It appears that the painstakingly LONG debate over health insurance reform is coming to an end.  My gut instincts tell me that this bill will be a real “cop out” to what was possible, but I “hear” the democrats who are claiming it’s just a “start.”  Yes, there is historical precedence to suggest that, over the course of time, this bill can be improved.  I guess I’m just suffering from the disappointment in realizing that our Congress, and very possibly our White House, are already in the “pockets” of multi-national corporations – whether democrat or republican.  Otherwise, it’s hard for me to “get” why they didn’t just simply open up Medicare – with a few modifications (including the “improvements” of this bill – like “pre-existing conditions,” etc.) – to all Americans, with those presently buying insurance from the private market having the “option” to buy into the “government run healthcare system.”  Certainly, all those on the right who claim that the government can’t do anything right would simply have had the option to NOT buy in.  Those who would want to be a part of that should have had the “option” to purchase “government run healthcare” had they been so inclined.

Why would I be concerned about the corporate influence on this bill?  Well, putting two plus two together, I’m already thinking about the effects of the so-called “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision which has “opened the flood gates” of political finance to corporate interests – many of which won’t even be United States owned corporations.  If the BILLION or so dollars spent by the health care lobby could “mitigate” this legislation to “save” it for the FOR PROFIT health care industry, just think what lies in store in the years to come.  President Obama and the democrats are assuring us that the bill will be “strengthened” in the years ahead.  I’m just not so sure that they can guarantee that.  In fact, the members of the House are using a process called “deem and pass” to get this legislation from the House back to the Senate.  And, why would they use this parliamentary trickery for the ultimate vote on the bill?  Well, from everything I’ve heard, it’s because the members of the House ABSOLUTELY don’t trust the members of the Senate – AND FOR GOOD REASON, I might add.  I don’t think hardly anyone trusts the members of the Senate – on either side of the “isle” – at this point in America’s history.  I believe this “deem and pass” procedure guarantees the House that if the Senate doesn’t pass the bill as sent to them, there will be no bill.  In other words, the members of the House are stating that they will not take the chance that the Senate health care bill could possibly end up being law – without modification.

And, one member of the house after another seem to be saying that this bill is “better than the status quo,” and that’s the only reason they’re voting for it.  When you’ve got a super majority in Congress, that is not a ringing endorsement of the democrats ability to get legislation passed through Congress.  I will say this, since the first of the year I’ve seen a BIT more willingness on the part of democratic leaders to simply disregard the republican party as they should have from the day President Obama was elected.  I suppose the argument could be made that Obama needed to show the republicans “for what they are,” and it took all this “reaching out” to an unwilling constituency to do so, but, as I’ve been stating for over a year there was a much easier way to accomplish putting these republicans in their place.  For the sake of wanting to avoid beating the “dead horse” I’ve been beating for the past year on the need for investigations, I’ll leave it at just that hint of what the real solution was – read my earlier posts if you’re not sure what I mean by that.  But, while all this “negotiating” has taken place in the past year, I have to add that millions of Americans are without work, with no prospects for the immediate future because of the fight for this mediocre, at best, health care legislation.  I’m simply going on what trust I have left in the President that this legislation is going to help a lot of Americans.  But, if the democrats lose control of Congress, and ultimately Obama loses the White House over this – I’m very hopeful that won’t happen – the negative consequences could far outweigh the positive ones (whatever they might be – to me, very unclear at this point).  Honestly, it’s very hard for me to trust any American politician at this point in time.

We can expect the large corporate money to begin flowing almost as soon as this bill gets signed by the president.  I believe the first attempt will be to elect republicans who pledge to repeal it.  Of course, if Obama’s new found “spunk” which he’s shown in the last month or so is genuine, then they will have to beat him to get it repealed – even if they could somehow miraculously take back the Congress.  Realistically, I believe the worst that could happen for the democrats is to lose their TIGHT GRIP on congressional majorities – but, no one knows what effect unlimited corporate spending might do in the next election.  For example, if the pharmaceutical industry could afford to pay the man who negotiated the Medicare Part D fiasco under President Bush a bonus of over a BILLION dollars, think about how much they are going to spend to prevent congress from “fixing” this bill in the future.  For them, the “status quo” was much more preferable to the government suggesting there should be regulation on how they or the insurance companies operate.  I mean, do you honestly believe there was no public option because it wasn’t a good idea?  Combine the money of the insurance industry with that of the pharmaceutical industry and you have the ability to far outspend any candidate that is not “BEHOLDEN” to them.  Do you really think the members of congress committed to health care as a right, and the end of FOR PROFIT health care are going to have much of a chance against these corporate behemoths?

Add to this that the congresspersons who will be willing to suck up to these corporations will more than likely be just as willing to suck up to the oil lobby, the coal lobby, the NRA (probably already doing this – but, just picture the amount of money these lobbies can now spend to promote their interests), and anyone else out there who will offer them financial support.  This is why it was so important to take these people on STRAIGHT UP right NOW!  Passing the “option” for ALL AMERICANS to be able to buy into Medicare could have been done with 50 votes in the Senate, wouldn’t have required 2700 pages (or whatever the actual amount of the bill ends up being), wouldn’t have intruded on anyone who is happy with their private insurance, and MORE IMPORTANTLY would have allowed our government to spend the time that was needed on CREATING JOBS for the MILLIONS of Americans who are still anxious to go to work, with NO JOBS in sight.

With an “infrastructure” that was estimated to need something like TWO TRILLION dollars to bring it up to code, and over 10 MILLION men and women out of work – the combination for a “short cut” to solving this unemployment problem was right in front of our politicians eyes.  Yet, we had to spend over ONE YEAR arguing about a health care bill which will end up being almost TOTALLY diluted from the “ideal,” and we still have a treasury secretary saying that unemployment is going to go up further before it starts to come down consistently.  There is no doubt that Barack Obama is FAR BETTER than anything the republcans have (or had) to offer – but, there are a lot of “ifs” on the road ahead.  I for one have grown tired of the rhetoric.  I’ve been looking for action since he took office – and, yes, stuff has been accomplished – but, almost all of it is far less than what could have been had Obama taken a STRONG STANCE against the republican party from day one.  Just the other day, there he was on Fox – kissing up to Republcans again.  I’m going to hope that all of this works out for the better, but this is not the “change I can believe in.”  It feels like a cross between “Bush – lite” and “Clinton – lite.”  Not much seems different to me – even though there are a bunch of democrats who are going to be claiming they’ve passed a “historic” health care overhaul.  I think Dennis Kucinich put it about right on the other day when he announced he was dropping his opposition to the plan.  It’s not what he wanted, it’s not “real” health care reform, it’s more than likely a windfall to the big insurance companies which will make them even more difficult to legislate against in the future (that last part was my thoughts), but he didn’t want to stand in the way of the final bill – he was voting for it simply because President Obama convinced him it was better than the status quo.  Personally, I’m pretty disappointed that the main selling point of the health care bill is that it’s “better than the status quo.”  Is it possible that “Citizen’s United” has actually gotten the attention of democratic leaders?  I sure hope so.  It would be nice to see democrats spend the rest of this year fighting for jobs, Wall Street regulation, and a green economy – and, against republicans.  If they don’t make a significant impression on the electorate in the next few months, their political futures may well be determined by the very corporations they’ve been unwilling to “take on.”