Who Said the Public Option Was Vital?

If I were conspiratorially-minded, I might think the Obama administration is trying to lose the public option (Personally, I think it's less "conspiracy" than the corporatist confluence in government thesis, not the "revolving door" so much as the "corporate archway" that Naomi Klein describes in Ch. 15 of The Shock Doctrine). Many are wondering why he's positioning to turn his back on progressives, who incidentally, take the same position that 72% of Americans do: That there should be a public option to compete with private insurance----which, by the way, has highly consolidated 94% of health care markets . Strangely, most media are reporting this apparent shift as simply a possible betrayal to progressives, and not to the majority of Americans. That's because media like to talk about the "Left" or "Far Left" as The Other. This constitutes "centrism" and "objectivity" by their standards.

But returning to Obama losing substantive health care reform, Ari Berman of The Nation asks, "...how, exactly, was Obama's landslide victory [67 million votes] a mandate for Baucus and Grassley [1,347,000 votes combined] to hijack the president's agenda?"

Good question. And what was/is Obama thinking in trusting Baucus? This is a man who voted with Bush for Medicare privatization and massive tax cuts. On the committee, he even demonstrates an unusual amount of deference towards his supposed counterpart, Sen. Grassley.

Well, over the weekend, Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius started sending the message that the public option is "'not the essential element'" of the administration's health care overhaul." In other words: prepare to be let down, humble majority. Yet in fairness, I should say that in characteristically spineless, Democratic fashion, the White House has since triangulated away from these startling admissions----so who really knows? Still, "not the essential element" is not what Obama was saying while campaigning. It was quite the opposite. And only a month ago, he said reform "must" include a public option. At least many in the House are standing up to this seeming betrayal, with some even threatening to vote against the bill if the public option is left out. Let's hope they keep up the pressure!



*My cynical, haunting suspicion is that both political parties and the insurance companies would like nothing more than to make it mandatory for us all to have (buy) medical insurance----but not do anything (or very little) for those who can't afford it. Already, many of us with insurance can't afford it. For example, the large corporation under whose plan my wife and I are covered is already announcing higher premiums for next year: We'll be paying over $500 a month for the two of us, when we have serious problems making ends meet as it is. Talk about liberty...

**As a side note: If Republicans ever want to stop pretending to look out for and actually start to care about the elderly, maybe they should focus on a problem that actually exists, like this one.

***Lastly: Seeing that Jon Stewart will be interviewing Betsy McCoughey on Thursday, he ought to start preparing by reading this article.