Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Kucinich's Health Reform Dissents Merit Consideration
Long before Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi began talking up health care reform as a top priority for the Democratic Party, Congress and America, Dennis Kucinich was doing so. Indeed, the former Cleveland mayor, Ohio legislator, two-time presidential candidate and now senior U.S. House members has across the past 35 years been one of the country's steadiest proponents of real reform of our broken health-care system.
So Kucinich's questioning of the reform legislation being advanced by President Obama and House Speaker Pelosi is neither casual nor uninformed.
The congressman from Ohio knows the intricacies of the health-care debate as well as any key player in Washington. And he objects to the compromises contained in the measure the president and the speaker are whipping House Democrats to support. "This bill doesn't change the fact that the insurance companies are going to keep socking it from the consumers," says Kucinich, who argues that, "The insurance companies are the problem and they are getting a bailout."
This is not a new complaint from Kucinich. Nor is it an unfounded concern.
Last fall, when the House was debating a better bill than the one Obama and Pelosi are now pushing, Kucinich raised objections that for the most part remain valid.
Reviewing the details of what would become the House version of reform legislation, he asked on the House floor: "Is this the best we can do? Forcing people to buy private health insurance, guaranteeing at least $50 billion in new business for the insurance companies?
Kucinich continued:
Is this the best we can do? Government negotiates rates which will drive up insurance costs, but the government won't negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies which will drive up pharmaceutical costs...Is this the best we can do? Eliminating the state single payer option, while forcing most people to buy private insurance.
If this is the best we can do? Then our best isn't good enough and we have to ask some hard questions about our political system: such as Health Care or Insurance Care? Government of the people or a government of the corporations.
Kucinich voted against the House bill, along with another passionate advocate for real reform, New York Congressman Eric Massa. Massa has resigned from the House, claiming that he was targeted by a White House that "(came) after me to get rid of me because my vote is the deciding vote in the health care bill." That leaves Kucinich in a lonely position. He's a progressive who favors fundamental reform, but he is not satisfied with the legislation as it now stands. As such, he finds himself targeted by an aggressive pressure campaign by White House aides and House Democratic whips.
But Kucinich's objections are sincere. And Obama and Pelosi would be wise to listen to them -- rather than simply try and "whip" the congressman to vote for legislation that can still be improved.
In particular, Kucinich has demanded that barriers to states developing single-payer "Medicare for All" programs be removed. Kucinich wants Congress to waive existing federal restrictions and to address federal laws that might be interpreted as supporting insurance company suits against states that provide more extensive coverage than is currently proposed by the president.
White House strategists and congressional leaders should know that Kucinich is not an outlier on this issue. The congressman has gained strong support for his practical proposals regarding state-based experimentation with "Medicare for All" initiatives -- on key House committees, among members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and from real-reform backers such as the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Progressive Democrats of America and Physicians for a National Healthcare Program.
This is not to say that Kucinich's approach is the right or wrong one. The point is that Obama, Pelosi and their lieutenants need to recognize that the congressman's dissents are based on principle. He is not seeking some sort of "Cornhusker kickback" or "Louisiana Purchase" deal. Rather, Kucinich is seeking to make what he sees as a flawed bill better.
As such, Democrats ought not be worrying so much about whipping him into shape as they should be listening to him -- and working with him. After all, what Kucinich is proposing is not extreme. It's what should be in the bill.
- Posted in
89 Comments so far
Show AllYou know, I'm getting really tired of the Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul show. These guys simply serve to make it appear there is real debate in Congress, as opposed to the reality of a stifling corporate unanimity.
Ron, join the Libertarians, Dennis, join the Greens. Till then, to hell with you both!
Since Kucinich actually represents what the Democratic party is supposed to be about, Obama, Rahm, Pelosi, Reid, and the rest ought to leave the Democratic party.
Either way, vote the candidate, not the political party.
What if the candidate's main function is to obscure the destructive nature of his party?
"What if the candidate's main function is to obscure the destructive nature of his party?"
LOL, you're suggesting Kucinich is obscuring the destructive nature of the Dems. From whom? Certainly not from voters who aren't following closely, because Obama, Rahm, Pelosi and Reid have that covered quite well.
Kucinich advised everyone to vote Obama (and Kerry and Gore). Where's the integrity in that?
