Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
Not only is the version of healthcare in the Senate Finance Committee garbage, but now Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota is telling everyone it is the only one that will pass. Of course it is because it is the only one that was written for the Insurance Lobby and the only won that has been spearheaded by a bought and paid for Senator, Max Baucus.
Conrad enlightened all of us stupid, hillbilly Progressives as to why that was the only bill that would pass and basically warned us to shut up and accept more Corporate Welfare:
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-S.D.), one of six senators on the Senate Finance Committee trying to negotiate a compromise, said Sunday the House Energy and Commerce Committee's health care bill will not pass Congress.
"That plan is out of one committee in the House and it’s not going to pass," Conrad said on "Fox News Sunday.". "The only thing that has a prospect of passing is a plan in the Finance Committee."
Conrad said the plan is "fully paid for," extends coverage to 94 percent of Americans and improve the delivery system.
"We think we are very close to an agreement," he said of the so-called Gang of Six talks on the Finance Committee.
http://www.politico.com/...
Here is the vid he gave to his heros at Fox News:
The only problem here is that the bill in the Senate Finance Committee is simply horrible. Why someone like Conrad is telling us a real bill will not pass while he is one of the ones holding back the votes to pass it is pathetic. I know Kent Conrad does not care, but if he and Max Baucus are allowed to dole out yet more Corporate Welfare to the Insurance industry it will destroy our party.
It is much better for us not to get any healthcare reform this year than to mess around and pass this lemon of a bill written by Democrats that aren't really Democrats to appease the Insurance companies and lunatic Republican protesters. It imposes mandates upon everyone without providing an affordable public option for poor Americans to choose from. These co-ops are just government money given out as corporate welfare to the insurance companies and I have no faith whatsoever that they will do anything to alleviate costs. As we have seen time and time again, the greediest and least patriotic among us will just pocket the money and laugh at the rest of us. Baucus and Conrad will hope enough time goes by that nobody remembers how they screwed us all.
I am an uninsured American but I am increasingly becoming against healthcare reform. We have gotten away from real reform and the ideas floated around now simply scare the hell out of me. The fact that Barack Obama will sign a bill without a public option scares the hell out of me too. All the things that made me feel warm and fuzzy are gone, and all thats left scares the hell out of me. I want to tell these Democrat cowards, "No thanks, I'll just buy my medicine myself and quit going to the doctor". However, since they have to pass a mandate to give millions of new costumers and Corporate Welfare to the insurance companies I won't even be able to do that!!
I beg the members of the Congressional Progressive and Black Caucuses in the House of Representatives to oppose any bill without a public option. Having been sold out by the Democrats in the Senate it appears as if no reform is going to be better than what we get. My livelihood is at stake here and compared to that I could give a damn less whether Obama gets a victory on healthcare with a junk bill that does nothing for me but forces me to buy insurance I cannot afford and does it all in the name of Corporate Welfare.
I just hope enough Progressives see what a disaster mandates without a public option are and will rise up with me to force this idea to be defeated. We simply still have too many folks in our party who do not have the courage to fight for what they believe in. I just wish a real third party that represents Progressives will rise up soon and run candidates up and down the ticket. I am beginning to believe that is our only hope at ever getting any kind of progress in this country.
With all the talk about "Hope" and "Change" that "We can believe in" the only slogan that is ringing true from the last election is that "We simply cannot replace Corporate Republicans with Corporate Democrats and expect real change". That slogan was eerily prophetic and sadly true.