An Open Letter to the President from Your Disappointed Supporters
Reprinted with permission from http://blog.poormanslobbyist.org
As you may know, many of your most loyal supporters, campaigners, fundraisers, and voters are increasingly frustrated with you right now. You raised the bar for what we expect out of our President, and now we are holding you to that bar.
It is because we do have so much respect for you that we take the time to express to you our frustration and disappointment, especially as it relates to healthcare reform.
We are first surprised that you have put such a high priority on attempting to appease the politicians who are fighting you, at the expense of you not fighting for the issues that we know you believe in. You sometimes seem to be trying to please everyone, which means you are pleasing no one. We admire and respect your attempts at bipartisanship, but your opposition has shown no interest in cooperating or partnering. Their mission is your failure.
They have demonstrated that they have no interest in supporting initiatives that will help the country and its people, no matter the cause, since a political failure for you is a victory for them (even if it hurts the country). Even when their voters side with you, such as is the case with a strong public option, their politicians will still fight you and try to kill your ideas, simply because you are for it.
Therefore, I ask that you please stop trying to appease these opponents with compromises that aren't needed. The first rule of negotiations is that both parties must sincerely want to negotiate. You are attempting to negotiate with a party that has no interest in coming to agreement. You will agree to concessions only to have them not sign off in the end. Time is wasted, and the end product will be poor.
Please stop spending so much time and energy trying to please them. Hint: they will not approve of you no matter what you do, so please get over it and move on with your agenda.
You campaigned on a promise that every American could have the same healthcare options as members of Congress. As someone who deals with errors by my employer provided health insurance almost every week, I say sign me up.
Every American, regardless of income or state of residency, should have options and be able to choose high quality healthcare insurance. There is recently talk of a very low income cap to be eligible for any public option. Families that make a decent income shouldn't be denied this option, since many families that make more than the median income are also abused by their employer insurance companies on a regular basis. Everyone, regardless of income, should be allowed quality healthcare and quality health insurance, which currently means either a single payer system or a strong public option.
Similarly, families that have a Republican governor shouldn't be denied choice in healthcare. The opt-out proposal is ethically outrageous. People in Republican-run states deserve quality health insurance, too. Imagine if states could opt out of public education, so that only well off families could be educated. How is healthcare any different? A right to education and healthcare is as basic as it gets, and a state's political party of the day shouldn't be able to deny healthcare in the name of politics.
I want to also emphasize that any public option needs to be a high quality solution, not just a checkbox that some included provision is called a "public option." We will be reviewing the fine print, and just calling something a public option in order to get a checkbox is not sufficient. Similarly, it is not acceptable to just get a checkbox that you passed some healthcare legislation, no matter how poor. This is too important to not get it right. We deserve better than just a checkbox, and you are capable of leading us to something significantly better than just a checkbox for the next campaign.
At the end of the day, it must be reform that you can take pride in and know that you did your best. It feels like you have forgotten just how important this is to America, and it seems that you have forgotten many of your campaign promises related to healthcare reform.
Mr. President, please find your mojo and start fighting for the issues that are important to you and on which you campaigned. Lead us to a high quality healthcare bill that includes a single payer system or a high quality public option, and forget about all of these watered down compromises that won't win any Republican support anyway.
I write this letter because of my tremendous respect for you, and I know that you can make a difference if you reassess your priorities, abandon the bipartisan efforts (they aren't working and are actually harming the potential outcomes), and re-energize yourself behind what you believe in and what you know is the right thing to do. We are counting on you.
Your opponents won't thank you, but the American people thank you.
Sincerely,
The Poor Man's Lobbyist
http://blog.poormanslobbyist.org
http://www.poormanslobbyist.org
An Open Letter to the President from Your Disappointed Supporters
Dear President Obama:As you may know, many of your most loyal supporters, campaigners, fundraisers, and voters are increasingly frustrated with you right now. You raised the bar for what we expect out of our President, and now we are holding you to that bar.
It is because we do have so much respect for you that we take the time to express to you our frustration and disappointment, especially as it relates to healthcare reform.
We are first surprised that you have put such a high priority on attempting to appease the politicians who are fighting you, at the expense of you not fighting for the issues that we know you believe in. You sometimes seem to be trying to please everyone, which means you are pleasing no one. We admire and respect your attempts at bipartisanship, but your opposition has shown no interest in cooperating or partnering. Their mission is your failure.
