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Democrats Ponder Health-Care Suicide
If Democrats enact something like the health-care bill emerging from the Senate Finance Committee, they may call it a legislative victory and it may keep the campaign donations flowing from the insurance industry, but the Democrats would surely infuriate millions of American voters.
Indeed, it seems like some Democrats, such as Sens. Max Baucus and Kent Conrad, have lost themselves so much in the inside-Washington reeds of legislating a convoluted compromise acceptable to the insurers, that they are inviting an angry backlash from average Americans.
The danger for Democrats is that this industry-friendly legislation would impose new burdens on citizens, including government fines for failing to sign up for a health-insurance plan, without guarantees that the coverage won't be almost as crappy and expensive as it is now. The bill rejects a public option that would put competitive pressure on private insurers.
Plus, key elements of the bill, like the so-called shopping "exchanges," aren't to take effect until 2013, meaning that Americans will have watched this messy process unfold for months and then be told that the current system, which has cruelly pushed millions of sick people into bankruptcy, will get four more years to bankrupt more Americans.
By contrast, Medicare, the single-payer health system for senior citizens, was signed into law on July 30, 1965, and took effect on July 1, 1966, less than a year later.
The Senate Finance Committee bill also is so complicated that few citizens can possibly understand it or how it might affect them. Instead of straightening out the health-insurance maze, the bill makes it trickier to navigate. [To see for yourself, click here.]
While dumping the relatively straightforward public option, which President Barack Obama favors and which is in the four other committee-approved health-care bills in Congress, the Finance Committee bill offers "non-profit, member-run" co-ops for individuals and "small group markets."
The co-op notion is a populist-sounding alternative favored by the insurance industry because a co-op's organizational difficulties and relatively small size would make it easy to compete against, much as small food co-ops can be overwhelmed by the pricing advantages that favor large grocery store chains.
The other glaring problem for co-ops is that most Americans, especially small-business people, are extremely busy already. They don't want to take part in running an insurance company; they simply want to get health insurance at a reasonable price.
Nor do most Americans want to puzzle their way through Baucus's hodge-podge of private insurers, government subsidies, emergency waivers, penalties for non-compliance, etc., etc. If Americans lose a job or fall on hard times, they don't want to go hat in hand to some government bureaucrat and have to lay out their financial problems to get some special favor.
What Americans Want
What Americans want is affordable health coverage provided in as simple a package as possible.
That was the finding of a New York Times/CBS News poll which discovered widespread confusion about the health proposals taking shape in Congress, but more than 2-1 support for a public option to compete with private insurers -- 65 percent for a public option, 26 percent against and 9 percent no opinion. [NYT, Sept. 25, 2009]
After all, one of the attractions of the public option is its relative simplicity and cost-effectiveness. It could piggyback on the existing Medicare bureaucracy and thus get started quickly and cheaply. According to congressional budget analysts, it is the only plan that offers significant cost savings.
Cost savings would not only help reduce the federal deficit but they would mean that more Americans would get the health care they need without going broke. In other words, it would save lives, reduce housing foreclosures, and protect families now being ripped apart by brutal financial pressures.
Yet, despite this common sense - and broad voter support for the public option - the Senate Finance Committee rejected the idea. Chairman Baucus conceded that the concept was appealing, but he joined other conservative Democrats in voting no, claiming a public option couldn't clear the 60-vote hurdle to stop a Republican filibuster.
So, instead of trying to rally the votes - or using the "reconciliation process" that allows a simple majority to enact legislation having budget implications - Baucus kept on cobbling together a nearly incomprehensible construct of tax credits, income formulas, fees and other mumbo-jumbo.
This modified Baucus bill is in line to win final committee approval this week. According to Washington's "conventional wisdom," it will then become the vehicle for action by the full Senate, where Democratic leaders have been ambivalent about a public option.
Some observers feel the best chance for the public option to survive may be with a trigger mechanism that would permit it in some parts of the country sometime in the future if private industry doesn't offer enough competition.
The trigger idea has been floated by Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican on the Finance Committee who has indicated even a faint desire to vote for comprehensive health-care reform. However, the trigger would push even this limited public option to some point after 2013, when the insurance "exchanges" are finally scheduled to open.
Yet, if a trigger proposal is needed to win over some votes and beat a filibuster, another approach could be a "reverse trigger," one that would put the public option in place immediately but set up a trigger that would stop the public option from signing up new clients if private insurers cut rates by 25 percent and scored a 90 percent approval rating from customers.
