Some folks may have not yet noticed the “Steps to Win” section at the top of the Health Care for America Now site. It’s a section of the site managed by our legislative team, and has the best information on the process by which we’ll pass health care reform this year, broken down into six easy-to-understand steps.

For the last few months, we’ve been in step two, where committees in Congress that have control over health care have been holding hearings and drafting legislation. Now, with legislation set to be introduced in the Finance Committee in the Senate and the tri-committees in the House, and with HELP already marking up a bill, we’re firmly in the third step towards passing health reform: Committees passing bills.

Here’s what’s going to happen:

Because health reform legislation is so complicated, five different committees – three in the House and two in the Senate – are entitled to have some say in the legislation. Each House and Senate committee in charge of different parts of health care reform has been holding hearings and drafting legislation. Committees consider their first draft, usually called the Chairman’s mark, in a process called “mark-up.” During these committee meetings, members propose changes to the Chairman’s mark (amendments) and then vote on final approval in their committee. The committees may consider hundreds on amendments in the process.

Once each committee completes its process, the two Senate committees will combine their bills and work out any differences to bring one bill to the Senate floor. The same process will be happening among the committees working in the House. The committees involved in health care reform have pledged to work together to minimize differences and make this process easier.

And, because we’re a campaign after all, here’s what you can do to help this process:

• Call your Senators in support of a public option - Call your Senators in support of a strong public health insurance option, not “co-ops” or other proposals that won’t do all the things a strong public option can.
• Ask your Senators about the public option - Ask your Senators where they stand on the public health insurance option and what kind of public option they stand for.
• Sign the petition for a public option - Senators Leahy, Durbin, and Schumer have created a petition you can sign in support of a public health insurance option.
• Call your Members of Congress - This is by far the most important thing you can do. Members take calls from constituents very seriously, much more seriously than faxes or emails. Please take a moment and call, even if your Members of Congress are already supporting our efforts.
• Spread the word about our campaign - When President Bill Clinton tried to pass health care reform back in 1993, he didn’t have a grassroots army behind him to hold Congress’ feet to the fire and fend off opponents. That critical mistake eventually doomed his efforts. This time will be different, but we need your help to recruit your friends and family. Please send a message to anyone you know who supports President Obama and his promises of health care reform and ask them to join our campaign.
• Volunteer in your state - Health Care for America Now has grassroots offices in 42 states and grassroots supporters in all 50. Get involved in the effort in your state and in your community to help us pressure Congress and win quality, affordable health care for all in 2009.

So, hooray for progress! Things are indeed moving. A little historical note: If we make it pass step three onto the full House and Senate considering a bill for a vote, we’ll have officially made it farther in the process than President Clinton did in the ’90s. That’ll be a real milestone.

Now, all we have to do is pass a bill out of committee, pass a bill out of both Houses of Congress, get them to agree on a bill, and have the President sign it - all while preserving our principles for health reform. Not easy, but we’ll get there.

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

Politico is reporting that the Washington Post circulated a flier offering lobbyists off the record access to elected officials as well as the paper’s own reporters and editors–at a price ranging from $25,000 to $250,000.  The first access-for-sale event the Post had in mind was aimed at the topic of health care reform.  One lobbyist who received the offer apparently passed it along to a reporter  with Politico, providing the understated observation that it would be a conflict for the paper to charge for access to its health care reporting and editorial staff.  It’s not clear whether any elected officials, or administration officials, had agreed to be there, but that would certainly be disturbing, to say the least, if it’s the case.

In a post yesterday, I noted that, while there is overwhelming support for health care reform, including the public option, the fight for reform has been a difficult one, in part, because of the traditional media’s failure to accurately and fairly report on the issue.  I wrote about one Post reporter, Ceci Connolly, who has falled short of that standard.  Connolly says she was told she would be invited to the event the Politico reported on.  That’s disturbing.

