The 1850's and the Path Ahead

Burning the Midnight Oil for Progressive Populism

Now that the Republican Health Care Reform legislation of the early 90's has been passed with no Republican votes, I've been musing on the Path Ahead.

The Path Ahead on Health Insurance Reform

The path ahead for health insurance reform seems straightforward, at least for as long as the Republicans remain trapped in a strict "Repeal" stance by the angry and noisy opposition to health insurance reform that corporations have stirred up in their base.

First step, electorally punish those Conserva-Dems who voted against reform, so that the "Rockefeller Republicans" who now call themselves Democrats after the alliance of "Taft Republicans" and Dixiecrats purged from the Republican party are less aggressive in undermining progressive policy.

And the second steps are labelled "2a", "2b" and "2c", because they can operate in parallel.

• Second step, 2a, introduce a Medicare Buy-In for the health insurance exchanges.
• Second step, 2b, scrap the RomneyCare Individual Mandate and replace it with a 4% Employer Mandate, with the payment made into the employee's health insurance exchange account.
• Second step, 2c, accelerate the expansion of Medicaid.

Third step, accelerate the introduction of the health program.

Fourth step, allow states to opt their state exchanges into a regional exchange, with the opt-in required for the large number of state exchanges that will have an inadequate variety of policies available.

In order to get any or all of steps 2 into place, language has to be included in the 2011 budget resolution that always any or all of them to proceed via reconcilation. Then if the serious flaws with the RomneyCare version of health care exchanges have been corrected, the health care exchanges can be put into place

It has always been a misnomer to call the current legislation "health care reform" when it has always been primarily health insurance reform. Yet there is a necessary-through-not-sufficient relationship that applies here. Just as arriving at a less broken health insurance system was necessary to even apply bandaids to the health care system, a not-at-all broken publicly administered, not-for-profit health insurance system will allow actual reform of the health care system to proceed.

But then, thinking about how to organize to work for progress on Health Insurance Reform leads to thinking more broadly about achieving progressive social change in the face of our thoroughly corrupted political establishment.


Thinking Ahead by Looking Back

Every once in a while, I finish another chapter of 1831: Year of the Eclipse. I've just finished the chapter talking about the party politics - the Anti-Mason party, the National Republicans, soon to rename themselves the Whigs, Jackon's Democrats, and the petticoat rebellion that led to the dismissal of Jackson's first cabinet.

But I've also read some bits and pieces about what is coming up next ... especially for the Whigs. Any electoral college website bears the footprint of what was coming next. In 1832, Clay running as a National Republican, and refusing a fusion ticket with the Anti-Masons, would come second to Jackson ... but the only other candidate receiving more than a single state.

After running an unsuccessful split ticket, involving Harrison, Clay, and several others, designed to deny outright victory to the Democrats and throw the election into the House of Representatives, in 1840 the Whigs ran Harrison, as a "hero of 1812" (who had actually won his victory before the peace treaty was signed), who won election.

In 1852, the Whigs refused to nominate their own incumbent President Fillmore, and lost with General Winfield Scott.

Then in 1856, the Whigs in their last convention nominated Fillmore, who was no longer a member of the Whig Party.

Of course, what tore the Whigs apart was the Great Issue of the Day - Slavery. The Pro-Slavery Whigs purged the anti-slavery Whigs (including, for example, Abraham Lincoln) from their party but were then unable to maintain coherence as a coalition of state parties and collapsed.

By the last gasp of the Whigs, the 19th Century Republican Party had already been formed by pasting together a coalition of anti-slavery Whigs, abolitionists, former Know Nothings, Free Soilers, and others. The rest, as they say, is history.


But what is the Great Issue of the Day

It may seem like we face a blizzard of issues, rather than one. But of course, there is a single source for that blizzard of issues. The great issue of the day is Corporate Feudalism.

With the Republicans firmly entrenched in the most extreme of pro-feudalist camps, and the Democrats divided between "pro-reformed-feudalism" (quite like the pro-slavery Whigs "regulation of the worst excesses of abusive slaveholders") and anti-feudalists, the Democrats of today are in a position quite similar of the Whigs of the 1840's.

From climate chaos through Peak Oil through the cancer epidemic through the military industrial complex shredding our Constitutional rights in pursuit of slightly higher profits for the quarter ... there is a common core to the blizzard of issues that we face.

Now, given the real world conditions, there is no need for a Leninist strategy of deliberately monkey-wrenching things to radicalize the situation. The real world is already throwing monkey wrenches and will throw more and more over time.