Even then, the "reverse-trigger" public option would stay in place, serving the Americans who had already signed up and ready to resume taking clients if private insurers slide back into their old ways of excessive executive compensation, bloated bureaucracies and huge profits.
By moving up the timetable of reform to "as soon as possible" and putting immediate pressure on the insurance industry for real savings - in other words, letting voters see real benefits in 2010, not making them wait until 2013 - the Democrats could show they're on the side of the people and rack up electoral gains in 2010 and 2012.
However, if the Democrats insist on trading the common good for the favors of special interests, all the industry campaign donations in the world may not be enough to save them.
63 Comments so far
Show AllBetter build lots of prisons to house all the citizens that are surplussed and can't pay their healthcare tribute to Baucus' backers.
There will be even more prisons to build once the credit card bubble bursts.
What? A return to debtor's prison. Nothing would surprise at this point. Crucifixions anyone?
Prisons filled with people who will then be forced to work for 30 cents an hour.
This will then allow those manufacturers to bring back the manfacturing to the USA.
With prisoners having no VOTE in an election, the Corporations relative power grows. The only ones left on the outside are the high income "administrators" that survive as parasites off the labor of the Prsion slave population who will have sentences of 20 or 30 years and more to work off their debt.
Sounds like a plan!!!
Finally we'll be able to compete with China! Oh happy day!
Love the gallows humor section of these CD comments!
The past 10 minutes I've been reading posts, but these last few have me laughing.
Debtors Prisons for unpaid health insurance premiums?
Televised crucifixions of miscreants?
I probably shouldn't be laughing, eh?
If there is a way to make substantial amounts of money from debtors' prisons and crucifixions, they may very well be legislated into existence in this country. Televising crucifixions and selling advertising for such tv programs will be a license to print money.
Um, no. The Democrats already had it "fixed" that they would purposely fail on health care just like the GOP always does on Roe v Wade and then find the other side to blame for it. It's called playing politics. They win and we get put into more tears. Sorry Mr. Parry, but nobody is going to believe the Democratic Party to solve health care anymore than they would believe that the GOP will overturn Roe v Wade.
If anyone wants healthcare reform and still is a registered Democrat, well, there's the problem, isn't it?
Because of the insanity occupying the minds and hearts(?) of the one-party corporate puppets, I became a card-carrying (Well, they don't actually GIVE cards anymore.) Democratic Socialist. It seems the only sane option left to reclaim the country for "We the People". Please visit the link below and learn the truth about D.S. instead of innuendo and straight out lies.
http://www.dsausa.org/pdf/widemsoc.pdf
Make that registered Democrat or registered Republican.
P.S.:
But it goes beyond the registration part. I could be a registered Democrat and still get to vote Nader as I please in theory. However, I don't mind being honest in my registration.
Jennifer: I agree with you -- the fix was in from the beginning. Or, single-payer advocates would have been invited to the table to debate "health care reform," versus "health insurance reform."
",,,but nobody is going to believe the Democratic Party to solve health care anymore..." –(JenniferBedingfield)
–This sadly, is overly optimistic, but a very important point to bring up.
I think most American 'Progressives' remain so ideologically hidebound and clueless that a permanent disaffection from the Democratic party is not a fait accompli, though by now it should be.
I can't speak for the "Common Dreams" crowd,–being a 'newbie' here myself– which is far more advanced than for example, sites like "Fire Dog Lake" and "Digby." These two purveyors of Democratic party waste and offal are deemed 'progressive,' if not 'left,' by most people. There lies the crux of the problem.
The catastrophic enormity of recent betrayals on the wars, health care, the financial bailout is so egregious that such departures, should be the proverbial 'last straw,' but the election of Obama, proves that they never are.
Americans are trained that 'losing' and marginalization–political or other– is not an option that they remain comfortable with for hard wired reasons of cultural history that have proven impossible to dispel. When the principled position in a non-parliamentary democracy becomes, 'not voting' at all, there always seems to be a rationalization available for returning to the comfort zone of participation.
Then the hideous cycle commences again.
Nihilism, (or something like that) is never an option for many, despite the fact it is capacious enough to harbor many variants, all more nurturing than the deplorable chaff served up by the Democratic or Green parties in the 'fake' Democracy one has in the U.S.
