Countdown: Kos - 'For First Time Gov't Admits Health Care Is a Right'

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 06:39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2crmpq07OTA   Posted on YouTube: March 23, 2010 By YouTube Member: FixedNewsChannel Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 23, 2010 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 643

 
MSNBC Countdown w/ KEITH OLBERMANN - 22 March 2010: Former Bush Speechwriter David Frum Warns Of GOP Waterloo. Markos Moulitsas says where Frum gets it wrong is thinking GOP would have been better off compromising.

OLBERMANN: "To Mr. Frum. In your opinion, what did he get right, what did he get wrong this weekend?"

MOULITSAS: "He's right - that this is a long-term disaster for the Republican Party. They staked everything on their ability to completely annihilate the Democratic agenda. They have clearly failed on THE key signature issue for Democrats coming into this congressional cycle. So, that's not a good place for Republicans to be.

I think that where he fails, though, is he thinks that had Republicans compromised, things would have been better for Republicans. They would have had a bill that was more palatable to them.

I think the problem with that is that the reason that Republicans really opposed this is because for the first time ever that government now has admitted it has a responsibility to provide for the health care of the American people, that health care is a right, not a privilege.

So going along with Democratic efforts to pass some kind of health care reform may have helped them short term, but long term, if their goal is to completely deny the ability of the government to help the American people, they could not have accomplished that goal by helping to pass this."

[tomm2thumbs]

1. a 'right' maybe, but

a 'right' you are forced to purchase from a profit-centered corporation

Not that they won't change the process of how this works eventually, but certainly there is a lot to be said about the lawsuits that intend to question whether the federal government can force an individual American who is minding their own business, living (say) in the middle of a farm in Montana to buy an expensive healthcare plan from a limited number of heavily-for-profit, anti-trust-exempted corporations who are running the political show even now.

Hopefully such lawsuits will force them to bring a sane public option into the mix and this issue can be settled. As it stands, these insurance companies are in the driver's seat and they have not indicated they have been responsible drivers of this issue thus far.

[Tx4obama]

3. BUT

in my opinion, the public option is still in play and folks will be pushing it next
and
let's not forget about Alan Grayson's Medicare Buy-In bill H.R. 4789 that he's introduced in the House (80 co-sponsors now) and also Bernie Sanders 'Medicare for All' proposal.
Are we going to see a fight about who's Medicare bill gets voted in first? ;)

p.s. I think Obama's game of chess it not yet over ;)

[tomm2thumbs]

4. I hope so - or at least that individual states can pick up the slack for a public option

I don't think the end game can be where this is now, but where it is heading.

[Kall]

2. A right? You've got to be kidding me.

This bill makes buying private health insurance (not health care, something quite different) exclusively from a profit-maximizing industry, with no public alternative, an obligation at worst and a responsibility at best. One of the underlying principles of this bill is if you're too disadvantaged, you're exempted from the -requirement- to -buy- health insurance from a profit-maximizing oligopoly. Explain to me how that makes health care a right.

But then, this is a guy who a couple of months ago was tearing apart the Senate bill and the deficiencies in it. But I guess once the D team passes something, if you're in the business of keeping your face on MSNBC, you have to forget what you were saying a couple of months ago, and regurgitate the talking points the D team hands out.

It's sickening to have spent a year debating how to fix the dysfunctional health care system and to have completely ignored the actual problem - that health care costs so much more in the USA because the delivery of what should be a basic human right is left to a private, profit-maximizing industry with a financial incentive to deny care. What a clown to say that the Democrats did anything approaching treating providing health care to the American people as a right. If you're under too much financial hardship, the government will allow you to go without insurance. What a frigging right.

[izquierdista]

5. What 'coverage' is good for

Welcome to DU! :hi: You're absolutely right that health care was forgotten a long time ago, when they left single payer out of the hearings. Coverage is all that has been talked about since, and coverage seems to still be in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I would like to see all insurance companies covered -- with plastic bags until they suffocate.