Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement that he will send health insurance reform to the floor of the Senate this week signals that the long march to change America, that began with Barack Obama's announcement for president three years ago, has arrived at the gates of what is most certainly the "castle of the status quo."
The next two months will -- without question -- be a decisive period in American history. The Obama victory opened up a great historic opportunity to make fundamental change in America. But the ability of the progressive forces to take advantage of that opportunity now hinges on our success at laying siege to that "castle" and crashing through its gates by passing significant health care reform.
Everyone realizes that health insurance reform is not just another piece of legislation. But its significance goes well beyond the fact that it affects one-sixth of the economy; or that it will massively impact our country's ability to create jobs in the future; or even that it will determine whether or not health care finally becomes a right in America.
If we succeed in winning health insurance reform we will have breached the gates of the status quo. We will demonstrate that fundamental change is possible. Into that breach will flow a wave of progressive change. That victory will also make it possible for us to pass legislation to restructure the energy economy -- to put the brakes on climate change and free us from the tyranny of foreign oil. It will make it possible for us to rein in the power of Wall Street and pass long-overdue comprehensive immigration reform. It will make it possible to structure a bottom-up economy that can produce the jobs of the future.
Of course none of these changes will happen automatically. The massive forces whose economic interests lie in maintaining the status quo will not just roll over and concede defeat. But if they are capable of preventing our victory on health care reform, they will make it ever so much more difficult for us to succeed on other critical fronts.
So an enormous amount is at stake -- both for the progressive agenda and for the forces that oppose us.
All depends on our ability to vanquish the forces that -- over the next two months -- will use every weapon at their disposal to prevent our success. It won't matter whether the special interests in question have a fundamental interest in health care. The Chamber of Commerce, the insurance industry, the Republican Party, and right wing talk show hosts will all rally to defend the status quo. They understand beyond the shadow of a doubt the significance of this engagement. They will lie, they will threaten, they will sew fear, they will batter our supporters with negative advertisements, they will pay for busloads of right wing zealots, they will offer jobs, they will do favors, they will bite, scratch and poke out eyes -- they will do whatever is necessary to prevent us from breaching those gates.
It is up to us to have the resolve, the resourcefulness and endurance to defeat them.
This particular battle is so decisive for three reasons:
1). Change is about momentum. Just as in physics, it takes a great deal more energy to accelerate an object at rest than it does to continue its motion. Those who fear change have always used delay and obstruction to slow momentum to a standstill.
In the Senate, the other side will do everything it can to delay action. Their first trick will be to demand that the entire 1,900 page bill be read aloud. America has debated health insurance reform for over 60 years. We have seriously debated the current round of proposals for nine months. Now is the time for action. Americans deserve and up or down vote on health care.
As we confront the obstructionists in the Senate, we must maintain our momentum for change and make our movement a battering ram that is un-slowable and therefore unstoppable. Progressives in the Senate cannot accept infinite delay. They must be -- and I believe they are -- prepared to use every parliamentary technique available to make certain there is an up or down vote. If the other side insists on a filibuster, we need to make them filibuster -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We need to force them to stay on the Senate floor and show themselves to be the obstructionists they are, for as long as it takes.
2). To maintain an unjust status quo, those with power must always prevent the majority from believing that change is possible. They must extinguish hope. They must convince us that the status quo is immutable -- the natural order -- that we must accommodate ourselves to things as they are, and satisfy ourselves with our lot in life.
Once people see that change is possible, the flood gates open, so the defenders of the status quo must prevent us from even imagining a different world.
Once the sons and daughters of African American families left their lives as sharecroppers in the South -- took jobs in Chicago and New York -- saw Europe during World War II -- there was no longer any stopping the surging demand for change that ultimately became the civil rights movement. Suddenly, they could imagine the possibility of a different world.
The other side understands this completely. If they block health care reform, they know that it will convince millions of Americans that change -- not just health care reform -- is not possible -- that they have to live with things as they are. They know it will snuff out the light of hope that was ignited by the Obama victory. And just as important, it will drain the reservoir of confidence that President Obama can make change. They know it will cause America to lose faith in possibility - and that is exactly what they desperately want to do, because they know that the reverse is also true. They know that if we win, faith in the possibility of change -- and in President Obama's ability to deliver change -- will explode.
3). The outcome of this battle will send a signal to economic and social forces throughout American society, telling them whether they should get onboard the bandwagon of change, or settle in and accommodate themselves to the status quo.
That is true of politicians who know that failure will make change appear to be "bad politics." It is true of business people who will either make investment decisions that seek opportunities in a new economy, or do their best to exploit the inequities of the present order. It is true of everyday voters who want to be with a winner.
The results of this battle will define a narrative about the likelihood of change that will shape millions of individual decisions about career and educational choices, investment opportunities, and votes.
The battle that will happen over the next two months will test the mettle of progressive leaders -- in and out of political office. More than anything else it will be a test of wills.
It is not appropriate to pull out the big guns for every engagement. You can't go-for-broke on every issue, every day. But this is the time.
* We must demand that Congress pass a health insurance reform bill that restructures the relations of power in the health care industry by creating a strong, viable public option that will free us all from the stranglehold of the private insurance industry.
* We must demand that health care decisions are ripped from the control of Wall Street investment bankers and insurance company bureaucrats, and returned to doctors and their patients.
* We must do whatever is necessary to assure that we do not miss this historic opportunity to finally make health care a right for all Americans.
This is an historic opportunity. Of course nothing in history is preordained. It is up to us to make that history by winning this decisive battle and turning this opportunity into a new era of progressive change in America.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on amazon.com.
You see we Europeans believe in two basic premises when it comes to health care"
(1) Basic health care is a right for all.
(2) It is imoral to profit from people's sickness and misfortune.
This makes it natural for govenment to either run directly or highly regulate the profit motive out of health care. We don't expect private groups to be running the police force. Or the military. Health care is in the same category of basic service to its population.
Take out the profit motive and you actually get good results for people.
The main provision of this bill involves strengthening the current insurance industry stranglehold on America's Healthcare system by forcing millions of Americans to buy lousy insurance with few guarantees. We will pump $500 billion dollars into the hands of insurance companies - given what's going on with healthcare that is patently insane. Like Wall Street, we will again be rewarding the folks who created the crisis with taxpayer subsidized giveaways.
The worst part of all though is that this farce has gotten liberals defending it. Wake Up. Talk about being duped, the right wing is putting on this phony fight to get us to rally behind a bunch of non-existent seemingly reform like elements (like the no option that might go into effect in 2014) so that they can get everything they want. Our side gets nothing. These new policies will not provide decent coverage, will turn millions of Americans into criminals for not buying them - it's a nightmare scenario. And it won't contain costs either so they're won't be any deficit reduction (again Medicare Part D has proven this pattern).
Every liberal should withdraw their support for this, now before it's too late. We need to extend Medicare and or Medicaid instead, repealing Medicare Part D would pay for nearly all of it and also protect medicare from the current cost explosion associated with it.
Not when the President who is supposed to be championing the thing is MIA suring 98% of the fight, not when the folks he sends out give up 75% of the reforms before day 1, not when you have forgotten what the heck it is you're trying to accomplish, which you obviously have.
This IS about Healthcare, and this IS the destination. We didn't elect Obama because we think he's great - we were under the impression he was actually going to do something. Giving another bailout to another undeserving set of corporate crooks - well we could have gotten Palin to do that. The idea that passing something with zero reform, something that will actually deepen our crisis by rewarding those who caused it - that this is somehow progress and an acceptable foundation for future reform is patently insane.
Just like they threw homeowners under the bus when they wrote a blank check to Wall Street and told them to pay it back whenever you can get around to it -- and at the same time welshed on the promise to modify bankruptcy laws so that working people could bankrupt on the unsecured portion of their mortgages - just like the rich can already do on their second and their homes. (Remember, Durbin saying banks own the Senate?) Just like that credit card law that gave banks enough time to jack up rates on everyone before the law takes effect?
They continue to throw working people under the bus every day they leave our borders wide open to communist goods to satisfy big business that would rather pay peasants $75 to $160 a month while American unemployment goes unaddressed.
With millions still uninsured by a program that doesn't even start for four years (although taxes start immediately) and everyone is forced to buy insurance from the same crooks we were supposed to be getting away from, it sounds like the gates being crashed are the gates of Hell.
From here it just looks like another political suicide mission and I'm out on it.
I understand what you are saying and I believe you are sincere in your desire to move the country in the right direction. But as the article says, delay and obstruction slow momentum. I would add "relentless concession" and "abandonment of principles" to that list of momentum killers.
The people voted for a man that ran around the country advocating specific changes; they put a Democratic Congress in place to make sure those changes could happen. My assertion is simple: the people that worked so hard to put those politicians in place have been failed by concessions to the people that lost the election - people that did not, and do not want to see those changes.
I fear that if we don't crash this gate the signal will be that the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress can't get anything done to improve our desperate lot. And then we'll break apart.
It is a pity, to me, that our own Left cannot see this, that they want "all or nothing". Even Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not bring about real liberty. It was a step towards it.
We have to crash this gate.
If you can.
I don't know about you, but my healthcare has gone up by 300% in the last 10 years.
I do agree that universal care would be better.
That is not a reason to do nothing and wring our hands.
Some reforms will happen and eventually more reform.
Oh BTW the numbers were checked and rechecked by the CBO.......both Republicans and Dems on the committee. Be confidant that they are real. "I would hope that we are not naive enough to think that this new plan is actually going to reduce the deficit and only cost about 900 billion" is not going to be a good talking point.
First off, there is not a "new plan" yet and you need to find out how a bill is drafted and becomes the law of the land. We are about 3/5 through the process. After it finally is passed in the Senate that bill needs to be combined with the House version in the Conference Committee and voted on again. Remember "I was for it before I was against it"? That wasn't flipflopping or a silly slip of the tongue......that was actually true and described the arcane rules of the Senate. It was made into political nincompoopery by one side to gain political advantage.
Second, the numbers are solid.
Read this..
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE59C55220091015
"Honey, we need a new car. Let's get a Cadillac"
"But sweetheart, we can't aford a new car, especially one of those. We've only got enough money to fix up the Buick we already have."
" I don't care what you say. We need a new one. In fact, it's obvious that we simply can't afford NOT TO buy a new car?"
"And why is that?"
"Well, uh, because we just can't"
"So what you're saying is we CAN"T NOT afford to spend more money than we can afford?"
"Yes, that's right!"
"Interesting thought process. Sweetheart, are you thinking of running for Congress or something?"
We are at the bottom of most social issues, including health care and education. I don't think that's something to be overly proud of.
A pure public option, with government sales tax funding replacing insurance, along with distributing all government funded care free to everyone requesting it only through government owned and operated hospitals, staffed by government employed doctors and health care providers, using proven VA systems, is the most cost effective and morally correct way for fixing half of the health care problem.
Using these “unfair government advantages” as President Obama calls them would save hundreds of billions of dollars annualy while leaving no one without care.
Everyone choosing public care could have it no restrictions, no insurance, no co pays, free period.
Employers who select public care for their employees would not be required to pay for or have any further involvement with health care.
The second half of the solution is to have a pure private option of insurance and hospitals that would not be subjected to any government mandates.
Going back and forth between free public, and user purchased private care, would allow unlimited choices, ultimate freedom, and always free public care would be available.
This is real health care reform that would be helpful and highly efficient for individuals, employers, taxpayers, and the United States economy.
Unfortunately there is no lobbyist loot to spread around “to get a bill” that makes so much sense.
and another thing:
"2). To maintain an unjust status quo, those with power must always prevent the majority from believing that change is possible. They must extinguish hope. "
I don't believe this is exactly right. When hope is truly extinguished, you have a breeding ground for revolt and enough dissatisfaction to get it.