The central conundrum is a continued faith in elections and voting. Allegiance to these conventions almost guarantees a reactionary mindset and a fundamentally conservative politics despite all appearances to the contrary.
For an exigent discussion on the custom of 'voting' and 'not voting,' I strongly recommend reading Alain Badiou's: "On Parliamentary 'Democracy:' The French Presidential Elections of 2002, "Polemics," (Verso Books). Not for the faint of heart, as his argument moves to place most people do not want to go or can't go.
–(Jill Bains)
",,,but nobody is going to believe the Democratic Party to solve health care anymore..." –(JenniferBedingfield)
–This sadly, is overly optimistic, but a very important point to bring up.
I think most American 'Progressives' remain so ideologically hidebound and clueless that a permanent disaffection from the Democratic party is not a fait accompli, though by now it should be.
I can't speak for the "Common Dreams" crowd,–being a 'newbie' here myself– which is far more advanced than for example, sites like "Fire Dog Lake" and "Digby." These two purveyors of Democratic party waste and offal are deemed 'progressive,' if not 'left,' by most people. There lies the crux of the problem.
The enormity of betrayals by the previous Democratic Clinton administration, has been, if anything, extravagantly superceded by the catastrophe of the Obama regime. On the wars, health care, the financial bailout the escalation is so egregious in scale that such repeat performances, should be the proverbial 'last straw.' Sadly, they never are. Nor are they 'learning' experiences.
Americans are trained that 'losing' and marginalization–political or other– is not an option that they remain comfortable with for hard wired reasons of cultural history. That have proven impossible to dispel. When the principled position in a non-parliamentary democracy becomes, 'not voting' at all, there always seems to be a rationalization available for returning to the comfort zone of participation.
Then the hideous cycle commences again.
Nihilism, (or something like that) is never an option for many, despite the fact it is capacious enough to harbor many variants, all more nurturing than the deplorable chaff served up by the Democratic or Green parties in the 'fake' Democracy one has in the U.S.
The central conundrum is a continued faith in elections and in voting. Allegiance to these conventions almost guarantees a default reactionary mindset and a fundamentally conservative politics despite all appearances to the contrary.
For an exigent discussion on the custom of 'voting' and 'not voting,' I strongly recommend reading Alain Badiou's: "On Parliamentary 'Democracy:' The French Presidential Elections of 2002, "Polemics," (Verso Books). Not for the faint of heart, as his argument moves to places most people do not want to go or can't go.
–(Jill Bains)
"I can't speak for the "Common Dreams" crowd,–being a 'newbie' here myself– which is far more advanced than for example, sites like "Fire Dog Lake" and "Digby." These two purveyors of Democratic party waste and offal are deemed 'progressive,' if not 'left,' by most people. There lies the crux of the problem."
Hi Jill Baines and welcome to CD. I saw you on Alternet too. The people here are more sensitive like us although there is a growing number of people on Alternet countering the Obamabot crowds there too. Pleased to meet you. :)
Likewise Jennifer!
Hi there and all that. –(Jill B.)
As it stands today, it appears the Democrats have played right into the hands of the corporate fascists. Two key points:
1. Mandatory purchase of private insurance, further punishing the poor and enriching the insurance companies.
2. Weakening the existing Medicare system causing the elderly to have genuine concerns.
The plan is political suicide for Democrats. I am past trying to understand this madness. One thing is certain: if this gets passed, I won't be voting for another Democrat for the rest of my life. I'll be going third party exclusively. I suspect there are many like me.
Here is a letter I sent to my two US Senators (both Democrats):
Dear Mr./Ms.:
It is with deep sorrow that I write you. I have voted for many Democrats in my lifetime and I think I have voted for my last in 2008. Given the healthcare crisis in this country and given the fact that Americans are dying today because of a lack of health insurance, it is with much dismay that I watch this issue unfold. Universal healthcare is the true solution to this problem. You and the president took it off the table from the start. This was a critical mistake on your part. The real compromise was a public Medicare option. Yet the bills currently on the table have no provision for a public Medicare option. Instead, we have government mandated purchase of private insurance. Given the disaster of no fault automobile insurance in this country, you have chosen to further saddle the poor and downtrodden in this country and enrich the wealthy insurance companies. A poorer choice could not have been made. Since you fail to understand the gravity of the situation, I will point it out to you. You have abandoned your progressive base and this is political suicide. Without a public option for Medicare, you will find yourself out of office. A Republican tsunami is poised to overtake this country in the 2010 and 2012 elections because progressives like myself have come to the sad realization that both parties have become corrupted by big money interests and are unable to represent the American people in any shape, manner or form. We will vote third party and you will be out of office. I am extremely disappointed in your performance at this point in time. I can only hope you reconsider your actions and work on a bill with a public Medicare option and state's rights for single payer. Anything short of that and you will find me and millions of other progressives voting third party.