The Post’s crass offer should remind us of larger problems: (1) that political access seems to be for sale to those who can afford it (and unavailable to those who cannot) and (2) traditional media types seem to have a pretty cozy relationship with the elected officials they cover, as has been noted in other contexts.

The term “follow the money” is associated with Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who broke the Nixon administration’s malfeasance at the Watergate and beyond wide open (though it’s not clear the reporters themselves came up with this term).  Woodward and Bernstein stand for the ideal that media ought to hold elected officials accountable.  The Politico story about today’s Post suggests the paper would rather connect elected officials with lobbyists, in exchange for a fee.

Americans want health care reform with a strong public option, as poll after poll after poll has shown. So we might expect that if roughly 70% of Americans want the public option, 70 US senators would line up to vote for the kind of solid, cost-effective legislation that will soon come out of the Senate HELP Committee. Unfortunately, even with the Democratic caucus soon to hit 60 votes in the Senate, we still don’t know where many Democrats stand on the critical question of support for a strong public option.

Democrats who waver on this issue need to hear our voices telling them to stand with President Obama and their party’s leadership to back a strong public option. Pressure from constituents can help make the difference in this battle.

One of those wavering Democrats is Arksansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, and a group of activists have come together to air ads telling her to support the public option. Please consider making a donation to help them place these ads, and be sure to vote for your favorite ad of the three they’re considering.

Why target Lincoln? Two reasons: “Blanche Lincoln is on the health sub-committee of the Senate Finance Committee and she’s running for re-election in 2010.”

John Amato and Jane Hamsher have more background on the campaign.

Please consider donating. The fight over a public option is critical for building a progressive mandate to govern, for Democrats’ electoral chances, for public debate over the role of government in our country, and for defining the role of grassroots progressives in the current political climate.

To expand on that last point, all the good guys are playing an important role right now - the President, Senators Kennedy, Dodd, and others, think tanks and organizations in DC like the Center for American Progress and Campaign for America’s Future, unions like SEIU and the groups in the AFL-CIO coalition, and brave progressives in the House. Grassroots activists have their own unique but crucial role to play: criticizing and pressuring the wavering Democrats that others cannot openly target. Supporting grassroots campaigns like this is the best way that citizen activists can affect the debate and support progressive champions and causes at this pivotal moment.

The HELP Committee has released their final version of a health care bill, including a public health insurance option and a provision for shared responsibility:

Democrats on a key Senate Committee outlined a revised and far less costly health care plan Wednesday night that includes a government-run insurance option and an annual fee on employers who do not offer coverage to their workers.The plan carries a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion, and would lead toward an estimated 97 percent of all Americans having coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Chris Dodd said in a letter to other members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The AP obtained a copy.

By contrast, an earlier, incomplete proposal carried a price tag of roughly $1 trillion and would have left millions uninsured, CBO analysts said in mid-June.

You got that cost number right - $611 billion. If you’ll remember, the last version of the HELP bill - without a public option or shared responsibility - came in at $1 trillion. Clearly, these changes saved money. (And remember when John Boehner, Republican leader in the House, said the public option would cost over $1 trillion? He’s dead wrong.)

On the conference call announcing the measure, Senators Dodd, Brown, and Whitehouse said that all 13 HELP Democrats would be voting for this bill. That’s right, every single one.

Richard Kirsch, our national campaign director, had this to say:

The HELP Committee’s bill will give Americans all across this country what they want - a choice of a strong public health insurance option that will provide lower costs and keep the insurance companies honest. The public health insurance option included in the HELP bill will be available on day one, giving Americans a new alternative to the private insurance industry. It will also encourage the delivery of better health care at a lower cost. The public health insurance option, combined with other key sections of the HELP Committee legislation, makes this bill a good prescription for health care reform. More specifically, the bill invests enough resources to make good, affordable health care available to middle-class families and includes strict rules to stop insurance company abuses.

