Protect The Insurance Company Profits

Something Terrible Has Happened...

The Public Option is gaining ground.  What's next...Milk and Cookies for War Criminals?  Would Dick Cheney be first in line for that one?  Can his heart even handle that anymore?

The public option will be debated in the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, and although it is definitely an uphill climb, replacing these worthless health care co-ops with a strong, robust public option is no only possible, but absolutely necessary.  Senators Schumer and Rockefeller will introduce an amendment to the Finance Committee bill that will replace co-ops with a public option.  Why are they doing this you ask?  Maybe it's because co-ops aren't an alternative, they're meaningless.  Maybe it's because a public option is by far the cheapest, most cost effective reform measure?

This much is absolutely clear to anyone with half a brain: the public option not only increases choice, but also decreases cost to both the consumer and the nation.  Apparently Kent Conrad is at around 10% brain power since he still doesn't get this.  

I don't think a government-run plan best fits this culture. A plan that's not government-run has the best chance of succeeding in being passed into law.

According to Senator Conrad, a public option can't work because of....our culture?  Seriously Senator?  Culture?  Who have you been listening to Senator? Glenn Beck?  Does a public option run in opposition to White, American Culture?

But I digress.  Regardless of whether a public option goes counter to the history of American culture, it's cheaper and more effective.  According to Congress Daily, the Congressional Budget Office has stated:

In total, a public plan based on Medicare rates would save $110 billion over 10 years. That is $20 billion more than earlier estimates, a spokesman for House Speaker Pelosi said.

The public plan saves money because it pushes down premium prices. Lower premium prices across the country would mean the government would have to pay less in subsidies to low-income people who buy insurance through the exchange, according to CBO. Medicare rates are typically lower than those paid by private insurers, so using that formula would allow the public plan to charge considerably lower premiums to stay solvent.

In other words, the Blue Dogs want to spend $85 billion more than the liberals do. Moreover, the CBO is estimating savings to the government. Essentially, the $85 billion reflects reduced federal spending. In fact, savings for individuals and businesses paying lower premiums will be much larger than $85 billion, and politically, much more important.  

Due to these savings, it seems as if the Blue Dogs in the House are starting to come around on the public option.  24 Blue Dogs have said they support a public option, a far cry from the less than a dozen that Blue Dog co-chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin could muster.  Combine the cost savings with the fact that 54% of residents in Blue Dog districts support a public plan, and you have a recipe for progressive success.

Still, why are some so intent on protecting an industry that is partly responsible for creating the current health care crisis?  Is it because the health insurance industry has spent at least $585,725,712 lobbying Congress to protect its investments and defeat competition from a public option?

Every dollar squeezed out of the private insurance company's profits is a dollar less that we'll have to pay either in healthcare costs or in taxes to cover healthcare costs. The two most direct ways to squeeze future profits are allowing Medicare to use its huge bargaining leverage to negotiate lower drug prices, and creating a public insurance option to compete with private insurers and also use its bargaining clout to get lower prices and thereby push private insurers to offer lower rates.  

Or we can continue to sit by and allow health insurers to gouge the elderly by charging them five times more than younger Americans.  The health insurance companies are able to keep our selfish interests in check when we can't. They are truly American heroes.

What's so American about competition anyway?

Social Bookmarking Soulmate

After a long, arduous, and often confusing search, I believe I may have found my social bookmarking soulmate, or at least a social bookmarking first date.  Chris39 is the liberal social bookmarking guru that I need in order to find more information regarding health care reform and various other liberal causes.  I have a feeling this relationship between Chris39 and I will be a strong one, but lets profile him to make sure he's "The One."

Chris is quite the social bookmarker and one can only hope he has a life outside of his 3,685 bookmarks.  Essentially, if you want to know about something in politics, especially if it has a liberal bent, Chris has probably read about it.  Hell, he's probably even given his two cents on the article and commented on it.  Scratch that, he's definitely commented on it.  Looking at Chris39's bookmarks, every single page he has bookmarked has a short description of that article as well as his personal opinion on either the article or the larger topic being discussed.  How prodigious is Chris on Delicious?  Looking at his bookmarks, he has tagged and bookmarked articles so obscure or so intensely focused on certain liberal issues that he is the only person who has saved that article.  That is pure dedication to staying informed on the news of the day as well.  Chris does the Delicious community a service by commenting on every post he has ever bookmarked, as he provides a brief, yet insightful summary of the article for anyone who is interested.  Chris doesn't just do this once or twice a week though, or even once or twice a day.  Instead, Chris is bookmarking and commenting on anywhere from five to ten articles.  As I said, pure dedication to knowledge and information.