Sincerely,
Lefty
Count me in on your plan Lefty!!!
"..it appears the Democrats have played right into the hands of the corporate fascists."
I disagree. This was the democrat's AND republican's strategy, not something they were misled, corralled, or, duped into.
Please people, always try to remember, these people are not stupid--notably the ones at the very top anyway. (They are the cleverest and most deceptive of them all.) This was a game, they set the rules and decide how the game will be played and in the end-- the outcome.
And of course, Big Pharma will continue to underwrite the networks nightly newscasts and write the legislation.
How nice.
Just my take..
"..it appears the Democrats have played right into the hands of the corporate fascists." –(moonpie)
–Truthfully, the Democrats ARE the "corporate fascists."
And those who vote Democratic are tacit collaborators in said fascism.
Sometimes getting into the habit of using language more precisely and 'naming' correctly–cumulatively, by small increments over time– has the ability to move the political markers of consciousness itself. It is a small but crucial shifting, a step toward a programmatic political coherency.
For a long time most political blog commentary was wary and dismissive of the term 'fascist' when used as an epithet; it was deemed "shrill," hysteric and historically misapplied by comparing the American variant to its European antecedents. Posters who used it were mocked and derided as unstable loonies and at best, merely 'inappropriate.'
Thankfully, at least on this blog, that no longer appears to be true.
It's in the 'naming' first. What follows after that begins to take on a greater dimension of seriousness, appropriate to the reality of the political situation itself.
–(Jill Bains)
Nice letter, Lefty.
The Dems have destroyed two of their best election rationales: Vote for us because we're not Republicans, and don't vote third party because if you do, the Republicans will win and we're better. I'm sure our future options are going to be dismal, but every vote I cast will be for a third party candidate -- that's if Independent remains a third party. It will be interesting to see the power struggle take place in that option, which hopefully will be an option to corporate rule and not just a new branding of the same old same.
Money. The Republicans had Jack Abramoff. Recently I was looking at polls and I came across the odd fact that over 80% of respondents identifying as Republican now support full publicly funded elections. How odd. The pollsters speculated they were sore over Obama's setting a new minimum on the price of the presidency.
The Democrats have Baucus. Between these two poster children of corruption and the public's bipartisan disenchantment with the best government money can buy, the time is ripe for us all to demand that this congress get the money out.
It's more than obvious who our Congress is going to "vote for" - none other than the insurance companies and their lobbyists (bribers).
We are no longer a democrary - we have become a full-fledged "Corporatocracy!" It is completely governed by big business and congress is its chief lackey.
If President Obama signs a bill that doesn't include a dynamic public option, we'll know exactly who he stands with and what he is.
Bring America Back !!!!
***Yes, Bedingfield has the correct line on this with the intentional failure games of our so called 'reps' !
***Demmys already did the Self-Destruct thing on Healthcare
when they allowed Prez Obama to back down and cave in on the Single Payer system favored by 80% of Americans and Doctors.
***It was all downhill from there, right to the Townhalls !
***As Ted Kennedy said: Healthcare is a Free Right of all
Human citizens of America, NOT an affordable Privilege.
Team Obama invokes Kennedy's dream but they don't have a
clue or intent to deliver it to Americans !
Mr Parry writes:
"The other glaring problem for co-ops is that most Americans, especially small-business people, are extremely busy already. They don't want to take part in running an insurance company; they simply want to get health insurance at a reasonable price."
WRONG!!
Americans want effective and fairly distributed health CARE at a reasonable price.
And when the health insurance debate in Congress shows the health INSURANCE system as the fraud that it is, maybe we can get back to the real issue ... the ethical issue and the true economic issue.
Support a Single Payer. Make sure that Speaker Pelosi honors her promise to bring HR 676 to a vote on the House floor.
