Go Away, Tom Daschle
Dear Sentor Daschle,
Go away.
Please.
Look, I'm going to be frank with you. You were a terrible Majority Leader. The Republicans were more powerful in the minority -- framing the debate, setting the agenda -- than Democrats were in the majority when you ran the Senate.
When President Obama nominated you to be his HHS Secretary and health care czar, I was a little baffled. When the explanation was that you could skillfully guide health care reform through Congress, I was outright bewildered. I couldn't remember you skillfully guiding anything through Congress when you were its most powerful member.
And when your nomination imploded, I was relieved. I thought we probably had a better shot at getting health care for everyone -- by far the most important issue in America -- with you out of the picture.
But this week, you forced your way back into the picture, releasing a "bipartisan proposal" that you crafted with, of all people, Bob Dole. It was a depressingly typical effort at bipartisanship from you: all the compromise came from the Democratic side. It included no public option, essentially leaving the health care out of health care reform.
You said you'd prefer a public option, but that reaching a "consensus" is more important. "We've come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail over disagreements on one single issue," you said.
In other words, it's more important that Bob Dole approve of the plan for health care reform than to actually solve the problem health care reform is supposed to solve.
And that's your fatal flaw, Senator. You put bipartisanship above all other values. You believe that consensus is more important than results. Your comity created a do-nothing attitude while you were the Majority Leader, and it is the last thing we need now in the middle of a fight to fix the most broken thing about America: its criminal health care system that literally kills people.
So please, I beg of you, do America a favor. Take your bipartisan health care plan and go away. We don't need another Democrat telling us how important it is for us to play nice with the Republicans while millions of Americans go without health care.
We don't need you, Tom Daschle. We don't need your bipartisanship or your defeatist attitude. We don't need your signature under a bunch of giveaways to the insurance companies.
We just need 50 votes in the Senate. We can ignore the Republicans. We can laugh at their fake concerns about "choice" and "quality" and "cost" while they oppose every solution that increases choice, improves quality, or reduces cost.
We can finally make sure that no one in America ever has to stay in a job because they can't get health care anywhere else. We can make sure that no one goes bankrupt because they get sick. We can make people healthier and even save lives.
All we need is strong leadership from the White House and unity of purpose from our Democrats in Congress. What we don't need, Senator, is you.
Sincerely,
Jesse Berney
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I agree. Get a real Democrat.
I have to admit, the extent congress AND MEDIA has gone to, keeping liberal democrats out by replacing them with the title centerist who are really republican moles set on uniting with republicans against us was brilliant.
My thoughts, and extended to all the other corporate Senate Dems: Landrieu, Baucus, etc.
Lyndon Johnson is rotating in his grave: We have everything we need to pass this, yet Dems would rather keep the cash coming from their corporate sponsors.
Obama needs to wake up and put his weight behind the House bill. If he doesn't, everything else was in vain.
Jesse, my sentiments precisely. My single biggest pet peeve is whenever a publican is interviewed about single payer health care and the repuube disparages it as socialist medical rationing which obviously is hated by its participants and the interviewer whomever they might be dosent call them on it. The comment is always left out there as the "truth" . Irks me to no end, that horrible national health that all the europeans are clamoring to get rid of to adopt the wonderful US health care system.
"Bipartisan" is a codeword for "diluting the wishes of the American people, in order to make them more acceptable to large corporations and special interest groups"
Actually it means "not caving in to the petulant demands of liberal or conservative extremists
H.R. 676, “The United States National Health Care Act,”
Or “Expanded & Improved Medicare For All”
Introduced by Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Go to his website and read this. Call and demand your representative co-sponsors, and votes, to send this to the Senate. Then demand your senators support it. It is exactly what we are asking for.
Every poll taken has indicated an OVERWHELMING amount of support for single payer universal healthcare. This should be a given. It is what the vast majority of Americans want.
I have no idea why this is taking so long, why there are so many competing, alternative plans.
These LOBBYISTS (Daschle and Dole) need to crawl back into their hole like the rodents that they are. They are trying to save their own jobs. If the industry can't write its own legislation (historically the banking industry wrote bankruptcy law, credit companies wrote credit card regulation, and insurance companies has written insurance law) who needs lobbyists?
This government needs to listen to the people. Otherwise, in 2010 and 2012, we will be seeing a whole lot of new faces.
HR 676 is the face of tyranny.
