Maryland delegates Henry Heller and Joseph Vallario have introduced another bill to ban first-cousin marriage in Maryland. According to information released so far, it would ban cousin marriage for those under age 65, exempting couples where one partner could prove infertility. Heller had earlier introduced a bill to ban all first-cousin marriage in 2000, so he may be trying to compromise to avoid the same fate as last time. The bill came extremely close to passing then: it passed the State House by 82-46, only to be stopped by some unknown hero in the Senate, where it died before being put to a vote. Prejudice being what it is, had that bill been actually put to a vote, it most likely would have passed. Stopping this bill will probably be no easy task.

Cousin marriage is pissed upon as an issue in America today. Just look at this blog post:

So, the contest for most bizarre bill of the session may be over.

Democratic Dels. Henry Heller of Montgomery County and Joseph Vallario of Prince George's County have introduced a bill that would both prohibit marriages between first cousins and allow them under specific circumstances. In the short synopsis released so far, those circumstances would be if both people are over the age of 65 or if one individual can show proof he or she is infertile.

At the beginning of the session I would not have anticipated a bill related to consanguinity, but the General Assembly remains - as always - an unpredictable place.

This issue is seen as not just bizarre, but the most bizarre issue of the whole session! Part of this ignorance is no doubt related to the unusually small numbers of people affected in the United States: less than 0.2% of American Catholics were found to be first or second cousins in studies done fifty years ago. Numbers in many other countries are far higher, and today the world record appears to be Pakistan, which in one study at least had an overall rate above 60%. But we should think twice about seeing current numbers as a measure of significance: the total amount of all interracial marriage in 1960 was only 0.4%, and the rate of black-white marriage was 0.13%. The only major difference in the status of first-cousin marriage today and black-white marriage then is that the anti-miscegenation laws then were actually enforced. But would we balk today if black-white marriages were "merely" declared null and void, with several states making them a felony, albeit a generally unenforced one? Something tells me we might.

Heller said in 2005 that he might resurrect the bill at some point because first-cousin marriage "is like playing genetic roulette." That was just as misleading then as it is now. First-cousin marriage has on average a 1.7-2.8% increased risk of birth defects over the base risk of about 3% for an unrelated couple. That is the same as the risk an unrelated couple faces when the mother gives birth at age 41, since increased maternal age heightens the risk. Those who abuse alcohol and cocaine during pregnancy may face far greater risks. The risk is less than an order of magnitude smaller than faced by sufferers from genetic diseases that are autosomal dominant, which means that children face a 50% chance of inheriting the disease. No one in these categories is attacked and discriminated against to the degree that married cousins are, even the alcohol and cocaine abusers.

Considering the small numbers of people affected and the size of the genetic risk involved, Delegate Heller's move to ban first-cousin marriage comes off not as a sincere policy proposal but instead as a cynical attempt to score political points by beating up on a minority. The fact is that such a ban would surely constitute inexcusable discrimination and bigotry. I will be posting my letter to Mr. Heller and his followers shortly.

Further information on cousin marriage is available at its Wikipedia page.

HIV is not the cause of AIDS. In fact, HIV may not even exist. If it does, it's just a harmless passenger virus brought along by other ailments. The HIV antibodies have never been adequately isolated, and testing for the virus is highly inaccurate. AIDS itself is caused by a variety of factors, such as recreational drug use, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and the side effects of the anti-retroviral medication used to "treat" HIV.

Sound insane? It is!

But these views are being promoted in a new film on Apple Trailers called House of Numbers. The tag line for the film states that "a world without HIV/AIDS may be closer than you think."

In a review for the New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis writes:

Couched as a "personal journey" through the history of H.I.V. and AIDS, "House of Numbers" is actually a weaselly support pamphlet for AIDS denialists. Trafficking in irresponsible inferences and unsupported conclusions, the filmmaker Brent Leung offers himself as suave docent through a globe-trotting pseudo-investigation that should raise the hackles of anyone with even a glancing knowledge of the basic rules of reasoning.

Seeing this on Apple Trailers, I immediately wrote the following very short e-mail to Apple. I am thinking about writing another e-mail since I suspect trailers [at] mac [dot] com will ignore this one.

Dear Apple,

As a frequent visitor of Apple Trailers and iPhone owner, I am offended that you are promoting the film House of Numbers by featuring its trailer on your website. This film promotes a conspiracy theory known as AIDS denialism that portrays AIDS as not being a real disease. This is deeply hurtful to the relatives of the more than 25 million people who have died as a result of AIDS in the past few decades.

Please remove this trailer from your website.

This film is hardly limited to promotion by Apple, however. It's also being pushed by The Spectator in the UK, where political editor Fraser Nelson wants to "discuss the strength of the link between HIV and AIDS."

In the US we have charlatans like Gary Null, who is a prominent member of the AIDS denialist community, and who keeps being allowed to push his quackery on National Public Radio and other major media outlets. While I don't know if he is aware of this specific film, Null promotes other AIDS denialist films on his website. Null is notable for having a PhD, ostensibly in a scientific field, from a university not accredited to award scientific degrees. Thankfully, Pacifica's WBAI New York station had the sense to kick him off, but he retains a large fan base.

These views are dangerous. Writing in the Guardian, Ben Goldacre notes:

Despite international outcry, from 2000 to 2005 South Africa implemented policies based on the belief that HIV does not cause Aids, and declined to roll out adequate antiretroviral therapy. It has been estimated in two separate studies that around 350,000 people died unnecessarily in South African during this period.

We need to get people like this off the airwaves.

I'm going to write a letter to NPR right now calling on them to pull Null's show.

Crossposted on Corrente

Lately there have been some posts (1,2,3) on Firedoglake and in the blogosphere comparing cousin marriage and gay marriage.

As someone advocating the legalization of first-cousin marriage in all fifty US states, I welcome the discussion of the issue, which is still sorely lacking. And with same-sex marriage receiving far more media coverage, any discussion of cousin marriage is bound to bump up against that debate.

However, I'm disturbed that some of these comparisons have tried to justify legalizing gay marriage by putting down and stigmatizing cousin marriage. This may not be done in most cases, but it sure is unnerving when it is. Plus, these comparisons often reveal a lower level of tolerance for cousin marriage than for gay marriage.

Calling cousin marriage "incest" is an especially nasty put-down that often surfaces in these discussions. It's an inaccurate insult because incest has a culture-specific definition. In some cultures, it may be considered incest to marry your brother's widow or someone who happens to share your last name. By calling cousin marriage incest, one is effectively making a value judgment about whether to include it in the definition of incest. And even in regions where cousin marriage unambiguously is considered such and is illegal, it's a bit like calling gay sex "sodomy." It's technically true but still very nasty language.