We need to build organizations - no need to call them political parties, since they would be what political parties at one time used to be, not what political parties are today - that can take over city hall through the ballot box and put in effective emergency measures if the shit hits the fan. Movements. Likely distinct movements in different, overlapping, regions.

Up from there, we need to have a balance of power position in state legislatures to prevent the state legislature from blocking what needs to be done locally, which includes freeing up the ballot box and keeping it free.


But What Can an Individual Town Do if the Shit hits the Fan?

Consider the basics of a serious economic convulsion (and, no, the Panic of 2008, while a deep recession, was not an economic convulsion on the magnitude of what we face in the next two decades). People need shelter and a place to eat.

Now, even in the Great Depression, three quarters of the population was still employed. Even in Weimer Germany when a wheelbarrow was required to carry the bills to buy a load of bread ... there were people with wheelbarrows buying bread. There is a wide range of "serious problem" between the worst we have experienced since WWII and the worst that an economy can experience without descending into "Mad Max" territory.

A local community will still have some tax revenue, and some ability to obtain resources from the regional and national economy. However, the financial resources will fall far short of the need.

Now, suppose that the national government does not do what it could do, establishing a Job Guarantee program to ensure that labor resources are mobilized and put to work to cope with the challenges that we face. While it is certainly possible for the national government to take effective action - it is by no means guaranteed.

A local community is not powerless. With enough "volunteers", it is possible to grow food in community gardens. With enough "volunteers", it is possible to keep watch on those gardens at night and prevent a loss of the harvest through praedial larceny. With enough "volunteers", it is possible to cook and serve the harvest, combined with imported staples from the region or nationally, in community kitchens. With enough "volunteers", it is possible to keep a much larger number of people fed than can be done with local community US$ tax revenues alone.

In the face of economic convulsions, some buildings will fall vacant, and their owners will be unable to meet their property tax obligations. With enough "volunteers", large open interior spaces in big box or medium box stores can be refitted into livable shelter for individuals and families. With enough "volunteers", the problems of maintaining utilities and retrofitting the buildings to be more self sufficient can be addressed. With enough "volunteers", it is possible to keep a much larger number of people housed in livable accommodation than can be done with local community US$ tax revenues alone.

And why would people volunteer? Well, suppose that you are unemployed, and in return for volunteering to help, you can receive vouchers good for meals at community kitchens, and shelter in community housing.

Indeed, suppose that the local community allows local businesses to meet part of their property tax with volunteer vouchers in lieu of payment. Then with vouchers, you could also obtain additional amenities, beyond just food and shelter.

Of course, it would be difficult to operate any substantial share of an automobile based transport system on this basis ... since gasoline needs to be paid for in whatever currency the petroleum exporter will be demanding in the midst of an economic convulsion. But bicycle based transport ... that is something different, with a far smaller imported input component.


The Headliners: Midnight Oil

So, anyway, I've been thinking about the path ahead. What about you?

C'mon, Joe, Take the Neutron Bomb to this Filibuster

Kossack slinkerwink tells us that Vice President "Amtrak Joe" Biden has spoken out against the filibuster:

Vice President Joe Biden said at a Florida fundraiser Sunday that the 60-seat threshold for passing legislation in the Senate put a dangerous new roadblock in the way of American government.

"As long as I have served ... I've never seen, as my uncle once said, the constitution stood on its head as they've done. This is the first time every single solitary decisions has required 60 senators," Biden said. "No democracy has survived needing a supermajority."

Well, if this is about the survival of our Democracy, I say it may be time to recall the parliamentary maneuver threatened by the Republicans in 2005, dubbed the "nuclear option". Since this is a more precisely targeted version of that parliamentary maneuver, I refer to it as the "Neutron Bomb".


Recall those distant days of 2005 ...

Kossack homunq explained on 12 January:

1. the 2005 "Nuclear option".

Wikipedia, emphasis mine:

A senator makes a point of order calling for an immediate vote on the measure before the body, outlining what circumstances allow for this. The presiding officer of the Senate, usually the vice president of the United States or the president pro tempore, makes a parliamentary ruling upholding the senator's point of order. The Constitution is cited at this point, since otherwise the presiding officer is bound by precedent. A supporter of the filibuster may challenge the ruling by asking, "Is the decision of the Chair to stand as the judgment of the Senate?" This is referred to as "appealing from the Chair." An opponent of the filibuster will then move to table the appeal. As tabling is non-debatable, a vote is held immediately. A simple majority decides the issue. If the appeal is successfully tabled, then the presiding officer's ruling that the filibuster is unconstitutional is thereby upheld. Thus a simple majority is able to cut off debate, and the Senate moves to a vote on the substantive issue under consideration. The effect of the nuclear option is not limited to the single question under consideration, as it would be in a cloture vote. Rather, the nuclear option effects a change in the operational rules of the Senate, so that the filibuster or dilatory tactic would thereafter be barred by the new precedent.

humonq goes on to argue that:

Note that the nuclear option needs at least one, and probably two, people to assert that the current filibuster is unconstitutional. In 2005, the Republican argument was that Judicial filibusters were unconstitutional, but legislative ones are constitutional. This relied on some pretty thin reasoning that Article II, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, which says the president "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges...", requires an up-or-down vote.

