Remember when the Public Option was dead?? Remember that it could not get enough votes to pass the Senate?? Well, now it appears that if that is so it is not because of the will of the American people. Yes, it appears as if the Public Option is more popular among the American people than the Baucus bill.
Despite the consensus in the media that the junk reforms of Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee are written in stone to become law, many believe they do not go far enough. In the House, there is still plenty of support for a robust public option. They seem to realize mandating coverage without a vehicle to drive down costs is political suicide for our party. For her part, Speaker Pelosi is still pitching the public option.
The legislation the Senate Finance Committee will vote on next week relies heavily on Co-ops to help cover the uninsured. It discards a robust public option, or any public option completely. It also mandates that uninsured Americans must buy insurance with subsidies to help them do it. Senators Baucus and Conrad are intent on including this model into law and voting against any more Progressives ideas such as a Public Option and single-payer.
So we are now finding out the answers to some of our questions about which members of Congress actually represent We, the People...and which ones represent, Them, the Corporate Masters.
We have seen a Democratic Senator propose a policy that would put people in jail for not buying health insurance and a Democratic President who has taken numerous public beatings from those on the left side of the fence for his inability to ram something through a group of people...and yes, folks, the entendre was intentional.
But most of all, we’ve been asking ourselves: “why would Democratic Members of Congress who will eventually want us to vote for them vote against something that nearly all voting Democrats are inclined to vote for?”
Today’s conversation attempts to answer that question by looking at exactly how money and influence flow through a key politician, Montana’s Senator Max Baucus—and in doing so, we examine some ugly political realities that have to be resolved before we can hope to convince certain Members of Congress to vote for what their constituents actually want when it really counts.
Unions have long been one of the greatest vehicles to propel workers into the middle-class. It is no surprise that as the unions were broken down, the middle-class diminished and took the brunt of the eventual crashed economy because quite frankly, not many in our government defended them. As is the case with Universal Healthcare.
Keith Olbermann MSNBC So I propose tonight one act with two purposes. I propose we, all of us, embrace the selfless individuals at the National Association of Free Clinics. You know them, they conducted the mass health care free clinic in Houston that served 1,500 people. I want a mass health care free clinic every week in the principle cities of the states of the six senators key to defeating a filibuster against health care reform in the Senate. I want Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor to see what health care poverty is really like in Little Rock. I want Sen. Max Baucus to see it in Butte. I want Sen. Ben Nelson to see it in Lincoln. I want Sen. Mary Landrieu to see it in Baton Rouge. I want Sen. Harry Reid to see it in Las Vegas.
While the junk reform in the Senate Finance Committee are being sold as the only solution to healthcare reform it still seemingly has not garnered the votes to even clear that Committee. That is because all Republicans are opposed to any changes to the current system and will vote against it, and two Democrats Ron Wyden and Jay Rockefeller seem to realize suggesting more corporate welfare in this economy is a bad idea.
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.
Well about the best news coming out of the Senate Finance Committee is that the corporate welfare bill drafted in that body is not the final bill and many are seeking to change it. Even as the press has hailed it as the bill we will get, many in the Senate and House are drooling to make much needed changes. It has already begun.
Well, the good news is that healthcare reform has reached an historical first as it now appears that legislation will emerge to be debated in the full bodies of the House and Senate. The bad news is that it appears that what will be debated is not real healthcare reform, but yet more corporate welfare that has succeeded in the last few decades in shrinking the middle-class, stagnating wages, and crashing our economy. I have said all along that a healthcare bill just for the hell of passing one is a bad thing, and on this historical cusp I stand by that.
You know, it seems like the Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee would be quite pleased with the shape of that legislation. I mean, it is basically a Corporate Welfare bill that mandates coverage providing millions of new costumers for big insurance while not providing the American worker with the protections of a robust public option. In fact, it reads like a Republican wrote it, but of course with Max Baucus in the lead, one basically did.
As many people suspected, the Max Baucus Corporate Democrat coalition and the Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee effectively stabbed Progressives in the back by voting down the Public Option. Several Progressive Senators tried to inject the public option into the bill but Baucus and his kindred spirits among Corporate Democrats and Republicans successfully beat it back. In the end he was joined by four other Corporate Democrats who feel much more at home with the robber-barons in the insurance industry than supporting the huge majority of Americans that prefer a public option.
Over the last many weeks Progressives have not only been told that single-payer is "off the table", but now many are attempting to convince us that even a viable pulblic option is a non-starter. Lost on them seems to be the fact that poll after poll shows a wide majority of Americans support the idea of more choice through competition, something the health insurers have obviously not provided. Well, some Progressive groups are tired of being in the majority of public opinion but apparently in the minority of lawmaker thought. Now, they are fighting back with ads to try and put pressure on those who would ignore the will of the people.
When Max Baucus released his "compromise" bill it seemed to finally reach some bi-partisanship. For the first time in a long time Progressives and Conservatives seemed to agree on something. They both hated the bill, albeit for different reasons. For Conservatives, they hate anything that is called Healthcare reform, and Progressives hated the fact that the bill reeked of something we have seen far too much of in the last several decades, Corporate Welfare.
With so much protest over the Lemon of a bill that amounted to more Corporate Welfare, Max Baucus is trying to shine his lemon. About the only thing that Republicans, who want no reform whatsoever and Progressives, who want real reforms to improve the system can agree on is the Baucus bill is terrible. It imposes a Corporate Welfare mandate upon working America, no mandate for employers, and no public option to keep insurance companies honest. With all these glaring holes, a few patches are simply not enough.
With all the fanfare we have known for quite some time now that the Baucus "compromise", which none of those we compromised with supports would not include a public option and would impose mandated coverage. While being hailed in the press as the only way we can get a bill it appears as if several Democrats even in the Senate may be opposed to it, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has lukewarm support at best.
As Max Baucus finishes his Corporate Welfare bill in the Senate the good news is it appears to face opposition from both sides. We knew that Republicans would oppose any kind of healthcare reform, but Democrats too are not sold on the Baucus brand of Healthcare Reform. It simply does not go far enough after imposing a mandate to help lower-income Americans who cannot afford coverage.
Some of the best news that could come out today has the Baucus junk compromise on healthcare stalling in the "Gang of Six". This bill is also getting nervous glares from governors in both parties as it will force their already cash-strapped states to foot huge amounts of the costs of any healthcare reform through Medicaid. As predicted, Republicans on the panel and Republicans in general are going to oppose any kind of reform to the system.