Cousin marriage and gay marriage are not, inviting though the comparison may be, particularly close issues. The numbers of people affected are different: gay marriage affects homosexuals making up perhaps 3% of the population, whereas first- and second-cousin marriages made up around 0.2% of all marriages in studies done fifty years ago. (These are US figures: worldwide the cousin marriage proportion is now over 10%.) Being gay is also at least partly innate, whereas marrying a cousin is a personal choice. Instead, a much better analogy to cousin marriage is surely the anti-miscegenation laws that were last seen in America no later than 1967. In the 1960 census, all interracial couples made up just 0.4% of marriages, while the especially maligned black-white unions made up 0.13%. Interracial marriage is also clearly not innate, like cousin marriage, and is a consciously made choice.

Religiously the issues are enormously different. Gay sex was condemned in the Bible as an "abomination," but sex between cousins such as Jacob and Rachel was not only not condemned but was specifically ordered by God. Even when the Roman Catholic Church later banned cousin marriage, it was understood that this was merely ecclesiastical and not divine law, and consequently the local bishop could and still can dispense from the prohibition. (Such dispensations are much easier to obtain nowadays. They are now almost always granted, effectively allowing first-cousin marriage in Catholicism.) Contrast this to the fervent campaign against gay marriage by socially conservative Catholic officials.

In their social acceptance, how the two issues compare is a curious question. Does anyone have any thoughts on which is more accepted in America today? My guess would be gay marriage, because Americans are shocked by cousin marriage when speaking about the subject abstractly, and I think that most discrimination against married homosexuals would probably be due to their simply being homosexual rather than being married per se.

Originally posted on Firedoglake

It's pretty hard nowadays to find mainstream arguments in favor of anti-miscegenation laws and against interracial couples like the ones mentioned in this article. But you can always go to white supremacist sites. Check out Stormfront for example.

These people aren't very eloquent, so for greater literacy I turn to Johann Friedrich Blumenbach.

Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

And you know what? He's absolutely right--blood should not marry blood. Interracial marriage is totally disgraceful. The truth is that the article above about interracial couples is shocking and scandalous. It is wrong on so many levels.

I simply cannot imagine how the family of anyone who married interracially, like the couple below, can take it.

Good grief. It is wrong in the eyes of God. Plus, it could seriously damage the dynamics of the family of the person engaging in it. Miscegenation is definitely weird and disturbing stuff.

People who favor racial mixing are bigots. In fact, they are just trolling, because few really care about the issue enough to write about it.

If they do care about it, it means they're guilty of hate. They're trivializing more important issues by taking up our time with this. What shenanigans! Get out your broomsticks. It's just right wing bullshit.

That this isn't obvious to others is disturbing. Some shit is just nasty. And it's prohibited under Canon Law, Mosaic Law and Roman Law.

REWIND

By this point you are probably itching to beat me with a brick. But in fact, every one of these inflammatory, vile and scurrilous comments were stated very recently on large and mainstream message boards and were pretty much not called out. The caveat? They weren't about interracial marriage and anti-miscegenation laws, but rather about another issue that is nevertheless mostly equivalent morally: cousin marriage.

For those for whom this issue is completely alien, read Wikipedia:

Cousin marriage is a legally or socially recognized marriage between two cousins, or persons sharing a common ancestor.

In some jurisdictions and cultures, such marriages are legal and actively encouraged, while in others they are regarded as incest and prohibited. Still other cultures merely tolerate marriages between first cousins, but at the same time these unions are not encouraged.

Any random two people have a common ancestor and are cousins to some degree, but most people don't know their common ancestor. Usually, unless otherwise qualified, "cousin" means first cousin, someone with whom one shares one pair of grandparents.

...

The text before the picture above was compiled from mixx.com, reputedly a "user-driven social media web site that serves to help users submit or find content by peers based on interest and location." It was founded by Chris McGill, a former head of strategy at USA Today.

The text after the picture was compiled from none other than our friend Daily Kos when I posted a diary there advocating legalizing cousin marriage. Because my diary made some comparisons to same-sex marriage, I was accused of deliberately trolling and trying to trivialize gay marriage by comparing it with the odious cousin marriage topic. The tip jar got hide rated.

My comparisons in that post between cousin marriage and gay marriage might easily have been seen as fine, though--provided they had gone the right way. After all, I could have framed them like this article does in a California student newspaper. It's written by a girl about the romance between her two cousins:

Sometimes it makes my stomach curdle thinking about the romance they have, which is neither natural nor socially acceptable

The goal of the article is to show that same-sex marriage should be legalized by comparing it with cousin marriage.

If California can go so far as to say that first cousins can marry, then same sex marriages should soon have equality too.

But just in case anyone should doubt her humane intentions toward her cousin,

my family is not going to disown her -- even though they may plot against their relationship.

So we're not going to disown you, just try to interfere in your personal life. How tolerant!

In retrospect, I don't think the analogy between gay marriage and cousin marriage is particularly close. Sexual orientation is partly innate, whereas no one is innately predisposed to marry a cousin. So instead of gay marriage, a better analogy is to anti-miscegenation laws. No one is predisposed to marry someone from another race.

The big issue that motivates the ban on cousin marriage in the popular mind is genetics. However, according to a 2002 study in the Journal of Genetic Counseling, the average risk of a serious birth defect for first cousins is only 1.7-2.8% higher than the base risk of 3-4%. This risk is comparable to the average risk of a mother who gives birth at age 41. Hence, it's hard to see why a couple's consanguinity should be an important legal distinction. One might also compare that risk to, say, the far higher one for mothers who drink heavily throughout their pregnancy: 45% of them give birth to a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome.

One can argue that the cousin marriage issue is relatively insignificant. But if we measure importance strictly by the numbers of people affected, this isn't true: the proportion of all interracial marriages was 0.4% in 1960, the date of the last census before Loving v. Virginia struck down the laws. The most universally targetted form, black-white unions, represented 0.13%. By comparison, what little data we have on cousin marriage suggests a rate of 0.2% for both first- and second-cousin marriages. So the figures are well within an order of magnitude, even though the first-cousin marriage rate is the smaller one. And the US rate is quite tiny by global standards.

It's true that measuring importance by numbers alone probably isn't very smart. Anti-miscegenation laws were usually criminal in nature and were often enforced, apparently unlike criminal cousin marriage laws. The latter do not seem to have reached the appellate court level in any of the nine states where they exist. (There may well have been district-level cases or cases that never went to court at all, though.) But still, the logic cited by the Supreme Court in deciding Loving v. Virginia ruled out mere prohibitions as well as criminal penalties, so it's hard to see why this is fundamental. Anti-miscegenation laws today would hardly be less repugnant for lack of criminality.