I'll come back to the nuclear option later (I bet you can see where I'm going), but for now, just note that the nuclear option as proposed in 2005 is NOT relevant to legislative logjam, because it would only eliminate judicial filibusters.

Take Out Your Copy of the Constitution ...

Except ... notice that the threat to use the Nuclear Option was not based on the reasoning standing up in the Supreme Court, but in the precedent set when 51 Senators, or 50 Senators plus the VP, votes to table the appeal to the decision of the chair.

And there is Constititional language that specifically addresses the powers of the Senate on a particular kind of legislation, including the health insurance reform bill as well as the legislation to establish any cap and trade system: which is to say, the first clause of Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution:

Section 7 - Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

The powers of the Senate with respect to Revenue bills are spelled out: they may propose or concur with Amendments. That's why Senate revenue bills always start with language that basically strips out the whole of the House language except for enabling the law, then put in the Senate version as an amendment.

And notice that the Senate has hobbled its own powers to amend with its toleration of the filibuster process: it is the Senate rules that dictate that an amendment to the House bill may be filibustered.

So, suppose the House bill as passed included a rider that specifies that after passage by the House, and after a certain number of additional legislative days have elapsed, any Senator may bring the bill for a vote, including any amendments that the Senate may have already passed.

Now the Senate might elect to ignore this rider, but of course, as with the threat of the Nuclear Option: it also might not. A Senator makes a point of order that under the terms of the rider, he wishes the measure be brought to a vote. The President of the Senate rules in favor under Article 7 read as meaning that the rider stands unless and until the Senate amends the bill to remove it. An opponent appeals the decision of the chair. That is moved to be tabled (which cannot be filibustered). The motion to table passes, possibly by 50+Biden. And then the measure is brought to a vote.

Now, note, if the House does this at the current point in the process, that would be with whatever other amendments deemed necessary to allow the Senate version of the bill to pass the House. If the Senate passes it without amendment, it goes straight to the President's desk, as being passed in the same form by both chambers. If some amendments have been made before the filibuster logjam is broken with this maneuver, then the House would have to pass that version, and then it could go to the President.

So, the minimum requirements would appear to be:

• A house majority, willing to pass the rider
  
• 41 Senators willing to protect the rider with the threat or action of filibuster of any amendment that would remove it
  
• One Senator willing to move under the rider when the time has elapsed
  
• One Chair willing to rule on Constitutional Grounds that the rider applies unless and until amended by the Senate
  
• 51 Senators, or 50 Senators + Biden, willing to explode the Neutron Bomb on filibusters on Revenue Bills
  

... except, you will recall, the "Nuclear Option" was never used, yet the Democrats caved on nominating odious Supreme Court justices.

Note that while many Senators are more or less in the pockets of health insurance companies, some are more deeply in the pockets of Oil Companies or sometimes Coal Companies. And if the Energy Companies think that it is more likely that they could defeat the Neutron Bomb directly in the context of cap and trade ... they might instruct their bought and paid for Senators to stand down on forcing the Neutron Bomb to be exploded in the Health Care debate.

Since once you've blown that particular hole in the "continuing rules" of the Senate, its open, and a similar rider could be employed whenever the House knows it has 41 Senators willing to defend it and 51 votes for passage ... bearing in mind that repeating a precedent is not as politically fraught hard as setting one.

So if the House Republicans (and Liebericans) cave (as they did before Christmas under threat of snowstorm) and do not filibuster so that the bill goes to a vote without anyone triggering the neutron bomb option ... well, then that leaves the neutron bomb back in the silo.

Though ... note that as the by the minority of the filibuster power continues, it would face a growing risk that the Neutron Bomb will eventually be exploded.

Putting the Vicious Health Insurance Dogs on a Leash

Burning the Midnight Oil for the Next American Revolution

From one of my comments in buhddydarma's most excellent diary:

I'd liken it to a vicious dog behind a fence. Given access to the fence, he will worry it and try to dig under it, or hang out by the gate and eventually get out. Like a group of corporation with massive profits locked behind a regulatory wall, who will eventually find a way to get a loophole put into the wall.

