So as I'm driving down the road in my shiny new Porsche, enjoying the breezy 65 degree Texas February weather, whispering dirty secrets to my absolutely gorgeous wife(uh, what should I name her...) "Becky", I'll be listening to the news on my futuristic voice activated computerized-semi-sentient car radio, and I'll hear something quite, uh, quaint.
I hadn't really cared about politics since I was completely disillusioned sometime in Mid 2010. I stopped following it at all after I got my cushy 250k a year job, but something on the radio struck a familiar tone.
"Deadline approaching for Implementation of Public Option for Health Care".
"Public Option"? I've heard that phrase before, haven't I?... somewhere in my distant political past. Ah, now I remember. I used to be a liberal, didn't I? Wow, I was really for the public option, wasn't I? Way back when? It seems so long ago....
The memories are coming back now! I remember the hard fight for the "Public Option". Didn't we win that fight? I vaguely remember winning it... Ah, we did win it! I remember the glorious effort of Harry Reid to get all of the 60 democratic senators in line. I remember the public chastening and threats hurled at centrist democrats who appeared to be wavering on voting for cloture. "We're gonna kick you out of the caucus!", said Harry Reid, and he meant every word of it.
And not a single democrat filibustered. I remember how proud I was to have voted for them. I even remember Olympia Snowe voting for cloture in the end. I remember how we lobbied hard, for months and months, signed petitions, went to events, went to rallies, posted all over the internet. I even wrote to my Republican congressman telling him to vote down any bill without a strong public option. We ended up getting the "strong" version, H.R. 3200, with payouts linked to medicare +5%. We all held a big party when the damn thing passed. It was great.
... That is, until we read the fine print. The fine print says: Doesn't go into effect until 2013. Err... what? Probably should have read the fine print!!!!!
I remember the teabaggers gloating about it, "Hey idiots, if the public option is so good why did Obama push it off till 2013? What's he so afraid of?" my response was... uh... what the hell can I say to that? I quit. I remember Mike Huckabee, in 2010, challenging Obama to just implement the public option right then and there, rather than waiting till after the next election, "so people can see how bad it is, how much of a boondoggle it is, right now."
Well, Fuck: Mike Huckabee is president now, isn't he? At least he lowered my Taxes!
Ok. So it's 2013 now. Wow have things changed in four years! Well, what's happened? First off, 200,000 Americans have died in the past four years from completely preventable illnesses due to our fucked up healthcare system. Second, the HHS secretary is now an ex-insurance exec appointed by Huckabee. And it's his job to implement the public option. He decides to outsource the administration of the PO to his own cronies in the insurance industry, and puts all kinds of restrictions on who can sign up. Of course, his insurance cronies skim about 80% of the 2 billion starting budget off the top. And the public option goes bankrupt and disappears by 2014. And Mike Huckabee, of course blames the democrats, telling us how much of an idiotic idea a public option was in the first place.
...
So, where will you be in 2013?