicare +5% public option that would have covered 10 million people.  Not bad.

Weekend Heathcare Debate

The Insurance Industry's dynamic duo-- in case Sen Showboat (I-CT) falters

After Lieberman gave up his Sabbath to be sure to be there to protect the interests of his generous Insurance Industry CEO pals, the rest of the Senate will follow suit today with an extremely rare Sunday session, devoted to making believe they're working for the American people on healthcare reform (instead of preening, posturing, and acting like psycho-drama queens in the late stages of senility).

Obama's dropping by, presumably to tell the Democrats to drop the public option, insuring that even the parts of the Democratic base that aren't ready to sit out 2010 because of his escalation in Afghanistan will completely lose all faith in a Democratic Party ready to abandon working families despite majorities in both Houses and control of the White House. Keep in mind that the troublemaking centrists who keep crossing the aisle and voting with the Republicans-- the way almost VP Evan Bayh (IN), currently petrified by an electoral challenge from far right teabagger John Hostettler, Blanche Lincoln (AR), shaking in her boots from attacks from both sides on her sleazy lobbyist connections, and Ben Nelson (NE), the Insurance Industry's pointman in Congress, did yesterday when Mike Johanns duplicitous motion to "protect" the GOP's beloved Medicare came up for a vote-- happen to be the very senators with whom Obama regularly voted with most frequently when he was a member of that august body.

Or maybe I'm wrong; I sure want to be! Maybe he's coming over to tell them to just make it Medicare for all-- the simplest, cleanest and most feasible proposal-- or perhaps a national health plan like the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, which members of Congress and federal workers have. It's nonprofit and administered by the Office of Personnel Management, something the Republicans and ConservaDems couldn't possibly be willing to embrace (although there was a rumor going around last night that Blanche Lincoln was saying she liked it. Presumably she hadn't heard from the Insurance lobby yet. I'm sure she has by now.)

McCain, easily the Senate's worst hypocrite and certainly one of the most corrupt members in terms of taking lobbyist dollars and slavishly serving corporate interests, keeps ranking and raving about deals between Democrats and lobbyists. His entire career has been built on just that kind of sleaziness. Watch him castigating Max Baucus, a ConservaDems who is nearly as corrupt as himself.

In his career McCain has taken $33,422,021 in legalistic payoffs from the Financial Sector while Baucus has taken in a hefty $4,757,318 from the same sleazy corporate interests. And each has done very well at the hands on the Medical-Industrial Complex-- McCain at $8,739,566 and Baucus at $2,905,731. In terms of the lobbyists themselves-- not their clients-- McCain is the most beloved member of Congress (either house) with $1,626,075, while Baucus has been given a less grand $756,484. It was like pigs wrestling in the mud to watch McCain fighting with everyone today. And it goes a long way towards explaining why Blue America will not be endorsing any incumbents in 2010 who aren't co-sponsors of the Fair Election Now Act (S. 752 or H.R. 1826). And we will only be endorsing challengers who explicitly agree to co-sponsor the bill once they are elected. If there's one thing we've seen from the sordid messes of Wall Street reform and healthcare reform, it's that the campaign finance system has the deck completely stacked against working Americans and our families.



UPDATE: Blanche's Amendment Fails

All the Republicans but Olympia Snowe (R-ME) voted against it and Lincoln allies like Lieberman, Ben Nelson and Tom Carper crossed the aisle and voted with the GOP. Normally on a vote like this it would be entirely reasonable to expect to see Lincoln voting against her own bill and with the GOP. The final vote on limiting deductibility for Insurance companies for executive compensation was 56-42.

Will Lieberman Give The Republicans The Margin They Need To Kill Healthcare Reform?