They have demonstrated that they have no interest in supporting initiatives that will help the country and its people, no matter the cause, since a political failure for you is a victory for them (even if it hurts the country). Even when their voters side with you, such as is the case with a strong public option, their politicians will still fight you and try to kill your ideas, simply because you are for it.
Therefore, I ask that you please stop trying to appease these opponents with compromises that aren't needed. The first rule of negotiations is that both parties must sincerely want to negotiate. You are attempting to negotiate with a party that has no interest in coming to agreement. You will agree to concessions only to have them not sign off in the end. Time is wasted, and the end product will be poor.
Please stop spending so much time and energy trying to please them. Hint: they will not approve of you no matter what you do, so please get over it and move on with your agenda.
You campaigned on a promise that every American could have the same healthcare options as members of Congress. As someone who deals with errors by my employer provided health insurance almost every week, I say sign me up.
Every American, regardless of income or state of residency, should have options and be able to choose high quality healthcare insurance. There is recently talk of a very low income cap to be eligible for any public option. Families that make a decent income shouldn't be denied this option, since many families that make more than the median income are also abused by their employer insurance companies on a regular basis. Everyone, regardless of income, should be allowed quality healthcare and quality health insurance, which currently means either a single payer system or a strong public option.
Similarly, families that have a Republican governor shouldn't be denied choice in healthcare. The opt-out proposal is ethically outrageous. People in Republican-run states deserve quality health insurance, too. Imagine if states could opt out of public education, so that only well off families could be educated. How is healthcare any different? A right to education and healthcare is as basic as it gets, and a state's political party of the day shouldn't be able to deny healthcare in the name of politics.
I want to also emphasize that any public option needs to be a high quality solution, not just a checkbox that some included provision is called a "public option." We will be reviewing the fine print, and just calling something a public option in order to get a checkbox is not sufficient. Similarly, it is not acceptable to just get a checkbox that you passed some healthcare legislation, no matter how poor. This is too important to not get it right. We deserve better than just a checkbox, and you are capable of leading us to something significantly better than just a checkbox for the next campaign.
At the end of the day, it must be reform that you can take pride in and know that you did your best. It feels like you have forgotten just how important this is to America, and it seems that you have forgotten many of your campaign promises related to healthcare reform.
Mr. President, please find your mojo and start fighting for the issues that are important to you and on which you campaigned. Lead us to a high quality healthcare bill that includes a single payer system or a high quality public option, and forget about all of these watered down compromises that won't win any Republican support anyway.
I write this letter because of my tremendous respect for you, and I know that you can make a difference if you reassess your priorities, abandon the bipartisan efforts (they aren't working and are actually harming the potential outcomes), and re-energize yourself behind what you believe in and what you know is the right thing to do. We are counting on you.
Your opponents won't thank you, but the American people thank you.
Sincerely,
The Poor Man's Lobbyist
http://blog.poormanslobbyist.org
http://www.poormanslobbyist.org
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Re the health care issue, if the President believed or knew he had the power to break a filibuster with no Republican support, the context would be different.
One might criticize him for not trying to explain to the public the importance of allowing a majority vote on the bill itself, making the case that use of the filibuster to prevent a majority vote is an abuse of the filibuster. (How many are on record now as saying they would oppose a filibuster? My understanding is all the Republicans, with the exception only of Snowe, and only if the bill is one people like you and me would find a bad compromise, are on record as in support of one.) I would think at least some in the White House would have raised this as a possibility and I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for any conversations that may have taken place on that.
If the President knew he only needed 51 votes in the Senate intead of 60, then I think we'd have a very clear indication of what his priorities are on this issue.
I am with you not only on assessing the quality of the public option, if one ends up being enacted, but on how satisfactorily, if at all, the issue of affordability at the time of premium payment for people of modest means is addressed. A future tax credit doesn't cut it for many people now living paycheck-to-paycheck.
These are the two key issues I am focused on as a measure of whether something that gets enacted is a step forward or a step backwards, on balance-- fully recognizing there are a number of very positive steps that are in at least some of the bills reported out by the Committees.
October 26, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
PoorMan - I think your tone and intentions are admirable, but I differ with your characterization of the President's handling of reform as disappointing. I find it encouraging, but I don't think it's easy for any of us to make conclusive judgments because some of the most important negotiations take place out of public view, and are jeopardized by too many public pronouncements. These often tend to harden positions rather than bring people to your own side.
For a perspective on this by one of the healthcare experts, who supports a robust public option, see Maggie Mahar's recent comments:
http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/10/the-public-option-its-not-about-politics-its-about-the-economics-of-reform.html
October 26, 2009 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink