The reason a real health-care bill is not going to get passed is simple: because nobody in Washington really wants it. …
…It won’t get done, because that’s not the way our government works. Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters. The situation we have here is an angry and desperate population that at long last has voted in a majority that it believes should be able to pass a health care bill. It expects something to be done. The task of the lawmakers on the Hill, at least as they see things, is to create the appearance of having done something. And that’s what they’re doing. …
…This whole business, it was a litmus test for whether or not we even have a functioning government. Here we had a political majority in congress and a popular president armed with oodles of political capital and backed by the overwhelming sentiment of perhaps 150 million Americans, and this government could not bring itself to offend ten thousand insurance men in order to pass a bill that addresses an urgent emergency.
We no longer have a functioning government, but I say we go down fighting. It’s imperative that Washington hear from us now. Your senators need to hear you want a public option or nothing. Your representative needs to hear you want a public option or nothing. The Sellout Six need to hear that people know they’re being sold out. The White House needs to hear that we expect the President to veto any legislation that does not contain the public option.
At Salon, Mike Madden writes that the public option isn’t dead yet.
Many Senate Democrats also still seem to prefer a public insurance option, rather than a co-op. Even lawmakers who were skeptical of the public option to begin with admit that the co-op idea is only picking up steam now because the Finance Committee is focusing on it. That might not be enough to carry it through. So lawmakers who aren’t involved in the talks aren’t quite willing to write off the Finance Committee’s compromise without seeing it. But they’re starting to run out of patience. The No. 2 Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said there was “high anxiety” as Baucus slogs through negotiations with the panel’s top Republican, Chuck Grassley of Iowa. “This is really behind closed doors with six senators,” Durbin said. “The rest of us are truly on the outside.” The only message Democratic leadership has really conveyed to Baucus? “Hurry up,” Durbin said. Baucus wouldn’t say much Tuesday about the progress of the talks, or when the talks will be done.
See also:
Joshua Holland, “How Corporate Media, Sellouts in Congress and Industry Bigs Have Hijacked the Health Care Debate”
Timothy Noah, “Why You Can’t Trust Your Health Insurer”
Must see:
Bill O’Reilly, dumbest man on the planet, says the U.S. has higher death rates than Canada because we have more people.
Well, the best interest of the American people would dictate the Congress, in fact, fail to pass a health care bill. Then voters might get angry enough to actually throw out of office a significant number of them, a number of sufficient to actually make the rest of them responsive to voters rather than to special interests doling out “campaign contributions.”
The worst thaing that happens is that Congress passes some piece of garbage that satisfies those special interests and which they can convince voters is the “reform” that the American people wanted. Unfortunately, it is this result that is becoming by far the more likely.
The best result, of course, would be actual reform, and that is not even being discussed.
“…It won’t get done, because that’s not the way our government works. Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters.”
Truer words were never written.
This is what we have become – The United States of Special Interests. Pay as you go politics has bought us the worst government money can buy.
And who cares about the little guy/gal. He/she will be dead soon. But the millionaires who tell “our” representatives how to vote at all levels of government, well, they’ll be around for a long time. They can afford health care. Is it any wonder then, why things are the way they are?
Millions… Ten’s of millions… Hundred’s of millions of people (voters) aren’t worth the bags of money extended by a few thousand well-manicured hands.
We don’t scare them. And, until we get public financing of elections, we never will. I look for that to happen right after we get an effective health care system (SNARK!).
Minor correction – Matt Taibbi
as for public financing of elections, Oregon and I believe Minnesota so something I find very appealing – individuals get a tax credit for donations to political campaigns. This means grassroot empowerment – an Oregonian giving $100 to Candidate A or Initiative B gets that $100 back when they file taxes. I believe the Oregon campaign finance law allows for a maximum of $100 tax credit for any single election, so if you want to give $100 to both candidate A and Initiative B you’d only get a single $100 tax credit if they both appeared on the same ballot.
No state bureaucrat decides who is a viable candidate and hence is funded, people decide themselves who or what gets funded. The only criterion is appearing on the ballot.
I promoted this system in Indiana in my independent campaigns for legislature in 1994 and 1998.
Here’s an interesting article. Obama’s own physician supports a single-payer system, and has a few things to say about the legislation that will probably be enacted:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/29/obamas-doctor-presidents_n_246870.html
Thanks Joan.
I love Obama and worked hard for his campaign since 2007. I was an early convert. And like his doctor says, he doesn’t know why Obama didn’t check more with people who supported single-payer. Obama seems to have embraced the center/center-right, and forgotten those of us on the left who were passionate supporters. Passionate to the point of working hours a day for free to get him elected. I doubt if he’d been elected if he had to depend on the centrist’s.
It’s like you brought a date to the prom, and he/she takes off with someone from a rival group. Sure, it’s not the worst group in the school. But, still…
Health-care ‘reform’ has to be thrown in the dumpster – no one in his right mind ever throws good money after bad. It’s projected that within a few years a ‘reformed’ health-care non-system presently being pushed by dogs
and rethugs will cost the average American 50% of his net income. That’s where we’re headed if the flim-flams in Congress who are touting ‘reform’ get their way.
It’s fascinating that so many Americans whose health insurance is paid by their employers don’t yet realize that it’s coming out of their pay – if they did, they’d be on the bandwagon for universal health-care. (No respectable corporation EVER lets the welfare of its employees take precedence over its profit margin.)
WMD,
Your information is out of date. Pawlenty unallocated the funds to reimburse the small donors.
I wasn’t sure about Minnesota.
The point that public campaign finance can be done in a way that empowers small donors still stands.
It’s like you brought a date to the prom, and he/she takes off with someone from a rival group. Sure, it’s not the worst group in the school. But, still…
Obama’s the bookish nerd surprised to find himself at prom at all. The jocks in their Blue Dogs letter jackets got hold of him and pummeled him for a while, then there were “a few” beers with some other nerd and a Mass. cop… and the next thing he knew, the dire necessity of passing the SATs was completely forgotten in the sledgehammer light of morning.
As for Obama’s doctor, I can only hope the president has a prostate exam scheduled soon.
lol Joan that was too funny! If he does, I hope he will get an ear full..
I am sitting here with a Kobra policy and afraid to go to the doc because we already have tons of bills that they have refused for our child and one less income from a lay off. I would be the first in line for a single payer plan.. I should add, now that my sister has a harsh health problem, she is seeing the reasons for a single payer plan too.