I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
This week everyone’s screaming bloody murder about the “public option” in health care reform. Is it really “in trouble” and “on the ropes” at the White House? Is the president really pulling back?
Without a public option, health care reform would indeed drop dead, and its passing would be a bloody murder that demoralizes nearly two thirds of the nation’s voters, many of whom want a full “single payer” plan in the first place, like England, France and Canada.
But the screeching Republicans, who lost the big election, have somehow got the Democrats by the unmentionables again, and are squeezing them into submission.
But why?
When Bush finagled his first victory, the Republicans told Democrats “get over it.” When Bush finagled the second victory, the Republicans told the Democrats, “get over it.”
Bush “won” by squeakers. Obama won by a much bigger margin. Isn’t it obvious that it’s time for the Democrats to get over Bush, get over bipartisanism, get over playing footsie with people who despise them and despise everything they believe in, time to get the Republican boot off their necks, and give their own loyal voters what they want, not what the Republicans want?
How can you deal with a party whose radio surrogate leader calls Democrats “Nazis”? Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for letting them get away with it.
Now, I may be wishing myself into a corner, but it is possible that a public option being on the ropes is something of an illusion, a floater designed to get everyone whipped up at last about the only reason to vote for health care reform at all — having some way around the stranglehold of the health insurance industry in which corporate bureaucrats and office flunkies bar the door to the doctor’s office and routinely decide who lives and dies in America?
It’s possible, I suppose, that President Obama is “punking” the GOP, not his base.
I can’t imagine any Democrat voting against a public option — if they ever want to be re-elected by the party’s base.
There’s plenty of progressives and liberals and other fine Americans who believe in equity and justice and fairness to all waiting in the wings to run for office. The base will turn to them hard and fast.
Like it’s always been with the GOP, the base is the heart of it all for the Democratic majority right now. I can’t imagine a single Obama voter who doesn’t want a public option, and who doesn’t scorn the Repubs for shrieking and yelling fire in the crowded market place of ideas – torturing the most vulnerable and misinformed people with “death panels” and other utterly tacky and tasteless histrionics and fear mongering. But, then again, selling fear has been the Republicans stock in trade for decades.
Get over them, Democrats. You won.
Health care reform is, in many ways, about remaking the Democratic party, about moving it away from merely reacting to Republican threats and smears and oh so boring accusations of “socialism” and other absurdities. It’s about giving the Democrats spirit and guts and a sense of pride in doing good for millions and millions of Americans. It’s not about Democrats kowtowing again to the rumor mongers and foaming haters on the political right.
Maybe the president really does know the inside game in Washington. Maybe not. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is saying louder than ever that a public option is essential. So his Dr. Howard Dean, who as former national Democratic chairman knows the party base better than most. Senators Rockefeller and Feingold look at a public option as “a must.”
I can’t imagine either U.S. Sens. Jeff Bingaman or Tom Udall – both Democrats — ever running successfully in New Mexico again if their base thinks they chickened out. Even the president’s eloquence won’t let him back off from this unscathed.
The outcry for a public alternative to bait and switch private health insurance isn’t funded by “public option” corporations and their corporate lobbyist, like the anti-option shreechers are. There ain’t no such animal as a public interested corporation. Public options are devoid of profits.
Screaming bloody murder to stop health insurance companies from ruining people’s lives is one thing, screaming bloody murder for the right to plunder and wreck ill people’s lives for the sake of making a buck is quite another.
I’m proud of New Mexico Congressmen Ben Ray Lujan and Martin Heinrich for being unflinching about a public option. As Heinrich said in a recent op-ed, “any truly effective insurance reform must include a public option,”
A public option is a life raft in an ocean of snapping sharks. If a person could choose the rescue of Medicare and its security, even with its taxes, over private health insurance and its price gouging – why on earth wouldn’t they do it?
Medicare does not up its co-pays by 30 or 40 percent every six months. It does not say which test you can have and which you can not. And when you get sick, Medicare, or a public option, won’t kick you out.
Is the Democratic party spineless? Or is it starting to remake itself as the dominant party of the future. We’ll know well before the end of the year.
