It's truly depressing to watch how quickly so-called progressive leaders in Congress, and many of their supporters in the so-called progressive movement, are abandoning all of their key promises on health care reform in the name of a health care bill that will provide massive government subsidies to private insurance and drug companies and fine citizens who can't afford to buy crappy private insurance policies, without any effective competition from a robust public option.
As I wrote a few days ago, 60 members of the House Progressive Caucus signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi last July promising to vote against any health care "reform" bill without a "robust" public option which paid Medicare rates plus 5%.* Now they're breaking that promise. Progressive leaders like Rep. Anthony Weiner are now calling the neutered public option in the House bill a "once in a lifetime reform," despite the fact that it has eliminated the very provision that the Progressive Caucus promised was essential in order to get its vote.
Even worse, Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic House leadership has stripped the House bill of a provision -- passed by a bipartisan 27-19 vote in The House Education and Labor Committee -- which would allow individual states to experiment with state-level single payer systems without being sued by the private insurance industry. If, as I believe likely if it the Democratic health care bill becomes law, the bill fails to provide affordable health care to all Americans and instead mandates that they buy junk private insurance at unaffordable rates or be fined, this provision would allow states to experiment with other systems, just as Saskatchewan's success with provincial single payer eventually pursuaded the national Canadian government to adopt national health insurance. Pelosi's "justification" for dropping the provision and not allowing it to come to a vote in the House: It would somehow break President Obama's promise that people can keep the insurance they have if they like it.
What a crock of bullshit to justify a further cave-in by Democrats to the private insurance industry.
Nowhere during the campaign did Obama make a promise that he wouldn't let states experiment with their own single payer systems, if they so chose. In fact, Candidate Obama repeatedly said that if he were starting from scratch, single payer would be the best way to go.
But President Obama has broken numerous other campaign promises made by Candidate Obama on health care reform:
1. Candidate Obama promised to end backroom deals with "stakeholders" like insurance companies, drug companies and hospitals and instead broadcast all health care reform negotiations on CSPAN. Instead, President Obama has negotiated backroom sweatheart deals with insurance companies, drug companies and for-profit hospitals in exchange for campaign cash.
2. Candidate Obama vigorously campaigned against Hillary Clinton's proposals to mandate that uninsured individuals and families must buy health insurance or be fined by the federal government. Instead, the heart of President Obama's and the Democratic Congress's plan for covering the uninsured is now individual mandates under the threat of IRS penalties.3. Candidate Obama promised to end the ban on Medicare negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Instead, President Obama made a deal with big Pharma to extend the ban.
4. Candidate Obama promised to allow the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. Instead, President Obama made a deal with big Pharma to continue to ban such importation.
5. Candidate Obama promised a robust public option that would give consumers a real alternative to private insurance and would put competitive pressure on private insurance companies to moderate their premiums. Instead, President Obama is supporting meaningless triggers for a public option, while the House and Senate are proposing neutered public options that would cover almost nobody, would cost more than private insurance, and would have virtually no impact on lowering private insurance rates.
6. Candidate Obama opposed John McCain's proposals to tax employer-provided health care plans. Instead, President Obama has offered no objections to the Senate's plans to tax the health care plans of many union workers, and some form of this tax plan is likely to end up in the final bill President Obama signs.
So Speaker Pelosi, spare us the insult to our intelligence by your claiming that you can't allow a vote on the state single-payer amendment because it would break President Obama's campaign promises. The only promises it would break are those made by President Obama -- and now apparently Speaker Pelosi -- to the insurance industry.
If Democratic politicians want to know why their base -- who voted for President Obama and a Democratic Congressional majority in 2008 -- are demoralized and not voting in large numbers, they should look no farther than these kinds of betrayals. The only thing that can revive the bankrupt Republican Party is for the Democrats to continue to act like the party of the insurance companies, drug companies, and Wall Street investment bankers.
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*P.S.--Following are the names of the 60 members of the House Progressive Caucus who signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi on July 30, 2009 stating that
"Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, for a public option with reimbursement rates based on Medicare rates -- not negotiated rates -- is unacceptable. It would ensure higher costs for the public plan, and would do nothing to achieve the goal of 'keeping insurance companies honest' and their rates down...We simply cannot vote for such a proposal [emphasis added]."When the House votes in the next few days on a bill with a neutered public option that's not based on Medicare rates, watch carefully to see how many of these "Progressive" Democrats break the promise they made in this letter.
