The Deal: Including A Few Parts No One Else Is Talking About. Kudos to Moveon for Waking Up. HCAN's Still Aiming for Victory Through Misrepresentation

The Senate bill seems to have taken on a life of its own. You probably already heard they've changed the bill to get Ben Nelson's vote, unless he changes his mind again as extortion seems to be working very well.

You can see the amendment for yourself here. Ironically, it's stated purpose is "To improve the bill."

Here are some highlights:

1. Annual and lifetime limit prohibitions are back after 2014, but as everything it's not so simple. Prior to 2014, annual limits are restricted, but not banned and lifetime limits aren't touched. A lot of folks interpreting this bill on other blogs are missing the fact that it's up to what the Secretary of HHS determines: 1) are essential benefits, 2) are needed services, and 3) will have only a minimal impact on premiums. Also being missed is that annual and lifetime limits live on per beneficiary on specific coverages.

2. The gun lobby has been made happy with the removal of having a firearm as a behavioral issue that can be used to determine premiums in Section 2716. You may have had to put down certain risky behaviors on an insurance application such as whether you smoke, drive without a seatbelt and the like or had your doctor ask about risky behaviors during a routine checkup. Now, having a gun present in your home is to be considered less risky than anything. As that is ridiculous from a reality-based perspective, we know this was a purely political addition to the bill and it translates into the fact that the rest of us will be paying increased premiums so we can pretend that there is no greater risk of injuries due to guns in the home.

3. The medical loss ratios are enforced by premium rebates. The ratios are 85% group and 80% individual. What no one is discussing is that in the individual market, the Secretary may lower the ration if he or she feels the 80% that it would destabilize the market. One of the criteria to set the ratio is participation in the market. This criteria will put downward pressure on the ratio to allow more insurers into the market.

4. There is more coverage available for participation in clinical trials, but the whole thing is limited to network providers. What are the chances than any particular clinical trial is being done on a particular disease acquired by a particular insured and that specific trial is being offered by a provider within the insured's pre-chosen network of providers? Probably very slim, so while a nice thought, it's probably illusory.

5. Section 1303 is the Ben Nelson extorted anti-choice provision. Who knew the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats would become all about anti-choice provisions. States may prohibit abortion coverage in qualified plans offered in the state's exchange. The amendment allows for enactment and repeal of these provsions over and over again. I can only imagine what that's going to do to each and every state legislature election. republicans get the abortion wedge issue forevermore. So, not only is this terrible policy, it's pretty stupid politics.

6. The OPM negotiated private plans sit at Section 1334. That's your big "public option" win. They're going to be multi-state plans and there is no specific protection for tougher state regulations or mandated coverages. OPM negotiations will be limited to: (A) a medical loss ratio; (B) a profit margin; (C) the premiums to be charged; and (D) such other terms and conditions of coverage as are in the interests of enrollees in such plans--whatever that means. One contract gets to be with a nonprofit entity.

7. Extortion works Part II. Ben Nelson's state of Nebraska gets more federal matching. I did a search of the Amendment for Illnois. Zip. We're being punished for Rahm.

8. Whoops. I found a typo at page 141. On page 143 we get to fund more anti-choice education.

For all of you who think this is fine and it will get fixed in the House, guess again. Nelson intends to hold the House to all his demands.

Kudos to Moveon.org for opposing the Senate's Anti-Choice, Pro-Gun and Private Profits Protection Act of 2009. HCAN's running TV ads still calling this the public option and renewing it's strategy of victory through misrepresentation. It's national blog summarizes the bill leaving out all mention of any of its problems. The argument in favor of the Senate Bill as revised is once again purely political, but now it gets stranger. Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect tells us that if we don't agree to this as health care reform, opponents will be emboldened and Obama will be gun-shy to promote anymore reform. With this as his idea of reform, that might be a good idea. If they're worring about emboldening opponents of the bill, they've already done that by giving Ben Nelson everything he wanted.

Obama says those of us who don't agree that this is peachy reform haven't read the bills. I have read the bills and I disgree.

Cheryle Jackson Impresses Highland Park Tenth Dems U Attendees

Home values fell $2.4 trillion from December 2007 to December 2008 and around 1.7 million homeowners were on the verge of foreclosure in the fall. You'd never know that to hear Mark Kirk tell it. He's busy reveling in health care reform bust while everyone else tries to figure out how to pay their monthly insurance premium. One Senate candidate is well aware of what is happening to most of us on the ground in real life Illinois, Cheryle Jackson.

For guidance in her political career, Jackson looks to her background as the daughter of an accountant who struggled with employment upon his family's move to Memphis in the 1960s. Her dad ran up against 1960s style race discrimination in the job market and learned how to use his business skills to work with small mom and pop, minority businesses, to help them find financing sources and expand. Jackson took that example to Chicago's Urban League where she shifted the mission from social services to economic development. While she acknowledges that social services are important, she feels that economic development is the long term solution to unemployment and the ills that lead to and come with it.

Last year, when Obama's proposed stimulus package was the focus of the nation, she wrote an article that appeared in the Tribune about the stimulus needed for urban areas. Jackson was talking about Main Street when most everyone else was talking about Wall Street and just plain old streets. She focused on the gaps of the proposal including jobs for people who did not have the construction skills to take work building roads and other proposed infrastructure projects. She also focused on the role of small businesses in creating jobs:

While everyone agrees that small businesses will play a major role in a rebounding economy, do they agree on the types of businesses eligible for relief under a stimulus plan? Minority businesses tend to be more service-oriented and lack the collateral that weighs heavily into loan decisions. Growing these businesses will require more prescient financing models such as mezzanine funding, a private equity tool that gives fast-emerging companies greater access to capital based on different requirements for collateral and personal credit history. A payroll tax credit would be another powerful tool to help small businesses create jobs.

She went on to discuss that helping small businesses with greater guarantees of SBA loans don't really help because the SBA requires a certain level of cash flow that many small businesses do not have. She favors green jobs, but recognizes that we don't yet seem to understand what that means beyond building efficiency and don't have the training in place to prepare the unemployed ready to take the jobs. Her stimulus suggestions remind me of my recent post on the economic proposals of New America Foundation. Presently, she's concerned about the small amount of stimulus funding that has been released.

