Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Little Single Payer

by digby

Obama had a town hall meeting and a very sharp woman in the audience asked him why we can’t have single payer health care. Here’s is his answer:

Obama replied……. so this touches on your point, and that is, why not do a single-payer system. (Applause.) Got the little single-payer advocates up here. (Applause.) All right. For those of you who don’t know, a single-payer system is like — Medicare is sort of a single-payer system, but it’s only for people over 65, and the way it works is, the idea is that you don’t have insurance companies as middlemen. The government goes directly — (applause) — and pays doctors or nurses.

If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense. That’s the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world.

The only problem is that we’re not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based health care. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their health care, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get health care from their employers and you’ve got this system that’s already in place. We don’t want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we’re trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.

So what I’ve said is, let’s set up a system where if you already have health care through your employer and you’re happy with it, you don’t have to change doctors, you don’t have to change plans — nothing changes. If you don’t have health care or you’re highly unsatisfied with your health care, then let’s give you choices, let’s give you options, including a public plan that you could enroll in and sign up for. That’s been my proposal. (Applause.)

Now, obviously as President I’ve got to work with Congress to get this done and — (laughter.) There are folks in Congress who are doing terrific work, they’re working hard. They’ve been having a series of hearings. I’m confident that both the House and the Senate are going to produce a bill before the August recess. And it may not have everything I want in there or everything you want in there, but it will be a vast improvement over what we currently have.

We’ll then have to reconcile the two bills, but I’m confident that we are going to get health care reform this year and start putting us on a path that’s sustainable over the long term. (Applause.) That’s a commitment I made during the campaign; I intend to keep it.

I understand the political problem with single payer — that is that the majority of politicians are bought and paid for by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and it’s very difficult to ask people to give up something they have for something new. Let’s not kid ourselves about that. It’s just another symptom of a dysfunctional political system that isn’t going to be solved by one party or the other coming into power.

However, what this underscores is the absolute, bottom line necessity of the public plan option. Without it we will have at best a lightly regulated insurance industry and some kind of mandate,which is a recipe for disaster. Under the current dysfunctional system, the only way to get to a system that truly makes sense — which the president himself acknowledges is single payer — is for there to be a public option which will have all the advantages of the economy of scale the government can offer. Eventually most people will move to that system as it becomes known as the least expensive and most efficient. And that is why the health industry is going to put its full weight behind stopping it.

There are many moving parts in the health care debate, and nobody knows where it’s going to end up. But that woman asked a great question today and it got a nice round of applause from the audience. Even though Obama called them the “little single-payer” advocates, it’s important the people keep asking it or this debate is going to be a full production of the health industrial complex. (She also asked why members of congress should be allowed to work on health care when they have such conflicts of interest with the health industry, and the President didn’t address it.)

Meanwhile, in case anyone is under the impression that this is a simple process, note that the circus is in town:

Lobbying may be the one remaining recession-proof industry, and as Washington prepares for a summer-long debate over how to reform health care, lobbyists for every conceivable interest group have camped out in congressional anterooms to press their case. There are advocates for doctors, insurance companies, patients, nurses, pharmaceutical companies, big business and small business. And for faith healers too. Of course, they wouldn’t call themselves “faith healers.” They argue that the term dismisses what they do as simple wishful thinking. But practitioners of Christian Science as well as other alternative therapies — including acupuncture, biofeedback, herbal medicine, holistic medicine and Reiki, a Japanese healing and relaxation technique — are intent on influencing the coming health-care-reform process. “We’re advocates for people who want access to spiritual treatment,” says Phil Davis, a Christian Science practitioner and his church’s chief lobbyist. Their goal is to encourage Congress to think of health care as more than just medical care — and to allow insurance companies to provide coverage for their holistic treatments. The Christian Scientists have had some success in this area in the past. Founded in 1866 by Mary Baker Eddy, the Church of Christ, Scientist has worked for nearly a century with state licensing boards and legislatures to obtain recognition or acceptance for its practitioners, who treat injured or ill individuals by praying for them. Contrary to popular belief, Christian Scientists are not prevented from seeking medical treatment; the church just wants to make sure that both members and nonmembers are also able to afford visits to practitioners, which typically cost from $20 to $30 per session, and longer-term services of private nurses (who provide nonmedical care such as bathing, dressing wounds and feeding) and nursing facilities. TRICARE, the military health plan, already covers these services. And the Federal Employee Health Benefits program provides partial reimbursement for stays in Christian Science nursing facilities. More recently, Christian Scientists were able to obtain a special provision in the universal health-care plan enacted in Massachusetts, where the church is headquartered. In addition to exempting Christian Scientists from the requirement that all Massachusetts residents carry health insurance, the state allowed private insurer Tufts Health Plan to cover both medical and spiritual care, including stays at church nursing facilities.