Chris is also quite creative with his tagging, as he has over 400 tags ranging from ACLU to Zombie.  No, Chris isn't just doom and gloom, he also has a humorous side.  For the most part though, Chris stays true to his liberal self as the vast majority of his tags are political in nature.  His top five tags are Republican, Politics, Economics, Healthcare, and Obama.  That Republican tag can be misleading to the passive surveyor of Chris' page.  When Chris tags a story 'Republican,' it is typically about Republican corruption, incompetence, or articles that chastise the Republican Party and their policies.  These tags aren't just a hodgepodge of random descriptors though.  Chris is very thorough in his tagging, and will tag an article with every tag he feels describes the information present in that article in order to provide an apt, brief description of what is being discussed.  With his fourth most used tag being health care, which he has tagged 264 times, Chris is a valuable resource not only for me, but for any readers of this blog that would like more information on the current health care crisis and liberal reform measures.    

While Chris has bookmarked many articles on The Huffington Post, of which I am already and avid reader, he also exposed me to a couple great sites that have helped me think of ways to expand upon my blog topic.  First, I came across a site that Chris had bookmarked earlier this week title Billionaires for Wealthcare.  This satirical site advocating for the interests of Billionaires, because if we ain't broke don't fix it, takes a humorous approach to the lunacy of the right-wing health care protest rallies and the idiocy of voters looking out not for their own best interests, instead protecting the wealth of health care executives.  The second site Chris introduced me to is Matt Taibbi's Taibblog, which is a part of the larger blog True Slant.  Matt Taibbi is someone I can't believe I hadn't found before, especially after his enlightened post about how the media has helped completely sandbag health care reform.  His insightful and biting wit is great to read, and Taibbi tears apart the forces that are spreading false information about health care reform in order to kill any possible incarnation of reform.

I would like to invite all of the readers of my blog to go check out Chris39's Delicious page and scour through his bookmarked articles.  He has a great collection of information that will help anyone looking to be enlightened on the issue of health care reform.  Chris is definitely a solid resource for my readers and I, and I will be turning to him in for health care updates in the future.  Once again Chris39, I would like to thank you for our wonderful first date.  I have a feeling this relationship is definitely going to go the distance.  Do I hear wedding bells?  

Bill O'Reilly for Socialism

On his show, the O'Reilly Factor, Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly is known for tearing down almost all liberal causes and in the past has called President Obama a 'Communist,' but then decided to slander him a little less by labeling him a 'Socialist.' So, When Bill O' The Clown talks, we should all just tune out? He has nothing relevant or insightful to bring to the table, right?

Wrong?

Bombastic Fox News host Bill O'Reilly made a rather notable policy pronouncement on Wednesday's show: he supports the creation of a government-managed health care plan if it provides working Americans with an affordable option to other private insurance plans.

In other words, he supports the public option now being hotly debated in Congress.

This is getting ridiculous. Just last month Papa Bear was decrying health care reform and blasting the public option as socialism. Who can I trust now if Bill O'Reilly is for a government run health care option? Hell has officially frozen over.

Seriously though, Bill O'Reilly makes a great case for the public option itself, possibly a better one than many Democrats are currently making, and understands why the public option is essential to meaningful health care reform. Personally I'm just surprised that Mr. O'Reilly has apparently gained enough brain power in a month to understand the simple facts: the public option brings costs down.

I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don’t like their health insurance, if it’s too expensive, they can’t afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.

Sounds like something a moderate Democrat would say in Congress, right? That was Bill O'Reilly talking. O'Reilly has essentially parroted President Obama's 'socialist' talking point on health care, that private insurance companies are not truly competing in a free market and a government run health care option would help bring the costs down for both consumers and the industry.

