During WBUR’s Debate on Wednesday involving the three remaining Democratic candidates for Massachusetts governor, Steve Grossman attacked Don Berwick for his commitment to implementing a single payer health care system. I found this very curious, particularly given the context. Here’s a rundown from a WBUR reporter:
“Another way Berwick seems to be adjusting the conversation is on the issue of a single-payer health care system. ‘I’m the only candidate committed to single-payer health care, Medicare for all,’ he said.
Grossman said he wants to lead the ‘conversation’ on single-payer health insurance.
‘Steve, I don’t think single-payer is something for discussion, I think it’s something to make happen,’ Berwick said. Grossman interrupted him and asked him how he intends to make the change.
‘Nobody can wave a magic wand, Don. You can’t do that. This is not a monarchy,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to build a consensus in our society around any dramatic societal change.’
But, even if Grossman knocks the tactics, he’s talking about a topic that wasn’t on the table before Berwick made it his focus.”
For Grossman to question rhetorically, of all people, THE FORMER ADMINISTRATOR OF THE CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES just how exactly he plans to implement a medicare-for-all health care system is just silly on its face! Yes, indeed, something more than a magic wand is required, but thankfully Berwick’s experience obviously counts as such. He has a proven track record of bringing together politicians, technocrats and institutions to implement successful changes to the country’s health care system, and thus, is the candidate most capable of building the consensus Grossman describes.
Furthermore, by now we should all recognize that any politician’s pledge to “lead the conversation” about an issue is worth BUPKIS. For goodness sake, we should expect our next governor to commit to doing something more than the sort of thing you get from some hack on Twitter. We need a governor who’s willing to tackle the health care system’s high cost and recent administrative woes head-on. We need action.
And so, I again applaud Berwick for his commitment to realizing this bold goal–without qualification.
Grossman’s pledge to “lead a conversation” about single payer reminds me of how he always says he will “leave revenue on the table.” They are both forms of political-speak to imply that you won’t really do anything. It’s also always funny when he says “leave revenue on the table” because he really means “taxes” but pollsters have probably told him that “tax” is a bad word.
Grossman’ AND Coakley AND the analyst they had on BUR yesterday (Stuart Altman) to be waving the red herring of Magic Wands.
As B. says… The guy who RAN MEDICARE AND MEDICAID and the guy who STARTED the international INST. FOR HEALTH IMPROVEMENT… *he’s* the one who thinks that all it takes is “wand-waving”?!!
Yup, it’s a familiar kind of political misdirection, as JC88 says, and it’s annoying. It’s the kind of thing that has kept us from moving forward on big changes and ideas, and I’m tired of it.
We need massive health care change, and single payer is the ultimate answer. We may not get there for 30 years. But we’ll NEVER get there when pols (and analysts), who are likely indebted to the insurance megacorporations for various funding sources, keep waving their magic wands of misdirection.
The opposing candidates clearly have seen that the single payer issue has legs, and they’re working over time to neutralize it. It’s one thing to say, “It’ll never work, so I won’t champion it.” Grossman appears to want to have it both ways — credit for taking it seriously enough for a Conversation (?), while leaving enough space to never have to do any real work on it (“We had a Conversation! YOu missed it?”).
Bleah.
This, plus the min wage thing, ugh, I hate the cynicism of politic/ian/s
I think don Berwick is right. You need to back it and you need to go for it. Obama might believe in an public option, it was an early part of Obamacare, but he dropped before negotiations even began. He was not committed to it. I have not doubt that Don Berwick is committed and will fight for what he believes on health care.
…but I see nothing in the report of this exchange the justifies the word “attack” in the diary title.
As for making it happen, it’s clear from the context (“not a monarchy”) that Grossman wasn’t questioning Berwick’s implementation abilities as a matter of policy and practice so much as his political ability to get such a proposal through the Great and General Court.
Questioning his ability to get things done without a conversation IS the attack. Playing defense because he hadn’t made single payer an issue till Berwick made it one, he’s trying to go on offense with “you lack the ability to get it done.” Because conversations. Or something.
Let’s not split hairs. Replace “offensive” with attack; I’m certain they’re interchangeable in the title.
I do see that as different from attack at least in terms of connotation.
This is absolutely correct, in my opinion. I’ve been listening to Grossman (with interest, actually) for quite a while now, and until very recently he came across as a person with no really strong beliefs about anything. Until recently he spent most of his time talking about “entrepreneurs”. Most of us aren’t entrepreneurs. It wasn’t until Berwick became a real force to be reckoned with that Grossman started talking in terms of social justice. And even then, it sounded like a laundry list of items, rather than some deeply held beliefs that he wanted to use to frame the discussion.
I would say the same about Coakley, except that she’s not even quite that progressive, and in some ways — civil liberties in particular — much worse.
He has long held very strong beliefs about which he is very passionate, though he does come across as very soft-spoken. I can personally vouch that he has been talking about these things at least as far back as being DNC chair, and he has put his values into practice at his family business.
I do know that personally Grossman is a very decent person, has supported progressives and progressive positions in the past, and has indeed put progressive values into practice at his family business. I do think that in many ways he’s a very good person. But that’s not what we are preparing to vote on here.
I have certainly been aware of Steve Grossman for many years, and have held a pretty positive opinion of him all that time. As for the current campaign, going back a couple of years, I have heard him three times give the same speech — he started out talking about the American Revolution. Then most of the rest was about entrepreneurs. I remember at one point when he talked about Deval Patrick’s proposal to raise more money for transportation and education. The legislature gave him (us, really) about 2/3 (as I remember it) of the money he requested for transportation and nothing for education. I was pretty annoyed that Grossman didn’t seem particularly troubled about this. And he certainly said nothing about the way that education has been chipped away at year after year.
My impression at the time was that he was a well-meaning person slightly to the right of Deval Patrick.
He made a point in one of these speeches about how businesses did things better than government, because they had to in order to survive. Curiously though, the only example he gave of an interaction he had had in recent years with any business was an anecdote he told of how he was trying get a bank to pay out money that had been left unclaimed. (There’s a term for this; I don’t remember the details. This came up in his role as Treasurer.) Well, he did eventually get the bank to pay, but as he said, “Companies don’t like to pay out money.” But other than that, most of what he talked about was how his ancestors had come to this country and started a business and wasn’t that great?
As I said above, very recently he has started talking about social justice. But it does seem to me to be more of a laundry list, and not something from the heart.
So I’m not going to impugn his motives — as I say, I think he’s a perfectly decent person. In any case, we’re not trying to pass judgment here on anyone’s soul. Rather, we’re here talking about political leadership. I think we really need people like Elizabeth Warren who can articulate matters of principle in a way that frames the debate, not just checks off boxes. That’s what people are hungry for. The only person I see doing that is Don Berwick.
Every indication to me going back almost 20 years is that he in fact speaks from the heart regarding social justice.
