The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round...

Team Obama previews their latest risky marketing scheme for their risky health care reform (or is it still health insurance reform?  We'll find out soon!):

Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.

Obama is considering detailing his health-care demands in a major speech as soon as next week, when Congress returns from the August recess. And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said.

“We’re entering a new season,” senior adviser David Axelrod said in a telephone interview. “It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done. We’re confident that we can do that. But obviously it is a different phase. We’re going to approach it in a different way. The president is going to be very active.

Marc Ambinder has details about what is in and what is iffy; the public option is on life support:

[Obama] will insist upon a mechanism to cut costs and increase competition among insurance companies -- and perhaps will even specify a percentage rate -- and he will say that his preferred mechanism remains a government-subsidized public health insurance option, but he will remain agnostic about whether the plan must include a robust public option. Officials won't say whether the president intends to endorse a specific "trigger" mechanism if the competition mechanism fails, but they say he will make it clear that the final bill must contain language that increases competition.

This is classic Obama, who has made a carer of positioning himself as the voice of calm reason intermediating between the loonies of the left (Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright) and the crazies of the right (Sen. Tom Coburn, his unrepentant racist grandmother).  Obama will want to assure moderates and centrists that he is truly one of them by pitching some part of the Pelosi-Reid agenda aside. 

However!  We will see if the "Fool me once" rule is invoked by the target centrist audience.  If it is, the result for Obama could be disastrous - if he manages to anger lefties without placating moderates, he may end up losing more support than he gains.

That said, Obama is a canny enough politician to know that he can always win if he defines victory carefully enough:

Though officials would not provide the numbers Obama plans to use, they say that the goal is to give his side -- Democrats -- a true presidential plan that they can sell. That includes the rebranding of several consensus initiatives, like the insurance reforms, as his own. The effect of this sales job, if it works, will be to associate the president with parts of the reform bills that are almost certainly likely to pass -- assuming the Senate doesn't bog down.

Back the parts of the emerging bills that are not under fire, abandon the parts that are, pretend that what you got is what you wanted along - what's not to like?

Comments

[glasater]

We will see if the "Fool me once" rule is invoked by the target centrist audience. If it is, the result for Obama could be disastrous - if he manages to anger lefties without placating moderates, he may end up losing more support than he gains.

TM-your comment here may be the truest of all.

I think Zero 'sold' himself quite well during the campaign--with Axelrod's help. But I don't think either one of them are "closers".

[clarice]

Warching the success of the stimulus bill and the clunker trade in program, I'd say that whatever he might get will also be fubared in the execution and will not help him either.(He's already announced cuts to docs for cancer and heart treatment and you can be sure they are letting covered patients know why they are NOT getting treatment.)

[PD]

Susan Estrich has written a second remembrance of Ted at Rasmussen.

Shorter version: If you don't like Kennedy, you're a hater. Pass health care reform now, we owe it to him.

[Jane the lynchpin]

If you don't like Kennedy, you're a hater.

Gee, and the day started out so well.

SO is the Afghan Embassy, the Presidebt's Abu Ghraib

[Jack is Back!]

“It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done.

Spoken like a true "Mad Man". What it translates to in Chicago thugese is this "we are going to carpet bomb the Congress and whoever survives gets a chance to vote yes on health care and if they don't then they will be sent to the Hyde Park for re-education courtesy of Bill Ayers".

[Sue]

SO is the Afghan Embassy, the Presidebt's Abu Ghraib

Are you kidding? Not when Bush can be blamed.

[clarice]

Yes,Jane.My thoughts, too.
When wil someone stand in the well of the Senate and demand to know as Sec of State Clinton then Senator did,"What did the president know and when did he know it?"

[Jack is Back!]

Okay, I am slow today. What am I missing about the Afghan Embassy, Clarice and Jane?

[Jane the lynchpin]

I think he should be dragged to the Hague. Set an example for us Mr. Presidebt!

[Jack is Back!]

Forget it. I found it on MSNBC, of surprises. You'd think this would fit more into the Fox agenda than NBC's.

[Fresh Air]

Glasater has it right. The election's over. The problem for Zero is that he's only been successful at one thing in his entire life: running for office.

He was probably a disaster as a student. I know from people in Chicago that was useless at Sidley. His community organizing didn't amount to anything. His Ill. Senate career was a backbench joke, just as his short tenure in Washington was, where he never authored any legislation and his subcommittee never met. The only thing has succeeded at is running for office, which, without his baritone voice, he probably could not have done either.

