The Democratic Party, blowing a once-unbeatable lead
All this, despite former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean's acute, astute warning, which I quoted in yesterday's (June 30) column: "I think it's going to be a catastrophic problem for the Democratic Party if they can't get this [public option] bill out."
P.M. Carpenter, BuzzFlash
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Thomas Sklarski
As our little shop of health-care horrors continues spinning its complex web of uncovered gaps, omissions, pitfalls, holes and exceptions even for the insured -- this morning (July 1), for instance, the NY Times' lead story, "Many With Insurance Still Bankrupted," notes that "three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance," which a former Cigna executive labeled, before a Senate health committee last week, as "fake insurance," marketed to "confuse[d] customers" -- we now face, owing to a grotesquely unresponsive Democratic Congress, the profound paradox of a right-wing backlash.
A vast electorate, running through the left, center-left, center and even center-right slots of the political spectrum, has already had a bellyful of Democratic paralysis on real, comprehensive health-care reform -- Capitol Hill's factional bickering appears unrestrained by earthly time or boundaries -- yet voters' exasperation seems not to grab Democrats' attention. As they sit in committee or cloakroom, splicing unintelligible deals like subprime securities, embracing counterproductive bipartisanship, accepting bribes, and in general watering down wholesale reform to an unsavory gruel, they seem oblivious to 2008's democratic mandate: On health care, go socialist.
Related:
Special Report | Health Care Reform, David Culver, Evergreene Digest, ed.
Health care reform is a vital and engaging concern for America - and for Americans.
Why So Scared of a Public Plan? Joe Conason, TruthDig
Big insurance and pharmaceutical companies are lobbying frantically (and spending millions of dollars) to foreclose the possibility of the most promising aspect of health care reform: a public insurance option.
