But even without the civil rights analogy, the current health care debate is developing an increasingly nasty racial subtext, as indicated by a Nov. 4 Huffington Post article on a new business group ad implying that health reform will cost whites their jobs.
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid included a weak public option in pending House and Senate bills, even though a solid front of congressional Republicans, private insurers and most mainstream media have long disparaged the concept that insurers should have to compete with a government plan to keep insurance costs affordable.
A Congressional Budget Office study last week predicts that few consumers are likely to use the Pelosi bill's public option because Pelosi's rules would steer too many older or seriously ill customers into the public plan, thus creating unattractive pricing for others.
Also, Pelosi's bill removed the proposal passed by the Education & Labor Committee by a bipartisan 27-19 vote that enabled states to create single-payer plans, leaving a model much like the Massachusetts experiment that is now attacked by critics from both parties as potentially unviable.
John Nichols, a columnist at The Nation, slammed the Pelosi bill. But fellow liberal and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman urged Democrats to approve the deal as the best one possible now. Indeed, the Washington Post reported Nov. 4 a counter-attack by so-called moderates to strip the option from the Senate bill.
Public Views on Public Option
On Oct. 27, most of the patient witnesses testified that they had private insurance when their lives began collapsing because of health care costs not fully covered, and ultimately unaffordable.
Conyers described last week's hearing as like a religious service, when inspiration suddenly strikes. "We've had hundreds of hearings, he said afterwards in an interview, available here. "Today was a transformative moment in the history of our accomplishing our goal, he said. "You know when something special happens.
The hearing was almost ignored by major news media with a few exceptions, such as a CNN camera crew (without an on-air reporter), the Pacifica Network's progressive radio and a Montgomery County cable access host from Maryland.
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