Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Rational Case For 'Kill The Bill'
Over the past week, the media has trained its myopic eye on those in the progressive community who, having seen that the health care reform plan emerging from the legislative process will fall well short of providing all Americans with affordable health care, are urging that the bill be killed. The dominant attitude of the mainstream media seems to be that this response is irrational. John Harwood, to offer just one example, has likened these advocates to drug addicts. (By contrast, the people who continue to hallucinate up "death panels," are, I guess, simply people who have an interesting and serious point of view on the matter!)
It's important though, to note, that the Howard Deans and Jane Hamshers of the world neither want LITERALLY to destroy President Barack Obama's domestic agenda in a fit of ideological pique, nor do they want to consign millions of uninsured Americans to their deaths. In fact, they desire the opposite: more Americans safely insured, and more electoral success for Democrats -- the kind that comes when Democrats actually keep their promises. You want to talk about people who are, in fact, high on drugs? Let's talk about the Democratic strategists and their journalistic enablers who believe letting down the base is a good thing.
Columbia University Professor Lincoln Mitchell has a post up on these pages on the dynamics of the debate. Let me grab one part of a larger piece that is eminently clarifying:
Progressives who oppose this bill are not being obstructionist, making the perfect the enemy of the good, or sabotaging their president. They are taking the position that history has shown us that opportunities to reform health care do not come along very often, making it essential to get it right when those opportunities arise.
This is precisely what informs those who take the admittedly extreme-sounding position that the current legislation should be scrapped and the effort to reform the health care system restarted. What they recognize here is that what's been driving the reform effort in the first place is a crisis, a crisis of mounting costs to our system and diminishing returns for a populace that's struggling to stay afloat financially and remain in good health.
Pushing the reset button on this process restores the crisis and thus restores the urgency that forced Obama and the Congress to take up the measure in the first place.
Advocating this position is a rational response, if you are up on current events. Anyone who has been paying attention to the news over the past year understands full well that our Congress allowed the financial system to get worse and worse and worse until finally, when the economy was at last at the brink of an apocalypse, they finally acted. Furthermore, if you've been paying attention, you'll know that even in responding to the crisis, not enough was done to ensure that a similar near-apocalypse wouldn't happen again. The overall intent of the so-called "bill-killers" is to not allow a similar sense of false accomplishment occur in the arena of health care.
It's worth pointing out in addition, that the whole "our only opportunity comes with a crisis" idea was something that was floated by Obama's own Chief Of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, who said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." The bill-killers are simply taking this to heart.
And the fact is, if the Senate language survives to be signed into law, America will still be in the throes of a massive health care crisis that will need to be reformed with all immediate haste. This is evident in this portion of a graphic created by Igor Volsky, promoting the virtues of the Senate bill:
As you can see, by treading right up to the line set by Joe Lieberman, the Senate leaves 23 million Americans without insurance. No one is hallucinating this! And unless Volsky is saying that the 23 million who will remain uninsured represent an acceptable number of needless deaths, I'm sure he'd agree that this means that America will still be in dire need of health care reform on the very next day after "health care reform" is signed into law.
But the problem is, after the health care bill is signed, all of the momentum to reform the system is going to drain away. Legislators will have come through what will be regarded as a grueling fight that they won't be too keen on taking up again. The president is likely to celebrate the event as a momentous historical accomplishment instead of doing the right thing -- offering the correct and sober assessment that his efforts led to a bill that is sorely lacking.
And the media, embodied by simps like John Harwood, will declare the matter settled and get on with the process of writing the stories they are good at writing -- who won and who lost politically in the health care fight. The historical achievement of politicians will outweigh the matter of how that supposed achievement falls on those 23 million uninsured.
If you want to know who is really drug-addled, it's anyone who seriously believes that the John Harwoods, Chris Matthewses, Jon Meachams and Fred Hiatts of the world give a tinned shit about how this legislation actually affects real Americans. If you don't stand to gain or lose political capital, you just don't show up in their reporting.
And so, all the "bill-killers" hope to achieve here is the maintenance of the very real urgent needs of their fellow citizens, before everyone rushes to drown themselves in the waters of Lethe.
PREVIOUSLY, on the HUFFINGTON POST: Lincoln Mitchell: Improving the Health Care Bill After It Passes Will Not Be Easy
11 Comments so far
Show AllA little while ago [about 4:10 pm PST] Sen. Orrin Hatch appeared on BBC World America. The news anchor asked Hatch about the 44 million Americans who do not have health insurance. Hatch claimed it was only about 7 to 12 million who are uninsured in this country. The news person then asked Hatch what his health plan was to get this country on the right track. Hatch said that there are health concerns but never addressed the question by stating the Republicans' supposed health care plan.