Jackson's other main focus is education and improving our nation's skill sets. She's run many job fares through the Urban League where many standing in line didn't have the skills for any of the available jobs and feels we are not doing enough about the affordability of college. She's met many people unable to send their kids back for second semesters and worked with many people to help them find money for all the fees that can keep a student from attending even when the student has a scholarship.

Jackson is very familiar with the effects of the credit and housing crisis. She's worked with families unable to get help from their banks, noting that help is not available unless the borrower is 4 to 5 payments late, a situation that completely ruins their credit. She also been on the phone with lenders on behalf of many people trying to refinance.

Mark Kirk talks about deficits, according to Jackson, but never mentions that he participated in creating them with the Iraq War. She gives republicans no leeway on their role in putting our country into debt and favors withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan to focus on our economic issues here at home, noting that our economic strength is part of our national security.

I had to ask her a health care question. I asked if she'd vote for the current version of the Senate bill. Jackson's bottom line for an acceptable bill includes an entity large enough to drive down costs and create competition, coverage for pre-existing conditions, no further restrictions on choice beyond Hyde (and she'd favor eliminating Hyde as well), and any bill must not reduce Medicaid payments and services. She wasn't as familiar with the current state of the Senate bill, but acknowledged after hearing the details that she'd probably have to vote no. I expressed my wish that she'd consider single payer.

She hedged a bit on a free trade question which I don't think she was really prepared to answer. However, she did say that she likes to ask the question that no one else is asking and brought it back to what we can do to nurture small business and economic development around the world without harming the workers and the environment. She proved she knew what she was talking about when she mentioned the need to level the playing field, understanding that free trade policies leave developing countries without potential markets and hurt American workers when workers in other countries are underpaid and otherwise abused.

As she was in the Illinois Tenth, Jackson was asked a question about Israel. She recognizes it as our country's most important Mid-East ally and it's right to defend itself. She was unsure about the Jerusalem issue, but is getting advice from AIPAC and was reminded of J Street of which she was already aware.

On a question about banking, Jackson was familiar with an Obama campaign proposal about a mission and not profit driven bank to help get credit moving to the right places.

Jackson seemed very open and honest to me. Smiling, she acknowledged that hay will be made over her work for Blagojevich, but reminds that she left during his first term. She reminds me of candidates from years ago who were less interested in grandiose international plans and more interested in what happening with our jobs and families. She'd be an interesting and perhaps much needed addition to the Senate with this focus as our current Senators are clearly out of touch with our needs as displayed in the recent health care reform negotiations.

Many of us up north here knew very little about Cheryle Jackson until tonight and many have been gravitating over to Hoffman as a Giannoulias alternative, but some have grown nervous over his economic conservatism, hard right Mid-East position and scortched earth campaign style that seems to be sinking rather than helping his poll numbers. Several attendees of tonight's presentation by Jackson commented to me afterward that they were favorably impressed. She still trails Alexi in the polls, but has gone up 5 points without slick mailers or television ads. David Hoffman, who has plastered television with his own ads, trails her by 8 points in the latest independent poll.

Out-Rahm'd

UPDATE: While one must consider the source, the corporate WSJ, they quote Rahm Emanuel on his distain for the liberal wing of the Democratic party and since it pretty much fits with what we already know about Rahm, you might as well take a look. It isn't pretty.

*****************************

UPDATE: AFL-CIO joined SEIU in demanding a change to health care proposals.

*****************************

Did Rahm finally out-Rahm himself?

My dad said it all last night when I went over there to help drain my mom's chest tube. He wasn't mad that Obama didn't win health care. He was mad that Obama didn't even try to win health care.

I've been pointing out that they weren't trying to win for months. When Obama had that lobbyist meeting at the White House, I emailed my local hcanner in chief. No response. I went to a rally in Chicago and had some words with the hcanners. No matter that I've actually written laws in CBA committee, they told me I didn't understand how laws were made. I was naive. I was invited to speak at a house party in Northbrook. They cut me off in mid-sentence as I tried to explain the reform structure of exchanges/mandates/subsidies. No one was supposed to hear that part of it. We were all supposed to focus on that public option, and as it turned out, it didn't really matter what the public option really was. That was shiny object to be dangled in front of that convenient, but sometimes pesky, progressive grassroots that came out of the Obama campaign (arguably out of the anti-Bush/McCain/Palin campaign) while the real deals were being made by the real players.

They told me I don't understand how laws are made, but there is one thing that I do know. If you're ever going to go to the mats for something, and it's something that you could easily lose, you want to do it for something you can feel good about when all is said and done. There's a whole lot of shame for losing an unjust, evil, stupid or fake cause. There should be shame in winning one too, but there never is. However, there's no shame in losing a just cause.

Not to Rahm and those few who still follow him.

Rham's all about the political maneuver. He wheels and deals with the big bad guys and he thinks those of us fighting for progressive policy are idiots, but he uses much more colorful language. They say Rahm is all about playing hardball. That can be good. I'd like to see our Democratic leaders play some hardball. I asked them to a day or so ago. The problem with Rahm is that he's playing hardball with the wrong people, us.

Now, it's pretty clear that the Rahm plan was to meet with the lobbyists, strike a deal and then ram it down our throats. Apparently, not much hardball was played with pharma and insurance. They met in a nice room at the White House and went to the Rose Garden for pictures, maybe even some snacks and a little garden frolic with cute puppy, Bo. On the other side of things, the good doctors over at PNHP were treated to an afternoon in jail. They were eventually invited in, but not to talk, only to listen.

It may time for Rahm to sit down and listen himself. Howard Dean challenged the White House yesterday and they chose to attempt to bury him. They claimed he didn't know what he was talking about and they probably thought that would do the trick--wasn't Dean the guy who gave that scream--we'll make him look like a nutjob. Olbermann gave a terrific Special Comment on the state of health care reform. No problem. He could be passed off as a flaming liberal.

Easy, right? Well, some of us noticed what the White House failed to notice. It wasn't just the Deaniacs and flaming liberals who were backing off this thing. The Daily Kos, the big cheeto and hotbed of almost irrational Obama support, melted down in exactly one day. On Tuesday, my comments against the Senate bill were being flamed. On Wednesday, most of the diaries were saying exactly what I said on Tuesday and before. Huffington Post, the site that had gone so far as to change the title of my article on Howard Dean's visit to Deerfield, making it look like Dean was a solid public option supporter, came out against the Senate bill this morning. Arianna says its a bailout of the health insurance industry. True/Slant, remembering that Obama campaigned on health care reform to help those like his mom who died of cancer worrying about medical bills, pointed out that Obama's mother would not have received much help from this deal. Now it appears that only OFA (the White House online itself), Ezra Klein who is still touting the 90% medical loss ratio that is likely out of the final deal because CBO said it would make private insurance a government program, and lonely Nate Silver over at 538, all 20 of his questions easily answered by many of us, remained in the Obama camp on health care reform.