We urge the Senate Finance Committee and the full Senate to follow Senator Kennedy and his fellow Democrats’ lead in giving everyone a choice of keeping their current health insurance coverage or selecting a new public health insurance option. That public health insurance option would be a real alternative to the private insurance companies that have failed to make health care affordable while regularly delaying and denying needed care.

I concur. The HELP Committee is standing up today and doing the right thing for the American people, and indeed, doing something they deeply support. Finance should follow suit.

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

The mileage based insurance for autos being proposed in California has some promising aspects. I may be somewhat influenced by having used public transportation on my long commute to Dallas, some years back. It’s a great influence on drivers to keep their commute minimal.

Proponents contend that the plan could create a variety of other benefits. Fewer vehicles probably would be on the road, which could curb traffic congestion as well as curtail global warming through the reduced greenhouse gas emissions spewed out of car tailpipes.

Poizner did not say how much the average motorist could save under such a plan. Similar products, which have been tried on a limited basis in 34 states as well as in Canada, Japan and Europe, have saved policyholders money. Premiums dropped by 13% to 54% for GMAC Insurance policyholders, whose mileage was monitored by parent General Motors Corp.’s OnStar satellite tracking system.

But drivers who have long work commutes or live in remote or rural areas might find it more economical to stick with conventional rates not based on exact miles driven.

No one would be forced to buy a pay-as-you-drive policy and no insurance company would be required to offer such a program, Poizner said. Rather, California’s extremely competitive auto-insurance market should create “the right kind of financial incentives for insurance companies and consumers to begin to take some bold steps to reduce the number of miles driven,” he said.

Major insurance companies, which over the last year have participated in hearings and workshops that developed the proposed regulations, said they were at least conceptually on board with setting rates by the mile.

“The proposal has a lot of merit and is definitely something we might want to explore,” said Brian Dwyer, senior vice president for automobile products at Los Angeles-based Farmers Insurance Group, a unit of Zurich Financial Services Group of Switzerland. (On Friday, Farmers finalized its acquisition of Woodland Hills-based 21st Century Insurance, a leading low-cost carrier.)

Motorists who opt for a pay-as-you-drive policy would have several ways to have their mileage measured under the regulations. Those options include odometer readings taken by insurance companies, auto-repair shops or smog-check stations.

Owners could also agree to install in their vehicles electronic transmitters that automatically report mileage to insurers. Insurers, however, would be prohibited from using such devices to monitor where a customer drives.

An environmental quality for insurance is a very good plan. Recent experience has convinced me that the insurance industry is badly in need of better supervision for a variety of reasons. Contributions to environmental quality would be a good start.

For those of you who’ve been talking with me in comments at eschaton, you already know that I got hit by a truck last week and have had a few revelations about insurance practices. While my car was damaged by a large truck backing up at a low speed, the insurance appraiser declared it a total loss. Today at the auto body shop, I got stares of amazement at that information, an amazement which I certainly understand. The body work is almost minimal, damage to working parts is absent. It’s an appalling thought that if I didn’t have the resort I’ve taken, of buying the car back at salvage rates, the amount the insurance would pay me would never get me into another good car like my Honda Civic.

Since my experience, I found out that several people have had this same experience. When a good car with a few repairs would get high offers in a used car market, my suspicions are aroused about how the appraisal relates to the used car value. While I have no direct knowledge of the industry, I can see that a used car dealer would be buying low and selling high. If I didn’t have the resort of buying back the car from the insurance company, I’d be facing the opposite aspect. From a minimal payment for my car, I’d be shopping at high prices for a comparable one.

The recent public exposure of insurance companies looking for reasons to turn down claims against the policies they sell is indicative of an industry that is not doing its job. My inside look at what their practices are in appraisal doesn’t give me any assurance that there aren’t other problems with insurance in overall operations.