Howard Dean said it best:

Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option would give Americans a real choice and not reward for-profit health insurers with 47 milllion new customers. Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option would cut out the administrative waste of private insurers and begin changing the way health care is delivered. Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option could adopt the kind of payment reforms that would start to “hold down long-term growth in health spending” and encourage providers to deliver care more efficiently. We know that premiums in the public option would be about 10 percent lower and that a real robust plan that piggy backs off of Medicare’s infrastructure could save us somewhere between $75 billion and $150 billion over 10 years.

The public option is essential to bringing down the long term, skyrocketing costs of health care. Without a public option, health care reform loses its teeth and essentially becomes the ‘The Insurance Industry Profit Protection And Enhancement Act.'

Who really knows if Bill O'Reilly is truly for a government run option, or if he is for private exchanges, or non-profit co-operatives, or if he even knows what the hell he's talking about for that matter. What is important is that the argument for the public option in some way has begun to resonate with Mr. O'Reilly, at least to the point where he believes the argument is somewhat compelling. Will there be a public option in the final bill, if Max Baucus has his way then no. But that is only one of five committees. The President still wants a public option, the people want a public option, heck even doctors want a public option. Health Care Reform is certainly not dead. In fact, we are closer to the finish line than we have ever been before.

You Stay Classy, South Carolina

In this past week representatives of the state of South Carolina have delivered a great deal of extraordinarily vile and despicable rhetoric regarding President Obama and the plan to overhaul our health care system. First we have the good ol' boy, Congressman Joe Wilson, screaming 'You Lie!' to the President of the United States during a Joint Session of Congress. Classy.  Seriously, who besides Jim DeMint thought it was a good idea to vote for this man? What was the worst part about Congressman Wilson's unprecedented outburst you ask? The President was telling the truth and Joe Wilson was lying. Health Care Reform won't insure illegal immigrants. If you plan on heckling the President and claiming he's a liar in front of the nation, at least be right.

Then we get Senator Jim 'Waterloo' DeMint, who believes that President Obama is transforming the United States of America into Nazi Germany...because of a health care plan. While I have no problem with debate and disagreement, especially within the halls of Congress, please do not lower the level of political discourse to name calling and false accusations. Ms. Terkel makes a fantastic point Senator DeMint, where's you're plan to fix this system? You can cry socialism all you want Senator, but you have yet to deliver more than vitriolic rhetoric and haven't added any sort of policy plans into this debate.

You see Senator DeMint, in the reality-based world I live in our health care system is non-functioning at the moment. You are right though, when health care reform does pass you will have 'lost it all.' You and Congressman Wilson will have lost the hearts and minds of the American people, as if you already haven't. While your plan is to decry the fictional rise of socialism in our nation, President Obama and the Democratic Congress will be covering the over 47 million uninsured Americans. While you hope for failure, the American people continue to suffer from exponentially increasing health care costs.

Maybe I should just move to South Carolina, where no one is uninsured. Right?  

You Stay Classy, South Carolina.

Trifecta

Hello World!

Barack Obama was elected to bring hope and change to Washington; he was the chosen one who would bring an end to the bickering, the partisanship, the gridlock, and the never-ending bureaucracy.  But with his battle for health care reform, President Obama has essentially run into all of these Washington D.C. Beltway roadblocks in just one month, and passage of his plan for reform now seems as though it may actually be in serious jeopardy.  In all honesty though…it’s going to get done.  There, I said it.  Obama will pass health care reform by January 1^st 2010 (Please don’t let those words come back and bite me Mr. President).  The discussion shouldn’t even be about whether health care reform is necessary though; instead the question should be how much will this cost, how many currently uninsured individuals will end up being covered, and will it have the much discussed ‘public option.’  

