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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I supported a "first step, stepped down" health
care bill with a public option that Howard Dean recommended, as well as
single-payer. But Obama and the Democrats have caved in over and over again to
the power of the Liebermans and the deceived voters of Massachusetts. They
refuse to use all the tools available to them to pass a bill. They have been
sitting on this, and climate change, and financial reform, even before they lost
their working 60-vote majority. Some of us are sending petitions and making
calls now to try to get the Democrats to use their majority and the
reconciliation process to pass real health care reform. We are bucking the tide,
of course; the ignorance of the American people and the media that influences
them is so vast it is incomprehensible. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Our nation continues as it has been, under the heel
of the right-wing free market economics ideology. The "tea parties" of
hoodwincked, fanatical idiots are hard to comprehend; they don't know they are
the tools of big money fascism. It will take years and years of work to convince
people that this ideology is false. This seems to me the only issue. Either
people continue to be charmed by Ronald Reagan and his libertarian economics,
and Amerika continues to decline; or we wake up and move forward after our
decades-long slide. This issue is quite stark.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Most people are too stupid to actually vote
for Green candidates in these times. The candidates should be there, available
to vote for, just to provide an alternative, sane voice of the truth that should
have been realized and acted upon decades ago. The truth that people in most
other countries already know; but not Americans, because we are spellbound to
Ronald Reagan and his ideology. Anything else but Reaganism they
call "socialism." They are sick and diseased. They can't stand to lose any
of their power and money, or to have their false ideals challenged. Someone
needs to cure them; it will take decades to do it, probably, or we have to
educate the younger generation and wait for the crazies to die off. Make no
mistake; the American people are to blame for this state of affairs. We get the
government we deserve.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>But meanwhile the Green Party needs to do more than
run candidates and keep its institutions going. Many Greens think that is all we
should do. They are wrong. The Greens need to be activists, and not just in the
streets, but as lobbyists and as pressure groups. With politicians, our lobbying
and pressure would have the added power that we can run a candidate against
them, and possibly spoil their election, if they don't listen to us. We Greens
cannot sit on our heels, and expect to have any effect or get any support. We
ought to get activist groups together, like many other groups are doing, online
and elsewhere, and meanwhile join with these other groups too. We need to work
at local and state levels too, if not primarily. Just staying on the sidelines,
indulging in our own institutional battles and attending our own platform and
by-laws committees, celebrating our alternative way of making decisions,
waving signs on the street, and running candidates who can't win
without the purpose of pressuring specific elected officials, is not
enough.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Eric Meece, former Treasurer, Santa Clara County
Greens</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=alexcathy@aol.com
href="mailto:alexcathy@aol.com">alexcathy@aol.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=gplac-forum@lists.cagreens.org
href="mailto:gplac-forum@lists.cagreens.org">gplac-forum@lists.cagreens.org</A>
; <A title=sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org
href="mailto:sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org">sosfbay-discuss@cagreens.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, January 21, 2010 9:16
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Sosfbay-discuss] Is DEM Health
Care Bill Really Worse Than Nothing?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><FONT size=2><FONT
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Dear Green Friends, <BR><BR>L.A. City
Greens had a lively discussion at our monthly meeting last night about efforts
by liberals to "save" the Democrats' pathetic healthcare "reform" bill.
I was surprised and a bit dismayed that even some Greens are swayed by the
cliché about not letting "the perfect be the enemy of the good" and how the
bill "is not perfect, but a 1st step" and unfamiliar with arguments this bill
is WORST THAN NOTHING. It's important because I think healthcare is
still a good issue for our 2010 California candidates. <BR><BR>TINYURL:
http://tinyurl.com/yze9o9j<BR><BR>= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = <BR><BR><B>Posted on Counterpunch, December 8, 2009. <BR>YES, THIS HEALTH
CARE BILL REALLY IS WORSE THAN NOTHING<BR>by Helen Redmond</B><BR><BR>Already
defenders and apologists for the Democrat’s health care legislation are busy
at work. In the next few weeks they will be working overtime to persuade,
cajole, shame and ruthlessly attack if necessary, anyone opposing health care
legislation. They’ll reserve special hysteria, invective and contempt for
those of us who continue to support a single-payer, national health care
system. And because it is the holiday season, we will be called
heartless health care Grinches and silly, single payer, Bernie Sanders
Scrooges. There will be accusations: “If you don’t support health care reform
legislation, you support the status quo.” Implicit in the indictment is
single-payer advocates, with their pie-in-the-sky idea that health care is a
human right for all, will be responsible for the continued impoverishment and
immiseration of the American people if a bill doesn’t pass. <BR><BR>Joshua
Holland, an editor and senior writer for AlterNet and Uwe E. Reinhardt, an
economics professor at Princeton, have begun the onslaught. In a piece posted
on AlterNet November, 24th titled, “Is the House’s Health Bill Really Worse
than Nothing?” Holland attacks Dr. Marcia Angell, author, former editor of the
New England Journal of Medicine and a leader of Physicians for a National
Health Program (PNHP.) Dr. Angell opposes the House bill and believes it’s
“worse than nothing.” For that she earns the disdain of Joshua who just can’t
accept there isn’t something in the bill worth supporting, even though he
agrees with her trenchant criticism of the bill’s gaping defects. He claims
she ignores the “primary thrust of the legislation” which for Holland is “the
fact that the House legislation would do quite a bit for millions of real
Americans struggling through a very real health care crisis.” “Real”
Americans, a “real” health care crisis? The insinuation is Angell, and by
affiliation PNHP, isn’t operating in the real world of real suffering if they
don’t support whatever bill Congress delivers to the Oval Office for a
signature. That’s interesting. An organization of 16,000 doctors that conducts
research on major aspects of the health care crisis and have been on the
frontlines for real reform for decades doesn’t understand what’s real?
