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
Sam Stein and Ryan Grimm in the Huffington Post
Think Progress back in June . . . not much has changed
Baucus' local print review
A sample of what one gets in the Bismarck Tribune, Senator Conrad's hometown paper
Some suggestions for news agencies and public officials to whom you may be willing to write and express your own interests on the subject . . .
The President
NYTimes Letters to the Editor
Great Falls Tribune
Move On's Campaign
The California Senators
Senators Conrad and Baucus directly
