Noelle (slinkerwink) sent me an email and said I should write something. I've received a lot of emails asking me to say something, it's hard to know how I can add anything very productive to the outrage.
The outrage is justified.
Here's what I'm thinking. Do all of you remember the Bush tax cuts? Does everyone remember how the tax cuts were formulated to give all or most Americans a check for $300.00 while the rich received massive tax relief?
Why do you think there was that $300 per person fig leaf? To keep the masses docile, to make us think there was something in it for us. This is exactly what's happening again with healthcare reform writ large.
If I say I feel deeply betrayed, I'll be met with a chorus of people making the legitimate claim that this depraved giveaway to the insurance corporations legislation is progress. Yeah, sure, just like the $300 check from George Bush.
Sadly, if you keep an open mind and listen to people like Howard Dean and Wendell Potter the bill is riddled with loopholes and curveballs against the American people and in favor of the insurance corporations.
As Markos said last night on Countdown, the ongoing disaster of skyrocketing premiums and every other flaw in this bill, will haunt virtually every Democrat in 2010 and 2012. The new NBC/WSJ poll reflects this daunting reality.
People want healthcare reform, but Americans aren't as stupid as the politicians think, we see who's benefiting and it's not us.
The unspeakable tragedy of LieberCare
But before you get all tied up in knots of anger about who loves or supports Obama, I implore you to read this extraordinary analysis by Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) exploring how the proposed legislation will impact American families. We all love and support Obama, certainly I do, but he is getting some really catastrophic advice. And you can ignore this reality at your own peril.
I've long dreamed about the day we would elect a Democratic president and have large Congressional majorities and bring healthcare in the United States into the same orbit as all the other industrialized nations of the world. Yet this legislation doesn't accomplish this. We exceptional Americans still debate, is healthcare a right, and demand CBO scores. Those we elect to represent us, always seem to demand CBO scores when it comes to what the American people need for basic survival. Did you hear any talk about CBO scores when it came to the Bush tax cuts, r to invade Iraq? I didn't.
To put this mess in perspective. I'm the base of the Democratic party. I took the worst hit in about eight years on my own insurance this last renewal. I am paying much, much more, for much less. I am now dangerously underinsured. This happened to me on Obama's watch. Of course I know the Democrats aren't responsible for the fact that my premium went up 32%, but if I'm even thinking that this has been the worst year in at least eight years, how are other Americans going to react after this giveaway legislation has been signed? Not well at all when they get nothing but sharply higher premiums, escalating co-pays and deductibles, and endless harassment from the same insurance corporations we're being mandated to turn over our money to (with no choice, no competition)--all courtesy of Democrats. Democrats and President Obama own this disaster.
And, make no mistake, it is a train wreck. If mandating the working poor pay a huge chunk of their income to private health insurers can be called progress, then pat yourself on the back. If we bring some small relief to Americans who have long been denied healthcare, pat yourself on the back again, and call it a day.
This is not reform. It is a massive hoax, though, no doubt, like that $300 Bush tax rebate, it's been designed to throw us a few crumbs. If that's change reform you can believe in, fine, you're entitled. Who am I to shape your vision of right and wrong, good and evil, what is essential for the American people to survive versus the political con job of the century underway at this very moment. It's being sold to us by the president we elected and believed in. There's still time though for him to roll his sleeves up and break some heads.
How dare they! How dare they!
Threatening that this bill is our last chance in a generation to deliver what the rest of the industrialized world accepts as a piece of the social fabric, is low and cruel, Howard Dean doesn't buy that bullshit.
Lanny Davis is a confused idiot. I'd like Lanny to bring himself and his family to stand on line at a free health clinic. Instead, he spews talking points on behalf of the status quo. Lanny is pathetically ill-informed. He talks about the insurers being required to insure everyone, oh Lanny, get your damn facts straight, insurers will insure those who can pay. Got that Lanny? Those who can pay. The Senate bill requires older or sicker Americans to pay lots more. This makes buying insurance unaffordable.
I've long dreamed that healthcare would become a right not a privilege. This won't happen with this bill.
I've long dreamed that all Americans could access healthcare without the specter of financial ruin looming behind every bend in the road. This won't happen with this bill.
I've long dreamed that Americans would be protected from the egregious behavior of the for-profit insurance industry. This won't happen with this bill.
This scheme, or whatever you want to call it, is simply unaffordable for the Americans it's supposed to help. And even worse, essentially unintelligible for the rest of us.
I suppose I need to end by saying something again about the Americans I've met going to the free health clinics in Little Rock and Kansas City. The Americans, Nicole Lamoureux, the executive director of the National Association of Free Clinics calls "my patients". These Americans, most of whom work, or have been laid off, could no more afford the junk insurance which is being offered by this legislation, then I could grow a second head.
Honestly, I thought I understood how bad things are for so many of our fellow citizens, but I didn't, nor do you, until you meet them and look them in the eye. To a person they are angry, desperate and counting on President Obama to make good on his commitment to them.
