Particularly in New Jersey, Obama put himself into the race in a state that went heavily for him in 2008. He traveled several times to New Jersey to make stump speeches for Jon Corzine, the incumbent. Despite his (supposed) personal popularity and his recognized oratorical skills, Obama was unable to push Corzine into the lead. Instead, a far-right Republican and protege of Bush won the race. Bad bad news for the Democratic party and for the mid-term Congressional elections.
Next thing we heard, Harry Reid is saying that the health reform bill might not even
come up for a vote in the Senate this year because he can't round up sixty votes to bust a filibuster. to my mind, the election and the Senate delay are intimately connected.
At that point, Obama has to do something quick to salvage his most difficult political move. After all, he vowed to be the last president to attempt health reform. He HAS to get the House bill passed. If he doesn't get it passed, there will never be a vote on the Senate bill and his credibility will be zilch. You begin to hear more positive support from the White House for the public option and then you begin to hear specific support for the House version of health reform.
But there is a fly in Obama's ointment: single payer supporters have made enough noise that Pelosi has to keep her promise to let Weiner have a vote on the floor of the House on single payer. She can't wiggle out of it, even though she tries. You hear her say she supports single payer, then you hear that there will be a vote but no debate. That's not enough. She still can't budge enough Blue Dogs to get enough votes to pass the House health reform bill.
The Blue Dogs see that they are in command, because they are the only Democrats who has enough balls to draw a line in the sand and say 'Forget it -- we are taking our ball and going home unless you strip out the public option entirely. Watering it down is not enough. We want the insurance companies to control the whole shooting match. We have to kowtow to the tea-baggers and taxnuts who will defeat us in the next election if we even breathe a word about health care being anything other than bought and sold.'
Of course, every other Democrat, progressive or middle-of-the-road, is thinking the same thing: how do I hold onto this great gig I have? Some of them, purportedly single payer supporters, beg Pelosi not to bring single payer for a vote because it will be used against them. Some of them, Eric Massa among them, demand that undocumented aliens be specifically denied health care because their districts are full of rabid bigots. Some of them, Conyers among them, just keep quiet. Some of them, Kucinich among them, have a different axe to grind. And so Pelosi, despite every kind of concession to Blue Dogs, bigots, racists and know-nothings, still is short 25 votes to pass the watered down health reform bill. So what happens next? Whose prestige is this all about? Right. Obama steps in.
Obama personally arm-twists Weiner to drop his amendment vote demand. Take a look to see what Weiner will get down the road -- a new Brooklyn Bridge? Brooklyn and Queens being the next site of a giant Army base?? a giant new ship building program at Brooklyn Navy Yard?? Who knows.
Kucinich and Conyers are log-rolled too. Kucinich (Polish descent) goes down easy -- the President signs papers making Casimir Pulaski, Polish Revolutionary War hero, an American citizen, even though there wasn't any America in Pulaski's lifetime.
Conyers goes down a little harder. Who knows what he got, but note carefully what happens to the prosecution of his wife in Detroit for bribery.
And so it goes.
The latest CBO estimate on the House bill says that there are 50 million Americans without health insurance, which of course translates 'inadequate health care' and 44,000 deaths per year. How many will be uninsured after the 'buxom public option' is fully implemented in 2019? 54 million. Gee, what a great step in American health care and promotion of civil rights. Are you glad you worked so hard to get Obama elected? Are you glad there is a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress? Has your hard work paid off?
What next? I don't know. Whether or not I personally ask Congresspersons to vote against this bill, sarcastically named the Affordable Health Care for America Act, is really irrelevant. The game is not being played to the tune that you and I are hearing. It is being played to the tune of cash registers aka political war-chest contributions. That has always been true, but there was always hope that our noise made some difference at the margins. That hope is now gone.
Will our hope ever again have a realistic basis? Will health care ever be a human right in America, as it assuredly is in the rest of the industrialized world? Good question. But it will not ever be a human right under this legislation. Health care will still be a commodity, to be purchased at the highest price. Just like politicians. As you may recall: if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it.
Clark Newhall 1payer.net