There are many, many reports out now that the Obama administration has already made a deal with the health care industry, and corporate controlled Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, on a health insurance package that does not include the public option.
A provision that removes the public option from the bill is a poison pill that is intended to kill any real reform and keep the health care system exactly as it is now (except even more profitable by pushing more government subsidized Americans into the private insurance industry's coffers).
So, the battle that is being played out now is not between Republicans and Democrats. It's not even between conservative Democrats and progressive ones. Or between the White House and Congress. No, the battle is instead between moneyed interests and the people.
If conservatives knew what was going on, they might be enraged to find out that all of their representatives are already bought and paid for. The only question for them now is whether they are going to take a bigger piece of the lobbyist pie or the Democrats are by better capitulating to corporate demands. That's the real battle. And in that battle, real conservatives should actually be on our side in demanding that their representatives work for them rather than the corporate lobbyists.
So, the public option is not Obama's litmus test on how liberal he is. It is not his litmus test on this particular issue of health care reform. No, it is his litmus test as to whether he is bought and paid for.
That's heavy language, but it is absolutely true. I supported Barack Obama but I did not farm out my brain or my judgment to him. And it is now fairly clear that he does not intend to do as he says. He will not actually fight for the public option. He is not interested in real health care reform. He is interested in politics and the appearances of political victories. He is interested in bragging rights and appeasement of the system. He is interested in grabbing a bigger piece of the corporate lobbyist pie for himself and his party. He is interested in maintaining the status quo while pretending to do the exact opposite.
It is fairly clear, but not perfectly clear. Maybe he will have a change of heart or mind and reverse direction. But we're going to find out either way. If he jettisons the public option as it appears he is ready to do, then he never meant a word of all that talk about change and taking on lobbyists. He was a pawn of the system all along and we were the rubes who believed his pretty words.
Or he can prove that he is a strong and brave fighter who was outplaying and outsmarting us all. That appearances are not what they appeared to be and that he had a plan all along to bring about real change. Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't it be great if we could believe in any of our leaders just once?
He has all of these options in front of him. And that is why this is his litmus test. Will he continue to bend to the lobbyists time and time again? Will he prove to be a real leader who can bring real change? Most importantly, is he actually going to try or was it all a front? That's what we're going to find out soon. And that's why this is his real litmus test, not of policy but of character.
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What is also infuriating is that the only analysis of the actual bill in the house that I have seen was on the Daily Show. JS actually read from the bill. The MSM just analyses polls [Chuck Todd] and propagates the sound bites that rile people up [Softball and Fox]. The MSM are no better than spectators at a dog fight.
For some information, there is a very good interview with T.R. Reid on other systems out there and how they work: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112172939
Remember, even if you dont love your candidate, there is somebody worth stopping on the other side.
If you dont believe that, then you have quit on the concept of change, based on your suppositions about the president. maybe he should just quit too? where would we be? i dont see nearly the kind of effort to push thru agenda items important to progressives as i saw in the election fight.
For myself, I'm done voting for the problem in the form of the lesser evil. You either run someone I think can be a good president (representative or senator) or I vote for someone else. I will refuse to vote rather than vote for another "lesser evil".
That means I don't vote for Obama in 2012 unless a miracle occurs and turns him into a liberal/progressive.
Please don't recycle empty advertising slogans like "change." That's beneath all of us.
Let's talk about issues--the details of issues.
On health care, Obama has turned out to be a servant of the HMOs and Big Pharma--just like the Republicans and Big Pharma. They all agree on one critical issue--keeping the system firmly in the grip of the profiteers. The differences are just over marginal details--how to keep us poor suckers thinking we're getting reform when we are clearly not.
The only serious reform is single-payer Medicare for all, which Obama has trampled as ruthlessly as any Republican.
Please see the FAQ at www.pnhp.org
What troubles me is a CEO mentality of delegation that has bred increasingly detached leaders. It was evident in the various financial and mortgage firms, and it's evident in the fallacy of delegating an initiative as important as affordable, guaranteed healthcare to such saviors of the people as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Meanwhile, tank-town spokesmen such as Sen. Ben Nelson purport to speak for Democrat interests. No wonder the hopes for a better healthcare system threaten to become a vast corporate bonus plan. Our president seems too satisfied with reaching a goal, of itself, rather than acheiving the substance and necessary reform that was represented. The forceful will and the effective staff to realize the apparent wishes of the electorate doesn't seem to be in place.
Repeatedly, we are witnessing the extent to which money has corrupted our system. This is not new, yet its affect has run to such an extreme point, with such devastating affects upon rank and file America (even as so-called conservatives often miss how much they are being flim-flammed) that it becomes obscene.
Perhaps there is some good to come from all of this - the inevitable reaction. The bitter pill, at present, is that one supposed the antidote was at hand following the November election. But that pill just keeps costing more and more.
By Jenny Hope and Nick Mcdermott
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209034/The-babies-born-hospital-corridors-Bed-shortage-forces-4-000-mothers-birth-lifts-offices-hospital-toilets.html
This is all anecdotal propaganda.
How about the 50 million uninsured in this country? The 70 million underinsured? The 20,000 who DIE each year for lack of access to timely medical care? That's DIE, as in CAN'T AFFORD TO GET PROPER MEDICAL CARE AT ALL.
