Is HOPE and CHANGE and UNICORNS enough to win the Healthcare Debate?

The health care debate is heating up with respect to the melodrama surrounding it all. Town hall meetings are becoming the sets for corporate directors in the astro turfing campaigns of manufactured anger. Health care lobbyist and executives are indeed, getting their message out toward derailing the public option in health care, and as direct result, impacting up to 20% of the US economy in a manner that benefits their bottom line. What benefits them?
In plain English, the status quo which denies individuals the true benefits of their health care policies by not paying out on claims. Sticking in hidden provisions, and if effect making anything a possible ‘pre-existing condition’ toward denying health benefits. Re adjusting policies in a manner to drive up premiums on the one hand, while paying out very little on the other hand with respect to service. By any definition this fits what it means to run a ‘ponzi shceme’, but it is all perfectly legal in our current health care environment.
Why? Well for far too long the healthcare lobbyist and corporate interest have had a vice grip on the congress. And make no mistake about it, this program has been strategic in nature. In the Senate all representatives are equal, a Senator from Montana is on equal footing with a Senator from Illinois even if the Senator from Illinois represents more actual people and the Senator from Montana represents more cattle per square mile, they are equal two per state.
The lobbyist figured this out a long time ago, that 5,000 dollars has more meaning in a state like Montana with respect to buying off a Senator and adding to his re-election campaign than a Senator from Illinois who has the ability to take in small donations from a wider swath of people, simple math. As a result, currently, the public option is stalled in the US Senate thanks to the Senator from Montana and Chair of the finance committee who has been brought and paid for by the health insurance lobbyist.

The key question and no one has asked it, why is this thing held up in the finance committee alone. The Health, Pension and Labor committee Chaired by Teddy Kennedy marked up a bill and the price tag stands at about 500 billion dollars consistent with the House Bill and if it is allowed on the floor for a vote we could have a conference committee and get a vote on the bill in September and perhaps pass a good bill. Why isn’t this the case? Could it be, President Obama has brought into this whole idea of bi-partisanship at the detriment of his own party and perhaps his re-elect prospects.
The painful reality is, the playbook from the past has no relevance with respect to today’s current environment. Picking off a few Republican votes, in the House and the Senate on the public option will not make the proposal a better proposal in the public eye. President Obama needs to realize, and realize very soon, that the public option is worth defending on moral grounds and adjusting it to make a more palatable to an audience that does not exist will alienate the voters that gave him a mandate. The President has a mandate given to him on November 4, 2008 and he needs to start acting and walking like it, and get off his unicorn of bi-partisanship and pass the public option. Easier said than done right? Actually it is easier done than said.
Right now tensions over healthcare run high in our country and the state of our union is very restless. The baby boomers are set to retire in the next 4 to 6 years and many of them are downwardly mobile and face the possibility of remaining in a work force with fewer benefits at a time when undoubtedly their healthcare cost will rise. Indeed, to offset this potential high cost of healthcare, the risk pool must be expanded to cushion the cost of service. On this score both sides of the debate are in complete agreement. So how do we pass the public option? It all comes down to the President abandoning his notion of bi-partisanship and working with the Senate and allowing the Democrats to pass the public option in the budget reconciliation process at the end of the year. This allows the Senate to pass the public option with 50 plus one 1 vote instead of the 60 votes needed under the current provisions. Obama has been setting his party up for failure for too long by buying the frame of passing the public option under the 60 vote construct. If he shifts the debate to passing it on reconciliation in the fall, it snatches the heart out of the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats argument of more time and the need to delay the will of the people. In fact, there is no need for this current made for TV melodrama if we had real leadership in Washington the tools are there to pass this bill. Democrats need to do a better job in explaining the public option. It is nothing more than an expansion of medi-care or put simpler it is the equivalent of having the post office compete with UPS and Fed Ex. People get this debate when you put it in those terms. In many ways, our President is nothing more than an enabler for the healthcare insurance lobby by not for lack of a better term growing a sack. I recall as if it were yesterday when George W. Bush led this country into Iraq with the following rationale: “I will not stand by as dangers gather. If it is choice between disarming Sadaam Hussien or protecting the American people, I will protect the American People every single time.” It is high time for Obama to listen to George W. Bush’s example on leadership, sack up, and protect the American people from the gathering danger of lacking healthcare options.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3756