Yeah, I remember..
That really hurt.
But I am loving what he's doing now. All the Dimwitts at DailyKos and Huffingnton Post are going nuts , calling for Kucinich's head.
I probably should send some money. I stop doing that when he sent me the email to vote for Kerry.
"Kucinich advised everyone to vote Obama (and Kerry and Gore). Where's the integrity in that?"
Yeah. I can't imagine Kucinich gained anything politically by supporting Obama. I was surprised by his support of Obama, too.
Either way, what's the point in voting for candidate X solely because candidate Y endorses candidate X?
Why refuse to vote for candidate A when you support the positions of candidate A but regret that candidate A endorsed candidate B?
You pose the question as if it were quite the conundrum.
It may be the case that candidate A's endorsement of candidate B calls into question the fundamental integrity or trustworthiness of candidate A, casting doubt on both A's actual commitment to the positions one finds attractive, and/or A's receptivity to positions one finds repugnant.
I don't know whether this was intentional, but you loaded, or at least skewed the question a bit by juxtaposing a strong position ("refuse to vote") with a mild objection ("regret" an endorsement). That's why I write "may be the case" as opposed to "must be the case".
To transpose the issue to another kind of transaction, it's like asking, "Why refuse to marry boyfriend A when you support the positions of boyfriend A but regret that boyfriend A slept with girlfriend B?" Why, indeed.
In fact, I daresay that in my whimsical scenario, people have accepted or rejected the Problematic Other according to their lights and idiosyncratic circumstances. I'm only noting that it's not necessarily such a foolish or unthinkable consideration.
This is a classic case of throwing out the baby with the bath water
As a Nova Scotian who worked as a phone captain from home for the Kucinich campaiagn in '08, and as a Canadian who enjoys the benefits of universal health care (my wife had a heart attack and emergency triple-bypass surgery in 2004 -- total cost to her: $14), I look south and see so much political insanity, and then a consistent, but lonely, source of progressive energy and good sense emanating from the representative from Ohio's 10th district. Dennis inspires!
If we idolise wealth, then we create poverty;
If we idolise success, then we create the inadequate;
If we idolise power, then we create powerlessness.
-- Thomas Cullinan, Order of St. Benedict
Another fantasy land article, pretending that Obama's Democrats aren't aware of Kucinich's valid points.
Another article based on what Obama should do if he really wanted to address the healthcare concerns of America.
Kucinich: "is this the best we can do?"
Well, Obama started by locking his plan into the existing employer based for profit monopolies. He made sweetheart deals that guaranteed drug company profits. And one sure thing about the Democratic bills is that they require people who currently can't afford health insurance, to buy the cheapest most useless defective junk product they can find, or be fined by the tax authorities.
Starting from that, leaving in place the status quo American system where people pay twice as much as Germans do for healthcare, well yes this is the best the Democrats can do.
Good call, John.
Over at dailykos all the Obamalaid drinkers are going nuts over Dennis K's excellent leadership on this issue, ranting on and on about how Dennis is going to wreck health care reform, as if what they're considering could be called reform.
With any luck, Kucinich WILL wreck Obamacare.
Obamacare is a corporate welfare program disguised as health care reform.
Rather than being a step forward, Obamacare will reverse the forward progress US health care reform made in 1965.
A while ago I watched Kucinich defend his position on The Ed Show. Ed Schultz thinks Dennis doesn't get it, but it's really Ed who doesn't get it. Ed respectfully disagreed with Kucinich, respecting his principles but disagreeing with his vote. But it became clear that what Ed really objected to was Dennis standing in the way of an "Obama victory," which to Ed is nothing more or less than handing one to the Republicans. Ed could see one or two favorable things about the bill, mainly the no-prior-conditions as a way of rejecting health care, but the main thing was simply assuring Obama a victory. This is how shallow Obama supporters in fact are. They don't care how utterly worthless the bill is, they just want Obama to win this one.
Ed championed single-payer, then he baited and switched. He's a sellout. I stopped watching MSNBC a couple months ago.
They never tell the truth about healthcare or the war, they're just cheerleaders for Obama--Rachel, Ed, and even Keith.
They're all assholes.
