TheNextReport

A Statesman Stands Up Just when I was about to lose all confidence in President Obama for his tame demeanor before the GOP, just when we thought his base was about to abandon him for not fighting more aggressively on health care, he goes off and proves again that he is one of the most skilled politicians to ever hold the office. The encounter with Republican leaders at their retreat in Baltimore was an uncanny bit of impromptu political theater where the President boldly confronted political opponents who have demonstrated their ideological mindlessness and disdain for the current occupant of the White House. Clearly expecting to use the opportunity to sand-bag Obama with ideologically charged set-up questions, GOP leaders found the tables adroitly turned by the president who swiftly and easily showed himself to be not only a master of the issues, but surprisingly skilled in the art of political gamesmanship as well. Mr. Obama had been broadly criticized by progressives for his continu...

Saddle-up Your Pickups, Boys or You're in Good Hands with Joe the Plumber It's amazing that the Democratic Party and the White House haven't yet been able to figure it out. The GOP has once again managed to out-smart it's Democratic rivals by relying on the dim-witted, Pavlovian responses of the electorate in a key state. Scott Brown, the newly elected Senator from the blue state of Massachusetts, has apparently raised the location of the Mason-Dixon line up to the suburbs of Boston. Is it that hard to figure out that, given the opportunity, American voters, no matter where they reside, will fall for any semi-charismatic figure who rides into town in a pickup truck, sings praises of the local sports franchise and carries a firearm? Such is the sophistication of American politics, the land of the free and the homer of Joe the Plumber. The mandarins of the Democratic Party in Mass have been left scratching their heads. How could it have happened? The voters just one year ...

Health Care Reform Lite.... or Suicide is Painless "I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got into this war I had a very clear understanding with the Pentagon. No guns. I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, Cary Grant, carry me back to old Virginie, I'll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!"... Hawkeye Pierce As the 2010 Congress is poised to pass a watered-down health care bill painfully similar to the legislation green-lighted by the Senate, advocates for more extensive reform are beginning to see the handwriting on the wall. With comments trickling out from the House leadership that it now could envision voting for a bill that does not contain a public option, it would appear that the support for the House's more progressive initial bill may be taking its last breaths. I can understand the argument, now seemingly supported by the majority, that given the likelihood of more Democratic s...

Health Care Blackmail: Merry Christmas America After months of internal struggles, the Democratic caucus in the US Senate has passed its version of health care reform. Announcing he had at last marshaled the 60 Democratic votes necessary to shut down a Republican filibuster, majority leader Harry Reid set up a Christmas eve vote that will effectively surrender many of the key reforms supported by the progressive wing of the Democrats. After having promised during the initial phases of the health care debate that he would not sign a bill that lacked an optional public health care alternative to compete with private insurance, President Obama, along with several key progressive Democrats, have bent over backwards to insure the continued health of the private insurance model of health care delivery. In the end, the administration and Congressional allies were willing to shelve truly systemic reform in order to appease two Democratic conservatives (Joe Lieberman (ID-CN) and Ben Nelson (D-N...

Joseph Lieberman: Demo-Repugnant One has to wonder why so many of Joseph Lieberman's Democratic colleagues were so surprised that the Connecticut senator did an about-face on the latest incarnation of the health care reform bill. Reports had some Democrats expressing shock and dismay that Lieberman would declare his opposition to the proposal to allow people to buy into Medicare at age fifty-five. It is true that while running as a Democratic candidate for vice-President with Al Gore (and in more recent statements), Lieberman had been on record as supporting expanding Medicare eligibility, even hinting that the policy shift was his original idea. What fellow Democrats ignored all too easily this time, however, was the two-faced character of the Connecticut legislator. This was a man who lost the Democratic Senatorial primary in 2006 and, after winning the race as an independent, supported the Republican ticket in the presidential election. Mindful of the need for a 60 vote majorit...

Is Nausea a pre-existing Condition? I have just one request from American politicians, including President Obama. I don't ever want to hear you guys again utter the famous phrase used so often in speeches from both sides of the aisle. "America is the greatest country in the world..." It's a common boast, so much an accepted part of our political discourse that no one ever seems to challenge it. As the debate over health care reform enters the home stretch, however, with a senate bill that would appear to strip away most of the key provisions advocated by progressives, the nation's presumed lofty status has, to say the least, been severely diminished in the eyes of many. The frustrated attempts by the United States to reform the country's health care system is a sad tale of a deformed democracy with a political leadership that is out of touch with human needs, disdainful of the electorate, brazenly exhibiting little regard for the well-being of its own citizens...

THE FIGHT OVER THE PUBLIC OPTION? WHAT PUBLIC OPTION? As the leaks from behind senate doors have it, the progressive and conservative forces within the Democratic party have struck a deal that could permit passage of health care reform legislation. The leaks have played like a jolt of shock therapy to legislators and to the millions of citizens who have invested their hopes in the possibility of reform. The key point of contention is that the deal would completely eliminate what has widely been considered as the most critical and controversial element of the reform package - the creation of the government-run system known as the public option, which would act as a cost cutting competitor to private insurance. In place of the non-profit public option, the legislation would expand eligibility for Medicare to those age fifty-five and older. The talking heads echoing through the halls of the Capitol have presented a picture of fracturing opinions on the progressive wing of the Democratic P...