Bipartisan Coalition On Screwing The Unemployed

The public has internalized the concept of bipartisanship as practiced by George Bush - he meant it as "Everyone agrees with me," and the public wants to see bipartisanship defined as everyone agree with Obama. This won't make it into many high Broderist discussions, but people seemingly want the agenda that they actually voted for. What a concept.

However, there are some issues where Democrats and Republicans are able to get together and agree. Especially when the "Democrat" in the scenario is a corporate whore who wants to punish the unemployed.

Tennessee and Georgia may turn down some of the economic stimulus money if the restrictions outlined in the package cause budgetary hardship in the future, the governors said Monday.

After meeting with President Barack Obama, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen said some provisions in the package for unemployment benefits would force states to expand their programs permanently, even though the stimulus funding only lasts for two years.

“We are evaluating this piece of money, whether it makes sense for us to take it,” he said. “We may well be one of the states that say we can’t take on that portion of it.”

In short, these Governors don't want to take money now to qualify more people for unemployment, fearing that increased eligibility would remain in 2-4 years when the federal dollars run out, costing employers in their state money. The concerns always seem calibrated to industry and the Chamber of Commerce, oddly enough. Never mind that extending unemployment benefits is one of the most effective stimulus programs there can be and the increase in consumer spending as a result will outweigh any projected and purely conjectural costs years down the road (don't take my word for it, take the word of noted liberal hippie Ben Bernanke).

Chuck Schumer is out with a letter arguing that the stimulus isn't an a la carte menu and that Southern Governor grandstanding aside, picking and choosing is not an option:

As you know, Section 1607(a) of the economic recovery legislation provides that the Governor of each state must certify a request for stimulus funds before any money can flow. No language in this provision, however, permits the governor to selectively adopt some components of the bill while rejecting others. To allow such picking and choosing would, in effect, empower the governors with a line-item veto authority that President Obama himself did not possess at the time he signed the legislation. It would also undermine the overall success of the bill, as the components most singled out for criticism by these governors are among the most productive measures in terms of stimulating the economy.

For instance, at least two governors have proposed rejecting a program to expand unemployment insurance for laid-off workers. Economists consistently rank unemployment insurance among the most efficient and cost-effective fiscal stimulus measures; by one frequently cited estimate, it provides an economic return of as high as $1.73 for every dollar invested. Thus, by denying this provision for their residents, these governors are not just depriving some of the neediest Americans of relief in a dire economy; they are undermining the overall stimulative impact of the package.

Big thanks to Phil Bredesen for giving this rank political grandstanding a patina of bipartisanship. Really helps the country.

Bredesen Down But Not Out

Phil Bredesen is telling people in Tennessee he's out as HHS Secretary.

Gov. Phil Bredesen told top legislative leaders this morning that he doesn’t think President Obama will nominate him for the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary position, lawmakers said.

House Democratic Leader Gary Odom of Nashville confirmed that Gov. Bredesen, a Democrat, made the remarks during his weekly meeting with House and Senate leaders.

“It came up during breakfast,” Rep. Odom said. “He basically said he’s expecting to remain governor of the state of Tennessee.”

On top of everything else wrong with Bredesen, it would leave a Republican to succeed him as Governor of Tennessee. So on politics and policy, his appointment would make no sense.

Nice work so far by progressives to make themselves heard on this one. It's good that he's saying he's out, but I'll wait until I see the official announcement. Until then, the pressure must be kept - no Bredesen, no deal.

Proudly Presenting Yourself As A Tool - Not Quite The Way To Win

In the past week, several progressive advocacy groups have come out against Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen for Secretary of Health and Human Services, including MoveOn.org just today.

How can you tell who's a real health care champion? We need someone who's going to support visionary progressive health care reform; someone with a track record of standing up to the insurance and pharmaceutical giants at the heart of our health care crisis; someone who is 100 percent committed to giving every single American the choice of a public health insurance plan so we're not at the mercy of the private insurance companies (just as Obama promised).

Obama is reportedly considering several governors and a few senators. Many of these folks would be great, but at least one would be a bad choice for health care reform: Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen made his fortune acquiring and running HMOs. As governor, he gutted Tennessee's public health insurance program, causing more than 320,000 people to lose their health insurance. And Bredesen let the private insurance industry pay for his multi-million dollar redecoration of the governor's mansion.

