Matthew Spieler, at a website called The Faster Times (hat tip to Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic for linking to it), makes a really good point about "progressive" Democrats in Congress who would rather kill health care reform entirely than pass the Senate bill.
Spieler correctly points out that the Senate-bill-versus-no-bill argument, at least for those left of the center, effectively boils down to this: either (a) insure upwards of 30 million people (two-thirds of the uninsured, approximately) using the current private, for-profit system, thus granting billions of dollars in profits to the insurance companies; or (b) deny the evil, horrible insurance companies all of those profits, but also deny the 30 million people the ability to get health insurance. These are the choices, given that the public option seems to be dead and buried forever.
Liberals who are against the Senate bill simply because it would put more money in the pockets of insurance company executives are the worst kind of ideologues. If you can do something good for 30 million mostly low income people who can't afford insurance as it is, why not just do it? Worry about who profits off of it later; let's get these people insured. (Full disclosure: I am twenty-five years old, have a part-time job and was dropped from my parents' insurance when I turned twenty-four over a year ago. So I'm not exactly impartial on this topic. I would love to go see a doctor at some point. Maybe a dentist too. Why are Anthony Weiner and Raul Grijalva opposed to me seeing a dentist? And how about Howard Dean? I voted for you in 2004, dude. I campaigned for you. I donated money to you. Are you going to pay for my fillings?)
For that matter, they're also the worst kind of hypocrites. None of these people - Weiner, Grijalva, Dean - receive their insurance from a public system like Medicare or Medicaid, I promise you. Which means that they're all okay with their dollars lining the pockets of wealthy insurance CEOs; they just don't want any of the 46 million uninsured Americans to have that ability. Come on, guys. Start acting like the party Americans elected to lead in 2006 and 2008, not the party we just threw out.
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While I agree with you that it seems a little crazy to continue to not cover 30 million US folk, I imagine that the House Dems hope to pass something more progressive instead. I like The Daily Show's take on the situation last week in which Stewart asks how the Dems can't pass anything with a fairly large majority vote in every branch of government while the Repubs under Bush passed whatever they wanted with less. The Lesson: Dems need more fear-based propaganda and less compromising.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it kills me that they're unable to pass health care or climate change legislation with far more substantial majorities than the Reps EVER had under Bush... I guess it just goes to show you which party is fundamentally stronger and which is weaker.
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