Blogs: Health Care for All

Whether the Stupak amendment ends up in the final health care reform bill or is replaced by the more moderate compromises in the Senate bill, both the passage of the amendment and the almost immediate response that women and pro-choice progressives should "take one for the team" hold a lesson and a warning for both progressives and Democrats.

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Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, has introduced the Senate's health reform bill. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), is projected to reduce the federal budget deficit by $130 billion in the first 10 years. So how does the final Senate bill stack up against the House bill in the categories I discussed in my previous post ("House Health Bill Should Be A Model For The Senate")? Pretty much as expected.

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After a year’s arduous work on health care reform, some progressives are throwing up their hands in exasperation: what did we really get for all the struggle and strife? Should we even support it? According to critics, Democratic legislators have compromised too often and conceded too much. The bundle of policies we’re left with is deeply flawed – imperfect half-measures unable to deliver on any of our major goals. Why bother fighting, in the end, to secure passage of a reform that’s so weak? Voices like these have been a recurring feature of U.S. healthcare debate for decades. They tend to forget – improbably enough, for people who genuinely want to transform our screwed-up health care system – that only a political victory can change that system.

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Michelle Bachman's "Superbowl of Freedom" (or "Bachmannalia") was not the first protest with such attention grabbing signage, but merely the latest. September saw Glenn Beck's 9/12 marchers descend upon Washington. Again, they brought their message-bearing signs and posters.

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I've used this quote (attributed to Maya Angelou) before: "When people show you who they really are, believe them." I guess in periods of tremendous change people really reveal who they really are. I'll return to this in more detail post, but the news and debate leading up to and following the passage of health care reform in the House is at least worth a quick roundup, if only because it all comes together in a clear context.

First, let me reiterate that I'll be the first to say that the anger directed at the president, Congress, and the policy changes they're trying to make are not entirely rooted in racism, but have deep roots in the economic consequences of the last few decades for the people in some of the reddest states. That said, it's becoming impossible to ignore that a significant amount is also rooted in the racism and ethnocentrism conservatives have used to divert their constituents' attention — and rage — towards more convevient targets.

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The House's health reform bill (H.R. 3962) should be a model for the final Senate bill in many ways, including that the Health Insurance Exchange is federally created and overseen, states cannot opt out of the public health insurance plan option, there are better consumer protections to promote transparency and accountability from health insurance companies, affordability protections are broader, there are more requirements for employer involvement, and financing is more progressive. One exception: the House bill's regressive language on abortion coverage.

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All summer, traditional media reporters hyperventilated at every preliminary Congressional Budget Office estimate of draft health care bills.

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The conventional wisdom in Washington is that Saturday night's historic vote for health care reform, including a public health insurance option, was that it was a "tough vote" -- that it was politically risky for congresspeople in swing read more »

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(The sixth in of a series of seven.)

Nothing in Common

If the cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words is true, then a couple of images might sum up the debate of over health care reform, and prove representative of the opposing sides.

[Via Preemptive Karma.]

[Via Wikimedia Commons.]

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with Diane Archer

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