|
  Miles Mogulescu: Speaker Pelosi: Please Stop Bullsh*ting Us On Dropping State Single Payer Amendment
Reported by Huffington Post on Friday, 6 November 2009 (on November 6, 2009)
|
It\'s truly depressing to watch how quickly so-called progressive leaders in Congress, and many of their supporters in the so-called progressive movement, are abandoning all of their key promises on health care reform in the name of a health care bill that will provide massive government subsidies to private insurance and drug companies and fine citizens who can\'t afford to buy crappy private insurance policies, without any effective competition from a robust public option.
As I wrote a few days ago, 60 members of the House Progressive Caucus signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi last July promising to vote against any health care \"reform\" bill without a \"robust\" public option which paid Medicare rates plus 5%.* Now they\'re breaking that promise. \"Progressive leaders like Rep. Anthony Weiner are now calling the neutered public option in the House bill a \"once in a lifetime reform\", despite the fact that it has eliminated the very provision thet the Progressive Caucus promised was essential in order to get its vote.
Even worse, Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic House leadership has stripped the House bill of a provision-- passed by a bipartisan 27-19 vote in The House Education and Labor Committee-- which would allow individual states to experiment with state-level single payer systems without being sued by the private insurance industry. Her justification: It would somehow break President Obama\'s promise that people can keep the insurance they have if they like it.
What a crock of bullshit to justify a further cave-in by Democrats to the private insurance industry.
Nowhere during the campaign did Obama make a promise that he wouldn\'t let states experiment with their own single payer systems, if they so chose. In fact, Candidate Obama repeatedly said that if he were starting from scratch, single payer would be the best way to go.
But President Obama has broken numerous other campaign promises made by Candidate Obama on health care reform:
1. Candidate Obama promised to end backroom deals with \"stakeholders\" like insurance companies, drug companies and hospitals and instead broadcast all health care reform negotiations on CSPAN. President Obama has negotiated backroom sweatheart deals with insurance companies, drug companies and for-profit hospitals in exchange for campaign cash.
2. Candidate Obama vigorously campaigned against Hillary Clinton\'s proposals to mandate that uninsured individuals and families must buy health insurance or be fined by the federal government. The heart of President Obama\'s and the Democratic Congress\'s plan for covering the uninsured is now individual mandates under the threat of IRS penalties.
3. Candidate Obama promised to end the ban on Medicare negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. President Obama made a deal with big Pharma to extend the ban.
4. Candidate Obama promised to allow the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. President Obama made a deal with big Pharma to continue to ban such importation.
5. Candidate Obama promised a robust public option that would give consumers a real alternative to private insurance and would put competitive pressure on private insurance companies to moderate their premiums. President Obama is supporting meaningless triggers for a public option, while the House and Senate are proposing neutered public options that would cover almost nobody, would cost more than private insurance, and would have virtually no impact on lowering private insurance rates.
6. Candidate Obama opposed John McCain\'s proposals to tax employer-provided health care plans. President Obama has offered no objections to the Senate\'s plans to tax the health care plans of many union workers, and some form of this tax plan is likely to end up in the final bill President Obama signs.
So Speaker Pelosi, spare us the insult to our intelligence by your claiming that you can\'t allow a vote on the state single-payer amendment because it would break President Obama\'s campaign promises. The only promises it would break are those made by President Obama--and now apparently Speaker Pelosi--to the insurance industry.
If Democratic politicians want to know why their base--who voted for President Obama and a Democratic Congressional majority in 2008--are demoralized and not voting in large numbers, they should look no farther than these kinds of betrayals. The only thing that can revive the bankrupt Republican Party is for the Democrats to continue to act like the party of the insurance companies, drug companies, and Wall Street investment bankers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Following are the names of the 60 members of the House Progressive Caucus who signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi on July 30, 2009 stating that \"Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, for a public option with reimbursement rates based on Medicare rates--not negotiated rates--is unacceptable. It would ensure higher costs for the public plan, and would do nothing to achieve the goal of \'keeping insurance companies honest\' and their rates down...We simply cannot vote for such a proposal [emphasis added].\" When the House votes in the next few days on a bill with a neutered public option that\'s not based on Medicare rates, watch carefully to see how many of these \"Progressive\" Democrats break the promise they made in this letter.
Lynn Woolsey, Raul Grijalva, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Jerry Nadler, Phil Hare, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Keith Ellison, Earl Blumenauer, Mel Watts, Donna Edwards, John Olver, Dennis Kucinich, Laura Richardson, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Judy Chu, Maurice Hinchey, Hank Johnson, Diane Watson, Jackie Spier, Bill Pascrell, Lloyd Doggett, Marcy Kaptur, Mazie Hirono, Bob Filner, Linda Sanchez, Marcia Fudge, Barbara Lee, Andre Carson, Sheila Jackson Lee, Michael Honda, Jim McDermott, William Lacy Clay, Jim McGovern, Yvetter Clarke , Eric Massa, Chellie Pingree , Jesse Jackson, Jr., Elijah Cummings, Bennie Thompson, Gwen Moore, Donald Payne, Fortney \"Pete\" Stark, Ed Towns,Corrine Brown, Alcee Hastings, Nydia Valezquez, Luis Gutierrez, Grace Napolitano, Albio Sires, John Tierney, Mike Capuano, Chaka Fattah, Jose Serrano, SamFarr, Bill Delahunt, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Gregorio Sablan, Robert Wexler Emanuel Cleaver
The \"Progressive Democrats\" who break their promise deserve a place on a wall of shame. And put Speaker Pelosi\'s name at the top of the wall of shame.
Links: Full news story
|
|
| |
| | Recent related news |
| |
Huffington Post
55 minutes ago - Politics | The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in congress since it began last year.... |
Huffington Post
7 hours ago - Business | SEATTLE — School districts have imposed all sorts of drastic cuts to save money during the down... |
Huffington Post
1 day ago - World | When it comes to tyrants who have dismantled their nation\'s democracies and thrown their political... |
Huffington Post
1 day ago - Politics | Not long ago, the most prominent supporters of the public option were touting it as essential for... |
guardian.co.uk
1 day ago - Entertainment | This autumn, Ai Weiwei, China's most outspoken artist, will take over Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. He... |
| |
guardian.co.uk
1 day ago - World | This autumn, Ai Weiwei, China's most outspoken artist, will take over Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. He... |
Huffington Post
2 days ago - Politics | I used to be one of those Bolshevik, single-payer, Medicare-for-all types, but with the healthcare... |
guardian.co.uk
2 days ago - Entertainment | Murder, rape, incest, blackmail — literary priests just don't know when to stop. Novelist Paul... |
Politics Daily
2 days ago - Politics | Filed under: The Capitolist
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the progressive Democrat from Ohio, announced...Also reported by •Huffington Post |
Huffington Post
2 days ago - Politics | The final push for passage of health care legislation has brought out the worst in many Democrats.... |
| |
|
|
|
| |
Facebook
E-mail
Twitter
Mixx
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
Tweet the News!
Select Region >
Top News RSS Feed | News for my Website | Archive | Advertise | Help | Enquiries | Bookmark this site | 
U.S. version