This is what it has come to when, as Goebbels once said, a Big Lie usually works best as that type of lie rarely is challenged if it is put forth enough times by its advocates or by someone who is believed to be an authority on the matter. It was rather distressing that the British news anchor refused to challenge Hatch claim that 7 to 12 million Americans are supposed to be uninsured as compared to the accepted figure of 44 million. That interview made it evident [if it did not before] that those opposed to universal health care, which would include the Democrats as well as the Republicans, simply do not give a damn about the poor, working class and the middle class of this country.
Problem is, we have 10% of society fighting to put capitalism
out of its misery, 10% fighting to enhance such excessive wealth,
and an 80% self-absorbed majority who love things just the way
they are.
New Light,I think your numbers might be pretty close to the truth,but hopefully that 80% will wake up!The 10% of socially aware fighters may be a little optimistic too.Overall you're right about one thing for sure ,there is no room for a complacent or apathetic majority in 2010. peace
REGARDING A NATIONAL STRIKE
Instead of spreading hopelessness, how about trying this, everyone who is feeling anger and despair over corporate control of our government:
1.)Post the following message (or one of your own) on at least one other forum:
It's time to institute a NATIONAL STRIKE to protest the corrupt legislation being touted as health care reform. Would you be willing to take action on the day this legislation passes the House, such as calling in sick to work, refusing to buy any goods or services, gathering at noon in your town or city to protest (even with others who may differ with you on other issues) the inherent corruption of this bill and corporate control of our system, or to meet in consensus forums to work with others to devise solutions? Please reply with any positive suggestions or ideas on this forum or in the Comments section following relevant articles on CommonDreams.org.
Please don't bother posting depressing hypotheses about how the "sheeple" will not respond to this call to action--that in itself is the kind of mainstream media-manufactured sheeple response that the corporate elites are Banking on.
2.) Ask at least five people each day if they are aware of the ramifications of this bill and if they would be willing to consider participating in such an action, or if they have any other ideas to bring to this discussion. Ask, invite, discuss. See if you can find key points of agreement--this is the holiday season and lots of us will be spending time with family members who have different political views but this can be a great unifying moment in taking back our country.
Make these two actions your homework assignment for the day and I guarantee your feelings of alienation and despair will abate, and that will bring the energy for the next step.
MORE HARM THEN GOOD ---- FOUR TIME LOSER
(1) Bailout of Wall Street did more harm than good.
(2) Trillions to big banks did more harm than good
(3) Record military budget of $1.4 trillion including
interest on National Debt did more harm than good
(4) Forcing 50 million to buy illness insurance they
cannot afford will do them more harm than good.
QUESTION: Has our capitalist Congress ever passed a bill
costing over $1 trillion that did anything good?
And so, has not Obama fulfilled his campaign promise to give us,
“Hope you can count on?”
For the purpose of this world is to prove the harm in it, and when
things cannot possibly get any worse, then all things will surely turn
toward the good. And such a good purpose having been accomplished,
then all that follows must also be good.
Okay, this article seems to hang on the graphic. I'm a Canuck so can anyone enlighten me as to how the Senate's health care bill will not apply to 2o odd mill?
now is not the time to ask for chairman mao's health plan or for "immaculate conception healthcare"TM;_ now is the time to further shame and sabotage the re-election chances of demobliRat senators and representatives, e.g., by comparing W's Medicare reform’s give away to the pharmaceutical industry with the obscene extra trillion dollars about to be thrown by demobliRats at the healthcare leeches; now is the time to demand that the full brunt of antitrust legislation be imposed on the healthcare industry immediately (so that demobliRat senators and representatives have to defend from competition --in front of the cameras, directly and shamelessly-- the profits of the healthcare leeches );_ now it's the time to call for binding legislation to bring down healthcare's share of the GPD to below 10% *before* obama's 1st term will end._ these are hard numbers and measures that demobliRat senators and representatives cannot equivocate around, hard numbers and measures that won't allow the few progressive push-overs (like sanders) or venalo-progressives (like byrd) to hide behind tear-jerking statements like "now we can give healthcare to another 20,001 rural grandmothers" while at the same time voting for the healthcare cartel to increase its share of the GPD to 30%.
