Illustration of the Democrats and Republican candidates

LOS ANGELES  _ Democrats facing a tough election year dared Republicans on Saturday to challenge them on issues from Wall Street regulations to health care reform, testing what they hope will be a winning message with most voters in the fall.

Democrats at the state party’s annual convention had a brash message at a time when polls show President Barack Obama’s popularity slipping and party candidates in tight races across the country: Bring it on.

“Democrats are for protecting the peoples’ interest; Republicans are protecting the special interests. Democrats are protecting consumers and small businesses on Main Street; Republicans are protecting big banks on Wall Street,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told nearly 2,000 cheering delegates inside the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“That is our fight,” Pelosi said.

With her re-election in doubt, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., urged Democrats to unite behind her candidacy with the excitement witnessed at tea party rallies around the nation.

“We passed health care reform and we should be proud of it, proud of it,” Boxer told supporters waving yellow “Boxer 2010” signs. “I need you to be excited, as excited as the tea party people are. Will you help me?”

Attorney General Jerry Brown, outgunned in the gubernatorial race by the personal wealth of Republicans Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, drew the loudest reaction from the delegates when he criticized them for waging a high-dollar campaign over the airwaves.

Instead of an advertising spending extravaganza, Brown said voters want to hear from the candidates directly about issues related to jobs, repairing the state’s perpetual budget deficit and cuts to public school and universities.

He called for a series of “honest, prime-time” three-way debates before the June 8 primary.

“Let’s hear the different ideas,” Brown said. “The key here, is this a democracy?”

The offer was intended in part to answer criticism that Brown has so far been a sluggish campaigner.

If the debates happen, they’ll be a two-man affair. Poizner, the state’s insurance commissioner who is trailing Whitman in polls, was quick to accept the invitation. But Whitman’s campaign rejected the proposal after initially saying it was open to considering it.

Instead, her campaign said Brown should debate other Democrats who will appear on the June ballot.

Brown, a former two-term governor who has held a variety of offices during his 40-year career in California politics, from secretary of state to mayor of Oakland, faces only token opponents.

Whitman, a former eBay chief executive, has poured $59 million from her personal fortune into a campaign that could become the most expensive gubernatorial race in U.S. history. Much of the money has been used to blanket the airwaves with television and radio ads and pay for a stable of experienced political consultants.

Whitman and Poizner, a wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur, have debated previously, but it would be highly unusual to conduct a bipartisan debate before winners are selected in the primary.

With California mired in recession and facing record unemployment, Brown said all three leading candidates owe it to voters to stake out their positions and debate in public.

“These are not ordinary times,” he said. “We face an extraordinary crisis.”

Surveys show Brown and Boxer, who is seeking a fourth term, running about even with potential Republican challengers.

Just 18 months after Democrats flocked to the polls to support Obama’s candidacy, party leaders are clearly worried about the mood of voters. Incumbents are feeling voter wrath across the country, and California Democrats are likely to put two career politicians on the top of the ticket: Boxer has been in Washington for nearly three decades and Brown’s career in politics began in the 1960s.

The convention marks the start of the party’s effort to sell its vision to voters left angry by the bruising recession. Speakers portrayed Democratic efforts at the national level to reform health care, stimulate the economy and impose regulations on Wall Street as steps that will benefit the working class and middle-income Americans.

Party leaders proclaimed what is emerging as a central campaign strategy _ criticizing the top Republican candidates as wealthy corporate pawns who are out-of-touch with the needs of middle-class Californians.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa opened Saturday’s session with a full-throated endorsement of the party’s top candidates.

While Brown and Boxer face no serious opposition in the June primary, both have been subject to constant attacks by the Republicans vying to challenge them in November.

Villaraigosa sought to counter one of the Republicans’ attacks against Boxer, that she has accomplished little during her three terms in the Senate. He credited Boxer with bringing federal transportation dollars that will double the city’s rail system and create 166,000 construction jobs.

“It may be the most important Senate race in the country,” Villaraigosa said. “Now I can tell you she’s fought for us, and she needs us to fight for her.”

Villaraigosa said the party will go on offense: “Democrats, it’s game time.”

“This is what change looks like,” Obama said a few moments later in televised remarks that stirred memories of his 2008 campaign promise of “change we can believe in.”

Widely viewed as dead two months ago, the Senate-passed bill cleared the House on a 219-212 vote. Republicans were unanimous in opposition, joined by 34 dissident Democrats.

A second, smaller measure _ making changes in the first _ cleared the House shortly before midnight and was sent to the Senate, where Democratic leaders said they had the votes necessary to pass it quickly. The vote was 220-211.

