9/8: This Will Not Fly

To say that liberal bloggers are disappointed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus's (D-MT) health care plan would be an understatement. While Baucus's proposed bill "would impose new fees on some sectors of the health care industry," the netroots are upset that the bill doesn't include a public option or a similar mechanism for holding down the cost of health insurance premiums. Jane Hamsher derides Baucus's bill as "a giant transfer of wealth to the insurance industry," while Duncan Black calls it "a crap sandwich which people won't like, Republicans won't support it, voters will hate it, and even insurance companies will squeal even though it preserves their role as skimmers of trillions of dollars for no discernible benefit." Meanwhile, Josh Marshall wonders: "Am I the only one who thinks that if the Dems pass a bill with mandates and subsidies for poor and moderate income people to purchase it but no public option or competition with the insurers, that it will be pretty much a catastrophe for the Democrats in political terms?" Needless to say, the netroots are going to be pretty angry if Pres. Obama signals support for Baucus's bill...

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• While some conservative bloggers (Malkin, Lewis, Smith) are still complaining about Obama's special address to public school students, others (Hinderaker, Mirengoff, Geraghty) are saying that they don't find the content of the speech objectionable. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Cole, Attaturk, Hunter, Smith) are mocking their conservative counterparts for making a fuss about the speech.
• Righty bloggers (Malkin, Hinderaker, Johnson, Liebau, Erickson) are pleased that WH green jobs adviser Van Jones resigned after he came under fire from conservatives for controversial comments he made in the past. Conservative bloggers (Geraghty, Mirengoff, Johnson, McCarthy, bs, Hanson) are arguing that Obama's decision to hire Jones indicates that the President is a closet radical. Meanwhile, several righty bloggers (Malkin, Reynolds) are targeting a new Obama appointee -- Ron Bloom.
• Many liberal bloggers (Sirota, Siun, Armstrong, Blue Texan) are angry that the WH did not defend Jones more vigorously. However, other liberal bloggers (Cole, Kleiman, publius) think that Jones' resignation was unfortunate but inevitable.

BAUCUS: We Waited Six Months For This?

Liberal bloggers are slamming Baucus's health care plan:

• Firedoglake's Hamsher: "November 2008: Max Baucus circulates a white paper -- the 'generic Democratic health care plan' -- which includes a public plan, and an emphasis on affordability and availability. September 2009: Max Baucus circulates a health care bill forcing low- to middle-income to buy 'junk' insurance they can't afford to use to earn Republican support, which amounts to a giant transfer of wealth to the insurance industry."
• Daily Kos' David Waldman: "No public option. Not even a public option with a 'trigger,' which was a ridiculous idea tacked on to a position that was already a compromise. And the central tenet of the financing: a giant new 'fee' that insurers are already saying they'll simply pass on to their customers. [...] So what I'm saying here is that it's very disappointing, to put it as mildly as possible, that it took Baucus more than a year to formulate a plan that amounts to capitulating to every Republican demand, and then adding a heaping pile of political suicide on top of it. Thanks, Max! Great plan. Glad we waited. Now STFU."
• TPM's Marshall: "Am I the only one who thinks that if the Dems pass a bill with mandates and subsidies for poor and moderate income people to purchase it but no public option or competition with the insurers, that it will be pretty much a catastrophe for the Democrats in political terms?"
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "So, let me get this straight. Max Baucus has worked for months on a watered-down plan intended to curry favor with conservatives. He's finally circulating his proposal, which he could have unveiled a long time ago, and which Republicans still won't like. If the Senate minority isn't going to support Baucus' plan anyway, then maybe Baucus ought to push a better bill."
• digby: "Since this is going to piss off the insurance companies and make the Republicans more obstinate than ever, it's hard to see why he felt the need to eliminate the public plan, but there you have it. So we have a shitty plan that the CBO will say saves money but that Democrats will have as hard a time passing as one with a public plan. Awesome strategy."
• Atrios: "[The] Baucus Plan [is] not nothing but it is a crap sandwich which people won't like, Republicans won't support it, voters will hate it, and even insurance companies will squeal even though it preserves their role as skimmers of trillions of dollars for no discernible benefit."