Lynn Woolsey, Raul Grijalva, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Jerry Nadler, Phil Hare, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Keith Ellison, Earl Blumenauer, Mel Watts, Donna Edwards, John Olver, Dennis Kucinich, Laura Richardson, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Judy Chu, Maurice Hinchey, Hank Johnson, Diane Watson, Jackie Spier, Bill Pascrell, Lloyd Doggett, Marcy Kaptur, Mazie Hirono, Bob Filner, Linda Sanchez, Marcia Fudge, Barbara Lee, Andre Carson, Sheila Jackson Lee, Michael Honda, Jim McDermott, William Lacy Clay, Jim McGovern, Yvetter Clarke , Eric Massa, Chellie Pingree , Jesse Jackson, Jr., Elijah Cummings, Bennie Thompson, Gwen Moore, Donald Payne, Fortney "Pete" Stark, Ed Towns,Corrine Brown, Alcee Hastings, Nydia Valezquez, Luis Gutierrez, Grace Napolitano, Albio Sires, John Tierney, Mike Capuano, Chaka Fattah, Jose Serrano, SamFarr, Bill Delahunt, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Gregorio Sablan, Robert Wexler Emanuel Cleaver
The "Progressive Democrats" who break their promise deserve a place on a wall of shame. And put Speaker Pelosi's name at the top of the wall of shame.
Veronica De La Cruz: A Personal Fight for Health Care Reform
Being excluded from the health care system because of a preexisting condition robbed my only sibling of his fair chance at life, and it robbed all of us of his gifts, talents and love.
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Stop writing and calling your congressman; he or she isn't listening. Start canceling all business with the companies that control congress. In this case it would be the health insurance industry. If 10 to 20% subscribers to an particular health insurance company canceled and stop all payments or people did it across the board, they would suddenly start listening.
The old cliche is true: Follow the money and hit them where it hurts.
By the way, can anyone explain to me why congress is not forcing the health insurance industry to conform to the Anti-Sherman Trust Act where their monopolies can no longer continue? Why do they get a free ride when no other business in the US gets it except Major League Baseball?
We knew the fix was in when it was determined before anything got started, that the single-payer discussion would not be allowed to take place. The overlords of congress made sure that would never happen.
Beautiful thoughts you have no intention of keeping.
You have been a voice of sanity and integrity through this whole debate.
I don't expect this comment to get posted, but Obama-ism has become a destructive force for the progressive movement. It's all about giving meaningless speeches about values you don't really have and actions you don't really take, while all the while actually shilling for corporations.
All parts of the Democratic Party have been corrupted by corporate campaign cash. Even the Congressional Progressive Caucus won't stand up and fight. Their cowardice is now enabling them to vote for a bill which will literally force tens of millions of middle class, working class and poor Americans to buy overpriced for-profit insurance at extortion level rates, under heavy tax penalty if they don't, with no robust public option available to them to lower costs.
If the "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party cannot summon up the morality to vote against this most immoral form of trillions of dollars of corporate welfare, it's it time to admit that working within the Democratic Party for change is utterly futile?
Don't we need to start or revive a new Progressive Party founded under the principle of not accepting corporate cash?
Like a tree that is so infested and infected with the rot of corrupting corporate cash that it cannot be saved, doesn't the Democratic Party need to be replaced?
Is the immorality of what's about to happen really worth scaring people into voting for the lesser of two corporate evils?
Fine. Let the Democrats win elections without the left. Only fitting since they certainly govern without the left.
The most progressive countries on the planet have multi-party political systems.
There is nothing in the constitution that prohobits states adopting runoff elections, ranked-choice voting or proportional representation of its Congressional seats.
The only thing that would need a Constitutional amendment is abolition of the antiquated and undemocratic Electoral College that has no business in the 21st Century.
The Democrats are sitting in a "hooptie" (old car) arguing over how much gas to put in the tank. The Republicans are driving a new sedan w/ a tank full of gas headed straight for hell.
Still applies 20+ years later. The Dems can't do anything... not even w/ huge majoities in Congress.. while the Republicans can do everything... they just happen to do what's bad for the country.
Truer words were never spoken
I recall back when I was naive and idealistic, about a year ago, being so excited that Barak Obama, the presidential candidate who had declared healthcare should be a "right", had won. McCain had said it should be, as I recall, a "responsibility".
It looks like it's McCain who really won this election.
How could I have been so stupid.
The one component that isn't discussed is that the Health Insurance Industry REQUIRES the new pool of excluded Americans and the individual mandates to survive. This industry is not driven by delivering the best possible health care product to their customers, it is driven by delivering the expected profits to its investors. These investors have become used to massive year over year profits which are unsustainable with out growth to the existing pool, individual mandates, and government subsidies.
If the Speaker and the Progressive Caucus announce they will postpone any vote on Health Care until 2011 ... no mandate implementation or expanded pool ... the Health Care industry starts to die. The costs will continue to rise and their customers will opt out and rely on public health and clinics and the Health Care Industry will not be able to meet its profit expectations and start losing investors.
It will be unrecoverable Critical Mass for the the Health Care Industry were no change to the status quo take place. I believe that a threat to do nothing on Health Care will panic the Health Care Industry and win support for whatever Bill the Speaker wants. Might sound far fetched, but that's my call.
The Democratic party is too infected and infested with corporate money. Like a tree that cannot be saved, there is an argument for a new Progressive Party to run candidates in every Congressional District next year. The American people deserve a choice on the ballot that does not take corporate money.
http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php
Legislators who believe the public option will be given an honest chance are being childish. Or should we just believe in the good intentions of the health insurance industry?