Posted on 08/20/2009 12:40:29 PM PDT by seanmerc
WASHINGTON -- To win concessions from the hardliners on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama appeared as though he was ready to give up a jewel in the crown of health reform -- the government-run public option. But after liberal Democrats put up a squawk, the White House scaled back, insisting the president’s commitment to the public option hasn’t changed.
Will the real President Obama please stand up?
Why doesn’t the president come out and say exactly where he stands, where he draws the line? The problem is that for President Obama, there is no "line" on health care. It appears as though he will take what he can get.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius signaled Sunday on CNN that the public option, a government-run health insurance alternative, was "not the essential element" of the administration’s health care overhaul.
She said the most important thing is "choice and competition," which opens the door to the less controversial non-profit cooperative idea -- which few understand. In general, health care cooperatives would permit private local, state and regional non-profit groups to enroll members and bargain with doctors and hospitals for reduced-rate care.
Reaction from liberals in Congress was swift. The usually silent Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., said the public option plan is "a must." And Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said that without the public option, there is little hope for real change to a "system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it."
Former Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, a physician who also served as governor of Vermont, said "you can’t do health care reform without" a government-insurance alternative.
Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., said: "Leaving private insurance companies the job of controlling health care is like making a pyromaniac the fire chief."
President Obama should listen to supporters of the government option.
He knows that VA health care and Medicare work -- and both are government run. But the president apparently may be willing to settle for much less than real reform to get a bill through Congress.
Oddly, many of the white-haired men and women speaking out at the town meetings against the public option clearly are old enough to be receiving Medicare and Social Security.
They should be ashamed of themselves for listening to the scaremongers. Surely they are not so selfish as to deprive the millions of families -- including children -- who are without health care.
But the right-wingers and their talk-show allies -- in addition to highly paid health insurance lobbyists -- are spreading falsehoods about the health plan.
The fat cat drug and health insurance industries -- labeled by some as the "medical industrial complex"-- have poured millions into commercials that deceive Americans on what health care reform is all about.
And in the meantime, the health care industry is raking in record profits -- the 10 largest insurers took in $13 billion in 2007 with CEOs earning an average $12 million a year, according to the labor-backed group, Health Care for America Now.
Think of how many people would profit if that money was available for health care in this depressed economy.
Many poor people are facing foreclosures and evictions. For them, health care is only one big worry among many.
The opponents certainly enjoy all the constitutional protections of freedom of speech -- even to peddle falsehoods. And I would never want to weaken the First Amendment.
But I wonder whether these people -- exhibit A is former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, now a lobbyist and activist involved in the well-publicized town hall meeting disruptions -- are aware their polemics and disinformation have also created a dangerous climate in the land.
Actually, it’s an atmosphere that too many times in our history has led to national tragedy.
In Phoenix many persons openly carried guns outside where President Obama was speaking. One sported a military-style AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. When the president went to Portsmouth, N.H. last week for a health-care-related town hall meeting, a protester stood outside with an automatic pistol strapped to his leg.
High among the misconceptions about health care legislation are measures to permit Medicare coverage for end-of-life counseling for the elderly. These legitimate proposals have been attacked as scary government "death panels" that would pull the plug on grandma.
Despite the disinformation campaign, polls show the majority of Americans want some kind of government health insurance -- especially those who have none, many of them unemployed.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has a good idea.
His "United States National Insurance Act" would start at birth and ensure that every American, "regardless of income, employment status, or race, has access to quality, affordable health care services."
And why not?
oddly enough, i agree with helen thomas
obama is a wavering idiot
I think I need a shower now
Yoo-hoo, Helen Thomas ping list members! FReepmail me if you'd like to be added to the list.
You’re gonna need a flak vest for agreeing with Helen!
i think that i’ve seen her in that red sweater before. birthday outfit?
Please, don’t bring up those images again.
Erkkk....
Drzzlll.....
Mfftttt.....
Is she so naive she thinks she would get a real answer to that Q!
I stopped reading, because I started laughing so hard...
And you had to post that picture just before supper.
Look! Seanmerc posted HT photos, and messed up my ping page again.
Don't know what it is, but something about this graphic makes me crack up every time I see it.
Ya got me with your warning. I just had to take a look. Yikes!
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Was that necessary?
I know we were warned, but really.
This is a left-wing plot, right?
It's the new WH strategy to keep posting those Helen pics and make conservatives so sick that even they will be begging for 'free' single-payer healthcare too, is it?
Very clever. ;-)
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