To conclude, let's look at some pictures of these deviant, disgraceful, decadent cousin couples.

They're clearly evil.

Originally posted on Corrente

Who says cousin marriage is wrong? Who says it's not a legitimate political issue?

I am supposedly on blogging hiatus right now, but I just had to announce the arrival of this awesome new article from the New York Times by writer Sarah Kershaw.

WHEN Kimberly Spring-Winters told her mother she was in love, she didn't expect a positive response -- and she didn't get one.

"It's wrong, it's taboo, nobody does that," she recalled her mother saying.

But shortly after the conversation, Ms. Spring-Winters, 29, decided to marry the man she loved: her first cousin.

Shane Winters, 37, whom she now playfully refers to as her "cusband," proposed to her at a surprise birthday party in front of family and friends, and the two are now trying to have a baby. They are not concerned about genetic defects, Ms. Spring-Winters said, and their fertility doctor told them he saw no problem with having children.

This article contains a lot of new and previously unearthed material, including quotes from cousin couples and also Representative Harvey Hilderbran, who authored the recent Texas statute in 2005 banning cousin marriage.

Those interested should also check out the new cousin marriage Wikipedia page that I have updated in the past few days.

How can we get repealing bans on first cousin marriage on the US legislative agenda?

I think it would clearly help in getting started to consider why it has not already been raised as an issue, given facts like that no other Western country prohibits it and that the genetic arguments have been shown to be hollow.

I can see at least two big reasons why it's been neglected:

1) The affected percentages are lower in the US than in many other countries. The most recent studies were done around a half century ago and found 0.2% of Roman Catholics married to a first or second cousin. We don't have any data at all on non-marital relationships or for non-Catholics, a demographic that is now over 75% of the public.

2) Cohabiting cousins can blend in amongst strangers, acquaintances and at least some friends.

However, we should definitely balance these factors against this:

1) Cousin marriage is largely still seen as a perversion and is not recognized even as a legitimate political issue in the United States.

In addition to understanding this as oppressive, it is itself another reason why bans on cousin marriage haven't been disputed. For example, today there is a great deal of media coverage about the issues of race and gay marriage in the United States. Gays and ethnic minorities may receive their share of cruelty and bigotry, but at least there is an expanding community recognizing that these phenomena are unjust. On the other hand, when cousin couples are made out to be stupid, disgusting, incestuous, "polluting the gene pool," etc., there is no comparable consciousness and especially anger at the injustice. Discrimination against cousin couples is not being fought through any kind of coordinated effort, and so those afflicted are inevitably left atomized, alone, and at the mercy of potential accusers.

I think an apt analogy here, and probably a much better one than comparisons to gay marriage, is actually to miscegenation. Compare the uproar over the fact that a justice of the peace refused an interracial couple a marriage license in Louisiana last month to the fact that in over half of US states it is official policy to deny the same license to cousin couples. If we restrict ourselves to black-white marriages, the numbers involved are on the same order of magnitude: there were 422,000 black-white marriages in 2005, according to the Census Bureau, or 844,000 individuals. If we use the 0.2% figure, then multiplying by 124 million married individuals gives 248,000 people. However, we need to take into account that cousin marriage is illegal in most states, so this understates the number somewhat. Also, the number of black-white marriages has exploded since the landmark Loving vs. Virginia ruling, with the percentage more than tripling since 1970.

On Justice Bardwell's behavior in Louisiana, the ACLU says that it represents "bigotry and prejudice" and "would be both embarrassing and disturbing in any year." It therefore recommends "the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice." But in the case of denying cousin couples the right to marry, their organization presumably does not believe this constitutes bigotry or prejudice, since none of its state chapters have ever raised the issue.

That brings me to the question of how to get this issue on the agenda. In order to start, it will be necessary to contact progressive organizations and convince them to take up the cause. To identify some possible candidates I decided to consider Wikipedia's list of organizations advocating gay marriage, since I couldn't find a comparable list for miscegenation or civil rights. Removing organizations exclusively devoted to gay rights, we find:

National Organization for Women,[82] the AFL-CIO,[84] the ACLU,[85] the American Psychiatric Association,[86] the National Association of Social Workers,[87] the Service Employees International Union (SEIU),[88], the National Education Association[89], the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights[90], People for the American Way, Secular Coalition for America, Center for American Progress, Moveon.org, Drum Major Institute[91], Institute for Policy Studies[92], Americans for Democratic Action[93], Progressive Democrats of America, Campus Progress, Democracy for America, Progressive Majority, NARAL Pro-Choice America[94]

There's also the Green Party and various state Democratic parties. I would hope that eventually all of these organizations can be persuaded to advocate cousin marriage, but since resources in getting this started are scarce and I may be acting alone, prioritization is needed. I tend to rule out the unions as good starting points because unlike discrimination against gays, discrimination against married cousins is probably not much of a workplace issue (in the same way as discrimination against interracially married couples is not, per se, much of a workplace issue). Somewhat analogous reasoning about their foci leads me to axe the American Psychiatric Association and the National Association of Social Workers, though these might be worth coming back to. The feminist organizations I rule out for a different and unfortunate reason: many of the Islamic societies with the highest rates of cousin marriage are also extremely patriarchal, and I fear that some feminists may have an impression of cousin marriage as a kind of back door for Middle East-style sexism. This superficial association is one that I think can certainly be overcome, but not without a good deal of dialogue. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has to go because it's an umbrella group, not a real organization, but I ended up considering one of its members, the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. A couple of think tanks got removed because their issue focus isn't relevant. Finally, I ruled out Moveon.org and Democracy for America because my personal impression is that they're incapable of taking issue stances that aren't explicitly Democrat-approved beforehand.

That leaves us with:

Green Party
ACLU
Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights
People for the American Way
Progressive Democrats of America
Secular Coalition for America
NJ Democratic Party (my state)
Center for American Progress

This list is ranked: it represents a very rough gauging of how easy I think it would be to get these organizations to support cousin marriage. The Green Party is simply awesome and if the issue was properly explained, I think there is a very good chance of actually getting it into their national platform for the 2012 elections. The ACLU is a natural ally here, though as a judicially focused organization they would doubtless be more motivated if an actual case was presented of first cousins being denied a marriage license. A major task in soliciting the ACLU is hence finding a couple willing to come forward and file a speculative legal case. As a preliminary effort one would surely also want to consult with ACLU staff about their willingness to actually accept the case.

