We Must Oppose the Healthcare Bill Compromise

Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.

The compromise in the House is not real Healthcare reform. Although our country desperately needs Healthcare reform just supporting any bill offered is not progress. After Corporate Democrats and Republicans have gotten a hold of the bills in the House and Senate they are so watered down that they will not be anything that will do much good.

They convienently ignore the real problems in the healthcare industry due to complaints from the very folks who profit handsomely by the status-quo.

Reports coming out about the "compromise" with the treasonous Blue Dogs in the House and with like minded stooges in the "House of Lords" known as the United States Senate should be completely unacceptable to those of us who seek real progress for real people in this country.

Of course the Corporate controlled media touted this as "sweeping reform":

After weeks of turmoil, House Democrats reached a shaky peace with the party's rebellious rank-and-file conservatives Wednesday and cleared the way for a vote in September on sweeping health care legislation.

Bipartisan Senate negotiators reported progress, too, on a bill to extend coverage to 95 percent of all Americans without raising federal deficits. "We're on the edge, we're almost there," said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican involved in the secretive Senate talks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/health_care_overhaul

Luckily Liberals and Progressives in the House immediately voiced opposition. They are our hope to defeat this Corporate-tainted compromise:

The House changes, which drew immediate opposition from liberals in the chamber, would reduce the federal subsidies designed to help lower-income families afford insurance, exempt additional businesses from a requirement to offer insurance to their workers and change the terms of a government insurance option.

As word of the agreement spread, liberals fired back. "We do not support this," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., head of the Progressive Caucus. "I think they have no idea how many people are against this. They can't possibly be taking us seriously if they're going to bring this forward."

Thank you Ms. Woolsey for speaking sanity to Corporate-controlled power. No free-thinking Progressive should support this "compromise". You see, as usual the only ones who have compromised anything are the folks like all of us who want real progress in this country. The Insurance companies and big business as always are allowed to walk between the raindrops as the working man and woman are left to foot any bill of these "reforms".

In the "House of Lords" the sellout of millions of Americans seems to be complete. Their version of "reform" is just as bad:

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has given Baucus months to see compromise across party lines is possible, and he told reporters during the day he expects a bipartisan plan to emerge.

The pace of decisions appears to have accelerated in recent days, with negotiators all but settling on a tax on high-cost insurance plans to help pay for the bill, as well as a new mechanism designed to curtail the growth of Medicare over the next 10 years and beyond.

More problematic from the Democrats' point of view is a tentative agreement to omit a provision in which the government would sell insurance in competition with private industry. In its place, the group is expected to recommend non-profit cooperatives that could operate at the state, regional or even national level.

Nor is any bipartisan recommendation likely to include a requirement for large businesses to offer insurance to their workers. Instead, they would have a choice between offering coverage or paying a portion of any government subsidy that non-insured employees would receive.

Harry Reid is a disgrace as a leader, as is the leadership in the House if they actually think that they can shove this "reform" in the guise of more corporate welfare to the insurance companies off on the American people. This is simply a disgrace and not what we all fought so hard for last year. I beg the President, the Speaker of the House, or any real Democrat to stand up and oppose this. Americans have waited this long for Healthcare Reform and if this is the best these "leaders" can come up with maybe we just need to start fresh again when they get back from jetting home on the taxpayer dime and sipping their maritinis with the elite that they serve.

Furthermore, I have always loved my party and been proud to be a Democrat, the party that represents the working folk of this country. However, this process is showing me that the Democrats no longer represent the values of the majority of their own members. This compromise is finally nailing it home to me that our party is just as sold out to the Corporations as the Republicans. If this is allowed to go through I would love to start a third party, a REAL PROGRESSIVE party with other like minded individuals such as myself who are tired of being the only segment of the population that is denied representation. Unfortunately I think this Healthcare battle shows it has finally come to that.

The time is nearing to let the Corporate Democrats and the far-right lunatics have their party, and build a true grassroots political party that represents working Americans.

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Health Care Bill 676

Hillbilly Report: I to have always loved my party and been proud to be a Democrat, the party that represents the working folk of this country. However, the junk yard DOGS are showing us that the Democrats no longer represent the values of the majority of their own members. This compromise is finally nailing it home to the American people that our party is just as sold out to the Corporations as the Republicans. This MUST not be allowed to go through.  We need to cut the Corporate Democrats and the far-right lunatics that have our party held hostage.  We need those who hold the values of Americans up to a better standard and drop the DOGS from the Democratic Party!

