In an article I just read on Huffington Post, Jim Cooper claims:
Something major happened yesterday. Democrats and Republicans, working together, unveiled a bipartisan comprehensive health care reform plan. Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and Howard Baker did what Congress is failing to do.
More below:
Jim Cooper, a Blue Dog conservative Democrat representing Nashville TN has come forward in a HufPo article to lavish praise on the excrement piled before the public by Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and Howard Baker.
This proposal in a nutshell: require all human beings that live in the United States to purchase private insurance plans from private insurance companies. Voila! Problem solved!
There's more to it than that: there are various deck chairs on the S.S. American Health that will be moved from the aft promenade deck to the forward deck in order to shift weight to the front of the ship and discourage the bow from pointing skyward.
Now, being from Tennessee, I am quite familiar with the arrogant, smug Congressman Cooper. Those of you who were fighting for health care for all Americans back in the ancient days of the first term of Bill Clinton will recall that Jim Cooper helped torpedo Hillary Clinton's health care reform plans.
Just for fun, google "Jim Cooper health care reform Hillary Clinton" and see what you get: first two hits are "Jim Cooper, key Conservative Democrat Backs Public Health Care Option" AND "Jim Cooper Working to Kill Public Health Care Option". That's Jim Cooper in a nutshell.
But the purpose of my diary is to point out the wit and wisdom of Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee in his HufPo article and how it relates to the issue at hand: health care. As many of you have already concluded by using your own brains and surveying the information available from the U.S. and around the world, the only real solution to our health care crisis is to impliment a single payer plan in the U.S. Anything else amounts to little more than waving your fist at the sky and supplicating for affordable health care from the Insurance Gods.
First off, Congressman Cooper opens his little missive with this:
Right off the bat, I want to be clear: I support health care reform.
((cue laugh track))
We are not here to slow it down. That's the Senate's job.
((more laughter))
Why, one would almost get the idea that Congressman Cooper cares about health care reform
We are here because we see health care reform bogging down in the Senate, and we worry that the chance to achieve this great victory for the American people is slipping out of reach
Makes me want to reach for a hanky as the tears start to well up in patriotic gratitude!
Congressman Cooper's main point seems to be that the Reconciliation process will kill health care reform, so we must save it by--- killing it off before it ever gets to the reconciliation process! Genius! That's the sort of pre-capitulation that doesn't come along every day, er, well actually it does, which is part of the problem.
My favorite part of Congressman Cooper's article is the quote from the top of this diary:
Something major happened yesterday. Democrats and Republicans, working together, unveiled a bipartisan comprehensive health care reform plan. Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and Howard Baker did what Congress is failing to do. They met all of President Obama's goals, and they fully financed their proposal.
Except, of course, that President Obama has said very forcefully that he wants a public health insurance option. Oh, and who died and made these assclowns Popes of Health Care Reform??? Last time I checked they were all a bunch of has-beens who were turned out of office by the voters or (as in the case of Baker) have been irrelevant since before many kossacks were born.
I'm worried. And I'm speaking out today because I've been through a failed health care reform process before. We can't afford to repeat those mistakes this year. Let's follow President Obama's lead and work together to finally provide health care to every American. And let's do it right now.
Congressman Cooper is worried! He's been through a failed health care reform process before!!
Please Congressman, seek the comfort of your wife or the wise counsel of the priest/preacher/rabbi of your choice. We can't have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from previous failed reform attempts causing worry and anguish and misjudgment, not when the people of this country need sound reasoning to fix our health care system.
Congressman Cooper, what worries me is that you and Tom Daschle and Robert Dole are pimps for the insurance industry and that all your hand wringing and "concern" about the possible failure of the reform effort is nothing more than crap designed to make the average observer think you give a rat's ass.
Congressman, please quit posing as someone who favors health care reform when you have in fact torpedoed health care reform in the past and are trying to do so again.
If you live in Nashville, please help find someone to run against this clown in next year's Democratic primary.