What to do? Fire up Air Force One and take it to the people....AGAIN. He doesn't know what else to do. His only tool is a hammer, so every problem looks like a nail. The people, however, are tired of this stuff. He wasn't elected to run a permanent campaign; he is supposed to actually do some, you know, governing.

[Fresh Air]

This is classic Obama, who has made a carer of positioning himself as the voice of calm reason intermediating between the loonies of the left (Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright) and the crazies of the right

TM---

Please. I don't think "classic" can be applied in any respect to this mendacious, radical Marxist-narcissist. Neither his Illinois Senate tenure nor his U.S. Senate stint could be considered "intermediating" in any sense. While in Springfield, he "served" as a left-wing, abortion-obsessed reflection of his BLT constituency. In Washington, he was the single most liberal member of the U.S. Senate.

Whatever Zero is, he is not a triangulator, or even positioned as one. He just dispensed some of that pablum last year to elected. Clinton actually did triangulate, much to the eternal disgust of Republicans whose agenda he co-opted. But then again, he was a superior politician.

[gmax]

BLT ???

Bacon Lettuce and Tomato?

[Cecil Turner]

Probably black liberation theology.

[Fresh Air]

Definitely not the preferred sandwich in Hyde Park.

[Original MikeS]

"[Obama] will insist upon a mechanism to cut costs and increase competition among insurance companies"

My guess is that we are about to see the emergence of a quasi government entity as the mechanism. I think Obama wants a bureaucracy that requires government funding so that he can redirect those funds toward his projects organizing society. He seems to have zero interest in any health reform that doesn't require big gov't bucks.

[MayBee]

This post made me laugh and laugh.

Obama's Organizing For America is still fund raising on the promise of a public option. [pdf]

Meanwhile, Axlerod is talking about the push in "these final weeks". Will Americans believe- again- that the deadline is important? Is it possible people will just get sick of it all?

Finally, does Obama dare preempt (or try to) the new TV season for *another* health care push?
Why do it for health care, and not for the war?

[Jane the lynchpin]

I can't help thinking that we have, at least, won round 2.

I really think the entire country is standing in revolt - well everyone over 50 at least.

Who knows?

[Extraneus]

There's no way they can pass the common-sense stuff by itself. If they do, they can never use the solved problems as a pretext for socialized health care in the future.

Many of the problems, as has been discussed here and elsewhere, could have been easily solved a long time ago, but the Democrats purposely let them fester, waiting for the right moment.

If the problems get solved without the government takeover, the Rahmian "crisis of opportunity" is lost.

[Stephanie "the Ice Pick"]

It's not just over 50s.. it's those with a strong love of family and loyalty to things other than the "state."

[clarice]

Apparently he's attempting a "sister Souljah" moment (per Hot Air) in which he arracks the left for insisting on a public option.
Cool way to lose the 30% of dunces still bitter clinging to him.

I can't imagine it will fool the middle or right who already dislike him intensely.

[glasater]

The thing that's kinda breathtaking to me anyway is that during Zero's campaigning--Warren Buffett made specific comments on CNBC's Squawk Box that O would move to the center once he got elected. That Zero was only saying radical carp to gin up his base.

How'd that work out Mr. Buffett?

[Fresh Air]

Buffett's an old fool. I'm glad I sold my Berthaway shares.

[maryrose]

Jane: I agree with you . These are desperate times for the Obama administration. When that happens someone inevitably gets thrown under the proverbial bus. In this case the Netroots and the public option.

[Neo]

Always, no sometimes, think it’s me, but you know I know when it’s a dream.
I think I know I mean a ’yes’ but it’s all wrong, that is I think I disagree.

Oopss ... I'm a domestic terroist

[Ranger]

I can't help thinking that we have, at least, won round 2.

I really think the entire country is standing in revolt - well everyone over 50 at least.

Who knows?

Posted by: Jane the lynchpin | September 02, 2009 at 01:40 PM

Well, if the public option is really dead, then I think this is a minor tactical victory. The next target needs to be personal mandates for coverage. If those can be killed, the insurance companies will bail and the entire thing may well die.

BTW, from what I can see, making clear to younger people that they will be forced to buy insurance or fined $2,500 for not having it will get them to join the revolt.

[MayBee]

“It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done.

Spoken like a true "Mad Man"

Only if we're talking about the Mad Men on dope.

[Extraneus]

Good post by Keith Hennessey on the legislative alternatives, if it hasn't been linked already.

