At least for tomorrow. At least on health care reform. I was intending to go out to downtown Phoenix and suffer through the 110F temperatures to counter whatever whack job presence might show up at the VFW for Obama’s health care reform town hall.
Obama back in Phoenix after touring Grand Canyon
Not so much because I support Obama’s proposals as I support the idea of robust health care reform that includes a public option tied to Medicare and its negotiated payment rates. I’m really for a single-payer system and the insurance companies be damned, but I’m willing to settle for a so-called public option. What I’m not willing to settle for is half-assed reform measures that allow the private insurance industry the latitude to "innovate" their way out of providing complete and secure health coverage for everyone at an affordable cost.
Then I saw the news this morning...
White House ready to drop ‘public option’?
HHS official: Insurance cooperatives would be an acceptable alternative
Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama's administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.
Acceptable to who? It’s certainly not acceptable to me! I’m not prepared to support any more half-measures on health care reform. Haven’t we already spun our wheels enough in this muck, trying to reform an insurance industry dedicated to profits at the expense of the basic human right to health care? I don’t want to see more futile attempts at health insurance reform, I have no doubt that the industry will "innonvate" its way around these types of measures in short order and continue on the path to exponential increases in the corruption of a health care system that they will continue to hold hostage to the whims of greed. I’d much rather see private health insurance eliminated entirely than give up on the public option.
Bowing to Republican pressure? Why? What happened to the public option as the only way to keep the insurance companies honest? Does the dishonesty of Republican arguments cause the administration, and the Congress, to abandon the path towards honest reforms. The Republicans and their angry mobs, the loud minority as opposed to the "silent majority", who are spoiling for a fight carry the day because Democrats are so limp-wristed and weak-kneed as to back away from an argument where they hold the high-ground and righteous truth is on their side?
Fuck it, I’m not going! I’m in no mood to compromise with liars and fearmongers, and I refuse to support those who do any longer. I hope they all get heat stroke and need viable health care, then maybe they’ll understand the real issues involved.
I was vacillating yesterday over whether I could support Obama’s version of health care reform. Then I watched his town hall in Colorado and even though I didn’t appreciate his wishy-washy support for the public option, I did hear him clearly say that it was needed to keep the insurance companies honest, and I thought, ...well I guess that’s good enough for me. Meaning that if he considered the public option a necessary part of any health care reform legislation then I would be willing to stand out in the withering heat to counter the wingnutzi contingent in downtown Phoenix tomorrow. Unfortunately, I awoke to another slap in the face via Sebilius’ comments about substituting co-ops for a viable public alternative to cost-controls. Make no mistake, this will be a fig leaf that the insurance companies will strip away and cast aside even before it can shrivel up and die on its own.
They’ve already created a virtual cartel throughout the country and monopolized health care services to the point where there really is are no viable alternatives beyond being independently wealthy. We’re now stuck with a system of health care that too closely resembles our system of justice, meaning that what you get out of it is proportional to how much money you have. This is capitalism run amok and if socialized medicine is the only alternative then give me socialism. To show the extent to which this has affected me, and for the sake of full disclosure, I must reveal that I am not, nor never have been a Democrat. I’m more of an anti-Republican, which perhaps equates to something close to being a Democrat these days, but I’ve always considered myself to be a libertarian.
A progressive civil-libertarian to be sure, but a libertarian nonetheless. It took me a long time to come around to the realization that single-payer was the best way to provide health care to the public. It’s not exactly a libertarian principle but once I came to the conclusion that health care is a basic human right, a fundamental civil liberty, then I was only a logical next step away from disowning the profit motive as a competitive tool for providing health care. Rather, the profit motive is a strong motivator for not providing health care. This is evidenced by what the insurance companies call the "medical loss ratio" to represent the percentage of their income that they pay out for actual health care services. When they minimize this they maximize profits and free up funds to lobby and influence legislation to further increase their profit margins. It’s the proverbial snake eating its own tail and it will surely kill itself off eventually, but I’m not really willing to wait for that nationwide disaster and its repercussions.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that government alternative to private health insurance is "not the essential element" of the administration's health care overhaul. The White House would be open to co-ops, she said, a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory.
Not an "essential element" of health care reform? Who are you trying to fool? Declare victory? Victory? OMFG! This is the definition of people unclear on the concept of victory. This is exactly why I’ve never registered as a Democrat, well that and the fact that they’ve just never been historically competitive in AZ. Now that they are becoming competitive in these parts and I actually have a Democratic Representative, I’d like to see some backbone. Stand up for what’s right damn it!
Sebelius said the end-of-life proposal was likely to be dropped from the final bill.
"We wanted to make sure doctors were reimbursed for that very important consultation if family members chose to make it, and instead it's been turned into this scare tactic and probably will be off the table," she said.
So this is how the hope for real health care reform ends, not with a bang but with a whimper? I’d much rather see these proposals go down in the flames of righteousness than fizzle out by conceding ground to the intellectually dishonest. At least fight the good fight for what you know is right, the right provisions for the right reasons. Fight lies with truth, fight dishonesty with integrity, batten down the hatches and do the right thing, damn it all! Count me out of this one. I’ll continue to lobby my blue-dog rep ad nauseum but I won’t accept defeat and call it victory!