There is little insurance regulation in Texas, and I doubt that the pay-go insurance policy will make it here anytime soon. That would be a good influence on us all, though, and I look forward to its development.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a conference Pat Buchanan’s group, the American Cause, recently held.  The conference featured a panelist who describes himself as a “white nationalist” and has argued that the Republican party should focus on its base: “white Americans.”  Reading about the conference and Buchanan’s organization got me curious: what else is Buchanan up to?  I went to the American Cause’s website, and started reading through Buchanan’s columns.

Turns out he is using his organization’s website to make wildly extreme, ultra-reactionary arguments against evolution and in defense of a man the Simon Wiesenthal Center says committed “unspeakable crimes” as a Nazi death camp guard.  That man is John Demjanjuk.  In 2002, a U.S. federal court found that reliable evidence supports the conclusion that Demjanjuk was an armed guard at Sobibor, a death camp where 250,000 people were murdered.   German prosecutors say they have hundreds of documents and a number of witnesses that prove Demjanjuk’s involvement in the murder of 29,000 Jews in 1943.  The head of the special German office investigating Nazi crimes says there is “no doubt” Demjanjuk is responsible for these murders.  Demjanjuk was recently deported from the U.S. and is in a German prison awaiting trial on charges that he was an accessory to these 29,000 murders.

Now, it’s important to note that, in 1993, the Israeli Supreme Court threw out Demjanjuk’s conviction for war crimes committed by the notorious Ivan the Terrible at Treblinka, a different death camp.  The Israeli court found that new evidence suggested Ivan the Terrible was another man–however, according to BBC News, the court was careful not to declare Demjanjuk innocent, pointing to “ample evidence that he had served as a guard in concentration camps other than Treblinka.”

I fully believe that Demjanjuk has a right to a fair trial, and he will receive one.  However, these are very serious charges, and they hardly sound frivolous.  It’s hard to say Demjanjuk is being railroaded or persecuted–unless you’re Pat Buchanan, that is.  Buchanan wrote a column in April, entitled “The True Haters”, that implicitly compares Demjanjuk to Jesus Christ.  Buchanan paints Demjanjuk as a victim of relentless persecution, focusing on the fact that Demjanjuk’s conviction in 1993 was thrown out.  Buchanan leaves out crucial points: (1) the Israeli court that threw out Demjanjuk’s conviction did not say he was “innocent” and noted there was evidence he was guilty of other crimes (2) German prosecutors say there is “no doubt” that Demjanjuk is criminally responsible for 29,000 murders, pointing to hundreds of documents and a number of witnesses backing up their case and (3) the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which has been involved in the Demjanjuk case for many years, has concluded he committed unspeakable crimes during the Holocaust.

Why does Buchanan completely ignore the evidence against Demjanjuk?  Why does he paint Demjanjuk as a victim, grotesquely and bizarrely calling him “the American Dreyfus”?  (Dreyfus was a French Jewish military officer who was convicted of espionage charges against a backdrop of anti-Semitism: Dreyfus’s name stands for injustice based on prejudice against Jews).  Why did he go so far as to compare Demjanjuk to Christ, saying that Demjanjuk was the victim of “the same satanic brew of hate and revenge that drove another innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago“?  (This is a particularly explosive comparison, given the centuries-old slander that the Jews killed Christ: is Buchanan suggesting that the Jews are similarly trying to kill Demjanjuk?)

I can’t say what motivates Buchanan, but his tendentious defense of an accused Nazi war criminal makes me ill.  As I asked before, how is it that Buchanan is able to market himself as a mainstream commentator?

Update: hat tip to Philip Klein, who eloqently exposed Buchanan’s “vile defense” of Demjanjuk back in April.

This week, workers at Hartmarx Factory won a major victory against Wells Fargo, as Wells Fargo agreed to keep their factory open. The story of the Hartmarx workers had drawn national attention as they threatened to occupy their factory if Wells Fargo closed it. Their victory yesterday represents a major triumph in the growing trend of factory sit ins that started last December when workers, members of United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) occupied the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago

Last January, Hartmarx, the maker of men’s apparel and an employer of nearly 4,000 people, filed for bankruptcy after Wells Fargo refused to extend them a line of credit. Wells Fargo then pushed for the company to be liquidated in order to increase their short term profits. They favored liquidating the factory and laying off the 4,000 workers despite the fact that there were proposals by several groups to purchase the company and keep it running.