The next few organizations are small academic think tanks. The modus operandi there is pretty straightforward: just contact their staff and discuss any willingness to take a position. Progressive Democrats of America is fantastic but their issue focus is mostly concentrated on non-social issues. Their state chapters, however, do engage in some gay rights work. Meanwhile Secular Coalition for America is an explicitly anti-religious organization, so it would be probably be necessary to find a religious organization banning or restricting cousin marriage that it could be properly "anti" to. The Catholic Church and its requirement for a dispensation for first cousins comes to mind as a possibility, but it's not one I'll take up since I personally have Catholic roots.

Then we have the NJ Democratic Party. Unlike states like Massachusetts, I'm not even sure that we even have a party platform in New Jersey. Anyway, this is a huge task, far beyond my individual capabilities. Dead last we have the Center for American Progress, which I almost discounted for reasons similar to Moveon.org and Democracy for America, but in the end retained because it's an academic organization and might perhaps have a member or two who can be individually persuaded.

That about rounds out the list! I will try to influence some of these organizations to endorse cousin marriage in the future, in addition to promoting causes that benefit everyone like Medicare for All. Actually, I won't be blogging for a while-I have some personal concerns that desperately need taking care of, like say finding employment. I will be back at around 5 or 6 p.m. to address comments on this post, though. Cheers!

This is a copy of the long reply that Maggie Mahar made to my post "Why Is Maggie Mahar Lying About Health Reform?" at TPMCafe. I've now gone through in turn and posted responses to her statements. I will not have time to do another round of replies, but hopefully this will be enough. I suggest that people show up to the Firedoglake book salon on November 9 and ask her to stop saying that the public "option" is anything at all like "Medicare E (for everyone)."

I am, of course, not lying about Health Care reform.

If you read CBO director Elmendorf's letter to Charles Rangel where he suggests that only 30 million Americans will be in the h Exchange in 2019 (six years after reform begis) and that just 20% of the people eligible for the Insurance Exchange will choose the public plan, you would find that he has No basis for saying this. No numbers. No real analysis.

When Elmendorf explains why, in his opinion only 1/5 of the folks in the Exchange will choose the government plan, the paragraph is filled with "probably's." (I will be publishing a post quoting that pargraph very soon.)

CMS estimated 40% compared to CBO's 1/3 when the public option paid at Medicare rates. Both CBO and CMS do say that there is a lot of uncertainty involved, so upon consideration I agree that no one is sure. However, they're not saying that the uncertainity is in a particular direction: it could be either up or down. (Kip Sullivan has argued that it is down.)

The truth is that No One can guess what percentage of millions of Americans will choose a public plan three years from now. We don't know anything about the details of the public plan. Or the price. We know little about the private plans that will be competing.

Elmendorf is indulging in an exercise in mind-reading-guessing what millions of Americans will decide three years from now.

And when I heard that Elmendorf said only 30 million would be in the Exchange in 2019, and that the public plan would be tiny and more expensive than private plans, I wondered: how did he come up with those numbers?

So I went to the source where he laid out these figures, a letter he wrote to Rangel in late October. There I found all of the "probably's"-
and no facts to justify his conclusion.

He just assumes that because the public plan is a governement plan, it "probably" will make no real effort to control costs or utilization-which makes no sense whatsoever. Medicare makes a real effort to control costs (see below) and going forward, Medicare plans to slash some fees beginning next year (see blow). The public plan will too.

CMS reached a very similar conclusion to CBO about the public plan having higher utilization. It's not just Elmendorf.

Moreover, what we know with certainty is that a public family plan will be at least $2000 less expensive because it won't have the private sector's administratie costs. (This number is from Commonwealth.) The public plan will not have to lobby. It will not spend much (if anything) on marketing and advertising. EVeryone will know that it exists, and it will get much free advertising in the many,many stories that will be written about it in the press, on blogs, plus stories on television.

Commonwealth Fund talks about a completely different situation with an enormous exchange that takes up around half of the nation's health insurance market. One crucial assumption that differs is that their public plan uses Medicare's provider networks and claims processing. This public plan, by contrast, must set up its own networks. In my original post I pointed out Karen Davis's statement on how their study's assumptions differ from the bills now in Congress. You ignored it.

(Mahar did an article on the Commonwealth Fund report here. Somewhat shockingly because it directly contradicts her arguments below, at one point she says: "...in many cases, the doctors who treat them would be paid less. As a result, patients who choose the public sector plan might well have a hard time finding physicians willing to take their insurance...The private plans would have the funds needed to pay providers more and create "integrated networks," overcoming some of the fragmentation that leads to errors in our health care system.Quite simply, they would be able to offer better care." The emphasis is mine.)

The full and much longer version of this post is available on ZBlogs. You may need to click this link twice if they redirect you to the Emergency Funding Appeal.

On November 9, Maggie Mahar is doing a book salon at Firedoglake on her book Money-Driven Medicine. I think it probably contains many useful facts, and even decided to order it last week from Amazon. For example, it correctly points out that the largest problems in the American health care system today are unnecessary procedures and overpayment for services. However, I now know that I will need to closely scrutinize its every word before accepting it as true. Why will it be hard to take this book at face value? Because Mahar has lately engaged in a complete flight of fancy about the proposed "public option."

She now exhuberantly and routinely describes the public option as "Medicare E (for everyone)" (1,2,3,4,5). This was before the rates tied to Medicare were removed, but even when they still existed, this was not an accurate characterization of the public "option." In the first place, she herself says: "At most, I'd estimate that 25% of the population will be able to choose the public plan in 2013." In my view this is not totally unreasonable, but it certainly contradicts her description. Her estimate is higher than the CBO's (10%) because she is considering who can legally join the public plan, not how many are expected to join the exchanges. She even makes what by itself is a valuable point: the CBO is not telling us that 10% of the public can legally join the public plan.

But the more important question is: how many actually will? Let's say that we had a public plan operating at near Medicare rates. CMS says its premiums would be about 11 percent lower than private premiums. Does that mean everyone would flock to the public plan? No. For one, there's another big factor that has to be taken into account in discussing consumer preferences: the provider network. For example, I can start an insurance plan in my backyard that pays at Medicare rates. No one will join it because no providers are willing to do business at those rates, unless I happen to have a pre-populated pool of customers at least somewhat comparable in size to Medicare's (43 million) to negotiate with. In fact, this is a big unsolved problem (1,2) that public option advocates have yet to address. But even assuming it can be dealt with, paying lower rates would certainly have an adverse effect on which providers accept the public option. (Today some providers even refuse Medicare itself.) That will impact consumer choices.

