I’ve heard reports today (Thursday) that the Obama administration is looking very seriously at pitching the “public option” component of their health care plan over the side, possibly 
to gain a couple of (or, more likely, just one) Republican vote(s) in the Senate – votes that would probably be superfluous without the public option anyway. At this moment, I’m hoping this was just a trial balloon put up by an increasingly pusillanimous White House, but my common sense tells me that’s not the case. The public plan was the ten-day-old soup bone tossed to the left in exchange for their acquiescence to the administration’s decision not to even discuss adopting a single payer system; so, of course, the triangulators we’ve put in charge of our government consider this expendable, just as they consider progressives a block of votes they can take for granted. Stupid move, if true. The public option is all that’s left of meaningful health insurance reform. Without that, we might as well not bother. The balance of the legislation will essentially require everyone to buy private insurance, with subsidies for those who cannot afford it, and that mandate would only benefit big fat private insurers. In fact, it would set things up so that whether the legislation passes or not, they would stand to win.
It doesn’t take a genius to see what this entire debate is about. It’s really just our national political parties bending heaven and earth to protect the profits of private health insurance companies, big pharma, and big private health care providers like Columbia/HCA. From their point of view, the current system works perfectly in that it accomplishes what it is designed to do – make them a lot of money. Over the last couple of years, as this system has progressively failed more and more millions of people, the health business magnates recognized a growing tide of public opinion in favor of reform and have acted swiftly to a.) co-opt it through pre-emptive agreements with the new administration, b.) water down any emerging proposals from congress, and c.) work to kill through lobbying and astroturf-style phony activism whatever compromised plan ultimately comes out of committee. And, of course, since so many of the players in both the executive and legislative branches partly owe their tenures to fat contributions from the health care industry, this is turning out to be a fairly effective strategy.
No one should expect it to be easy to prevail against extremely entrenched institutional interests such as these. Even so, it shouldn’t be hard to explain to people the basic principles 
of why a national health insurance plan would tend not only provide better coverage, but actually save money… and lots of it. This is often framed as an effort to “socialize” the health care industry by having the government – and the taxpayers – pay to cover the uninsured, who are more often than not portrayed as a.) lazy, b.) irresponsible, and/or 3.) selfish – a kind of “hand out”, if you will. Here’s the part that, frankly, makes us look dumb: the government (and taxpayers) already insure the most expensive people in the country to insure, namely the elderly (Medicare) and the poor (Medicaid, S-CHIP). Extending, say, Medicare to cover everyone, including young, healthy workers, would make the system better able to pay for itself and provide better care. How good is Medicare, really? Ask mom or grandma… if she’s not too scared to talk to you because Glen Beck told her you may be a socialist.
Seriously, we’ve got elements of socialism right now, like the national highway system, Medicare, and Social Security. Chances are, if we add something similar to that short list, it may well prove as popular as these programs are.
luv u,
jp
Greetings from Titan, a dry alien moon orbiting the planet Saturn. We’re taking a little break out here on what’s described as “The Riviera of the Gas Giants” in all the travel brochures (my ass!) as we wait for the start of a second string of performances on Jupiter. I have to say, the accommodations are less than what we were encouraged to believe. For one thing, the hotel has no oxygen – it’s bring your own here on Titan. That’s probably because of the methane atmosphere – indeed, on this godforsaken rock they use bottled oxygen for blow torches. Freaky turnaround, dude. And the waterskiing! Not at all like the promotional DVD! They were showing black sand beaches and azure blue waters, and what do we find on the actual, non-promotional Titan? Liquid methane pools. Aromatic, to say the least. I am depressed.
energized atmosphere of the solar system’s largest planet, still roiling from the impact of what was supposed to be a comet (but may, in fact, have been a test rocket launched by our mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee). Whatever the cause, that fearsome impact has really lit a fire under practically everyone on this airless void of a planet. In fact, I was getting a bit nervous as we waited for our perennial sit-in guitarist from the planet Zenon, 
does deserve some credit for running the sound console during our first set. I should also say that, well, it’s an automated console, pre-programmed by someone more competent than a root vegetable, so his was not a particularly remarkable accomplishment. (He also had some kibitzing from Marvin, who may have thought he was still driving the spacecraft.) What other stand-out memories from that first performance? Well…. John throwing one of his sticks into low orbit. (Gravitational anomaly – happens all the time out here.) And then there was the fruit cup. Very delicious.
politics tends to focus the mind, particularly during times of upheaval and uncertainty, which 1980 most certainly was. My late brother Mark, who passed away late that same year, took a keen interest in the campaign – he’d been a strong Kennedy supporter from his youngest days and particularly so with Robert Kennedy’s 1968 run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mark, Matt (my Big Green compatriot) and I supported the younger Kennedy against Carter for many of the same reasons I have had for backing the more left-leaning candidates in that party since working on the McGovern campaign as a pre-teenager. But there was also that Kennedy symbolism, the notion that they represented in the minds of so many a kind of liberal ideal and inside-the-system activism strong enough to attract people who might otherwise take their place on the barricades. As far to the left as we were, we could always manage to give a Kennedy the benefit of the doubt.
which put him ahead of nearly every political figure who took the podium to eulogize him at his memorial celebration in Boston’s JFK Library. In that way, and in a number of different ways over the course of his 47 years in the Senate, he amassed a record of accomplishment that makes him the head of his family, in my book. Yes, it’s a flawed legacy, one that reflects positions with which I disagree, but he took that Kennedy myth and made it into something tangible. That in itself is worth remembering. Sadly, his best efforts and ours thus far have not been sufficient to save the lives of the more than forty American service people who’ve died in Afghanistan this month alone.