Popular support for including a Public Option as a component of Health Care Reform has been remarkably consistent throughout the drawn out legislative process in Congress, with support hovering around the current 59% level found in the new CBS News/New York Times poll.
Yet our American Senate appears determined to ignore the popular consensus among Americans that favors the public option, preferring instead to concoct free market fundamentalist excuses for stripping out this core component of health care reform. The Senate Leadership is opting instead for a convoluted scheme that would provide a few of the improvements a public option provides, while scrupulously avoiding any interruption of the profit streams going to Health insurance companies, Big Pharma, and Health Providers. In fact the Senate Leadership's new scheme would create an enormous new profit stream going to private health insurance companies, by making health insurance compulsory for all American citizens and sweetening the deal for the corporations by channeling federal subsidies their way. The very way the Leadership's scheme is structured make it embarrassingly obvious that their plan's primary beneficiaries are insurance companies and health providers. The American People take a back seat.
HEALTH CARE
About six in ten Americans continue to express support for the so-
called "public option" –- which the Senate appears to have sidelined
for now. Views on this haven’t changed recently. As was the case last
month, Democrats favor it and Republicans are opposed.
VIEWS ON PUBLIC OPTION
Now 11/2009
Favor 59% 61%
Oppose 29 28
Last summer, in poll questions that did not include the phrase "public
option," views were much the same, with six in ten consistently in
favor.
pdf file
Americans' consensus in favor of a Public Option has withstood every attack the Republicans can throw at it, from Sarah Pailin's delusional pronouncements, to Chuck Grassley's deliberate lies.
I think we all know why Blue Dog Democrats are fighting so hard to water down Health Care Reform into weak tea. They're in Congress to represent Wellpoint and UnitedHealth Group, and their buddies from K Street, not the citizens of Arkansas, North Dakota, or Louisiana.