While the goal of providing health care coverage to millions of uninsured Americans is worthy and admirable, the Obama-supported Senate health care "reform" bill is an abysmally undisciplined hodgepodge that richly rewards private insurers and their lobbyists... and levies mandates, back-breaking fees, and/or IRS penalties on most middle-class Americans. And yet, tens of millions will remain uninsured.
In short, "I thought I voted Democratic in the last election," as Dr. Drew Westen, Emory University psychology professor, penned today in his brilliant Huffington Post article "Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator."
Health care industry stocks soared to an unheard of 52-year high on Friday, December 18th, on news that insurance giants won their hard-fought battle to have all vestiges of a public plan option eliminated from Senate health care "reform" legislation. As a result of final Senate bill changes:
- All Americans are mandated to purchase health care insurance.
- There is no mandate for employers to provide health insurance for their employees.
- Said insurance will only be provided by private corporations.
- No effective controls are in place to prohibit insurers from raising prices at will.
- The health insurance industry maintains its across-the-board antitrust exemption.
- To largely pay for this "reform," the Senate bill taxes employees, many of them middle-class, whose employers have generously chosen to foot the bill for higher-quality insurance policies.
- For more reasons, see FireDogLake.com's 10 Reasons to Kill the Senate Bill .
BusinessWeek reporters warned us last summer this would happen, in their insightful article The Health Insurers Have Already Won:
"The likely victors are insurance giants such as UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, and WellPoint. The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge..., the insurance industry will emerge more profitable...."The industry has already accomplished its main goal of at least curbing, and maybe blocking altogether, any new publicly administered insurance program that could grab market share from the corporations that dominate the business."
And the Washington Post amply warned us last August about the insidious health care "reform" role of hundreds of lobbyists devoted to Congressional Democrats:
"In a glum economy, the lobbying business feels kind of bubbly. Every new Obama proposal comes with acres of fine print for corporate powers, interests groups and lobbyists to haggle over, profitably..."Major health-care interests alone are spending $1.4 million this year lobbying Congress . . . per day, according to Common Cause, a government watchdog group. A lobbyist's delight created, ironically, by the let's-solve-all-our-problems-RIGHT-NOW approach of a president who pooh-poohed the excesses of lobbyists."
After all our heartfelt campaigning in 2008, and after tens of millions of new voters were drawn to the polls because they fervently supported Obama's mantra of "Change We Can Believe In," it's incredibly difficult to stomach being thrown under the bus for the sake of greedy corporations and their lobbyists.
The irony is that when record numbers of Congressional Democrats are inevitably defeated in 2010, enough Republicans and wised-up Democrats will likely be in office to overturn the most egregious portions of this disastrous bill.
But I'm left wondering: How in the heck, after only one short year, did Obama manage to turn the Democratic party into the party of corporate bailouts and handouts (i.e. socialism for the rich), and levies, penalties, and mandates for every day Americans (i.e. capitalism for the non-rich)?
And like Dr. Westen, I am deeply disheartened to realize that President Obama is "going to set back the Democratic Party and the progressive movement by decades, because the average American is coming to believe that what they're seeing right now is 'liberalism,' and they don't like what they see. I don't, either."
Comments
Its funny how the Republicans were the biggest adversaries of the public option. The public option would have created competition, a true conservative theory. I guess they are against anything that destroys the ability for a big corporation to use tyrannical rule over their subjects. The Republicans are not conservative by the true definition. The public option would have created competition. It would have given people options. It did not have to be paid for by the government. It could have just been an alternative for employees who would now have choices.
The big insurance companies have won once again. and the losers are the American people. Howard Dean was right, this bill has turned into a bailout for big insurance. The Democrats have once again proven that their special interest groups are just as important as the Republicans’ special interest groups. Just as we have seen with the bank bailouts, they share the same special interest groups, big business.
Deborah –
Oh, I don’t know. I think that we are seeing the limits on reform. This bill is good for big Pharma, big Insurance, and big Hospital. They are about to get 30 million new customers and a large government subsidy. There is almost no cost control. Money has talked.
However ….
Thirty million uninsured are about to get insurance. Insurance companies can no longer turn you down for a pre-existing condition. Insurance companies can no longer drop you when you get sick. Soimetime around 2014, I will be able to purchase group insurance in a national plan from a private insurer.
It ain’t all bad. This is a mitigated good. An improvement on the status quo. This is the first piece of federal legislation in years that deals directly with a need of the American people. In retrospect, it was as good as we could have expected.
William –
“The Democrats have once again proven that their special interest groups are just as important as the Republicans’ special interest groups. ”
True that.
When the Soviet Union won the race to put a satellite in orbit, Bob Hope observed that “all this proves is that their German scientists are better than our German scientists.”
Ever heard of corporatocracy?
