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Reply #31: You just don't get it. [View All]

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BzaDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-09-09 04:38 AM
Response to Reply #30
31. You just don't get it.
Edited on Wed Sep-09-09 05:05 AM by BzaDem
Your entire post is about what you WANT. What would be a GOOD idea.


I agree with what you say about our current healthcare system and would be jumping for joy if we could enact a public option. NONE of that changes the fact that it will not be enacted. Ben Nelson alone can kill a 60-vote bill (and would happily do so, switching to the Republican party if the Democrats gave him too much of a hard time about it). Any public option that could survive the procedural hurdles of reconciliation would have to have Medicare (or Medicare+5%) rates, and such a public option would not get enough blue dogs to hit 218 in the house.

This is mathematics. That is simple addition. But you don't attempt to tell me how my addition is wrong. You don't attempt to back up what you say by a list of 218 people in the house and 60 in the Senate to enact a public option (or 218 in the house and 50 in the Senate to enact a public option that can use Medicare's rates and purchasing power). Instead, you are so blue-in-the-face angry by these absolute mathematical facts that you propose ridiculous theories such as "batshit crazy level" as if that will somehow get us any closer to a public option. Your OP is practically the definition of cognitive dissonance. It also is exactly how a 5-year-old acts when he doesn't gets what he wants.

Your argument that we can't get universal healthcare through a mandate to purchase private insurance is bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Switzerland and the Netherlands do not have even a public option. They MANDATE that every person buys insurance from a PRIVATE company. Guess what? They have 99.5%+ coverage. No pre-existing condition discrimination, no lifetime caps, none of it. THAT (or close to it) is what we actually have a chance to pass this year. Such a bill would effectively end medical bankruptcies. It would end pre-existing condition discrimination, subsidize insurance for those who can't afford it, and create highly-regulated exchanges from which to buy it. (Even one of your own examples, Germany, does all this without a public option. They essentially have co-ops. Look it up.)

In some ways, you are worse than all of the Naderites combined. The Naderites prevented Gore from being elected, but Gore wouldn't have been able to pass healthcare because Republicans controlled Congress. So technically, the Naderites weren't personally responsible for all deaths and medical bankruptcies that occured from 2000-2009. But any purported liberal that votes against insuring the uninsured will be responsible and accountable for every death and medical bankruptcy that occurs after 2009. And anyone aiding and abetting them will be similarly responsible.

You say that you don't want to pay private insurance companies one dime. I really don't care what you want. I find it hard to think of something that I could care less about than whether your insurance money goes to a private company or a public one. What I do care about is helping people who are uninsured and who go bankrupt and who die because of lack of affordable health insurance. And I'll be damned if your whining about the corporate identity of the recipient of your premium check is going to prevent real people from getting the help they need.

Normally I wouldn't waste so much time spelling this out, since most people don't even pretend to want to know the facts (such as the single-payer-or-bust crowd). But you often make intelligent and reasonable posts about various issues, and I respect that. That's why I am so frustrated. It seems the otherwise-reasonable people in our party would actually kill healthcare reform (and therefore indirectly kill and bankrupt people) over this.

That is what makes me really lose confidence that the Democratic party can actually get anything done that helps people. It isn't the blue dogs. As much as I would like to see every blue dog voted out of office tomorrow, I realize the mathematical fact that there will always be a middle (according to the law of averages), and that is not going to change. But progressives do have control over is the rationality of the members of the progressive wing. If you succeed, you will indeed find that the "public-option-or-no-reform" crowd will be pariahs within a few years, and anyone still around who voted to kill reform will be stripped of their power in Congress. I just hope we can learn the lesson of *reality* first, so it doesn't have to happen that way.
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