David Sirota: Tuning Out the Braindead Megaphone on Health Care

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Tuning Out the Braindead Megaphone on Health Care
By David Sirota

November 21st, 2008 - 9:26am ET



I don't know about you, but to me it feels pretty 1993 of late. The economy's in the dumps; a new president is headed into office; that new president is taking many of the same faces from that 1993 White House with him; and both Republicans and the media are trying to bait Democrats into a divisive fight over a corporate written trade deal. But out of all that news - some good, some bad - the best is that there's some pretty serious talk of universal health care in the air. As I say in my new weekly newspaper column out today, that latter news is really encouraging - and if played correctly, we can avoid the health care debacle of the early 1990s.

As I was writing this column, some really terrific health care news was breaking:

- Democratic Sens. Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus (yes, that Max Baucus!) both signaled their intent to push the Obama administration to make universal health care a top priority right out of the gate.

- The Obama transition team designated Tom Daschle as the incoming HHS Secretary and universal health care czar.

- The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel "challenged chief executives and other business leaders to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won't be acceptable." Emanuel said, "I'm challenging you today, we're going to have to do big, serious things."

- The health insurance industry's trade association issued a press release actually acknowledging that the industry is going to have to make real concessions to progressives. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008114721/tuning-out-braindead-megaphone-health-care

[Oregone]

1. I think the writer is a tad over optimistic about this "health care game-changer"

I guess everyone is welcome to interpret these events as they will. Regardless, its not appearing to be shaping out to a single-payer system to me. In the end, it may be nothing more than a perceptual change to the status quo