The Internet lost, surely Obama would retain his union support. Well, as it turns out no. SEIU, the sugar daddy of HCAN, came out this morning againt the Senate bill/lobbyist deal. They echoed Olbermann, "enough". They want a real fight for health care reform and not Rahm's backroom deal:

SEIU does not accept that this monumental effort - that this reform that is so necessary to the health and wellbeing of our economy, our families and our future - can be over without a fight. A fight to make it work for you and your families.

The polls have crashed too and too. They're trying to pin it all on Joe Lieberman, but while everyone knows Lieberman is a jerk, it's pretty clear that this all came from the White House. Feingold said it on Tuesday:

This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don’t think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth.

Rahm blew it. He out Rahm'd himself and even managed to give republicans a couple of credible talking points so they don't even have to lie on this one. As Rahm blew it, one cannot overlook Obama's role. He presided over the lobbyist meetings and failed to defend reform at each opportunity. It's time for President Obama to stop working the Rahm Emanuel strategy of hardball against progressives and liberals and remember who put them in the White House. He should fire Rahm, but please don't send him back to Illinois. We're taking the Gitmo detainees and isn't that enough? Rahm can go to Alaska where there short one right wing loon since Palin quit. Without Rahm, Obama can still rescue this thing. He can join in the growing chorus of those saying "enough" and move this thing back to where it belongs by playing a little hardball against those who need to be its recipients for a change.

Here's Salon writer Glenn Greenwald telling David Schuster that it's not about political anger, it's a substantitive argument:


Here is Greenwald's "must read" piece in Salon. Greenwald is an attorney and author.

Ellen's 20 Answers

Nate over at 538 has 20 questions for bill killers. Markos made a good argument on each. I thought I'd make my own points.

1. Over the medium term, how many other opportunities will exist to provide in excess of $100 billion per year in public subsidies to poor and sick people?

I don't think the subsidies are sustainable. So, you make it ok in the first year or so and they're on their own after that. My former employer did the same thing. They took out high deductible policies for everyone and put some money into an HSA for the first year. OK, no complaints in the first year. What about after that?

2. Would a bill that contained $50 billion in additional subsidies for people making less than 250% of poverty be acceptable?

First, it won't happen. Second, 250% of the poverty level for a family of 4 is $55,125 in 2009. The average cost of insurance for a family of four in 2009 was $16,771 which is about 30% of the income. We, the American taxpayers, have to fund that?

3. Where is the evidence that the plan, as constructed, would substantially increase insurance industry profit margins, particularly when it is funded in part via a tax on insurers?

Mandate + Monopoly = Substantially Increased Insurance Industry Profits. Also, the tax will be passed on to customers, so it's a wash for the industry.

4. Why are some of the same people who are criticizing the bill's lack of cost control also criticizing the inclusion of the excise tax, which is one of the few cost control mechanisms to have survived the process?

The excise tax applies to union negotiated plans. Workers gave up wages for their health care plans. To tax them upsets the collective bargaining.

5. Why are some of the same people who are criticizing the bill's lack of cost control also criticizing the inclusion of the individual mandate, which is key to controlling premiums in the individual market?

Mandates + Monopolies = Substantially Increased Insurance Industry Profits. I don't believe people fail to buy insurance out of any sinister reason. They simply cannot afford it or they don't understand it and the insurance companies want the latter and make their policies and coverages difficult to understand on purpose to achieve it. It cuts down on challenges to claims denial.

6. Would concerns about the political downside to the individual mandate in fact substantially be altered if a public plan were included among the choices? Might not the Republican talking point become: "forcing you to buy government-run insurance?"

I don't care about the political downside re republicans. They say whatever they want to say whether based in truth or not.

7. Roughly how many people would in fact meet ALL of the following criteria: (i) in the individual insurance market, and not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare; (ii) consider the insurance to be a bad deal, even after substantial government subsidies; (iii) are not knowingly gaming the system by waiting to buy insurance until they become sick; (iv) are not exempt from the individual mandate penalty because of low income status or other exemptions carved out by the bill?

I do.

8. How many years is it likely to be before Democrats again have (i) at least as many non-Blue Dog seats in the Congress as they do now, and (ii) a President in the White House who would not veto an ambitious health care bill?

So we take the opportunity to institute bad policy? I don't think that's why I worked for many of these people now in power.

9. If the idea is to wait for a complete meltdown of the health care system, how likely is it that our country will respond to such a crisis in a rational fashion? How have we tended to respond to such crises in the past?

Legislating bad policy will not help prevent a crisis, but lead to one. I think this is just another form of corporate suicide in the long run, comparable to the mortgage meltdown, as insurers impoverish their own customers and price them out of the market.

10. Where is the evidence that the public option is particularly important to base voters and/or swing voters (rather than activists), as compared with other aspects of health care reform?

You guys worked to make it important to the base voters and swing voters. Now you pull the rug out from under them and tell them to live with it. Not smart. No one's buying it.

11. Would base voters be less likely to turn out in 2010 if no health care plan is passed at all, rather than a reasonable plan without a public option?

If handled properly, you can tag the correct people with the failure of reform. Now, it appears to be Obama's fault with Reid as an accomplice.

12. What is the approximate likelihood that a plan passed through reconciliation would be better, on balance, from a policy perspective, than a bill passed through regular order but without a public option?

Single payer. Saves the administrative costs. If not that, then at least a reasonable Medicare expansion that could be built upon in the future. Frankly, this bill is so bad, we'd be better off without any of it than with all of it. They can pass the pilot programs in a separate bill and are already working on that in the House as I reported yesterday.

13. What is the likely extent of political fallout that might result from an attempt to use the reconciliation process?

I don't care. We're making long term policy here. Howard Dean is exactly right that we should not do so with short term thinking.

14. How certain is it that a plan passed through reconciliation would in fact receive 51 votes (when some Democrats would might have objections to the use of the process)?