Crooks

Forget the public polling that shows most Americans want Congress to pass healthcare reform with a public option. Why forget it? Because your senators not only won't take public opinion into account, they would rather just focus on the Astroturfed rantings of last summer's moronic teabaggers than on legitimate expressions of public concern. [Watch Miss McConnell lying his ass off at the end of the video clip below.] It fits their own ideology-- and their own financial interests, since the Insurance Giants and Medical-Industrial Complex finance so many of their political careers-- and offer them and their families cushy jobs to boot. Take Hadassah Lieberman, for example, a notorious lobbyist for big PhRMA, who acts as a funnel for immense-- but undisclosed-- bribes from the Complex right into conveniently anti-healthcare reform fanatic Joe Lieberman's bank account.

Lieberman has been misrepresenting what the public option is and even got called on the carpet by Arlen Specter for doing just that! Of course, no one Inside the Beltway ever mentions Hadassah. Our elected officials are given a pass on the bribery thing, unless they write it down explicitly the way Duke Cunningham did-- or get caught with stacks of hot cash in their freezer the way William Jefferson did. But the really BIG money that senators like Lieberman get from special interests... how could a man of his obvious moral integrity even notice that the Medical-Industrial Complex has "donated" $2,397,369 to his career or that the Insurance Industry has heaped on another $1,037,652 when he's contemplating public policy? And all that without the payoff scheme that's been worked out through Hadassah. Gee, Lieberman wouldn't even campaign on the Sabbath for Gore-Lieberman in 1999 but he's tossing all that aside today so he can help his GOP allies and Insurance Industry paymasters kill the public option.

Paul Krugman chooses to argue about Lieberman's determination to pay back his corporate campaign donors as though his spurious arguments about "fiscal responsibility" were something more than just a tattered veil hiding his participation in a massive bribery scheme. Krugman argued this week that Lieberman and his senatorial cronies rending their clothes over fiscal responsibility "shouldn’t be worried about what would happen if health reform passes. They should, instead, be worried about what would happen if it doesn’t pass. For America can’t get control of its budget without controlling health care costs-- and this is our last, best chance to deal with these costs in a rational way."

The fact that we’re seeing the first really serious attempt to control health care costs as part of a bill that tries to cover the uninsured seems to confirm what would-be reformers have been saying for years: The path to cost control runs through universality. We can only tackle out-of-control costs as part of a deal that also provides Americans with the security of guaranteed health care.

That observation in itself should make anyone concerned with fiscal responsibility support this reform. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office has concluded, the proposed legislation would reduce, not increase, the budget deficit. And by giving us a chance, finally, to rein in the ever-growing spending of Medicare, it would greatly improve our long-run fiscal prospects.

But there’s another reason failure to pass reform would be devastating-- namely, the nature of the opposition.

The Republican campaign against health care reform has rested in part on the traditional arguments, arguments that go back to the days when Ronald Reagan was trying to scare Americans into opposing Medicare-- denunciations of “socialized medicine,” claims that universal health coverage is the road to tyranny, etc.

But in the closing rounds of the health care fight, the G.O.P. has focused more and more on an effort to demonize cost-control efforts. The Senate bill would impose “draconian cuts” on Medicare, says Senator John McCain, who proposed much deeper cuts just last year as part of his presidential campaign. “If you’re a senior and you’re on Medicare, you better be afraid of this bill,” says Senator Tom Coburn.

If these tactics work, and health reform fails, think of the message this would convey: It would signal that any effort to deal with the biggest budget problem we face will be successfully played by political opponents as an attack on older Americans. It would be a long time before anyone was willing to take on the challenge again; remember that after the failure of the Clinton effort, it was 16 years before the next try at health reform.

That’s why anyone who is truly concerned about fiscal policy should be anxious to see health reform succeed. If it fails, the demagogues will have won, and we probably won’t deal with our biggest fiscal problem until we’re forced into action by a nasty debt crisis.

So to the centrists still sitting on the fence over health reform: If you care about fiscal responsibility, you better be afraid of what will happen if reform fails.

But Krugman readers aren't Lieberman's crowd. He's gravitated to the thoroughly Republican territory covered by Fox News and the deceptively extremist editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. In fact his determination to kill reform is today's big "news" on that page.

