Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
Today, there was a lot of news on the Healthcare front. It seems as if everyone is having some kind of problem or another with the way things are going. We have Corporate Democrats and Republicans who seemingly want no reform and are stalling for time, we have others calling for the states to take responsibility for a public option, and we have union middle-class workers crying foul for being expected to sacrifice even more as the drama rolls on.
First, we have Corporate Democrats and Joe Lieberman crying that they need more time before debate can be allowed in the Senate Finance Committee "to review" before even debating in the Senate Finance Committee:
Every step of the process needs to be transparent, and information regarding the bill needs to be readily available to our constituents before the Senate starts to vote on legislation that will affect the lives of every American. The legislative text and complete budget scores from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) of the health care legislation considered on the Senate floor should be made available on a website the public can access for at least 72 hours prior to the first vote to proceed to the legislation.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.c...
This despite the fact that these bills have been debated endlessly in the press over and over. Every right-winger and Corporate apolegist has told us why they are voting against it even when it does not include a public option and is corporate welfare. Of course these "centrists" do not care how long it takes because they are living high on the hog on the best insurance possible provided by the very people whose own insurance and much needed savings are being delayed.
I have a great idea. Since we are so worried about "tranparancy", why do these "centrists" not devulge to the public exactly what benefits they have at the expense of the American taxpayer, how much it costs them, and better yet why do they not rescind these "government run" benefits until they can find a solution for the rest of us?? How is that for transparancy??
Better yet, Republicans on the same committee sounded mysteriously like their partners in "corporatism" in the Democratic Party:
Health care reform is a monumental task that will touch the life of every American. Before the Committee votes to report the legislation out of Committee, it is important that all Members have a thorough understanding of the cost of the legislation and how individuals, families, and businesses will be affected.
You know what I want to ask all these hypocrites in both parties?? Where was all this concern about all members understanding the cost of the legislation that many of them rubber-stamped without oversight that led us into the failed War in Iraq while dropping the ball in Afghanistan?? Where was all the concern about how much of the taxpayers money would be wasted and worse yet how many of our brave young Americans and innocent people caught in the middle across that region would die?? Of course now we know how that affected many businesses. They got no-bid contracts and fleeced the American taxpayer, and soldier out of untold hundreds of billions of dollars, all while allowing many of our injured sons and daughters to come home from that theatre and heal with the cockroaches at Walter Reed Hospital.
Where was all this concern to know how America would be affected when they jumped to vote for legislation that stole away generations of Constitutional protections with the Patriot Act and the FISA law for no other reason than to seemingly try to cover up their own incompetence in being lied to and not living up to their Constitutional mandate of providing oversight to the Executive Branch??
But now, when some money may be spent to help the working poor and the middle-class all of a sudden they are worried about knowing these things?? Give me a break!! What a bunch of complete and total hypocrites and sellouts!!! I have news for them, if the American people really paid any attention to any of this they would all be packing up to go find real jobs.
Then we have Senator Ben Nelson "warming" to a public option compromise. The compromise?? Let the already cash-strapped states deal with the responsibility of Congress:
"It all depends on the details,’’ Mr. Nelson said. "But I think there is a legitimate argument for giving the states an option to solve this problem, which is essentially an insurance problem.’’
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.c...
You know, with the CHIP program, and with Medicaid it seems that the states are already dealing with much more of this problem than the Federal Government. Has Mr. Nelson and Mr. Carper honestly looked at the status of most of the state's finances?? Where are they going to get any money to deal with this crisis.
It is time that our Congress and our Executive Branch on the national level lived up to their responsibilities. The states have not the resources to solve this problem and quite frankly should not have to. What about all the Americans who are without insurance in Conservative states where this is a non-starter?? Are they just fed to the wolves while other Progressive states go further into debt to try and solve the problem?? This seems pretty cowardly and amounts to a total shirking of responsibility. That seems to be what these folks do best.
This same Ben Nelson still wants a "bi-partisan" approach to healthcare:
He said it would be difficult for him to vote for an overhaul of the health care system that does not have bipartisan support. The question, of course, is whether one or two Republican votes would make the measure acceptable enough to Mr. Nelson and other conservative Democrats.
"I see two endings," Mr. Nelson said in the interview. "One is we find areas we can agree upon and we begin to do things incrementally, taking more of an insurance approach, not a government approach."
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.c...
Well you know something Mr. Nelson, I still want Cameron Diaz to have my love-child but somewhere along the way I figured out that it just was not going to happen. The last sentence sums up exactly what you want, either a huge giveaway to big insurance, or for everything to blow up and for you to be a hero to your corporate pals.
Lastly, we have union workers crying foul that in the Senate Finance Committee they are to be expected to foot the bill for healthcare reform. Unions, after seeing the working American sacrifice so much in wages and benefits in the last several decades are vowing to fight this:
"We will fight pretty doggedly attempts to tax benefits because we’ve paid for those benefits over the years — we’ve forgone wage increases, pension increases, days off and everything else to get those medical benefits," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told POLITICO recently.
http://www.politico.com/...
And how many workers have foregone wage increases WITHOUT those benefits?? How many have foregone being able to join the middle-class and how many have lost their jobs, insurance or never had it in the first place??
For something this monumental to be achieved it will take sacrifice from all Americans. Government must sacrifice and create a plan to compete with insurers and offer affordable insurance to those who do not have it. Insurers must sacrifice and become more competitive if they hope to survive. Finally, Americans must sacrifice and take the responsibility of insuring themselves if coverage is made affordable.
However, all we seem to be hearing is that the working American will be the only ones that will be sacrificing. We will be mandated to buy insurance from the same crooks that caused a lot of the problems while those very aforementioned crooks will recieve billions upon billions of more corporate welfare they can put in their pockets and still rip off the American worker because they send just enough money to the very Republicans and Corporate Democrats who are hell bent for leather to make sure that no working person in this country gets a break, be it wages, insurance, or any other kind of benefit or fruit of their labor besides what the powers that be determine they are willing to give.
I can tell you one thing right now. Americans damn well should be mad as hell about what they are hearing. We are being insulted and told that we do not deserve the same benefits that these very folks that are raising such a fuss right now enjoy because quite simply put we are not as good as them.
The fact of the matter is that people like this have been picking this country clean and have caused a myriad of problems which includes gutting our middle-class and crashing our economy. The working man, the states, and everyone else in this country has sacrificed time and time again except the rich, the powerful and the corporations. Nobody else has anything left to give because these greedy, imbecilic folks have taken it all and now their only solution to the problems they caused is take more.
It is time THEY sacrificed with a real healthcare bill that provides a robust public option offered by the FEDERAL government. It is time they raised the money by repealing the huge tax breaks these folks have enjoyed and by demanding that the folks that have profited so much from the blood, sweat and tears of the working American gave some of it back for once. It is time that if a mandate must exist that THEY are mandated to cover the employees whose labors have borne fruit for all but themselves and their families.
Any thing less is a travesty and an insult to every American that is working hard and falling further behind. And that my friends, is way too many Americans.