OBAMACARE: Will It Be Affordable Universal Health Care or a Government Bailout

[waiting for hope]

OBAMACARE: Will It Be Affordable Universal Health Care or a Government Bailout for the Insurance Companies?

Miles Mogulescu
Entertainment attorney, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, writer, activist
Posted: June 9, 2009 05:27 PM

According to recent reports, President Obama plans to play a bigger role in shaping health care reform legislation being formulated in the Senate and House.

The questions is will Obama's personal involvement lead to more robust health care reform which will make significant progress towards affordable universal care? Or, in the name of gaining support from the health insurance lobby and the "moderate" Republicans and "centrist" Democrats to whom it has contributed so much money, will Obama allow so many compromises that health care reform turns into a government bailout for the insurance industry?

Several administration quotes in the New York Times leave reason for concern. According to Rahm Emanuel, "The only nonnegotiable principle is success. Everything else is negotiable." According to the ranking Senate Finance Committee Republican Sen. Charles Grassley (a staunch opponent of a viable pubic option) in a meeting with Grassley and Democratic Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (who has refused to commit to a public option) Obama said "Yeah, it's a problem. If I get 85% of what I want with a bipartisan vote or 100 percent with 51 votes, all Democrat, I'd rather have it be bipartisan." Possible translation--we may be willing to give up a viable public option, mandate that every American buy private insurance, and tax workers for their employer-provided health care, if it will get a bill passed with some Republican votes.

There is a version of health care reform that would be very much to the liking of the for-profit health insurance industry and is very much in line with proposals being discussed by health insurance shills in Congress like Baucus and Grassley who have received huge campaign contributions from the for-profit health care industry.

~Snip~

The question now is, having taken single payer off the table, how far is the Obama administration and its progressive supporters--both in Congress and in the grassroots movement--willing to further compromise in order to say that they passed some kind of health reform bill? Will they continue to say that "everything is negotiable?" Or will they say that unless there is a robust public option, a viable means to finance subsidies to the uninsured to buy insurance, waivers to any individual mandate for those who can't afford insurance, and continued tax-deductibility of employer-provided health care, Obama will veto the bill, key House and Senate liberals will vote against the bill, and the progressive movement will oppose it?

Unless Obama, Congressional liberals, and the progressive movement are prepared to draw a line in the sand behind these key, non-negotiable, reform principals, the health industry lobby will eat their lunch, health care reform will turn into a government bailout for the insurance companies, and over the next few years the public may turn against Democrats who allowed such a flawed form of health care reform to become law. It won't be a matter of the "perfect being the enemy of the good" but of the bad being the enemy of the even worse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/obamacare-will-it-be-affo_b_213430.html

I have to ask - why are these lobbyists even given a seat at the table here? Common sense says they will not go quietly into the night. The last sentence in bold is what I fear will happen - and I think they see the train wreck coming, and don't really care.

[Cleita]

1. I don't mind them having a seat at the table. I just want the table

set with everyone who has a dog in this fight and it seems like that still isn't happening. We have to take to the streets and demand it. I wrote a rather scathing letter about it today to the Obama White House. It's probably in the shredder now.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Yep, this is what we all saw coming from the get go. Time to call again!