The workers, members of SEIU, refused to accept the bank’s ruling and decided to do something about it. The workers said they were inspired after having gone to see a speaking tour of members of who had occupied Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. They then decided that perhaps they should consider threatening to occupy their plant in order to force the bank to keep it open. The workers then voted to sit-in to occupy that plant if Wells Fargo decided to liquidate it and drew national media attention to their story.

As a result of the worker’s resolve to fight the company, they received a large degree of political and community support. Over 43 members of Congress signed a letter calling on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to investigate Wells Fargo’s use of bailout money. Congressman Phil Hare, a former worker at Harmarx, promised to be Wells Fargo’s “worst nightmare” if they closed the plant. Finally, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias brought Wells Fargo to their knees when he threatened to cut off $8 billion dollars worth of business that the state does with Wells Fargo if they closed the plant

As a result of the union members’ activism, community pressure and politicians’ threat to take action against Wells Fargo, the union was able to force the bank to accept a bid from another company to keep the plant open. The final decision represents a major victory in the worker sit-in movement against the banks. The victory at Hartmarx confirms the growing trend that I wrote about last week that whenever these banks are challenged through direct action in a visible, public way that they always fold to demands.

Now the fight moves onto a plant across town from Hartmarx in Moline, Illinois. Wells Fargo has cut off credit to Quad City Die Casting factory. Workers at the plant, who are members of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE), the same union that occupied Republic Windows and Doors last summer, are engaging in direct action against Wells Fargo as they call for Wells Fargo to keep the plant open. So far, Wells Fargo has refused to even sit down with the union and negotiate. The union though has not been dissuaded and promises to continuing fighting the banksters of Wells Fargo.

Last week, UE held protests at over 20 cities throughout the country to protest Wells Fargo. In addition, a delegation from their union visited over 100 congressional offices last week to call for an investigation into how Wells Fargo is using its bailout money. The union charges that after having received $25 billion in bailout money that Wells Fargo has an obligation to look to promote economic recovery by keeping the plant open. Speaking at the protest in Davenport, Iowa, UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley said, “We can’t let this giant bank default on its obligation to the American people and the people of the Quad Cities. Wells Fargo is a roadblock to economic recovery.”

Now the question is whether we as the progressive movement will join them in solidarity to support keeping factories open. Please go to UE’s website and send a letter to your congressman calling on them to investigate how Wells Fargo has refused to spend its $25 billion in bailout money to support economic recovery. Our resolve as a movement to support the struggle of workers at Quad City Die Casting will determine our ability to support this growing worker uprising to fight banks that have destroyed our economy. Keeping good American manufacturing jobs such as the union jobs at Quad City Die Casting in this country is key to creating a successful economic revival not built on the speculative bubbles of the past. Its time that banks like Wells Fargo get out of the way on the road to economic recovery.

Growing up the son of a union organizer in Pittsburgh, PA, Mike Elk has been a part of the labor movement for nearly his entire life. Currently, he works on the health care reform team at Campaign for America’s Future. He has worked as a union organizer for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) and the Obama-Biden Campaign. Mike served as a research fellow at the Instituto Marques de Salamanca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil helping to set up worker run cooperatives. When Mike is not scanning a twenty blogs at a time, he enjoys jazz, golden retrievers, and making friends of stranger. He blogs at Yinzer Solidarity.

Are our grandchildren safe now? It seems that a lot of the removal of protections for them is being seen for the threat to our future that it was, and in its turn removed. Today, the forest service has been returned to actual service, instead of used as another environmental hazard.