The belt-way Dems. are clueless. Bauchus and the rest have been in DC to long. Or maybe it's the rest of us that really don't get it? maybe, were all suppose to just understand that of course all these Senators and Reps. are superior people that don't need us except ever y few yrs. and the rest of the time they take care of business for the BIG CORPS. that really have all the power and $$ in this country/world. In other words maybe it's us that are the fools for even bothering with these people?
The political system is so convoluted that politicians cannot get it to work for people even if they wanted to. Congress is built on Eighteenth Century political architecture and is ill suited to function efficiently in a Twenty First Century world of hyper-change. Collapses are to be expected and the resultant emerging system will unfortunately reflect the uninformed nature of people today. A grassroots transformation will take a long time. It is time to relearn the lessons of a caring community. The journey, in addition to hardship, can be an unexpected delight. It's like walking into a pathless forest not knowing when or where you will emerge. It's the journey that will challenge and change you, not the emergence. It's nothing less than a new frontier.
"The political system is so convoluted that politicians cannot get it to work for people even if they wanted to." –(Stone)
–Yes, it cannibalizes and renders its compost toxic. No fruit is fertilized. There is no future. The political system cannot be reformed by its own devices.
"It's nothing less than a new frontier." –(Stone)
–Yes. Only out of the ashes comes the emergence.
American politics and its infrastructural conventions are so antiquated that it resembles nothing less than a living death incarnate. A zombie married to the Frankenstein monster lurching repetitively through endless night. –(Jill Bains)
"American politics and its infrastructural conventions are so antiquated that it resembles nothing less than a living death incarnate. A zombie married to the Frankenstein monster lurching repetitively through endless night. –(Jill Bains)"
Ever realize how strange it is that conservatives constantly praise our system of government, yet every time we take over a new country and form its government, it is never anything like ours?
Oh come on, zmann. They may not be able to hold a candle to our level of corruption, but they do try. One thing they are nothing like is what their people want.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Lol, I didn't mean it that way. I mean mostly that the legislative branch is very different from ours, and the powers of the executive are often split by at least two people, a president and a prime minister.
We already have debtor's prison. What most people don't realize is that many low-income fathers ARE in jail right now because they can't pay their child-support. Judges have already found a way around the laws against debtor's prison by falsely renaming their "crime" contempt of court. Having been a single mother who raised three children alone with no child-support, believe me, I am all for non-custodial parents contributing to their children's welfare, and for the parents who actually have bank, (fancy houses,cars, etc.) I have no problem with them being thrown in jail for contempt of court. However, this is not how the system works. The rich never go to jail for their refusal to pay, but the poor DO go to jail for their inability to pay. Many judges now even get away with basing someones child support payment on the amount of money that they potentially COULD make, not on how much they DO make. This happened to my son-in-law, and he had to leave his home state in order to avoid prosecution for being unemployed and getting behind on his payments. The cash amount the judge ordered him to pay was not based on his income, it was based on what he COULD POTENTIALLY MAKE. These people do not care about mothers or children, or fathers, in the cases where the custodial parent is male. If they did, they would work with people. Instead, they throw them in jail where they will never be able to pay, and instead, are placed in a further downward spiral of debt because they now, also, owe the courts. I'm beginning to think that this is what the rich and powerful actually want; to put all of the poor people in jail - thereby silencing a huge portion of the population. Believe me, debtors prison is already here, and now they seek to expand it, from liability insurance, which is also not accessible to someone surviving on minimum wage, to child-support, and now to mandatory health insurance. We already have debtors prison...and it isn't right.
mauro, I believe your conclusion is it, in a nutshell. One can hardly avoid noticing that our voices have become meaningless - we have no say in the rigged political process and our government viciously stomps on our "rights" of assembly, dissent, and protest, no matter how peaceful. I don't have the answers, but it seems to me that something completely and shockingly different has to happen in order for this country to change the course it's on. Right now, there doesn't seem to be anyone - whether it's billionaires with a conscience or true anarchists capable of bringing the corrupt system down - that can effect "change we can believe in".
The most imprisoned society on the planet per capita. A sad commentary on a society that considers itself "free".
