The Kucinich cave, the Woolsey waffle and health care
Call it the Kucinich cave, or the Woolsey waffle. They were against the health care bill before they were for it.
For Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, that must have been one heck of a ride with the president aboard Air Force One for him to flip so quickly.
What’s really clear about Kucinich and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, is that they see this $940 billion bill as just the beginning.
As in previous votes against the bill they are now in favor of, they want a public option and ultimately full-on single payer health care. For them, passing the current bill is just a step in that direction.
Kucinich, a frequent visitor to the North Bay in his quixotic run for the presidency, said: “I’ve made my decision to support it in the hopes that we can move toward a more comprehensive approach once this legislation is done.”
Woolsey told ABC News: “The hardest part for me will be voting for a bill that does not have a public option. But I will reintroduce the public option legislation the day the president signs this health care into law.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was less subtle, telling liberal bloggers: “once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow.”
One can look at this as either frightening or just an effort to appease the liberal base.
What it most certainly does reveal are the true wishes of Democratic leaders to force European style health care on this country no matter that the vast majority of Americans are telling them to stop.
And they are doing it potentially with undemocratic parliamentary maneuvers such as deem and pass in the House.
This effort has, in many respects, not the air of a historic achievement, but all the characteristics of a political coup.
Kucinich’s presidential bids are not quixotic,as Bollinger describes them, any more than Bollinger’s column is. Political campaigns advance an argument and they may expand the discussion well beyond the narrow measure of corporate profits, or the maintenance of the status quo. The undemocratic maneuvers he refers to are just that- but they’re used two times as often by the Republicans. A fiibuster is undemocratic as well, and another ugly parliamentary maneuver. It’s only a question of which party is in power that dictates which set of undemocratic tools is available. I’m not a democrat and I hate the corporate insurance bail-out this bill represents. Poll after poll does not assert that the vast majority of Americans oppose a European-style single payer system- they overwhelmingly support it.Single payer is a tremendous advantage to small business and the entrepreneur. Insurance costs are killing American business on a local and global level. No advanced nations are copying the American model. Figure it out!
by Mike Geare
Kucinich and single-payer are both “quixotic,” unrealistic. The simpleton approach both offer is dangerous, not only to those who actually pay taxes, but also who actually pay the medical bills.
Freeloaders have taken over the healthcare system. Healthcare is not a right, it’s a responsibility. It is a personal obligation. Gov’ts only incent people to behave, and they incent people to behave in very irresponsible manners, hence “free healthcare.”
“Healthcare reform,” shoved down the American people’s throat by the bribing democratic party, is a farce.
How can we actually expect healthcare reform, without addressing tort reform. Democrats are beholden to ‘Big Trial Attorneys,’ and until their greed is addressed, nothing will work.
We are actually moving away from the solution, which is catastrophic care insurance only. Personal/maintainence shouls be borne by the individual and shopped around.
by Alan Richards