In the wake of Congress Officially Castrating the Public Option, two disturbing news stories have come out that suggest just how much we needed a public option and how very weak and impotent the one we have really is.
No matter who of the final three candidates Democrats supported in the primary, most of us believed our eventual candidate and President would come out and fight hard for real healthcare reforms. We believed the soaring rhetoric and the desire to fight the Insurance company to change the system for working Americans and those who could not afford coverage. Well, the first weakness began when Democratic leaders scrapped single-payer before even sitting down at the table. Now, in an ultimate show of weakness and a leadership vacuum, White House aides once again are throwing the public option under the bus.
You know, single-payer was taken off the table before the table was ever sat down at by anyone. Now, most of the focus on healthcare is centered around the Baucus bill which is equivilant to more Corporate Welfare and does not even include a public option. While some Democrats are showing disgust at some of us that are being critical of our party's leadership, I believe that at this time in this debate and to effect the debate on policies that will follow after the conclusion of the healthcare fight, critical voices are now needed more than ever. To me, it seems as if most of our leaders in our party are merely running around in circles trying to avoid the real solutions Americans need to solve our healthcare crisis.
What started as a drive to insure tens of millions of uninsured Americans in turning into something else. What began as a drive to many of us to reform the healthcare system and end Insurance abuses that drive costs to the moon, deny coverage to the sick, and deny payments to those who have insurance when they become sick has become a race to mandate coverage, drop a public option to keep the real problem the insurance companies at bay and provide very real new profits to an industry that cannot regulate itself all while ignoring the priciples reform should be guided by. Hence, healthcare reform is becoming a big Corporate Welfare bill that scares the hell out of many. Joining their ranks are employers from non-profit companies. I guess since the whole debate is spriraling down into "how do we make more profits for people who do not deserve it" that should be expected.
Conservatives and Republican politicians would have us believe that the problem of 47 million Americans unisured is not a problem at all. They argue that those without health insurance are illegal immigrants, the very young who do not want insurance, or quite simply the very lazy who refuse to get off their duffs to get a job and buy their own insurance. While there are undoubtedly some who fall within those categories, the wide majority do not fit the Repubican scenario.
One of the main reasons we need healthcare reform is a lack of competition among insurance providers right now. Conservatives would have you to believe that a public option would raise costs and squash competition but actually just the opposite is true. Right now, in the health insurance industry costs are already sky-high and through lack of competition likely will remain that way without a public option.
With Healthcare Reform not getting done before the August recess Nancy Pelosi is setting the tone for the battle to win hearts and minds in the coming month-long debate. In the process of laying out the battle plan she is displaying a fighting spirit that helped sink George W. Bush's attempt at privitization of Social Security. An idea that has since proven if enacted millions of Seniors would have lost their livelihoods in the economic collapse.
Work has begun in the Senate on grinding out some kind of healthcare reform. However, work is going slow in the Senate where the minority can have more say. Unfortunately the "progress" that is being made on the bill does not seem like much progress to me.
This diary from yesterday detailed some of Mitch McConnell's (R-Insurance Companies) opposition to a public option for the millions of Americans and the 1.2 million Kentuckians left behind by the Health Insurance industry, their lobbyists and their bought and paid for lackeys in Washington. We know men like McConnell have always put their own greed and their own interests above the betterment of America as a whole, but the real numbers can be quite staggering.
