A simple word of advice from me to our United States Senators on health care reform and their "centrist" colleagues: just say "No" to Ben Nelson if he comes a-callin' with scary stories about getting all our citizens covered by health insurance this year:
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said he planned to urge the president not to force an arbitrary August deadline on health care reform.
Arbitrary?
Because 15 years after the last attempt at meaningful health care reform is too soon?
Maybe the 44 years after Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare Act is rushing it for Senator Nelson.
Arbitrary could be the 64 years since Truman said this:
In my message to the Congress of September 6, 1945, there were enumerated in a proposed Economic Bill of Rights certain rights which ought to be assured to every American citizen.
One of them was: "The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." Another was the "right to adequate protection from the economic fears of . .. sickness ...."
Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection.
The people of the United States received a shock when the medical examinations conducted by the Selective Service System revealed the widespread physical and mental incapacity among the young people of our nation. We had had prior warnings from eminent medical authorities and from investigating committees. The statistics of the last war had shown the same condition. But the Selective Service System has brought it forcibly to our attention recently--in terms which all of us can understand.
As of April 1, 1945, nearly 5,000,000 male registrants between the ages of 18 and 37 had been examined and classified as unfit for military service. The number of those rejected for military service was about 30 percent of all those examined. The percentage of rejection was lower in the younger age groups, and higher in the higher age groups, reaching as high as 49 percent for registrants between the ages of 34 and 37.
Wow, didn't realize the Republican "military lovers" could've killed that proposal -- even with Harry Truman's base militaristic pandering and the shadow of WWII looming over all of us.
So much for loving the military, eh R's?
And now it's 68 years since FDR's Four Freedom's speech, which petty, partisan Republicans also had a heavy hand in denying to We, the People:
The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.
And even though right wing pundits, tools that they are, will call you "socialists" as if they weren't going to anyway, you should all instead listen to Mario Solis-Marich of AM760 in Denver and take his suggestion for wavering Dems: get on the right side of history, right now, reject Bill Nelson's cowardly position to not take a stand on the one major issue that can revitalize our economy, renew our entrepreneurial class, and reform the true physical and spiritual health of our nation.
Guys, and Gals: It.Ain't.That.Hard.