I urge you to take a look at what Charlie Cook says about the category 3-4 hurricane bearing down on Democrats in November. It's scary. Cook refers to it as a bad heart attack for the Democrats come November.
Who's demoralized, who's disengaged? Exactly the cohort we need to come out and vote in droves. How do we win them back? We know the answer, start acting like Democrats.
And the groups that showed the largest decline in interest? Those who voted for Barack Obama -- liberals, African-Americans, self-described Democrats, moderates, those living in either the Northeast or West, and younger voters 18 to 34 years of age. These are the "Holy Mackerel" numbers.
I don't need Charlie Cook to tell me the base is deeply demoralized, one thing Democrats can and must do before 2012, is get ahead of skyrocketing health insurance premium increases.
Urgently needed base Democratic voters are feeling fed up because of what they see as the promise of 2008 versus the reality of their lives. What I would call, huge and historic missed opportunities especially as it applies to healthcare.
I need look no further than my own neighbors on the West Side of Manhattan--serious and committed base voters (you should have seen the line at my polling station in November 2008, two hours before the poll opened!)--who roll their eyes when we discuss what we had expected when we voted back then, and what's been delivered--often in the name of bipartisanship.
But bipartisanship doesn't make healthcare affordable or create jobs. And saying the PPACA is better than nothing does not win elections or arouse the fighting spirit of Democratic voters.
We fought, we dug deep, we campaigned, we called, we voted and we still can't afford to go to the doctor. With relief still years away, yes we do have the PPACA--but it's simply not making healthcare affordable or a right of every citizen. And to expect that voters won't react to these facts, is to live in an altered state of reality.
You cannot bestow on the American people a health insurance reform bill called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and at the same time fail to regulate skyrocketing premiums. The insurers are on a rampage of premium increases despite the pleas of President Obama to be nice.
If Democrats triumphantly call their legislation the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, then they need to deliver protections from egregious price gouging and affordable care. And they haven't done this. If you can afford to pay for the High Risk Pool, then it's a huge plus. But since the ability to pay is what matters, it remains a reality that healthcare in the United States is a privilege for those who can afford the very steep entry fees.
At the rate (no pun intended)these jaw dropping premiums are headed, the only Americans who won't qualify for a subsidy in 2014 will be the super rich.
You want good news? Here's good news. THERE IS A SOLUTION.
I guess Diane Feinstein is worried and well she should be, insurers in California are doing everything they can to secure huge premium increases. She and 22 other Democratic Senators face the voters in November, 2012. And I'm assuming Diane recognizes that she'll have some huge 'splaining to do, unless and until these obscene rate hikes are stopped.
Diane was busy penning a Huffington Post article about the urgent necessity to pass legislation which would regulate this predatory industry. President Obama supported regulating insurers, but for some reason that consumer protection just vanished from the bill, just like other politically popular measures like the public option and the Medicare buy in. But we still must make President Obama fight for it.
In March, I introduced legislation that would create a Health Insurance Rate Authority to empower the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to review rate hike proposals and reject any that are not justified. States where the Insurance Commissioner already has authority to review and block rates would not be affected by this law. In states where insurance companies do not need approval to impose rate increases, this law would prevent unjustified rate hikes between now and 2014, when new health insurance exchanges go into effect.
Unless we take action, we can expect for-profit health insurance corporations to inflate premium rates as much as possible during this interim period.
President Obama supported my proposal and sought to have it included in the health insurance reform that passed into law, but Senate procedural rules resulted in its exclusion from the final package. I am continuing to work across party lines in Washington to build support for a version of the bill, but this is a painstaking process in a Senate chamber that is more divided than I have ever seen it.
At the end of the day, here's where we stand as we head into the mid term elections. In 2014, insurers will keep 15 to 20 percent of the jaw dropping premiums to sell us plans that cover only 60 to 70 percent of our care, and this outrageously expensive scheme allegedly was to promote competition--and do it without a public option.
I have spent years of my life, writing about healthcare and in the course of doing this, trying to help people. I have said and will continue to demand that as progressives, we have a responsibility to make certain that healthcare in the United States a right not a privilege. At this juncture, the PPACA does not do this. I'm sorry that some of you find this jarring reality so impossible to assimilate.
This is why going forward we need to wage a fight for Allan Grayson's HR 4789, a four page bill which "allows any American to buy into Medicare at cost."
This is also why I will go to Washington DC on August 4th to tell the stories of Americans who cannot access healthcare and rely on the Free Clinics Association to provide them with something--anything.
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