[Peace-discuss] Need for a new party

Wed Jan 20 23:13:10 CST 2010

"A mere seven months ago, The New York Times/ CBS poll found that 72% of 
Americans 'supported a government-administered insurance plan - something like 
Medicare [for all]' ...  By accepting and indeed expanding the Bush 
administration's strategy of throwing money at Wall Street, Obama ceded the 
populist label to the Tea Party ... A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll finds 
that 'Americans ranked job creation and economic growth as their clear top 
priority for the federal government, well above national security and deficit 
reduction...'"

	Published on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by TruthDig.com
	What Massachusetts Got Right
	by Robert Scheer

The president got creamed in Massachusetts. No amount of blaming this disastrous 
outcome on the weaknesses of the local Democratic candidate or her Republican 
opponent's strengths can gainsay that fact. Obama's opportunistic search for 
win-win solutions to our health care concerns and our larger economic problems 
is leading to a lose-lose outcome for the president and the country.

The two issues that mattered on Election Day were the economy, which Obama has 
sold out to Wall Street-as quite a few disgruntled voters pointed out-and his 
plea to save health care reform, which the voters who had backed him for the 
presidency with a huge majority now spurned. It is significant that it was the 
voters of Massachusetts who have now derailed the Democrats' efforts to revamp 
the country's health care system by denying them the necessary 60th vote in the 
Senate, for these voters know the subject well.

The federal proposal is based on their own state's model requiring people to 
obtain health insurance without the state doing anything to effectively control 
costs through an alternative to the private insurance corporations. Lacking a 
public option, the cost of health care in Massachusetts, already the highest in 
the nation at the time of the plan's implementation, has spiraled upward. 
Services have been curtailed, and many, particularly younger people, feel they 
are being forced to sacrifice to pay for a system that doesn't work.

Instead of blindly following the failed Massachusetts model, Obama should have 
insisted on an extension of the Medicare program to all who are willing to pay 
for it. He squandered the opportunity to bring about meaningful health care 
change that the public would have supported had it been kept simple and just. 
Instead, Obama gave away the store to medical profiteers. They, in turn, 
hopelessly muddied the waters with well-funded scare advertising tactics that 
principled leadership on Obama's part could have thwarted.

A mere seven months ago, The New York Times/ CBS poll found that 72% of 
Americans "supported a government-administered insurance plan-something like 
Medicare for those under 65-that would compete for customers with private 
insurers." Even half of those identified as Republican said they would back such 
a public plan, as would three out of four independents and 90% of Democrats. 
Instead of heeding that call by endorsing a serious extension of Medicare, along 
with increased subsidies for those who could not afford it, Obama played to the 
conservatives in Congress-and they rolled him.

If he wasn't prepared to make a breakthrough in health care, and that meant a 
reform program that would begin sooner rather than later, he should have put it 
on a back burner. The furor over a very unsatisfactory plan drew attention from 
the far bigger crisis concerning the meltdown of the nation's economy. By 
accepting and indeed expanding the Bush administration's strategy of throwing 
money at Wall Street, Obama ceded the populist label to the Tea Party 
Republicans who now pretend that a banking mess brought about by their radical 
deregulatory philosophy is not of their making.

It is the economy, stupid, and the sooner Obama grasps that, the better for his 
and the nation's prospects. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll finds that 
"Americans ranked job creation and economic growth as their clear top priority 
for the federal government, well above national security and deficit reduction. 
Health care, Mr. Obama's top domestic priority in 2009, now ranks fourth, 
closely trailing the deficit and government spending."

Of course, the public is right. In the midst of the worst economic crisis in 70 
years, why waste enormous political capital battling to pass a health care plan 
that is modeled on a proven failure in Massachusetts, as voters there clearly 
registered? Meanwhile, the president has dropped the ball in the effort to make 
bankers act responsibly by forcing them to forego outrageous bonuses and help 
homeowners stay in their homes.

Again quoting the message of that Wall Street Journal/NBC poll: "The president's 
focus on health care amid heightened job concerns could be hurting his ratings. 
At the one-year mark of his presidency, 35% of Americans said they were ‘quite' 
or extremely' confident he had the right priorities to improve the economy, down 
from 46% at midyear." The Journal noted that a majority disapproved of the 
government's response to the financial crisis, adding, "The related problem for 
Mr. Obama is the public's lingering anger about the bailouts of 2008 and 2009, 
which helped boost bank profits even as unemployment grew-a toxic political 
problem."

To salvage his presidency, Obama must reverse course and make solving the "toxic 
political problem" of Wall Street greed that's bankrupting the country his 
highest priority.

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