Change we can’t believe in.
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Jill Chapin
December 18, 2009
There are strange bedfellows aligning themselves around the country as we settle into our heated positions in the healthcare debate. Increasingly, groups and individuals don’t care with whom they agree or disagree, such is their vehemence for what they see as the wholesale sellout by Congress and the President. MoveOn.org and the tea party people both dislike the healthcare reform currently on the table, as do both Democrat John Dean and Republican John McCain.
In fact, more Americans than ever are adamantly against huge chunks of this behemoth of a bill that is viewed as better serving the insurance companies than the rest of us.
What the president seems unwilling to accept is that this growing tide of bi-partisan distrust of current healthcare reform proposals is based more on facts than on uninformed fears. He can posture all he wants about us not understanding it, but he loses that argument. We do understand all too well the disingenuous ways this bill is presented, but if he truly believes we can’t tease out the actual meaning of the thousands of pages spewing forth from Congress, then Washington should re-work it in order to make it comprehensible to the general public.
President Obama should not turn a deaf ear on the voters who don’t like where health care reform is heading, and who are especially wary of his far too cozy alliance with the insurance companies.
We’re onto the sham outrage by the insurance lobby who is pretending to be against reform. We get it. They’re playing bad cop against Obama’s good cop. They’re hoping we will side with the President and give him our support of a bill that will actually become a bonanza for the insurance industry.
Because why would insurance companies oppose a plan that forces millions to buy insurance?
And the language in the bill forbidding insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions is not going to help policyholders at all. Premiums will simply rise across the board for everyone, not only recouping their costs but further increasing their profits as well.
Real reform – with teeth – would not only prohibit denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions; it would also roll back rates to a point in the past and then only allow a pre-set amount of rate increases from then on.
Mr. President, it’s difficult for us to grasp the power the insurance lobby has over you. We don’t understand how they can exert a stronger pull than we, the electorate. But you will find out soon enough who ultimately wields more power.
Voters gave you your first term; the insurance lobby may deny you your second one.
The Hunger Site
December 23, 2009 at 7:48 am
Ralph, I was trying to suggest, and not with any hostility, that the “we demand” format is not effective coming from those of us who have no leverage. It’s meaningful form is: “We demand, or, we will not vote for you, or . . .???
After the 2005 election appalled, a crop of secessionist movements sprang up. Vermont’s, the most viable, which rose to 14% popularity in the polls there, though Vermont did vote heavily for Obama. Vermont Independence Movement, http://www.vtcommons.org/. Hawaii has a longstanding secessionist movement based on indigenous claims, http://www.hawaii-nation.org/ Idaho and Alaska. . . well, at least they wouldn’t have the full force of the U.S. military behind them.
In 2007 I supported Josh Wolf for mayor because he proposed a 10-yr. plan to sever San Francisco’s economic ties to the federal government. Yeah, ha ha, but at least he wasn’t saying “we demand” with no leverage.
And again, this is not hostile. I’m actually trying to be realistic about what a really bad state we’re in.
December 21, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Did I miss a clamor amongst the populace for an individual mandate?
-marc
December 21, 2009 at 1:13 pm
The Senate passed the worst of all possible health care bills. No cost controls (Medical Malpractice Tort Reform was off the table to appease the Trial Lawyers), no increases in supply of doctors (Off the table to appease the AMA), 30 million new customers for insurance companies with fines if you don’t buy their insurance, no public options – not even for states that want them, and higher premiums and taxes that already have health insurance. Well Done!
December 21, 2009 at 5:39 am
Actually, Mark Twain, not Will Rogers said, “We have the best government that money can buy.”
December 21, 2009 at 5:26 am
Obviously, I have very little leverage. I am just one of millions of Americans who expected or hoped for a single-payer health care plan with universal coverage, and a cap on costs. But instead we have a “reform” health care plan that the health insurance companies must be smiling about or will be laughing all the way to the bank about. Senators Lieberman and Nelson, and a few Blue Dog Democrats hijacked the debate and won in the end. Paraphrasing Will Rogers, we have some of the best Congresspersons that money can buy.
December 20, 2009 at 2:41 pm
And Ralph, with what sort of leverage do you “demand that 51 plus Democrats pass an acceptable bill”?
Human decency? Doesn’t have a lot of leverage, less every day.
December 20, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Jill Chapin, I’ve been reading you columns off and on in Fog City for over a year, so I’d like to know why you so enthusiastically supported Barack Obama, and what you possibly could have expected, given Obama’s legislation and voting record in the Senate, Obama’s campaign contributions, and Obama’s platform?
And, I’m not asking for a least worst voting argument. I know that argument very well and what we get by heeding it keeps getting worse. Obama’s worse than Bush, much worse, and, he’s getting close to being as bad, re both health care and blood on his hands, as Bill Clinton.
December 19, 2009 at 8:53 am
Until we shut down the cities and cut off the economic output of the US to corporations and government that would consign us to serfdom, they will continue to run roughshod over us. That is all that they understand.
Otherwise, we’re just playing the tennis game they would have us play, following the bouncing ball where they would direct our attention to distract us to the ephemera from the substantive matters at hand.
December 18, 2009 at 4:14 pm
We sent this by e-mail to Senators Reid, Boxer & Feinstein with a version to President Obama: Shame on the Senate Democrats (and the President) for even considering passing a health care bill without a public option and requiring everyone to buy health insurance without a cap on costs. No health care bill would be preferable. We demand that 51 plus Democrats pass an acceptable bill. Then let Senators Lieberman and Nelson, the Blue Dog Democrats, and the Republicans filibuster over the holidays to show everyone that they are beholden to the health insurance companies rather than the American public. If you don’t, then the Democrats will pay at the mid-term elections.