But before we tread into the complex waters of health care reform and all the policy terminology that goes along with such a complicated and far reaching issue, lets talk about me and why I even care about President Obama, health care reform, and the political process in general.  I’m going to come clean with you right now; I am a bleeding heart liberal who’s mother worshiped at the alter of the Kennedy family and I have no qualms with spouting off my liberal beliefs and credentials.  I just wanted to get all that information out in the open before you continued reading this blog naively assuming I held no personal opinion or bias on the issue of health care reform.  I spent this past summer working as the communications intern for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington DC, where the issue of health care essentially consumed my life from late June to early August.  Even after coming back home to Los Angeles, I couldn’t get rid of the health care bug, as the whole country was now in a heated debate that was now filled with myths, rumors, half-truths, and flat out lies instead of the facts. My experience with this topic day in and day out for forty hours a week gives me what I’d like to believe is a little perspective on the issue, regardless of whether it’s from the right or left side of the aisle. I truly do live to debate these issues and what better place to do that than out in the blogosphere, where millions of people can read what I have to say and decide to either agree or disagree with my reasoned opinion.

Now that we know where I stand, it’s pretty clear than I’m with President Obama on most of the issues relating to health care, but what exactly are the key issues of health care reform? Over fifteen weeks that is exactly what I hope to explore with this blog.  Health care is not just about a so-called ‘socialist government takeover,’ or even death panels.  There are many complexities that go along with this issue and it’s greater affect on society as a whole.  The overhaul of the health care system will have an immense impact on the national deficit in the coming years, for good and bad.  And more importantly than any of that, we may finally find out where President Obama actually stands on circumcision…seriously. 

The late Ted Kennedy decided early on in his Senate career to dedicate his life to the health care issue in this country.  Health care is a right, not a privilege and it is time to make that clear. One can only hope that the change that was voted for finally comes to fruition, and that meaningful health care reform occurs by the time this blog has run its course.

Blog Profile

As I take my place amongst my fellow liberals in the left-wing blogosphere, I’ve gone to one of the most respected and popular blogs in not only the progressive community, but also the blogosphere as a whole, in order to find direction for my own blog: Think Progress.  Think Progress is the blogging arm of and is fully funded by the Center for American Progress and is dedicated to providing a forum to discuss the advancement progressive ideas and policies, and is actually the 25th most popular blog on the Internet according to technorati. 

In the margins of the blog, Think Progress simplifies their mission into two categories: What We’re Fighting For and What We’re Fighting Against. Think Progress and its two affiliate blogs, The Wonk Room and Yglesias, are fighting against Public Corruption, Corporate Malfeasance, Incompetent Establishment, and the Radical Right-Wing Agenda, while it is fighting for Social and Economic Justice, Media Accountability, Global and Domestic Security, and most importantly for my blog Healthy Communities.

So, outside of the overall idea of promoting a progressive and liberal agenda, Think Progress is dedicated to Healthy Communities and most importantly meaningful Health Care Reform in America. As the blog is truly an amalgamation of different bloggers and researchers, the most prominent blogger for health care on Think Progress is Igor Volsky, who typically posts in The Wonk Room. Igor is co-author of Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform and has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, Fox Business, and CNBC television, and has been a guest on many radio shows. He frequently posts updates, usually one blogpost per day, to the blog and is actively involved in promoting meaningful health care reform and tearing down myths and false arguments against progressive ideas.

The blogpost, GrassleyWatch: What Does He Not Understand About ‘Fully Paid For’?, is one of Igor’s most interesting posts. It is part of a long running segment on Think Progress about Senator Chuck Grassley and his inconsistency on health care as well as his willingness to spread false information throughout the health care debate. In this post, Volsky blasts Grassley for advocating for less reform because the Senator believes that the adjusted deficit numbers argue that health care reform will increase the deficit. Volsky does a great job of tearing down Grassley’s argument piece by piece:

Grassley’s suggestion that health care reform would grow the deficit demonstrates that the Senator is either misinformed or deliberately manufacturing reasons to oppose health care reform. The budget framework requires a deficit-neutral health care reform bill, and the Democrats have pledged to fully finance coverage expansion from savings within the system and new sources of revenue.

Secondly, health care is the economy; health care is the deficit. Health care costs are the long-term driving force in federal and state budgets and represent the single most important factor influencing the Federal Government’s long-term fiscal balance. The Democrats’ health care reform will help re-orient the system from spending 80% of its dollars treating chronic illnesses into a system prevents the chronic conditions from developing in the first place. It will begin to change the way providers are paid so that we are rewarding quality care and not just quantity care.