[Jane the lynchpin]

OT: DId you guys see what we are doing in MA?

Cops jump on swine-flu power: Shots heard 'round the world

Pandemic bill allows health authorities to enter homes, detain without warrant

Does anyone want to adopt me?

LUN

[Boatbuilder]

"Obama will insist on a mechanism to cut costs..."

I'm pretty sure the only economic mechanism he understands is The Five Year Plan. "We will eliminate waste and fraud in the insurance sector, comrades." Except that he won't say "we"--he'll say "I."

[Sue]

Jane,

That is amazing. Liberals have no shame, do they? After 8 years of demonizing Bush for listening in on terrorist's phone calls and screeching to the high heavens about the freakin' constitution, they will pass that bill without blinking their eyes.

[Ignatz]

--The next target needs to be personal mandates for coverage.--

Those face a very difficult constitutional hurdle I suspect.

[bgates]

a very difficult constitutional hurdle

Funny, funny stuff.

Forcing people to buy insurance reduces the amount of money they have available to potentially buy other stuff, which hypothetically could come from out of state, so insurance mandates are permitted under the commerce clause. That's before I even start on the penumbras.

[gmax]

Not Bacon Lettuce and Tomato? On that note I had to go out for lunch, I was hungry!

[clarice]

I'll adopt you, Jane. You can have a whole floor to yourself..just cat sit when I'm out of town and help with the dishes .

[Jack is Back!]

Sue, I am not so sure a true "liberal" would be so authoritarian and fascist. We really don't have real liberal's any longer - they are all a bunch of left wing freaks with a totalitarian streak. The Castro's, Chavez's, Jong-Il's and others of their ilk aren't "liberal" - they are leftist to a fault.

I have liberal friends - the tax and spend pro-choice type - that are appalled at the choke hold Zero and his cohorts are exercising and the future of liberalism having been hijacked by the crazy left. They abhor the Code Pinkos, ACORN and the SEIU types. They sense that all the good work liberals always believe they have created is being turned into putty for the left to remold in their selfish interest.

[MarkJ]

If Obama were as smart as he claims he is, he'd take the "Murtha Option" vis a vis his looming healthcare fiasco:

1. Declare "victory".

2. Redeploy to Okinawa.

[daddy]

I Like PD's Link in comment 3 up above to Susan Estrich belly-aching about mean e-mailers grousing about her Kennedy column. So naturally what does this ardent First Amendment Champion do? Why she writes an angry, in-your-face column to the e-mailers, demanding civil dialogue, but she posts it at a website where no comments are allowed. Brilliant. Yeah, lets have a dialogue, but only Susan is allowed to talk. Surprised Obama hasn't made her head of the FCC. She must have payed her taxes.

[Jane]

I'll adopt you, Jane. You can have a whole floor to yourself..just cat sit when I'm out of town and help with the dishes .

I'm in Clarice, thank you. I'll be there next Thursday.

[glenda]

And if it gets dicey in DC next wk-I'll adopt both of you...Texas will be a safe haven. we will start the JOM underground railroad! :)

[Ignatz]

--Funny, funny stuff.--

Coming from bgates I consider that a great compliment, no matter how inadvertant my humor was.

[Michael G. Gallagher]

Dear people, wherever you may be,

I've just finished rereading Atlas Shrugged for the third time. The first two times (a long time ago) I applied its lessons to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Now Ayn Rand's work seems more pertinent than ever due the events unfolding in my homeland.

The reason I say my homeland is because I'm an expatriate American English teacher living in South Korea. I've been living and working in the ROK for twelve years, but I still send in my absentee ballot for presidential elections every four years.

What I've been seeing taking place in the USA since January 20 is making me more upset by the day. The mounting deficits, the growing and dangerous dependence on China (many South Koreans are very jittery about China) to finance those deficits, the talk of instituting new (VAT and a big one at that) taxes to help cover those very same deficits, the bailouts of GM, and particularly Chrysler, the attempt to remove choice and private enterprise from the U.S. health care system, the stimulus that went mostly to government drones rather things that would really stimulate, and above all, the despicable behavior of the mainstream media in covering up Obama's real Chicago background. I had to go and find the red star at the top of William Ayers website all by myself!

All these things have made me very alarmed concerning the future of my country. So I've reached one overriding conclusion: it's time for Americans to revolt against royal authority for the second time in 234 years.