Sitting in his office on Wednesday, he looks like he's having the time of his life. Ever since his bruising 2006 re-election, in which he quit the Democratic Party to run as an independent, Mr. Lieberman has been a man unleashed. He's caucused with Democrats yet campaigned for John McCain. He's enthusiastically supporting President Barack Obama's Afghanistan surge and just as spiritedly criticizing his decision to try 9/11 terrorists in U.S. courts. He's joined Democrats to reform health care, even as he's promised to torpedo their government-run insurance option.

And he can't be ignored: He's crucial to mustering the 60 votes necessary to overcome Republican filibusters. Mr. Lieberman says he was "surprised" to have his influence, but he isn't afraid to use it. "I always felt I was an independent-minded person... but there is no question that having been re-elected as an 'independent' does give me a feeling of liberation... I don't feel like I have to view everything through the prism of partisanship." He grins and adds: "Through anything."

Back in October, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid snipped that Mr. Lieberman was "the least of" his health care "problems." That's no longer true, if it ever was. He has the power to strip a public option out of the Senate health-care bill, and even demand a more moderate rewrite. Mr. Lieberman himself puts the odds of a bill getting through at "greater than 50-50" but bluntly warns: "It won't be what Senator Reid put in."

"They are going to have to drop some things... the obvious being the public option"-- a controversial, government-run insurance program that Mr. Lieberman adamantly opposes on philosophical and economic grounds. Unlike some Democrats who have criticized it but remained open to negotiation, he says he is not bluffing.

"I'm being more stubborn and certain about this... I think it's such a significant step for the country to create another entitlement program and to have the government going into a business, I feel like I've got to say no."

When Mr. Lieberman says no public option, he means no public option-- not an "opt-in" or an "opt out" or a "trigger" (a public option only comes into effect if private insurers fail to spread enough coverage). "We are at the point now where this has become the classic legislative process of trying to get a fig leaf that everyone can hide behind. And I don't want to do that."

Why is he adamant? Mr. Lieberman says that while he is not "a conspiratorial person," he believes the public option is intended as a way for the government to take over health care. "I've been working for health-care reform in different ways since I arrived here," he says. "It was always about how do we make the system more efficient and less costly, and how do we expand coverage to people who can't afford it, and how do we adopt some consumer protections from the insurance companies... So where did this public option come from?" It was barely a blip, he says, in last year's presidential campaign.

"I started to ask some of my colleagues in the Democratic caucus, privately, and two of them said "some in our caucus, and some outside in interest groups, after the president won such a great victory and there were more Democrats in the Senate and the House, said this is the moment to go for single payer.'" So, I joke, the senator is, in fact, as big a "conspiracy theorist" as me. He laughingly rejoins: "But I have evidence!"

Mr. Lieberman notes that the public option serves no other purpose: "It doesn't help one poor person get insurance who doesn't have it now. It doesn't compel one insurance company to provide insurance to somebody who has an illness. And... it doesn't do anything to reduce the cost of insurance."
Mr. Lieberman dismisses Democratic arguments that it is necessary to keep insurers honest. "Sometimes the private sector does things that are wrong, and when they do, you regulate-- sometimes you litigate," he says. "But never in the history of America... have we tried to keep one industry honest by having government go into that business to compete with the industry."

Plenty more of this kind of drivel at the link.

SIDESHOW: Blanche Lincoln Goes Faux Populist

Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, who serves the same corrupt corporate special interests as Lieberman, is no less determined to kill healthcare reform on their behalf as he is. This year only one member of the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, has taken in more corporate lucre from the Medical-Industrial Complex than Lincoln. So far they have "donated" $474,950 towards her doomed re-election campaign, even more than she's gotten from her usually #1 source of bribes, AgriBusiness, which has given her $449,950 this year (around 4 times more than any other member of the Senate). But she's put forward the fake populist bill to trick voters into thinking the heavily bribed senators are looking out for their interests.

