Axelrod: Government by Consent of the Corporation

crossposted to The Hillbilly Report, ProgressiveBlue, Docudharma, MyLeftWing, and Daily Kos at about 1pm EDT.

David Axelrod made the case for insisting on the public option if there is an individual mandate to buy from health insurance exchanges, on the Rachel Maddow show last night (segment page). Of course, he thought he was making a different case:

And there is an incentive for the insurance industry to go along and not try to fight these, and that is that there is going to be a larger insurance market, and they have to make that calculation, but we are prepared to do it easy or do it hard, we want to make it work for consumers.

One reading of Axelrod is:
"M'lords, the peasants are getting restive, and if you want to avoid a revolt or other crisis - say, a majority of the House of Representatives elected without being beholden to your largesses - you have to make concessions. However, make the calculation - in some versions of this reform, because of the greater number of peasants you will be taxing in your domains, you will be better off."

Now, make the calculation. There is a given set of restrictions on the insurance companies. There are, however:

• Subsidies to the purchase of insurance to those presently priced out of the market
• "Pay or play" provisions to penalize firms that do not offer comprehensive health insurance
• Individual Mandates to penalize individuals that do not obtain health insurance

Even without an individual mandate, the system can set to "expand the market" by directing the "pay" side of "pay or play" into the individual's account at the health insurance exchange, up to, say, the Social Security payroll income tax threshold, after which it the balance goes to fund Medicaid.

And as Ezra Klein has noted, there are expected savings in the medical system as part of the reforms that the CBO will not include - that the CBO will not "score" - because in the view of the CBO they are not certain enough. And the CBO does this all the time - they famously massively overstate the cost of cap and trade air pollution control systems, for example. But there is an approach that can bring these savings onto the table:

Health policy experts David Cutler and Judy Feder, however, have an innovative proposal for making them count. In a paper for the Center for American Progress, they argue for the implementation of "failsafe" policies — crude, surefire interventions — that will kick in if the expected savings don't manifest. Limiting the growth of Medicare payments, for instance. Increasing the excise tax on insurers. Moving the public plan towards Medicare rates.

You can think of a dozen with little trouble. But if you kept them looming behind the curtain — the Oddjob to your Goldfinger — in the event that the expected modernization savings didn't manifest, it would make the anticipated savings visible to CBO, and free up money for affordability

The question, then, is, what is the basic deal being pursued? A system to benefit the individual citizen, with accommodations to "legitimate interests" of commercial corporations - or a system to benefit the commercial corporations, with accommodations to "legitimate interests" of individual citizens?

Is the "health care crisis" that 100,000 people a year are dying preventable deaths, or that the health care and health insurance cost explosion is interfering with other corporations in their pursuit of profit?

Is this a government that derives its legitimacy from consent of the governed citizen, or consent of the governed corporation?


Fighting Back Against Our Taxation By Corporations

At one time, this government was founded on a principle of No Taxation without Representation. And, yes, those taxed and not represented outnumbered those taxed and represented, initially - but we made progress on that. We reached the point where the largest single cause of taxation without representation was the taxed not bothering to show up to vote.

But, no matter how the CBO scores it, a premium paid to purchase a health insurance policy that the government coerces us to buy, is simply a different form of taxation. And if there is no publicly administered plan in that exchange, that is a tax directed to the private government of a corporation, governed under the formal principle of one dollar, one vote, and often governed in fact by a class of senior executives, both in the management of the firm, and in the network of interlocking directorates managing strategic policy for the industry.

Now, some progressive make the simplest possible argument: no public option, no bill. But I do not. I have seen this song and dance long enough to know that if it comes down to no public option, no bill - enough "progressive" Congressmen will cave to allow passage.

However, there is a more powerful and still simple argument that can be made: No Public Option Means No Individual Mandate.

   No Captive Markets

And a powerful argument to be made to, and by, Progressive Congressmen, because the individual mandate is likely to be the single most unpopular element of the bill, and is at the same time the very strongest point for Republicans to craft a reactionary populism ... and it is the strongest point because it would be a reactionary populism based on a kernel of truth, which is that Government by Consent of the Corporation is not seen as legitimate government outside the corporate elite.


They Do Not Even Try To Hide What They Are Doing

Clearly, last night, the script was written. A public option will be included in the House bill. It will not be included in the Senate bill. It will be killed in Conference. The argument will be made - indeed, the talking points by Axelrod gives us the entire argument that will be made - that the resulting bill will be better than nothing.