Or maybe he studied the issue further and thoughtfully changed his mind. Recognizing perhaps that killing the bill will:
a) result in more meaningless death, destitution and pain,
b) will usher in the Republican's in the mid-terms thereby destroying the ONLY opportunity this country has to BEGIN meaningful change,
and
c) perhaps he realizes that ROME or say 1/6th of the economy can't be built/rebuilt in a day or a SINGLE bill.
You folks seem to think that all 2300 or 2700 pages of this bill, depending on who was talking at the Health Care Summit, will be the end all be all of this major social change. Are you so black and white (nieve) in your views that you don't think this new safety net will be tweaked and changed for years to come through amendments, new bills and other vehicles used by government to finesse systemic change?
This is just the beginning of what will ultimately become a single payer system. But it will NEVER EVER come into existence at all if you self-proclaimed Progressives and Independants don't get with the program and push it.
You hate Republicans and yet you are just as uncomprimising and frankly uncaring as they are. Peoples lives are on the line as you sit here and condemn what frankly is a huge step towards your ultimate goal of a single payer system. Not a baby step but a HUGE step that this country desperately needs to take. If you screw this off 45,000 people will die this year as a result of your intransigence. Maybe Ed was thinking about those folks and didn't want them on his conscience. If you can live with that then your no better than my sister the Republican.
ARTICULATE IN WHAT WAY THIS BILL FIXES THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM! I have been politically active for years, I take a back seat to no one and am tired of your self righteous preaching with no specifics. Have any idea about how single payer came about in Canada dear? They had a system just like ours, then a single province put in place single payer, of course by a socialist (too bad he didn't take advice from people like you. Maybe by now they'd be incrementally closer to their current system, say a generate away or so. Gotta have faith in the kids). It was a success and the system spread nationally. The NHS in Britain was put in place at once in a country destroyed by war. This country is incapable of solving the big problems facing us because of incrementalism. We can't solve any damn problem because of parliamentary procedures, the inherently anti-democratic structure of our government (we're a "republic", a broken one, not a democracy) and weak kneed apologists who are always arguing against fighting for things that take time and sacrifice. I have news for you, since this bill DOES NOT solve the fundamental problems of the system, eliminating or weakening this horrible bill is also an election away. What if, 10 years from now the right wins on something not related to health care? They'll simply dismantle or underfund it, if it doesn't implode by then on its own. Then what? Another Stephanie will come forward arguing for SOMETHING, ANYTHING, that is better than the present. Then ten years later...
Look how hard it is for the right to go after Social Security (although they'd love to). Once you give the people a universal system it becomes THEIRS, not a corporation's, or a government who makes you buy from a corporations, it is theirs collectively and it will be a war to take it away. This bill is not that and will never be. It will fail and it will harm REAL attempts at universal health care.
Amen!, Dennis - - hang in there - - support for your ideas is increasing and causing more and more people everyday to see the wisdom of your ways!
Delivering 30 million new customers to the insurance industry while keeping drug prices at current levels seems to be the only promise Obama remembers making or plans to keep.
Go Dennis Kucinich. Kill this bill. Progressives will get single payer in the US sooner or later no thanks to Obama and his DLC/Corporate cronies or any Republican.
Obama's secret things to do list once he takes office:
1) No prosecutions, no investigations, make the last 8 years precedent
2) Make thing right for my Wall Street/Banker/Corporate contributors
3) Keep the war going at all costs - escalate!
4) Deliver 30 million paying customers to insurance companies
5) Repeal the estate tax for my 0.02% base
6) Institute a draft (war machines need cheap blood as well as oil)
7) Retire and play golf with Bush and Clinton and go on the speaking circuit. Write my memoirs.
You forgot
8) Raid social security and Medicare to gut the last safety nets beneath the rabble.
WHAT ABOUT THE MEDICAID EXPANSION?!
Everybody is ignoring the fact that the Democratic bill adds 15 million people to the Medicaid (Medical in California) rolls, and raises doctors fees to win more doctors to the plan. This means that 15 million of the poorest of the poor will be in a Single Payer System.
I'm in Medical and it is pretty damn good, although now the Schwazenegger fiscal train wreck has recently removed dentistry and optometry. All the rest of my medical needs (I'm 67, so they're mounting) are pretty well taken care of. When I had nearly fatal pneumonia last year, Medical kept me in the hospital for five days, for free.