I want to say upfront I support Martha Coakley for Governor, to suggest that Grossman did anything less then attack Don Berwick on the single payer issue is , well it is just a lie. He could barely contain himself in trying to school Berwich on the inner workings of Massachusetts politics Grossman style. I thought this was embarrassing for someone running for Governor. Leadership in the case of a Governor needs to be bold and with a vision regardless of the opposition. In fact it is one of the reasons Warren Tolman did so well in running for AG was his willingness to take on tough issues like the NRA. This is also the problem I have had with Steve Grossman over the last two years a lack of bold leadership and a willingness to push the envelope. I look at Martha Coakley taking on the challenge of DOMA and the mortgage scandal as proof that she has the ability to be bold and lead. Steve Grossman in the debate/ interview on NPR looked like an elitist getting testy with those that challenged his version of norm. Sorry you can not change or parse his words this was an attack and it demonstrates to me the worst qualities a potential governor can demonstrate the inability to listen with out criticizing.
Steve Grossman showed real political courage endorsing Howard Dean in 2003 and embracing his platform. Steve has been a long time supporter of single payer health insurance – before it was an issue in this campaign.
This has been one of the deciding issues for me in this campaign. Although Don Berwick deserves great credit for administering a single payer system, (and a lot more), getting this legislation passed in Massachusetts requires a different set of skills.
We’ve experienced a Governor that has had difficulty at times negotiating with the legislature and so to ensure at least some priorities are accomplished, political skills are equally important. Steve wins this hands down.
And if he were making it a eloquently as you, I wouldn’t have been irritated. That’s a fair issue and one I think Berwick is equipped to address.
The Grossman strategy of having conversations is not particularly convincing as a political strategy though. Talk is cheap. Seeing the goal, now THAT’S something.
Setting the goal not “seeing.”
No editing feature + Touch screen = argh
I do think that getting single payer passed in any form requires a different set of skills from administering part of a single payer system. And it requires different skills from the synthesizing ability that permits someone to step back and look at how a problem can perhaps be solved via an approach different from the one that has become the standard.
But I would also argue that there’s likely more than one pathway through the Great and General Court. Individual relationships with legislators, committee heads, etc. are one way, and I’d never argue that they don’t matter. In the face of the considerable weight of the status quo, though, the combination of the skills Berwick does have, which include a willingness to make this a priority and enlist grassroots pressure on legislators for it as well as his deep knowledge of how the current healthcare system actually works and doesn’t work, might actually be more effective than the skillset that Grossman brings to the table.
The thing is? In my experience at least, there’s a great deal to be said in practical terms for giving a difficult and uncertain job to somebody who doesn’t start out with mental furniture that tells them it can’t be done. That has a way of blocking off otherwise-promising lines of thought before you can find out whether they really work or not. Sometimes it turns out that no, there is no way anyone can think of to do whatever it is. But more often than I would have expected, somebody who doesn’t know it’s impossible when they start, and is otherwise qualified to address the problem, will come up with some way to make it work.
“But more often than I would have expected, somebody who doesn’t know it’s impossible when they start, and is otherwise qualified to address the problem, will come up with some way to make it work.”
It seems, based on the transcript, that Steve is not prioritizing that, even if those are what his beliefs are. It’s the same script Obama ran, which ran the public option off the table. It takes real leadership-it takes a Governor willing to challenge the legislature not to play it safe and take a risk. Gov. Shumlin has done that in Vermont, and we can do it here.
Grossman is implying single payer is not worth the political capital, and as someone who respects Grossman and who was leaning towards him earlier in this race, that is quite disheartening to hear.
He’s not committed to it, which means the “conversation” will be nothing more than a conversation.
That’s not the leadership I want from the governor.
In the early days of the Patrick Administration, there was this big thing about civic engagement. As I understand it, it never panned out. I’d guess two reasons: (1) Without a specific goal, like an electoral campaign, it’s difficult to keep people mobilized. (2) The Administration tried a two track apprach: Negotiate with legislators at 3pm and then rallyfolk to pressure those same legislators at 7pm. That failed. The legislators felt worked around. They stopped negotiating.
I think the problem is that there is a lack of polarization about the content of our legislature, so it is dominated by one kind of Democrat when we progressives want it to be dominated by a different kind of Democrat. With more polarization, it might be possible to get the legislature to be more actively progressive. That’s pretty uphill. Even with Finneran around to provide as much polarization as anyone would want, we still didn’t make any progress.
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So if the legislature is going to be what it is, isn’t Berwick offering us a quixotic journey to no where? It seems to me getting single payer is going to have to wait until there is at least twice as much clamor for it than there is now.
Exactly how I feel. I like single-payer as an idea, and I’d support candidates who ran on it generally. But lacking a general hue and cry — and there isn’t one right now, let’s be honest — we’re going to be stuck tinkering with our local version of Obamacare.
There’s no doubt a ton that can be done w/r/t health care short of a pure Canadian system, and that’s OK. Berwick might still be the guy to do it, but honestly I find his endorsement of single-payer to be not his central appeal — even on the very issue of health care.
As far as the legislature is concerned, reps are going to have to hear from their own constituents about an issue to move on it. They will always hear from people who don’t want their taxes raised for any purpose. They might maybe possibly hear from people who want universal pre-K (eg). There are more people who pay taxes than those who would immediately benefit from having a young child in high-quality care. So this is tough.
Doesn’t just happen. That’s the whole point. You set the goal. Then you get there. Don’t set the goal, life goes on, nothing much changes.
The Gov asked for it. Didn’t really get it so much of the time. So maybe there was something missing in his pitch; or his people didn’t actually pay attention once they were done with the election; or the issues weren’t compelling enough.
Where he succeeded, he did it on his own, or he took advantage of an embarrassed legislature, or he found common ground and did stuff they wanted done anyway. “Governing from the grassroots” is an unfinished book.
Too often campaigns treat their grassroots organizations as campaign election tools AND THAT’S IT. People leave when the election is over BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY WERE TOLD THEY WERE THERE FOR.
That’s the mistake Patrick and Obama both made. Berwick has pointed out that the election is not the end goal. HE is not the end goal. It’s the ideas and the policies and the changes that are the end goal. And the work is never, ever done. That’s how he’s organizing, that’s how he will try to govern.
You can be a cynic and say ” it won’t work”, but we have tons of people on this thread alone showing how NOT doing it doesn’t work either. I like the grassroots over, “meh, why bother?”
On the contrary, Patrick and his organization tried to maintain a grassroots organization past the election but failed.
Your generous use of capital letters I think misses a point. Patrick did not tell people that getting him elected was all they should do. Quite the contrary. So again, the question I have is what went wrong and why should we believe Berwick can do better?
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It’s as if it takes something on the scale of the Vietnam War to keep people mobilized politically. Nicaragua, marriage equality, and the Iraq War have brought forth smaller mobilizations. Single payer, campaign finance reform, and climate change, however important they may be, haven’t created mobilizations anywhere.
I worked very hard for Deval Patrick in his first election. After the election, I only remember two things that could be thought of as keeping the base alive:
1. There was some sort of large thank you gathering. Nothing much happened except that everyone told us how great we were.
2. There were a number of smaller gatherings somewhat later; I got invited to one. The main thing as I remember it was that John Walsh suggested that we each have an email list of contacts and that we send email once a week or so with administrative talking points. He said they could provide them if we wanted.
I doubt anyone was energized by this; I certainly saw no evidence of this.
I don’t see how this in any way amounts to organizing and mobilizing for something like universal single-payer health care. And in any case, the things that were being talked about were much smaller in significance.
But maybe I missed something?
