In the words of Jonathan Chait:

a moderate Republican health care plan, by every substantive comparison or definition.

That does not mean it is not the right policy (I think it is not the right reform policy). But it certainly is not progressive reform. It has progressive elements, but the reform element of the health bill is not progressive. It is Republican reform.

Speaking for me only

Here is the complaint (PDF). I took a cursory glance and have little respect for the constitutional arguments against the mandate, though they clearly have more political potency. More plausible is the argument regarding the imposition of duties upon State officials:

The Act requires states to expand massively their Medicaid programs and to create exchanges through which individuals can purchase healthcare insurance coverage. The federal government is to provide partial funding for the exchanges, but will cease doing so after 2015. [. . .] The federal government will not provide necessary funding or resources to the states to administer the Act. Nevertheless, states will be required to provide oversight of the newly-created insurance markets, including, inter alia, instituting regulations, consumer protections, rate reviews, solvency and reserve fund requirements, and premium taxes. States also must enroll all of the newly-eligible Medicaid beneficiaries (many of whom will be subject to a penalty if they fail to enroll), coordinate enrollment with the new exchanges, and implement other specified changes. The Act further requires states to establish an office of health insurance consumer assistance or an ombudsman program to advocate for people in the new programs.

The GOP State AGs will argue this runs afoul of Printz. The complaint states:

Chris Bowers:

The goal is a more progressive Democratic caucus that still controls the House. We should be attempting to become majority partners in a governing coalition, not minority partners in a governing coalition (the current set-up), or majority partners in the loyal opposition.

Agreed.

Speaking for me only

Via Matt Taibbi:

As she inched toward the triumphant win, Nancy Pelosi issued a fact sheet about the bill that cheerfully quoted an E.J. Dionne editorial. The passage:

An op-ed by E.J. Dionne on Friday reveals that the current health reform legislation pending before Congress was �built on a series of principles that Republicans espoused for years.�

The most progressive legislation since Medicare? Puhleeeaze.

Speaking for me only

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

Kevin Drum writes:

So when Ross [Douthat] says "the chances for a rolling series of progressive victories have diminished," I think that's mistaken. There was never any real appetite for a rolling series of big progressive victories in the first place. There was healthcare reform plus a long list of tweaks and smaller projects. And that's what we're likely to get. [. . .] But big ticket items? There probably aren't any [. . .]

I could not disagree more. The biggest progressive ticket item for me is addressing income inequality. I am always amazed that people forget this. Indeed, it is emblematic of the problem that people forget (except for trotting out Marjorie Margolies Mezhvinsky last week) the truly most progressive initiative since Medicare, - the 1993 Clinton tax initiative (which lowered taxes on the poor and raised them on the rich), and the most anti-progressive policy of the Bush years (cutting taxes for the wealthy) when they discuss progressive goals. This used to be the heart and soul of Democratic politics and policy. It seems no longer.

Speaking for me only

In the middle of primary fights, citizens, activists and bloggers like to think their guy or woman is different. They are going to change the way politics works. They are going to not disappoint. In short, they are not going to be pols. That is, in a word, idiotic. Yes, they are all pols. And they do what they do. - December 6, 2007

Lawrence Lessig:

Obama's victory was achieved because his team played the old game brilliantly. Staffed with the very best from the league of conventional politics, his team bought off PhRMA (with the promise not to use market forces to force market prices for prescription drugs), and the insurance industry (with the promise (and in this moment of celebration, let's ignore the duplicity in this) that they would face no new competition from a public option), so that by the end, as Greenwald puts it, the administration succeeded in "bribing and accommodating them to such an extreme degree that they ended up affirmatively supporting a bill that lavishes them with massive benefits." Obama didn't "push[] back on the undue influence of special interests," as he said today. He bought them off. And the price he paid should make us all wonder: how much reform can this administration -- and this Nation -- afford?

Lessig dreams of change he can believe in. It is a pipe dream:

Brad DeLong joins E.J. Dionne:

Neither Democrats nor Republicans have an incentive to discuss the Republican roots of Obama's health-care plan. But that doesn't mean they're not real -- and deep.

[. . . T]he essence of the reform -- [. . .] Americans are now being asked not to shirk their responsibilities but rather to act like adults: to take on the burden, to the extent they are financially able, of making sure that when they wind up at the hospital the cost of paying for their care is not loaded onto somebody else's shoulders. The conservative DNA of ObamaCare is hardly a secret. [. . . T]here has been a conspiracy of silence among those working for the bill and those working against it.

(Emphasis supplied.) The fact that is is a conservative bill filled with Republican ideas does not make it bad substantively. But it certainly does make it hard to argue it is the greatest progressive achievement since Medicare. Indeed, that has been a long standing point for me - comparing the health bills to Medicare is absurd. Medicare and Obamacare take two fundamentally different paths. Medicare adopted a public insurance based approach and Obamacare took a regulated private health insurance market approach. One is the progressive approach - Medicare. One is a conservative approach - Obamacare. Whatever the merits of the health bills, surely adherence to progressive ideas on health care is not one of them.

