A Few More Pieces of Bernie Sanders' Speech YesterdayYou've heard the beginning of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' old-fashioned, passionate, actually liberal
speech on the Senate floor yesterday after being
fucked over hard by Oklahoma Republican Tom "Pay That Man Whose Wife You Nailed, Ensign" Coburn. By forcing a reading of Sanders' entire 767-page amendment to the health care reform bill, Coburn claimed he was just making sure that every Senator knew what was in it. But what Coburn was doing was making sure that single-payer insurance was never discussed by the full Senate. Why the hell not, you know? It's not like President Obama wanted it brought up.
A righteously pissed-off Sanders, who actually looks like he would fit right in at Independence Hall back in the day, made a one-man stand for actual progressive politics, withdrew the amendment saying, "Why is it that we need an entirely new approach for health care in this country? The answer is pretty obvious. Our current system, dominated by profit-making insurance companies, simply does not work. Yes, we have to confess, it does work for the insurance companies that make huge profits and provide their CEOs with extravagant compensation packages. Yes, it does work--and we saw how well it worked right here on the floor yesterday--for the pharmaceutical industry which year after year leads almost every other industry in profit while charging the American people by far--not even close--the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
"So it works for the insurance companies. It works for the drug companies. It works for the medical equipment suppliers and the many other companies who are making billions of dollars off of our health care system. But it is not working for--in fact, it is a disaster for--ordinary Americans."
By the way, dear tea partygoers, that's what a fucking liberal sounds like. A motherfucking liberal hates corporate America and wants to see it severely regulated and taxed, if not destroyed. A motherfucking liberal thinks that government works for the people, not the corporations. And that if you leave a vacuum of needs that has to be filled by a private company, that need will be subjugated to the profit margins of the private company, and that shit will destroy the country. Nearly everyone you accuse of being socialist or even leftist is a moderate or conservative. They're just not fucking nutzoid, like you.
Sanders ended by saying, "This country is in the midst of a horrendous health care crisis. We all know that. We can tinker with the system. We can come up with a 2,000-page bill which does this, that, and the other thing. But at the end of the day, if we are going to do what virtually every other country on Earth does--provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, one that does not bankrupt our government or bankrupt individuals--if we are going to do that, we are going to have to take on the private insurance companies and tell them very clearly that they are no longer needed. Thanks for your service. We don't need you anymore.
"A Medicare-for-all program is the way to go. I know it is not going to pass today. I know we do not have the votes. I know the insurance company and the drug lobbyists will fight us to the death. But, mark my words, Madam President, the day will come when this country will do the right thing. On that day, we will pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer system."
We have lost the courage again to do really big things in this nation that don't involve blowing shit up and killing people, things that actually affect people on a day-to-day basis and make their lives easier. Our government only does things within a narrow sliver of possibility, pressed in by corporate money, lies, and fear.
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