The only thing I ever got from the “grass-roots” organization was a succession of fund-raising emails and phone calls. Some of them may have included invitations to various events — I don’t know, I didn’t pay attention to them.
I have met Deval Patrick multiple times, like him, and find him a enormously talented candidate. Each time I’ve met him, it was because we were at a campaign or election-night event together.
in response to KBusch…
I missed the fun and fab of Patrick 2006, but it sounds like during the electoral cycle it was amazing.
Many of the organizer peeps who were in Obama 08, my first campaign, were directly out of Patrick 06. I’ve become good friends with many of them, and we have spent many a meeting, beer or brunch talking about the lost opportunities in both 06 and 08 for ongoing, legislative/issue organizing and engagement of grassroots.
Indeed, this was the motivating reason behind the *pre* OFA kick-ass “OFAMA” team, which pulled together hundreds (I seem to recall 500?) in May 2009 to implement a strategy of grassroots organizing for issues/legislative advocacy. The will from the people was there. The organizers were ready/willing to organize.
The national institution of OFA seemed and in many ways WAS a good faith effort to do this kind of thing, but it honestly didn’t really pan out; it too much felt like a personal re-election wing, support the pres whatever the issue he needs supporting, vs. We’re here for the long-term ISSUES, so “Make him” do it by applying pressure. This was inevitable, being a faction of the DNC.
I am also thinking about the brilliant post by my pal John K, right here on BMG, about the failure to effectively engage the grassroots in 06 and 08–even for/as campaign/election arms. Many of the same names I’m reading today were there agreeing, when I was a lurky lurker.
I’ve heard apocryphal stories about certain regrets from the corner office about not doing building the grassroots to be a formidable and self-empowered (non just election focused or army taking marching orders) entity, to be the laxative to the Legislative logjams.
So that’s where I’m coming from. And the “secret sauce” is, as I’ve made in other comments on this thread, is the appreciation for the grassroots, and a real commitment to nurturing and growing it — not for your next election cycle, but for the cause, the movement, the goals we are always working toward, and which will be far from “over” for a long time .
It seems to me that the lesson of Deval Patrick’s first term was that public, activist pressure has to be independent of the governor. To get stuff done — even on daily and mundane matters — the governor must constantly work and bargain with legislators. Offended legislators are hard to work with; they make simple things a chore.
For example, one might imagine achieving the sort of fervor and passion that occasionally characterizes the Tea Party (without the stupidity or the 18th century dress up). It gets described as a kind of force of nature. It is controlled by no one in particular. The pressure it exerts is like wind in the sails for getting stuff done. People get elected because of that pressure but they don’t control it.
The cause is greater than the candidate and the election. I have seen first hand how thoroughly Don Berwick understands this.
It is also why an outside-the-party, truly people-powered grassroots organizing infrastructure is so important, and why something like Progressive Mass must exist, and why progressives must support this kind of “outside” infrastructure — financially and in principle — because it transcends Party, single issues, election cycles and candidates. I believe Jamie Eldridge’s post also shows how important an organized and powerful progressive grassroots can be.
That was my thought exactly. I expected both of them to constantly send out calls to action basically saying, “This bill is important to me and I want it passed. Help me pass it by calling your legislators and asking them to support it.” Both had enthusiastic enough bases coming out of their first campaigns that they would have lit up the switchboards on Beacon and Capitol Hills.
And Sal DiMasi told him, if memory serves, to “call off the dogs.”
Obama continues to do it, via e-mail.
N/t
So what did the Patrick Administration do wrong here?
He had some very nice but ambitious goals on which we’ve made much less progress than anyone would have wanted. Does Berwick possess some secret sauce here? Can we have some of it now, because the transportation bill sure could have used it.
In my view, the Patrick administration failed to recognize that Deval Patrick’s political base is significantly more progressive than Mr. DeLeo’s legislature.
The Patrick organization could have been more directive with the Massachusetts Democratic Party, pushing them to be far more aggressive in their handling of the embarrassment of Mr. DeLeo and the Massachusetts House.
Like Barack Obama, I suggest that Deval Patrick underestimated the strength of his grass-roots support and therefore was far more conciliatory with those who sought to derail and delay his agenda than he needed to be. In Barack Obama’s case, it was the entire GOP. In Deval Patrick’s case, it was Bob DeLeo and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Therese Murray.
The transportation bill is a fine example of this.
I’m not ready to agree that Mr. Grossman has political skills that Mr. Berwick lacks.
More importantly, though, we learned from President Obama that having those political chops (which Mr. Obama does) and using them (which he did not) are very different. The difference I sense (perhaps incorrectly) is that Mr. Berwick is more committed to making this happen than Mr. Grossman.
We endured the pain of watching Mr. Obama surrender single-payer before the negotiations with the GOP even began, because of his apparent belief that he’d never get it anyway and his false hope that he could win over GOP opposition by appearing cooperative.
I fear that Mr. Grossman will do the same when faced with Mr. DeLeo and the entrenched players on Beacon Hill. While I appreciate Mr. Grossman’s endorsement of Howard Dean and his platform in 2003, I hope you’ll agree that in so doing he was still a long way from opposing local heavy-hitters like Mr. Deleo.
I invite examples of where Mr. Grossman has advocated policy positions that are opposed by local Massachusetts power brokers. Did he oppose stances taken by Mr. Menino while Mr. Menino was mayor? Did he oppose positions of Ms. Murray while she held her leadership role? Has he opposed Mr. DeLeo on any matter of substance?
I note that his support for expanding the lottery and allowing casino gambling harmonizes nicely with the hymns already being sung by local Democratic power-brokers.
My bottom line is that Mr. Grossman has not yet shown me that his heart is in this issue, especially in comparison with Mr. Berwick.
of when Don Berwick has taken a policy position on anything at all affecting local Massachusetts politics prior to announcing his candidacy for governor at the age of 67.
My support for Don Berwick is not premised on his political skillset. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my opening sentence that I actually don’t know how skilled Mr. Berwick is, because to me it is less important than the vision that directs the application of whatever skills a candidate has.
On the issues that matter to me — income and wealth concentration, tax policy, transportation, education, and privacy/government abuse of power, I see zero leadership from Mr. Grossman and instead (at least in the first two) see pronounced “followership”.
I think S’Tom is saying that your assertion of SG’s Superior Secret Sauce of how to get things thru Legislature doesn’t really hold up.
We have very clear examples of how Don Berwick has worked with institutional actors to create truly big changes:
It sounds like he understands as well as SG the magic of the “having conversations” strategery.
#jinx with STom.
And here’s the link for the quote (ref’d by BT in OP)
“Superior Secret Sauce” argument about Grossman. I just think Berwick doesn’t have one and his framing of the issue suggests he does. It strikes me as somewhat disingenuous.
My point here is that it’s easy to appear as the pure candidate who’s never kowtowed to Bob DeLeo when you’ve never been in the game at all.
And there’s no question Berwick is capable of working with people to implement things. That’s different from pushing a huge bill through a timid legislature dominated by its “leadership.”
My understanding of your argument thus far (in short, of course; broad strokes):
SG critique of DB is based on DB’s unrealistic idealism and failure to understand how you move things thru legislature, which is, SG asserts, by having conversations. That it is incredibly frustrating for SG (and you) to see DB being so naive as not to know how to move things thru
(hit “post” by accident)
…that it’s incredibly frustrating for SG and you to see DB being so naive as not to know how to move things thru an oppositional body. That Steve has superior understanding and skill to do this.
