Obama co-opted the health care movement and in return gave the people...?

1. Is the office of the President hurt if health care reform is not passed, or just the Presidential ego?

If comprehensive health care is not passed into law then it is people that suffer, which is why health care reform should be comprehensive. A real conscious and pragmatic vote would be to vote NO on this bill which is very different than saying No to health care reform. The democrats will deflate the will to reform health care and its momentum by passing the current plan.  Within five to eight years their will be millions more that are under and uninsured and this debate will start all over again, for their sake, I hope so. It is untrue that the president has incorporated the best ideas on health care, he ignored the best ideas.

 Thirty million or so more Americans will be covered by this new health care reform, no dropping clients with preexisting conditions and those that are not covered, about twelve to fifteen million, may some day get help, who knows. Pro-reformers insist that those millions will be taken care off in the future but is that true? If the president could only help some Americans, get health care, by using parliamentary gymnastics, then how is he going to help the millions left behind once the momentum for reform has faded. Senator Kucinich "I doubt that this president or any president in the near future or any Congress in the near future will want to touch anything remotely related to health care." Will fixing the Presidents health care plan be as easy as its been to tweak and fix Medicare problems over the years?

The president had a mandate to pass comprehensive health care, which would have been single payer, in his first few months in office. That mandate was used up fighting over “Public Option” which was too confusing and a political liability from the start. Now that the president has used up his mandate the citizens are forced to accept a health care reform package that they are divided on and hardly looks like reform. Listen to Rachel Maddow over at MSNBC for an explanation on how this bill will benefit people because she does a great job. Those of us with preexisting conditions will now have the opportunity to pay too much for health care each month or face legal penalties. What Maddow and many other progressives forget is that often people don’t pay that five to eight hundred monthly medical premium for a few months to save for the purchase of something else or just to pay for living expenses.

If a family did not pay their monthly premium they would just start over again in the future, that is if the insurance company accepts their application. Now that the new health care law requires a family to pay their monthly bill the government acts as the insurance companies private collections agent and collects fines. Politicians should expect to face a backlash for this change because not paying this bill was part of the American savings plan. This is why no health care plan other than one that included and assured monthly premiums would drop immediately for citizens would suffice. Senator Kucinich did not want to be on the wrong side of history by making himself a health care road block. What did happen was that Kucinich took part in co-opting the health care reform movement by the Obama administration who strong armed a bill through congress that fell far short of health care reform in order to appease the insurance industry and big pharma or the big special interests very invested in the president. In the end there was no comprehensive reform to health care passed by the Obama administration: they deflated the movement and passed a face saving bill for Obamas' ego.

Congratulations America at least There are some great aspects of this health care bill liket now the insurance industry can not discriminate against serving those that have preexisting conditions. Lets hope that moral victory is going to make paying those high premiums feel much better each month. During the election expect to hear demands and promises to repeal this legislation because, after all, what other product is a citizen forced to buy? Hint, it is not car insurance, remember, driving is a privilege and a person has alternatives to driving a car they could use.

If the economy does not turn around enough to put the dollars in the pockets of Americans so they can pay for this new entitlement, they are forced to buy, then the democrats will face an up-hill fight on election night. If the GOP wins elections, this bill the Democrats ramed through, just might be easily repealed. The democrats hope that once the people are given something, (health care) which is better than nothing, they will not want to give it back and so will push back against any republican attempt to repeal this bill.

The problem is that between now and the deliverables (the benefits people get as a result of the president signing the bill into law) tied to the presidents health care plan a popular movement could gain momentum offering something better, something without penalties and that brings down premiums. It would not be difficult for the people to give back something that they hardly feel made any difference in their lives other than an ideological difference.
The White House does the best job at describing the health care reform so click here if that is the information that you’re seeking or go to MSNBC and listen to Rachel Maddow explain the reform. The point of this posting is to discuss the issues that will not disappear after a bill is signed whether law makers use the “deemed” rule or “reconciliation.” Constitutional lawyers are debating whether or not the Supreme Court could end up weighing in on the health care bill the president might sign. One group says that there is precedent for not getting involved and the other says that the Supreme Court gets involved when lawmakers violate the constitution. Put that aside and lets just concentrate on the new world we will live in where even Rachel Maddow says will hardly change at all except that 31 million will get health insurance, no more denying preexisting conditions and the middle class continue to pay high monthly rates.

By keeping the health care debate alive the democrats could pass real and fundamental reform but in the future, not now. The democrats are pressing through a health care bill which Americans, at best, are divided on. Voting for a health care bill using parliamentary gymnastics will only assure a nasty November election season not to mention a gridlocked congress filled with hate and animosity.  The election season and the debates will be framed as democratic trickery Vs. republican stonewalling. The deliverables or the advantages of this health care reform will trickle through over the years but not fast enough and with no relief to people already paying premiums that are too high. The conversations about the under and uninsured will continue because millions will remain uninsured after the bill is signed making the whole process appear similar to Le Mythe de Sisyphe.

Shouldn’t citizens ask what is the point of passing a bill any other way or why not pass bills using reconciliation all the time? The democrats are justified in using this process because the republicans used this process before according to the circular reasoning of pro-health care reformers. According to anti-reformers that process was never used on such a fundamental subject as health care. They are bad, we are good, they are wrong, we are right and the hate goes on and round and round.

A. Our premium payments will not be lowered and will increase. B. There will be penalties for not buying health care. C. The costs have not been well vetted D. Only thirty million uninsured will be covered. and millions will be left without.

Regarding Preexisting Conditions, the insurance company can still deny a person coverage if they are willing to pay a one hundred dollar fine per day. That is not a fine that frightens the insurance companies.

2. “The perfect should not be the enemy of the good”

The democrats should be careful when using the “either your with us or against us” argument when discussing health care reform because it may come back to haunt them just like using reconciliation has come back to bite the GOP on the rump. The Daily KOS, Markos Moulitsas, is not happy with the outcome and upset that the democrats gave up an opportunity to get passed true health care reform before they lost their super mahority. Moulitsas is also one of the these interesting strategist that believe that democrats and republicans will make the bill better as time goes on just how they did with Medicare.

It is in killing this bill that the health care reform America needs will get accomplished because the momentum is not defused. Finally, if your going to ram something through the legislative process make it something the people want, like single payer, not this legislation that does more for the health care insurance industry than for the people. The leaders of the future democratic party could be those that stand against Obama on this issue today because they had foresight on how this legislation only temporarily defused the inevitable march towards single payer or towards a Medicare buy in plan. I hope that the benefits of this bill are as exiting as Obama and Rachel Maddow says they will be, otherwise, lets get rid of her along with the democrats for defusing a very important movement that could  have made a diference. 

3. In the end, it is health care that matters not the presidents place in history.

Rafael Buelna