So that's that.
Decades of build up, years of campaigning, months of hard-slogging volunteer work, and who knows how much money spent by us regular people who can least afford it to counteract untold millions from health insurance companies (and where are they getting all this extra money, anyway? Isn't there some, oh, I don't know, health care they could be providing?), and when push comes to shove, the Democrats - with solid majorities in literally every area - completely drop the ball. Again.
You know, I expect this sort of crap from Republicans. With few exceptions, they don't even pretend to care about good policy any more, and honestly, I don't expect much from anybody who thinks that Noah's Ark was not only real but also included a couple of vegetarian Velociraptors.
But after working hard and donating money and calling representatives and going door-to-door dropping off political literature and writing letters and articles - all while working to pay the bills, and often without the health insurance that every other developed nation on the planet takes for granted - tens of millions of Americans had hoped for more from the "Party of Change."
Apparently, the change in question was just a switch from getting stabbed in the front to being stabbed in the back.
I'm told that the proposed Medicare Buy-In - which would allow Americans aged 55-64 to buy in to Medicare provided they didn't already have employee-offered insurance plans - is in some ways better than the public option that the House passed. Sure, provided you make it to 55 years old without health insurance. A great many people can tell you how hard that is.
A great many more can't, because they've been killed at the rate of tens of thousands a year.
So how do our sharpshooting and ever-so-compassionate leaders solve this problem? By mandating that all Americans buy health insurance. Now, we are at last going to have health insurance, which we will get to select from on of the options that already exist that we already can't afford. Thanks! I'm sure that'll do it.
This means we get to choose between one really expensive option that our employer might or might not offer, and one or two even more expensive options for individual health insurance, or becoming an outlaw. At long last, what has long been true in essence is now literally and legally true - it is illegal to be poor in America.
Here's a proposal - why don't we just hand the health insurance companies a big fat annual check and save ourselves a bunch of paperwork? It should be about as effective, and at least then we can dispense with all the lies and false hope.
So since Congress is in the mood to compromise yet again (where "compromise" means "give up without a fight and without getting any concessions from an opposing side"), I've got a compromise plan for our dear leaders. You go ahead and pass your individual mandate bill, with no public option and - if the Republicans and conservative Dems allow it, which given the track record here, I rather doubt - a medicare expansion for some, maybe, eventually, who manage to survive to 55 without going broke or dying. In exchange, I will:
- Pull out of my employer-based insurance coverage and cease making payments;
- Refuse to pay your penalties for not purchasing insurance from a private company;
- Happily go to court over it and have you show me precisely how a mandate to purchase insurance from
private insurers is constitutional. It's not a tax; it's not interstate commerce; it's patently not providing for the general welfare; so where precisely are you getting this power?
I'm also done providing volunteer hours, campaign contributions, phone calls or even moral support for any Senator or Representative who votes for this garbage (any yes, this includes any President who signs it). No more support, in any way, at any time. Ever. You know that groundswell of youth support for the Democratic party, representing a "generational shift?" The funny thing about huge new progressive support is that you only get to keep it if you are actually progressive.
Lesson learned, guys - next time somebody comes along and tells us "Yes We Can," it would behoove us to ask who he means by "we."
This article cross-posted at The Huffington Post
*Note for Kossacks - I've been supporting and defending Obama this entire time, but eventually you have to draw a line and say "this makes you a Democrat, and this doesn't." This is the last straw for me. I will gladly go to jail rather than give one mandated dollar to insurance company vampires. No Public Option means no Health Care Reform. Period.
Obligatory Rec List Update Well, ok, I apologize folks. I wrote this up and hung around for around an hour and a half and then went home and got some work done and totally forgot to come check it. Had no idea it would become such a hot topic. I'll try to answer all the comments but no promises. :lol:
The bottom line: either give me a public option with your mandate, or drop the public option AND the mandate. I will NOT sit here and allow a mandate to purchase private services become a condition of American citizenship.
Update x2 From "Arsenic" in the comments:
For the equivocators that this first ever is OK, try saying this in front of a mirror a few times:
"It is Constitutional for the government to force you to buy something from a for-profit monopoly exempt from anti-trust laws under penalty of fine or incarceration."