Tweet
How can a committee of 3 Rep. and 3 Dem., in a Senate that is 40 Rep and 60 Dem, vote out a piece of health care legislation that is not real reform and at the same time a tremendous boondoggle for the private health insurance, an industry that has failed to serve Americans with health care insurance?
There is no public option in the piece of shyte legislation and there is no requirement for business to provide insurance to workers. I voted FOR health care reform, the public option in particular, a central plank of the Dem ’08 platform and this is not it. Dems have control of both houses. What gives?
Who voted this out and who is the leadership that organized this committee? From what I’ve seen of "bipartisan efforts" since January, it’s produced crappy legislation and at the same time, this good will initiative has bought the Democrats exactly NOTHING.
And the blue dogs are holding up health care reform not unlike a mafia protection racket that wants bigger piece of the corrupt campaign finance action and more pork for THEIR districts. So Americans who live in progressive districts get screwed again, twice.
Please fix this. We knew it would be a tough fight. I just didn’t expect the Democrats to roll over at every critical juncture of this negotiation thereby deliver what the Republicans and Health Care Industry and Max Baucus want.
[Go to www.congress.org now, and by entering your zip code, you can draft a single letter and send it to your congressmen, both senators and our president, all at once. Let them know about how you feel about the direction health care reform legislation has taken under their leadership. You can send one to Max Baucus or the blue dogs while you're at it.]
4 Comments
When Democrats were in the minority, they said they could do nothing. This was a lie at the time. They could have acted as an opposition party.
When Democrats moved into majority in the Congress, they said they could do nothing. A Republican was in the White House and they didn’t have 60 votes in the Senate. What they did have was the power to stop anything they wanted to in either House, this never happened. Even at the end of his term, the most unpopular President in our history could still pass atrocious legislation, like the FISA Amendments Act and the TARP.
When Obama won and the Democrats controlled both Houses, they said they could do little because they still didn’t have 60 votes in the Senate. The nuclear option of changing the filibuster rules was never even mentioned.
More recently, the Democrats got their 60 votes in the Senate plus their majority in the House plus a Democrat in the White House and what little they do looks more Republican than Democratic.
Current Republicans are engaged in a psychotic break. Meanwhile Democrats have appropriated almost all of their old agenda with a couple of Clintonian twists thrown in. But there isn’t a progressive idea in the lot.
Hugh, I’ve got to agree with your frustration. In MA I’m wondering if we need to start to primary Kerry. It won’t go anywhere and I’m not sure how such a ball gets rolling but it is the only thing that will get a message across.
Kerry was just reelected last year and in fact he survived a primary challenge to do it. The challenger got 30% of the vote which was surprisingly high. It was high enough that they did a piece on NPR about it. Kerry is vulnerable, so I hope that we can find someone to challenge him again. Unfortunately we will have to wait until 2014.
Great letter Neil. I just sent the White House a piece of my mind, now I’m off to do the same with Congress…
By the way Neil, your link doesn’t work, here’s another try.