I’m INFERRING (but I am not sure you’ve stated it explicitly) that this superior understanding and skill is related to:
– His time as Treasurer
– His time as mover and shaker in the Party
– His vast legislative connections due to the above.
What have I gotten wrong?
I do think Grossman has more relationships and experience with this legislature, but I am not particularly saying he’s better positioned to move a single payer bill through. I think it will be a very difficult project for anyone and Berwick’s wrong to create the impression that he can just “make it happen.” I think Steve’s too honest when he thinks things will be difficult and is averse to over-promising for the sake of throwing red meat to the base. From my perspective Berwick’s campaign has had a tendency to do that.
Tom suggested Steve hasn’t gone against Beacon Hill leadership, which is false. He fought like he’ll against Cellucci and Romney’s tax cuts and has been pushing sick leave, which can’t get out of committee, for 8 years. I can’t cite examples of Berwick going along with Beacon Hill because he’s not been I’m the arena. So I reject the pure Berwick v. craven Grossman dichotomy.
…thinks that Berwick believes it will be easy. That is the attack raised on this thread OP. It is on its face ridiculous, as exhaustively argued by multiple voices many of whom sound much more expert in the topic than SG, including single payer champion Jamie Eldridge.
I do not think Grossman is craven . I think k your faith that he is better equipped to guide difficult legislation thru Beacon Hill is belied by your own examples.
It seems his particular skill set hasn’t helped, for example, sick time. What magic wand will HE wave to pass it if Governor? (Of course the fact that voters will likely approve it in Nov means it’s actually a non issue)
I’ve been responding to points by several different people and it’s all gotten mixed together so I feel like I’ve been having about six different conversations fraught with misunderstanding.
About getting things done in the legislature: I don’t think Grossman would be a million light years better than Berwick, and that’s been my point. Berwick’s rhetoric, as I perceive it, suggests he’d be a million light years better than Grossman – or Deval Patrick or anyone else – at getting really big-ticket items through Beacon Hill. I don’t really buy that, so I feel like it’s a bit of false advertising. I do feel like we’ve been through enough of that with Obama even if you weren’t fooled by his promises in 2008.
We haven’t gotten sufficient local aid or MBTA investment from this legislature. We haven’t gotten the progressive changes (e.g. doubling the exemption) proposed in An Act to Invest. It took 175,000 signatures and 500 lobbying visits to get a minimum wage hike, and it came without indexing. Sick leave still can’t get out of committee. Major change with this legislature is hugely difficult.
I raised Grossman’s positions on revenue and sick leave not as proof of his chops at bending the legislature to his will, but as examples off the top of my head to counter SomervilleTom’s suggestion that Grossman’s record is one of going along to get along with the Finnerans and DeLeos of the world. That’s it.
But I don’t think it’s fair to suggest Grossman’s bad at dealing with the legislature because of sick leave. He’s been publicly for it as a candidate for treasurer, as treasurer, and as a candidate for governor. In none of those positions has lobbying Beacon Hill for sick leave been a major part of his job. It’s not like he’s been a governor, or the chief lobbyist for a coalition pushing the issue, and he’s failed.
About single payer: it may be that Berwick making it a priority will make it more likely to pass in Massachusetts. I just think it goes from very, very, very unlikely to simply very, very, unlikely in the short-to-medium turn. To use an apparently controversial expression, if I could wave a magic wand I’d make it so single payer healthcare was in place across the U.S. at least 50 years ago.
But it’s not how things went down. I agree with kbusch and Charley that we’ll need a LOT more public clamor for single payer to get it off the ground, and I’m not sure we’ll get it no matter how much grassroots pushing there is. We JUST passed the Mass. health reform in the last decade. And we JUST passed the ACA four years ago. It’s JUST coming into full effect now. And we JUST learned, within the past month, that Massachusetts has over 99% coverage. It may not be perfect, it may be too expensive and inefficient, etc., but I think for now the public is going to be wary of massive change beyond that.
Massachusetts, despite its general progressivism, is always going to be a tough place to get ahead of the curve on single payer. We have a powerful medical industry, a powerful insurance industry, a powerful finance industry that resists all expansions of government, and a tech industry full of libertarian types. The Olympics threads cite all the areas in which the public might be wary of the Commonwealth’s ability to administer large programs well.
JConway’s said repeatedly that Berwick is not a single-issue candidate, and I agree. But when you push for something like single-payer, it tends to suck all the oxygen out of the political sphere. Something else we saw when Obama came to office. There are a million things that need fixing in Massachusetts: The taxation system, which may require a constitutional amendment to fix for real. The local aid/Chapter 70 formulas. The T. More, and more equitable, funding for public higher ed. Drug treatment. There are all issues you (and Don Berwick and most of his supporters) care about. So when you talk about Berwick turning the public conversation to single payer, in context I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
On sick leave being a “non issue” because of the November ballot queston: This is the same argument many of the same people (perhaps not you personally) mocked when I raised it concerning Maura Healey’s newfound anti-casino stance. But there will be a ballot question and the people will decide it, or there won’t be and casinos will come no matter how much any of us doesn’t like it.
That clarified your views a lot, perhaps I am just more naively hopeful than you are. But I think Eldridge made it quite clear, if Berwick is nominated and wins and fails to connect his movement to the legislative goals of his administration, he will fail on his priorities as Deval did on some of his. But I think, since Patrick first won, we have a stronger progressive caucus. In the Senate and a growing one in the House. I see Berwick more willing to go out on a limb and try and get the movement to help him get the most progressive policies passed, and he is open that it’s a greater risk and the risk of failure is much much higher. But the reward is as well.
It’s not a magic wand it’s just a vision, one that will either fail or succeed, but one far more inspiring than Grossman’s’ milder vision and Coakley’s lack of one, to this voter anyway. I see Steve coming across as very risk averse in this campaign , which is why I no longer think he has the killer instinct to beat Coakley and then Baker.
But I see in rereading that you are telling me you are NOT saying SG has superior skill in guiding the progressive legislation thru. You are saying that Realist Steve knows such bold progressive ideas are not achievable. That his lack of commitment to Single Payer is less about tepid support and more about keeping it real.
To that I refer to JConways earlier comment.
Sen Eldridge made a quite convincing case why this is wrong, on the other thread.
And that’s one reason why Im not supporting SG but the one who thinks that we should reach for bold goals and that leadership is required to make it happen.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party has an overwhelming advantage in both registered voters and in the House and Senate. When a Democratic governor proposes a program like Governor Patrick’s failed transportation initiative, I expect my Democratic Speaker of the House and Democratic President of the Senate to stand on each side of the Governor, clap along with him as he makes his address (politely if need be), and then do whatever it takes to make that program succeed.
The spectacle of Bob DeLeo contemptuously dismissing the transportation bill was an embarrassment. Mr. DeLeo should have been taken to the woodshed, firmly spanked, and invited to change his tune or resign. That’s not what happened.
I don’t think any of the current candidates will have any more success than Deval Patrick in accomplishing anything that Mr. DeLeo opposes. I think our next governor must persuade the Massachusetts Democratic Party to change the leadership of the House and Senate so that our legislature represents the majority of Massachusetts voters (never mind Democrats).
