The long game of Obamacare

Many of you will remember the great debate that happened on the left as Obamacare worked its way through the Senate. Far too many people prioritized only one thing...the public option. Today I'm convinced that many of them never really knew what the public option was - the requirement that all state health care exchanges include at least one public insurance option - and instead equated it with a single payer system. President Obama has consistently been criticized on the left for failing to support single payer and that critique got equated with the simple idea of a public option on the exchanges.

But lets go back to 2008 and listen to what then-Senator Barack Obama said about single payer.



In addition to worrying about job losses during the great recession, President Obama talked about the fact that so many people rely on their employer for health insurance. Any move towards single payer would have to de-couple health insurance from employment.

As we move towards the unveiling of the state health care exchanges on October 1st, it is with that in mind that I read stories like this.

Home Depot Inc. said today that it would drop medical plans for part-time workers and direct them to the government-sponsored insurance websites scheduled to open next year as part of the health law...

Detroit and Chicago have proposed ending health plans for current or retired municipal workers, since they’ll be able to buy subsidized coverage through the health-care law...

Last week, Trader Joe’s Co., the closely held supermarket chain, said it would end health benefits next year for part-time workers. Employees will get a $500 payment and be sent to the public exchanges. With federal tax credits available there, most workers will get a better deal than the company could offer, Trader Joe’s said in a statement.

By offering other insurance options, “Obamacare has taken the moral imperative away for employers to continue offering coverage,” said Laszewski, the industry consultant. “The days of your father’s health insurance are over.”

Republicans will use this as an example of the havoc they envision coming from Obamacare and I've already seen too many liberals light their hair on fire about it as well. Whether or not employers will provide a subsidy in pay that is the equivalent of what they have been spending to purchase insurance is - of course - a concern.

But what I see in all of this is the extremely effective long game that is so typical of President Obama. He knew at the outset that if he championed the cause of single payer, he would never get it through Congress. And so instead he put in place a system that not only addresses significant immediate concerns, it will slowly but surely move us in the direction of decoupling health insurance from employment - opening up a whole range of possibilities.

Hang onto your hats, folks. This whole Obamacare thing is just getting started! It might be a bumpy ride. But I like where things are headed.

For the teachers

My mother passed away and I spent the weekend at her memorial service (hence the lack of posting). It was held in Texas -  in the town where I grew up but haven't visited since my grandparents died.

At the visitation the night before the memorial service, I was busy greeting family and friends - some of whom I hadn't seen in over over 30 years. A woman walked up to me and said, "You won't recognize me, but I'm Ms. Hodges - your 4th grade teacher." She didn't know if I would remember her - but boy do I! I've thought often about Ms. Hodges. She was tough - but we loved her because we knew she really cared about us. In other words, she made an impression that has lasted these last 50 years.

And there she was a few nights ago demonstrating why. We spent a few minutes talking about what kind of student I was back then and remembering how we'd spent the day in her classroom after we learned that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.

One of the things I know about children is that their deepest longing is to feel special to someone. As tough as Ms. Hodges was, she made us all feel special. That's why I remember her. She made me feel that way again on Friday night...because we're all just children at heart, aren't we?

Thank you to Ms. Hodges and all the other teachers out there who make us feel special.

What's wrong with America?

My title is a twist on an article in Politico titled: What's wrong with President Obama? Its part of the hair-on-fire reaction coming from the DC village pundits I referred to yesterday about the President's political fortunes.

Its fascinating to me that in the midst of the kind of lunacy coming from the Republican Party these days that this is such a hot topic for the DC insiders. And so I scratch my head and wonder WTH is wrong with this country that we're even talking about it.

The truth is that no matter how crazy the Republicans get, the belief in some circles persists that one person in the presidency should be able to control things. This has been referred to as the Green Lantern theory of presidential power. It is ubiquitous, not just with DC pundits, but we see it often coming from the President's critics on the left (he "abandoned" the public option in health care reform even though it NEVER had 60 votes in the Senate) and the public at large.

I'd suggest that rather than trying to figure out what's wrong with President Obama, perhaps its time we held a mirror up to ourselves to find the root of the problem. We really struggle with this whole representative democracy thing. As much as we like to talk about things like "freedom," we are constantly on the look-out for a leader who can fix it all for us. When things get difficult or messy, it must be his (or her) fault. That is the position of a victim and the classic underpinning of authoritarianism.

We don't like messy or difficult and so we want our leader to present things to us in the clear terms of good vs evil or black vs white. Listen to how Harris and Purdum describe that in the Politico article.

This president lately has faced situations that cried out for a black-and-white sense of purpose, and unquestioned public command...

The common theme in both episodes [Syria and Summers] is that they were about projecting power, not summoning sweet reason. Obama’s approach put him in the position of being bullied — in one case by a sworn enemy, in the other by ostensible friends — who could not have cared less about his own nuanced views.

Notice that they wanted President Obama to project power - not reason. As if the two were mutually exclusive. That's because they see power as dominance over others. To fail to project that kind of power means that you get bullied. This is where the frame of weakness comes from.

