It's time for an intervention with Senator Ben Nelson (D-Blue Cross/Blue Shield).
From HuffPo:
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said Friday that he will oppose legislation that would give people the option of a public health insurance plan. The move puts him on the opposite side of two-thirds of Americans.
Not that his position on the issue is any great surprise, given that the insurance industry is just one of many lobbies with its hand so far up his ass that every time he takes the Senate floor it's like a Broadway production of Avenue Q, but it's time that someone stuffed this pitiful puppet back in the trunk and slammed the lid shut.
No sooner does Ben Nelson finish making it clear that he doesn't think average people deserve to stay in their homes than he decides to leave all these freshly-minted hobos without recourse for medical care.
Nelson's problem, he told CQ, is that the public plan would be too attractive and would hurt the private insurance plans. "At the end of the day, the public plan wins the game," Nelson said. Including a public option in a health plan, he said, was a "deal breaker."
No, Nelson's problem is he's a shameless corporate lackey. When your explanation for opposing health care reform is that "it would work too well", you're not even trying to disguise your motives anymore.
Nevermind that insurance costs are breaking the backs of employers and employees alike, or that the public option would simply be one available choice, or that the American people overwhelmingly support said plan, or that competition is supposed to be the ultimate arbiter of the marketplace according to all the centrist leaves blowing in the Senate's political winds. Forget all that.
Ben Nelson believes Anthem's bottom line is worth more than your life.
And he isn't alone aboard the death-by-spreadsheet bandwagon. You can probably count on the rest of the dirty dozen being well-represented too.
This isn't even single payer we're talking about; it's nothing more than Ben Nelson's own health plan, afforded him by the people who sent him to Washington in the first place: not some smug, overgelled lobbyist with a medicine cabinet full of ExtenZe, but the goddamn people of Nebraska. Someone should be caravanning from Omaha to Lincoln to Bellevue, calling this obstructionist sack of shit out by name, making certain every last one of his constituents knows that he's willing to sacrifice THEIR health for enough campaign contributions to keep his bloated, leathery ass parked inside the halls of power. The same goes for the rest of the Evan Bayh kowtow krew, who apparently haven't realized the 90's are over and they can stop cowering under their desks for fear of conservative blowback.
These people are pathetic. If only some of the stimulus cash had been allocated for congressional spinal column implants, a dozen or so of those 60 Dem seats might be filled with something more than hot air.