Worth a try. If you fail, at least we know who voted against it and can act accordingly next election cycle.

15. Are there any compromises or concessions not having to do with the provision of publicly-run health programs that could still be achieved through progressive pressure?

All compromises and concessions have been from the left, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Remember, bipartisanship means republics win everything, all the time. Apparently progressives have no clout with this Administration either even though we brought it to power. Rahm has already expressed his contempt for the left. We protested Rahm just a few years ago on the Iraq War in subzero weather. No need to start supporting him now as he continues to not support us.

16. What are the chances that improvements can be made around the margins of the plan -- possibly including a public option -- between 2011 and the bill's implementation in 2014?

None. Congress is tired of this. There is nothing in it for them either way because they'll be under attack no matter what they do and have no spines to take it from the right. They just want to be done with this and move on.

17. What are the potential upsides and downsides to using the 2010 midterms as a referendum on the public option, with the goal of achieving a 'mandate' for a public option that could be inserted via reconciliation?

Taking a line from Keith Olbermann's special comment, 2010 is now a mandate on compromiseD, not compromise. No one will remember the public option after everything that has happened and no one really understood the public option in the first place. People vote from the gut and this has left a bad feeling all the way around. That's what will be remembered in the voting booths.

18. Was the public option ever an attainable near-term political goal?

It should never have been a goal. It was convoluted, depended on many factors outside of anyone's control and unlikely to operate as theorized. I asked supposed experts on it over and over for an explanation of how this thing would work and why it was a good policy idea. I always got the same explanation: it's an argument that can be made to the right of single payer, could indirectly operate to control costs if done right (the explanation of "right" was very flexible and changed in direct relationship to each capitulation), and it "resonates" with the guys over at the Chamber of Commerce (as if).

19. How many of the arguments that you might be making against the bill would you still be making if a public option were included (but in fact have little to do with the public option)?

All of them. Been making the arguments for months. Read my archives.

20. How many of the arguments that you might be making against the bill are being made out of anger, frustration, or a desire to ring Joe Lieberman by his scruffy, no-good, backstabbing neck?
None. I never thought this was a good idea. When I saw the exchanges and mandates funded by subsidies, I knew this was a problem. Lieberman doesn't matter. He's just the fall guy for the Administration that made this deal months ago.

Nate, almost all of your questions were on the politics of the whole thing. I'm looking for reform and health care, not empty political maneuvering. I think if elected officials do a good job and communicate well and truthfully with their constituents, the re-election is easier.

Explanation of the Practical Application of the Pre-Existing Exclusion and Caps Provisions of the Senate Bill

A commenter and serveral folks on Facebook didn't understand the problems with the Senate bill as it relates to the pre-existing exclusion and caps. Those have been the biggest arguments made in favor of the bill, but the arguments given are missing several important facts. Wendell Potter explains to Olbermann:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Health Care Charade: The Public Option Wasn't Worth Much Anyway (or After All That Has Happened Since April, Are They Kidding Me?)

I get back from court this morning to find this story linked on Huffington (I took screen shots because if someone told me this offhandedly, I wouldn't believe them either):

















The story links to Nate's blog over at FiveThirtyEight Politics, a site that's given a lot more due than this little blog is. Nate's supposed to be a numbers guy and he's talking numbers here, but we also have to take into account that he's an Obama loyalist.

So, I click over there and see this:

















It's the same chart they were showing on the Politics page on Huffington. It appears to show a great health insurance premium savings with the Senate bill. Nate's telling us to hold our horses on Kill Bill, that it's not a smart thing to do. Ok, Nate, I'm listening.....

Oh, his numbers are taken from the CBO, there's a substantial discount... blah blah blah...BUT the numbers aren't current and reflect inclusion of the public option. Then, Silver says this:








You can click on the screen shot to enlarge, but I'll spell it out for you here:

One caution: this reflects the situation before the public option was removed from the bill. But, provided that the subsidy schedule isn't changed as well, that shouldn't change these numbers much.

Nate's telling us that the public option was not going to lower premiums. The savings was all in the taxpayer funded subsidies. Huh? That's taxpayer funded subsidies, not savings.

Didn't HCAN Illinois tell us, tell members of Congress, that the public option would control premiums? I remembered this:

For businesses that don’t have good options now, offer the choice of a public health insurance plan. This will give us greater bargaining power and encourage competition among insurers to make costs affordable.

I knew there might be a problem with all this when our local HCAN was quoting the flat earth, free trade economist Thomas Friedman, but what gives? Would the public option have made insurance premiums more affordable or not? Did they always know that the public option wouldn't have much of an effect on premiums and that the savings only came through subsidies? Did something change? Was HCAN misleading then or are the Senate bill supporters lying now?

The Down Side (or The Hope of Audacity)

Health care reform is collapsing in the Senate even more dramatically than even I thought possible. At the present moment, I'm watching the republican motion to recommit and Kay Bailey Hutchinson is making all of the progressive arguments against the bill, taxes take effect before benefits, subsidies could fail in future congresses etc. That's what happens when you attempt to substitute political maneuvering for good progressive policy. Democrats handed common sense arguments to republicans by not minding policy over politics. Basically, what I now call the "Rahm Doctrine" (concede your best arguments early, argue a political strategy as policy, lie by omission, stick to a couple of soundbytes as a sales pitch, throw all of your eggs in an unreliable basket (Snowe and Lieberman), and don't change your tune no matter what happens) has failed miserably.

Now, some of it's most ardent supporters are rallying to kill the bill. Howard Dean said to kill it on Vermont Public Radio this morning. That's not a huge surprise because, even though Huffington Post managed to change my title to make it look like Dean cared only about the public option, the text of my article on Dean's appearance in Deerfield was left intact and he said that "we already gave away too much" and that "the public option should have been Medicare." I wrote, "He further commented that we cannot give up much more before the bills become worthless." I have to hand it to Dean, he said it and he meant it even when the politics involved might argue the opposite.

Even Markos and public option devotee diarist slinkerwink on the big orange say to kill it. The only arguments in favor of the bill at this point are the subsidies and some weak sounding threats that it is bad politics, but that assumes the subsidies will survive subsequent congresses or that the levels that pass will be adequate to the premium increases we'll see when the insurance companies are feeling all cozy with their new mandated customer base and fully preserved trust exemption. I'll be perfectly frank that I simply do not care about the politics. If this hurts Democratic incumbents in 2010 and 2012, it's their own fault.

