I had an opportunity to watch some of last night's US Senate "debate" over health insurance reform. Earlier in the day, the extent of the sell-out to lobbyists was depressingly documented, so the end result was no surprise.
The saddest speech had to be Senator Dick Durbin's (D-Illinois). Durbin, usually one of the more sane members of the Senate, with a straight face tried to compare passage of what is, at best, a national version of Romney Care (i.e. mandating the purchase of private insurance) to the battles over Social Security and Medicare. He wants to call the new law "Kennedy Care."
Durbin is smart enough to know that Social Security and Medicare analogies went on life support the moment genuine single-payer was taken off the table; and smart enough to know that the analogies died when even a diluted public option could not make the cut through the insurance industry's Senate. I realize he and other Dems desperately want to score a legislative victory for Barack Obama, but c'mon.
If the legislation gets through conference and becomes law, I think it should be called "Buyer Beware Care." The main feature of the reform, after all, is the provision to buy private health insurance. Think of how distinguished this Senate will sound when the history of the era is written 50 years from now: "In the 1930s FDR and the Democrats in Congress created Social Security to ensure some measure of retirement security for seniors. With Medicare, LBJ and the Dems expanded the New Deal vision. Then at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Barack Obama and a Congress bought by the private insurance industry gave us Buyer Beware Care. Some called it de-evolution."
And Russ Feingold? The "maverick" ultimately took one for the team. Apparently he has decided he's going to pacify Wisconsin libs by blaming Barack Obama for the lack of a public option in the final bill. I didn't think the Republicans had any chance of unseating Feingold in 2010, but as more details of this monstrous bill become known, anything can happen.
Barack Obama is sending Democrats into the 2010 elections having to defend:
*The TARP (Wall St.) bailout
*Escalation of the war in Afghanistan
*A mandate to buy private insurance
Good luck with that.
Actually, some statistics in this month's Harper's Index now makes sense. It said since assuming the presidency, Obama has attended 26 party fundraisers. At the same point in his presidency, GW Bush had attended 6.
Even Jay Leno gets it: "I'm trying to...sum up President Obama's first 11 months in office. He gave billions to Wall Street, cracked down on illegal immigrants getting healthcare, sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. You know something? He may go down in history as our greatest Republican president ever."
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From http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/21-8
Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill
1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations - whether you want to or not
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can't afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums
4. Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court
5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays
6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won't see any benefits - like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions - until 2014 when the program begins.
7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others
8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years
10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year - meaning in 10 years, your family's insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.
The old soviet Union had a similar political system as the united states. Rather than liberal capitalists and conservative capitalists. There were the liberal communists and the conservative communists and yes, they had elections. Both systems ensured that property be divided unequally between have and have nots.
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