The expansion of Medicaid will cover my homeless friends, some of whom I have seen die for lack of health care. Did you know that in San Francisco (population 750,000) about 150 homeless people die in the streets every year. Medicaid will save some of them.
Individuals up to an income of about $14,000 a year, and families of four up to $29,000 will be eligible, based on 133% of poverty rate, although many House Dems want the level raised to 150%. Since the Feds will pay !00% of State medicare for the first 5 years, I'm likely to get my dentistry back. There will also be an enlargement of the SCHIP rolls for children.
I love Dennis Kucinich, and I agree with him. We should have universal Medicare and eliminate the jackal insurance companies. But I hope he votes for this bill. It will save thousands of the lives of the very poor, as Medicaid saved mine.
If you want to expand Medicaid of Medicare to include everybody, here's the plan. Get out and defeat every legislator who opposed the "Public Option," Democrat or Republican, and replace them with a Single Payer candidate. Go to the next state if you have to. That's harder than blogging, but more likely to work.
I have a better idea: reject Obama's "reform" and start over.
And it's clear that protests have minimal impact on the current political process. GOP/Dem Campaign contributors have to be motivated to support ending wars and start supporting single payer. Obama once supported single payer, too. Once the contributors got to him, he changed his tune.
Was that "blogging" too easy? It was easier than going to the next state, but I wouldn't count on many candidates staying single payer for long unless those giving them the cash want them to go that way.
Sorry Ausername,
If you start over, exactly who is going to vote for your better bill? The 41 Republicans will certainly filibuster everything; the Democrats have shown no inclination for a "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster; and the "reconciliation process" will not cover an entire new bill, only the House amendments. And there are plenty of Dems who would vote against anything more "left," including the Stupak idiots who want to end abortion. Do you think you can wave a magic wand and make them disappear? In the real world, it's this bill with a few improvements, or nothing. And if it's nothing, the 2010 elections will be another 1994 "Contract with America," only worse.
I'm more interested in the lives that can be saved, because mine and those of many of my friends are among them.
If you want to start an independent movement or party, as I do, one good way would be to run candidates against Democrats and Republicans who were bad on health care.
In the meantime, I would prefer to save the lives that can be saved, which will not be inconsiderable in the current bill.
PS to Ausername. There are a lot of bloggers whose intelligence I respect. If you want to be among them, try to be a little more thoughtful, less curt, and less automatically reactive. Dennis Kucinich won his first race in what had been thought a conservative district. We can multiply those districts, but it takes work and thought.
The scare tactics about what will happen if Obama's reform is not passed no longer work for me.
And as long as campaign contributors call the shots, when you "multiply those districts" with candidates like Obama, those same candidates will reject your agenda within the next election cycle, even if those who voted them into office travel to "organize" in another state instead of merely reading and writing comments here.
Ausername,
Hi!
Well said.
Chelsea
It's a bribe plain and simple. Not to say it isn't a good bribe for once that might go to serve real people, but basically it comes at the cost of billions more for the insurance companies. And really, already there is talk of scaling back Medicare, Medicaid and other "entitlements" as part of the deficit fighting measures. I think you'll see this crumb disappear very fast.
Medicaid is not Medicare. It's the poor people getting the shit end of the stick.
A friend of mine in NY has Medicaid, she said it's humiliating to have the world know you're poor and to be treated like a second class citizen having the low "status" Medicaid has.
MEDICARE FOR ALL WHO WANT IN--Equally good treatment for ALL.
Why should the poor be designated to one type of insurance whilst others get better treatment/access?
Up until a few months ago I sat on the board for community clinic for nearly 8 years. Got to tell you our 15 clinics provided nothing but the best care and made a point of letting our patients know that they are number one with us. We served predominately the uninsured, and those on Medicaid/Medicare. If you've got insurance (Medicaid/Medicare/or Blue Cross Blue Shield) or not you will get treatment from us across the board sans any humiliation. That's a firing offense. Don't have any money...the doors open and we want to see you anyway so we can help you establish a medical home. Stigma oftentimes is less in the eyes of the institution than it is in the eyes of the individual who feels ashamed of asking for help when they genuinely need care. We are programmed by society to feel that way.