A federal judge has struck down the Bush administration’s change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests.

“I am hopeful that this is the last nail in the coffin to (President George W.) Bush’s assault on our public forests,” said Pete Frost, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, which represented plaintiffs in one of two cases challenging the rule.

At stake was a provision of the National Forest Management Act that required maintaining viable populations of species that indicate the health of an ecosystem, such as the spotted owl. The Bush administration changed the rule last year so it required a framework of protection, rather than maintaining viable populations of wildlife.

The ruling marked the third time federal courts have turned back attempts to change the 1984 version of what is known as the viability rule within the National Forest Management Act.

The judge wrote that an environmental impact statement done by the Forest Service “does not evaluate the environmental impacts of the 2008 rule,” and the agency failed to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to consult with other federal agencies on whether the rule changes would jeopardize the survival of endangered species.

The world is safe for now from the depredations that were perpetrated over the years that the wingers dominated. The threat continues, though, while destructive claims continue to be heard equally, through the media, with reputable voices.

The Senate now has a sufficient majority of Democrats, which should keep the world safer for awhile. This assumes that the new majority will see through the winger sham of deregulation’s being good for business. As one safety scare after another has disrupted our markets (food poisoning from spinach and peanut butter for instance) it should have become clear enough that deregulation is a threat, not a benefit.

The future of our world is in better hands today. Now, while they have the advantage, the sane members of Congress should put in place solid members of the judiciary and executive branch, continuing protections for the public for as long as possible.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

Everybody, but mostly members of Congress, should read this article by Jacob Hacker and Rahul Rajkumar about what life would be like if we passed health reform - an individual mandate, an insurance exchange, and all that other great stuff - and not a public health insurance option.

That future is bleak. Insurers still control the markets, as they do now, and in fact, the giant insurance companies have grown. Hacker and Rajkumar predict we’ll have a choice “basically between WellPoint and UnitedHealth–gargantuan for-profit insurers each about the size of Medicare.” Sounds great, right?

Hacker and Rajkumar also pointed out a peculiar fact our geography and politics:

Ironically, the problem is worst in the rural areas of the country whose Democratic Senators–such as Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus of Montana–have been among the Democrats most willing to forsake the public health insurance plan. In these rural areas, one or two dominant insurers hold over 90 percent of the market. (In all of Montana, for example, one insurer has 75 percent of private enrollees.) For people in these parts of the nation, a real choice of health plans is as mythical as unicorns.

I would add that the overwhelming majority of rural voters support the choice of a public health insurance option [pdf]. They know what’s best for them.

What if we passed a co-op plan? Not much:

Equally mythical, it soon becomes clear, are the consumer cooperatives that Conrad and Baucus had backed to attract Republican support. The reform legislation envisioned that these cooperatives would be chartered by the government and owned by consumers–the idea being that a democratically-controlled enterprise would be driven not by profit, but by serving the interests of its citizen-owners. But the cooperatives are almost impossible to get off the ground, just as similar consumer-oriented ventures have been in the past. Doctors largely boycott them, insurers undercut them, state politicians argue over them, and federal dollars are woefully insufficient to nurture them. It soon becomes clear that they represent little more than a fig leaf covering a lack of commitment to the basic aim of a public plan: having a tough competitor that forces large insurance companies to bring up their standards and bring down their prices.

All this means premiums remain high, as do provider rates and drug prices. Medical inflation keeps increasing. And guess who pays for that? Taxpayers, seeing as how people who can’t afford the skyrocketing premiums get government subsidies to help them pay for their private health care. Needless to say, the plan isn’t terribly popular.

Rationing of care by private insurers continues. This hits people’s individual lives:

Those with chronic conditions or nearing retirement age who are self-employed or work for small businesses are hit hardest. A 59-year-old self-employed man with diabetes, or a 48-year-old single mother with breast cancer who works at a small retailer–these are the sort of people who will fall through the cracks without a public plan available in all parts of the nation. They may qualify for a “hardship exemption” so that they are not compelled to buy insurance under the reform legislation’s “individual mandate.” But not being forced to buy insurance they can’t afford is a poor substitute for having access to a public plan they can afford.