Obama’s young presidency received a badly needed boost as a deeply divided Congress passed legislation touching the lives of nearly every American. The battle for the future of the health insurance system _ affecting one-sixth of the economy _ galvanized Republicans and conservative activists looking ahead to November’s midterm elections.

Far beyond the political ramifications _ a concern the president repeatedly insisted he paid no mind _ were the sweeping changes the bill held in store for Americans, insured or not, as well as the insurance industry and health care providers that face either smaller than anticipated payments from Medicare or higher taxes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation awaiting the president’s approval would extend coverage to 32 million Americans who lack it, ban insurers from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and cut deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade. If realized, the expansion of coverage would include 95 percent of all eligible individuals under age 65.

For the first time, most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, and face penalties if they refused. Much of the money in the bill would be devoted to subsidies to help families at incomes of up to $88,000 a year pay their premiums.

The second measure, which House Democrats demanded before agreeing to approve the first, included enough money to close a gap in the Medicare prescription drug coverage over the next decade, starting with an election-season rebate of $250 later this year for seniors facing high costs.

Much of the cost would be covered by the pharmaceutical industry, which made a deal months ago with the White House in which it pledged to spend lavishly on television ads to help pass the bill.

It also included sweeping changes in the student loan program, an administration priority that has been stalled in the Senate for months. It would have the government originate all student loans, denying banks and other private lenders of a lucrative business they have long had. Much of the savings would go into increased Pell Grants for needy college students, but black and Hispanic colleges would also benefit.

For the president, the events capped an 18-day stretch in which he traveled to four states and lobbied more than 60 wavering lawmakers in person or by phone to secure passage of his signature domestic issue. According to some who met with him, he warned that the bill’s demise could cripple his still-young presidency, and his aides hoped to use the victory on health care as a springboard to success on bills to tackle stubbornly high unemployment that threatens Democratic prospects in the fall.

Obama watched the vote in the White House’s Roosevelt Room with Vice President Joe Biden and dozens of aides, exchanged high fives with Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, and then telephoned Speaker Nancy Pelosi with congratulations.

“We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things,” he said later in the White House East Room. “We proved that this government _ a government of the people and by the people _ still works for the people.

Crowds of protesters outside the Capitol shouted “just vote no” in a futile attempt to stop the inevitable taking place inside a House packed with lawmakers and ringed with spectators in the galleries above.

Across hours of debate, House Democrats predicted the larger of the two bills, costing $940 billion over a decade, would rank with other great social legislation of recent decades.

“We will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare and now, tonight, health care for all Americans, said Pelosi, D-Calif., partner to Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the grueling campaign to pass the legislation.

“This is the civil rights act of the 21st century,” added Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the top-ranking black member of the House.

Republicans readily agreed the bill would affect everyone in America, but warned repeatedly of the burden imposed by more than $900 billion in tax increases and Medicare cuts combined.

“We have failed to listen to America,” said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, leader of a party that has vowed to carry the fight into the fall’s midterm elections for control of Congress.

The final obstacle to the bill’s passage was cleared at mid-afternoon when Obama and Democratic leaders reached a compromise with anti-abortion lawmakers whose rebellion had left the outcome in doubt. The White House announced the president would issue an executive order pledging that no federal funds would be used for elective abortion, satisfying Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and a handful of like-minded lawmakers.

A spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed skepticism that the presidential order would satisfy the church’s objections.

Republican abortion foes also said Obama’s proposed order was insufficient, and when Stupak sought to counter them, a shout of “baby killer” could be heard coming from the Republican side of the chamber.

The measure would also usher in a significant expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor. Coverage would be required for incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, $29,327 a year for a family of four. Childless adults would be covered for the first time, starting in 2014.

The insurance industry, which spent millions on advertising trying to block the bill, would come under new federal regulation. They would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions and from canceling policies when a policyholder becomes ill.

Parents would be able to keep children up to age 26 on their family insurance plans, three years longer than is now the case.

A new high-risk pool would offer coverage to uninsured people with medical problems until 2014, when the coverage expansion would go into high gear.

Obama has said often that presidents of both parties have tried without success to achieve national health insurance, beginning with Theodore Roosevelt early in the 20th century.

The 44th president’s quest to succeed where others have failed seemed at a dead end two months ago, when Republicans won a special election for a Massachusetts Senate seat, and with it, the votes to prevent a final vote.

But the White House, Pelosi and Reid soon came up with a rescue plan that required the House to approve the Senate-passed measure despite opposition to many of its provisions, then have both houses pass a fix-it measure incorporating numerous changes.