Indeed, if Mahar had paid more attention to the Commonwealth Fund whose work she cites in her articles, she would have noted Karen Davis's admonition that:

Unfortunately, as legislation has worked its way through congressional committees, the potential power of a public plan has been substantially eroded in three ways: by dropping the requirement that providers that receive Medicare payment also participate in the public plan; by requiring the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary to negotiate provider payments rather than base prices on Medicare rates; and by restricting access to a public plan option to individuals and small firms. As a result, a strong public option is no longer a component of several bills now being debated in Congress.

And because the public "option" will not be a single payer system like Medicare, its administrative costs will not be as low, though they are expected to be lower than those of private insurance.

There is also no reason to believe that most who are legally eligible to enter the exchanges will do so. For individuals with employer sponsored health insurance, it would in general make no sense to purchase individual insurance on the exchanges any more than it would make sense to purchase individual insurance elsewhere. Administrative costs for individual plans are higher than for group negotatiated employer sponsored plans. It would certainly make sense for many individuals eligible for subsidies to join the exchanges, because in many cases the subsidies would outweigh the high cost of purchasing individual insurance. That is why Congress has limited the subsidies to those without access to employer provided coverage, and mandated that all except the tiniest employers provide such coverage. Arguments such as this are hence generally moot:

...anyone who becomes uninsured during the course of the year can join the Exchange. And even if their circumstances change (for instance they find a job that offers insurance), they can stick with the plan they chose in the Exchange.

Those purchasing individual insurance who are eligible for subsidies would have a clear incentive to join the exchanges. Most who currently purchase insurance individually are fairly well off, so this is a minority, but others would make the shift and the CBO did try to account for that. I wouldn't be suprised if the CBO figure is not exactly right, but there's no clear reason why it should be wildly inaccurate. Healthier people would seemingly have an incentive not to join the exchanges because of all the relatively unhealthy categories of people who would get subsidized in, thus raising premiums.

The full version and end of this blog post is available on ZBlogs. You will need to click the link twice since new visitors are redirected to the Emergency Funding Appeal.

This is a transcript of the chat I had with Matthew Kerbel about his new book celebrating the "netroots," including groups like Daily Kos and Open Left which he considers to be part of "the Left." In this chat I tried to pin him down more specifically about what he meant by "the Left" and "progressives." First I'll post the Firedoglake summary so you can get more of an idea of what his book is about, and then the chat.

For members of the Firedoglake community, I expect Matthew Kerbel's Netroots:Online Progressives and the Transformation of American Politics will prove to be equal parts familiar and insightful. The familiarity comes from the rich descriptive account he provides of the netroots community itself. Unlike many of his contemporary academics, Kerbel has clearly done the legwork of getting to know progressive blogging communities like FDL, DailyKos, OpenLeft, and others. In offering a detailed account of the goals, values, and achievements of this community, Kerbel portrays the netroots as it is; rather than perpetuating the easy stereotypes so often provided by defensive political pundits and the like.

The insights come from the broader academic framework he provides. In chapters that compare the netroots to previous technologically-mediated social movements in American history, compare the progressive netroots to the conservative "rightroots," and discuss the netroots community as a venue for social capital-building, Kerbel provides a scaffolding of sorts for viewing the very activities that Firedoglake participants are engaged in, yielding valuable insights in return. I highly recommend the book.

One particularly refreshing element of Kerbel's work is his decision to focus on the netroots as a social movement rather than focusing on blogging more generally. For several years now, academic researchers have gotten stuck in an intellectual cul-de-sac of sorts, asking what impact blogging in the abstract has on politics or equating all blogging with the rarely-defined term, "citizen journalism." Firedoglake provides a fine illustration of the flaws in this framework: FDL features both high-quality journalism from Marcy Wheeler and company, and cutting-edge political advocacy through FDL-action's Whip count tool. FDL is a hub for a political "community-of-interest," and that makes it different from a random wordpress blog. Some blogging (but not all) offers an alternative venue for journalism. Some blogging (but not all) has a real impact on elite decision-makers and public narratives. By focusing on the political Netroots rather than the abstract architecture of blogging software, Kerbel is able to add considerably to our knowledge of the substantive achievements of Netroots progressives over the past several years. I expect it's going to be an important book for years to come, specifically because of the serious attention he pays to the actual achievements of this community.

His focus on netroots achievements yields an immediate result in the opening chapter, which offers a series of pithy insights that receive elaboration over the course of the book (and probably provide good starting points for our discussion with the author):

* "Technology facilitates political change - eventually"
* "The power of the internet rests with the ability to understand and use its decentralized structure"
* "The Left is better situated than the right to take advantage of open source Internet politics"
* "The progressive blogosphere is neither particularly ideological nor extremist"
* "The netroots are an elite movement"
* "The Internet does not need to penetrate society in order to be a politically influential vehicle"
* "Netroots activists oppose the Democratic establishment as strongly as they opposed the Bush administration"
* "Netroots activists oppose mainstream journalists as strongly as they opposed the Bush administration and oppose the Democratic establishment"
* "Netroots activists gauge their effectiveness on how well they influence political outcomes, media narratives, and political engagement"
* "There is evidence that the netroots are making progress toward their political objectives"
* "There is only limited evidence that the netroots are making progress toward influencing mainstream media narratives"
* "The evidence of netroots community building is strong"
* "Netroots bloggers practice and seek a politics of community facilitated by Internet interactions"

The book is engaging, readable, and not-too-long (158 pages). Chapter 2 offers a look at the deep historical roots of the moment we now find ourselves in. Kerbel demonstrates that, throughout American history, moments of technological change have been accompanied by dramatic changes to the practice of American politics. Chapter 3 discusses how the "vertically-integrated" conservative blogosphere, relying as it does on earlier institutions of movement conservatism, is less well-suited to the decentralized structure of the web than the their "horizontally-integrated" progressive counterparts. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 then provide a detailed look at netroots achievements based on the community's own stated goals of affecting political outcomes, media narratives, and developing a strong progressive voice within the democratic coalition. It is in these chapters, and in the concluding seventh chapter, that FDL community members are most likely finding themselves shaking their heads in familiarity at events that they themselves helped make happen.

Some FDL members may have already heard Matt talk about his book at a Netroots Nation panel this past summer titled "academic studies of the netroots." Chris Bowers, the chair and coordinator of that panel, memorably described it as "the meta-panel to end all meta-panels." I think that's a good lens for us to view the book, and to think about this book salon. Matt Kerbel has decades of experience observing how technology affects political communication, and his newest book tells us how the netroots are moving America into an era of "post-television politics." For the next couple of hours, let's put our meta-blogging hats on and see what we can learn about the netroots social movement that we are ourselves engaged in.

