Daring Depravity

This past week has been a pretty volatile one in American Politics.  Democrats finally passed their Health Care reform package, and President signed it into law; according to the Vice President this is a “Big Deal”.  Ok, so Democrats passed the reform that they have been trying to accomplish since the 60s.  Carter couldn’t do it, Clinton Couldn’t do it, and Obama pulled it off.

That said, this reform is far from any radical reshaping of the health care system that is needed in this country.  This is not the Single Payer system that would lower costs, and take the control of our very living or death away from the private sector; in fact this bill just reinforces the private sectors control of Health Care, and if anything, it should be called the Health Care Bailout of 2010.  Insurance companies will now receive mandatory customers, with government subsidy for those that can’t afford to buy their inferior products.  They will continue to make huge profits, while finding new ways to deny care to citizens, thereby sentencing them to death.

This is not the system that Progressives in the country wanted; its not even the system that Democrats, or President Obama campaigned on.  This bill is a REPUBLICAN BILL!

With President Obama dead set on catering to the minority in both houses of government, he decided to shift the bill as far to the right as his party could take it, and call it a success.  This was clearly a tactic to bring on Republican Support, since this Individual Mandate was proposed as an alternative to Single Payer in the 1990s.  Then, the Republicans taught President Obama and the Democrats a lesson: Too Much is NEVER enough for the Republicans.

Having successfully shifted the entire healthcare debate to the right, so far right that Liberals were now championing the ideas that they walked away from in the 90s, do you think the Republicans were satisfied?  Of course not!  Now that they had shifted the debate to the right, center right wasn’t enough, they needed crazy HARD RIGHT in order to be satisfied.

Instead of starting from the bargaining point of Single Payer, and working it down to a broad Public Option, the Democrats started from the position of a weak Public Option, and traded that away for a Pro-Insurance Company, Pro-Capitalist Health Care Bill, right of center like the one signed by Mitt Romney as Governor of Massachusetts.  Logically it makes sense, if you incude ideas from your opponents, then some of them will have to support this Bill, after all it includes ideas that some of them have been championing for almost 20 years now.

WRONG!  Now, that moderate, center right health care bill is full blown SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, and an AFFRONT TO GOD!  Anyone who votes in favor of it will be honorarily buried in the Kremlin Wall with Stalin and Lenin, where they belong!

So, there is a lesson here for Progressives who want actual change in this country, and there is a lesson for Liberal Democrats as well.  Republicans are never satisfied, because the interests that they serve, ALWAYS WANT MORE.  More land, more profits, more of everything.  Just doing as much as you did last year is not enough, you have to do better or you are on the CURB.  The Republicans serve Capitalism efficiently, and they always demand more from their represetatives.

Progressives and Liberals, however, are all about Fell Good Compromise, moving progress a long a little bit, inching the ball forward.  The truth is, however, as soon as Obama and the Democrats announced that there would be no Single Payer, there should have been an occupation of every Democratic Senator and Congress Person’s office in favor of Single Payer Health Care.  When they all got together, and claimed that only the Public Option was possible, Primary candidates should have been drafted to run on the Single Payer Platform in every district of every supposedly liberal Democrat in the country.

And if the final bill was only a strong Public Option, a well organized Left Wing Movement would have called every “Liberal” who voted for this fake reform out for the fake, insurance company shill that they are.

This is what the Republicans would have done; its what they are doing now.  Even though it is flatly impossible, the Republicans are swearing revenge on anyone who voted in favor of the Right Wing Healthcare bill for not being right wing enough.  They are promising its repeal in November!

While progressive hang their heads, look at their shoes, and try to figure out how to live with the Right Wing Health Care Bailout of 2010, Republicans are still making noise!  Sure, now that the Bill is passed, there is room for the Democrats and progressives on the local and state level to work within its framework and make it better, but better is a relative term.

Until the day comes when Democratic *legislators are looking over their shoulders for progressives, scared to make a vote for a right wing bill because they will be fired, then the debate in this country will continue its rightward shift of the past 20-30 years.

Its time for Progressive to Learn from Republicans, and never be satisfied with any Liberal piece of crap that gets passed, and just be happy that it did.  Its time for the Liberal to fear the Left as much as they do the Right.

Hawaii’s employer mandate health care system has many of its citizens covered by a reasonable healthcare system.  There’s just one thing that can undermine it: National “Reform”?

I just re-watched Michael Moore’s movie, Sicko last night, and I was reminded again how much we need actual health reform in this country.  What Moore’s film illustrates, more than any other media in recent memory, is the problems with a for profit healthcare system, like the one that we have here in the United States.

In the absurdity of the for profit system, companies pay people large salaries to look for ways to deny coverage.  That’s right, straight up cost benefit analysis, if the Company can pay $50,000 per year in salary for someone to save $50 Million in claims that don’t have to be paid out, then that is a winning venture.

Health Insurance companies exist to provide as little health care as possible.  Period.  If they provide more care, they lose money, and Wall Street doesn’t like that.  This is an incentive to provide as little care as possible, in order to maximize profit and the growth of profits for their companies.

This is the genius of the Capitalist system.  Paying people to deny coverage, profiteering off misery, letting people die.  Killing people, who pay for a service that the companies refuse to provide in order to make more profit.  Companies can come up with every justification to not insure someone, to deny coverage.

This is why we need Universal Heathcare in this country.  Healthcare is a human right, and it should not come with any strings attached.  If the Government exists for any reason, it is to protect the citizens.  One of the concepts behind Insurance is to spread risk among a large pool of people, mitigating risk for any individual person for the benefit of all. The largest pool to spread risk across in our country is Every Man, Woman, and Child in the country, so why not do this with Healthcare?  Everyone pays into one pool, via taxes.  If you are sick, or need care you receive it, no questions asked.

Everyone pays in, everyone takes out when they need to.  Other countries provide Heathcare in this manner, most notably our neighbor to the north, Canada.  Sure, their system isn’t perfect, but when you are sick, you can just go to the doctor and get treatment by showing a card.  Prescriptions are much cheaper than the US, and Citizens are protected.

I don’t expect this kind of change to come from the top without a strong movement from the bottom, but now more than ever it is time to demand that Healthcare become a Human Right in the United States of America!