I was reminded by a commenter below of another argument in favor of the bill, pilot programs. The New Yorker's Atul Gawande made the argument yesterday that the experiments in changing our delivery system make the bill worth the problems, comparing the pilot programs to the farming pilots of the early 1900s. I'm not sure I agree with that comparison, but even if health care and farming can be compared, I'm not sure mandated coverage is a burden the American people should have to bear so the folks at Kaiser Permanente in North Carolina can experiment with Kaiser Permanente's best practices in California. They're making a lot of money, and should do that experimentation all on their own as part of their R&D. In any event, the pilot programs, if worth something, could be put into a separate bill that does not burden working middle class Americans with mandates from monopolies. Now that I'm looking for it, I see that the effort to put this in separate legislation is already underway.

Watching Max Baucus make his feeble arguments for this bill this afternoon, I can only conclude that the down side, that ever elusive bargaining chip Democrats seemed unable to grasp, is to not pass anything. This bill is a gift to the insurance companies even without the latest downgrades. It gives them a captive audience and a large deep pocket. Without this "reform", the insurance companies will eventually feel the consequences of their own actions. As the old saying goes, "you cannot bleed a turnip". As the American people and their employers grow more turnip-y, insurance company profits will go down. A lot of people will suffer, but eventually insurers will get the point. This bill would have saved insurance company profits in the long term, but they're so wound up in short term corporate thinking that they don't even get it.

The bottom line of the health care reform struggle is that it's just one battle in the fight between corporationism and the American people. The corporations win this round, but eventually they will win themselves out of their own markets. I hate to see things get that bad, but it appears it's our only choice.

If Obama and Rahm were smart, they'd kill the bill themselves, admonish Congress loudly and firmly, and start the dance over, and this time, with the ones who brought them.

Supreme Court Delays Citizens United Decision

Last week amid the health care reform kerfluffle, the Supreme Court decided not to decide Citizens United v. FEC this year. I'm mentioned this case before.

Citizens United is the group that made an anti-Hillary documentary to be made available via on-demand cable during the 2008 primary season. As Citizens United takes for-profit corporate funding, the FEC determined that corporate limits applied and stopped the airing. Lower courts agreed that the FEC corporate limits applied. The case, which was reheard by the Supreme Court this past September, centers on the constitutionality of corporate limits on campaign contributions. Supreme Court watchers expect Citizens United to be victorious in gutting the FECs corporate contribution rules, but are in disagreement over whether the Roberts Court will overrule Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, where the Court previously upheld the corporate limits or issue a narrow reversal on the specific facts of the case, simply not applying the FEC limits to video-on-demand broadcasts, as they are not applied to conventional theater, DVD sales and the Internet.

Current speculation is on the full overruling of Austin. The Government may have made a mistake when it asserted at oral argument that the FEC could ban books delivered during an election season via Kindle (although some Justices couldn't quite wrap their minds around the concept of the Kindle that delivers the text via satelite). However, on the side of the limits, is the film itself, a pretty obvious hatchet job of Secretary Clinton clearly intended to influence the vote. Jusice Kennedy is expected to be the deciding vote on this one as Sotomayor takes the same position as Souter to uphold the limits. Kennedy is expected to side with the majority, but wring his hands over the final opinion which might explain the delay.

This decision could create even more of what is frequently referred to in Illinois as a "wild west" atmosphere of campaign finance. The only good that could come out of this may be in the long term as campaign dialogue deterioriates to the point where real campaign finance reform, public funding of elections, becomes a clear necessity. Those who want our elections to be ruled by smear may win this battle, but their victory may be their ultimate undoing.

Roland Burris Gets It Right. He's Just A Bit Late.

It appears to take Illinois' Roland Burris to talk sense in the Senate. I guess it never hurts to have someone in the group who has nothing to lose. Burris took to the Senate floor last night and gave the compromisers a little whatfor:

Mr. BURRIS. Mr. President, I rise, of course, to speak on the health care legislation. The Senate is the greatest deliberative body this world has ever known. Since the inception of this body, its Members have practiced and perfected the art of compromise. It has been said that politics is the art of the possible—and this Chamber is teeming with experienced legislators who know how to work with Members of both parties to forge a more perfect bill. This means that individual Senators must inevitably give ground in the interest of achieving legislation that is built on consensus.

As a body of lawmakers—and particularly as a Democratic Party—we have compromised throughout our history to bring about the greatest legislative achievements this Nation has known. In the process, this Senate has made the country better.

Today, we find ourselves debating a measure that could overhaul the entire American health care system. We stand at this point after nearly 100 years of discussion and deliberation, stretching from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama.

What has defined us across that century is our commitment as a party to the fundamental pillars of health care, all of which have been echoed in this recent debate. These values served us well in 1935, when the Senate took up a proposal called Social Security. History recalls that debate was fierce. It was not without struggle and was not without compromise. But in the end, we achieved one of the greatest, most enduring public policy successes in American history.

Thirty years later, these very same values led this party and this Senate to take up a bill known as the Medicare Act. Again, that fight was not easy, and compromise was necessary to realize our vision. But, once again, this body and this party brought historic change to America. These hard-fought programs have been the valued cornerstone of our domestic policy for generations. They define the way we legislate and underlie the principle that this government’s chief responsibility is to its citizens.

Today, a new generation of Americans and a new Congress find ourselves in the midst of another historic debate. Earlier this year, a new President was swept into office, full of energy and ideas, and armed with a clear mandate to bring real reform to a health care system that was badly broken. So, once again, we took up the task of fighting for a more perfect health care system.

Americans all over the country, struggling and suffering, many in personal health crises, have looked to us. There is urgency there, and this body needs to act. Those who need help the most need that help now. So let’s pass this health care reform legislation, but let’s also do it right. Let’s not pass something just to pass something.

Everyone in this room is a legislator. We approach our responsibilities with the knowledge that our most optimistic ideas must often be tempered with a pragmatic reality. In the process of this debate, we have all made concessions and we have all compromised. My own preference was for a single payer system. Some of my friends on the other side would like to see no reform bill at all. But as a body and at least as a Democratic Party, I hope we will stay true to those fundamental pillars that have determined our course for the last 100 years.

As Mohandas Gandhi once famously said: "All compromise is based on give and take, but there be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender."