Every country rations medical care. All other industrialized countries ration according to need--the most urgent cases are seen first; elective procedures sometimes involve reasonable waits. Here we have the most barbaric rationing of all: if you can pay, you get adequate care; if not, too bad for you. And don't tell me about ERs--we all pay for ER visits, and that's the most expensive care, and often is a last resort that comes too late for people with no access to timely care.
The World Health Organization ranks the U.S. health-care system 37th in the world, dead last among industrialized nations and just two notches ahead of Cuba. The UK ranks 18th. That's a systematic academic study, not right-wing hysteria from a rag like the Daily Mail.
People should all read the FAQ at www.pnhp.org
He ALSO failed it by making the saving the insurance companies the one unyeildable point of his "health care reform". He took single payer off the table just to save them automatically sticking us with the horrible choices of either supporting a 100% corporate welfare bill or a 97% corporate welfare bill. The "public option" is the poison pill for health care reform. It's sole purpose is to give democrats a scrap of cover while selling out as a party.
The testing period for Obama is over. We got what we got and I for one am looking for a replacement for him because I will not be repeating the mistake I made in 2008 in 2012.
I hope every single person cajoling this president is actually doing a lot more than punching the keyboard or phone pad. I hope all of you are doing the mind-numbing exhausting work it took to get him elected, once again, to get this bill passed. Otherwise, I don't honestly care about all the criticism. It poured out all over the lib blogs during the election, and obviously didn't stop us.
We know that he expressed his regret about not compromising with Nixon on this issue.
We do not know that this was his BIGGEST regret.
In the court of public opinion, a president's preference may (or may not) hold sway. But, at the end of the day, when legislation is being drafted, a president being absolutely gung-ho about an initiative or policy proposal will not guarantee that the president's policy proposal will be implemented by Congress. Congress is an independent body.
So, in a sense, you're absolutely right. This is a test of corporate power versus the people. But, more than anything, it's a "litmus test" for Congress, not President Obama. Congress will pass or not pass the law, not President Obama.
Never ceases to amaze me that the very same people who do little or nothing to make change happen, who don't even march without a permit or tear down the gates around so-called "Free Speech Areas" - never mind disrupt their prime-time TV watching, twittering and FBing, to phonebank and their weekends to canvas for this bill - expect this black POTUS with more threats against his life than any POTUS ever, to: dismantle the banks that support the mightiest military in the world; dismantle that same military as if there aren't billionaires whose interests our military protect would have him taken out in an instant; dismantle corporate interests in health, telecoms, energy. Singlehandedly, no less. Sigh.
There are many different versions of the public option, yet Uygur and others treat it as though it were a single, well-defined entity; in reality, it's just an empty Beltway marketing slogan--like "Change."
Most people ]assume that "public option" means "something like Medicare." But the current shriveled version of the public option (in HR3200 and the Senate HELP bill) is nothing like Medicare.
Unlike Medicare, it will be self-sustaining, not publicly funded; unlike Medicare, it will charge premiums and impose deductibles, making it unaffordable for the tens of millions most in need of help; unlike Medicare, it will have to negotiate provider fees on the same footing as HMOs--so no cost saving there, no cost savings of the single risk pool of single payer--according to the CBO, no cost savings period.
And no significant expansion of coverage, because it will be open only to those not already covered by employers, and even for them not until 2013!
This is a gift to the HMO lobby, pure consumer fraud-- a public option that is neither really public nor an option for most people!
This is just a ploy to divert people attention from the only real reform--Medicare for all.
See "Bait and Switch: How the Public Option Was Sold"
http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpublic-option%E2%80%9D-was-sold/
This can allow Obama to sign any bill and, in a Clintonesque way, smile while saying that it includes a "public option."
As you inherently indicate, the litmus test can be considered satisfied even if governmental agreed-upon premiums are unaffordable.
All we need now is the smile and the celebration.
The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets
By Jenny Hope and Nick Mcdermott
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209034/The-babies-born-hospital-corridors-Bed-shortage-forces-4-000-mothers-birth-lifts-offices-hospital-toilets.html#ixzz0PIiUdMOB
If Obama signs a health care bill that lacks a strong public option (were such to a bill to reach his desk), or if he refuses to state--now and repeatedly--that a strong public option is essential to meaningful health care reform, he will deserve being replaced on the Democratic ticket in 2012.
He has done nothing on my personal litmus issue--restoring the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendent rights the Bush 43 administration summarily trashed. He is currently waffling on prosecuting war crimes. And he's runnuing full tilt in the wring direction on his own, self-selected showcase issue, health care reform. None of that was what he was nominated or elected to do. At the very least, his political future should stand or fall on health care.
NO PUBLIC OPTION?
NO SECOND TERM!
His re-election campaign motto could very well be:
CHANGE YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED IN!
The first one was his switched vote to give immunity to the telecoms that spied upon us for the Bush Administration.
It's beginning to look more and more like the House will come down on the side of a public option while the Senate won't and things will go to reconciliation. At that point Obama has got to step up once and for all. It will indeed be his litmus test. It will also be the deciding factor about how much progressives such as myself go out of our way to support his initiatives from that point forward.