So, what to do? Well, just like the tea party warm-ups to the August Town Hall Heat Wave, we know what is coming. What say, unlike the tea party warm-ups to the August Town Hall Heat Wave, we get ready for it this time.

We know precisely what we need to do at that point: strike the individual mandate provisions, and leave the rest of the conference report intact. The House, after all, can do that. Double blue dog dare the "Blue Dog" Senators to stand up on the Floor of the Senate arguing in favor of the individual mandate, arguing for corporate taxation without representation.

After all, the individual mandate is "just one part of the bill" - its not worth losing everything else that is in the bill just to get the individual mandate through.

Bring the worm infested core of this rotten political system into full public view on the floor of the Senate, and see whether they blink.

Because of the Progressive Caucus of the House starts to exercise the true weight of their numbers, they can pass health care reform again next year, and make the Senate run on that issue - in 2010, in 2012, in 2014 if necessary.

A member of the Progressive Caucus who stands up to the Insurance Corporations and says "No" to an individual mandate to buy corporate insurance is in a safe seat. The main "risk" will be "losing" them to the House if they pursue a move into the Senate to take the fight into enemy territory.

Which means that this can be an issue that every single Senator in the US Senate will have to face, no matter when they are scheduled to run.

Unless they take it off the table by passing a bill that respects the rule:

• No Public Choice = No Citizen Mandate

The corporations view us as their playing field:
    We need to teach them to try to level us at their peril.

The following is the context of the above quote, where Axelrod lays out the script (not an official transcript and I am not a trained stenographer, so apologies for any glitches)

... His point was this, though. If we can pass a bill that brings long awaited insurance reforms to people who need them - most people in the country have insurance, this would help them greatly - and help those who don't have insurance today get it at a price they can afford, and also reduce the overall cost of the system, that would be a historic achievement, and that is our goal, that is what we are pointing to, and we ought not make one individual element of that so important that it dwarfs that greater goal.

Maddow: I think that part of the reason that progressives have imbued the idea of the public option with so much importance is because of the fear that there will be a mandate without serious reform, that attempts to regulate the insurance industry won't be effective. And when the President moves from his position in the campaign, which was that he was against individual mandates, to being for individual mandates now, there is concern that regulation of the insurance industry won't make insurance less junky, less resented, as it is now, and we'll all be forced to buy something that isn't very good, that will just pad the insurance companies pockets. Is there sequencing there? Is there a guarantee that the reforms work before individuals are forced to buy coverage?

Well, uh, there, uh, no individual's going to be forced to buy coverage, in the sense that there's going to be a hardship exemption, if they don't want to buy coverage. It's also a fact that when people don't have coverage and get sick, its a burden to the rest of us, so what he said is that everybody has to take responsibility.

But our goal is to make sure that the insurance system works better for everybody, people who have it and people who don't have it and will have it, and we believe these insurance reforms can and will work, and I think there's a broad consensus that they can and will work, but Rachel, we, uh, this whole system is going to be phased in over a period of time, and obviously if things are not working for consumers, we're going to make adjustments. The whole goal here is to bring security and stability to people - and they don't have it today, they can be dumped if they get sick, that happens all the time, if they have a pre-existing condition they don't get insurance, that's a standard policy in the insurance industry, out of pocket costs, you know the largest single cause of bankruptcy are health related issues, if you cap out of pocket costs, you can stop that. And there is an incentive for the insurance industry to go along and not try to fight these, and that is that there is going to be a larger insurance market, and they have to make that calculation, but we are prepared to do it easy or do it hard, we want to make it work for consumers.

Enough of the Warm-Up Act ...

Enough of the warm-up act, now for the headliners.

Midnight Oil: Blue Sky Mine video clip

My gut is wrenched out it is crunched up and broken
A life that is led is no more than a token
Who'll strike the flint upon the stone and tell me why
If I yell out at night there's a reply of bruised silence
The screen is no comfort I can't speak my sentence
They blew the lights at heaven's gate and I don't know why

But if I work all day at the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
Still I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)

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?

Playing Hardball with the Senate: Bring out the Nuclear Option

Burning the Midnight Oil for Progressive Populism

OK say, just hypothetically, that you are an administration looking to get one of your two signature policies passed. And the Senate, deeply entrenched in the pockets of the affected industry, looked like it will gut your legislation so badly that getting the result passed will stink of failure almost as much as the stench of failure if it is defeated.

Suppose its so bad that the Senate action is the most likely way for your party to lose the Majority in the House is for the disappointed Democratic supporters of so-called "Blue Dogs" to stay home in the midterms while fire up Republican opponents turn out in large numbers.