It was in the spirit of constructive compromise that 10 of our colleagues met and worked to forge the new compromise deal we have all heard about. I thank them for their hard work. We are all deeply invested in this issue. I applaud their willingness to come together at the table. At this point, the specifics of this proposal are few. As are many in this Chamber, I am actually awaiting the chance to examine the full details of the proposal. I do have deep reservations, deep concerns, about what you have heard up to this point. Until I see more, I can only say again what I have said from the very first day of this debate so many months ago: I am committed to voting for a bill that achieves the goals of a public option, competition, cost savings, and accountability. I will not be able to vote for lesser legislation that ignores these fundamentals.

I will continue to fight every day to strengthen this legislation until its final moments on this floor. I fully realize how hard my colleagues have worked. I know how difficult it has been to get this far. My colleagues may have forged a compromise bill that can achieve the 60 votes that will be needed for its passage, but until this bill addresses cost, competition, and accountability in a meaningful way, it will not win my vote. The American people most in need of help know we can do better, and we must do better.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. ~~Congressional Record, December 14, 2009, page S13177

That's the point, they compromised on the fundamentals early on and over and over again making their own chant about "not letting the perfect be the enemy of the whatever" appear more ridiculous every day.

Burris is a co-sponsor of SA 2837, the state single payer substitute which goes up for a symbolic vote tonight. Some are very dismayed that this vote appears to be just another compromise that will force the amendment's sponsors Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and Roland Burris to vote for the junk that will be the final product of the Senate. They are probably right on that one, but at least we'll have a vote to discuss in upcoming elections and we'll know who is not willing to step up to the plate for reform. Funny, how the very thing that makes Burris able to do something good fully disqualifies him from running again. At least we'll have some happy memories of Burris' stint in the Senate.

I put the blame for the health care reform debacle fully on the White House. For all Rahm's bluster and profanity, he's unable to use it constructively. He doesn't know how to, or doesn't want to, give the other side a down side. It might be the latter as Obama appears to care more about compromise to reflect a false bipartisanship than reform. Problem is that we voted for reform, not bipartisanship a la republican. I hope he was listening to the elder Illinoisan last night.

Can't Shame People Who Have No Shame. You have to Hit Them In The Stomach.

You'd think that a human heart would break
at such a display as this,
but warm hearted men with money at stake
can turn into heartless misbegotten misers.~~Fiorello! 1959

I've focused my health care posts on those seeking to trick everyone into health care reform. That was the public option, a political maneuver intended to not look as bad to the right as single payer, and at the same time, be so confusing to the left that no one would notice the plan was to throw money and customers at the insurance companies hoping the companies didn't notice the small bit of reform attached. It didn't work because it was never going to work. The only folks confused by the whole thing were the progressive activists who latched onto the astroturf groups thinking they were working for the greater good. They should have noticed something was wrong when their leaders told them to stand down against republicans and anti-reform Democrats. HCAN Illinois instructed its volunteers to stay outside of the room when Mark Kirk spoke in Arlington Heights. Nationally, SEIU (HCAN's main funder) is supporting anti-reformer Blanche Lincoln. They are clearly not playing for keeps in this fight.

The other group of reformers is far more sympathetic, but not much more effective. They sought to shame Congress and the White House into reform. Those were the folks who supported and worked the health fares set up by Keith Olbermann and others. Their hearts were in the right place, and they provided some much needed care. Sadly, they are now learning that you simply cannot shame the shameless. The Senators who were targeted didn't pay much attention, or did, but didn't show it. Even Bill Clinton refused to attend the one in his home state of Arkansas because he wanted to avoid the shame that was part his. He rightly understood that these fares were political, but he was wrong not to attend. He should have gone anyway to accept the responsibility that was his.

Now both reform groups are beggars. The public option group is trying to get the few people who still believe in them to make phone calls as its last stand, the ultimate too little, too late. I'll take notice that there is no local phone bank being offered--what happened to HCAN of Northbrook/Highland Park? Have they stopped being true believers?

The health clinic folks are posting their sad videos all over the blogs showing people literally begging for care. For all that, we get word today that Joe Lieberman is in charge. The White House denies it, but they may very well have instructed Harry Reid to make whatever deal old heartless Joe will take. It's hard to put it past them at this point. [UPDATE: This has been confirmed. Rahm told Harry to give Joe whatever he wants and it looks like Joe got it. With the annual cap prohibition gone, the Medicare buy-in gone and the 90% medical loss ratio gone, the bill's little more than madates and subsidies now--exactly what I said it was going to end up to be months ago. As the subsidies are likely to fall in a subsequent congress before the mandates ever do, it's probably time to kill this thing completely or we'll all just become slaves of the insurance industry.]

A long time ago, I wrote about Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, a tale of the turn of the last century meat packing industry. Conditions were horrible, surely someone would care and change the laws requiring cleanliness and inspections. Sinclair won, but not the way he intended. He acknowledged that he didn't move any of the hearts at which he aimed, but he hit them in their stomachs. That's what we have to do now in a way. We have to hit them where it counts, not physically of course (Sinclair wasn't talking about hitting anyone physically either), but hit them hard through every legal means available. As Sinclair showed even the wealthiest and most powerful of the Gilded-Agers the downside of an unregulated meat packing industry, we have to give the anti-reformers what no one working on this reform has given them so far, a downside.

One possibility is to push Medicare for All through under reconciliation. It can be done. That's how we got the Reagan and the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. republicans have no problem playing hardball. Another possibility is to start holding the insurance companies to their policies through customer complaints, attorney general complaints and in the courts. They only understand hardball. No amount of crying and begging is going to get the job done. No amount of unwaivering party support is going to do it. The progressive grassroots has to toughen up and demand they do the job and be very clear what their downside is going to be.

Both Sides Of The Banking Mess Move Through The Courts

Loan Underwriting Side: The Puget Sound Business Journal has attempted to obtain emails between the now shuttered WAMU and regulators. The OTS denied the FOIA request and the FDIC is delaying. PSBJ has been trying to figure out what caused regulators to seize WAMU when a sale appeared possible and operating cash and lending capital was available. Upon seizure, federal regulators sold WAMU to J. P. Morgan Chase for a bargain basement price. PSBJ investigators seem to think that the regulators pulled the plug too soon. One argument in favor of the seizure is that it saved the FDIC insurance fund. It might have been concern over the potential psychological effects those bank runs were having on the country in general. It may simply have been the embarrasing extent to which WAMU underwrote bad loans. Now, the circumstances of the seizure are part of the holding company's bankruptcy in which the bondholders and Chase vying for about $4 billion. The issue: was it a capital contribution or a deposit? It seems to me at some point there will be no need for FOIAs as the issue has become fair game in the bankruptcy case, the bondholders alleging misconduct on the part of the regulators.

Securitization Side: Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas, a French bank, have sued Bank of America over Ocala Funding. Ocala bought mortgages from Taylor, Bean & Whitaker to sell to Freddie Mac. TBW went bankrupt after being shut down by the FHA for alleged mortgage fraud, possibly selling some loans to more than one buyer and leaving Ocala with "missing" mortgages (this is why it is so important for foreclosure defendants and judges and anyone trying to pay off a mortgage or insure a title through a mortgage payoff to require production of the original note). BOA is involved as the trustee, collateral agent, custodian and depository agent of Ocala. The government claims that BOA can't show that it paid for the mortgages so it won't release the releases. This caused Deutsche and BNP to claim that BOA breached its duties under all the hats it wore relative to Ocala. BOA is accused of not properly tracking the mortgages bought and sold on Ocala's behalf. The sad truth is that probably none of these investment agents were properly tracking the pooled mortgages they bought and sold. I think this is a mess that's not going to go away so fast and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg relative to the issue of who owns these mortgages. That question further translates into the question of who owns these foreclosed properties. It could end up like the Chicago Fire in the real estate sense. Titles will have to be determined by the courts, and if quiet title lawsuits are required to determine the ownership of a lot of properties, the whole country could end up on Torrens, a land registration system that requires an initial court determination of ownership. Cook County knows all about Torrens and was very happy to be rid of it in the 1980s. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it might not for an even worse reason, the loans aren't worth the trouble.

Oy. Right Wing Looniness Goes Ecumenical: The War On Chanukah

The White House toned down the traditional Chanukah party and the latkes hit the fan. The reality is that Chanukah hasn't been an important Jewish holiday since Roman times. There might be some argument that Chanukah should gain it's orginal importance as a celebration of rebellion as stated in the prior link, but frankly, in the good old capitalist USA, it's not been about justified rebellion, but good old American commercialism.

Apparently, Bush had his own Chanukah problems. His administration was a bit unclear on the concept.

Most folks with sense see this as a White House effort to tone down all holiday parties during this economic downturn and be more careful not to exclude any religions. It will be a shame, however, if the White House fails to serve those new Vodka Donuts popular in Israel now. Anyone know if they're available here? I know of a few Chanukah parties (Christmas parties too) that could use them.

Because we wouldn't want it said that my blog has a war on Chanukah, here's The Chanukah Song which has been stuck in my head for days.

Do we need to fix our economy or create a whole new one?

With health care reform a bust, the Obama administration turned to jobs speaking at Brookings last week. He's been looking for new ideas, recently holding a White House jobs forum and asking communities to hold their own forums. So far what they've come up with are more tax cuts, eliminating the capital gains tax on small business investment and an extension of write-offs. The latter is probably that carry-back extension that was secretly slipped into the unemployment benefits extension and it helps more large home builders than small businesses innovating around anyone's kitchen table.

The Administration is also proposing more fee waivers and SBA loan guarantees and offering more TARP money to banks to make more loans to small businesses. We all thought that was what the first TARP payout was for, but the Bush administration forgot to put that in the law. Unfortunately, most of the same people are still in charge.

Now that bipartisanship a la republican is satisfied--they get everything they want even though we won the last election, we get to move on to a few progressive proposals. To that end, President Obama proposed more infrastructure investment. Here's where Obama stopped to discuss the large potential for abuse. Due to the large potential for abuse when federal money goes to infrastructure projects, the whole thing had to move slowly. Obama assured us that Vice President Biden paid close attention to make sure the money was spent wisely. It's not so easy when you're dealing with American workers. You simply cannot trust them with federal bailout money as much as... say... AIG or Goldman Sach executives, can you?

The Administration's third proposal is the homeowner energy incentive and the final is made up of relief benefits like COBRA and unemployment insurance. The rest is up to our entrepreneurial ingenuity. To his credit, President Obama didn't leave it at that. It was his seque into education. A Race to the Top fund has been created to reform schools and improve math and science education.

Also addressing jobs crisis, a recent report by the New America Foundation called for a long term economic growth program rather than temporary stimulus measures. NAF argues that the current recession is not simply a cyclical downturn that would benefit from an economic tickle that can come from tax cuts and SBA loan guarantees. It's a global financial crisis accompanied by a collapse of asset value. Basically, NAF argues that our prosperity of the past 20 years or so has been false, based on a false valuation of assets, and because, the economy perceives a real loss in value, it cannot be expected to cycle up for a temporary stimulus as it would after a conventional rescession.

The sustained economic growth program proposed by NAF includes infrastructure investment, public service investment and pro-growth tax reform. On the surface, it doesn't sound a whole lot different from what Obama proposed. The big difference is in the scope of the project. NAF proposes long term investment and a pretty big change in our tax structure.

For its infrastructure investment proposal, NAF looked to the American Society of Civil Engineers recommendation of $2.2 trillion over 5 years and to include investment in R&D. For public service, NAF proposes permanent revenue sharing rather than individual local government bailouts. They point to the problems in California where Californians have used their referrendum power to tax reduce and spend themselves into a whole. Federal funds would be used to take up the slack on local needs such as unemployment, pensions, fire, police, and schools. The very same people who voted away their local governments' ability to provide needed and demanded services would pay for it through their federal taxes.

Of particular interest are some of the suggestions for public service investment such as a home health care corps for senior care. States are now looking to community care over nursing care and even Illinois has some pilot programs to use Medicaid for community care rather than requirng that poor seniors be dumped into nursing homes to obtain the financial benefits. NAF also proposed a neighborhood conservation corps to purchase, renovate, and manage mortgages of foreclosed-upon houses in order to preserve neighborhoods.