Tie the dog up in the yard so he can't get at the fence, the combination is more effective than either alone.

A robust public option works like the leash tying the dog up. The corporate insurance companies cannot squeeze too much harder than the public choice without losing market share, so it will be much harder for them to organize to break the regulations in the health care exchanges.

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Don't get confused by the "five percenters". This was President Obama trying to mollify the Republicans and also make the extremists look ... like extremists.

But in the preliminary CBO analysis of HR3200, which is where the 5 percent seems to come from, this really is a rhetorical trick designed to make a robust public choice sound less effective than it would be. And if we lose sight of how effective a robust public choice could be, we will not fight hard enough to (1) get it in the bill and (2) kill phony substitutes.

Through to 2019, HR 3200 is scored as adding 11m through Medicaid (since I'm blogging in genteel poverty, I'm one of those), 2m through employer provided insurance, and 30m through the exchanges, with 6m switching (comparing 2019 projection w/out to 2019 projection with) from non-employer provided health care primarily into the exchanges, for a net increase in 37m.

Everyone in the health insurance exchange benefits from the public choice - even those with private insurance. So that is 30m beneficiaries, which is:

• 100% of those in the public exchanges
• 80% of the increase in coverage
• 60% of citizens and documented migrants w/out coverage
• 50% of all people residing in the US w/out coverage

And, yes, 10% of those projected to have insurance after the reform. But the majority of the gap between the percentages in that list and "10% comes from including those people projected to continue to receive employer-based health insurance.

Their stake in the reform is supposed to be reforms that protect what they already have.


Don't get lost in CBO projections

Of course, this is all simply CBO projections. Don't forgot what you know about how our politics and economy really works when wading through the CBO numbers.

And so that brings us right back to the vicious dog model of corporate health insurance. If there are corporate insurance only health exchanges, we all know full well that we will be fighting ongoing battles over corporate health insurance companies trying to open the health insurance exchanges to precisely those people where the public subsidy is more lucrative to their bottom line than employer-provided health insurance.

And if we win some, we will surely lose some.

And so the CBO projection will, of course, fall far short of the entries into the health insurance exchanges and it will be far more than 30m suffering directly because there is no robust public choice in the health insurance exchanges.


Who would a progressive deny this protection to?

Of course, one reason for using percents is that using millions make it seem a bit brutal to say, "a mere 30 million will suffer if we lose the fight on the public option, so lets throw those poor losers to the hounds".

The candy store paupers lie to the share holders
They're crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers
The balance sheet is breaking up the sky
So I'm caught at the junction still waiting for medicine
The sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine
Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night
And if the blue sky mining company won't come to my rescue
If the sugar refining company won't save me
Who's gonna save me?

The Robust Public Choice Made Simple

Burning the Midnight Oil for the Next American Revolution
crossposted from The Hillbilly Report

\From some online dictionary somewhere:

Robustness is the quality of being able to withstand stresses, pressures, or changes in procedure or circumstance

So: (1) Public Choice

"No Taxation without Representation". Every single person facing an individual mandate must be provided with the choice of a publicly administered plan. Otherwise the government is forcing the citizen to pay without the elected representatives of the citizen controlling the spending.

You want to put a trigger on the public option. Fine, except the exact same trigger applies to the individual mandate.

You want to restrict access to the public option to some smaller group? Fine, except the same restriction applies to the individual mandate.

The system is not politically legitimate if it requires payment to for-profit commercial corporations.

(2) Robust

It cannot be lumbered down with any restrictions not faced by private insurers.

State by state public options? Really? You are really prepared to restrict the corporations to firms with no commercial activity across state lines? If they are free standing state by state public options, it has to be state by state for profit corporations. Oh, not allowing UHC into the exchanges defeats the purpose of lining private pockets at the public expense? Yeah, kind of thought so.
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The hard question is how to accomplish it. It would seem that it is necessary for the House Bill to include language that specifically states that the public choice does not face any restrictions not faced by commercial corporations with plans in the exchange, and explicit language that nobody can be subject to a mandate unless they have access to the public choice.

With that language in there, a conference report stripping it out would require a provision doing the dirty work. That provision could be struck by the House when the conferees report.

That is, a conference report included the laundry list of amendments to each sides bill to make them the same bill, and while no new amendments can be offered, AFAIU, a chamber has the right to strike a provision.

That might result in a second conference, but so be it: it seems highly likely that the Senate conferees will not believe that the House progressive caucus will really, truly stand up for what were, after all, the very first "progressive" principles in our history as a nation-state - until they, in fact, do so.

Midnight Oil "Dreamworld" video