I think that kind of change requires a kind of vision, courage, and creativity that, to me at least, is most apparent in Don Berwick.
Just yesterday I thought, “I don’t blame Steve for being upset. Berwick keeps acting like he has a magic wand.” It’s easy to say “I’ll do single payer,” it’s another thing to get it passed in a state with a hugely powerful hospital industry and insurance industry. We have a legislature that won’t even pass an indexed minimum wage.
And running CMS in 2009 is being incredibly overblown as evidence Berwick’s capable of building political consensus for a single-payer plan here.
Between questioning whether the legislature will pass it, and just throwing one’s hands up and stating other priorities will have to come first. That is the big difference maker between Berwick and Grossman. Grossman is proposing paid leave, higher minimum wage, and universal pre-K. All easy A’s so to speak. Berwick is proposing far more ambitious goals that will require more work, but give our state and it’s residents a bigger payoff. And he will do so without relying on regressive revenue streams anymore. He is not a single issue candidate, as much as his opponents and yes some of his supporters claim he is, but recognizes the entire system requires significantly overhaul to work better.
I am tired of settling for civil unions and Romneycare-Democrats-particularly in this state-can and should do better.
The candidate that agrees with that sentiment, and forces the DeLeo’s of the world to reckon with it, is better than the one who waters down his principles to get DeLeo’s ascent.
When Grossman submitted his Progressive Mass. questionnaire, he said:
Frankly, that seems reasonable to me. And it sounds not unlike what Berwick himself told Progressive Mass. in his questionnaire:
(emphasis added)
Which sounds a lot like having a “conversation” about single payer. But that’s just me. Now Berwick’s categorical about it and Grossman’s a political hack for saying we have to study this hugely complex and controversial topic and build consensus.
I get that it’s politically advantageous for Berwick to act like there are miles of daylight between himself and Grossman on this issue, and it’s clear it’s worked. But knowing Steve Grossman and his values, I don’t think it’s all that true.
1) There is a world of difference between looking down the road and seeing what Vermont does eg. actually acting in the 2020s or acting on day 1. Berwick will have convened the experts to submit a viable proposal to the legislature during the first year if his first term and have a solid legislative team backing him in that initiative. Grossman would have us waiting until we see how it goes in Vermont, conflates the public option with single payer, and as an “all options on the table , wait and see” approach that inspires inaction rather than action.
2) If there is no world of difference than I guess Steve is waging a magic wand too and is contradicting himself when he attacks Don?
Although I’d like one, I am confident we will not have a single-payer insurance law in place in Massachusetts in the next 2-3 years, for two reasons. First, I think there’s a 90% or higher chance Don Berwick will not be the next governor. Second, I think there’s a near 100% chance that, even if he is governor, he will not get single payer through the legislature in anything close to the first year of his first term.
This is not Vermont. I know Vermont well and it does not have a boatload of world-famous hospitals, large insurance companies, and financial institutions with a key presence in the state. There will be a lot more well-funded resistance here. Our best chance here is to see it work in Vermont and preferably other states first.
The “world of difference” is that Grossman’s not making a bunch of promises he can’t keep without the hard work of consensus building, and he’s calling out Berwick for pretending he can do differently. What’s always bothered me about Berwick is that he’s been playing with house money from Day 1. He can say whatever he wants. And when people ask him how he’ll get it done or how he’ll pay for it, his supporters rally to his defense with, “He’s the only one saying he’ll do it.”
Saying he’ll do it and ever doing it are totally different things. From where I sit, all he’s doing is guaranteeing that Coakley – who has been against single payer pretty much outright – is your Democratic nominee.
We won’t get to single payer in 2-3 years. We will NEVER get there unless there’s an executive who makes it a priority.
I hope and trust we’re all going to hear more about that as the campaign progresses. I’d be suspicious about Berwick’s plans myself if I hadn’t heard him talk about it at length, and had a chance to see, at least conceptually, how the economics would work. I’m not going to say that his supporters don’t tend to tell you that he’s the only one who’s committing to getting it done — we do that kind of a lot, I’m afraid — but to be fair, we mostly do it in response to questions about why we think his position on the issue is different from Grossman’s.
Maybe in the end the numbers won’t be as compelling as Berwick (and others familiar with the current system) think. But as somebody who’s spent a certain amount of time watching how medicine is practiced and paid for, my best guess is that there really are enough efficiencies to be gained that in the end, a well-designed single payer system will not only pay for itself but will release resources for other uses — in effect, will deliver a dividend.
And assuming that the numbers bear him out, that’s also my own best estimate (ruthlessly boiled down, obviously) of how you ultimately get it through the legislature. There would still be a lot of resistance, because under the status quo the money we’d recapture is going into the pockets of people who would fight against having that stream of rents cut off. But if you can show the public that you can save enough money to reinvest the dividend in things they care about, you can put a lot of pressure on officeholders who refuse to go along with the plan.
If Vermont does have a very successful experience, then single payer becomes much more achievable here. Less adventure, more imitation.
So it’s unclear why SG and advocates are suggesting that conversations are such a defining difference between “Reality-Based SG” and “Magic Wand Monarchy DB”.
Having yakked about this to death now, I am figuring out that one of the things that really bugged me about this debate segment is that in interrupting, SG threw out a legit question of “How”… but, of course, it wasn’t an invitation for DB to explain his how; it was tactic to get SG to assert his Superior How (“Conversations”) with the clear intent to imply DB was politically unsavvy and unprepared.
Which ambassadors to the campaign are running with. I didn’t go to the Medicare for All fora, and I havent been to the house parties where the “how” was discussed in-depth. But we know how he approaches these things: Listening. Conversations. Buy-in. Allies. In legislature, add Roll Calls. In political change, add Grassroots Pressure.
Nothing political worth doing was ever done in 2-3 years or easy. Nothing ever changed because you waited for clamor.
Put the fish down! 😉
You missed this part:
“[T]o implement successful changes to the country’s health care system,” on the basis of legislation well short of single payer passed by Congress without Berwick driving things from executive office, is totally different from working as governor with Massachusettts legislators to pass, and then implement, single payer legislation.
Is confusing me and I don’t know what you are saying. Suffice it to say no one thinks waning a magic wand is sufficient and only one candidate c making single payer a central goal
that Berwick was not involved with the politics of passing the ACA. I don’t think implementing the ACA’s changes at CMS is itself indicative of an ability to build public and legislative support for a single-payer system here.
But luckily his experience IN SINGLE PAYER SYSTEMS and his experience over a whole cater in improving healthcare internationally make for an exceedingly qualified executive to make a steadfast goal into a real outcome. And SG acting as if he were a neophyte on this makes him look cheap and petty.
If he wants to make single payer HIS issue, all he needs to do is make it a commitment. Not just a promise a promise to have a conversation with legislators and Senate districts.
he’s a neophyte in administering healthcare systems or advising on them. He is most definitely a neophyte on getting anything through the Massachusetts legislature, let alone such a huge change. I think he’s (rightfully) frustrated by Berwick’s suggestion that single payer is something he could “make happen” without a whole lot of “discussion” first.