These are the stakes before us. If we do reform right, with a public health insurance option, costs can come down, people will be covered, and none of this will come to pass. But if we remove just one element in the reform package, this idea of choice and competition, we’ll end up with an unpopular and ineffective plan that does nothing to control costs and keeps us crushed within the status quo.

This is what makes health reform so hard - change just one piece of the whole plan and suddenly it doesn’t work anymore.

Hacker and Rajkumar have another point to make on this idea of public/private competition:

This is a not a radical idea. In many areas of American commerce, private and government programs comfortably co-exist. FHA insured loans and non-FHA loans, Social Security and private pensions, public and private universities–all have long thrived side by side. Each side of the divide has strengths and weaknesses, but in every case the public sector is providing something the private sector cannot: A backup that’s there if and when you need it; a benchmark for private providers; and a backstop to make sure costs don’t spin out of control. Just as it is comforting to have Social Security in case your 401(k) evaporates or an FHA loan in case your credit score tanks, a new public plan provides an added level of protection against the vicissitudes of an unaccountable insurance market. A public plan is about competition as well as choice.

This is exactly right. The idea that private industry can’t ever compete with government is, as President Obama says, illogical, especially because the same people who say this say at the same time that government is too inefficient to run anything correctly.

As Hacker and Rajkumar make desperately clear, we need the public health insurance option. It’s not negotiable. We need one available nationally on day one, accountable to voters and Congress, and able to set rates with providers. If we get something less, we don’t get health reform.

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

When it comes to important change that requires political action, success never seems to be easy.  Consider womens’ suffrage, Social Security, the abolition of slavery, federal anti-discrimination laws (we’re not all the way there on these yet).  Reactionaries opposed each of these measures, and made it incredibly difficult for liberals to achieve these basic norms we now take for granted.

I guess that achieving a modern, rational health care shouldn’t be any different–and it hasn’t been.  It’s clear that there’s nothing easy about health care reform, despite the fact that Americans overwhelmingly support substantial change to the health care system, including the so-called “public option”–the idea that a government insurance plan ought to compete with private insurers.

Why is it so hard to achieve something that most Americans support?  Opponents of change are skillful marketers.  While they may not have much to offer when it comes to substance, but they have proven skillful at crafting slogans that dominate debate–scary sounding terms like “socialized medicine” are trotted out at every turn.

Another thing opponents of what is essentially popular reform have going for them is the traditional media.  Media Matters is shining a much-needed light on how this is playing out.  As Media Matters points out, it’s not too much for us to ask that the media report accurately and fairly on health care reform.  Unfortunately, things aren’t working out that way at the Washington Post.  The Post’s Ceci Connolly recently wrote that Change Congress interim chief executive Adam Green was, in an interview, “hard pressed to articulate a substantive argument for the public plan...”  Green counters that Connolly didn’t ask him about the substance of the health care reform, she asked him about the politics, and when he gave her an answer on the political front, she wrote that he had failed to answer on the substance.  (Media Matters also points out that it’s pretty easy to find an eloquent substantive argument for the public option, if that’s what Connolly was looking for–by leaving this out, she made it seem that there simply is no substantive argument for the public option).

I don’t think Connolly has any sinister motive–as Green put it, she simply doesn’t understand the debate over health care, and she falls back on comfortable, but inaccurate shibboleths: for example, she wondered why Green was “attacking [his] friends” by holding Senate Democrats accountable for taking money from insurance companies.

It may not fit Connolly’s script to acknowledge that not all Democrats are on the progressive side of the health care debate, but it happens to be reality.  As she continues to cover this critical debate, I hope that she, and the Post, will give careful consideration to the serious questions Media Matters has raised about her reporting.