Progressive Democrats: We Will Not Support Health Care Bill Without A Strong Public Option pt.2

[FLAprogressive]

Run time: 10:58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYI1-OtvaS8   Posted on YouTube: July 31, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 31, 2009 By DU Member: FLAprogressive Views on DU: 786

 
Part 1: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x345791

[swilton]

1. Go Progressives!

I fail to understand what is incorporated under the rubric of 'public option'. Does it allow insurance companies to exclude pre-existing conditions, for example. There are other 'line in the sand' issues such as pharmaceutical regulation that need to be explained when someone discusses the public option. I would like to see a very simple matrix with two collumns one headed by the word 'single payer' and the other 'public option'. For this lack of clarity and transparency, I'm not signing up in support of a 'public option' just by virtue of the fact that President Obama (who has disappointed before due to his Wall Street favoritism, his failure to hold Bush & Co. accountable, his lack of transparency and his pro-war foreign policy)supports it.

My concerns are based upon the notion that w/o strong measures embedded into the bill sent to or supported by the president, the wealthy and healthy will get one type of insurance and the sick and poor will get the other government supported type of care.

For me, only Single Payer will bring true reform.

[JDPriestly]

6. Google H.R. 676 for the single payer proposal

Google H.R. 3200 for one of the bills in the House.

I think that Waxman's committee on energy has also come out with a bill. I don't know the resolution number. I haven't heard whether any of the Senate bills are out and available on line.

[midnight]

2. Power to these people and the members who believe in a public option.

It is with gratitude that I watch these smart people speaking intelligence. Now this is the change that I voted for.

[GreenTea]

3. Yes! Finally, some balls?

[truedelphi]

4. The position of the Progressive Democratic Caucus

"We regard the agreement reached by Chairman Waxman and several Blue Dog members of the Committee as fundamentally unacceptable. This agreement is not a step forward toward a good health care bill, but a large step backwards. Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, for a public option with reimbursement rates based on Medicare rates - not negotiated rates - is unacceptable. It would ensure higher costs for the public plan, and would do nothing to achieve the goal of "keeping insurance companies honest," and their rates down."

We activists have known for a long time that Waxman is pwned by the Big Pharma industry. And although like so many other sold out Dems, he is using the "bi-partisan, must be bi-partisan" slogan to justify his actions, those actions have more to do with his needing to continue the money flow to his campaign coffers than any thing else.

[onestepforward]

5. Thank you Progressive Dems!

Stay strong my friends!

[JDPriestly]

7. Thank you, Progressive Coalition. You are True Blue.

To allow for non-Medicare rates for the public option is to permit corruption in the program in the future under any administration captured by the insurance industry.

Unfortunately, the wealthy have declared a class war on the rest of us.

That is what the Paulson/Goldman Sachs/AIG theft from our treasury was about. That is what the Iraq War and Halliburton's theft from our treasury was about. That is what Ronald Reagan's assault on the union movement was about. We are now in the last stages of the assault by the corporate interests. Big money has robbed us of our industrial base, ruined our public schools and now -- they are trying to deprive ordinary Americans of affordable health care. In the near future, the only way that most of us will be able to afford health care in what is left of our country after the corporations and Republicans have gutted it over the past 40 some years (since the Nixon administration, and yes, I am including Clinton's administration as a corporate administration) is by seeking out a faith healer unless we get the robust public option that controls insurance company profits and thereby health care costs.

I support the Progressive Caucus on this one. Better no "reform" than reform that proves too expensive. Everyone will have to sacrifice a bit in order to give every American access to good primary care. And that is what this is about. The indigent have emergency care, but they need to be able to visit a doctor like people in the middle class can.

All these people who used to be in the middle class and are now losing their homes, their jobs and going into bankruptcy need to get behind the Progressive Caucus on this. The issue is whether they will have health care over the coming years.