AS WE ARE ALL AWARE, the Senate, asserting that they need to make the "numbers" on a health care bill laden with huge giveaways to the drug, hospital and "insurance" industries, "look better" asserts that they need a FIVE YEAR DELAY before the benefits of the health care bill go into effect. This is TWO national elections away!
AS WE ARE ALL ALSO AWARE during that FIVE years, at least 505,000 Americans, half a million innocent people, will DIE of preventable causes due to their not being able to afford health care. Arguably, most of those people almost certainly have "insurance" of some kind, but perversely, they will often not be able to afford to use it.
Building any form of delay into any health care bill isn't just fraud and bad faith. Such "deals" that needlessly prolong deaths and suffering, possibly in exchange for money, are clearly crimes against humanity, and almost certainly crimes under good government laws, as well as the Federal RICO Act.
IMPLEMENT THE BILL, NOW, OR ADMIT ITS FAILURE AND THATS ITS A FAKE BILL DESIGNED TO DELAY AND LETS MOVE ON
EITHER
1.) its a workable solution, and we implement it NOW,
OR
2.) its a failure and we dump it NOW.
Legislators, lobbyists, executives, etc. should be made aware that as such, "delays" of any form for any reason other than absolute physical impossibility of the most extreme kind, while a need of such size exists for DECISIVE ACTION, ALSO represent in all probability multiple criminal acts of extreme gravitas against this nation's people and indirectly, all humanity. They have in every conceivable way, an obligation to act, now, to make health care affordable and available and prevent these deaths. Their obligation to the people of this nation is more important than obligations to campaign donors.
In most sane nations, acting against the interest of the nation at such a time, would be a capital offense.
I think that all good Democrats should demand that the Attorney General investigate the legality of any said delays or deals between parties given this very real conflict between the moral obligation of politicians and their donor obligations. if the Attorney general's office is involved in this in any kind, an independent investigation should be undertaken. At the very least, said delay could and should represent both CONFLICT OF INTEREST OF THE MOST DANGEROUS KIND, and potentially, if evidence emerges of conflict of interest, bribery or non-justifiable obstruction of any kind emerges, potentially, treason, given the obvious state of emergency as millions of our most vulnerable citizens lack any way to access affordable quality health care.
Efforts should be made to determine what laws have or are being broken. If they assert that laws have not been broken in this situation, how this can possibly be so needs to be explained in detail, and those legal arguments asserting this and their legal arguments for same need to be placed into the official record, for posterity, just as the infamous "torture memos" of the previous administrations were, allowing Americans a glimpse into the minds of their leaders, so should this argument.
If, in the future, evidence emerges which exposes intent, their prosecution, as there are no statutes of limitations for crimes against humanity, should then immediately be undertaken.
Additionally, the nation needs to be aware of the potential for blackmail inherent in such obvious and blatant disregard for human life.
KNOWLEDGE without reporting such a conspiracy potentially could trap any leadership that then ignored warnings such as this one into a situation where they could be blackmailed by anybody having knowledge of their knowledge or participation in negotiations leading up to that criminal deal.
Any malfeasance or conspiracy that knowingly results in the preventable deaths of half a million Americans is NOT and should NEVER be a laughing matter.
References:
1.)Study: U.S. Ranks Last Among Other Industrialized Nations on Preventable Deaths - The Commonwealth Fund
101,000 Fewer Americans Would Die Annually If the U.S. Improved Its Preventable Death Rate to that of the Three Top Performing Nations
2.)Preventable Mortality Amenable to Health Care Improvements Study (longer BMJ version PDF)
3.) Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offenses Against the Law of Nations (writings of Rafael Lemkin archived at preventgenocide.org)
4.) Wikipedia: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)