Oy.

Update: Here’s an interesting piece on the current state of play in the senate. It doesn’t exactly fill one with optimism.
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Cave-Ins Upon Cave-Ins

by dday

I’m fairly livid at my party right now. First we had the President withholding the release of prisoner abuse photos. Then the Department of Homeland Security responded to conservative whiners and pulled the report on right-wing extremism, which I’m sure will be a great comfort to everyone during the next Ruby Ridge or Pittsburgh cop shooter. And then…

A bill by Senate Democrats would fund the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but it would block the transfer of any of the detainees to the United States.

The move is aimed at sidestepping a political minefield that President Obama has confronted in his promise to close the military prison during his first year in office. Lawmakers of both parties have bristled at the notion of bringing Guantanamo terrorism suspects to detention facilities in the United States […]

The administration has yet to produce a plan for dealing with the approximately 240 Guantanamo detainees, but Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said that between 50 and 100 would end up in U.S. facilities.

The $96.7-billion measure headed for a House vote today contains no funds to transfer the Guantanamo detainees, though the Pentagon retains the ability to seek informal approval to move funds from other accounts.

So they appropriate money to close Gitmo, but not transfer the prisoners. That floating island of plastic must be looking pretty good right about now.

I think the main reason here is that the White House has not presented a formal plan for transfer. But we all know what this looks like – Democrats caved to the patently ridiculous charge that dangerous terrorists will be let loose in America to shop at Wal-Mart and play in your corporate softball game, instead of leaving the prisoners among the nice tropical breezes of Guantanamo. I thought the era of paying attention to ridiculous wingnut hissy fits had ended, but clearly not in Washington. They’re still acting like the good neutered puppies Grover Norquist always wanted them to be.

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Cheerios Follies

by tristero

As predicted, the right is making food issues into an all-out cultural crusade. The latest battlefield: Cheerios:

Disputes over food-label claims are always political. But the current, insane iteration of the American right has walked several steps past the crazy line with its collective reaction to the Food and Drug Administration’s demand that General Mills (GIS) tone down its health claims for Cheerios.

“It’s fairly obvious to me why the Obama administration is going after Cheerios over possible deceptive advertising,” says the Deadenders blog. “Babies love them more then him.”

“This is the kind of irritating, intrusive nonsense that makes people weary of their government and every smarmy bureaucratic microbe in it,” writes David Crocker of the Behind Blue Lines blog.

The FDA wants General Mills to reel back its claim that Cheerios can “lower your cholesterol 4 percent in 6 weeks.” Such a claim is not backed up by science, according to a letter sent to the company by the FDA. The agency says that General Mills is making claims for its cereal that more properly, and according to federal law, should apply only to drugs designed to cure disease. The claims amount to a “serious violation” of laws governing label claims, according to the letter.

That’s true, of course. But it hasn’t stopped critics from characterizing the situation as President Obama yet again attacking a venerable American institution. Never mind that Obama almost certainly had no idea that his FDA was planning to go after Cheerios.

Food seems to be a common theme among crazy conservatives. For them, wholesome, “American” foods are a-OK. Eurocommie foods are right out. “Washington raised ciggie taxes to pay for SCHIP expansion and are [sic] gearing up to raise soda taxes to pay for Obamacare,” writes the reliably nutty Michelle Malkin. “No vice is safe from the health police. Dijon mustard and arugula exempted, of course.”

We can expect more and more of this kind of nonsense. The anti-Cheerios president! The pro-Arugula, Hawaii -vacationing, Dijon-swilling, liberalcommunistsocialistfascistmonarchist-terrorist coddler! The next thing you know, Obama’ll ban AK-47’s from national parks and then where will we be?