This bill sucks. Here are a few predictions. It will probably pass. The Senate will weasel out on public option. It will be interesting to see how the young and healthy people react to being forced to buy crap. The insurance vampires will get around the no preexisting clause by simply pricing it beyond the reach of suffering people. There are no criminal penalties in the bill so the insurance leeches can still break the new regulations and risk nothing more than lawsuits which will be heard by judges and juries sympathetic to corporate rule.
This Rube Goldberg contraption will be difficult to unravel.
That is why nothing is better than this mess.
Once again Eagle Bill,
This bill places an additional 15 million people on Single Payer Medicaid. You probably didn't know that. Most people don't. To me, giving doctors (for free) to those very poor people, who are a large chunk of the 45,000 who die every year for lack of care, is worth the deficiencies of the rest of the bill.
A good fight now will cost only as much as we've already been paying in terms of hardship and death. A really horrible compromise now will definitely cost more lives in the long term, and will make the fight that much harder in the future because the whole system will have been put into the hands of the predators who've already been living on sweat, blood, and death. This is a war, and we're being manhandled into a situation in which we lose either way, and you can bet the insurance industry is drooling at the idea of a whole market held captive to a legal mandate, one which leaves the insurance companies with no real restraint. My bet is that they're doing as they've done in the past by railing against legislation they actually want, in order to fool most people into supporting it. You vote your own conscience, and I'll vote mine. I'm in a position where I'll get nothing, even with a weak and watered down 'public option' as Obama conceives of the idea. I have everything to lose if I get hurt and lose what little mobility I have left. I'm self employed, but that's kind of a joke because work related injuries have left me disabled and unemployable - and with no insurance. And I am a single parent with children. I don't want my children to still be trying to fight an even more firmly cemented corporate state, having learned to call these the 'good old days' because they've never known better. I'm sorry for whoever of your friends die because of a lack of health care. But I'll be just as sorry for those who STILL die because we didn't fight hard, now.
Laurenceofberk, I suppose that you are aware that this bill will also cut $500 million from Medicare/Medicaid, of course you don't.
Ah....
How about killing this horrid bill and then passing through reconciliation putting those 15 million people on Medicaid? Why not put all the people on Medicaid that would need subsidies?
The founder of DailyKos, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, said tonight on Olbermann's Countdown that Kucinich should be challenged in a primary this year for not voting for the Senate bill/reconciliation bill deal. (If he doesn't.)
This is a good example of a so-called progressive (Markos Moulitsas Zúniga) abandoning both the principle of opposing corporate domination of health care, and abandoning the effectiveness of saying "no" as an important way to negotiate.
This is a clear example of Markos Moulitsas Zúniga being a fake progressive and a collaborator with the corporate Democrats.
Markos has always been a moron and a fraud. He's a blow-dried, panting little techno-courtier. Can you imagine that guy in twenty years? A great, fat goon clogging up the television with his consensus stupidity? I'm going to laugh my ass off when his rotten party of corporate toadies gets run out of power in November.
Oh yeah, and Kucinich will keep his seat, despite the best efforts of AIPAC to get rid of the last member of Congress that might even whisper a word of truth about Israel.
That milquetoast Daily Kos asshole blamed Kucinich for the plight of the uninsured this evening on MSNBC.
Universal single payer is the only way to go. Thank you Dennis for sticking by your principles.
Right on. Now leave the party, Dennis. If Sanders could manage it so can you. Do you really want to be associated any longer with principle-free sh*theads like Markos and his ilk?
It is Kucinich who is right and all the other progressives who are planning to violate their pledge and vote yes who are wrong. The other “progressives” swore more than once that they would not vote for a right wing bill with no public option. Now we will apparently see they are liars and I honestly don't care if they lose their seats to right wingers after voting for laws that will do almost nothing in the short run, do at least as much bad as good in the medium term, and most definitely do more harm than good in the longer term (15 years and more).
In fact, it would be nice to see everyone who votes in favor of the enhanced looting by the health insurance companies that these proposals will enable to be defeated. This would clear the decks and pave the way for a new center-left party in the US.
And Mr. Nichols, the principals involved are not the only reasons why a true progressive must vote no. It is also that the health insurance subsidies are going to further damage the economy at a time when it is teetering on the brink of catastrophe. Americans do not seem to understand (as most Europeans do due to a rougher and much longer economic history) that no matter how bad an economy is it can always get worse. Single payer, as all the reputable countries have realized, is an economic necessity, not a social luxury.