At least, I haven’t heard him do anything other than acknowledge that the road to single payer is long and likely to be complex, or suggest that he expects to snap his fingers and make it happen at lightspeed and without friction. He talks about the need for discussion and consultation. My sense has been that the real difference between the two is simply that Berwick thinks that it’s critical we do it and that it can in fact be done, while Grossman thinks it would probably be nice if we could, but we probably can’t and should therefore put more of our focus on the smaller goals he believes to be achievable.
For me as a voter, of course, what that translates to is a sense that Berwick has a shot at doing it if elected, no matter how long a shot both being elected and getting the reforms done are; Grossman doesn’t, even if he genuinely believes in it as a good thing if only it could be done.
SG is frustrated that Berwick’s unapologetic agenda has traction with voters.
I’d love to hear Grossman make the arguments you are that he can get things thru this MA legislature but Berwick cannot. But that’s not what he’s been saying. I am looking forward to hearing Berwick address that claim, that SG’s an insider’s insider, who knows where to push the Levers of Insider Power to Get Things Done–but Berwick will be helpless and feckless.
We have had 8 years of Deval Patrick and Mistakes Were Made about how to work legislature. We have the benefit of that history. And we have the benefit of a growing (small but growing) network of real, committed progressives who aren’t afraid of the fight, who are increasingly wise in how to politic around the insiders who block progressive action. And many of them are enthusiastically in favor of Don Berwick. Their know-how and insights are most definitely an asset — and an alliance that will help get things done.
Deval didn’t do this.
Berwick also understands, better than any of the others, I think, how very important it is to MAINTAIN and SUSTAIN the grassroots organization after the election. The election isn’t the goal: it is merely the beginning. We all know that Patrick made a choice not to leverage the grassroots in the way that he could have, listening, perhaps, to the advice of those insiders who know the way the Power works.
A real, grassroots governor will not forget the important role of progressive grassroots, and will use it to leverage power and move the legislature. I’ve said it before, but the fact that Marshall Ganz has endorsed his campaign (and I think is an advisor and a friend of Berwick’s tho I could be wrong) makes a ton of sense — because I have felt/seen the lessons of horizontal grassroots organizing at work in the campaign, stronger than any I’ve been a part of since 2008 (my first; and yes, 2012 Obama wasn’t as real grassrootsy as 08). This isn’t a person who gives up on the grassroots, and he isn’t a person who is a dummy in the face of the big bad Speaker and the other tricksy manipulators of Power.
Name one bill he got through the state legislature other than lottery promotion? He sided with the leg and against Deval on revenue and sided with the Herald and against working people with his EBT fraud fear mongering.
I respect Steve-apparently a lot more than you respect Don Berwick-but he has serious legislators with a track record of getting bills passed not only endorsing his campaign but offering him solid strategic advice. I see Steve basically belittling Don’s liberalism as unrealistic and it’s exactly that kind of attitude that has prevented progress on Beacon Hill and usually leads to a Republican Governors in the fall.
Dan Wolf
Sonia Chang-Diaz
Jamie Eldridge
Jay Livingstone
Denise Provost
Pat Jehlen
(Off the top of my head) ^ Some of our best progressive FIGHTERS who have stood up to leadership and are methodically building a coalition for progressive change. Having a strong alliance with an unapologetic progressive executive who centers our values and promotes our goals will empower them further.
And as JConway says, their strategic insight on how to move things thru legislature is invaluable–and to me preferable the kind of strategic insight that relies on working the traditional power centers, which have so far done little but frustrate progressive change.
Yes. This is well articulated/observed; youre naming something that has been bugging me about all this.
But more important to the “doesn’t have the political savvy or experience” argument is whether Steve Grossman’s record shows that he DOES, which is what I think you’re asking with,
I’d qualify that with, name one BOLD PROGRESSIVE initiative he shepherded thru legislature. I’m not saying I know the answer, but I can’t think of examples. Where is the evidence that the allegedly superior political savvy/knowhow has paid off?
He’s been in statewide office for a full-term, so we have that record to look at in comparison to the promise embedded in his attack against Berwick.
And we can ask the same of Martha Coakley too. What’s her record on moving BOLD progressive legislation thru Legislature?
Yes, the Speakership and the members’ default obeisance to him is a real flippin’ problem in Mass. political landscape. But Senator Eldridge’s analysis of how to effect big progressive change suggests Berwick’s approach — set the bold big goals (commit to single payer), engage the grassroots, listen to stakeholders, leverage the public, use the bully pulpit — is the winning formula. And he has great examples from the current Administration’s tenure.
Neither an attack nor an offensive. Would you have him answer insincerely?
don’t involve a magic wand? He’s trying to paint Berwick as out-of-touch.
I thought Grossman sounded like a jerk in the interview. He’s not that likable and he can’t afford to sound obnoxious. He is, however, in a tough spot. When there are more than two candidates in a race, things get more unpredictable. Berwick is a serious threat to him, automatically taking votes he needs to catch up to Coakley.
Seriously, though I disagree with that particular assessment. I find him very warm.
delivery at the convention was truly awful.
…but I do think he comes across better one on one or in small groups.
I thought he did a better job at last year’s convention. But I’ve met him numerous times in person and find him very likeable.
I just re-watched Grossman’s speech. It is essentially the same stump I have seen him give several times on the trail, but he was trying something new with the delivery — perhaps attempting to channel his inner MLK — but it fell very, very flat.
Worth a watch: http://youtu.be/DITylxQRiCU?t=19m31s
I support single-payer, but I just don’t see how Berwick can possibly implement it on a state-wide basis. Berwick talks about it, but he hasn’t described his plan. For example, how is he going to pay for it? Will there be a new payroll tax? What about people who live in Mass, but work in other states (and vice versa)? How is that going to work?
Steve is 100% correct to question Berwick on this issue.
Despite your perception, Don has talked in great detail about what is right for Massachusetts. He has obviously studied the Vermont discussion thoroughly, and has said which of the options they have considered would be best for the Bay State.
If you haven’t heard his analysis, it may be because he is trying to avoid appearing too wonkish when talking to general audiences. But I have been in a couple of Q&A sessions where people pressed him on this and he answered in very fine detail. He has clearly given it a lot of thought.
If he has a plan, he hasn’t put it on his web-site. In particular, how will he pay for it? What taxes will be raised and how much? Will it really be single-payer, or will we still have Medicare and Medicaid? There are lots of questions. Where is his plan?
But since I’ve been to one of the extended town halls on the issue and had a chance to ask questions about it, I can give you the rough sense I have of it.
First, I’d be astonished if we see anything that approaches the level of draft legislation before the election. Berwick isn’t offering or purporting to offer a sign-it-tomorrow out of the box kind of plan. He’s very aware of the complexities involved, and of the need to move from concept to detail and implementation with both information from all the players who want to contribute and in consultation with all of us who are consumers of medical services.
Second, though, I would caution against any idea that this means he doesn’t have any plan at all. He, like every health care professional I’ve ever spoken to, is very aware of the costs that our current structure for healthcare insurance and financing imposes upon the entire system. It is considerable, in direct administration costs (currently a physicians’ practice in Massachusetts needs more than one full-time billing clerk for every two doctors, and that’s just one point in a system of offices, labs, clinics, hospitals, insurers, etc., and only a single role out of many that doesn’t contribute in any way to anyone’s actual health), and in indirect costs. The Commonwealth is already paying a lot of those costs: right now, health care is 42% of the entire state budget, and every expert I’ve heard speak to the matter expects that to grow if something isn’t done.