As if this is about the character of a president rather than deceptive health claims to a public that is in no position to evaluate them. As if this is about elitism rather than profiting by marketing a mediocre food as if it was a cure-all. FYI, if you want to know what goes into Cheerios, go here. Bottom line: as factory food goes, there are a lot worse choices you can make. The ingredients include corn starch (of course), trisodium phosphate, salt, sugar (not as much as the usual factory junk) and a chemical preservative. In other words, compared to a bowl of real oatmeal… well, whatever floats your boat, far be it from me to pick a fight over the taste of Cheerios. There’s bound to be a zillion commenters who will complain mightily that I’m insulting their very being because they grew up on the stuff and it tastes far better than the oatmeal swill their friend’s evil mother tried to shove down their throat after a sleep over. So rather than argue over exactly how bland and unpleasantly processed Cheerios tastes (sorry, couldn’t resist) let’s talk the language we Americans prize above everything, even childhood memories: Money.

As Michael Pollan pointed out today on The Brian Lehrer Show (the podcast doesn’t seem to be up yet), Cheerios costs some $4.00 a pound. The far more nutritious organic steel cut oats can be bought for $.79 a pound.* At that price, you can whip up vast quantities of Mark Bittman’s awesome coconut oat pilaf, which is flat-out the best cereal for breakfast I’ve ever had in my life and which I eat as often as I can.

*Perhaps. Here, you can get Cheerios for $4.83 a pound, so maybe somewhere they’re available for 4 bucks (you’re welcome to post lower prices!) in large quantities. As for organic steel cut oats, I found them for $.87 a pound here if you buy 50 pounds. But that is a lot of oats! I should know. I bought a 25 pound bag of organic steel cut oats from Bob’s Red Mill ($1.57 a pound) and proudly show off the huge (by NYC apartment standards) tub of oats to my flabbergasted fellow Manhattanites.

Tortured Politics

by digby

Liz Cheney is taking credit for forcing Obama to block the release of the remaining Abu Ghraib photos, which shows that this is a political issue as much as anything else. The administration will succeed in putting off the inevitable, but it’s highly likely that the Supreme Court will not overturn the two lower courts and require release of the photos, thus endangering the troops at a later date. But, it won’t happen in the middle of a contentious and fluid debate over torture that could result in serious investigations. And that is what this is all about.

As Greg Sargent writes:

So Liz Cheney is claiming victory, and clearly, this will only embolden the Cheneys to keep up the assaults. By saying that he has now concluded that releasing the photos would endanger the troops, Obama is reinforcing the idea that he was originally prepared to do something that would endanger the troops, and only reversed himself after conservatives called him out on it. Whatever the merits of Obama’s decision, its political impact is that it lets the Cheneys continue to frame the ongoing debate, and to continue casting a full torture accounting as a threat to our national security.

It seems to me that by this logic, the impending release of the CIA Inspector General’s Report is going to endanger national security as well. Certainly one could argue that the release of the OLC memos made the country less safe and that’s what Cheney and the boys have argued from the minute they were released. Once you capitulate to the idea that transparency about what our government did in the GWOT is dangerous to our troops and our national security, you have lost the argument.

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Still All About Iraq

by dday

Among the many inanities from Huckleberry Graham yesterday was his claim that “one of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work.” You know what has survived for longer than that? Syphillis. Should we incubate that for use on prisoners?

But I’ll agree with Huckleberry to an extent. Torture does work in its primary function: to extract false confessions. That’s why Dark Sith Cheney was so keen on using torture prior to the run-up to war in Iraq.

*Two U.S. intelligence officers confirm that Vice President Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.

*The former chief of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, in charge of interrogations, tells The Daily Beast that he considered the request reprehensible.

*Much of the information in the report of the 9/11 Commission was provided through more than 30 sessions of torture of detainees.

Lawrence Wilkerson essentially confirmed this today.

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)

Pity that al-Libi just up and committed suicide like that, ay?

Over and over again, we have seen Iraq as the white whale to the Bush Administration, as their sole focus through much of the first term appeared to be laying down the basis for invasion and occupation. Everything flows from this original sin. And we can now say with a good degree of surety that the torture programs rose from a desire to link Iraq with 9/11 and Al Qaeda. if you want to know why Dick Cheney has been on the teevee more than American Idol lately, throwing up roadblocks and confusion and assorted nonsense, it’s because he doesn’t want this fact, which apparently came from his office, revealed.

