It goes on. The watered down Health Care bill that I almost got bashed for supporting in front of our local Food Lion is under attack from both "sides". This is really an extremely hard pill to swallow for some of the supporters of the Bill that passed:FIFTY MEDICAL DOCTORS FOR SINGLE PAYER URGE SUPREME COURT TO STRIKE DOWN INDIVIDUAL MANDATE
Fifty medical doctors who favor a single payer health insurance system today urged the US Supreme Court to strike down the individual mandate.
In a brief filed with the Court, the fifty doctors and two non-profit groups – Single Payer Action and It’s Our Economy – said that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate is unconstitutional. (link to brief on this page: )
The individual mandate is the provision of the ACA that requires Americans to purchase health insurance from private insurance companies if they do not otherwise have coverage.
The doctors are challenging the government’s claim that the individual mandate is necessary to reach Congress’ goal of universal coverage.
“The court should decide the constitutionality of the individual mandate based on the best available evidence,” said attorney Oliver Hall.
“That’s why it is so important that these medical doctors provide the court with the information in their brief, which demonstrates that Congress can address the United States’ healthcare crisis by adopting a single payer system.”
I find this mind blowing since we knew this from panels I was on during the Clinton's attempt at Health care Reform. The single payer system was studied extensively and it was shown that it was far cheaper and far more effective than any competing plan. Read on below for more.
This should make the Virginia Attorney General, among others, very happy. Or, will it make him withdraw his suit? It is hard to keep repeating the mantra that watering down good plans makes them bad plans, not simply something more acceptable. At this point in time, especially here in Virginia, it has become abundantly clear that Obama's victory made the racist hate boil. I think that if his administration came out for a bill to stop abortion, for example, they would find a way to fight it. So it was no surprise that they went after the health care bill. I suspect that any bill that was passed would have been attacked by these frustrated racists.
But now we have these guys who support what I do coming out against the bill as well. I have expressed my own dissatisfaction with the President much to the dislike of many here. Yet I still am having trouble with this. Maybe I have become willing to cling to straws rather than see the garbage they put out to try to get something passed defeated? At any rate it is a weak bill at best, yet...? I can't disagree with this:
“Congress could have taken seriously evidence presented by these single payer medical doctors that a single payer system is the only way to both control costs and cover everyone,” Mokhiber said. “Instead, Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana), chair of the Senate Finance Committee which drafted the law that became the ACA, had two of those doctors – Dr. Margaret Flowers and Dr. Carol Paris – arrested and thrown in jail. Those doctors are now two of the 50 who have signed onto this brief challenging the Constitutionality of the ACA.”
They were thrown in jail for what? Not that it matters. They make a lot of sense:
“If the US Congress had considered an evidence-based approach to health reform instead of writing a bill that funnels more wealth to insurance companies that deny and restrict care, it would have been a no brainer to adopt a single payer health system much like our own Medicare,” said Dr. Margaret Flowers. “We are already spending enough on health care in this country to provide high quality universal comprehensive lifelong health care. All the data point to a single payer system as the only way to accomplish this and control health care costs.”
“People will have the greatest control of their own healthcare if the insurance industry is removed from between doctors and patients,” said Kevin Zeese of It’s Our Economy. “And, people will no longer be threatened with increased premiums, decreased coverage and financial ruin caused by a health crisis.”
Both Kevin Zeese and Dr. Margaret Flowers are organizers with the National Occupation of Washington, D.C. (nowdc.org).
It just gets clearer and clearer to me that people who want good things are marginalized by both parties. It is clearer and clearer to me that the two parties do more to strengthen the status quo than to bring about change. It will be interesting how the Court handles this. I won't even venture a guess.