Welcome, Matthew Kerbel!

 

Now for the chat.

The full version of this post is available at ZBlogs. (You will need to click the link twice. First time visitors are directed to the Emergency Funding Appeal.)

A new poll on the Massachusetts Senate race has state Attorney General Martha Coakley dominating the field with 37 percent support from registered Democrats and unenrolled voters, who are eligible to vote in the primary. That is more than double her nearest challenger, with 14 percent backing Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca and 13 percent supporting Congressman Mike Capuano.

What are the stances of these candidates on issues? Amazingly, in a state where seven out of ten representatives have endorsed HR 676, the United States National Health Care Act, only one candidate out of four Democrats and one Republican supports Medicare for All, and that's Mike Capuano. Even his support is not the most avid, since he doesn't talk about it very often and has sometimes qualified it with "if I were emperor." But support is still support, and he's an HR 676 cosponsor.

In contrast, Martha Coakley supports a plan that is quite different: the so-called "strong public option," no doubt meaning the version that the CBO estimated in July would cover only about 10 million people after it was implemented. In the recent white paper released by her campaign, she says:

The full version of this blog post is available at ZBlogs. (You'll need to click the link twice. New visitors are redirected to the Emergency Funding Appeal.)

I was just reading this article from WaPo by Lori Montgomery. It's ostentatiously titled "CBO: House bill's health-care spending would dwarf Senate proposal's." It claims that: 
 

The health package released Thursday by House leaders would increase federal spending on health care by nearly $600 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, a dramatic increase that dwarfs the expansion envisioned by the latest Senate bill.

And in general:

less than half of the cost of the House coverage expansion would be offset by other changes, leaving the government spending $598 billion more on health care by 2019 than it otherwise would have -- seven times more than under the Senate package.

Only problem is, this seems to me to be a complete misinterpretation of CBO's numbers.

The CBO actually says:

Net Change in the Federal Budgetary Commitment to Health Care 85 598

This is not a change in spending. Rather, it's a change in the amount of federal revenues raised from outside the health care system that are being spent inside the health care system. The Senate has a much smaller figure, unsurprisingly, because it taxes employer sponsored health coverage and doesn't rely on a tax on the rich that is unrelated to health care. The spending for each bill is:

Gross Cost of Expanded Insurance Coverage 829 1,055

What's particularly unnerving is what a big deal the writer apparently thinks this "revelation" is:

The first measure, impact on the federal budget deficit, has been widely reported: The House bill would reduce deficits over the next decade by $104 billion while the Senate Finance Committtee bill would reduce deficits by $81 billion. 

Yes, the first (accurate, real) measure has been widely reported. But look--I've got this. 

I didn't write this post. I stole it from ralphbon, a poster on Firedoglake. This is the original. I'm posting it because it's a very important action request.

(I did write this about the new House bill's CBO numbers, but the below is more important.)

As reported earlier, House leaders have stripped the Kucinich amendment from the House health care reform bill. This amendment would help nullify legal challenges against efforts by individual states to enact their own single-payer systems.

To my surprise and disgust, Politico reports that Nancy Pelosi has also signaled her intention to renege on her promise to allow a symbolic floor vote (aka the Weiner amendment) for HR 676, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All.

According to Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America, one avenue of appeal remains regarding these efforts:

Democratic House leaders can insert what is called a "Manager's Amendment" into legislation, even when it is closed to any other amendments. The managers are the majority and minority members who "manage" debate for the bill on each side.

Today, tomorrow, and beyond, we need to call these "managers" and insist that the Kucinich Amendment is restored into the healthcare bill....

The "gang" that holds our future in their hands includes:

* Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4965; San Francisco office (415) 556-4862

* Majority Leader Steny Hoyer: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4131; Greenbelt office (301) 474-0119; Waldorf office (301) 843-1577

* Rep. Henry Waxman: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-3976; Los Angeles office (323) 651-1040

*Rep. Charles Rangel: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4365; New York office (212) 663-3900

* Rep. George Miller: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-2095; Concord office (925) 602-1880; Richmond office (510) 262-6500; Vallejo office (707) 645-1888

It's crucial for everyone in PDA to make these calls, to make them more than once, and to tell others to make these calls. Act NOW!

The ellipsis in the above quote covers the following line, with which I part company with PDA:

We also need to urge these leaders to exert pressure on Speaker Pelosi --- and exert it on her ourselves --- to follow through on her promise to put the Weiner Amendment to a vote.

People I respect greatly disagree with me on this point, but I think it's tactically foolish to waste a final Hail Mary effort on a double request. The likelihood that leadership will bend on either of these requests is minuscule, but if they do bend at all, it will be to allow the purely symbolic HR 676 floor vote as a sop to single-payer supporters and take no action to restore the Kucinich amendment, telling progressives that one for two isn't bad.

I will call leadership, but only to demand restoration of the Kucinich amendment. California, Pennsylvania, and other states with active movements to establish their own single-payer systems deserve that measure of help.

According to Progressive Democrats of America and this OpEdNews piece, the Kucinich Amendment to waive federal ERISA regulations that might hold up state single payer movements has been stripped out of the final House health care bill. This will be a blow for state single payer movements because insurance companies may now be able to file disingenuous court cases holding up the implementation of any legislative victories. (This is reminiscent of what happened in California after that referendum on car and other types of insurance back in the 1980s.) It's important to note that it's not a fatal blow, however, because speaking objectively federal ERISA regulations may not actually impact single payer systems. But it's still not a chance we wanted to take.

Also, the public plan for the uninsured is not tied to Medicare rates, which probably means that even the skimpy 9-10 million people estimated to sign up by the CBO for the original plan is a big overestimate. It is even possible, if the plan resembles the one in the Senate HELP bill, that no one would sign up for this plan; in other words the plan would be moribund.

As Pelosi said would happen some time ago, the surtax on the rich has been significantly reduced as a funding source. This raises the obvious question of where they are getting the rest of the money. I guess we'll know tomorrow.

The full version of this blog post is available at ZBlogs. (You will need to click the link twice as the first time you'll see the Emergency Funding Appeal.)

By blogging on a certain website, we help to legitimize its viewpoint. We generate advertising revenue for the site through our own hits and through hits that are a result of responses to our posts from others. We contribute to any reputation the site may have for being especially renowned and important. We contribute to the personal reputation of its editors and founders and help their voice extend further and sound louder than it might if we stayed away. In exchange, we get a place to share our views and learn about others.

