Tuesday, August 18, 2009

No public option: A trial balloon on health-care reform?

Yesterday I posted a brief e-mail that I sent to Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand and House member Nadler. In that letter I suggested that the administration's TV talk about "abandonment" of the public option may be simply a trial balloon to see what blowback they will get from the liberal members of Congress and their progressive allies. This possibility seems even stronger today as key Democratic Party figures speak up. According to The Huffington Post (which John Nally posted on Facebook):
Richard Trumka, the secretary-treasurer and likely next president of the AFL-CIO, said his federation is drawing a line in the sand when it comes to a public option in the health care bill. Lawmakers who don't support the provision, he said, shouldn't take anything for granted.

'We'll look at every one of their votes,' Trumka said after his speech at the Netroots Nation convention. 'If they're against the Employee Free Choice Act, if they're against health care for that reason, I think it'll be tough for them to get support from working people.'
This os also echoed by 60 members of Congress who sent a message to the White House that they wouldn't support a bill without a public option.

It is important that we keep the heat on wavering congress members and the administration. Write, call or e-mail your representatives, senators and the President telling them that the public option is not an option, if they want our votes.

1 comment:

sanda said...

I want single-payer. The battle for single-payer, medicare for all, is not over. We need an LBJ-clone in the Senate (my reference is Robert Caro's bio, one of the series, of
LBJ, "Master of the Senate").

Some good discussions are on
Black Agenda Report by Bruce A.Dixon
on Obama and health care:
www.blackagendareport.com

A very critical, but factually backed up, evaluation of Obama and his political stance(s) has been
done by Paul Street, on znet.
The Aug.15, 2009 article, "Frank Rich, Obama and the 'Punking' of
America", www.zcommunications.org/znet

David Swanson has good blog posts
on Black Agenda Report as well as
all kinds of good posts from "all around" on his website:
After Downing Street on health care, and much more.
www.afterdowningstreet.org

And, on health care and related issues from the nearly invisible, people with disabilities: a favorite website of mine is
Not Dead Yet. The blog is written
by Stephen Drake. www.notdeadyet.org
Some of us have wondered if the
"final solution" is assisted suicide, for those of us who have
disabilities, or are old, or both.
(As a Jew, I am comfortable using that phrase, in quotes, in part because others have, but because the first group erased by the Germans in the 1930s, were people with mental disabilities - in
hospitals, by doctors. One source is the former "Disability Rag", which is now "Ragged Edge" online magazine._