"These people do not care about mothers or children, or fathers, in the cases where the custodial parent is male. If they did, they would work with people." -- mauro
During the later 1970s, I ended up divorced and living as a single mom. I had what looked like a good job, but I was paid less than men who did the same management job -- somewhere between 25%-40% less. Part of my salary was based on sales, and there are good months and months that aren't so good. My base salary meant that I didn't qualify for any help from the state, except maybe food stamps. But to qualify, each month, I had to gather my receipts together -- rent, utilities, etc. -- and take them into social services for them to evaluate -- an all-day process. I qualified a couple of times, but mostly, I didn't. They could easily see that I had very little, if any, discretionary income. But, that didn't matter to them. Often, I fed my son, and then, I didn't eat. What else could I do? Finally, after being forced to steal a pair of shoes for my son, so that he could go back to school, I said -- enough! I found a second job, and barely saw my son. Those are the options that are laid out before human beings in this country. Empathy, compassion, etc. -- have been missing for a long time -- for decades!
As for debtor prisons -- I, too, see them on the horizon, and expanded. The mandate to buy health insurance, and the fines they plan to impose upon us, lead me to think that debtor prisons are a real possibility. It's very scary, isn't it?
Sioux Rose
KAY: I always shopped second-hand and my children still mock me for it today. However, they are learning PAINFUL lessons about money due to the current state of the economy now that they're on their own.
Your story reminds me of how Mary Madaline sneered on her CNN platform about all those feminist women who wanted to rush back to work, thus abandoning their children. It also angered me to hear the way this "issue" was framed, as if it was a CHOICE to work. Even for women lucky enough to have met and married men with whom they remained compatible over the course of their adult lifetimes (allotting time to raise the children as an intact parental union), with so many costs of living rising, many MARRIED women HAD to return to the work force,too. Of course for those of us who spent part of our lives as Mothers without a supportive partner, the need to return to work became far more insistent.
It's been said that America has strong family-values, but I'd say these only apply to the authoritarian ilk and their fundamentalist creedo. Far too little money goes to after school care or pre-school programs. American working mothers face so many challenges, not the least of which is often a salary less than that of their male counterparts. When I left teaching to work as a freelance writer, the many holidays and summer vacations posed major problems. I had to contend with my children while running the home and earning a living. Some women also have elderly relatives to juggle amid these other pressing time-demands. And stress is a killer.
All this makes me miss the clan system of Indigenous cultures. In such arrangements the elderly take care of the young, so that the adults can work. In this way all contribute to a communal society that allows each to potentially thrive. The atomistic, me-first, YOY orientation that has become the RAGE since Reagan, has cost us a lot more than bad economics. The price of what's been lost is incalculable in the collateral of human relationships, and principles of self-worth.
How many dreams got lost, how many hearts broken? It's led to a brutal care-less society seen on parade in senseless wars and dummies swearing against others having access to humane health care. America is fast becoming a zoo on display for all the world to observe. As NATIVE SON often states, we are the living example of those traps best NOT to fall into, a morality play in slow motion.
Sioux Rose
RMAURO: As a previously single-Mom who raised two daughters mostly without child support, to one who now dates a blue collar carpenter who has been court-ordered to pay a ridiculously inflated monthly sum (child support) or go to jail, I truly have lived both sides of this issue. In fact, it is the subject of a book I intend to begin this week, entitled, "Laid Off." Although the topic is a serious one, I plan to approach it with humor. The central male character to me is "everyman, USA" and his plight is a metaphor for the state of the nation, what with good jobs largely shipped overseas, etc. In any case, thanks for sharing.
It's clear that the vast majority of U.S. laws have departed from their intended ideals, and our justice system is mostly a charade. No where are its sins more apparent than in the case of the off-shore torture camps and how their victims are paraded before pseudo military courts to allege a cover of legitimacy. The times make for many tragi-comedies, if only one had the time and wit to pen them all into dramatic contexts! Literature has survived over the ages because it is one mirror humanity is willing to peer into. Sometimes through doing so, consicousness changes, and takes laws along on its shifted momentum. We are due for such a catharsis on a grand scale now!
However, if the Democrats insist on trading the common good for the favors of special interests, all the industry campaign donations in the world may not be enough to save them.
The Democrats are as totally corrupt as the Republicans. They have completely embraced the gangster form of capitalism practiced by their financial masters. They may throw some crumbs to the family dog but even those will be illusory. Get rid of both of those parties or there is no hope All the future will hold is more guttersnipes like George Wanker Bush and Obama.
Your expression "gangster form of capitalism" is redundant.
Just give me the same policy, coverage, and cost that my Congresscritter gets.
The "magic ingredient" is the gullibility of voters who believe Democrats are "The Lesser Evil." -- RichM
I agree with you!
