Dem leaders & Health Care - Dog that's not barking

[OzarkDem]

Has anyone noticed how silent Dems in Congress have been on health care lately (other than SCHIP funding, which is nibbling at the edges and political posturing)?

Even Sen. Sherrod Brown, a long time backer of single payer health care, didn't even bring the topic up while discussing issues in today's Plain Dealer article.

...

Sherrod Brown proven correct on key national issues

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/118690918566450.xml&coll=2

...

Dem leaders in Congress told us they weren't going to push for single payer health care reform yet, and instead use the time leading up to 2008 to discuss various strategies for providing universal health care. We were told Dems would "win" on this issue if we let them "run" on it leading up to 2008.

There isn't any discussion going on about universal health care among Dem leaders and candidates. In fact, I've been told Dems in DC have decided and "incremental" approach is best.

Is health care reform getting Iraqified?

Lance Armstrong is presenting a presidential forum on cancer August 27 & 28 - hopefully we will hear something then.

[lonestarnot]

1. The most dangerous dog is one that doesn't bark. hmmm.

[OzarkDem]

3. Are we being "duped" again?

The health care crisis is getting too severe to play political games and let things slide til the "next election".

[Benhurst]

2. How can we possibly fund both universal health care and a holy

crusade in the Middle East?

The World's Only Superpower

Bombs Away!

[lonestarnot]

4. 2 billion a week, 12 a month and the national debt is how much now?

[OzarkDem]

6. We have to make them start looking beyond Iraq

Iraq is not sustainable, even if we spent every tax dollar raised in the US on it.

Its time to start thinking in terms of reducing our financial commitment and focusing on restoring balance in the US.

Health care reform is a must. Without something substantive in this area in the next few years, we'll see the beginnings of a collapse of the current system of health care, with good care only going to the wealthiest Americans and more middle income citizens losing coverage as costs keep going higher.

We've postponed dealing with it for too long and can't afford to put it off even 3 or 4 years.

[antigop]

5. Where is the Senate equivalent bill of HR 676? Hmmm...? n/t

[OzarkDem]

8. They are strangely silent

Were'nt we supposed to be using this time and the 2008 campaign to discuss health care reform?

I'm concerned that some Dems are taking contributions from health insurance companies and are now afraid to speak out.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. The "We Suck Less Than The Republicans" Democrats

All they have to do is suck slightly less than the Republicans, and most Democrats - even those on DU - will vote for them every time.

Man, are we dopes.

[brentspeak]

14. So then why are you here?

[bobbolink]

20. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

[AndyTiedye]

9. None Dares to Take On the Insurance Industry

The Democratic Party was at the peak of its power in 1994 and proved no match for the insurance industry.
We lost both houses of Congress and saw the rest of the Clinton presidency crippled.

You think the party is going to try to take them on now when it is so much weaker?

Notgonnahappen.

[SoCalDem]

10. Until employers are FORBIDDEN to provide health care nothing will happen

As long as the "mushy middlers" get coverage through their bosses(even though it gets crappier all the time), and the underpaid underlings of the "just little more than minimum wage class" workers get NONE, and of course the "part-timers get none as well, universal healthcare is NOT a big ticket item for congress to even care about.

They have theirs, their friends have theirs, their donors have theirs.. there is no rush.

Before the era of HMO's and managed "care", people could AFFORD to go to the doctor, and many people were union members, so if they had work-related coverage, it was good coverage, mostly taken for granted. Hospitals were still largely community-based hospitals, and often non-profits, run by religious orders.

It's taken a lot of time to get where we are, and it will not change easily.

As long as a large group of white-collar workers still have coverage, there is little action ahead.

Once the company-provided coverage is gone, there WILL be people in the streets..

A guy making $60K a year, probably doesn't care (or may not even know) that the waitress who serves him his breakfast at the diner every morning, has no medical care...he has HIS, his family does too. The waitress' kid may have an unexplained bellyache, but it's of no consequence to him...but take away HIS insurance, and see how he reacts to his own kid's bellyache..

Company provided health care is just another "accident" that happened along the way anyway, and just like the faithbased aide that replaced the government's responsibilities, it has taken the place of a governmental plan that should have been in place for decades, ans instead, is just a pipedream for progressives, and a burr under the saddle of neo-cons. It began as a way around a wage freeze, as a way to give employees raises, without breaking the law, and should have been phased out, along with the wage freeze's demise, but it was still cheap back then, and companies just kept it as a sugarlump to entice the best workers. Just like a crack dealer gives is away in the beginning, the health benefits got more costly as time passed, and now the ones who have it are addicted to it and will do anything to keep it..even if it means averting their eyes from the millions who don't have it..

[AndyTiedye]

11. That One Would be Opposed by the Insurance Industry and Everyone With Coverage

What you propose would encounter far more opposition than universal health care itself would.

What makes you think any Congress, of whatever party, would pass such a bill?

[SoCalDem]

12. It's the ONLY way we will ever have a shot at universal care

As long as it's only the disenfranchised who have no coverage, things just stay as they are, and degrade, bit by bit..

Middle class (ha) people will not take to the streets and throw their congresspeople / senators out of office because the counter person at the donut shop has no medical care.

Until something hits the MASSES, and hits them hard, nothing improves.

[bobbolink]

16. Turn up the heat on this frog, too.

While some of us have been boiling for a long time,

the muddleclass is heating up too slowly to GET IT.

[OzarkDem]

17. On the contrary

That was over 13 years ago....

There are millions more uninsured Americans, the majority of whom want universal health care and are willing to pay extra taxes to make it happen.

Public sentiment is 180 degrees from where it was in 1994, they want reform and are not likely to fall for the insurance industry ad campaigns.

Pity if the Dems are so out of touch with average Americans to not realize how much public opinion has changed.

Thats a pretty lame excuse, they'll have to come up with something better.

[warren pease]

13. And yet Kucinich, alone among the sorry pack of corporate DLC sluts...

... running for president who advocates a single-payer universal-access system, is "unelectable" simply because he holds such outrageous positions as the idea that health care is a universal right and not a privilege to be auctioned off to those with the fattest wallets.

And many here seem to agree, maybe because they've been taught by those beady-eyed, slavering TV pundits -- whose sole job is shilling for the corporations that own the very media outlets that these children of Goebbels use as propaganda dispensers -- that when a candidate is deemed unelectable by "those who make a difference," the rest of us can go straight to hell and will never be missed.

If you believe it's your right to have a health care system as good as the one north of the border, voting for anyone but Kucinich makes no sense. The best you'll get is either a two-tiered system -- one for the rich and the other (woefully understaffed, lacking modern diagnostic equipment, and about as friendly as the local ER after a particularly bloody Saturday night) for everyone else, or some kind of "universal coverage" scheme.

"Coverage" is the key word, since it implies the continued involvement of the insurance industry, the single most destructive element in our current tragicomedy, and gives them a seat at the table of any "reformed" system that pretends to take its place.


wp

[bobbolink]

15. Folks, we're only going to get DECENT universal health care when we stand up and DEMAND it!

As long as we're acquiescent, they'll "forget" to mention it...

They need their lobbyist $$$, yanno

[OzarkDem]

18. Exactly, its up to us

Our Dem leaders need to hear from everyone on health care reform, every day, every week.

They're getting a taste of grassroots discontent over the FISA bill, they're not likely to want pressure on health care reform, too.

[bobbolink]

19. And what we have to overcome is their indeptedness to the "Health" lobbyists.

It will take a LOT of "pressure"... we can't waste energy griping to each other.

I"d repost the 800 numbers if I could get to them.... :(