Have We Been Stabbed In The Back By Larry Kissell?

Is Larry Kissell sending out résumés for a teaching job in 2011?

Thursday I started getting urgent e-mails from several friends on Capitol Hill. I would have rather heard from Blueberry Hill. Larry Kissell, a freshman Democrat from North Carolina, was making noises about killing the health care bill. Why would they be contacting me out in L.A.? Well, in 2006 Blue America raised $10,995 for him, and last year we raised him another $15,331. On top of that, the Blue America blogs promoted his candidacy relentlessly and gave him the idea that put him on the front pages, the gas station promotion in 2006, and spent around $50,000 in the last few days of the 2008 campaign on the TV ad below:



Yesterday James at BlueNC spoke for the entire blogosphere when he expressed his heartfelt remorse for having endorsed Kissell. Since getting into Congress, Kissell has not only swung way to the right of the promises he made during the campaign, but he has refused to engage with his former supporters. I haven't been able to get his office to return a call or e-mail in months. The last exchange was on August 18. I asked his chief of staff if he'd be interested in signing on to the Blue America effort we had put together to thank the members of Congress who were standing firm on the public option. As you can see at the link above, he never joined. He also never responded. The exchange:

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 1:59 PM, HowieKlein wrote:

I would love to add Larry to this list. We'll be pounding this across the blogosphere all week and we'll be re-setting the goal to $100,000. Any chance he wants to get onboard?

http://www.actblue.com/page/theytookthepledge

The response, in part:

"That is a great list of folks. I'm picking him up at the airport later this evening. I'll discuss it with him and get back with you. He supports public option."

He may have had some reservations, but despite the promise to get back with me, I never heard from him or his staff again, and eventually gave up e-mailing and calling. Until yesterday, when I called to see if I could get a clarification about his position on health care. Crickets. And today: more crickets.

Inside the caucus he doesn't have a reputation for being the sharpest tool in the drawer, and one of his brighter colleagues wondered aloud why he even wants to be a congressman-- "just to live in fear everyday? Is he that hard up for the paycheck?"

Kissell-- who unlike fellow freshmen Suzanne Kosmas (FL) and John Adler (NJ) , isn't corrupt and doesn't take piles of money from special interests-- is similar to some of his colleagues in another way. They're scared of Republicans, scared of teabaggers, scared of Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter and Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh. These people smell their fear and come after people like Larry Kissell. "I have a lot of old people in my district," he whined. So? The AARP-- their own organization-- is backing the bill, even if Glenn Beck and Virginia Foxx aren't.

I'm afraid what Kissell has done was confuse himself about what happened in Virginia Tuesday. The conservative Democrat, Creigh Deeds, got up during a debate and said he would opt out of the public option if he were elected. The result wasn't to make Republicans-- the only ones who support that position-- vote for him. They voted for the Republican, of course. But what killed Deeds-- and what will kill Kissell and cowards like him-- is that Democrats get turned off by this kind of bullshit. Bush won NC-08 in 2000 and in 2004. But Obama beat McCain 53-47%-- considerably better than he did statewide. And Kissell beat the incumbent, Robin Hayes, 55-45%.

Next year, Kissell-- who has a reputation as an abysmal fundraiser, and won't get a dime from the netroots ever again-- is being challenged by retired Army Col. Lou Huddleston. Huddleston and GOP front groups will call Kissell a Nancy Pelosi clone no matter how he votes and no matter what he does. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh fans are not going to vote for Larry Kissell. And if he follows through with his threats to vote against health care reform, neither will Democrats, just the way they didn't come out to vote for Deeds in Virginia.

