If Democrats fail to pass healthcare health insurance reform, they--every last one of them--owns the greatest moral catastrophe of our generation.
But we've been told politics is a blood sport, so why in the world should we think politicians are motivated by anything other than the next election. They're not, and take it to the bank folks, if Democrats fail to pass "something", they will take the whooping of their lives in November, and the defeat will be richly deserved.
I have an idea, how about all 535 members of Congress (House and Senate) lose their coverage, for themselves and their families, if they fail again on healthcare? You think if these cowards couldn't access healthcare, we'd get something?
This Reconciliation petition hit a nerve. We collected a huge number of signatures over the last couple of day, if you haven't yet signed it, could you take a minute to do so.
PLEASE HELP US FIGHT FOR RECONCILIATION BY SIGNING THIS PETITION!
If the final answer of this president is to come to the rescue of Wall Street, but not American families, we'll all have to decide, whether or not to hold him personally responsible when he comes asking for our money and our vote in 2012.
Here's reality. The Republican Party hasn't had 60 seats since 1911, but somehow it managed to pass the entirety of the "Reagan Revolution" and all the outrages of George W. Bush without a super majority. In fact, the biggest Senate majority that Mr. Bush ever had was 55 seats. Yet George Bush never wavered on key elements of his agenda to gain bipartisan support.
I'm hearing things from base Democrats that should make the political class tremble. Where I live, people are walking around in shock over the out-of-touch carnival in Washington. Ask them about Obama and the Democrats, they laugh, roll their eyes, and say "not another penny"!
Many are far angrier now, than during the days of Bush. Imagine this. How in the world could Democrats be more outraged now than during the dismal Bush years? Here's how. Maybe we feel just a little bit (oh how can I say this with great diplomacy, conned had.) We did everything and more that was asked of us. And what was promised, healthcare. And where is healthcare today, the most urgent crisis facing this nation? Dead or on life support? And who's in charge? Okay, you get it.
We contributed until we had nothing left, we voted and got out the vote, like robots we repeated silly mantras as if they meant something, "we are the hope we can believe in...fired up, ready to go". Now? Just walk away from healthcare because a nude model won Ted Kennedy's seat? I keep asking myself, what will historians write?
So what will many base Democrats do--the worker bees of the party? Oh little things, like work until our fingers are bleeding and support progressives like Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter (who I had the pleasure of meeting) over the Neanderthal Blanche Lincoln. You lose the base workers and the base $$$, and I guess all you have left are the lobbyists and the corporations.
It doesn't have to be this way. The House can pass the Senate bill, with what is being called an immediate fix or patch via a reconciliation process which would ameliorate many of the myriad shortcomings of the Senate bill.
But the news is not encouraging. Some are reporting that any legislation is mortally wounded.
Some people are Paul Krugman supporters, others detractors, but I think there's one thing we might agree on, when Krugman bails, it's basically as significant as when Scotty Brown wins. And for better or worse, Krugman has just about given up on Mr. Obama.
Even more shocking. Are you hearing what I'm hearing? I'm hearing over and over that Congresspeople and Senators are fearing for their own jobs, therefore they may decide to stand down take a pass on healthcare.
Do you get that? These amoral corrupt politicians are worried about their own jobs, not about the greatest moral collapse of our generation. Ezra Klein seems as outraged about the ongoing lack of leadership from all Democrats, not just Mr. Obama, as I've ever seen him. He had an excellent post on political courage. Ezra calls the notion that Democrats would consider voting against healthcare because it could impact them adversely from an electoral standpoint, "morally shocking". Why? Here's what Ezra says. He's spot on.
To make a related point, what's particularly appalling about Democrats who voted for the health-care bill abandoning it in the face of electoral danger is that they know, or at least have acted as if they know, the stakes, and that makes their decision morally shocking.
Sen. Jon Kyl believes this to be a bad bill that will do more harm than good. We disagree on that point. But most of the Democrats who voted for this bill do not believe it to be a bad bill. They believes that it is a good, if imperfect, bill that will do basically what it says: Cover more than 30 million people at an acceptable cost, preventing the attendant unnecessary deaths, infirmity, chronic pain, medical bankruptcies and so forth. Which makes abandoning it because it might -- or might not -- slightly reduce their chances of reelection a terrible act.
I always wonder how honest members of Congress are in this internal calculus. Exactly how many lives would a bill need to save, over how many years, and at what cost, for a given senator or representative to judge it worth losing their seat in order to pass it?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
We've been sucker punched by a president. And tragically, we have a political system which has proven to lack even a semblance of a moral compass. Crocodile tears for the 45,000 Americans who die every year simply because they don't have access to healthcare, but when it comes to the courage to take difficult votes, they run for the hills. Shame on this government.
I've tried to be the voice for Americans who are dying before our eyes simply because healthcare in the United States remains a privilege not a right. It's inconceivable to me that Barack Obama can go back to the people waiting on line for healthcare in Kansas City and Little Rock and blame the Republican minority and Scott Brown for his failure to lead, twist arms, do whatever was necessary, to get a decent healthcare bill passed. But I'm not a pollster, just a very outraged American base voter.
And for Democrats who have shown themselves incapable of governing or leading this nation, the 2010 midterm will be the wake up call they refuse to heed now.
PLEASE HELP US FIGHT FOR RECONCILIATION BY SIGNING THIS PETITION!