Obama and Dems weak-kneed on health care

After passing their cloture motion to end debate on the health care bill at one am on Monday morning, Senate Democrats are now set to take a final vote at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve for final passage. This bill, which President Obama is hailing as a victory for the American people, has been attacked all year by the political right, but now it is under seemingly equally angry attack from the left. The lack of the public option in this bill is particularly frustrating for progressives across the board.

I am actually glad that as a single person and a freelancer who does not have insurance at the moment, I am likely to be among the 15 million who will be untouched by this legislation, because I prefer not to have to choose between paying for costly health insurance or face fines. Without a public option, or Medicare buy in, this bill only goes as far as guaranteeing a further 30 million customers to the insurance companies, with seemingly little sacrifice on the part of insurance companies. The revenue from the extra customers will presumably cushion the insurance companies from new requirements that forbid them from excluding or dropping people with pre-existing conditions, which may account for the surge in the value of insurance stocks on Friday to a 52-week high.

As they fight it out among themselves, polls have gone south for Democrats in both houses of Congress, not to mention for the president, whose popularity is now under 50 percent for the first time. Is this bill, as it is, worth the political capital that it has cost the President and the Democratic congress?

There seems to be an assumption that the sinking poll numbers are a reflection of American opposition to health care reform, but I counter that the American people are disappointed that this bill does not go far enough. Democrats, including the president, seem to have conceded that the right has won the argument on many fronts and they seem to think that making concessions to the right - and thus diluting the bill - will make it more attractive to the American people and in turn raise the poll numbers for Democrats and the president.

I am of the view that the president would have been better served by pushing for a stronger bill with a public option, paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy, and ending insurance company exemptions from anti trust laws. Instead in their erroneous concession to the right, Democrats are now on track to pass a bill that does not go far enough to reduce insurance premiums, and that may result in the fulfillment of Republican prophesies that premiums will continue to rise.

Democrats failed to respond to the current populist mood on whose wave Obama rode to the White House with a mandate for progressive reforms that should have included extensive financial regulatory reform and extensive health as well as pharma reform, which should have included allowing the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and Europe.

President Obama had an opportunity, like Reagan, to shift the whole country's mentality further to the left and to produce winning arguments for Democrats for generations to come. Instead, he seems to have chosen to work within the existing system.

Obama's method of always seeking consensus may have worked in Springfield but, on the national stage, it has made him appear at times indecisive and weak. The president made a miscalculation in his expectation that he would get points for his method of doing things; that he would be rewarded for the process as it were, when in fact the process itself is lengthy and unattractive.

I believe, however, that President Obama's political team has made the calculation that he is better off appearing weak rather than as a pushy, aggressive or, worse, angry black man. I have a strong belief this has a lot to do with why he has sought concessions even when it seemed to make no sense to the rest of us.