The debate over the public option in the health care reform campaign dances around the real issue, the reason the vast majority of Americans want it: The nation has become the playground of corporate predators through 30 years of deregulation. We desperately need protection.
It's not just the health care industry. And it won't change until we take back our democracy from elected officials who routinely get more money from private interests to win and keep their jobs than salaries from taxpayers once elected — representatives who spend up to half their working hours hustling de facto bribes instead of governing — in guess whose behalf?
It's not just the health care industry; predatory investment banks stalked, tricked, trapped and devoured enough home buyers to implode the entire global economy, then extorted trillions of dollars from many nations' treasuries by holding that economy hostage. Credit card companies invade cardholder accounts with tightening rules and usurious rates that in some countries would get money lender CEOs stoned to death. Gouging health insurance ratepayers by contracting to provide health care services and then rationing care, reneging on care and pocketing the savings is the just the latest form of corporate predation to get headlines — from Obama's effort to rein it in.
Only government has the power and authority to limit the pervasively predatory private sector, reminiscent of the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century (i.e. until the Depression those abuses caused spawned the regulations later Congresses rescinded).
And it won't do so until representatives are convinced they will lose their jobs despite the predators financing their careers by paying for every job search nee political campaign. In other words, until voting Americans make it clear we won't take it anymore.