The Expansionist

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Ramming Thru Single-Payer. I am among those people who are very unhappy with President Obama's healthcare plan, not because it is too ambitious but because it is too timid, a point Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio made in interpreting the loss of several points in public confidence as shown in recent polls. But it is not just the President who is too timid. So is Congress, both houses. So are Liberals, who still shy away from the word "Liberal" in favor of euphemisms like "progressive", even tho Liberals were swept into office to undo the malicious, monstrous damage done to this Republic — and the planet — by the Radical Right.
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So I was ticked off when I listened to an interview on last nite's episode of an MSNBC public-affairs opinion show, and sent Senator Brown this message via feedback form today.

Why is it that in the interview you did with Howard Dean last nite on MSNBC's COUNTDOWN, the words "single payer" never came up? Why are we creating a half-assed, bastardized compromise measure that will not fix the problems but will not cover everyone and will continue to let health costs rise 3X as fast as inflation and closer to 4X real-wage growth? Why is it that every other industrialized country on Earth can have a single-payer system but we can't? Why would we reinvent the wheel that Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and others invented decades ago and which works fine? Why would we put forward a 16-sided polygonal 'wheel' and pretend that it is BETTER than a round one? We don't even have to go abroad to find examples of success with universal coverage, but have Medicare and SCHIP right here at home!
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Further, why would Democrats think for even one second about destroying SCHIP to try to accommodate Republicans who are the enemy not just of poor and middle-class Americans but indeed of the entire world? More generally, how on Earth can the Senate continue this nonsense about 60% votes for ANYTHING, when 52% of the vote in California was enuf to take away the right of homosexuals to marry, a fundamental human right?
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Don't accommodate Republicans. CRUSH them. Ram thru SINGLE-PAYER. And END THE FILIBUSTER forever. It is an antidemocratic, lunatic provision that NO OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH has to endure as a regular matter or even threat, and we shouldn't have to either. Cloture should be by simple majority. If you can pass legislation for 300 million people by a simple majority, why can't you govern 100 people by a simple majority?

Senator Brown said that people who favor a 'progressive' reform should write to and call their members of Congress. But what will Congress and the President do if the people want single-payer but Republicans won't stand for it? Who has more power: the people, or Republicans?
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,328 — for Israel.)

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:07 PM

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