Ambiguous prognoses have come from other pols and been dutifully reported in the press. In a piece the AP moved a day before Obama’s remarks at the Democrat’s fundraiser, Erica Werner noted that there was “greater skepticism among some rank-and-file Democrats,” and asked California congressmen Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa, moderates who supported the House bill, about the fate of health reform. They “burst out laughing,” Werner reported. “Those people [the ones circulating a letter in support of the public option] are delusional,” Cardoza said. But Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva told Werner “Don’t write the obituary yet.” Nancy Pelosi had the last word in Werner’s story. “We are on track to have comprehensive health care reform for our country…and there are several paths to that goal.”
If Grijalva wasn’t writing the obituary, Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius might have been. Way back in August, Sebelius said that the president could live without the public plan, and it turned out she was right. Last week, the secretary told the Senate Finance Committee: “I am not a principal in the negotiations. Nor is my staff.” What kind of administration would be negotiating major health reform bills without its Secretary for Health and Human Services in the thick of it?
Historical footnote: During the negotiations for Medicare, officials from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (as the agency was then called) were heavily involved, particularly Wilbur Cohen, who was once called The Man Who Built Medicare. Politico and the AP have done a jolly good job bringing to light the ambiguity (and absurdity) of this phase of reform.
“I am not a principal in the negotiations. Nor is my staff.”
Things like this are the reason that the rest of the world is moving forward while the US government and both parties seem determined to keep Americans trapped in the Reagan era.
I guess the Dems are particularly reluctant to ever actually solve health care for good (for example, with single payer) because they see it as the issue that keeps giving them victories, vote-wise, forever, as long as its unsolved.
Kind of like crime and the GOP before Roe vs. Wade.
Thank you, Trudy, for not falling for their massive BS campaign.
#1 Posted by Kevin Ogre, CJR on Mon 8 Feb 2010 at 06:15 PM
Ms. Lieberman wrote: "For the last two years, the coverage of health care politics has, for the most part, hinged on what newsmakers—and I use that term broadly—have said."
padikiller responds: Well, given the fact that the Democrats have locked everyone except the K Street Lobbyist Brigade out of their secret "health reform" negotiations, what do you expect?
Do you want James O'Keefe and his girlfriend to pose as Capitol maintenance guys in order to weasel their way past the locked doors of the committee rooms to see what the Democrats are up to?
Without the press clamoring for the promised transparency, do you honestly expect that anyone can predict what the Dems are going to do without a Ouija board?
As usual, the MSM runs cover for the Dems, fostering their backhanded secretive political wheeling and dealing and conspiring with them to keep the readers uniformed until the "secret plan" is ready to be crammed down their throats.
#2 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 9 Feb 2010 at 12:57 PM
padikiller adds nothing to the discussion and likely thinks Obama is a socialist longing for a "govt. takeover of healthcare" while padikiller hollers "and keep your hands off my medicare". Thanks, Trudy, for your substantive work on this important issue.
#3 Posted by Scott, CJR on Wed 10 Feb 2010 at 02:26 PM
You're welcome, Scott
#4 Posted by Trudy Lieberman, CJR on Wed 10 Feb 2010 at 04:45 PM
Seriously....
How do you expect the press to be able to cover the health care debate when the Democrats hold secret negotations and do everything they can do to rush votes without the least bit of public scrutiny?
Huh?
#5 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 10 Feb 2010 at 06:52 PM
Trudy: You may not like Padkiller's caustic style (or mine), but his observation is spot on - the Administration's decision to negotiate the health care bill behind closed doors is making a mockery of Obama's promises of open government. If it were the Republicans were doing something similar your heads would be exploding.
It's obvious that Obama's mixed signals are a symptom of his inexperience. He's never managed anything before.
He's also still in campaign mode, relying on Axelrod to tell him which way the wind blows. At some point he'll have to take a stand, but perhaps it's already too late for this initiative.
#6 Posted by JLD, CJR on Wed 10 Feb 2010 at 08:03 PM
C'mon, Padi, JLD. You both spend a lot of time here, which means you both ought to know that:
1) Trudy has not been shy about criticizing the Democrats' handling of health reform. Check her Baucus Watch series, for example, or any number of other pieces she has written about Obama's poor leadership on the issue.
2) Trudy has essentially spent the last fourteen months advising reporters on better ways to cover health reform. Here's her main theme: Rather than waiting for Capitol Hill to tell them what to write, they should instead go out and find other ways to explain what's going on; rather than getting bogged down in political he said/she said, they should report stories that'll help regular people understand what health reform might mean for them. Check her Health Reform Lessons from Massachusetts series, to start. Both the House and the Senate plans are modeled after the Massachusetts plan; Trudy has long urged reporters to more seriously examine that plan's flaws and effects, as a way of exposing and explaining the likely flaws and effects of the health reform plans under consideration in Washington.
#7 Posted by Justin Peters, CJR on Fri 12 Feb 2010 at 02:53 PM
Ms. Lieberman's previous coverage makes her current position even more frustrating. The problem is that press is largely standing by at this critical time, giving Pelosi, Reid and Obama a free pass to wheel and deal in closed sessions with lobbyists.
The easiset way out all this mess is for reporters and their editors to put the heat (real heat) on Dem congressmen (especially those facing tough elections) to explain (i) why their leaders are negotiating secret health care deals with lobbyists and the White House behind closed doors and (ii) why they haven't done anything to stop it.
How in the heck is any reporter supposed to explain "what health reform" might mean to anyone? We have two very different bills passed by each house of Congress, and a litany of secret plans and clever tricks in the pockets of the party in power.
Are we going to have the "public option"? Tax breaks for union plans? Funding for abortions? Who knows?
The only way to narrow the issues is to put the people in power on the spot, and it will be snowy day in the Hot Place before you see a concerted effort from the "professional journalists" of the MSM to rock the Democratic boat.
#8 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 12 Feb 2010 at 03:54 PM