Dec 21 2009

“Block This Bill”: No Public Option, No Bill

Crossposted from Antemedius

David Swanson, Washington Director of Democrats.com, talks with Paul Jay of The Real News, dissecting the politics of health care reform and the roadblocks in the way of getting to a real reform that serves peoples needs rather than politicians needs and the fact that politicians, even democrats and so-called “progressive” politicians and not just republicans, are the major roadblocks.



Real News Network – December 21, 2009

No public option, no bill?

David Swanson: Will progressives shoot down a healthcare bill that lacks a public option

David Swanson is the creator of ImpeachCheney.org, co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and Washington Director of Democrats.com A writer and organizer, Swanson has worked for ACORN, the International Labor Communications Association, Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign and many others. Swanson is the author of the new book “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union” by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when his tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book.

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    • Edger on December 21, 2009 at 15:08
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    petition to kill this bill…

    It is an ungodly mess of errors, loopholes, and massive giveaways. When the American people find out what’s actually in this bill, they will revolt. Congress and President Obama have no choice but to do better for health care than this bill.

    Sign the petition: the Senate health care bill must be killed.  

    How bad is the bill?

    * Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not

    * If you refuse to buy the insurance,  you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS

    After being forced to pay thousands in premiums for junk insurance, you can still be on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses.

    * Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court

    * Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-ays

    * Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.

    * Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others

    * Grants monopolies to to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.

    * No reimportation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years

    * The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of 4 will rise an average of $1000 a year — meaning in 10 years, you family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

  2. No one.

    • Inky99 on December 21, 2009 at 21:49
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    it’s political suicide for the Dems.

    There is not one thing in this bill that is good.  It’s ALL bad!   It’s such a “compromise” that it’s an anti-bill.   Everything is turned around to where it’s as if someone deliberately wrote a piece of legislation that would fuck up every single detail of what it supposedly addresses.

    The Dems were led into a trap on this one, and they just followed the cheese right on in like a stupid rat.   Hell, rats are smarter than that.

    SNAP.   This will pretty much destroy the Democratic Party.

    Oh well.   I didn’t much care for them anyway.

    • banger on December 22, 2009 at 22:05
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    Because the assumptions that led to the bill are that you can re-invent the wheel as square. That’s all it is. Some of the provisions are designed to be helpful perhaps to round a few corners of the squares but that’s about it.

    It’s absurd to even be discussing this bill because, as is very clear now, none of the main actors involved were interested in a rational solutions to the debacle that is called our health-care system. And the results are clear and very unambiguous. While a shit sandwich may actually have some good points to it for all we know it still tastes like shit.

    I was never one for HCR, I will admit. One thing that this system has benefitted to a degree (when it has not set out deliberately trying to destroy competing modalities) is the alternative health movement. People have been forced to search out and find less expensive solutions to their health issues and this is a good thing. Experimentation can lead to some great finds among the crap. I discovered that Chinese medecine worked very well for some things and have been taking Chinese herbal remedies for minor ailments like colds and indigestion for a long time and they really work! I used to get colds all the time and now I don’t as long as I have the medicine close by.

    The trouble with alternative medicine is that it is, generally speaking, only as good as the practitioner you go to. My wife has had great results over the years (she practices alternative methods, sometimes with people who have been in serious and debilitating pain for many years sometimes due to official medicine’s quackery (yes, the official medicine does not, generally, know how to properly treat spinal problems and anything relating to kinesiology (the delicate balance of muscles and skeleton without which you can do more harm than good).

    There has been some work in bringing the alternative and western systems together but it keeps going off course due to the political power of Big Pharma that is opposed to any low-cost solution to problems — and they may well be the most potent lobbying group next to finance and MIC.  

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