down and under: healthcare in America . . . the real issue

Conservative Democratic US Senators Max Baucus of Montana and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, both representing states with populations under 1 million people (650,000 in North Dakota and 950,000 in Montana), both of whom have had their campaigns and PACs heavily contributed to and subsidized by private insurance companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and their lobbyists in an increasing fashion over the years (all the more so as the tide in US politics turned toward the Democrats in the last two election cycles), both of whom are on the Senate Finance Committee (Baucus is the Chairman) which has a stranglehold on healthcare reform proposals because of the necessity for approving the costs of administering any new program, and both of whom have expressed their strong opposition to the President's desire for and the House's bill provisions which include a public healthcare insurance option, are holding the American people (of whom an overwhelming majority of 77% in recent polls favor a public insurance option to any healthcare reform legislation) hostage to the economically motivated designs of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, who have been largely responsible for putting these two men in office, and keeping them there for multiple terms.

If one considers the fact that each of these US Senators represents only half the population of their individual states, each state having two representatives in the Senate, then the spokespersons for approximately 800,000 American citizens are managing to overrule the will of more than 225 million Americans, all in the name of the multi-trillion dollar healthcare industry which has presided over 80% increases in health insurance costs in just the past decade and forced an already heavily burdened and rapidly escalating Medicare and Medicaid system to rise to the level of nearly 25% of the Federal budget, while still leaving more than 15% of the population, or 45 million citizens uninsured.

The Institute of Medicine with the National Academy of Sciences estimates that the lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States, and although America leads the world in spending on healthcare, nearly $7500 per every American (remembering that 15% receive no healthcare at all), it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all it's citizens have medical coverage.

These sobering facts stand in marked contrast to the more than $13 billion in annual profits made by just the top ten health insurance corporations in the US, whose CEOs take home an average annual compensation of $12 million, not including their stock options.

Healthcare reform is arguably the key issue of President Obama's administration, inasmuch as it affects the lives of every American as a social issue as well as determining the size of the ever increasing federal deficit, and by extension the US market economy, interest rates, the value of the dollar, and by further extension the world economy, etc., and in conjunction with the withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq and the further prosecution of the war in Afghanistan, will largely determine the perceived success or failure of the Obama presidency.

We should expect the likes of Senators Grassley of Iowa and Hatch of Utah, both Republicans and members of the Senate Finance Committee (Grassley the Chairman when the Republicans had control of the Senate), to oppose healthcare reform and certainly the public healthcare insurance option, on ideological grounds. Few would be surprised to read Sarah Palin rant about Death Panel provisions in the plan, with Grassley seconding the motion. Many may also have predicted that the insurance industry and it's surrogates would have mobilized their army of concerned citizens (read paid rabble rousers. Swift Boaters, et. al.) armed with misinformation and disruptive tactics to hijack the debate on healthcare and turn it into the shouting matches we've witnessed at town hall meetings, all further inflamed by the fair and balanced news media coverage. Baucus and Conrad, on the other hand, are Democrats in a US Senate with a majority of 58 Democratic members and a filibuster-proof Democratic caucus with 60 members, and it is their efforts in committee that will have the largest stake in determining the shape, even the existence of progressive healthcare legislation, not the hyperbolic rhetoric of the pundits or the screaming class.

The sea change in America, marked by Obama's election victory and majorities in both houses of Congress, was a transformation more encompassing than issues of race in America, or of the President's pledge to end the devastating war in Iraq that was perpetrated by Bush and his neocons on the heels of the 911 tragedy. It was in fact a recognition of a fundamental ideological shift in power back to a political agenda that hadn't been seen in the US since JFK, and perhaps not successfully achieved since FDR, and it marked the beginning of the recognition that the politics of greed, the dominance of the corporate lobby and an economy driven by the financial markets was about to be more greatly scrutinized and governed by the people, all the people, just as it should be in a democracy.

Let's not allow members of the Democratic Party, Blue Dog or otherwise, to undermine the will of the American people, who, despite opinions on K Street and on Wall Street to the contrary, know all too well what is in their best interests as citizens, and what arguments, misdirections, and obfuscations are in the service of private interests, motivated by private profits, and administered by elected officials representing themselves and their benefactors at the expense of their electorates, and more importantly the nation as a whole.

If you agree, please help expose Senator Baucus' and Senator Conrad's actions for what they are and put pressure upon them in the arena of public opinion to pass universal healthcare legislation with an option to every American for public health insurance through the Senate Finance Committee and on to the floor of the Senate.

for what it's worth,

downandunder

As few articles on the subject . . .

The White House's Reality Check

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#i1

Sam Stein and Ryan Grimm in the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/21/budget-buster-kent-conrad_n_264123.html

Think Progress back in June . . . not much has changed

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/15/dean-coop-proposal/

Baucus' local print review

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20090813/NEWS01/908130303

A sample of what one gets in the Bismarck Tribune, Senator Conrad's hometown paper