To pay for the changes, the legislation includes more than $400 billion in higher taxes over a decade, roughly half of it from a new Medicare payroll tax on individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples over $250,000. A new excise tax on high-cost insurance policies was significantly scaled back in deference to complaints from organized labor.

In addition, the bills cut more than $500 billion from planned payments to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and other providers that treat Medicare patients. An estimated $200 billion would reduce planned subsidies to insurance companies that offer a private alternative to traditional Medicare.

The insurance industry warned that seniors would face sharply higher premiums as a result, and the Congressional Budget Office said many would return to traditional Medicare as a result.

The subsidies are higher than those for seniors on traditional Medicare, a difference that critics complain is wasteful, but insurance industry officials argue goes into expanded benefits.

And I’m one of the lucky ones! The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) claims that there are 46.3 million uninsured Americans (John Briley, AARP Bulletin Today, September 11, 2009). With approximately 305 million people living in the United States, that means 15% of the population can’t afford to get sick! The figure is not only astoundingly mind-boggling…..it’s a disgrace.

Before delving into the ongoing healthcare reform initiated by President Barack Obama, with bills wending their way through five Congressional committees, we have to appreciate the current landscape. Right-wing Republicans are, by their own admission, hell-bent on making the president fail at every turn. The President should not count on any cooperation from that part of the Republican Party. These Republicans are spreading false rumors, spewing hatred and hoping that the public will be riled up (or scared) enough to say “no” to everything that Obama proposes, without giving it a fair hearing.

Naysayers are claiming that the American healthcare system is fine just the way it is, and that Obama wants to institute socialized medicine. Yes, the healthcare system is great….if you are working! Lose your job and you are one catastrophic illness away from losing your home or your life savings. Even though the U.S. has many good doctors, the country has more infant deaths per capita than Canada, Sweden, France and even Cuba (CDC, NCHS Data Brief, November 2009). And, by the way, those other countries have the dreaded socialized medicine disease!

If socialized medicine was as bad as Republicans want us to believe, then these other countries should be suffering from the plague. The fact is that in countries with government-sponsored healthcare, the citizens are healthier on average than in the United States. The simple reason is that they are able to go to the doctor whenever they are sick without worrying about the financial implications.

Which takes us to the “dreaded” public option scenario in Obama’s original plan. The idea was that the government would administer a healthcare plan that would compete with private industry to help keep costs down and provide more affordable option for the citizenry. Opponents coined the term “ObamaCare” to describe this governmental intrusion into the most hallowed of industries. Insurance companies are scaring people by saying that their premiums will increase. Yes friends, your premiums will increase because these insurance companies are going to increase their premiums in anticipation of more affordable competition. You might remember the credit card companies increasing their rates as legislation limiting interest rates made its way to the Senate this past summer. The legislation failed, but credit card companies still dug the knife deeper into the backs of consumers by keeping their rates high.

Similarly, insurance companies will raise their rates just in case the future brings added competition from the government.

I think all this opposition to the president trying to help those without healthcare insurance points to mean-spirited behavior coming from moderate Democrats and Republicans. The next time any of these politicians decry socialized medicine, ask them what kind of healthcare plan they have. Members of Congress have health insurance for life that is fully paid by the taxpayers. They have no problem accepting this largesse from us. What is wrong with the public having something similar to this? What about Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? These are government-run programs that are almost untouchable come budget time

So friends, we already have public options. It’s just that these hypocritical and selfish members of Congress want to deny the rest of the public the sort of healthcare benefits that have been extended to them as part of the ruling class.

In a survey conducted by Drs. Salomeh Keyhani and Alex Federman of Mount Sinai School of Medicine earlier this year, they found that 73% of doctors supported the public option, even though the leaders of the American Medical Association (AMA) were against it. The AMA leadership apparently thinks that any government-run program will lead to doctors getting lower fees. Even if this happens, what’s wrong with us giving back a little so that all Americans can have the benefit of affordable healthcare? Again, the selfishness of those who have at the expense of those who have not.

This is one time when I think liberal Democrats should hold out for as long as possible to get this public option into any bill that comes to the floor. They need to turn back the lies about socialized medicine. No system is perfect, but to vilify something that has worked for years in Europe is silly. Europeans have been far better off than Americans for the kind of healthcare system they have had.

Let’s not talk about waiting long to see a doctor. I pay plenty to be part of the vaunted American healthcare system, and sometimes I have to wait a month or more to see a specialist!

In the final analysis, President Obama will have to decide if the campaign promise of a better and more equitable healthcare system is worth fighting for. He’ll have to decide if he’s going to spend the political capital to fight for the public option. I believe a public option would help-working class families—and I believe that despite the drivel coming from the hate-filled right-wingers.