You would think that, faced with this opposition, Bredesen would defend his record, show his independence from special interests and his commitment to reform. Even if it was only rhetorical, this would be the standard move. Yeah, you would think:

“Anybody who’s got some real scars and experience is going to have their detractors,” the governor said Monday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “People at the White House are smart enough to be able to assess that.” And he took a swipe at his opponents, saying that “advocacy groups don’t matter nearly as much as the pharmaceutical groups, the hospitals, the doctors’ groups. There’s a lot of very powerful interest groups that will play in this thing.”

The charitable reading of that is that Bredesen thinks the important groups to do combat with are those special interests, but that would be completely at odds with his history:

This quote by Bredesen — dismissing advocacy groups and embracing industry interests — is typical of his tenure in office. In 2005, Bredesen’s wife, Andrea Conte, embarked on a $9.4 million renovation of the governor’s mansion. The largest donor to the project? BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, which gave $150,000.

While in making cuts to TennCare, Bredesen largely “cast aside” the “cost saving ideas of advocates” that would have increase health care coverage while also addressing the state’s budget crisis. But as TNR’s Jonathan Cohn notes, advocates will be necessary in pushing health care reform through Congress; a lack of coordinated support amongst liberal allies was part of the reason that President Clinton’s health care plan failed to conservative attacks.

Ezra Klein thinks that the advocacy groups are working too hard opposing Bredesen when they could be coalescing around one of the other candidates. But recent history with the Obama Administration shows that advocacy groups have been much more successful helping to disqualify than to qualify - see John Brennan. What's more, most of the other names mentioned (Rosa DeLauro, Kathleen Sebelius, John Podesta) don't have much to distinguish them from one another. Howard Dean IS attracting grassroots support, and I personally would like to see Judy Feder of Georgetown University because I think she knows her shit more than anyone. But this is not a weakness of the advocacy groups, it's a strength. If they knock out Bredesen, they know HHS will be in relatively good hands.

Bredesen? End Of Health Care Reform As We Know It

Getting back into the talk about who will run HHS, the name Phil Bredesen has come up, which makes me stumble around as if I've been punched in the face.

As governor, Bredesen presided over some drastic cuts to TennCare, Tennessee's once innovative effort to reform Medicaid. I wrote about these in my book, Sick:

...it was a Democratic governor who would succeed in enacting the most sweeping cuts: Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. Bredesen knew a thing or two about health care: before getting into politics, he had made his fortune by founding a company called HealthAmerica—one of the fi rst commercial HMOs to cash in on managed care during the late 1980s. This experience, plus his confi dence in his own intellectual abilities (he had a physics degree from Harvard), convinced him that he could wring new efficiencies from Tennessee’s Medicaid system, just as his HMO had generated financial savings—and hefty profits—in the private market.

A lot of what Bredesen proposed to do—such as reducing fraud by providers and recipients, and improving the use of information technology—made sense. But when those quick fixes didn’t bring the TennCare budget under control, he unveiled a more straightforward plan: he would simply slash the program. More than 100,000 people who had qualified for TennCare because they were “medically needy” would lose their coverage altogether. Those allowed to remain in the program would have to make do with more limited benefi ts. The biggest change would be in the coverage of prescription drugs. “The sad reality is that we can’t afford TennCare in its current form,” Bredesen said. “It pains me to set this process in motion, but I won’t let TennCare bankrupt our state. This is the option of last resort.”

While Bredesen undoubtedly faced tough circumstances, he didn't exactly distinguish himself by coming up with creative solutions--or fighting for people who, after all, were among Tennessee's most vulnerable citizens. As liberal advocates protested planned cuts, he fought bitterly with them, threatening even more draconian measures if they wouldn't buy into his programme.

That's not the only reason Bredesen worries me, though. Another concern is characterological. He is typical of the top figures in the health industry I've met over the years: Self-made entrepreneurs a bit too convinced of their own brilliance, completely unaware that the strategies for making private insurers profitable don't help--and often hurt--the sicker, poorer people whom insurance should ideally protect. Their biggest fans are often people who know a ton about health care at the macro level, but haven't spent much time observing it on the ground--where reality is often messier than the statistics suggest.

Ezra Klein has more. I mean, Democrats are already telling America to forget about single payer (hopefully team single payer will have something to say about that), but under Bredesen, you'd basically have to forget about even decent incremental reform.

One bit of good news on that incremental front: the House passed SCHIP today for a second time, and as this bill is in line with the Senate version, it will in all likelihood be signed into law tonight. This is actually pretty good incremental reform, not the kind you'd get with Phil frackin' Bredesen.

...wait, I found somebody worse than Bredesen for HHS. Jim Cooper. The guy that killed the 1994 reform. Think "bigger giveaway to special interests".