Nowhere in the analysis of these two situations do the authors discuss actual outcomes. That's because their sole focus is on the either/or process of a win/lose power game. If President Obama isn't winning, he must be losing - regardless of the superior outcome in Syria or whoever becomes the next Federal Reserve Chair. And of course in this framework, all that matters is the win.

Even if winning was possible via dominance, that is not what this President is about. Instead he is about getting the best possible outcomes via the power of partnership...working with people as opposed to trying to win against them. That means we're all involved in the solution - whether he's talking about citizenship in a democracy, the role of Congress as representatives of the people, or working with the global community on shared interests.

From the beginning, one of the questions I've had is whether or not America is ready for the kind of leadership President Obama would provide. Are we ready to explore the power of partnership rather than simply rely on dominance? I suspect that is the experiment we're seeing unfold. As Michelle Obama said about her husband years ago:

Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He's a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.

Take it to the Limit

Let Ms. Etta James break it down for you.

It all comes down to Obamacare

I see this morning that a whole crew of village pundits are lighting their hair on fire over the possibility that President Obama's political fortunes are in trouble these days. Apparently they think the President is in trouble with his "base" or that he's losing the support of Congressional Democrats.

Greg Sargent does a good job of dispelling all the nonsense.

The divisions between Dems and Obama are real, but they are focused on some policy areas and not on others...

...on the need to keep funding the government and raise the debt limit without giving an inch on Obamacare, there are no signs of any serious disunity — and this is what will likely shape the party’s stance in coming fights.

 You want to talk about someone who's having trouble with their "base?" Lets take a moment to look at Speaker Boehner. Republicans have been lathering up their constituency's hatred of Obamacare since 2009. And now they're paying the price. Two weeks out from a government shutdown, the lunatic caucus in the House has refused to even pass a short-term extension of the current budget unless it defunds Obamacare. Apparently today Boehner is giving in to the lunatics and so the bill the House will take up this week to keep the government operating will include a provision to defund Obamacare. If it passes the House, it will die in the Senate...and then what?

The interesting thing here is what Sargent pointed out...the unity of the Democrats in defending Obamacare. Those of us who watched all the drama as that bill was underway can't help but notice how everyone on the left has now rallied around it. If the "kill the bill" folks had any leverage, surely they'd be lining up with the lunatics these days - just as they were trying to do to stop it from passing in the first place. We also remember the concern trolling some in the media were peddling during the 2010 and 2012  elections about how Democrats should distance themselves from Obamacare in their campaigns.

What changed? Over time it has become obvious to everyone but the lunatics on the right that Obamacare is working (I actually think many of the lunatic leaders also know its working...that's what they're so afraid of). And so, for those of us who buy into the President's commitment to the long game, our trust in those who fought so hard for Obamacare is once again vindicated.

Embracing a "messy" foreign policy

I've had few reasons to be proud of this country's foreign policy in my lifetime. I was born just as we were intervening in Iran to install the Shah and came of age during the Vietnam War. Due to my family's involvement in South America, I paid a bit more attention than most Americans to our sponsorship of coups that installed dictators and supported repressive regimes all over that continent in the name of fighting the "Cold War." And then came the Bush/Cheney neocon-inspired fiascos in the Middle East.

Knowing the involvement of our national security apparatus in clandestine activities such as coups and disappearances and torture and surveillance, the only thing that surprised me about Bush/Cheney is that they weren't trying to hide it anymore...they were doing it right out in the open. The whole idea that American foreign policy EVER followed the rule of international law is naive at best.

When I evaluate President Obama's foreign policy, I always remember that this was the state of things he walked into.  Not only that - he was dealing with a global recession and three wars (I include the war on al Qaeda). My first thought when he nominated Leon Panetta (the ultimate bureaucratic manager) to be the Director of the CIA and then Secretary of Defense was that he needed to find out where all the "bodies were buried" in those systems to find the leverage he'd need to turn that giant ship around.

One of the things I suspect President Obama learned from his father and from his experience of living overseas is that chaos is not an answer to solving this kind of malfeasance. We've seen him employ a far more slow and thoughtful process to systemic change in his approach to both Wall Street and foreign policy. He's seen up close and personal what happens to ordinary people when those systems collapse at the hands of ideologues.

We're just now beginning to see the fruits of his slow and thoughtful progress on all this. It started this spring when he talked about finally ending the indefinite war on al Qaeda. In suggesting that we walk back the ability for the imperial presidency to wage indefinite war, he was also scaling back the ability of our national security apparatus to do so.

One of the major successes in dealing with this national security bureaucracy that progressives often point to is the Church Committee that created the FISA Court. At the time, this court was seen as major progress in providing oversight to many of these clandestine activities - even though it was secret. Now, not only has the Obama administration declassified several FISA Court rulings, the Court itself issued a fascinating ruling last week having to do with further declassification of cases it has adjudicated on the collection of metadata (Section 215).

The unauthorized disclosure in June 2013 of a Section 215 order, and government statements in response to that disclosure, have engendered considerable public interest and debate about Section 215. Publication of FISC opinions relating to this provision would contribute to an informed debate. Congressional amici emphasize the value of public information and debate in representing their constituents and discharging their legislative responsibilities. Publication would also assure citizens of the integrity of this Court's proceedings.

