My views about Health Care Reform Health Insurance Subsidy have been reinvigorated by Bill Moyers.
A wonderful piece on Huffpo by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship squarely aligns corporate greed with the current Health Insurance subsidy bill. Now many here at DK, MSNBC and within the Obama administration believe that the Health Insurance Subsidy bill will be the greatest piece of social legislation in history. If your history goes back 42 years and stops there, I would half heartedly agree with you because I really can't think of anything else the Democrats have done.
If you want to go back a little further, say 43 to 46 years ago, you will arrive at a time when Bill Moyers was working for LBJ. This was a tiny time window when Democrats actually accomplished wonderful things.
The headliners are:
Civil Rights Act
Voter's Rights Act
Medicare
Medicaid
Headstart
Any one of these accomplishments tower above the total of our accomplishments since. Heck, the second tier achievments during 1964 - 1966 exceed most of our modern day efforts in terms of social impact (Thanks Arlingtonian). These second tier acievments are:
Food Stamp Act
Upward Bound
National Endowment for the Arts
Public Broadcasting
Seatbelts mandated in cars
First endangered species act
Cigarette labeling
Mass transit act
And you know what? 46 years ago we had fillibusters, dissension within, media bias and all of the other political problems we have today. Believe me not much has changed.
So what does Bill say about the Health Care Reform Health Insurance Subsidy bill?
...the Obama plan would plop an additional $336 billion into the insurance companies' pockets -- in the form of subsidies given to those who can't afford to buy health insurance on their own.
Folks, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it sure aint a goose.
How was the Dorgan reimportation amendment defeated? I'm thinking it was money
Why is there no public option? Here is what Obama said after the passage of the Senate bill. (With no public option, no single payer, no Medicaid for 50 - 64 year olds.)
So why are we scrambling to pass a Health Insurance Subsidy Bill? Bill Moyers may have the answer:
...$544 million that was spent on lobbying by the health sector last year, plus more than $200 million in advocacy ads.
How many people could $744 million help? Obviously insurance companies feel that their needs come first. I am afraid that Obama and many Democrats agree.
So as the Health Insurance Subsidy bill goes down to the wire, the amusing and courageous Alan Grayson comes up with a Public Option on steroids, HR4789. This simple, elegant four page bill is the stuff that Democrats used to deliver when our values came first.