In celebrating Senator Bernie Sanders' hold of the renomination of Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman, the bloggers at Open Left are not explaining what makes the Sanders' hold something to celebrate but the Republican hold on other Obama nominations outrageous obstructionism.

Setting aside how you feel about the President's nominees (Yea! Dawn Johnsen, Boo! Bernanke), there is a principled reason why Sanders' hold can be applauded while the Republican hold on Administration posts is unacceptable obstructionism. Posts like Fed Chairman or judicial appointments are independent and extend well beyond the term of a Presidency. Posts like head of the OLC (the post for which Johnsen is nominated) are, at the most, for the duration of a particular Presidential term. In short, a President should have a free hand to choose who will serve in his Administration. He should NOT have a free hand to choose who will sit on the Supreme Court or on bodies that act independently, like the Fed (where member have 10 year terms.) More . . .

The progressive bloggers supporting Joe Sestak have an interesting problem on their hands now. Their champion in the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic primary, Rep. Joe Sestak, supports escalation in Afghanistan. (So do I.) Their nemesis, Senator Arlen Specter opposes the Afghanistan escalation. Via Jerome Armstrong, Hotline reports:

Sen. Arlen Specter (D) has staked out Afghanistan as the next issue on which to prove his Dem bona fides after his party switch earlier this year. Specter has come out against a troop buildup in Afghanistan, a position his campaign cites as farther to the left than that of his opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak (D).

Some Sestak supporting bloggers have been prominently opposed to the Afghanistan escalation. In addition, one Sestak supporting blogger has now reversed course on his support for the public option. Is this a harbinger of a Sestak capitulation on the public option? Will Specter left flank Sestak on the public option too? Interesting problem for the Sestak contingent.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias hands out a bouquet to Chris Bowers for his capitulation on the public option. Leaving aside the stupidity of a self styled activist deciding to capitulate on an issue he has been agitating about for the entire year (Who will believe Bowers about anything now? Why would you give him a dime? Does he plan to reimburse folks for money he raised on his staunch advocacy for the public option?), I want my bouquets too. I am ready to support a health insurance assistance bill that does not have a public option and provides insurance to 30 million uninsured Americans. I have a couple of suggestions though.

(1) Eliminate the individual mandate. (2) Eliminate the Exchange (we need this to take out the Stupak amendment problem.) (3) Finance the health insurance assistance through taxes on the well off, as provided for by the House bill and Senator Reid's increase of the Medicare tax on person earning more than $200,000/year. (4) Funnel all health insurance assistance funds through an increase in Medicaid eligibility.

The question is will the Village and the Obama Administration let their ideology stand in the way of providing 30 million Americans with health insurance? I sure hope they would be practical about this.

Speaking for me only

My question is rhetorical really, in response to Village Blogger Extraordinaire and disingenuous Obama Lackey Ezra Klein.

The fact is the Village Bloggers' cherished "reforms" are cherished by the insurance industry for a reason - it is the gateway to getting the federal subsidy money. The insurance industry does not oppose the Exchange, they DEMAND it. They do not oppose the individual mandate, they DEMAND it.

Bart Stupak and Ben Nelson put them in a bit of a pickle though. The Stupak Amendment is a direct assault on women's privacy rights and the progressive value of valuing women's health. The price of giving the insurance industry their Exchange and Individual Mandates will be the Stupak Amendment. The price is too high for some Democrats.

So the REAL question is this - what is the insurance industry, the Obama Administration and its Village Lackeys willing to do to save the Insurance Industry Profit Protection portions of "health care reform?" We do not need that "reform" to provide assistance to 30 million Americans who do not have health insurance. So what's the point? What Price The Exchange?

Speaking for me only

Via mcjoan, Ben Nelson threatens a filibuster if the Stupak Amendment is not included:

The Senate health care bill does not provide federal money for abortion, maintaining the status quo. But like Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and a sizable bloc of conservative House Democrats, Nelson says that's not good enough. Nelson said he plans to introduce an amendment to the Senate bill roughly resembling Stupak's. Would he vote for a final bill if he can't get that language included? "No," he told reporters.

The answer to this problem is perfectly simple and obvious - eliminate the Exchanges and the mandates. Instead use the money to expand Medicaid eligbility. What we have is a health insurance assistance bill anyway. Anti-choice and anti-women's health provisions are not a price we should be willing to pay so that the word "reform" can be bandied about by Obama and his lackeys.

