How many citizens will die during the Health Care filibuster?

45,000 Americans die every year because they lack health insurance.

 

If we don't get control of health care costs like the rest of the industrialized world our budget deficits will swallow us whole--if we do, the deficits disappear.

 

There is a lot of talking head spin on tv about the coming filibuster and entertainers pretending to be policy analysts are using fear and lies. 

 

Talking heads spinning the political theater as if we were just watching for entertainment value. 

 

How many citizens will die during the Health Care filibuster?

 

Those of us, like myself, who have watch friends die because they lacked coverage.  Those of us, like myself, who have nearly lost their own lives because they lacked coverage.  Those of us, like myself, who have struggled to pay the bills and run up large amounts of debt because they lacked coverage. 

 

For us... this isn't a joke... this isn't entertainment.  This isn't political theatre. The politicians who use lies and fear to win political points and protect the corporate interests that gets them elected are a disgrace to all that is great about this nation.

 

But I think those of us who seriously want to resolve this health care crisis should take a deep breath and join in the talking head entertainment for a bit--we get a little too up tight from time to time!

 

How many citizens will die during the Health Care filibuster?

 

Just for a moment lets pretend this is just a game....

 

If I were a tv talking head--how would I'd spin this so as to drum up ratings and bring in more Ad revenue.  That is my first and foremost job responsibility given to me by my boss.

 

So here is my spin...  

 

How many Americans will die during the health care filibuster? 

 

I'd get me a little ticker at the bottom of the screen and have the viewers join me in watching the body count. I'm not a talking head... and this isn't just a game.  In fact its pathetic that we are even having this "debate." But l'm certainly going to go ahead and keep count...a body count.  I hope you join me.

 

Its important to take the horse-race spin out of the hands of the talking heads and focus it back onto what this is really about--human beings needlessly wasted so that private health firms can make money hand over fist.

 

Lets highlight the priorities and political theatre of those who are fighting to protect the health insurance industry at the expense of citizens of this country. 

 

Ask yourself--How many citizens will die during the Health Care filibuster?

 

Here is more on the filibuster issue--When did the Senate get so bad?

 In terms of culture and custom, the turning point was almost certainly the previous health-reform debate, in 1993 and 1994. That's when Bob Dole, then the majority leader, made the phrase "You need 60 votes to do anything around here" his mantra, and when -- thanks to Bill Kristol's famous memo -- the idea of blocking major legislation for political reasons, rather than trying to get it revised to reflect your own policy preferences, took hold. Maybe I put too much weight on that period because that happens to be when I worked in the Senate, but there's no doubt that at that time, a whole bunch of obstructionist techniques came out of the dusty toolbox, such as "filling the amendment tree" and, in the House, the motion to recommit a bill to conference. (I once witnessed Ted Kennedy asking staffers for advice about how to break one of these tactics, which he had never seen in 34 years in the Senate.)

Underlying that, of course, was the structural change that came with the realignment from a four-party system, in which each party had a liberal and conservative wing, to two ideological parties. (A center-left party and a far right party.) As frustrating as today's conservative Democrats like Mary Landrieu are, none of them are more conservative than any Republican, and no Republican is more liberal than even the most conservative Democrat. As a result, a filibuster can be organized and enforced by a party leader, whereas in the past, there was considerable ideological overlap, so both sides of a fight would be cross-partisan, and thus loose and shifting.

In the old Senate (up to the early 1990s), there were dozens of possible configurations that could produce legislation that won broad majority support. You could see it quite visibly in the Senate Finance Committee when Lloyd Bentsen of Texas was the chair -- from the center of that horseshoe dais, he might put together a coalition on the center-left one day, and one on the center-right the next, and if he played the politics right, the vote in committee would typically be something like 17-4, with a similar majority on the floor. My boss, as one of the more liberal members, was sometimes in the majority coalition and sometimes a dissenter -- it changed all the time. As debate began, it was hard to predict the final vote. But to watch Max Baucus maneuver in the same committee last month, you had to sympathize with how little he had to work with: Forty percent of his members were completely opting out -- any amendments they offered were purely symbolic or intended to support a talking point in opposition. The only coalitions available were a totally Democratic one and one that included Olympia Snowe. On the Senate floor, it's the same thing -- with a hundred senators, there are in theory, some mathematically unimaginable number of coalitions. But in reality, there are only two: Keep every single Democrat, including red-staters up for re-election and the now unabashedly malevolent Joe Lieberman, or lose one and get Olympia Snowe. There are no other options, and no legislative wheeling-and-dealing will open up any other possibilities.

As a result the Senate feels suffocating. It's easy to fantasize that maybe a tougher or more creative Harry Reid could do something, but even LBJ would be stuck if he drew this hand. The combination of the change in custom -- which involves not just using the filibuster to excess, but pushing to defeat legislation regardless of its content, for political purposes -- and the particular alignment of parties leaves shockingly little room for legislative maneuvering.

Please join me--ask your friends and family as well.  Lets keep count of how long the politicians talk... and how many American lives are needlessly wasted for their political theatre.

 

Even Bill Kristol knows we can have a great health care system.  And  we all know that citizens will literally die while Republicans talk.

How many citizens will die during the Health Care filibuster?

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols