[GPSCC-chat] GOOD MARGARET FLOWERS LETTER

[perrysandy at aol.com]

It is important to avoid the trap of getting dragged into defending Obamacare. Sandy

Open letter to MoveOn: Time to change course on Obamacare 
November19, 2013
MargaretFlowers, Secretary of Health
Dear MoveOn,
It is with great sadness that I watch youmaking last-gasp desperate attempts to save Obamacare and Obama’s reputation.You look foolish when you say that “Of course, it’s a good law” at the sametime as your constituents see through the Obamacare illusion.  The law is becoming less popularbecause people are beginning to see through the false partisan claims ofDemocrats.  And worse, you are actually playing right into theRepublican’s trap, really the trap of Wall Street and big business interests.
It’s time for honesty. Obamacare is policythat has roots in the Nixon administration, was updated by the HeritageFoundation, a Right-wing think tank, and supported by people like NewtGingrich. It was first put in place by Republican Governor Mitt Romney inMassachusetts (where it has not worked). The ACA further privatizes our healthcare by pouring hundreds of billions of public dollars into the pockets ofprivate health industries. It is accelerating the privatization of our publichealth insurances, gutting our safety net and fomenting greater consolidationof our health delivery system into private hands. It sets the stage tocompletely privatize the pillars of the old Democratic Party: Social Securityand Medicare.
Obamacare is the opposite of single payer.And supermajorities of those who vote for Democrats support single payer,Medicare for All. This is one of the reasons that people are not in the streetsto save it. In this time of health care crisis in which 80 million went withoutneeded care last year because of the cost and 4 million families went bankruptbecause of medical costs and illness over the past two years, why do you thinkit is so hard to sell them on Obamacare? Because it is the opposite of whatpeople want and need.
Yes, Obamacare is failing. It’s just amatter of time before the complex, bureaucratic, insurance-based law collapses.It may limp along for years as the government throws hundreds of billions ofmore dollars into it and the Department of Health and Human Services continuesto cave in to every health industry demand, but eventually it will fall underthe burden of its insurance-based corruption, for-profit healthcare and waste.
And what will we have then? The Republicanswill sing the song of Wall Street to the far corners of the country thatgovernment can’t do anything right and they’ll have Obamacare as their posterchild. Your constituents will feel even more betrayed than they do now by thesold-out Democrats who sided with corporate interests instead of their voters.The health reform vacuum will be filled by deregulation of the healthindustries and the end of public health insurance.
The human cost of this result is thathealth care will be fully commoditized as a profit center rather than a publicgood. Only the wealthy will be able to afford care. Health professionals willbe slaves to the industry and forced to care for only the profitable patients.Preventable deaths and human suffering will be even greater than they are now.
Obamacare is not worth saving and morepeople are waking up to that fact. Don’t let yourself fall further behind thepeople on this issue. Poverty is growing in this country. Austerity measuresare being forced upon us. Real human suffering is the result. Now is the timeto be bold.
If the Democrats truly want to be incontrol again, if you want the people to rally behind your party, then you mustembrace a bold agenda now. It is time to do the right thing. Tell the truth.Put the blame where it belongs – not on government but on the health industriesthat wrote the law to their advantage and are incapable of putting the needs ofthe people before their insatiable crusade for profits.
Tell the people that Obamacare is the wrongdirection. It is corporate-run healthcare. The Democrats tried to work withinthe current system, but now see that is impossible. It is time to join the restof the civilized world, including our neighbors to the North and South, whotreat healthcare not as a commodity but as the public good that it should be.
The Constitution clearly states that thegovernment may tax for the general welfare. Just as taxes pay for roads,schools, fire departments and more, what better use could we have for our taxesthan to invest them in solving our healthcare crisis, not through greedy healthcorporations but through our American institution, Medicare? The best path for the American people right now is to scrap Obamacare,immediately extend Medicare to every person and double social securitybenefits. This will create an economic stimulus effect not seen since the NewDeal.
Don’t miss this opportunity. During theDepression, it was the New Deal Democrats who stood up and did what was rightfor the people. The Democrats must do that again or become irrelevant. Thepeople will love the Democrats for this. They will rally to your side. And wewill be a stronger country for it.
Take control of the message and the policydebate now – save Social Security and Medicare by expanding them. Save thepeople of America. Show the Right Wing that they are the fools for opposing alaw that came out of their camp and show the people that the Democrats arecapable of promoting policies that put public interests first.
It is time for a total remaking of theparty you have allied with and if that is not possible (and the corruption ofthe Democratic Party looks very deep, so it is probably impossible), it is timeto replace that party with one that really represents the people, not thecorporate interests.
~ MargaretFlowersMD, Serves as Secretary of Health in the General Welfare Branch of the GreenShadow Cabinet
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cagreens.org/pipermail/sosfbay-discuss_lists.cagreens.org/attachments/20131122/e4310f4d/attachment.html>