This post gives the reader an idea of the content of the blog as well as the position that Think Progress takes in the health care debate.  Think Progress, while relying on factual information, is in fact selective of the facts that it actually takes into account.  In order to maintain the progressive nature of the blog, Think Progress bloggers such as Mr. Volsky refer to other bloggers and statistics that support their claims and further the progressive and liberal causes that Think Progress advocates, rather than taking a more mainstream, objective stance on issues such as Health Care Reform.

In another post, Mr. Volsky takes on the issue of the public option, why it is necessary for meaningful health care reform, and why the public option can’t be replaced by Co-Op insurers. He gives three reasons on why replacing the public option just isn’t the right answer:

Indeed, small member-driven cooperatives would lack all of the advantages of a Medicare-like public health insurance option. Without relying on Medicare’s reach and infrastructure, a network of co-ops could not: 1) achieve the market clout necessary to negotiate better rates with providers, 2) change the way care is delivered and 3) lower the costs of medical services.

Again, the content of the blog is undeniably biased towards a liberal viewpoint.  Think Progress bloggers such as Igor Volsky do not take the facts and present them objectively.  Instead, Think Progress uses facts and the research of other progressive minds to support their own claims.  This blog is not to be confused for a mainstream news site such as CNN, since it is in fact heavily biased towards a progressive standpoint on all issues, including Health Care Reform, hence the name Think Progress.

Think Progress for the most part relates directly to what I will be blogging about over the coming months. Specifically Igor Volsky’s posts on Health Care and progressive policies for health care reform are exactly what I look forward to discussing on my blog. Also, out of all of the progressive blogs out on the Internet, of which there are many, Think Progress and The Wonk Room rely on the most factual information and statistical information, making them reluctant to post unsubstantiated opinions and information, even if those facts are eventually skewed toward a more liberal viewpoint. 

Think Progress, like most political blogs, caters to a specific audience.  In the case of Think Progress, the audience is the progressive public and those who support President Obama's liberal agenda. This blog is not what is found in mainstream media and has an obvious bias that is brought about through it’s association with the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Since I plan on tackling the Health Care Reform debate from a liberal perspective, not only can I use information directly from this blog, I can also read stories and other blogs that have been linked to on Think Progress to conduct further research on health care reform. 

Yet, I will not be a Think Progress clone. I do plan on taking on the issue of media messaging and the war of words between liberals and conservatives as well as the intricacies of policy. I am truly interested in the media battle between the parties and I will be expanding on that much more than Think Progress does in their blog.  Despite this difference in content and focus, as a liberal blogger, Think Progress is essentially a gold mine of information for I Hate Sick People.

Voice Critique

The blog DailyKos is well known in political circles as one of the foremost progressive and liberal blogs on the Internet.  They're also known for their unabashed dislike of everything conservative and Republican, as well as their willingness to let their opinions be heard, unfiltered from the constraints of objectivity that is expected in the mainstream media. Even within in the vast liberal blogosphere, DailyKos has a distinct voice that simply hasn't been recreated by anyone else.  

So what is this voice?  Is it sarcastic?  Witty?  Just downright mean?  Lets just go with a combination of all three, as seen in the title of one of their most recent posts...

Pull The Plug On Chuck Grassley

Not only is the title downright hilarious, at least from my point of view, but also witty and relevant to the topic being discussed in the blogpost.  The writer's metaphor of 'pulling the plug' works well in the context of the current health care debate.  Not only does the blogger want Democrats to stop negotiations with Senator Grassley on health care, which lends itself to the pull the plug reference, but Chuck Grassley is also one of the key players in spreading the lies about phony death panels that would 'pull the plug on grandma' which hijacked the health care debate and sent it off into the land of the wing-nut.  

The post itself has some gems as well.

Really, Chuck? I thought we saw "democracy in action" last November when more than 125 million Americans voted, not when a few hundred extremists that the media chose to highlight screamed at town hall meetings.

The poster doesn't attempt to feign some sort of formality; he instead attacks Senator Grassley head on, referring to the Senator colloquially by referring to him by his first name and turning his own words, saying that the town halls filled with demagoguery and corporate influence were real democracy in action, against him in the most blunt and direct way possible.  The DailyKos blogger also takes a stand against town hall attendees, and due to their extreme right-wing stances, the blogger doesn't refer to the town hall goers as such, instead he labels them 'extremists,' which not only evokes an entirely different emotion in the reader, but allows the reader to identify which end of the ideological spectrum this blogger belongs to as well. 