In addition, publication with only limited redactions may now be feasible, given the extent of the government's recent public disclosures about how Section 215 is implemented. Indeed, the government advises that a declassification review process is already underway.

Due to this administration's response to the Snowden leaks, we are now on the verge of the FISA court dealing quite a blow to the secrecy envisioned at its inception following the Church Committee. That's progress on top of progress.

And finally, we have that "messy" process President Obama engaged in to deal with the Syrian situation. It is now obvious that his goals in proposing military strikes were not about the neocon dream of US warmongering hegemony - but just as he stated - to punish and degrade Assad's use of chemical weapons. No matter what you make of his motivations to engage Congress is that decision, he voluntarily walked back the imperial presidency by opening that door. And in using the threat of military strikes, he was able to broker a diplomatic solution that produced the opportunity for even better results.

If liberals really wanted a President who would reform our foreign policy and walk back our addiction to hegemony, short of engendering global chaos, this is what its going to look like. That the neocons are worried about this kind of process indicating a "weakness" in foreign policy should tell us something. If we are going to actually work in partnership with the rest of the world rather than assume dominance, things are going to get messy. Then-Senator Barack Obama warned us about that way back in 2005.

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart...But that's our job. 

I'd suggest that rather than expect the President to make this messy process look more orderly, we as Americans (especially liberals) should drop our ideas about controlling the world and recognize that we are but one player  (although surely a powerful one) in a global picture that is often messy and difficult. That not only signals the right message to the rest of the world, it might help us avoid all the mistakes we've made in places like Vietnam and Iraq over the years.

I'm anxious for a foreign policy in the US that I can be proud of. At times I get impatient with the slow progress in that arena. But at this point, I have no doubts about where President Obama is taking us on that front. Since the days of Manifest Destiny, we've been trampling on others pretty indiscriminately to get our way. Turning that ship around is going to be messy and take some time. I'm grateful that we have a President who's willing to embrace that.

P.S. If you want to dive in even deeper to the "messiness" that President Obama is traversing with what he inherited in the Middle East - and specifically in Syria - read how BooMan breaks it all down. The hype we got from both sides of the public discussion about all this ignores the deeper issues at play.

Snowden and Manning have cheapened what it means to be a whistleblower (updated)

One of the things that bothers me about the Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning episodes is that they have blurred the lines about whistleblowing. As with any act of civil disobedience, it is an important tool for those seeking justice.

That's why I found myself agreeing with some of what Peter Ludlow has written in a NYT op-ed titled The Banality of Systemic Evil. For example:

In “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” one of the most poignant and important works of 20th-century philosophy, Hannah Arendt made an observation about what she called “the banality of evil.” One interpretation of this holds that is was not an observation about what a regular guy Adolph Eichmann seemed to be, but rather a statement about what happens when people play their “proper” roles within a system, following proscribed conduct with respect to that system, while remaining blind to the moral consequences of what the system was doing — or at least compartmentalizing and ignoring those consequences.

That reminds me of this Martin Luther King, Jr. quote:

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Staying silent in the face of evil is indeed to be complicit.

But nowhere in Ludlow's article does he grapple with the deep moral question of having to isolate what is "evil." Much as Glenn Greenwald simply assumes that anyone in a position of power is lying, Ludlow infers that any bureaucratic system is evil and therefore justifies whistleblowing. When it comes to our government system, you can see how this aligns perfectly with a libertarian view.

Even those who are the loudest critics of Chelsea Manning will note that if she had merely leaked information about malfeasance in Iraq, she would likely be deemed a hero and walk free today. But that's not what she did. She leaked indiscriminately.

When it comes to Edward Snowden, there is even less of a case to be made. To date he has not released anything that points to illegal activities. President Obama has been willing to discuss improvements to NSA surveillance and the administration is busy declassifying at least as many documents as have been leaked so far. The idea that what we are witnessing from this administration falls under the rubric of "the banality of evil" is simply absurd.

Ultimately the job of whistleblower brings with it the responsibility to ask deep moral questions of oneself. To take the easy way out by simply defining every system as evil isn't a moral position - its the abdication that responsibility. Snowden and Manning have cheapened the whole concept of what it means to be a whistleblower. They don't deserve the label.

UPDATE: Just a bit off-topic, but I find this kind of tweet from Greenwald to be fascinating.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Alice Walker, Shows Support For Edward Snowden http://t.co/BKoPQ0pE9p
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 16, 2013

No one has more respect for Alice Walker than I do. But the implication here is that if Walker supports Snowden, so should I, because nowhere in the article linked is her position explained or justified. Its simply stated. This is solely an appeal to authority from someone who constantly decries authoritarianism. It also suggests that perhaps those in doubt should "blindly" follow those they admire.

Alice Walker's view of Snowden doesn't really affect mine. I chose to look at the evidence and decide for myself. If that means I don't agree with her, so be it. I have as much right to my own opinion as she does. I suspect Alice would support that. Its the non-authoritarian thing to do.