Speaking for me only

The Democracy Restoration Act would restore federal voting rights to felons who have served their sentences. The bill was introduced last summer by Sen. Russ Feingold and Rep. John Conyers. The Judiciary Committee, Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee held a hearing on the bill last week.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, an estimated 5.3 million American citizens cannot vote because of a criminal conviction. Of these, 4 million are out of prison and living and working in the community. Restoring a person’s right to vote is a critical element to successful reentry into society after incarceration and consistent with our democracy’s modern ideal of universal suffrage. 4 million Americans cannot vote because they suffered a felony conviction.

It's way past time to change that. I had a female client in a fraud case several years ago. She was getting a six month sentence, but cried throughout the taking of her guilty plea. The judge asked her why she was so upset. She told him she had prepared to give up a lot of things for her crime, but the one that she was having the hardest time adjusting to was giving up her right to vote. She had always been a grass-roots volunteer and it was one of the most rewarding things she had done. She just couldn't fathom how if she pleaded guilty and did the time and was a model prisoner, why they wouldn't let her vote when she was done. A lifetime ban on federal voting is too great a penalty to pay, especially for one who had a single transgression and very unlikely to be back ever again.

The New York Times had this editorial urging passage this weekend. If this bill passes, I'll agree, we've had some change we can believe in. [more...]

A new season of Dancing With the Stars begins tonight. An odd assortment of "celebrities" -- seems really a "B list" this year. I wish they gave the co-host job to Melissa instead of Brooke. "24" is also on.

"Nurse Jackie" is back with its second season tonight on Showtime. Edie Falco (formerly of the Sopranos)is just great, as is the whole show.

10 states are going to sue to prevent implementation of the Health Care bill. Colorado will be one of them, according to our ultra-conservative Attorney General. Their primary objection (ostensibly): the provision requiring people to buy insurance: [More...]

U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson today ordered the release of Guanatanamo detainee Mohamedou Slahi,who has been held without charges since 2002.

The order is classified and has not been released. Prior investigations into Slahi's detention showed he had been subjected to severe abuse.

Those probes found Slahi had been subjected to sleep deprivation, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, moved around the base blindfolded, and at one point taken into the bay on a boat and threatened with death. Investigators also found interrogators had told him they would arrest his mother and have her jailed as the only female detainee at Guantánamo if he did not cooperate.

His abuse was so bad the military prosecutor in his case resigned. His lawyer, Nancy Hollander, says:

"He's been incarcerated, tortured and interrogated and rendered illegally," said attorney Nancy Hollander of Albuquerque, N.M., who represents Slahi free of charge. "After almost 10 years the government has not been able to meet the minimal burden to detain him that's required under habeas. He should be free."

Slahi is the 34th detainee ordered released by a federal court.[More...]

Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Texas admits being the person who shouted "baby killer" during Rep. Bart Stupak's health care remarks last night. But, he says he was referring to the bill, not Stupak, and insists his actual words were 'it's a baby killer'.

Until Neugebauer 'fessed up, his buddies played the "no snitching" card and refused to give him up. Said one:

Democratic Rep. David Obey of Minnesota, who was presiding over the debate at the time, told the Talking Points Memo that he knows who yelled at Stupak but “doesn’t see any point” in identifying the speaker.

“I think people have a right to make a fool out of themselves every once in a while without causing Armageddon,” he said.

He didn't just make a fool of himself. It was conduct unbecoming a Congressman and it denigrated his office and the entirety of the proceedings. Funny how they understand the principle when it's to protect one of their own.

Did you catch the end of the Michigan State-Maryland game yesterday? Unbelievable. I now predict a Kentucky (original pick) - Syracuse (new pick to replace bounced Kansas) final with Kentucky (original pick) winning it all.

This is an Open Thread.

Now that health care issues are basically tabled for the next decade (What? You think there will be more legislation like the Grayson Medicare for all bill? Dream on), what is next on the agenda? Let's hope some good old fashioned economic populism from the Dems. The best vehicle is financial regulation:

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., unveiled a bill Monday to overhaul the U.S. financial system, proposing new powers for the Federal Reserve to oversee the nation's largest financial firms; a consumer protection agency housed within the Fed; and a new systemic risk council headed by the Treasury Secretary to identify and monitor complex firms that could pose a threat to the country's financial stability.

Dodd's bill is entirely inadequate. Both on substance and politically. A lot of work needs to be done on this.

Speaking for me only

Chris Bowers writes:

Health reform has passed the House. I feel determined, in that this is just a step in the right direction. There is a long way to go before we achieve universal health care in this county.

I feel sad that it came at the cost of throwing reproductive rights under the bus. Any win that means hurting some of your friends is not a full win. I feel frustrated, because I know we could have won the public option campaign, but it didn't happen.

This is what progressive failure looks like under a Dem Administration and Congress. The health bills reject the progressive vision of health care reform and embrace market based view of health reform. Reproductive rights were sacrificed as were health coverage for undocumented aliens. All for someone else's vision of health reform. Let's hope that the progressive vision is wrong and that the President and the Village Dems are right.

Speaking for me only