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“Gee whiz, I wasn’t supposed to do it, I saw the world blow up, but I did follow the rulebook”

by digby

Poor Joan Walsh. Sometimes it just pains me to see her trying to make sense among the babblers that are featured on Chris Matthews’ show every day — including the host. Today, we saw Donnie Deutch claiming that he’s a screaming liberal but he nonetheless believes that torture is acceptable if someone is trying to kill his family. Therefore, torture of “terrorists” is necessary, and he thinks a lot of Americans agree with him. (How we determine whether these are, in fact, terrorists who have such information is not discussed and neither is whether or not he would agree to torture American criminal suspects if the authorities said they were withholding valuable information. )

Joan gallantly made all the right arguments about torture being immoral, useless, illegal etc but it didn’t penetrate. Instead we see Chris Matthews, who up until now has taken a fairly hard line against torture, saying some things that are totally ridiculous about the efficacy of torture based on a bunch of nonsense he made up in his head about the jihadi supermen. And then he comes up with his latest “middle ground” argument when Walsh points out that regardless, it’s all illegal and until the politicians have the courage to legalize it, it can’t be done:

Matthews: I’d rather it be outlawed and force the president to justify breaking the law. I’d rather have that situation because that puts higher pressure on him or her not to break the law. But if they have to do something in the national interest you don’t come afterward and say, “gee whiz, I wasn’t supposed to do it, I saw the world blow up, but I did follow the rulebook.”

We expect president to protect us in extremis, but you’ve got to have judgment at the top. And I don’t want to remove any tool from them in judgment at the top. Generally it may not work. but you’re not going to tell me that in a ticking time situation that you might not be moved to try it.

We’ve got to stop lying about not calling torture torture and stop saying denial of oxygen isn’t torture and stop playing with the rule book. the rule book can say no torture. But presidents have to do things like shoot down airplanes with 200 people on them. They’;ve got to do things that aren’t in the rule book Imagine that. cheney might have had to shoot down that plane that landed in Pennsylvania with the passengers,. he might have shot down that plane if it got through. And he might have done that and I’m sure it’s against the law to shoot down airplanes, but he would have done it because that would have been the right thing to do.

Joan then pointed out that making a bunch of enemies in this “reign of torture” might just be the biggest mistake we make to which Donnie Deutch balefully shook his head and said:

Joan. (sigh) Joan you know what? Unfortunately sometimes we’ve got to go back and watch the Nicholson speech in A Few Good Men. Sometimes we need these guys on the wall that we don’t want to talk about at parties.

Just shoot me now.

I don’t know how prevalent Matthews’ latest “idea” is among the villagers, but it goes back to Alan Dershowitz whose original articles after 9/11 were among those that put torture on the table. He argued, however, that we should legalize torture so the president isn’t put in the position of breaking the law, which at least respects the basic notion that the president is subject to it. Matthews thinks the president needs to have the law stay in place as a sort of guideline that forces the president to think a little bit before he does whatever he needs to do to keep us all safe. He literally believes that the president has no obligation to follow the law, however, but rather use his “judgment.” The founders must be rolling in their graves.

BTW: the idea that the Vice President was doing the right thing by ordering the military to shoot down an airliner is mind-boggling. The president was certainly available to make that “judgment” himself and according to the 9/11 report there were people in the room who were profoundly suspicious that ole Uncle Dick forgot to ask him before he made that decision. That alone should be cause for anyone to doubt whether or not that particular “system” of relying on judgment calls is a good idea.

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Common Sense

by digby

Ari Melber very nicely handled the torture question today in a way I wish more”democratic strategists” would do. On MSNBC earlier with Carlos ‘n Contessa, he and Republican Joe Morton squared off over the FBI Agent’s testimony on the efficacy of torture before the Senate today:

Morton: And yet there are others who would say that the waterboarding helped. It helped provide information…

Melber: But Joe, even if we put that aside and say that might be possible, there are leaders throughout the world who would say that genocide helps security, that cancelling elections helps security, that fascism helps security. At some point here the whole issue is that we have to move beyond the framework of just saying torturing someone or killing someone worked, and be bound by the rule of law.

