The Public Option is dead. The Leftist dream of herding the masses into one great health care scheme this round has been eliminated. Thomas Jefferson said “One man with courage is a majority.” How true those words are today, as never before. He also said “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” Here now we celebrate the three men who are profiles in courage and have shown enlightenment.
Bernie Sanders: Thank you Bernie for pulling your Communist Bill, er sorry, Socialist Bill (what’s the difference? anyone, anyone? Buehler? Buehler?). After Senator Tom Coburn wisely asked that Senator Sanders 776 page Single Payer Health Care Bill be read aloud, according to Senate rules and tradition, Senator Sanders decided not to waste the august body’s time and had the bill pulled from consideration somewhere around hour three and page 139. Imagine, a Leftist honoring rules and tradition. Now THAT’S courage Bernie.
Howard Dean: Howard Dean says “Kill the Bill”. I mean, can you get any more courageous than that?? Now, of course, weeding out the Medicare Expansion and leaving mostly reform measures most Americans agree upon is the reason Dr Dean doesn’t like it. But that’s no reason not to honor the courage it takes to suggest something that would probably flush the Democrat majority in Congress right down the drain. I mean, let’s not be naive. I may not like the Leftist agenda, but it probably ain’t going nowhere. As long as the Democrats pass SOMETHING, they can say they succeeded, the Government Media can parrot that line, and they will pull that Elvis factor back into line and keep their majority. But I don’t care how Howard got there. That took guts Howard.
And then there’s Joe: What can you say about the former Vice Presidential nominee? Senator Moynihan springs to remembrance. The original Bob Casey another. Heck, I’ll even throw Zell Miller in there. Decent folk. Rational folk. Men without dogma. Men who answer questions with real answers. Men who realize that just because you think you’re correct doesn’t mean it’s ok to be the one wearing the jackboots.
Joe Lieberman, Independent, almost single-handedly stopped the public option in its tracks. He saw the dangers and the consequences. He saw that the Democrats would be the ones whose hands would be permanently, and solely, stained, with subborning such a travesty in the name of dogma and blind faith in government. He knew that the result of government Health Care would be: the destruction of U.S. Medical care, raise prices; put your bureaucrat in charge of your medical care – not your doctor; profit the Unions, the Trial Lawyers and Democrat constituencies at the expense of the middle class, and provide coverage for the rich, the already qualified, and non-citizens.
Way to go Joe!
“Imagine, a Leftist honoring rules and tradition.”
Rules, tradition, decorum. You mean the way Joe Wilson honored those things?
Oh, and Joe Lieberman didn’t stop the public option because he “saw the dangers and the consequences”
He stopped the public option because he and his wife are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the health insurance industry.
Not that I want to discuss healthcare or anything else with Crowley (no common ground at all!) but I did see one thing that gave me hope, in the impassioned reaction of Sen. Jay Rockefeller to Dr. Dean’s statement. He said, “Up till now, Congress has only worked on healthcare reform every couple decades; from now on it’s gonna be every year.”
The senators who have been strongest on public option, medicare buy-in, and even single payer – Rockefeller, Sanders, Feingold, Wyden – all insist that there is enough good in this bill to keep supporting it. And if real reform (leading to a single-payer system) is dead for 2009, it is not dead for 2010 or 2011, once we get a few more REAL Democrats in there to balance off corporate whores like Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Landrieu and Lincoln.
We’ll be BACH.
“Imagine a Leftist honoring rules and tradition?” Have you not been reading the Orange County Register about Connie Lee and Dale Tyler? Those darlings of the right. Mr. Tyler actually told the Mission Viejo City Clerk yesterday that his financial report for the recall committee still can’t be turned in, deadline was 10/31, because the figures aren’t adding up. Seems like the far right has it’s own issues with rules and tradition.
And as a person who has M.S. and owns an insurance agency, I’d love a single payer solution to health care. Go try to figure that one out.