I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that the views being presented right now on health care at Daily Kos are, at least at this time, doing more harm than good in the fight for reform. First among my concerns is the total failure by the editors to promote any kind of national health care system, which could but does not necessarily have to be Medicare for All. Given public opinion polling showing that a majority of the public probably would favor Medicare for All given the choice, the current monotone focus on the public option is simply a red herring that does more to hurt the fight for real reform than to help it. Secondly, even this focus is not what it claims to be. As Kip Sullivan has said, it's a "bait and switch."

The fundamental question is: why is a blog that claims to be "from a liberal perspective" not strongly promoting a national health care system given public opinion statistics like those currently in America? Isn't liberalism supposed to be defined with respect to public opinion? If not, then who should define it? The word statistics I wrote about a few months ago are unchanged at best, with stories by the editors mentioning "public option" outnumbering those mentioning "single payer" or "Medicare for All" by over ten to one.

There are all sorts of arguments that can be made to defend this. For example, take editor DemFromCT, who in the comments to my above post said:

But what of it? Health reform is a rich, complex tapestry and you want to reduce it to a single thread of "liberal vs right".

It is true that health reform is complex. I for one have become increasingly aware that health insurance reform by itself is not all of health care reform, because there's also reform on the provider side. And Medicare for All is not the only way to implement national health care. But none of this is relevant here, because the Daily Kos editors are not focusing on any other way to do it. They're just focusing on the public option, and that is not anything even remotely close to a viable alternative.

My assessment of Daily Kos is that, while it is certainly a Democratic blog, it has no claim to being a liberal or progressive blog on health care. In fact, don't take my word for it. Take its founder's:

This is a Democratic blog, a partisan blog. One that recognizes that Democrats run from left to right on the ideological spectrum, and yet we're all still in this fight together. We happily embrace centrists like NDN's Simon Rosenberg and Howard Dean, conservatives like Martin Frost and Brad Carson, and liberals like John Kerry and Barack Obama. Liberal? Yeah, we're around here and we're proud. But it's not a liberal blog.

Most Congressional Democrats do not favor a national health care system, including everyone from the "conservatives" to the "liberals" that Markos Moulitsas names above. But most of the public probably does, so when push comes to shove, one has to choose between being more Democratic and being more progressive. You can't be both on this issue. Daily Kos is firmly Democratic.

And I can see the utility of that. Thinking independently doesn't win you many friends. If Daily Kos did embrace national health care and strongly criticized Congressional Democrats on health care policy, as would then become logical, then its status as being the biggest political blog on the net would likely be over. Does anyone think that Countdown would really have Markos Moulitsas on as much, or maybe even at all, if he started focusing on national health insurance? Would the corporate media, and also Democratic establishment groups like Campaign for America's Future and the rest of the HCAN/Herndon Alliance crowd cite the blog as much? Perhaps even more pressing, would national Democratic politicians like John Kerry, Howard Dean, Barack Obama, or Chuck Schumer ever post there? Of course not! They would run for the hills. That would be it! Daily Kos has every reason to align with elected Democrats on issues. It would make absolutely zero sense, from a narrow self-interested perspective, to make a serious break with them on the huge issue that health care is right now.  

Also worth noting is editor BarbinMD's reply to a sharply critical post of mine about their coverage:

First, this is a Democratic blog and we're dealing with the reality of what's currently happening in Washington.

You seem to be missing what this place is about - the editors aren't the leaders, everyone who participates here is. If you have an issue that you care about, you write about it, you don't tell other people what they should be writing about.

She's right in her first judgment. It's a Democratic blog and will therefore not stray too far from whatever the Democratic consensus in Washington is. Ever expecting wholesale criticism of that consensus was indeed naive of me.

But where she's wrong is to say that everyone who participates in the blog are leaders. The FAQ should disabuse us of that:

No. Daily Kos is owned by Kos. The servers are his. He pays the bandwidth charges. He makes the rules; we are here as his guests. If he decides tomorrow that anyone not posting in iambic pentameter will be banned, your options are either to brush up on your poetry skills or find/start another forum.

More specifically, Kos is the leader. He has set up Daily Kos with a certain purpose, and given the editors a prominent voice through the front page. So I was imprecise in saying that the editors are the leaders; in reality Kos is the leader. And it was indeed foolish and naive of me to ever think that talking to the editors would make any difference in the blog's agenda, because they don't make the rules. I apologize for that naivete.

To see how unflinching Daily Kos is at sticking to the elected Democratic consensus, also consider that the whole public option idea is not even remotely close to what its defenders and most elected Democrats make it out to be. To understand why, check out Kip Sullivan's bait and switch piece from a few months ago. Because this is so important, I'll quote a few paragraphs:

The people who brought us the "public option" began their campaign promising one thing but now promote something entirely different. To make matters worse, they have not told the public they have backpedalled. The campaign for the "public option" resembles the classic bait-and-switch scam: tell your customers you've got one thing for sale when in fact you're selling something very different.

When the "public option" campaign began, its leaders promoted a huge "Medicare-like" program that would enroll about 130 million people. Such a program would dwarf even Medicare, which, with its 45 million enrollees, is the nation's largest health insurer, public or private. But today "public option" advocates sing the praises of tiny "public options" contained in congressional legislation sponsored by leading Democrats that bear no resemblance to the original model.

Of interest as background is that virtually the entire battery of polling data on this, in a truly stunning display of mass media conformity, has been about a real public option as opposed to the tiny option actually being proposed in Congress. The whole US corporate media has ignored the fact that the "option" in HR 3200 would not be an option to anyone outside of the Exchange, which is limited to around 10% of the public. And the version in HR 3200 is the strongest in any of the bills.

So the "robust public option" trumpeted by mcjoan (1,2,3), slinkerwink (1,2,3), Jed Lewison (1,2,3) and others is anything but robust. The whole notion has essentially been a huge lie, and these people have proved remarkably adept at believing in it, to the point where it seems to me that they could care less about the truth as long as most elected Democrats agree and their own popularity with readers remains high. All three of them are full time political writers, and ought to have enough exposure to the facts to understand that what the Democrats are selling isn't what the public thinks it's buying.

To cite an example, when I wrote a blog post about the tiny size of this public "option" a few months ago, slinkerwink was very adamant about telling me the opposite. She has also done the same to her readers, for one by quoting mcjoan's comments on the Commonwealth study about a huge public option, and even moreso just through omitting the essential facts. Events since then (like Obama's speech) have made it more clear that the public option is tiny, but I'm not aware of any big statements by slinkerwink or mcjoan apologizing to their readers for grossly misleading them about its size. I'm also disturbed that slinkerwink is being paid to write diaries (which are normally written by unpaid writers) on a daily basis, because this makes it impossible for other views to compete. I would have less of a problem if the diaries were more reasonable, but given that they systematically ignore the most important parts of the situation, the whole arrangement seems to me a kind of dangerous propaganda mill.