Terms like 'extremist' and 'fear-mongering' are often used by DailyKos bloggers to describe their opponents, typically Republicans and conservatives.  This confrontational style and word choice is a key element of the blog's voice.  DailyKos bloggers aren't pretending to be anything less than lion-hearted liberals, and the word choice is crucial in reflecting that ideology as well as allowing DailyKos to narrow down its audience. Conservatives, and possibly even moderates, probably wont be the followers of a blog disparaging the conservative takeover of town halls, and likely don't want to hear about the metaphorical 'plug pulling' of a Republican Senator.  DailyKos is unabashedly liberal and wants the reader to know that.

Sometimes even Democrats and liberals are taken on by DailyKos bloggers.

It's hard not to compare the two -- last Saturday, Ted Kennedy spoke from the grave in support of real health care reform:

"I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I'm committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life."

And today, the President let us know what he thinks about access to health care for everyone. From senior advisor David Axelrod:

As to the fate of a government option plan to compete with private insurance, Axelrod suggested the controversial concept is gone but not forgotten: "The spirit that led him to support a public option is still very much at play here and so you know he wants competition. He wants choice."

The voice is unrelentingly sarcastic and satirical, especially when given the correct context. President Obama is being compared to the Liberal Lion, the Late Ted Kennedy, in his commitment to Health Care Reform.  

The Kennedy-Obama analogy is yet another way that the writer narrows down his audience.  One must not only be concerned with liberal causes that were advocated by Senator Kennedy throughout his illustrious career, but the reader must be informed about politics and the day to day aspects of governing and political discourse. Without being aware of the context, the reader is likely to be lost in the shuffle and unable to grasp the content.

Now, let's discuss the comparison itself. Obama is painted by the blogger as a typical politician who is willing to compromise on his core beliefs in order to appease Republicans, while Ted Kennedy is idealized as a champion of progressive Health Care Reform and a true believer in liberal causes.  What is also important about this comparison is that it further narrows the audience from simply Democrats to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.  The blogger is criticizing the President for being too conservative!  Seriously...this isn't a joke.  The President, who's being painted as a socialist by the right wing, is being attacked by the left for not being liberal or progressive enough.  

The end of this entry gets back to the satirical and sarcastic nature of the blog.

Isn't that special? That spirit and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee, but it sure as hell won't do a damn thing to help you pay the medical bills.

First off, I may be reading too much into this, but I'm pretty sure DailyKos just referenced Dana Carvey's Saturday Night Live sketches as the Church Lady with that rhetorical question.  

In all seriousness though, this segment effectively compares spirit to action by analogizing the public option to a cup of coffee. He explains that the 'spirit,' or desire, for a public option, along with a dollar, can get you something simple and frivolous, like coffee. Yet, in the reality-based world we live in, 'spirit' for the public option isn't going to get you very far, or much quality health care for that matter.

Lastly, there is one thing that ties all of these posts together with one unifying voice.  They're all short sentences within short paragraphs.  The blogger doesn't go on about the same topic; instead he keeps the post succinct and relevant.  This direct style adds to the confrontational, aggressive, and sarcastic voice of the blog DailyKos.

And seriously, who doesn't enjoy a good Saturday Night Live reference?

The Speech

In the world of sports, game winning or changing plays go down in history in the list of the greatest plays of all time.  John Elway's "The Drive," or Joe Montana's pass to Dwight Clark in the Super Bowl aptly named "The Catch."  In sports nolstalgia, the plays that go down as significant game changers help cement the legacies of these athletes and propel them to the Hall of Fame and recognition as one of the greats of the game.

So what does this have to do with Health Care Reform?  Reform isn't directed toward helping professional athletes get insurance right?!  Is Barack Obama planning on resigning the Presidency and returning to basketball, or god forbid taking up professional bowling?

