If you read my blogs regularly you know where I stand with health care reform. The current bill before the Senate is a disaster. The only winners with this bill are the insurance companies. Hello somebody?!? I can not for the life of me understand how we have a majority democrat senate and house of representatives and can still not get the legislation that this country needs passed.
The health care bill had already been watered down to not include the public option, which was the only real reform. To add insult to injury the senate allowed one person, Joe Lieberman, to demand that the medicare expansion compromise be removed.
At this point I would rather this bill be thrown in the trash heap than to have it pass. I know the president is hungry for a win in this health care battle, but if this current bill passes the victory will be hollow at best and could come back to haunt him. This is not the reform the majority of Americans hoped for. The tea bagger revolt was given too much power and the liberal response was weak. I guess in this instance silence gave consent. That was a favorite saying of my great-grandmother. Too many of us on the left stood by and said nothing. Where were our protests for real health care reform? Was is overshadowed in the media by the tea bagger wing nuts? Or did it exist at all?
Each and every one of us needs to take some responsibility for this fiasco. If you did not call or write your local members of congress you have some culpability. And I wrote "you" on purpose because I made my calls and I used my own little bully pulpit to the best of my ability. If what I said hit a little close to home, well it's not too late. If this bill passes the Senate, which it appears that it will happen no later than Christmas Eve, then the bigger hurdle will be getting it passe the house. Pick up your phones and pens and let your opinion be known. We want REAL health care reform, not this sham of a bill! There is no option without the public option.
J