True progressives do not take gambles with the economy when there is already a 25-30 million jobs deficit. Rather, true progressives are supposed to support the availability of jobs for those who need them over and above everything else. But these new laws if passed will not lower total health costs for businesses or individuals. Any reduction in health inflation will be minimal at best, trivial at worse, and will be ridiculously small compared with how much real, no pretending, and no wishful thinking cost containment is really needed for the US. Unless single payer is adopted, health costs will remain excessively high and thus the severely depressing effects those costs have on job creation will continue.
It is logically and clearly true that progressives must support single payer and only single payer or they are not only voting for an inferior health system but they are also failing to help rescue the job market (with lower health costs) when that market is already partially collapsed.
Shame on anyone who supports subsidizing already well off physicians, health insurance companies, and so forth at the expense of job creation for those who have virtually no income.
And Markos Moulitsas is a whiny fool who is hardly a progressive.
What an utterly abysmal mockery of Democracy. Everyday, the Democratic Party is showing itself to be an absolute fraud -- as militarist, corporatist, and banker friendly as the Republicans, if not worse, raising false expectations and then dashing them, leaving even more people in despair. All these so-called progressives braying for Kucinich's blood are showing their true malevolent colors.
Sadly, there is a large coalition that would like to remove Kucinich. But if Kucinich is removed, the Democratic Party will give up any hope of change.
Yeah, It is truly disgusting. They like to use feel-good words "Hope, Courage, change Blah Blah Blah"
But in reality, they are truly vindictive and hateful, calling for Kucinich' head. They will probably try to pull the same dirty tricks that they did with Nader.
Under the 8 year illegal occupation of the WH under the Chimp and his Sith master, after a stolen election, and an appointment to the Chief Executive by the Supreme court, after a highly ambiguous set of events which led to the largest restructuring of our governmental system in my lifetime, followed by three illegal and immoral wars which have already cost over a million lives, and the creation of a police state that surpasses the dreams of Stalin, Mao, or Mussolini...
I still had hope. I had anger and moral outrage, and I was shocked beyond belief at how quickly a population could be fragmented into nothing more than rival hate groups. But I had hope. I just knew there was a sane majority out there who were just as outraged as I was, and who wanted the insanity to end.
But I always knew that the Democratic party was run by the same sons of bitches that ran the Reprobate party. The only differences were the tactics, the targets of their terrorism, and the sorts of bad guys they trotted out to instill that fear - whether it was a Snidely Whiplash or Boris & Natasha, or some guy hiding in a cave in Afghanistan. To scare liberals they whip out images of skin headed neonazis with guns and bibles. To scare the gun toting, war supporting, anti-abortion, anti-government, pro-corporate, Jesus loving conservatives they pull out images of communists and islamic crusaders.
I never allowed myself a moment of hope for any real change to come from any Demorat candidate ultimately chosen as a corporate figurehead. I knew hope was a dangerous thing when mixed with deception, however thin the deception. Obama's vote on the telecom immunity for illegal spying on American citizens gave me the head's up on who Obama really was. I knew that a democratic victory was not going to be even close to what anyone hoped, and I knew that none of the Bush policies would be reversed or corrected. There would be no Constitutional restoration, and the rule of law was a thing of the past. But what I hadn't counted on was just how effectively hope disappeared. Obama has succeeded in killing the hope that had managed to live through eight years of the most corrupt presidency in U.S. history. And Obama is legitimizing all those things that outraged people enough to elect the SHIT out of him. And what does he do in return for all that Progressive support? Nothing. Actually, if all he did was nothing it would be an improvement. But instead he demonizes his base and divides the party amongst themselves while continuing to sell off our republic. In fact the Democratic party was horrified to find that it has a filibuster-proof majority, and had to pull a fast one so that they could hang onto the filibuster as an excuse for doing nothing, and handing the WH right back to the neonaz...erm, neoconservatives. And the Reprobates won't waste a second on infighting, you can count on it. They are utterly united in their cause of 'every man for himself'. We have one conservative Democrat getting his demands met by playing hardball on the issue of federal funding of abortions, while the rest of the party blames progressives for blocking progress by holding out for real reform, instead of accepting the few crumbs of decency left in this shredded healthcare bill (horribly outweighed by even worse policy changes that will surely lead to worse than we are now experiencing at the hands of the insurance industry). And it is progressives who are to blame if this bill fails (as is most certainly should)?
