The vital signs are weakening on the public option portion of Obama's health care plan, which would give Americans the opportunity to select health insurance merely administered by the government (like Medicare) as part of the new U. S. health care system.
The White House is holding out a tiny glimmer of hope for some compromise with Congressional Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats that would create a type of government co-op, but it's a far cry from the promise of real, meaningful health care reform. That glimmer of light is being sucked into the black hole of politics as usual, and will soon disappear forever. Allegedly, these cooperatives would create mild competition in the massive profiteering racket that is the insurance industry since they would be member-owned non-profit entities (like credit unions, as opposed to banks) and would receive federal start-up funds. But you have to wonder how they'd survive - let alone pose any price-check -against Big Pharma and Big Insurance and their greasy lobbyists. Sadly, this appears to be the compromise Obama and key democrats, like Kurt Conrad, D-ND, are ready to accept.
"It's not government-run and government-controlled," Conrad said. "It's membership-run and membership-controlled. But it does provide a nonprofit competitor for the for-profit insurance companies, and that's why it has appeal on both sides." Republicans claim a public option would drive private insurance companies out of business. Amazingly, they say this with a straight face.
Once again you have to wonder, why compromise at all? With a dual majority in Congress, why throw in the towel this early in the game? The criminal Bush administration never compromised on anything; they just bulldozed ahead, whether it was starting two wars, creating a massive economy-wrecking Department of Homeland Security, illegally wiretapping our phones, illegally torturing detainees, rolling back clean air standards, clean water standards, cutting funding for education, health care, welfare, regulations on industrial pollution, giving tax cuts to wealthy corporations, and on and on and on. Even without a majority in the Legislative branch, there was never a hint of compromise from the Bush Crime Family. There never is with Fascists.
We laud and applaud the President's efforts to reach across the aisle and attempt a real bipartisan effort on health care reform, but no one would blame him - and many would praise his resolve - if he simply insisted that this time, this time, by God, we were actually going to reform something in America and not waste everybody's time and money and energy on a useless half-hearted effort that won't result in one iota of the kind of "change" we were promised and we absolutely deserve. So many of our lives depend on that reform.
Meanwhile, score one for the Deathers, that tiny, psychotic, racially-motivated mob of Fox "News" fanatics who have successfully frightened enough citizens with their evocations of lines elderly marching to killing collection points and group assisted-suicide centers to the extent otherwise rational members of Congress ( a handful) are backing off the public option and looking for places to hide. The terrified populace are placing the Limbaugh-directed phone calls to their members of the House and written the Beck-inspired email to their Senators and have sufficiently spooked the legislators to the desired point of inaction. And boy, it doesn't take much to rattle a representative these days. In other words, the Deathers killed the reform.
And that's just sick.