The Hill has a running whip count they keep updating. As you can see, Kissell isn't the only Democrat betraying his own constituents, although many of the others were bought off. Jim Himes (D-CT, $60,787), Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL, $55,516), John Adler (D-NJ, $50,967), Dan Maffei (D-NY, $46,587) and Walt Minnick (D-ID, $38,517) are the Democratic freshmen who took in the biggest contributions from the Insurance giants. Kosmas, Adler and Minnick have all come out against the kind of meaningful health care reform the K Street whores they throw down with oppose. We're eager to hear from Himes and Maffei, and I feel confident that both will put their constituents before their donors, the way non-Blue Dog Democrats are supposed to do.


UPDATE: Big Changes In The Hill Whip Count This Morning

Reactionary Pennsylvania Blue Dog Jason Altmire was bragging how a call from Obama didn't sway him and that he's still leaning "no" but that he won't announce a final vote before he casts it. Drama queen! Meanwhile a slew of other Democrats who were on the fence last night have come down on one side or the other. As we expected anti-choice progressives Marcy Kaptur (OH) and Jim Langevin (RI) are now leaning "yes." Conservative Dems Gerry Connolly (VA), Leonard Boswell (Blue Dog-IA), Kathy Dahlkemper (Blue Dog-PA), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Gabby Giffords (Blue Dog-AZ), Earl Pomeroy (Blue Dog-ND) have all come on board.

On the "no" side, we now have Democrats who think the way to victory in 2010 is the Creigh Deeds route of alienating Democrats by trying to placate Republicans. I'll go out on a limb and predict defeats for the Dems who added themselves to the "No" list: Harry Teague (NM), Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA), Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD), Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL), Artur Davis (AL), and, tragically, Larry Kissell (NC), now in the firm no column.

Meanwhile the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops-- apparently happy that there will be an up or down vote that will, effectively, cut off access to legal abortion for anyone who can't pay in cash-- has endorsed the bill. That probably explains why Dahlkemper, Connolly and Kaptur came on board. I guess Michael MacMahon (Staten Island) still believes in the Creigh Deeds route more than the Jesus route.

Time To Take Action Against Joe Lieberman

Holy Joe says: "Revenge is a dish best served over and
over and over again." (Don't forget to click to enlarge.)

Our pals at CREDO Mobile and Democrats.com are gathering signatures for a petition to remove Lieberman from his chairmanship if he bolts to the Republicans-- as he says he has decided to do-- and filibusters the health care reform bill. We don't push too many petitions here but this is one I really recommend you consider signing. It makes more sense than most, to begin with:

Sen. Lieberman plans to join with Republicans to filibuster any health care bill that contains a public option. Alone, the Republicans don't have the votes for a filibuster. So by joining with them, Lieberman would be tipping the balance of power in order to sink health care reform.

We need to push the leaders of the Democratic caucus to take a tough stand against Lieberman. Last year, the New York Times quoted an anonymous "member of the Senate Democratic leadership" who said about Lieberman:

"We need every vote. He's with us on everything but the war."

But now Joe Lieberman has announced that he will support the filibuster of any for a health care bill that contains the public option. He justifies this position by saying that a government-run health insurance option will cost taxpayers and increase the National Debt even though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts $100 billion in savings thanks to the public option. He further claims that his position is what is best for his constituents, even though polling in Connecticut shows that among likely voters 68 percent favor a public option, while only 21 percent oppose it.

Now is the time for Senate Democratic leadership-- Senators Reid, Schumer, and Durbin-- to stop making excuses for Joe Lieberman. Harry Reid has shown great leadership in writing a health care bill that includes the public option. But Joe Lieberman is not "with us" on everything but the war. Joe Lieberman's position is against Senate Democrats, against his constituents in Connecticut and against the will of the American public.

Actions must have consequences. Any senator who filibusters the public option does not deserve a chairmanship and should be removed from his or her post.

Lieberman and his wife have taken millions of dollars in barely disguised bribes from the insurance industry and Medical-Industrial Complex, she as one of Washington's more notorious K Street Whores, he as a senator always willing to sell his votes to the highest corporate bidder. There's no way to know precisely how much money she's been paid as a lobbyist for these sleazy characters-- it's widely believed to be in the millions-- but the hypocritical senator from Connecticut has gobbled up $1,037,402 from Big Insurance and another $2,397,369 directly from the "Health" lobby.