It is a government with the power to decide who will and will not receive what treatments.
It is healthcare rationing. It is waiting lists. It is people who die on waiting lists without ever receiving timely treatment. It is a shortage of dentists. It is fewer new drugs taking longer to reach patients. It is a restriction on free choices by individuals.
Think not? Every one of the above conditions exists in the Canadian and European socialized medicine systems. People die in those bureaucratic morasses every day of conditions that are routinely and successfully treated here in the US.
Why do the Democrats have anything to do with Daschle?
Dems win: progressive will not tolerate another 8 years of a do nothing progressive congress. and even less to be listening to Daschle or Baucus and their squirming and squishing NOT TO DO the right thing. Unbelievable. Any suggestion on where to go for a third, and fourth and fifth party genesis?
New definition:
Bipartisanship = Democrat caving.
Bravo! excellent article... Daschle was the Dem who enabled Bush to foist a preemptive war on us...and enabled the tax cut for the rich....TH
I don't think Daschle cares particularly about bipartisanship or consensus. I think he cares about the needs of his constituency: lobbyists for the AMA, lobbyists for the health insurance industry, lobbyists for the health insurer AARP, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry, and who knows how many more lobbyists are in line before us citizens.
I second the motion. Daschel should go away and stay there.
Hear, hear. With friends like the do nothing, duck and cover, DLC Democrats, we don't need any enemies.
Ain't THAT the truth!
We want healthcare, for every US American.
We don't want excuses.
We don''t want concensus.
We don't want Bi-partisianship.
We don't want Insurance Company health care.
We want and NEED Government Administerd Health Care. Single Payer, Public Option.
You say "We" repeatedly representing "We the People", BUT the problem is that "our" Corporate "owned" politicians are representing "THE CORPORATIONS"!
NOTHING will change until the politicians are NO LONGER OWNED BY THE CORPORATIONS!
Thus we need "Public" Campaign Financing & Term Limits to return "our" government to "We the People"!
Amen!
To ALL "Corporate Owned" politicians past & present, we know who you work for - THE CORPORATIONS - the "illusion" that you work for the PEOPLE has been shattered!
The Plantation Owners of old fought to "own" slaves in order to have "free labor", but the "new" Plantation Owners - THE CORPORATIONS - long ago discovered that the most PROFITABLE people to "own" are our elected politicians, that will do the Corporations bidding for the price of a campaign donation!
The "only" solutions that can change Washington from the worlds most successful "brothel", to a city that will finally represent & "serve" We the People, is to implement "Public" Campaign Finance Reform & Term Limits!
It is LONG PAST time to outlaw congressional corporate prostitution & TAKE BACK "OUR" COUNTRY!!!
Is the biggest problem we face in the USA, the US Legislature ? Can it really be , Congress is destroying America ?
The "Corporate Owned" Congress is devaluing & devouring our democratic form of government & thus DESTROYING AMERICA!
The Corporate "owned" politicians are working for the "exclusive" benefit of the Corporations PROFITS - We The People have been "left behind"! Watch what happens with Health Care "Reform" - the Corporate "owned" politicians will give the Corporations what "they" want, "PROFIT CARE" - not what the PEOPLE want, HUMANE, NOT for PROFIT, HEALTH CARE for ALL AMERICANS!
The US Legislature has been bought off by the Corporations & therefore "controlled" by the Corporations - THAT is THE PROBLEM, that is what is destroying America!
You say - "Can it really be, Congress is destroying America?" - You betcha!!!
This is what I don't understand. Republicans, when they're the majority (or if they have the White House), don't give a rat's ass to what Democrats think. Bush did not care about bipartisanship. When the Republicans had the Congress and the Senate they did not care about bipartisanship. What they want, they just get. They did not care about outcries from moderates and progressives in the American public. All they did was cater to the demands of their lobbyists and bolster the ideology of their mass base.
Can't the Democrats act on (and fulfil) the demands of their mass base too? Can they not worry about what conservatives will say or do when they author and vote on bills? Can't they kick the GOP minority to the curb and get on with creating the policies that will save the lives of many (if not all) Americans and repeal laws/policies that deprive people of their human rights (like DOMA and DADT)?
When will the Democrats stand-up against the GOP bullies?
"When will the Democrats stand-up against the GOP bullies?"
When BOTH the Democrats & Republicans are no longer "owned" by the CORPORATIONS!
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