2
2
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Thus, America continues to offer free market solutions to address the worst aspects of a free market for-profit healthcare system and politicians have no problem with turning to Medicare as a fund for helping to subsidize the burden private insurers are placing on Americans as they refuse to give Americans the care they deserve.
The Bewildered Herd & Health Reform
The failure of health reform to solve the deepening crisis of health care in America is bad enough, but worse is the fact that all of this has further contributed to the bankrupting of democracy in America.
Compromise should be for the legislative process but Americans compromise the democratic process by willfully compromising before the legislative process has even been completed.
Instead of focusing on the goal of covering the more than 45 million Americans without health care coverage, progressives or liberals are distracted by senators Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Joe Lieberman who may or may not block health reform. They willingly consume themselves with worst-case scenarios for healthcare and suggest what they will be willing to settle for so long as these senators allow historic health reform to pass through Congress.
Instead of focusing on the goal of developing a system with parameters determined by patients and profits, progressives or liberals regurgitate Democratic Party talking points on why the Republicans cannot be allowed to get in the way of passing this bill (and at the same time, ignore the fact that the Democratic Party is all too willing to let the GOP set the terms for health reform in the current legislative process).
Instead of focusing on the goal of a system with no out-of-pocket payments, progressives or liberals accuse those arguing for a system that is not market-based of counterproductive infighting, of "making the perfect of the enemy of the good," of wanting all or nothing in a situation where they could easily get something.
Instead of focusing on the goal of banning for-profit healthcare providers once and for all and ensuring we never have to have a crisis of healthcare like this in America ever again, progressives and liberals are willing to defend the sham that is health reform and suggest we can come back to it and build off it later and develop it eventually someday later into a single-payer system if that is what we must do.
The spineless, weak, gutless characteristics of the Democratic Party under the presidency of George W. Bush and even the presidency of Bill Clinton have become characteristic of the very people who vote Democratic leaders in and out of office, who lobby or refuse to lobby Democratic representatives and senators.
And, so we see "democracy as stupefaction." We see people whose sensibilities have been deadened, who are willing to have their expectations managed and lowered.
Progressives and liberals, as they did with Obama, are deluded with the fear of being on the wrong side of history. They foolishly think that somehow if they obstruct reform at this stage they will be derailing something that could not be attempted again for at least another decade or two.
They let senators like Reid and Dodd continue the exploitation of Ted Kennedy's death to advance reform that is a corporate giveaway, they let politicians compare what is happening to the abolition of slavery and granting women and minorities the right to vote when, ironically, this continues a form of corporate slavery in America and also threatens a woman's right to comprehensive reproductive healthcare in America.
Obama's Presidency
Obama has staked his presidency on health reform. He has put his chips all-in on this one and if Republicans can use that to their advantage, why can't progressives? Why can't progressives counter conservative market-based proposals with progressive humane proposals, which ensure a better future for all Americans?
Why shouldn't we use America's two-party system to our advantage in the same way that the GOP uses it to their advantage?
If Obama fails to pass health care before 2012, he will be one and done. He and his cohorts in the Executive Branch know this and pundits and commentators have hinted at this reality throughout this year.