That being the case, a genuine reform of the system promises savings that go well beyond what’s normally counted under the rubric of “waste, fraud, and abuse.” A lot of our current healthcare spending is wasted, both on the state level and on the individual level. Part of implementing any overhaul will have to be a full analysis of the numbers, as they look at the relevant time, but under just about any scenario our total medical spending should go down, not up as I think you’re presuming. Again, I don’t want to be taken as speaking for the campaign, but I suspect it’s premature to assume that this is a reform that will inevitably result in higher taxes (or that even if it did, that cost wouldn’t be more than offset by savings to individuals, families, and businesses in current premiums and co-pays). That’s part of the point of doing this at all, and part of why his roadmap gives so many of us some shred of hope.
You’re kidding, right? Berwick talks about implementation all the time. How much detail do you think non-policy people care to absorb? Let’s take your how’s it going to work, Medicare/Medicaid questions. Here’s an answer very similar to one that I’ve heard Berwick give.
That little ditty comes directly from the Vermont’s Act 128 on Health System Reform Design, which led to the legislation on Single Payer. Oh, and who did the actual Vermont Act quote on reducing barriers to ACO formation? You guessed it, Don Berwick.
So, if you have a specific policy question on how implementation of Single Payer might work in Massachusetts, I suggest you attend a Berwick event near you and ask Don. I’m sure he’d be happy to answer. Or you gan give him a call. Don’t be shy, that’s what any leader/policy person on the planet earth would do if they wanted to figure out the best way to implement Single Payer–and they have.
…in the exchange in the diary “implementation” was a political concern rather than a nuts and bolts concern.
I did. It wasn’t a legit query political or nuts/bolts. It was a feint to cast doubt. Not a discussion. And if we are discussing details, I saw nothing on single payer, convos or otherwise, on Grossman’s site. That’s how much he’s committed to leading that conversation. This is always and only about trying to neutralize Berwivk. Not about a commitment to single payer or concerns about implementation.
I was responding to bluewatch’s assertion that Don’s got a secret plan, hasn’t discussed how he thinks Single Payer might work in MA, what will happen with Medicare & Medicaid, etc.
Political implementation was already addressed by Mimolette & others on this post and by Senator Eldridge in great detail in his own post from today.
Don Berwick has emphasized that one of the major appeals of single-payer (other than its simplicity and efficiency) is the enormous cost-savings it will produce. Much of the inefficiency in the current system produces what economists call a deadweight loss. The amount of money spent on paper-pushing and insurance company overhead (including profits) is of no benefit to those consuming the provision of healthcare services.
If all of these needless costs were eliminated, the money saved could be spent on more productive projects, such as education, human services, and infrastructure. All of that would create more jobs than would be lost in the healthcare sector. Equally importantly, it would stem the erosion of state government spending on other needs, and it would greatly reduce the costs of healthcare provision for small businesses.
Viewed as such, single-payer is a responsible fiscally conservative approach to spending in the state budget. It is not some wild-eyed lefty concept but a pro-business, pro-education, pro-everything (except insurance companies) idea. Yes, it will upset the applecart for healthcare providers because it will end the current cozy and inefficient system now in place. But it will benefit society. Big time.
It’s the logical follow-on to RomneyCare. I’m surprised some Republican didn’t propose it first.
Medicare for all is hardly an original thought.
BMG’s very own Jamie Eldridge’s “Medicare For All” bill:
https://malegislature.gov/Bills/188/Senate/S515
Section 1: The foundation for a productive and healthy Massachusetts is a health care system that provides equal access to quality health care for all its residents. Massachusetts spends more on health care per capita than any most states or any other country in the world, causing undue hardship for the state, municipalities, businesses, and residents, but without achieving universal access to quality health care. Medicare for All will allow us to achieve and sustain the three main pillars of a just, efficient health care system: (a) cost control and affordability, (b) universal equitable access, and (c) high quality medical care.
For those paying attention, this topic was very much “on the table,” before Berwick made it a line in his stump speech.
…or consolidating a sense of realistic political possibility until Don Berwick made it a central plank of his campaign for Governor.
I think even Senator Eldridge would agree with that.
Wow. Please pay attention.
I confess I missed all the single-payer discussion in Boston Globe, the multiple threads on BMG, the prioritizing by the legislature and the Governor.
The closest we got as a 15 Yea vote in an amendment roll call 2 years ago, which I was heavily involved in organizing grassroots pressure. That was cool.
If that’s all it takes for you, go for it.
I reply more at length below.
Medicare for All is hardly an original thought.
Unless you haven’t been paying attention.
But a message board isn’t a dissertation.
John McDonough considered himself “Mr. Single Payer” in the legislature. He went on to become director of Healthcare for All which was the driving force behind Romneycare. My point is that Single Payer has been discussed for more than a few years in this state. Which is part of the reason I think we don’t need to have a “conversation” about it; the conversation is long in the tooth. What we need is action.
There is also this bill.
Sponsors include
Since you raised Sen Eldridge and question the value of a Governor’s bully pulpit on bold progressive ideas, I wanted to make sure you saw Sen Eldridge’s blog post on exactly this topic.
He doesn’t cover single payer, but I think the pattern he describes can be applied.
Damn mobile devices…
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2013/10/single-payer-health-care-movement-in-the-era-of-obamacare/
You still want folks to believe this is “a topic that wasn’t on the table before Berwick made it his focus”?
Yes, Sen Eldridge and many others are health care, single payer champions and I have not only admired and appreciated that work, I have done my best to help when I can as a grassroots organizer.
Can you really be arguing that single payer was getting the attention and focus it is today/now, before Don Berwick started running for Governor, made it a priority of his campaign/platform and, as the only one so priorotizing single payer, started getting traction with Voters and then the media?
If so, you are objectively wrong, and I am 100% certain that Sen Eldridge would have no problem affirming that.
A governor and a candidate for governor has a much bigger platform and megaphone than a state senator from my home town of Acton, but that in no way diminishes the vital work he and others have done to bend the arc of health care justice toward single payer.
No question that Don’s unambiguous commitment to single payer would not have the traction it does without this education, organizing and legislative effort by people like Jamie Eldridge, for whom I have the utmost respect.
And because of the importance of his work and centrality of his voice in this debate locally, it is very significant to me, and I would think to you as a defender of his, that Sen Eldridge is so strong an advocate for Don Berwick’s progressive candidacy.
He knows, I can say unequivocally, how much work it will do to have such a bold progressive governor like Don Berwick. For Jamie and for Don, the goal is not Credit or Adulation or even Election — the goal is the cause of Justice for ALL. They are pieces of that fight, they are not themselves the endgame.
Or didn’t he care about this before he decided he’d like to be governor?
Happened back in February. IIRC, when Jamie introduced his legislation here, Don was in Washington at the helm of CMS, he may have been a little busy at the time.
My comments are directed towards the Don “RFK! MLK! Ghandi!” Berwickers who believe the idea is original to Berwick. That’s just nuts.