Speaking for me only

The Hill reports on Tom Carper's continued efforts to capitulate to Olympia Snowe:

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who has been tapped by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to come up with a Plan B approach to the public option controversy that has divided Democrats, has been working closely with liberal and conservative Democrats, as well as Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). [. . .] Recently, he has touted a so-called hammer public option that he believes answers centrists' criticisms that the public option in Reid's bill is government-run and government-funded. The public option would kick in for states where insurance companies fail to meet standards of availability and affordability of plans. Unlike Snowe's trigger proposal, which would give insurers at least one year to satisfy those requirements, Carper's public option would start the first year the bill goes into effect. States might be permitted to opt into the public option even if the benchmarks are met.

All in all, a pretty silly proposal. But I think there is one thing from it that can be used - make the opt out provision subject to a trigger. In other words, states can opt out ONLY if they meet "standards of availability and affordability of plans." A trigger for the opt out. I like that idea. And I'll give Carper the credit for it.

Speaking for me only

Ezra Klein, Village Blogger Extraordinaire, continues his disingenuous assault on the public option:

Dylan Matthews beats me to the punch with some well-deserved shots at Howard Dean's contention that absent the public option, "this bill is worthless and should be defeated." No, it isn't, and it shouldn't.

Ezra's willful misreading of Howard Dean is simply another example of his utter dishonesty in this debate. He is not to believed on this issue. What Dean is saying is not that expansion of health assistance to the less well off to allow them to get health insurance coverage is worthless. What Dean is saying that the "reforms" in the bill are worthless and that the individual mandate is too high a price to pay for Ezra's precious (and worthless) Exchange. More . . .

Candidate Barack Obama famously said in 2008:

I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

(Emphasis supplied.) Today, Ezra Klein celebrates President Obama's abandonment of transformationalism:

In private, Reid is still alluding to the use of reconciliation on HCR reports The Hill:

During a Nov. 19 news conference, Reid told reporters: “I am not using reconciliation.” But centrists are skeptical that Reid’s public stance means the threat of reconciliation has passed. “Some, citing comments from Sen. Reid, say reconciliation is off the table,” [Nebraska Senator Ben] Nelson wrote [in a Omaha newspaper Op-Ed]. “But it will be right back on the table if we allow the normal Senate parliamentary procedures to break down.”

Perhaps Reid is playing this properly. As Roland Hedley, Jr. says, time will tell.

Speaking for me only

TPMDC spins (here's Ezra spinning) the CBO report on the effect of "health care reform" on insurance premiums:

According to CBO, average premiums in the individual market would increase 10 to 13 percent because of provisions in the Senate health care bill, but, crucially, most people (about 57 percent) would actually find themselves paying significantly less money for insurance, thanks to federal subsidies for low- and middle-class consumers.

You see, if the government ASSISTS you in paying your health insurance premium, you will pay less of the amount due for your health insurance premium. Who'da thunk it? Thanks Gawd for the Exchange, which actually does nothing for anyone (indeed, it actually raises premiums for non-subsidized participants), except the private insurance companies (and the Stupak Amendment.) But the Village Pom Poms will insist it is the "most important part" of "health care reform." Got it?

Speaking for me only

Jane Hamsher rails against those of us who support the opt out provision for the public option. It is amusing to me in the sense that single payer advocates rail against Hamsher and the rest of us for selling out single payer.

Just goes to show you, there is always someone more outraged than you are. Now, on the substance, Hamsher is wrong. Harry Reid went with a public option, in part, BECAUSE of the opt out. I believe that without it, he never would have put a public option in. I could be wrong, but that is my judgment. Now the question is where are we with regard to future political bargaining. I think there are two main questions in the health care reform process - the public option and the financing mechanisms. The question now is how do you move forward? Without forcing reconciliation, the public option is dead. (Could be that the health care bill is dead as well. Not sure I see how this needle gets threaded without using reconciliation.) More . . .

Remember the whole 'the Nobel Peace Prize is aspirational' line? Kevin Drum wonders how that work'd out?

On Tuesday Barack Obama will announce a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan. A week later he'll be in Oslo accepting his Nobel Peace Prize. Pretty good timing, no?