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2009/12/corporatocracy-explained.html
Hear! Hear! As a former Democrat who gave up and became an Independent after seeing my vote thrown in the trash twice (I live in Florida), I applaud you and Drew Westen for speaking truth to power!
So with you libs, the ends justify the means… thirty million people will get health insurance and that’s all that matters to you… I am one of those by the way, a type one diabetic who currently has not medical insurance.
So you bleeding heart liberals will redistribute wealth and spread it around, yet I don’t see Obama (your Messiah), Reid, Pelosi, Frank, Dean, Kerry, the Clin-tons willing to spread their wealth or be put on this “landmark health reform” themselves. They are liberals (and socialists) like you, yet they are all wealthy, got wealthy in the “evil captialist” system working in government, yet I hear no outcry of foul play from your media outlets (pretty much everyone) about how the elected officials mentioned and others on your side aren’t chipping in.
Did IQ’s drop even further with all of you. You vote for “like-minded” climate change, Big government persons who are socialists (and in most cases rich) and yet they exempt themselves from contributing to the pot.
You libs blame “evil, narrowed minded Republicans and conservatives” and portray us as being rich, uncompassionate people, yet your own people whom you retain confidence in will not live to have to pay for this as I and the rest of my generation will. I’m 35, and I don’t need my government telling me what to do or taking care of me. If you libs were so compassionate, teach people to fish and quit giving it to them!
Screw you and your “priniciples” and ideals, for they are as worthless as you are. If you want another USSR, go live in Russia or China and quit destroying my country!!!
Hey Deborah (and the rest of you libs) -I want half your paycheck and for you to personally fund my need for health insurance since I don’t have any. If you’re not the coward I know you are, email me at my personal email and I’ll give you my address so you and all your liberal friends can support me… isn’t that what you want?
Give people fish, don’t teach them to fish on their own…
You libs are socialist, communist thugs who use the laws you create to bully everyone else into submission for your causes (California -need I say more)…
You all spat on our Vietnam vets as they came back from that war, called them baby killers and yet without our military you’d all be some Nazi or Empirial Japanese bitch… If America is so evil, how would WWII have turned out if we had listened to the isolationists and commies from back then… You libs hate this country because you have to compete (Air America) -and libs hate competition. Which is why you enact laws to “make things fair.”
If America is so unjust and evil, go live in Cuba or China or the former “USSR” Russia… and see how far you get… See if those “friendly, socialist paradises” let you speak your mind with the blunt stupidity you exhibit here in our country…
You libs are stupid, cow-like people who want everyone else to come down to your level so all is “fair”… Screw you (again) -you are all cowards and I hope you all live to reap the benifits of the “hope & change” you voted in…
And Deborah, I’ll waiting for an email from you, I’ll take a pre-tax amount please and since your buddies with Pelosi and Reid, have them kick in a little extra… cowards.
Joe
Why would you hate people who want to help people such as yourself? It baffles me.
BTW we live in a socialist nation. Between social security, welfare, the senior prescription drug plan, the CHIP program, medicare, government bailouts for the banks and other corporate greedy you know whats, we clearly already live in a socialist nation. The majority of our money is spent fighting wars that waste trillions all so that some individual can benefit big time from the military industrial complex. The real spit in the face of Vietnam vets is that we now make all of our sneakers in Vietnam. Thank God all of those guys risked their lives so that we would have the freedom to make cheap sneakers in the same commi place. I think your hatred is misguided. It’s not the libs who are evil, it’s the government on both sides. Our so called leaders sell us all out for their corporate masters. I’m a moderate so I hate both sides. Maybe you need to come to the right side of the force, the moderates’. The cons are no better than the bleeding heart libs. They both are misguided. They both will sell you for a penny. You think GWB was looking out for you. He and Obama don’t care if you live or die, unless their masters say so.
One more thing Joe.
“If America is so evil, how would WWII have turned out if we had listened to the isolationists and commies from back then”
You do realize that one of the biggest groups of people we saved were the commies. The Nazis killed more commies than most any other group. So the commies you hate are the same commies we saved, not the ones who you think said let’s not go to war in WWII.
And back to the paycheck thing. Why don’t all of the gung ho war people use their own money to pay for all of these global conflicts. I’m done working in life so that the government can take my money to pay for freedom of people like the the commies, the Iraqis, the Afghanis, and every other so called “ally” who becomes our enemies in the end, You can donate your money to that cause, I’d rather keep it. That may be isolationist but it’s also true freedom. I still have my money at the end of the day. Don’t fall into the neocon trap that war costs nothing. As a matter of fact the creation of a federal income tax was so that we would wage war. Also, the highest tax rate in American history was to pay for WWII. So for all of those who want that, they can pay for it. I would be happy to keep my cash and an arsenal of weapons in case someone actually invaded our country.