This is so obvious to me that I can’t understand why people don’t say it more often. If you can excuse breaking the law to use torture to keep the nation safe, you can excuse breaking the law to do anything to keep the nation safe. That nullifies the rule of law — and civilization.

I actually take this argument a step further and say that by refusing to completely repudiate torture and hold those who devised the regime responsible, we are making ourselves substantially less safe. Superpowers which are seen as tyrannical and which believe that the ends justify the means are not considered trustworthy by the rest of the world. It’s possible that it doesn’t matter if the rest of the world finds us threatening and, frankly, evil. But it is going to cost us a huge amount in blood and treasure to maintain our security under those circumstances. (I won’t even mention the potential economic fallout of becoming a pariah nation.)

This gets to the fundamental difference of opinon between liberals and conservatives about America’s role in the world. They think we are a military empire which must constantly prove its toughness and brutally demonstrate its willingness to do whatever it takes to “defend” its interests (which is defined as dominance.) Liberals (would like to) see America as a powerful leader of nations and an example of civilized, cooperative behavior based upon trust and mutual interest. Conservatives believe we must dominate, liberals believe we should engage.

Torture, of course, stands alone as a despicable betrayal of decent human values. But as the argument evolves, we are seeing the foreign policy implications start to emerge as well. I always assumed that the Obama administration understood this better than anyone and it is one of the things about which I was truly optimistic. But it’s looking less likely that we are truly going to see a break with the bipartisan consensus on American military power and substantive change in our approach to world leadership.

People around the world do like Obama and still have great hopes. But it won’t last forever if the only thing they get is lip service and it appears that the administration is driving down America’s hawkish road, just like the ones who came before him. To persuade them that America has truly repudiated the Bush years, he’s going to have to do more than simply assure everyone that “America doesn’t torture” and leave it at that. After all, George W. Bush said exactly the same thing.

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Prizewinning Blogger

by digby

Massive props to Marcy “Izzy” Wheeler for winning the prestigious Hillman Prize. Nobody deserves it more. She’s like a cat — she goes deep into the weeds and sees things that humans just can’t see. And she proves that you don’t actually need to cultivate “sources” or spend your time palling around with politicos and pundits to do real journalism. Indeed, she proves that if journalists spent a little bit more time reading documents and a little less time getting spun they’d get to the truth a lot more easily.

Huzzah to one of our own for finally getting the recognition she deserves.

Bleeding This Country Dry

by digby

I thought I had seen Lindsay Graham at his most revolting when he gave one of the most inane speeches in history before the US Senate in Clinton’s impeachment trial. Here’s a little reminder:

Is that what you want to do in this case? Just to save this man, to ignore the facts, to have a different legal standard, to make excuses that are bleeding this country dry? The effect of this case is hurting us more than we will ever know. Do not dismiss this case. Find out who our President is. Come to the conclusion, not that it was just bad behavior, it was illegal behavior. Tell us what is right. Tell us what is wrong. Give us some guidance. Under our Constitution, you don’t impeach people at the ballot box, you trust the U.S. Senate. And I am willing to do that. Rise to the occasion for the good of the Nation

Yes, he really said “rise to the occasion.” Read the whole thing is you can stand it just so that you can ask yourself how Huckleberry came to become a senator after that embarrassing performance.He’s much meaner now. Of course, here he’s defending the use of torture techniques, which he obviously thinks are not just useful, but downright entertaining. (But then, like so many Republicans with issues, he’s always been into the dirty stuff with a touch of menace.)Here he is treating a law professor like a lackey in today’s hearings:

He just gets creepier and creepier as time goes on. Unfortunately, he isn’t getting any smarter. From Greg Sargent:

While directing hostile questioning at a witness during the Senate torture hearing, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham cited an infamous ABC News report from 2007 that said a terror suspect broke under minimal waterboarding, and suggested it undercut the claim that torture didn’t work. But Graham didn’t appear to be aware that the report has since been debunked, and that ABC itself has since corrected the record.[…]
Graham didn’t seem to be aware of this during the hearing, however. When the witness pointed out that the story had been debunked, he stared into the distance without saying anything and moved right on to a new round of questioning.

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