obama is not going to commit political suicide just to satisfy blinded-bull leftwing hotheads._ he cannot afford to become a target of the right and of the ultra rich, period._ lefties should go after by-bribe-only senators and representatives._ and no, obie (and the ballet dancer) cannot tell you that directly either !_ but ask yourselves now: when before in the history of the usa have by-bribe-only senators and representatives from both parties been compelled to show the nation almost daily how disgustingly venal and callously indifferent to the well-being of the nation they are ?_ don't you guys/gals sniff the huge opportunity here that is expanding almost daily ?_ that's the chance that obama's election and presidency are offering the left, i.e., a political and media environment that is propitious for a huge mobilization that can foil the reelection of many, if not most, of the by-bribe-only demobliRat senators and representatives._ but no, armchair-warrior spontaneo-leftist idiots prefer to whine hysterically that their --formely secretly beloved-- daddy obama is not going on TV to wave valiantly his finger and shout very loudly and angrily at the bad guys (and attain nothing)._ obama is only at his 1st term and cannot force the reform of anything unless he can hide behind congressmen by saying "i accept this new legislation passed by congress bla bla bla"._ he cannot become the ultra rich's sole problem and so tell them that by eliminating him they would be fine (and they would, since demobliRat senators and representatives wouldn't resign if obama were taken out by some "patriotic" assassin)!_ without "change" coming to congress to chase away by-bribe-only senators and representatives, obama must play minimalist and wait for his 2nd term (since as of now the hysterical screeds by blinded-bull hotheadish spontaneo-leftist idiots have not changed the fact that the incumbent president remains heavily favored to win re-election; but please let's not work towards changing this, let's work instead towards screwing by-bribe-only senators and representatives!)._ we shall ask more from obama but only after his 2nd term will be a certainty or, before, only after congress is finally cleansed._ there are indeed perhaps only 10 senators who could vote for mildly anti-ultrarich policies right now, certainly not 59.9999 (plus snow, etc., yeah right!).
" John Harwood, to offer just one example, has likened these advocates to drug addicts."
Well, okay. Then suppose we compare those who are in favor of passing this corporate welfare to those who advocate drug prohibition. Drug prohibition has created black markets, violent cartels, and no regulation of the substances prohibited. In comparison, this bill will cause more people to die because the insurance industry still has not been regulated to the point of not denying cverage, still will leave many uninsured, does nothing to prevent escalating costs, and requires under penalty of law that citizens purchase a defective product from a private industry, just to name a few of the problems. In short, this healthcare bill, like drug prohibition, causes more problems than it solves.
The title of the article leads us to believe that he will make a case for killing the bill but I don't see one made at all. If I told you that your charity money will only help 10 starving kids but there are 50 in total, would you say "Oh, then there's no point in giving money if it's not going to help all 50". Seems to me that insuring 31 million more people is worth doing, no?
I have yet to see any coherent argument for killing the bill. There are plenty of valid criticisms of the bill but the only reason to kill it would be if there was a plausible possibility of passing something better now or in the immediate future. When they couldn't even get 60 votes in the Senate for a watered down public option, how can one argue that there is serious momentum for anything approaching single payer?
The bill should pass and then progressives can continue their noble efforts to:
a)elect more progressive people than Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson et al
b)persuade congress and the public to make progressive changes to the health care system in the near future
For now, let's get those 30 million + people covered.
Case for killing the bill:
Individual mandate will be extremely unpopular, especially since there will be no cost controls. The vague efforts at cost control in the bill are easily circumvented.
Many of the 30 million people you speak of do not wish to "be covered" if it means they must purchase insurance from these bloodsucking corporations.
This mandate IS THE MASSIVE TAX INCREASE that right wingers have promised would be in this bill; in effect this bill proves them right while also enriching our enemies in private insurance. Lose-lose-lose.
Taxing the insurance plans of union members attacks another key part of the middle class.
It is small minded to think that we need 60 votes. This is the media narrative, but we do not. A lowering of the medicare eligibility age and buy in provision could be passed via reconciliation. A bill without a mandate could be passed with 60 votes that targets practices like recision or pre existings.
Passing a crappy bill dooms progs and dems for the 2010 election and beyond.
I've got a feeling that you will dismiss each argument I have made and label them "incoherent" if you respond at all. I can then feel free to label you a "sellout" and a "blue dog." Labels are great, huh?
Dividing the people by covering some and leaving others out in the cold will not work. We are unified on the issue of health care reform for all. Cover everyone with medicare for all and kill the Senate Bill.