Universal Healthcare: A Fundamental Right

The time is long overdue for the United States to join all the other civilized nations in the world and provide health care for all citizens. In their preamble, the founders stated that one of the major purposes for establishing the U.S. Constitution was to "promote the general Welfare." There can be no "general welfare" without health care. Thus far, the Court had specified only three fundamental rights—voting, education, and interstate travel. Like education, health care should be a right and not a privilege for the fortunate among us.
Many thousands are dying because they have no means of accessing health care; many others, who are insured, are dying because for-profit health insurance companies reward employees for denying requests for medical tests/treatment. This situation is unconscionable. It is also diametrically opposed to the American principle of equality, first stated in the Declaration and inferred in the 14th Amendment's "equal protection" clause. In equal protection analysis “poverty” and “economic class” are designated de jure “facial classifications” even as health insurance companies continue unregulated and unethical, discriminatory practices against low income, underprivileged citizens.
Health care should not be a commodity, like houses or cars, available only to those who can afford it. Health care should not be left in the hands of corporations whose raison d'être is to make the biggest profits possible. It is time for the government to intervene, state by state if necessary, and designate health care, like education, a fundamental right.

Health Care Bill Compromise

I agree that it would be much more desirable to get a single payer health bill through the Congress.  However, I think it is unwise to throw out the baby with the bathwater.  We have made efforts to revise our health care since the Clinton's first took office, and it has failed because the big money comes out along with the scare tactics of the right, and people start pulling back their support not only of the idea, but the party as well.

Let's unite as a party.... something the Republicans are so successful in doing, and get this bill through.  I know there will be things that need to be changed, and if we can get this through, and people begin to see what real health care reform means to us, then we will be heard when we go for a single payer system.

What we do NOT need is to splinter the party, and fight among ourselves.  It would be different if Obama were leading us in a stupid or dangerous way.... we just want more than he is able to get through.  Are we willing to give up health care reform for another four, eight or maybe twenty years? 

How are we going to be able to continue to support the system we have??  Can you afford for health costs to continue to spiral out of control?  Is your job so secure that you could not possibly lose it, and therefore, lose your insurance?  If you, like myself are retired, is your retirement insurance secure enough financially to guarantee that it will still be available to you that long?  If you are on Medicare, are you positive in these economic times, that Medicare is a sure thing for you? 

Do we have a responsibility to worry about those people in our country who have NO Health Insurance?  I think so... haven't they waited in the dark and dangerous wings of the stage of our wealthy country long enough? 

Let loose of the hold out, and unite.... let's reform the Health Care now... Please, do not hold out for a pipe dream.  It will not happen!  There is so much panic out there already about what is in this bill... people have been lied to, and they are losing all trust of ANY politician, be they left or right!  We need to pull together and make things work. 

Thank you.

Catwoman500

the baby is drowning

It sounds like you have been convinced by fox news and talk radio that there is a massive opposition to the public option ( which i believe is the heart of the issue).
There isn't. It is only a small number of hardcore right wingers who are scared that healthcare reform is a plot to 'kill old people'. And it is only an small number of corrupt democratic senators who have been bought off by big insurance.
We have enough democrats to pass the public option through reconciliation. To sacrifice the most important part of reform , the public option, in vain attempt to win support from republicans who would not support it if Reagan himself came back from the dead and commanded them to, is either corruption or cowardice.
Not one dime, to any democrat who betrays the public option!
Please consider taking a pledge not to give money to those democrats who betray us on the public option.
Visit myspace.com/reformnow for more info.

no public option, no "reform"

R. Kean
Yes, we are not holding out for the unattainable by insisting on a strong public option. Obama decided not to go for single payer so he has already compromised as far as he can. Without a public option we still have a system that will bankrupt the country. Funneling more money to insurance corporations whose business plans include denying health care to appease shareholders is not reform.

We must insist that our employees in the House and Senate vote against any plan that does not include a strong public option.
This is the only way to help the 47,000,000 without current coverage and those of us who will soon lose coverage due to unemployment.

PUBLIC OPTION IS A "MUST"

IF PRESIDENT OBAMA DROPS THE "PUBLIC OPTION" AS THE REQUIRED PART OF THE HEALTH REFORM HE WILL BE PERCEIVED AS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE ALL THOUGHT HE WAS ELECTED AS...  A MAN OF INTEGRITY AND PRIMCIPLE.
 IT IS BETTER TO BE DEFEATED DEFENDING A "RIGHT" CAUSE THAN WINNING BY BETRAYING IT. 

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