No, this isn't about athletes or our president playing alongside LeBron and Kobe in the Olympics, but it is about a certain game changer that took place this week.  Barack Obama took one more step towards a future Hall of Fame career by saving Health Care Reform, with what I would like to dub: The Speech.  Barack Obama stepped up to the plate and knocked Health Care Reform out of the park, leaving the tea-bagging and death panel pushing Republicans down and out in the bottom of the 9th inning.  

Obama's objective was to guide the Health Care Debate back down to earth, and Ezra Klein basically says that the eagle has landed.

In this speech, in fact, Obama needed to do the precise opposite of what he's best at. He needed to bring health-care reform down to earth rather than launch it into orbit. He needed to make it seem less dramatic and unknown. He needed to cast it not as change, but as improvement.

All of which he did.

We all know that Barack Obama is the Orator-in-Chief.  It is indisputable that he is already one of the greatest speakers we have ever had as President of the United States, and it's been less than a year (Also, we did just come off of eight years of George W. Bush, so anything is an improvement, right?).  But what has come into question is whether Barack Obama was in fact 'tough enough' to successfully move his legislative agenda along in Congress.  President Obama has been using a soft hand in the legislative process, allowing Congress to draft their own Stimulus Bill, Cap-and-Trade Bill, and now the Health Care Bill.  But as we all know...Congress doesn't really do their job.  At least not well.  By creating his own competing plan with Congress' five existing plans, President Obama was able to recapture the debate and move it forward in a direction that best suited him politically and is also broad enough to possible recapture those Blue Dog Democrats who are now fearful of Health Care Reform after Bloody August.  This speech took President Obama past the position of Orator-in-Chief, and even past Commander-in-Chief,  Barack Obama became the Confronter-In-Chief during The Speech.  As Jon Taplin puts it, President Obama bitch slapped the right wing Repubs, Beck, Limbaugh and the Insurance companies all in the period of a three minute section on “misinformation."  Basically, Barack Obama isn't playing anymore, and he will "call you out" if you keep lying and spreading misinformation (*cough* Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck *cough*).

But was The Speech enough?  Was it really a game changer.  As Chris Cillizza tells us, we're going to find out soon:

While the White House and the Democratic National Committee cited insta-polling that showed overwhelming majorities of the American public reacted positively to the speech, the reaction from some key Democrats in the House and Senate was more muted. The Blue Dogs released a statement after the speech saying only that they "share[d] the President's commitment to passing health care reform this year." Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a critical swing vote in the Senate, said in a statement that he would "keep my eyes trained on the nitty gritty details as the debate moves forward." The Obama White House clearly believes that the way to pass this bill through Congress is by taking a bottom up approach -- energizing everyday Americans to pressure their lawmakers to take action. But, ultimately, a handful of Democratic Senators and Democratic House members may hold the fate of the bill in their hands.

Where I disagree with Cillizza is his insinuation that this bottom up approach won't work.  These Blue Dogs aren't appointed to their position by some governing body, they are in fact voted for by the very same people Obama has re-energized with The Speech.  And in reality, if phony town halls set up by corporate fat cats can sway Blue Dogs by posing as bottom up, then a true grassroots movement that Obama has the ability to inspire will move them right back to the President's side.  

President Obama has reopened the door for meaningful Health Care Reform.  The Speech has left Republicans out in the cold, resorting to town hall tactics in Congress (No Congressman Joe Wilson, I haven't forgotten about you.)  As President Obama said, We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.  This is The Play of American Politics and Health Care Reform, with Obama and Democrats running over and through the Stanford Band of Republicans, including, straight towards the game winning touchdown.

Voice Critique

The blog DailyKos is well known in political circles as one of the foremost progressive and liberal blogs out on the Internet.  They're also known for their unabashed dislike of everything conservative and Republican, as well as their willingness to let their opinions be heard, unfiltered from the constraints of objectivity that is expected in the mainstream media. Even within in the vast liberal blogosphere, DailyKos has a distinct voice that simply hasn't been recreated by anyone else.  

So what is this voice?  Is it sarcastic?  Witty?  Just downright mean?  Lets just go with a combination of all three, as seen in the title of one of their most recent posts...

