Nov 22 2009

Senate Health Care Debate Cloture Achieved

( – promoted by mishima)

Listening to the Senate debate the vote on cloture its amazing how much fear mongering and misinformation has been presented by Senate Republicans. One after another they have gotten up and misrepresented not only what is in the bill but how the American people view the current legislation. Siting study after study and opinion polls all from conservative think tanks and media outlets stating that the American people are against health care reform. Except that isn’t true. Republicans have also made  pronouncements like taxes for average Americans will increase, people will lose their health insurance, that there has been out of control spending since the beginning of this current legislative session, that it is the Democrats who created the budget crises and that it is the Democrats who’ve done little to control spending.

Yet as anyone one with a turnip for a brain knows it was under the Republican control of the legislative and executive branches of government that the budget surplus became a budget deficit because of tax cuts for the rich and two wars one of which was completely unnecessary that help lead America towards the abyss. It was the complete lack of oversight and regulation that just added fuel to an already dangerous fire.

So, tonight in the American Senate the Republicans spoke against health care reform not because the bill was about to be passed but because the Democrats simply wanted to proceed to debate and the eventual up or down vote on this important legislation.

America needs health care reform not today but yesterday because so many: 50 million Americans have no health care insurance and the system is almost broken beyond  repair.      

7 comments

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    • TMC on November 22, 2009 at 02:49
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    They are the ones who are afraid. Afraid of the debate, the truth, the law and of us.

    • RUKind on November 22, 2009 at 05:36
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    How many more stupid Stupaks will pile on this one? This is where the real work begins. We need to track every word going into the final bills before they hit the Reconciliation Fan.

    You know the Big Insurance companies see this as a way to force everyone to buy their shitty products at inflated prices. We need affordable Medicare from cradle to grave with free choice and second opinions. If the Establishment can use our money to subsidize never-ending wars, grossly subsidize mega-agrobusiness, the MIC/TIC, the more prisons on the planet, and bailouts for billionaires then we can afford to use our money for our health.

    Personally, I think we’re going to get fucked once again on this. The consumer credit collapse and the commercial real estate collapse are just starting up. Plus Afghanistan is an empty pit of corruption. We could see two to three trillion just disappear into those holes. Then it will be, ‘Sorry folks, maybe next time. Can’t afford to lose another war, ya know. (We haven’t won one since 1945.)’

    I believe in ballots not bullets. But who knows? Maybe there are some silver bullets to make health care universal.

    For now, I just pray.

  3. than a bill that actually begins soon enough and is effective enough to help the millions of people who cannot afford a dime more in their budget for healthcare insurance. And those people with  pre-existing conditions, they’ll be able to avail themselves of the help they need in just four, short years. And just who will determine what kind of procedures that will be available for all those people who are mandated to buy an insurance policy? I mean if you’re mandated, you’re going to get the best care money can buy, right? And this public option? I hope there are a lot of healthy people in it, or the costs might be a little bit surprising, no? But maybe a trigger will be the best thing to fend off unpleasant surprises, who knows?  

  4. Time to get back to work promoting single payer.

  5. Here are two articles worth reading:

    Health Insurance Reform: The Enslavement of American Citizens to Corporate Rule

    After months of silent, closed door negotiations between the holy trinity (the executive branch, the congress, & the health care industry), we stand on the brink of health insurance reform.

    Health insurance reform. Do not confuse this with health care reform as that was never the intent of this legislation. This is not a minor point. Health care reform would have addressed the central problem of our current health care system and confronted the reality that in order to provide universal, affordable health care for all citizens, we would need to stop treating human health as a commodity. It would have taken a moral imperative to place human life over profit. But, right from the very beginning, the central GOAL in creating this legislation was just the opposite, the development of a plan that not only maintained, but expanded the ability of the health care industry (private insurers, big pharm, large hospitals) to profit off human illness. . . . . (emphasis mine)

    and

    Weak Public Option Myths That Liberals Believe

    Democratic Senators like Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, and Chuck Schumer, through a project called Citizens for a Public Option, have been building support for the public option and encouraging Americans to write letters to the editor that debunk health care reform myths—myths that the conservative echo chamber have been propagating. . . . .

    Myth #1 – Public option will help control costs

    Dr. Margaret Flowers with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) explains that Americans have been led to believe that “the public option is going to keep companies honest and help control costs.”

    Obama and Congress are taking an approach that has failed to control costs time and time again. . . .

  6. themselves. A moral imperative was transformed into a passionless, cautious, calculating effort that was doomed from the start. They fooled themselves into believing that all they had to do was wrap a Christmas package together and put a bow on it; like it’s the thought that counts, even if there’s nothing in the box except a 2,000 page, soft cover pamphlet explaining why everybody must have insurance, because in reality insurance actually is medical care, and 2010 is actually 2014 (or whatever the hell it is).

    They will say the blue meanies made us do it.

    So the President with his loyal congressional leaders decided to keep a low profile and not stir up the people, because it might have been counter productive to the delicate congressional maneuvering. What if they actually had tried to get the PEOPLE on their side from the “get go” for the best bill possible, just like the passion Obama put into the campaign?  

    Was it really the fear of the filibuster or the fear of the insurance industry that drove their calculations, or was it just the fear of failure. Hmmmm….what was it that FDR said about fear?

    And in these desperate economic times, why on earth did they assume that standing on principle for Universal Care was a risk they could not take?

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