Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:08 pm
I hate to say this, but I’m getting a little frustrated with my President. And I’m damned frustrated with my Congress.
While I think President Obama’s wonderful nature and willingness to compromise are charming qualities, I think it essential for him to stand firm when it comes to REAL healthcare reform in our country. That reform MUST include a reasonable Public Option for many reasons including covering uninsured Americans to keeping the insurance companies both honest and competitive. Every day the news coming out of Washington is confusing to those of us who wonder if the Prez has the chutzpah it needs to hold all this together.
He has been so kind to those who would injure him – so Christian, I guess you could say. I never thought I would be one to think this, as I am a very conciliatory soul myself, but there’s a time to “stand and deliver”. To bring it home, as it were, to a population that needs his help, whether they are cognizant of this or not!
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He is acting as though bipartisanship hadn’t already died a gruesome death at the hands of the hard right obstructionist ideologues that are ruining the Grand Old Party. He is behaving as though he were not aware that he is hated with venom I thought reserved for the Clintons. And then there’s the race thing, which is festering anew in the hearts and minds of those in this country that would despise that which is “other”, different, darker. Not only is he a relatively liberal Democrat, but he’s a black intellectual! What did he think would happen??!!
Recent polling shows strong support for the Public Option. It seems so clearly good for the American people to adopt a system similar to those in the rest of the Western world. Our current system is in ruins; people are being destroyed financially, are dying for want of care while the Insurance companies grow fatter and more powerful
Insurance companies have become so strong that their PR Firms such as Dick Armey’s Freedom Works have been able to significantly squander the public’s right to debate this issue through covert and synchronized methods. Squads of people with a “license to ill” were instructed to obstruct Town Hall Meetings, making it look as though there were a citizen uprising as opposed to a well-orchestrated Public Relations campaign run by real experts.
This orchestrated mayhem has put a significant chill in the air re the Public Option portion of the Healthcare bill, but it’s all political drama! The President himself has said that this bill MUST have a Public Option; that even if this stand made him a one term President this would be the issue he would stand for. He’d better mean it; we need reform and the time is now – and no nonsense from the Republicans about this issue being so important we should have an 80 or even 60 vote majority! Majority wins; that’s 51 votes, remember?
I have heard whispers lately of a move by Democrats to split the Health Care Package in two, the better to be able to get the essential part through with the good old-fashioned 51 votes takes it majority, thank you, I like that kind of thinking. The feint, the parry make it appear less than the most important legislation in a generation, again. I can live with that
I am so tired of my party being the party that does not know how to fight. What is the matter with them — with ALL of them, squandering this Democratic majority? How can they let this happen? If there is no public option then why bother? They will have already given away the heart of the bill — it is an unspeakable betrayal. I wouldn’t want my Representatives to vote for a bill that did not include the Public Option. There are people in this country, many of us that feel as I do. And I’m no fire-breathing radical, just the long-suffering victim of medical bills run amok.
As said in this space earlier, my own health has made it impossible for me to save money for my future. And I see all around me that people are avoiding doctors and dentists, avoiding treatment and postponing essential tests until they are too ill to be treated. People don’t particularly like going to doctors and dentists in the best of times; in the worst it is all too easy to wait.
My husband Patrick almost died of infections resulting from untreated gum disease. The dentist, in discussing his case with us said that the entire treatment would cost $40,000; he only spoke in terms of money, but never touched on potential death. He never mentioned the possible consequences of waiting for treatment. He only spoke of the price! That’s what medicine boils down to these days — a game of whether or not “The Price is Right”. No mercy, no grace.
Every day, the news about Healthcare seems worse, more compromised, to me. I don’t understand what is happening here! We have the strongest majority that we’ve had in years, and a huge percentage of our country wants reform. But still the Democrats act like a cowed minority and the Republicans are acting as though they were calling the shots – force of habit, I guess.
In other words, they are all playing politics as usual (except for our tiresomely decent President – where’s the arm twisting, Senate-wrangling spirit of old LBJ when you need him? While we, your constituents, are suffering. God save us from our public servants.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