On Daily Kos, though, doublethink is a matter of routine. So when mcjoan did her online interview of T.R. Reid about his important new book, The Healing of America, his final and most concrete point about the American health care debate was that all the proposals so far were just "tinkering at the margins" of our health care system. mcjoan even acknowledged that a true "unified system" like the one he favored wasn't on the table. But despite this acknowledgment, she then turned right around and, of course, pushed the usual public option proposals the very next day. The message is that while it's fine to call T.R. Reid's book "required reading" for all US leaders, it's quite beyond the pale to actually advocate what it says yourself.

The result of all this is a whole mythology of how vital it is to stop the public option from being "triggered," from being subject to a state opt-out, or from being replaced by co-ops. In reality, all of these results will be completely invisible to about 90% of the population, whether they come out favorably or unfavorably. The bottom line of this health care bill, as people like Ezra Klein have noted, is that it doesn't alter the structure of the system much for anyone except the uninsured or sick. Yes, it does institute community rating and bans on rescission and discrimination on pre-existing conditions. But for those who already have insurance and are not seriously ill, the system remains the same, even though it's that very system that is making health insurance unaffordable. And for reasons that I pointed out above, any establishment Democratic organization like Daily Kos fundamentally cannot deal with that, because most Congressional Democrats are currently against changing it.

Daily Kos's situation is hardly unique, though it is probably the biggest and worst example of public option fixation in the blogosphere. Firedoglake apparently has a similar stance, though it's also decidedly less controlled and rigid. Still, the recent move by founder Jane Hampsher and nyceve to create a permanent nonprofit organization called Public Option Please, to exist even after the current legislative battles are over, is really depressing to me. This is the very same nyceve that wrote this awesome piece as recently as last year calling out MoveOn.org and HCAN for rejecting single payer as a position. Apparently she herself has now fallen into the very same trap. I hope that she'll return to her previous well thought out stance.

I will still post on Firedoglake and TPMCafe, because though I may have my differences with the editors on these blogs, there is a large and vibrant single payer community on Firedoglake. These blogs also lack one feature of the Daily Kos setup that pretty much eliminates the possibility of free debate, namely the hide rate system, in which users can remove the posts of other users if they find them to be too upsetting. Whatever the official justification for this system on Daily Kos, in effect it's little more than a subtle tool for promoting conformity. (For example, when I wrote several angry posts about John Kerry's and Howard Dean's failure to support Medicare for All, the posts were consistently hide rated.) If a person really is a troll, they should just be banned, and that should be the end of it.

In the longer run, I hope that more people will move to blogs such as ZBlogs where the official editorial stance of the blog is, instead of being pro-Democratic, pro-progressive and pro-leftist. (The link must be clicked twice.) I for one don't feel able to post only on ZBlogs right now because, well, there aren't many people there, and also the software is still pretty rickety. Nevertheless, I will be doing a lot of "exclusive content" posts where I crosspost one version of a post on other blogs and a more extensive version on blogs like ZBlogs. That way every post is in effect a marketing effort for a more progressive media.

My central message to those in the blogosphere and media right now who seem to think, as I once did, that Daily Kos is somehow a liberal blog on health care is: it's not. It has zero legitimacy as speaking for the left on this issue, and like most elected Democrats right now, is actually more on the reactionary, elitist, neoliberal, and pro-industry side of public opinion. (About four out of almost sixty Democrats have endorsed Medicare for All in the Senate.) So when you see Kos on Countdown talking to Keith Olbermann, don't have any illusions about who he represents. He represents Democrats, and right now, I'm sorry to say, on this issue Democrats mostly represent the health care lobbies.

For those media figures interested in having a balanced health care debate, pick an actual leftist to represent the left. And for those bloggers who want to support conscientious blogs, don't make Daily Kos your forum of choice.

Crossposted on ZBlogs, Daily Kos and Firedoglake

It seems to me that many people who consider themselves left wing are unaware of the polling data on Medicare for All. On the one the hand we have the Democratic establishment crowd, who typically assume that, because Democratic leaders largely oppose Medicare for All, public opinion must be against it as well. (About four of one hundred favor it in the Senate.) On the other hand we have the Medicare for All activist crowd, who sometimes believe support is higher than it really is. (For example, a two thirds majority hasn't been recorded in any poll this year.)

To explain the true situation, I did the following exercise. I took all the polls I could find from this year on Medicare for All, along with a roughly equal number of polls on the "public option," and plotted them on this graph:

 

 

There are four bands in this picture. The first two bands, one black and one red, represent Medicare for All support and opposition. In any poll, we will have a certain number in support, a certain number opposed, and some undecideds. The next two bands represent support and opposition to the public option. The blue dots represent the mean of the closest band. The mean for the first band indicates that a very narrow majority (50.4%) is in support of Medicare for All and a slightly larger majority supports the public option.

 

The Medicare for All polls I used are listed here. Most are available through this link.  I also made sure to use the one commented on by Matthew Yglesias here.

Kaiser Tracking Poll (Phrasing #1, yearly average) 46.8-49%

Kaiser Tracking Poll (Phrasing #2) 58-38%

CBS/NYT Poll (covering only emergency problems) 59-32%

CBS/NYT Poll (covering all medical problems) 49-42%

Grove Opinion Research Corp. Poll 59-?%

Time Magazine Poll 49-46%

Rasmussen Poll 32-57%

 

The public option polls I used were:

Rasmussen Poll 41-41%

Kaiser Tracking Poll 65-29%

Economist/YouGov Poll 41-33%

CBS/NYT Poll 72-20%

Quinnipiac Poll 62-32%

Time/SRBI 56-36%

 

Choosing public option polls required some thought because there are so many. I adhered to the following guideline: either use Nate Silver's recommended polls or choose one from the same source as a Medicare for All poll. (All the polls above are also linked to by Silver's page.)

At this point I thought it would be helpful to try to get rid of polls that might not be valid and look at the results. Therefore, I removed both polls by Rasmussen because the way they're phrased seems biased. I also removed the NYT/CBS figure asking about coverage of emergency problems only, since Medicare for All would cover more than that. (Of course, one could argue that the other figure for all medical problems is bad too, since Medicare doesn't cover all medical problems. Ideally, we might perhaps then use a weighted average, but I did not bother.) Finally, I threw out the CBS/NYT public option poll because it calls the public option a plan like Medicare, which it is not.

Here are the results. 

The full version of this blog post is available at ZBlogs. (You will need to click the link twice due to the Emergency Funding Appeal.)