I say this because I don't believe the traditional legislative process can stop my country's slide towards the comfortable euthanasia of West European-style socialism. With the idiocy of Bush to guide them, the Republicans have done a very creditable job of taking Dirty Harry's 357. and pointing it at least at their feet, if not their heads.

So it's time to revolt. This will be a difficult idea for many Americans to grasp. After all, we are the product of a culture that has been based on the rule of law from its very beginnings back in medieval England.

What I'm talking about is starving the Government Beast. Come next April 15, 2010 don't send in your tax forms. Refuse to pay! If you're a small businessman don't pay your state (If you live in California, New York, or New Jersey, this applies especially to you) or federal business taxes. Don't pay your licensing fees! When the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011, don't file! Simply don't feed the Beast!

If you're worried about prosecution, there's safety in numbers. If ten million Americans refuse to pay, the looters can't possibly oppress more than a very small number of people. If ten million small business people refuse to knuckle under to the New Jealously Class, then the Beast will be truly crippled and will be forced to beg for mercy. View your refusal to pay blackmail to the looters as a civil rights issue along the lines of what inspired Martin Luther King during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and the early 1960s. IT IS NOT YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO PAY HIGHER TAXES! In fact, it can be considered a form of treason to file on April 15, 2010.

Anyway, this has happened before. What most Americans don't remember or never learned is that in the run-up to the American Revolution the British backed down twice over the issue of taxes. Parliament repealed both the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts in the face of fierce colonial protests. Remember, the looters don't have the mighty Royal Navy behind them, or ranks of hard fighting British Grenadiers, all they have in their favor is the willingness to submit of a people who have been comfortable for far too long.

Michael G. Gallagher, Ph.D.
Seoul, Korea

[el polacko]

ugh... ANOTHER "major speech" ?!? can we get a friggin' break from listening to this guy for a while ?

[apetra]

The "public option" was always a smokescreen throw-away. The balance of the bill kills "discrimination based on pre-existing conditions" in perpetuity, which the old schools calls underwriting. How you can still call this a "private" insurance market, if underwriting is now and forever to be illegal, I cannot fathom.

There is a fantastic alternative.

When seniors turn 65 and sign up for Medicare B, they are given a one time, and one time only, option to purchase a private "medigap" plan without underwriting. They can purchase no supplement, a modest supplement, or a generous supplement. Insurance companies can price the plan based on the expected morbidity of the whole population. What they don't have to worry about is a patient waiting without a medigap plan until the onset of a severe condition and then buying a generous one. Again, it's a once-in-your-lifetime opportunity to buy without pre-existing conditions.

OK, we all know that the employer sponsored plan system, with its distorting tax break unavailable to individual insurance purchasers, has mucked up the system. If you change jobs, you necessarily face the risk of insurance companies refusing you if you have a pre-existing condition.

But most people don't intentionally go without insurance, and if their plans were individual and life-long, pre-existing conditions wouldn't be a problem.

There is nothing wrong with a "restart", like the once-in-a-lifetime medigap restart, and a transition to a private insurance system that of individual plans. Government can consider reinsuring some or all of the burden of pre-existing conditions, to help support the new marketplace and ease the burden on the young and others without infirmity. Government can also provide assistance to those who lose their jobs if they can't afford to make regular payments on their individual healthcare plans.

Although I personally am undecided, you could layer an insurance purchase mandate on top of all this.

Couple all this with serious tort reform, and you've got something.

We retain the best features and discard the worst, and move unquestionably to the forefront of healthcare worldwide.

[caro]

Great comments, Michael and apetra. But you know this is not about covering more Americans with better health insurance. It is all about the power. Therefore sensible solutions like yours need not be considered. It is a pity.

[glasater]

Would like to echo Caro's sentiments but unfortunately--referring to Mr Gallagher--the IRS will be able to "reach" into our bank accounts if we fail to pay our taxes. That's the 'catch-22' we're in or will be in by next April 15th.
Certainly appreciate your concern and share it!!

[daddy]

glasater,

I thought Harry Reid said our taxes were ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7mRSI8yWwg"> voluntary.

[larry "the nose"]

i'm all for :"starving the beast", unfortunately, the beast can print money at will! therefore it can continue to operate, and begin to use those camps i've heard tell about

[Ignatz]

--unfortunately, the beast can print money at will! therefore it can continue to operate--

That printing money at will thing usually doesn't work out too well, operational-wise.
Ask the Weimar guys or the Argentinians or the post Revolution French or the .....