NAF proposes tax cuts, but different cuts than proposed by Obama. NAF proposes permanent cuts to payroll taxes to lower the cost of hiring and to corporate income taxes. To pay for these tax cuts, NAF proposes a new federal value added tax (VAT). A VAT taxes consumption rather than work, and is levied at each stage of production based on the value added at each level. The VAT is already under discussion in the House where Nancy Pelosi has made the proposal to level the playing field between US manufacturers and foreign manufacturers who benefit from VAT funds taking the burden of workforce benefits off their books. Conservatives call the VAT a national sales tax, but it differs from a sales tax in that the sales tax is levied on the retail sale of good where the VAT is levied at the different stages of production. The VAT avoids cascading and sits at the final production and not the final sale of the goods. The VAT is more neutral to the level on which it is being charged. The VAT is a regressive tax on consumption, but it's a lesser burden than a true sales tax because of its level neutrality. It can be made more progressive by changing the rates for different goods.

Much of the NAF proposals come from stimulus multipliers calculated by Moody's. Infrastructure spending earns $1.59 per $1 spent. The Bush tax cuts would earn $.29 on each dollar lost which is why suggesting making them permanent or even temporary until the recession is over is nonsense. The biggest bang for our stimulus buck? Food stamps earning $1.73 per $1. Mark Kirk has called food stamps wasteful pork.

NAF is calling on President Obama to use taxation and spending to restructure the economy rather than create a short term fix. They conclude that short term bubble economy thinking put us where we are today, so long term thinking is needed to get us out of it and keep us from going back.

From Healthcare-Now Training

h/t Corrente. CBO is capable of flawed analyis when it wants to.

How do we kick the royalty habit?

I want to thank a couple of my readers for the comments on the post below. I've been thinking about what I said and what they said and I think it comes down to our national penchant for relying and focusing on the individual rather than policy. It's sort of a medieval concept if you think about it. We rely on a few individuals who we build up as superstar royalty, and if the particular individual doesn't live up to the hype, we give up on the policy itself.

The obvious political examples of this are Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards. Spitzer was the only person examining the bad behavior on Wall Street and calling them on it. Spitzer has a problem with his marriage, and apparently with women in general, and suddenly Wall Street is just fine. It was all Spitzer's fault for being a bad guy. Now, Wall Street has left us with a mess and Spitzer is considered only good for commentary. He'll never be a policymaker again. That's a shame because he was good at it.

I'll start out by saying that I never really liked John Edwards. I didn't like the fake intensity with which he looked at me the day I met him. He looked me straight in the eye with so much intensity, it was uncomfortable. Sorry, John, no vice presidential candidate is that interested in what a political volunteer has to say, and I was a Kerry, and not Edwards volunteer. Despite the terrible thing Edwards did to his family and particularly his ill wife and his new child, he had a pretty good idea, the idea that there were two Americas. That is very true. Government bailouts are the perfect example of that. It took no time to pour billions into large banks and investment companies and we still can't get a stimulus for the rest of us. Other examples are the distribution of H1N1 vaccines to corporations rather than day care centers and the way we triage health care, not by need, but by means. Just because Edwards was a creep, the whole idea of doing something to level off the two sides of this country went down the drain and is only making a slow comeback.

The most recent example of our focus on individuals is Tiger Woods. Woods was sold to us as a commercial spokesman. Just because he could knock a little ball into a little hole from several feet away was no reason to he was any better than anybody else. Haven't we had problems wiht sports figures before? The companies whose products he sold based on his sports skill + fake squeeky clean image wanted us to believe in that image so they could sell more products. Their marketing strategies have nothing to do with sports or even with sex. It's all just a sales pitch for products when the products should speak for themselves. If you need a golf shirt, does it matter who Tiger kanoodled with?

All that being said, the issue exists with President Obama too. I'm certainly not suggesting he's had any affair a la Edwards, Spitzer or Woods. Michelle would kill him before we could ever get at him. However, Obama is the subject of very strong emotions on both sides. The right is consumed with racist hatred and fear that he might take what they claim as rightfully theirs and the left wants the change he promised, but fears the alternative. Both sides are making the same mistake in focusing on the person.

On the part of the right, they prefer to elevate seemingly down home characters and it doesn't matter if the person behind the character is really down home or not. The Bush's were not good old boys from Texas, but members of the east coast elite from Kennebunkport, Maine. All the cowboying at the Crawford ranch was a bunch of cow patties. The locals knew it and Bush probably couldn't have been elected mayor of Crawford. The mayor of Crawford endorsed John Kerry over Bush. All the hockey mom-ness from Wasilla, Alaska is a front for polarizing, wedge issue politicking and the power and money obtained from working the system. Self-proclaimed hockey mom Sarah isn't all that down home popular in Wasilla where she increased debt, made progressive taxes regressive, spent like a drunken sailor and supported political hacks over good policy. Levi says she isn't even a real hockey mom. How often do they elevate war heros they claim to revere? Not much at all. Their current crop of leaders is very short on war heroism and very long on multiple deferments and absent without leave problems.

For all the good old boy, go to church and have a beer with 'em politics on the right, the nations problems remain the same and behind all their down home fronts are the corporations that put them there. It's absolute genius in one sense because their leaders get elected campaigning on the exact opposite of what they intend to do. They use populism to get the crowds and votes and turn populism on its head when they get in, but they own the media and abhor education so no one figures it out.

On the part of the left, the nations problems also remain the same. There are progressives who have been working for what were supposed to be progressive issue-driven organizations that ended up supporting particular candidates more than the issues they were supposed to represent. There are progressives writing on various blogs, most particularly Kos, who make long lists of minor accomplishments and long-winded arguments attempting to convince us that any diary, comment or question of the Administration's actions is really a right wing display of irrational hatred of the man. As the argument goes, you cannot be against the Afganistan escalation or for Medicare E or middle class over Wall Street stimulus without damaging something more important, Obama himself. What can be more important than the policy and what happens to the leadership when the policy is lost?

Taking this all in, it seems to me that for some reason, even after long and bloody wars were fought for freedom and the right to self-govern, we still crave individual leadership and elevate people to rolalty status. It doesn't really matter where these royals lead us because the personality and position matter more. Maybe the problem here is that we don't have a Czar, Duce, Generalissimo or other type of unelected supreme leader that lead us into hell in our past (with the possible, but unacknoweledged, exception of George W. Bush who clearly never really won an election) as has most of the rest of the world. We have no low mark from which to build ourselves up. This should be a good thing, because we never really had to go through what the rest of the world went through with their ancestral leaders. It just seems that we don't know what to make of it or what to do with it. So, my question is this: how do we kick the royalty habit?

Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Bob Dylan via The Byrds, a good song for President Obama this week: