Health care reform has died messy deaths for over 50 years and it begins to look as though another fatality is in the offing. You could take the Republican stance and words from nearly any time in five decades as short sighted ideologically driven arguments have scared people stupid. We have this failure of something nearly resembling a system because apparently through repetition the same stupid statements resonate with enough Americans to kill reason.
Pundits are beginning to express surprise that the populist mechanism built by the Obama campaign isn't turning out demonstrations and real public push in support of the reform drive. Some easy excuses are that it is summer and also people are burnt out. The big thing is, "get behind what?" I have less than no idea what is going to come out of Congress and I don't know any citizen that does. It begins to look as though what will go forward is nibbling around the edges of a problem that requires chainsaws and wrecking balls. You may not forgive me for this, but I begin to believe that what will happen will be nothing more than cover to do essentially nothing and kill reform for another generation. Why the hell should I climb on that bandwagon?
Advocates of single payer were kissed off from the outset and bipartisanship was touted. I'm supposed to give a damn about support from the political party whose Senate leader recounts and anecdote about a friend of a friend in Canada who died as part of his opposition? Once single payer went away there was only a debate about how watered down the result would be. You cannot start your negotiating position by tossing your strongest alternative because it is politically difficult. It stood in stark contrast to the Republican do nothing position and left somewhere to go in negotiations.
Now that you've watched the Banks get bailed out and make money hand over fist as the rest of us sink you get to watch the big profiteers of health care do the same at your expense. If in case you have not paid attention, you are unaware of the linkage of health insurers and Banks it would pay you to understand where your insurance payments go after the overhead costs - invested in Banks. You expect, what, when two of the most powerful economic interests have common ends? I'm a left Democrat not some half hearted Republican shill and I'm not putting five minutes of my time into kissing up to them and their plutocratic masters.
I never expected Pres Obama to be a leftist and I understand incremental progress but I also never made any agreement to stand next to a cesspool and start moving toward it. How badly beaten do Republicans have to be before Democrats stop acting like a more reasonable version of them? If you've noticed and wondered about a lack of posts here - I'm sick of being limited to pointing to Republican idiocy (despite their enthusiasm for providing it).
3 comments:
Your belief in a single payer system scares the hell out of me. With no (or at least none I can find) federal programs that are run successfully I would hate to think we turn one third of the nation’s economy over to the federal government to manage. Medicare, Social Security, hell even the new one 'cash for clunkers' is removing the demand that we could have in a couple of years for cars. The government started this program to jumpstart the economy. You take a car that's paid for and borrow money to buy a new one...oooh, great solution. You guys in Oregon have done what an outsider could consider a great job with mass transit, have a great left leaning community so why don't you go the whole solution like Mass. did, and start a single payer system at a state level. Wait, you had better not do that, their system isn't in too good of shape now that it’s been in effect for...what 5 years?
I do believe you have put 'your money where your mouth is' so to speak and admire you for getting involved but to basically call conservatives a bunch of 'idiots' is to do nothing more than make people that don't believe the way you do oppose you just on that principle. Call me names and while I won't come kick your ass I will walk the neighborhoods and oppose your candidacy...good luck and good hunting.
I'm going with anonymous because I don't know what you do with email addresses and am not predisposed to having hate mail coming directly to my mail box, but so you don't really think I give a damn about you knowing who I am my name is Randy Petty
Randy
You seem to be unaware that we already have a bastardized and truly ineffective version of socialized medicine - private health insurance. The costs of the uninsured and underinsured are covered by "your" premiums and profit is taken from every aspect.
You'd be very hard pressed to find any government program with the cost inflation, denials, and general ineffectiveness of the system you're defending. Yes, it takes an idiot to buy into this crap on the emotional argument that government can't do anything - particularly since the most egregious examples of that came from the "conservatives" of BushCo.
Nothing from this site is ever shared with anyone - and no, I don't care who you are; the name request is for a handle to be able to deal with comments.
I am uentirely unsure what MA is supposed to have to do with squat in this discussion since they do not have single payer or anything remotely like it.
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