Sandy LeonVest:
...The performance is degenerating. The public is beginning to understand what the political players knew all along - that this three ring circus was never meant to be more than a sideshow.
Americans have been forced to bear witness to embarrassing public displays of angst over their government spending a paltry $85 billion (or so) annually on health care for millions of Americans when about 20 times that amount has been gifted to the still-unaccountable robber barons responsible for the ongoing financial crisis.
Today, anyone not in a comatose state has surely grown tired of the smoke and mirrors. Surely Americans have noticed the eerie disconnect between the carefully staged healthcare ‘debate' with its fixation on the cost of an increased government role, and the nonexistent debates on the (far more costly) war in Afghanistan or the obscenely expensive government program to bail out Wall Street.
It was against this surreal backdrop that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to support an even more frail version of what never was a particularly ‘robust public option' for health care consumers in the first place. The move marked not the beginning, but the continuation of an unraveling process that began before the ‘health care debate' ever got off the ground...
Donna Smith:
...Passing a healthcare reform bill that does not provide me with better access to care or protection from bankruptcy and financial ruin is not what I asked you all to do. Stripping away all reference to a progressively financed, single standard of high quality healthcare for all - also known as single-payer -- is done only to more deeply ensconce the deep pocketed interests in healthcare: the private, for-profit insurance giants, the big pharmaceuticals, the medical equipment companies, the hospital corporations and all the other making huge profits as thousands die needless deaths.
Healthcare is a basic human right. Granting that right is not something to be calculated differently in swing Congressional districts, off-year election strategy or second-Presidential term planning. It is your duty to me, to my fellow citizens and to your nation.
And you are marching away from reality when you think all the hard-working people who counted on you to make this a better healthcare system will not notice when you deliver insurance purchase mandates and a corporate bail-out that will dwarf the Wall Street trillions you've already justified.
When you pass whatever you finally pass, the people will hold you accountable as surely as night follows day. We'll be watching - you can bet on that. And to the 10.2 percent (and that's just those still counted in the numbers of the unemployed), wouldn't it be grand if after losing your job you still knew your healthcare was safe? That could be and should be what your government did for you. Unfortunately and tragically, it doesn't appear that is the road they are brave enough to take on our behalf...
Something passed the House tonight. Time will clarify exactly what it is and what it does. The main$tream media surely won't.
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