<BR><BR>Holland argues Angell negates her original thesis when she writes,
“The bill has a few good provisions (expansion of Medicaid, for example) but
they are marginal.” It doesn’t. Her central contention is even with an
expansion of Medicaid and a few other “good” provisions, the bill is a bomb
because on balance, it entrenches the power and profits of the private
insurance industry - the source of the health care crisis. <BR><BR>. .
.<BR><BR>According to a study published in the Annals of Family Medicine,
“Medicaid programs in all 50 states implemented cost-savings strategies,
including benefit reductions, cost sharing and tightened administrative rules
during the recent economic downturn.” Medicaid operates within the
dysfunctional, multi-payer health care system and has suffered from an
expand-contract cycle since its inception. It’s a favorite target for
blame-the-victim politicians who want to get poor people off welfare (and
health care) and into the workforce with no health care. Under the Clinton
Administration’s “welfare reform,” hundreds-of-thousands of mostly women and
children lost Medicaid coverage. The Medicaid program is not an entitlement or
a right. An onerous redetermination is done every year in most states. And in
fact, losing Medicaid coverage for a variety of reasons is the norm. <BR><BR>.
. .<BR><BR>Here’s the conundrum - if you support subsidies to help people buy
insurance and the expansion of Medicaid, you are forced to support the
transfer of billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the
investor-owned insurance industry and a mandate that criminalizes and punishes
people. You also have to accept the Stupak Amendment and the denial of health
care to millions of undocumented workers.<BR><BR>There are more poison pills
to swallow. Holland thinks it’s fine insurance will still be linked to
employment – tell that to the millions who are unemployed and being laid off
by the thousands every day. In the House bill, if employers offer insurance,
they must pay at least 72.5 percent of the premium for individuals and 65
percent for families. That’s too low and gives companies who pay a higher
percentage an incentive to shift costs onto employees until they hit the
government-mandated limit. Workers will then be dumped into the insurance
exchange because it will be cheaper for employers and once there, because of
the mandate, forced to buy stripped down plans with no limits on
premiums.<BR><BR>. . .<BR><BR>Toward the end of his assault on Dr. Angell’s
position, Holland writes, “…drawing the line at the House bill is privileging
ideology over getting something done in the short-term, however imperfect it
might be overall.” But that is precisely the problem. For decades short-term,
imperfect reforms are offered that inexorably lead right back to the crisis.
Then more short-term, imperfect reforms are offered and the cycle continues.
Instead of attacking the privileged ideology of for-profit, corporate
controlled health care, Joshua attacks single-payer ideology and argues to
abandon it in order to get something, anything done.<BR><BR>Single-payer
supporters also reject his false choice of “trying to push for the best
package possible or leaving a disastrous status quo in place…” The not so
subtle message is if a bill doesn’t pass we will be responsible for the
disastrous status quo that is the state of health care in this country. Sorry
Joshua, but that responsibility will rest with the Obama Administration that
at every turn placated the profit hungry, parasitic insurance and
pharmaceutical industries.<BR><BR>And if a bill does pass this year, we can
hurry up and wait 4 years because that’s when it will be enacted! So,
disastrous status quo for 4 more years, then in 2013 implementation of a
disastrous bill that will continue to leave 20 million uninsured. I can hardly
wait. <BR><BR>. . .<BR><BR>Reinhardt needs to come down from his Ivy
Tower and join the movement for single-payer. It’s really not so bad down here
at the grassroots level, Uwe. There is PNHP with 16,000 members. The
California Nurses Association (CNA) supports single-payer and has thousands of
members, too. Sections of the labor movement support single-payer. There are
grassroots, single-payer organizations in almost every state with committed
members who got arrested in acts of civil disobedience at insurance company
headquarters. And poll after poll consistently shows the majority of Americans
want government-run, guaranteed and financed health care.<BR><BR>. .
.<BR><BR>= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =<BR><BR><I>Helen Redmond, LCSW, is
a medical social worker in Chicago. She can be reached at
redmondmadrid@yahoo.com. <BR><BR>ORIGINAL URL:
http://www.counterpunch.com/redmond12082009.html<BR></I><BR><BR></FONT></FONT><BR></FONT>
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