I could remain stationary and find myself a leftist extremist at the rate the alleged liberal party moves rightward. If anyone still believes a single piece of propaganda ever spewed at them (in their entire lives) from a school, church, or television, then they just aren't using their eyes, ears, and brains. I now firmly believe that humanity has been the victim of protection rackets created by gangsters since the dawn of recorded history. It's what we've been bullshitted into calling 'civilization'. Count the dead. Hunter/gatherer societies were positively blissful and serene by comparison. The uncivilized are far less bloodthirsty and far more compassionate. And they knew respect for life. Civilization says 'you can't put a price on human life', which is code for 'human life has no value'.
Insurance companies are dramatically increasing rates on the eve of health care passage. Yet their stocks rise as the chances for passage go up. The two are not contradictory if you assume that at least some of the rate increases are timed to encourage the passage of a plan that brings compulsory coverage and the ability to charge whatever they like. A plan that will be much more costly to the consumer, even as it decreases the federal outlay by reducing Medicare costs.
The Democrats are getting ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The President's leadership should be repudiated and instead his party needs to pass a bill with a robust public option that can cover the majority of Americans.
If this bill passes you can bet the budget will be based upon 'current' insurance rates with a gradual rate of increase designed (not) to keep up with inflation. This is why I think the insurance industry secretly wants this bill to pass more than it wants to kill it. The same game was played before passage of the Federal Reserve Act. The corporate trusts positively SCREAMED that it was bad for them. "Please don't throw me into that thar briar patch..."
Progressives are a piece of work. They hate everything regardless of party. I used to think that was refreshing but now I just find it tedious. Especially when you're talking about potential Health Care Reform. I can't help but wonder how many posters on this board are dying for want of care or drowning in a sea of medical debt. Your intolerance where it pertains to the reforms now being made possible tell me that for the most part you are healthy and unencumbered.
I on the other hand am an UNINSURABLE. Up until 9 months ago when the recession wiped out my 16 year career in the non-profit sector I worked for myself as a consultant and self-paid all of my medical bills. Because I was discriminated against in the current system I went without health care, including critical maintenance medications; when my parents were killed in a car accident 2 years ago my health took a serious nose dive for which I am now drowning in medical debt. My 13 month old grandson was in the car with my parents, my daughter and I have $ 25,000.00 in medical debt (on top of my personal medical debt) still left to pay, that's our 20% out-of-pocket share after my daughters insurance. My parents and I owned a duplex together, I planned to retire there to take care of my parents; my daughter's medical insurance company came in and sued the estate for the other 80% and I ultimately lost my home. A 1000 words isn't enough to tell folks like you what people like me deal with every day. While you quibble and complain and call for a "clean sheet of paper" or whatever...we struggle to survive. The Democrats have put a plan out there, it's not perfect, it will take tweaking over the years, ultimately though if you fence sitters would get off your tushes it might just lead you into a single payer system in ten years. It's a beginning which is certainly more than folks like myself have right now. Grow up.
Show me a single instance in which putting a really weak plan into place has ever resulted in further 'tweaking' for the better. I'll show you ten instances for every one of yours where subsequent tweaking only whittled away those improvements. A weak bill now will never get stronger. The only 'teeth' in this bill are aimed at people that don't buy their piece of crap. There is nothing putting a legal boot on the necks of the insurance industry. And by the way, I'm in the same situation as you. Maybe you'd prefer to leave your children the impression that these are the 'good old days' too, and let them fix things.
Maybe I think my children AND yours are sharp enough to fix things. You don't seem to have much faith in them yourself. Is your objection to the current bill that people would have to buy into the system in order to expand the risk pool? If your going to have a national health policy you have two options people either buy into the system or the people are taxed to pay for the system. Your going to pay for it one way or the other. Which way would you prefer? I'm just curious.
