The Sober Reality of Health Care Reform
FDL Statement
on the Passage of the Health Care Bill
March 22, 2010
by Jane Hamsher
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/22/fdl-statement-on-the-passage-of-the-health-care-bill/
The country turned an important corner last night when
Congress affirmed the moral imperative of providing
quality health care to more Americans and passed the
President's sweeping health insurance reform bill. It
is to President Obama's credit that he was willing to
commit his office to such a challenge when others
before him had failed.
But this is not health care reform, and the task of
providing health care that Americans can afford is
still before us. Too much was sacrificed to corporate
interests in the sausage-making process. Rather than
address the fundamental flaws in our health care
system, we applied a giant band-aid. This health care
bill does not come close to doing all that needs to be
done to meet the needs of our citizens and our
businesses as we retool our economy for the 21st century.
There are many good and praise-worthy things in this
health care bill: help for those with pre-existing
conditions, guaranteed coverage for children, money for
community health centers, and expansion of Medicaid and
SCHIP. But there is also cause for serious concern.
Never before has the government mandated that its
citizens pay directly to private corporations almost as
much as they do in federal taxes, especially when those
corporations have been granted unregulated monopolies.
This bill fundamentally shifts the relationships of
governance in order to achieve its objectives. It was
hard to reconcile the President's campaign against the
evils of the insurance industry with a solution of
"corporate tithing" that drives millions of people onto
their rolls. We have empowered another
quasi-governmental, "too big to fail" industry with
alarming nonchalance.
Over the course of the past year, it was exciting to
take part in covering the health care debate as online
journalists, watching "new media" mature as we all
explored new ways to deliver information beat-by-beat
to our audiences. At the same time, we witnessed a
political process that could not keep pace with the
depth and intensity of this coverage. Myths were
exploded almost as quickly as they were generated. In
the end, it was not a lack of 60 votes or 50 votes that
caused the President to break faith with his supporters
and sacrifice the public option, it was a lack of
political will.
We saw in the last days what President Obama was
capable of when he truly put the force of his political
skill behind an effort. But as time wore on, the
mountain of data unearthed could lead to only one
conclusion: this bill, with its eerie similarities to a
plan written by insurance industry lobbyists in 2008,
was what the president wanted.
Rather than use his talents to rein in corporate
interests, as he promised on the campaign trail, the
President used his office to shield them from
accountability. This was our chance to weaken them,
and the Americans that Obama inspired with his message
of change would have fought like hell by his side to do
just that. Sadly, that opportunity was squandered.
President Obama made himself the defender of the
corporate interest problem that we still need to
overcome. Perhaps that is the best that can be
achieved within our current system. If so, that is a
sobering reality.
This bill is a first step, not the last. The Democrats
must fix this bill while they still have the chance.
Before they leave Americans at the mercy of the system
they have created, it is imperative that they address
the issues of cost control, the dangerously weak
enforcement mechanisms, and the anti-trust exemption
for insurance companies.
Even a single, solitary Senator can begin that process
immediately by introducing a public option amendment
when the Senate takes up the reconciliation bill later
this week. Now that the health care bill has passed,
there is no need to worry that this move could endanger
the overall package. The Senate should also consider
the bill ending the anti-trust exemption for insurance
companies already passed by the House. And when
Congress takes up immigration reform, we hope that they
provide for the health care needs of immigrants, a need
too quickly cast aside in the face of right wing demagoguery.
We also hope that the Democratic party recalls that
preserving abortion rights is a plank in the party
platform. Unfortunately, with this legislation, women's
reproductive rights were sacrificed for corporate
profits. There's no other way to say it. And the party
alone is not to blame. It could not have happened
without the cooperation of pro-choice groups, who
failed to mobilize and did little but issue press
releases and fundraise in the wake of the biggest
assault on women's reproductive rights in 35 years.
Their complete capitulation is symptomatic of the
crisis that the passage of this bill has triggered on
the left. Liberal interest groups across the board
sacrificed the interests of their members, and, in the
end, acted as little more than enforcers for PhRMA and
the insurance companies, or sat mute in exchange for
personal sinecures and carve-outs.
But it is a national shame that a Democratic President
who pledged the repeal of the Hyde Amendment would
proudly issue an executive order affirming it. How far
we've come since 2007, when Barack Obama swore that his
first act in office would be to sign the Freedom of
Choice Act.
And finally, most of all, we hope that members of both
parties find the courage to stand up to the corporate
lobbyists who dominated this process-because if left
unchecked, their pernicious influence will continue to
infect every aspect of our government to the detriment
of its citizens. We who are voters must clearly
communicate in November that we will accept nothing
less because the fight cannot end until we as a nation
decide to take on the corporate interests that are
corrupting our political institutions and strangling
their ability to provide affordable healthcare to
everyone. (c) 2010 FireDogLake
Jane Hamsher is the founder of firedoglake.com. Her
work has also appeared on The Daily Beat, AlterNet, The
Nation and The American Prospect.
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