That would be the time to bring out the "nuclear option" ... the threat to radically change the Senate Filibuster rule so it can no longer be used as a roadblock to reform.


A short note on terminology

Yes, this soon after the anniversary of Hiroshima, it is striking that calling elimination go the filibuster "the nuclear option" is absurd hyperbole. It is, however, the term that is used, since the Republicans (back in the days when a "permanent Republican Majority" was a theory floating around) proposed eliminating filibusters on judicial appointments.


The Greatest Reform

Eliminate the filibuster, which is to say, restore the point from the original Senate rules of order that made a motion to bring the previous motion to a vote in order. That would make half the Senate plus One (or half the Senate plus the VP, when they are on the same side of the issue) sufficient to close debate - that is the rule that is used to make it impossible to have a filibuster in most committees and legislatures and boards around the world.


The Wikipedia Machine says that Aaron Burr proposed eliminating the rule, because it seemed redundant and had only been used once in the prior four years. However, the framing point here is that at the founding of the Senate, a filibuster was not possible: if a measure had the votes to win, debate could be closed off by the same winning margin.


The Great Reform

Don't know how likely the Greatest Reform is. However, if not likely, here's a version that runs on the "Make the Senators Do Their Goddamned Jobs" frame.

Under our system, each House can initiate legislation, and each House acts as a House of Review for legislation initiated by the other body. Now, the Senate can work under whatever arcane rules it wants to for initiating legislation, and indeed it can stage a sit-down strike on initiating legislation at all ... especially since early in the last century, it is now made up of elected representatives from every state in the union.

However, why should a House of Review have the right to refuse to fracking review the goddamned work of the House of Government, which is also made up of elected representatives from every state in the union.

So the "Great Reform" (but not Greatest Reform) is simply this: if the Senate has not brought its own version of legislation passed by the House to the floor in two calender months, it is in order to bring the original house legislation to the floor for an up or down vote without debate or amendment. Two months is plenty of time to get an existing bill out of committee and to the floor for a vote.

Note that legislation brought to the floor in this way does not require a conference committee and a second passage of the reconciled bill through both houses ... it is both houses passing the same wording, so it goes straight to the President for signature.

If the Senate wants to change something, bring an amended version to the floor. If the Senate wants to defeat something, bring the legislation to the floor and vote it down. But the Senate can no longer have a minority of Senators simply go on strike and refuse to do their goddamned job on something already enacted by the other chamber.

Note that if this was presented as legislation by the President (and there are various bills that touch on Congressional procedures ... various versions of PAYGO are an example) ... and in the event that it passes ... it would then be protected from being overturned by either a Senate filibuster, or a House majority in opposition to changing the rules.

Of course it would be subject to a filibuster threat, but the Senate filibustering on the principle of protecting its right to sit on its fat ass and do nothing would be a fine spectacle for setting up a rare increase in Senate majority by the party taking the White House in the first mid-term election.


The Small Reform

The Small Reform is more procedural than that one. It is changing the rules of the Senate so that the 3/5 required for cloture is 3/5 of the members present, and making quorum calls out of order once the Senate has been in session 24 continuous hours.

This would turn the filibuster back into the high political theatre it once was - and it would force the supporters of the filibuster to bring in their cots. They have to stay there and rotate control of the floor, and once a cloture vote has been brought to the batters box procedurally, the supporters of cloture are in a position to bum rush the room when the ranks of the filibusterers wane.

You can just see some of the hijinks ... the cable news channels will love to retell the story of the Senator that flew out of town, then put the slip on snoops watching the airport by catching the sleeper train back and walked in leading 50 Senators to bring the bill to a vote as seven of the filibusterers had headed off to caucus and fell asleep in the caucus room.


Once Rahm Gets Over His Hissy Fit ...

If we stand firm and push hard, the Progressive Caucus will stand firm on the public option. We are, collectively, stronger than Rahm Fracking Emanuel. He can swear and scream and carry on, but we are a threat to the job security of most members of the Progressive Caucus, if we get our backs up and support a primary opponent ... and Rahm Fracking Emanuel is not.

However, after he had beaten his head against that brick wall for long enough for it to sink into even his thick skull, this is where Rahm takes his "I don't give a frack what is in the bill, I want a win" act on the road to the Senate, and threatens to take away their filibuster toy unless they get something through that the Progressive Caucus will pass.


Conclusion

What, you think I can reach a conclusion on this without feedback? If you do, your more nuts than that lady at the townhall who said ...

... oh, never mind. Just have at it.