Several liberal bloggers are urging House Dems to vote against Baucus's bill if it becomes the de facto health care bill:

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "If this is an improvement over the status quo, right now I don't see how. This moves the ball into the Progressive Block's court, not into President Obama's. This draft proposal from Baucus is nowhere close to the type of health care bill they have said they can support. Off hand, it seems perfectly justified to send this bill down to defeat. However, as activists, we only have power to defeat or change this bill if the Progressive Block decides to hold the line. They are going to be asked to fold and compromise, so it is their time to demonstrate leadership. Let's see what happens."
• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "If this is the compromise bill Obama says he supports, I hope it gets rejected in the House. There's plenty of time between now and 2014 to get it right. As with all legislation, a bad bill is worse than no bill at all."

Balloon Juice's DougJ is very discouraged: "This is the first time during this whole process I've been scared. For the past few months, I've believed that Democrats would create a decent (if not spectacular) bill that would make it easier for Americans to get health insurance and possibly do something about controlling costs, and that the bill would prove to be a major political success in the medium and long terms. Now, I'm not so sure."

BAUCUS II: C'mon, Guys, Look On The Bright Side

While most liberal bloggers are blasting Baucus's plan, a few are offering a (qualified) defense of his proposal:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "I think a lot of the blog response to this proposal is overblown. There's just no reason to think that the system envisioned by Baucus would be either a political or a substantive disaster. Instead, it would create something comparable to the situation that currently prevails in Switzerland or Massachusetts. Is that great? No, it's not. Health care in Massachusetts is substantial worse than health care in any number of foreign countries. That said, the Massachusetts health care system is better than the health care system that exists in any other American state. Similarly, if it were up to me Switzerland is about the last country I would choose to emulate. In terms of excessive costs -- spending that lines the pockets of medical providers with little real medical benefit -- it's worse that everyone except...the United States of America. And there's the rub. The status quo in the United States is really bad. Baucus' plan would make it better."
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "$900 billion is still less money than you really want for this plan. Something around $1.2 trillion is a better bet for doing this right. [...] But the fact that we're talking about $900 billion as opposed to $700 billion means we're in a much better place than we could have been."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan makes a similar point: "It seems to me that a healthcare plan that expands access, removes obvious cruelties and inefficiencies, allows more people into the system and can be plausibly described as universal coverage would be the biggest Democratic policy victory in decades. And I think rejecting this because it doesn't have an immediate public option would be the only truly disastrous move -- you get called a socialist and a failure."

Lefty blogger John Aravosis pushes back against these arguments: "With all due respect to the president, since Joe [Sudbay] and I did support him in the primaries and raised nearly $50,000 for the man, a strategy of 'I'll always settle for one step better than total crap' is not the kind of presidential thinking we should reward. If we agree that the Baucus plan is good because there's no chance for anything better (because Congress and the President chose not to do their jobs), then we reinforce the notion that it is acceptable for the administration, and Congress, to take a four year siesta on legislating -- on leading the nation. We agree to four more years of Republican-lite."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Don't Blame The Grassroots; Blame The Elites

The American Scene's Conor Friedersdorf:

"One problem on the right is that loyalty to the grassroots is defined by how shamelessly one panders to them. Thus a talk radio host who crafts an inaccurate news narrative that plays to the prejudices of his audience is deemed a loyal player advancing the movement's ends, whereas a blogger who points out how his words mislead listeners about reality is considered an obstacle to the cause who is overly concerned about playing fair.

Unlike some in the media, I don't regard the grassroots on the right as uniquely insane. I've done enough reporting at that level to know that most Americans on the right and left are reasonable people acting in good faith. The right's fringe problem at this moment in time is one that elites have created as much as any crazy fringe righty. Outfits like Fox News, people like Glenn Beck, talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh -- these outfits deliberately play on the worst impulses of the conservative base, stoking their paranoia and misleading them about reality, all for the sake of bigger audiences and greater revenues. That ought to outrage anyone who actually respects the grassroots, and has their best interests at heart."

LEST WE FORGET: Teacher Wishes She Could Inspire One Of The More Popular Students

From The Onion:

"GRESHAM, OR -- After spending half an hour Monday instilling much-needed confidence in one of her most timid freshmen, Sam Barlow High School English teacher Karen Norgren, 48, expressed her desire to one day inspire one of the school's more popular students. 'It would be nice, just once, to make a real, lasting impression on a confident, athletic student with tons of friends,' said Norgren, who has reportedly grown tired of encouraging 'dowdy old Phil Van' every day after fourth period. 'Someone like Jason Feightner, for instance. He's got that cool, devil-may-care attitude. Guys want to be him, and girls want to be with him. Why can't I push him to reach his full potential?' Norgren then reportedly waited around in the senior parking lot in case Whitney Olsen or some of her friends wanted to chat about Things Fall Apart."