Pull The Plug On Chuck Grassley

Not only is the title downright hilarious, at least from my point of view, but it's witty and relevant to the topic being discussed in the blogpost.  The writer's metaphor of 'pulling the plug' works well in the context, since not only do they want Democrats to stop negotiations with Senator Grassley on Health Care, which lends itself to the pull the plug reference as well, but Chuck Grassley is also one of the key players in spreading the lies about phony death panels that would 'pull the plug on grandma' which hijacked the health care debate and sent it off into the land of the wing-nut.  

The post itself has some gems as well.

Really, Chuck? I thought we saw "democracy in action" last November when more than 125 million Americans voted, not when a few hundred extremists that the media chose to highlight screamed at town hall meetings.

The poster doesn't try to feign some sort of formality, he instead attacks Senator Grassley head on, referring to the Senator colloquially by using his first name and using his own words, saying that the town halls filled with demagoguery and corporate influence were real democracy in action, against him.  Due to this extreme stance taken by town hall goers and the corporate influence on the 'grassroots' movement itself, the blogger doesn't refer to the town hall goers as such, instead he labels them 'extremists,' which not only evokes an entirely different emotion in the reader, but gives the reader an idea of which end of the ideological spectrum this blogger belongs to as well. 

Terms like 'extremist' and 'fear-mongering' are often used by DailyKos bloggers to describe their opponents, typically Republicans and conservatives.  This confrontational style and word choice is a key element of the blog's voice.  DailyKos bloggers aren't pretending to be anything less than lion-hearted liberals, and the word choice is crucial in narrowing down their audience. Conservatives, and possibly even moderates, probably wont be the followers of a blog disparaging the conservative take over town halls, and likely don't want to hear about the metaphorical plug pulling of a Republican Senator.  DailyKos is unabashedly liberal and wants the reader to know that. Therefore, DailyKos isn't catering to those who aren't somewhat sympathetic to progressive and liberal causes, in fact, liberals are their core audience.

And sometimes even Democrats and liberals are taken on by DailyKos.

It's hard not to compare the two -- last Saturday, Ted Kennedy spoke from the grave in support of real health care reform:

"I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I'm committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life."

And today, the President let us know what he thinks about access to health care for everyone. From senior advisor David Axelrod:

As to the fate of a government option plan to compete with private insurance, Axelrod suggested the controversial concept is gone but not forgotten: "The spirit that led him to support a public option is still very much at play here and so you know he wants competition. He wants choice."

The voice is unrelentingly sarcastic and satirical, especially when given the correct context. President Obama is being compared to the Liberal Lion, the Late Ted Kennedy, in his commitment to Health Care Reform.  

Speaking of Senator Kennedy, this comparison and context of the blog, this is yet another way that the writer narrows down his audience.  One must not only be concerned with liberal causes that were advocated by Senator Kennedy throughout his illustrious career, but the reader must be informed about politics and the day to day aspects of governing and political discourse. Without being aware of the context, the reader is likely to be lost in the shuffle.

But back to the comparison. Obama is painted by the blogger as a typical politician who is willing to compromise on his core beliefs in order to appease Republicans, while Ted Kennedy is idealized as a champion of progressive Health Care Reform and a true believer in liberal causes.  What is also important about this comparison is that it further narrows the audience from simply Democrats to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.  The blogger is criticizing the President for being too conservative!  Seriously...this isn't a joke.  The President who's being painted as a socialist by the right wing is being attacked by the left for not being liberal or progressive enough.  

The end of this entry gets back to the satirical and sarcastic nature of the blog.

Isn't that special? That spirit and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee, but it sure as hell won't do a damn thing to help you pay the medical bills.

I may be reading too much into this, but I'm pretty sure DailyKos just referenced Dana Carvey's Saturday Night Live sketches as the Church Lady with that rhetorical question.  He also uses an analogy in some sense by explaining that the spirit of the desire for a public option, along with a dollar, can get you something simple like coffee, but in the real world of governance and in the reality based world we live in, 'spirit' for the public option isn't going to get you very far, or much health care for that matter.

Lastly,  there is one thing that ties all of these posts together with one unifying voice.  They're all short sentences within short paragraphs.  The blogger doesn't go on about the same topic, instead he keeps the post succinct and relevant.  This direct style adds to the confrontational, aggressive, and sarcastic voice of the blog DailyKos.