Much more to the liking of Big Insurance and the vested interests Lieberman always sides with against his own constituents is the joke of a "reform" bill Boehner has finally managed to come up with (he says). The Boehner bill, according to the Wall Street Journal "wouldn't seek to prevent health-insurance companies from denying sick people insurance." This bill, based on a deliberate campaign of Republican lies, distortions and fear-mongering, is the bill Lieberman will feel the most affinity with. It's also the bill Mormon Senator Orrin Hatch supports, but for very bizarre reasons. Hatch fears that the Democratic reforms will be so popular with Americans that no one will ever vote for the GOP again. He actually told CNSNews.com that the success of health care reform would be a threat to the two-party system. There's not much we can do about Hatch... but please sign the petition to Harry Reid and Dick Durbin in regard to Lieberman. And then treat yourself to some Drunken Sufis:

Blue America Just Got An Urgent Message From Blanche Lincoln

Will the Insurance Industry lobbyists' expensive insurance be effective this time?

No, it wasn't a direct message, although she's probably thankful and relieved that we haven't run any more of our TV ads in a few weeks. Our pals at the PCCC polled for ad effectiveness and sent us a heartening message this morning. The TV spots-- all of which were paid for by contributions at the Blue America Campaign For Heath Care Choice page-- were seen by a startling 44% of Arkansas voters, including 47% of Democrats, our target audience. The message from Blanche referred to in the headline was a statement, couched in false Republican talking points about a government take over of health care, that she still won't support a public option." She's the only Democrat who has flatly stated that she would join the Republican filibuster of Employee Free Choice and on Capitol Hill her threat to do the same for Health Care Reform has encouraged Insurance industry lobbyists to demand deadly modifications to the legislation that will make the bill far more expensive and far less effective. Blanche Lincoln is a cancer on the country's hopes and aspirations. She is even more so a cancer on the hopes and aspirations of the working families in her own state.

A brand new poll that was released today, shows that 56% of all Arkansas citizens favor the public option Blanche is working so hard to kill. Among women that figure rises to 62% and among Democrats to a staggering 83%. Even one in 5 Republicans favor the public option! And 49% of Democrats say they would be less likely to vote fro her next year if she joins the Republican filibuster to kill the public option and stop health care reform in its tracks. So... time for some more ads.

Our old pals from Donkey On The Edge, who were responsible for the "David Dreier: Bush Rubber Stamp" campaign ads are creating a new ad campaign right now. We hope to increase the number of Democrats who have seen the health care ads from 47% to over 50%. I hope you'll give us a hand with that. Forcing Blanche Lincoln to commit to an up-or-down vote on health care, regardless of how she plans to vote on the bill itself, is the only way this bill will even get voted on.

Even more so than most of her colleagues, she's steeped in corruption. So far, in this electoral cycle alone the Medical-Industrial Complex has shoveled $427,950 into her re-election campaign, more than to any other member of Congress other than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. That's right, they've given her more than even their full time paid Senate shills like Arlen Specter ($324,410), Richard Burr ($275,032), Chuck Grassley ($248,560), Orrin Hatch ($217,187) or David Diapers Vitter ($141,350). Across her whole shameful career she's taken $1,724,658 in thinly-veiled bribes from this one sector alone-- and these guys aren't even close to being her main source of funding.

Our ads have helped bring down her favorability rating gigantically. That's something she understands. She's gotten her allies to ask us to stop. And we will, as soon as she commits to voting for cloture against the Republican filibuster of health care. Contributions will allow us to blanket Arkansas with our new ads. Even $10 and $20 donations add up, especially in a state like Arkansas where spots on television cost a small fraction of what they cost in cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago or Dallas.