The new "it" restaurant in D.C. is Tosca, and Democrat lobbyists, along with our elected officials, can often be found there doing business. Steve Elmendorf lobbies for Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Clear Channel, and can be found, regularly, at table 45. Although Tom Daschle isn't officially registered as a lobbyist, but instead is labeled an "advisor," he can be found at table 26 doing business for the corporations, etc. Heather Podesta, married to Tony Podesta who is brother to John Podesta (Clinton advisor, Obama advisor), lobbies for Eli Lilly, Cigna and Home Depot. The list goes on and on.
"The function of the Dem Party has nothing to do with "serving the public." Its mission, rather, is stabilizing the political system -- providing the illusion of "choice" while offering no real choice, & ensuring continuity of corporate rule." -- RichM
I think we all owe Nader an apology.
"Who knows how long this will last, How we've come so far so fast.
somewhere back there in the dust, that same small town in each of us.
I need to remember this so, baby, give me just one kiss.
Come and take a long last look, before we say goodbye.
You can lay your head back on the ground, let your hair fall all around,
Offer up your best defense,
But this is the end of the innocence."
"But this is the end of innocence."
–Damn! Let's hope so.
If so, it has has been a long time coming, but Americans have short memories.
And even when they do remember, it never seems to do much good.
They continue to hope when there is no hope.
But that is the point which must be reached. Only then is there an emergence.
if there is truth to the saying:
"being ruled by one's inferiors"....
whatever the QUALITY of Americans are as individuals and as a people...clearly - the United States of America is the greatest example of being ruled by "one's INFERIORS".
Republican, Democrats
both corporate whores, but working opposite sides of the street
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
There is a third party. It's about the size of the GOP or Dems. It is all the people who rarely or never vote. I think this is so because their lives never change no matter who is in office. The GOP and the leaders of the Democrats like it this way. Too many of this third party went to the polls in '08 with the audacity to hope and a feeling of empowerment and this shit has to be nipped in the bud. If this third party (as well as the rest of us) were to get anything close to accessible and affordable health care where would it all end? Way too many people could start voting in their own best interests and the next thing you know this place will seem like Denmark. The "powers that be" will have to start pandering to voters not lobbyists or be out on their asses, maybe even in the big house with their bankster cronies. The powers that be know this fight isn't about health care. It's about the future of the nation and their own privileged, fat-cat positions in it. Give we the people an inch and we could come back for a mile.
Healthcare Not Warfare. Anything else places profit above the needs of the people while keeping American militarism afloat.
It is very sad to watch. The Democrats had so much momentum, and while I don't exactly have the highest of hopes for them given how beholden they are to corporate America, I still didn't see them capitulating as severely as with the Baucus bill.
If this bill does end up passing, all the good will is gone.
As I see it, the only wild-card left is that single-payer, which, through the excellent efforts of all the great single-payer advocate groups like Single Payer Action, has at least been put on the radar. This despite all of the establishment (inc. the Dems and Baucus) efforts to keep it off.
My hope is that this wildcard will be the silver-lining and people will recognize that there really only two choices - single payer universal healthcare OR a variant of corporate system as it is. And, there is really no choice at all there.
www.dumpthesick.com
The minute I read Parry's line that Obama wants a Public Option, there was no need to read any further. He lost all credibility with that sentence.
Obama does not want a Public Option. Anyopne who keeps telling us this is full of shit or stupid. Obama's playing a cruel game. If he signs a bill with something called a Public Option it will be so shitty it's guaranteed not to threaten the profits of insurance companies. Then he can claim he tried.
Obama has never said he will not sign a bill without a strong Public Option. Those are the words of a president who wants something. But Obama has done the complete opposite. Says he wants a Public Option, but will sign a bill without it, just to get some kind of reform.
Sickening. He's confident we'll be grateful for the sorry scraps they toss our way. Read the comments by starstruck Obama supporters just falling all over themselves as they get a royal screwing called Obama's Health Insurance Reform. The shameless pigs don't even have the balls to call it health CARE reform. That's saying a lot.
When Obama said that health care reform was the belt while the public option was the suspenders, he as well as admitted that he believes it's superfluous, because who needs suspenders when you have a belt? That said all I need to know about Obama's true opinion about the public option. He doesn't give a damn about it.
That's where the article lost me, too. Has this author not listened to the words coming out of Obama's mouth since at least July?