By Deborah White, About.com Guide to US Liberal Politics since 2005
Monday June 22, 2009
Two new national polls make it clear that Americans overwhelmingly support healthcare reform which offers multiple plan options. And that Americans want… demand… that one of those options be low-cost government-funded healthcare (aka, public plan or public option) similar to the Medicare system for citizens over 65.
And yet, Democrats, who will soon hold a filibuster-proof 60 Senate seats, fear they can’t muster the votes to pass healthcare reform legislation? Said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), “I think there’s a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus.”
Huh? Democrats won the White House. Democrats control both houses of Congress.
During the campaign, Barack Obama promised “a new national health plan to all Americans, including the self-employed and small businesses, to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to members of Congress.”
President Obama has made healthcare coverage for all Americans a top priority for his administration. And a bipartisan majority of the public want precisely this.
And yet, some Democrats in Congress balk? President Obama timidly stumbles and bumbles on the issue?
Uh… what? Liberal economist Paul Krugman explains this awful contradiction in his New York Times column today:
“The real risk is that health care reform will be undermined by ‘centrist’ Democratic senators who either prevent the passage of a bill or insist on watering down key elements of reform. I use scare quotes around ‘centrist,’ by the way, because if the center means the position held by most Americans, the self-proclaimed centrists are in fact way out in right field.
“What the balking Democrats seem most determined to do is to kill the public option, either by eliminating it or by carrying out a bait-and-switch, replacing a true public option with something meaningless. “
I just can’t believe a handful of so-called Democrats could be that stupid. I keep thinking… maybe they don’t really understand how government-funded healthcare really works. (They should read my frank new article, Pros & Cons of Government Healthcare.)
Or maybe they’ve been stupidly intimidated by Republican boogey-man Karl Rove’s fear-mongering pontificating in the Wall Street Journal, “… the public option is just phony. It’s a bait-and-switch tactic… Defeating the public option should be a top priority for the GOP this year.”
I’m scratchng my head over this one. And I have to heartily agree with Nobel Prize recipient Paul Krugman when he concludes:
“Honestly, I don’t know what these Democrats are trying to achieve. Yes, some of the balking senators receive large campaign contributions from the medical-industrial complex — but who in politics doesn’t?
“If I had to guess, I’d say that what’s really going on is that relatively conservative Democrats still cling to the old dream of becoming kingmakers, of recreating the bipartisan center that used to run America.
“But this fantasy can’t be allowed to stand in the way of giving America the health care reform it needs. This time, the alleged center must not hold. “
Yes! And YES WE CAN!
- Related Reading
- Profile of Economist Paul Krugman, Political Liberal
- Healthcare Plan Definitions
- Obama Campaign Promises: Health Care
- Obama’s Speech Urging Universal Health Insurance
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