RIP Healthcare Reform? RIP public Option? What a Dick!
Somebody kill me now.
Have the relentless GOP lying and smearing tactics worked to convince our Democratic leaders to give up on the public option? As pointed out in this diary today by Crashing Vor the right wingers repug asshats are coming out against healthcare reform stronger now than ever before.
Yesterday, Senator Dick Durbin spoke, and basically all but put the final nail in the coffin of "the public option" for healthcare reform.
Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the chamber's foremost progressives, said that while he supported a government-run option for insurance, he was "open" to alternatives.
"Just understand that, after we pass this bill -- and I hope we do -- in the Senate, it will go to conference committee," said Durbin. "We'll have a chance to work out all of our differences."
"So we'll see how this ends, but I don't want the process to be filibustered to failure, which unfortunately, many senators are trying to do," Durbin added. "I want to make sure that we do something positive for the American people."
Durbin's the number 2 guy in the Senate and he's never been behind the "public option", as evidenced here, but let's be clear, if there's no public option then the healthcare bill becomes merely another government "giveaway" to the healthcare and pharma industries.
Please call Dick and tell him how you feel: 202-224-2152
And speaking of pharma, they've aready got their "giveaway" in the bag. Also yesterday, Robert Reich wrote this article entitled How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy, highlighted in this recommended diary from GreenSooner and here too by flitedocnm.
I'm now bracing myself for the painful reality that there will be no healthcare reform passed that contains a real "public option". Oh something will probably pass. Rahm will insist on it. President Obama's got too much on the line now to fail. Only, no public option. Maybe not even the phony Max Baucus "co-op" idea. Whatever passes most likely won't cover everyone either.
I watched all the news shows yesterday. I heard what Cokie Roberts and all the other asshats had to say on the subject. The MSM has given their collective blessing to a healthcare reform bill as long as it doesn't contain a public option. I know it's not over "til the fat lady sings", but I've been around long enough to see the "writing on the wall".
And to add insult to injury I'm now made to feel like I'm the problem. I'm now made to think that I'm too far left because I want healthcare reform. And here I was thinking I was in the majority of ordinary Americans supporting healthcare reform with a public option.
Every other industrialized country in the world has some form of publicly funded healthcare except for the USA, but I'm made to feel like a wingnut for daring to broach the subject. Sheesh!
My hopeful thought for the day is to say keep contacting your Representatives and Senators to tell them to support the "public option". Here's a great diary today from slinkerwink with some helpful info to do just that.
North Carolina Dems and phone numbers:
NC-1 G.K. Butterfield 202-225-3101
NC-2 Bob Etheridge 202-225-4531
NC-4 David Price 202-225-1784
NC-7 Mike McIntyre 202-225-2731
NC-8 Larry Kissell 202-225-3715
NC-11 Heath Shuler 202-225-6401
NC-12 Mel Watt 202-225-1510
NC-13 Brad Miller 202-225-3032
Please Rec this diary so others will see these phone numbers.
Where is our Leadership? I'm pissed but I still believe Yes We Can.