This is not about how sharp anyone's children are to fix things. Nobody is mistrusting anyone's children. This is about the people's trust in government and whether they are working for and with us or against us. I would like to have supported the current bill going forward but after carefully watching how over the course of one year, Congress has taken out all the good stuff but left in the bad and added more poison pills, this bill isn't anything close to health care reform. There is a difference between paying for health care that you will receive and paying and not getting anything in return. This bill excludes the public option and is a giveaway to the big drug and insurance companies with no penalties or regulations on their corporate behavior. Obama made a grave mistake trying to work with the existing system, already flawed, thinking that he would fix it when he has instead allowed Congress to worsen it. We all will have to pay for taxes but where are you tax dollars going towards, government providing decent service with it or wasting it on more military spending and bailing out Wall Street? Even with this current bill, insurance thugs are still free to deny and overcharge at their own will. Is this the hope and change you wanted to believe in? I am sorry but this bill has been watered down and poisoned to the level of being unacceptable.
Good afternoon Stanley,
I'm not sure I understand the statement "There is a difference between paying for health care that you will receive and paying and not getting anything in return." Are you saying Obama care would charge you a premium and then not deliver on the service? One of the best primary health care models in the country is paid for by your taxes right now it's called Community Health Clinics. There's 8,000 of them currently serving the uninsured, Medicaid/Medicare, and regular insured folks from across the spectrum. Your tax dollars pay for this system every day and it is one of the best value added programs your government has to offer. You all seem to think that government can't make this work but it's been working right under your noses for the last 40 years and guess what you all pay for it.
Not only that, your Stimulus dollars just got done building a whole round of new clinics just to help keep pace with all our newly uninsured. Lots of jobs created on that as well; was that a waste of money too? Your government has been administering health care in all kinds of areas, the VA, Medicaid, Medicare, Community Health Centers etc for a million years. It seems to me that seniors are pretty darn happy with their care and I know personally that Community Health Centers work; I'm not in the military so I can't speak on that area. I do know one thing I currently have great health care through my new employer...90/10 split on mine. I could go to Vanderbilt for my care right now, but you know what I wouldn't trade my little old clinic for love nor money because I know I get great care there. That's my medical home.
Stanley a year ago this month I went to DC to represent our 15 clinics during health appropriations week. Every year health clinics (federally funded) come together in DC to lobby (oh there's that word) to insure funding for our clinics which serve the uninsured, the homeless, the helpless, insured and others alike. We struggle daily to fill the gap that you want the public option to fill without you ever realizing that we've been doing it for 40 years. I was sitting in Bart Gordon's office with other clinic board members and staff from around the country and I pressed him on the point of the Uninsurables which is what I was for 30 years as a self-employed person with health issues. At that time Gordon said folk like me wouldn't make it into the bill because the Republicans wouldn't allow it. That was a year ago and today we are in both the house and senate versions.
Here's a link for you, just a summary at 38 pages, but heck the way it's laid out makes things nice and clean for dumb demies like me. Show me where the sell out is because I really want to see it. Oh yeah that public option...look closely and what your going to see is the frame work we need to make that happen in the not too distant future. http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/housesenatebill_final.pdf
The reason that even Republicans supported community health clinics, though not as much as Democrats, was to evade responsibility and distract the public away from the real culprits that are Big Insurance and Big Pharma. The link you provided already shows that insurance companies are not regulated other than those weak market regulations likely to be later repealed when nobody is watching and that government is not providing any coverage unlike other developed nations with universal health care. Since that means that people are still held hostage by Big Insurance and that Obama and his party in Congress are washing their hands off on true health care reform that yes, it's more taxation without representation. There isn't even a public option and I will never ever forgive President Obama for betraying us with his drop in support of the public option and there are no excuses. I will discuss that link you gave on a separate post on this thread but dropping the public option or severely restricting it is inexcusable. I am glad to hear that you have a good employer giving you good coverage but that is not the case even among the employed and especially for temporary workers, mandating them steep prices with no bang for the buck isn't going to sit well with them. The bill summary you gave already shows that Medicare will be further compromised to partially pay for this bill.
Speaking of VA and Medicare, in Donna Summer's article, maxpayne pointed out the ongoing privatization of those services. I would hope that the community clinics aren't in the business of outsourcing to overseas labor but the budget crunches in some states might make that a possibility. That isn't to say that I don't support community health clinics and I am glad that the Democrats are funding them but as long as the big insurance and drug companies are still free to financially fleece the public, the strain on the clinics is likely to increase to the point that they could turn into for-profit and hence the privatization of them.