Please try to stay reality based, that’s the by-line around here, isn’t it? I have yet to hear anyone say that the idea for single payer is original to Berwick. But the fact is that without Berwick making it a plank of his run for the corner office, single payer would not be on the table in the governor’s race.
Yeah. Like that’s reality based.
That’s just uninformed.
…that people would dare to compare Berwick to other historical figures who stood for social justice and equality. Here’s a link:
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2014/06/berwicks-speech-a-moving-sermon/#comment-341351
The topic of single payer was not an issue in the governor’s race and it never would have been, except that Berwick made it his focus. That’s a fact, and the only uninformed people are those who would deny it.
If BMG allowed comment editing, I’d go to my original on the table comment and add “in popular and media discussion”. I could add also “or in the governor’s race” too… though of course it’s not being discussed in any high profile way in any of the other races either.
I didn’t think I needed to clarify the temporal span I was referring to because only an extraordinary literalist would think I meant DB invented single payer, locally or otherwise.
Methuen, I mean and meant:
“on the table in popular and media discussions right now and in the Governor’s race. I do not believe Berwick invented single payer. I mean he is bringing unprecedented and important attention to the issue which is a necessary component to getting traction and ultimately enacting such legislation. .”
Ok?
Because I think you’ll find your defensive (and odd) stance is out of whack from his point of view.
Berwick is advancing single payer only because it’s a good wedge issue? Lol.
What has he done to “advance” the existing legislation?
…for his governorship. And in so doing forced his competitors to begrudgingly acknowledge its importance. If he is elected governor, passing Sen Eldridge’s bill gets put at the top of the pile. It’s not there now with current executive and won’t be with a gov MC or SG.
As you can see by my prior comments, I do not think Berwick “invented” single payer. And I’m not sure if anyone else thinks that either. You are of course entitled to your differing assessment. Talk to Jamie next time you have the oppo.
and saying “passing it” will be a priority for his governorship.
Eldridge single payer bill = single payer. To pass single payer, you pass legislation that institutes single payer. That is one reason why Sen Eldridge so enthusiastically supports Don Berwick, because he will advance the policy that Eldridge has spent years heroically fighting for, and which has not yet passed.
Holy Moses
This thread is perhaps the worst non-troll discussion on BMG in a year. We have Grossman partisans repeating talking points about experience and practicality– no policy specifics, no policy hints, just insinuationss. We have Grossman testimonials regarding what a terrific boss he was. And we have no specifics from Berwick supporters, though he has been quite specific about how he intends to proceed: roll call after roll call, until it is done.
Berwick’s plan: roll call after roll call.
You may question whether single payer is worth it No one with any ambitions beyond this office would attempt it. Yes, it means conflict with the state house. But the abject failure of Deval Patrick’s revenue plan makes it clear: if we are to have a progressive state, and not just Republican Lite, we’re going to have to fight the legislature until we win.
But above all, let’s stop with the vacuous blathering. We can all get talking points from the campaign sites and the Globe. We’re better than this. And if this is how the next three months plays out, incidentally, get ready for a Republican governor who will be eager to have lots of conversations.
Speaking for myself only.
Martha ahead, Grossman teams with the NRA to attack her.
Don ahead, Grossman attacks him for not being a Grossman-like insider.
During Grossman’s last run for Gov he was described as a dilettante running a vanity campaign. Has that changed at all?
takes its toll.
People will be back to normal after the primary.
“normal is,” that is.
This thread is reminiscent of debates I frequently had with supporters of then-Senator Obama during the 2008 presidential primary. I was supporting Clinton in large part because I believed her experience better equipped her to work with Congress to make an aggressive, progressive policy agenda a reality. Some say Obama was the more progressive candidate, but they now both acknowledge that there was very little daylight between them policy-wise. I picked Hillary because I believed not just that she shared my values, but because I thought she had realistic expectations about how much “change” she could deliver. Most of my friends who were on the other side of that primary now agree that Obama overpromised. That’s not to say that he intended to deceive, but he was not as politically seasoned and I think he really believed it would be easier to govern than it has proven to be.
It’s for the same reason (among others) I supported HRC that I’m supporting Steve Grossman in this race. I consider myself to be quite progressive, and I support a single-payer system. If Steve takes office in 7 months, assesses the feasibility of getting it done, and sees any chance to make it happen, I have no doubt he’ll fight for single-payer. I also think that Steve knows better than Don Berwick or any of us what’s realistic given the legislature’s check on the governor. I trust Steve to do right by the progressive cause, and I’d rather support someone who shares my vision and is upfront about the real practical challenges of bringing it to fruition than someone who gives rousing speeches, shoots for the moon, and underdelivers.
I know it’s an imperfect analogy, but hopefully I’ve conveyed my point.
Is her hawkishness-otherwise I’d agree with some if what you say here. I had a big mea culpa post awhile back endorsing a lot of these same themes. But I just don’t see any of the candidates having any kind of real experience with the state legislature at all-other than Coakley and Grossman getting bad bills passed for their offices (wiretapping and lottery expansion, respectively).
And in terms of electability, the outsider going against an insider always bodes well for the moderate Republicans we’ve elected in the past-and make no mistake Baker will be quite formidable. Having the greatest contrast to him gets the base out, and having an outsider with business experience like Berwick helps us with independents. Grossman has been an insider for too long, and it’s showing in debates like this.
…the hawkishness factor is moot since states don’t go to war unless directly invaded.
And I was arguing her hawkishness was a big difference which is agree isn’t in play here as a comparison. Read the rest of the argument.
I voted Hillary in the primary in 08. I actually didn’t believe either candidate could get much done, and hence I haven’t been as disappointed in Obama as some were. Because my expectations were low, but of course a Pres Democrat is far superior to a McCain/palin or Romney.
A mantra of mine… F**king Democrats break my f**king heart, every f**king day.
You’re right that we knew from the outset that Clintons are triangulators and third-way-ers. I guess there was some hope Obama might not be, but my hope wasn’t so high.
***I’m using the asterisks out of respect for Community Standards.
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You may notice that because of a constantly breaking heart, I am rabidly obsessed with changing the way Democrats run/legislate. 🙂
Do you think legislators won’t figure out that they ignore single-payer only at their peril?
…but you have enough Ds who would be Rs in most other states and are used to doing things their way.
There would have to be a credible threat.
Otherwise they are just dealing with the institutional power of the corner office, which as we have seen is manageable.
And they will say, “All well and good, Governor, but the same voters who elected you also elected us.”
The problem (car broken down on side of the road) is our healthcare system. Berwick will fix the problem, he knows exactly what the problem is and how to fix it. Grossman sees the same problem (stranded motorist) and needs to call a tow truck (Mr DeLeo), ask for the drivers AA Membership (keep Blue-Cross/Harvard Pilgrim happy), bring in a certified mechanic (Teresa Murray) and call an auto parts store (which has the replacement part on backorder for 2 weeks. Hence. the stranded citizen loses the use of her car and pays an exorbitant amount of money to get it back (just like our health care is today). No fear, Grossman will remind the motorist on the newest scratch tickets available in order to pay for the repairs.
In other words, Berwick will tackle the problem right then and there and show us how to fix the h/c system with single-payer. Grossman will acknowledge the problem but is incapable of fixing it, without the input of others.
IMO, Berwick is the best choice and I will throw him a vote in the primary.
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