Dennis Kucinich hates this healthcare bill. [Archive]

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someguy

03-08-2010, 09:21 PM

Tars

03-09-2010, 07:40 PM

This man has integrity.

Hmmm...integrity to a fault? I happened to see well-known left-end liberal Markos moulitsas, from The Daily Kos on Olberman's show (03/09/10. He's not quite so enamored with Kucinich. Says Kos, by "wanting to stop healthcare reform, even in its current imperfect form, Kucinich is taking common ground with the GOP to stop reform."

Perhaps there's a fine line between integrity and backward stubborness?

someguy

03-09-2010, 08:19 PM

Hmmm...integrity to a fault? I happened to see well-known left-end liberal Markos moulitsas, from The Daily Kos on Olberman's show (03/09/10. He's not quite so enamored with Kucinich. Says Kos, by "wanting to stop healthcare reform, even in its current imperfect form, Kucinich is taking common ground with the GOP to stop reform."

Perhaps there's a fine line between integrity and backward stubborness?

Thats an interesting POV. You know today I saw a bunch of protesters parked outside the Ritz Hotel (where many insurance tycoons are gathering for a conference), calling these tycoons criminals and declaring the area a crime scene, but at the same time they are demanding this reform that mandates 40 million more people to buy insurance from these criminals... Does that make any sense to you? I think that is backwards thinking if anything. Dennis Kucinich is a man of principal who's taking a grand stand against a bill that he knows does nothing to serve the liberal agenda (single payer), but only serves to privatize and monopolize our health care system to crooks.

Tars

03-10-2010, 08:24 AM

I don't think of myself as a "Progressive", but I am at the liberal end of the spectrum. Like many,. I was completely pissed off at the healthcare reform debacle. I'd like to see everyone have the same health options our congress people have. I still have hope for that, but unfortunately it's obviously going to take awhile. In the meantime I tend to agree with Ben Brandzel's position.

An interesting post on this subject from Ben Brandzel on The Huffington Post (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/), whose credit reads:

Ben Brandzel served as Advocacy Director at MoveOn.org from 2004-2006, and currently serves as Director of New Media Campaigns and Fundraising at Organizing for America. The views expressed above are his alone and do not reflect those of either organization.

Why Progressives Should Back the President's Plan. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-brandzel/why-progressives-should-b_b_492645.html)

Dear MoveOn members (and fellow progressive types),

Yesterday and today, MoveOn members have been asked to vote on a very important question: "Should MoveOn support or oppose the final health care bill if it looks like the plan recently proposed by President Obama?"

This is a major decision, both for MoveOn members and the progressive movement generally. And it's about an issue I've spent a lot of time on this year as a grassroots mobilizer at Organizing for America. So I'm writing this open letter now to explain why I'll vote "yes" -- and to urge my fellow MoveOn members to do the same.

I should also explain that for several years I had the honor of serving as a senior campaigner on MoveOn's staff. Back when I was sending out "Dear MoveOn member," emails, we threw ourselves fully into campaigns to simply preserve a flawed status quo from the latest right-wing threat. (The Alito nomination, Social Security privatization, the Iraq War... you name it.) But we knew that before we could really start making our country better than we found it, we'd have to stop George W. Bush from making it considerably worse. So we made a simple, powerful choice: Take the times as they are, fight like hell, and do the most good we can.

After 10 years of fighting epic battles to ward off harm, we now finally have the opportunity to make things better -- much better -- in the daily lives of millions of struggling Americans.

I know one of those Americans quite well - Malka Brandzel, my mother.
I got into politics because as a child I saw an insurance company cut off her group health insurance plan without warning or reason. For years I watched my single mother suffer through denial after denial due to her increasingly expensive and crippling "pre-existing conditions." I knew then, as now, that her problem was caused by a broken system, and only fixing that system could help her and the millions of others caught in the same cruel trap.

And that's exactly what we're finally poised to do.

The President's latest proposal for health reform would create the greatest single extension of affordable medical care in our nation's history - offering high quality coverage (and tax credits for those who need help paying for it) to 31 million uninsured Americans.

At the same time, decades of insurance company bullying -- pre-existing conditions, arbitrary cancellations, denials, and premium hikes -- would be gone forever. In fact, these new protections represent one of the greatest transfers of power from corporations to consumers in the history of our democracy. It's no wonder that if we win, it will be very much over the fiercest opposition of America's strongest corporate lobbyists.

In short, this proposal means massive gains in the physical, emotional, and economic well being of working- and middle-class families, combined with a historic power shift from corporations to people. And if that doesn't add up to a progressive cause worth fighting for, I don't know what does.

Of course the only reason we even have to ask this question is that, as we all know, after a year of negotiations the final proposal doesn't contain every idea that progressives, or the President, had initially wanted. President Obama long said he preferred a public insurance option, for example, and many of us strongly agree.

But the question we progressives must ask is whether we are more likely to complete the march if we take this giant step forward now, or if we stay on the sidelines to watch the progress we've made stumble and fail?

Can you realistically imagine a time when we'll have larger majorities or more political momentum than we've had this year? And the last time we abandoned health reform, the failure to deliver ushered in a devastating era of hard-right dominance in Washington. We had to fight for 16 years just to get back to this point. How long are we willing to wait for our next chance?

For me, the answer is simple. My mother, like so many others, would see her life transformed if the President's health reform proposal becomes law. And she's been waiting a long time without the care she requires. She's one of the millions who simply don't have the luxury of waiting for 'next time'.

Today, we find ourselves facing a literally priceless opportunity to make our country considerably better - more just; more humane; more progressive - than we found it.

It's an opportunity we earned together through years of hard work in dark times. And the possibilities now within our grasp are so much brighter because grassroots progressives have worked all year to show that Americans deserve and demand leadership that does what's right.
So here's my advice on the road ahead: Let's back this proposal, and make change happen.

Let's make the same simple, powerful choice that got us this far: take the times as we find them, fight like hell, and do the most good we can.
Thanks for all that you do.

someguy

03-10-2010, 08:39 AM

In fact, these new protections represent one of the greatest transfers of power from corporations to consumers in the history of our democracy.

Would you care to explain how forcing 30 million or so people into buying corporate private healthcare transfers power from healthcare corporations to consumers?

I think by forcing 30 million people to buy corporate care, we are empowering the corporate healthcare system, not the consumers at all.

Since you are supporting this bill, explain to me what precisely this bill would do to stop the insurance companies from dropping your coverage, denying you care, etc.?

Also what is this bill doing to make healthcare more affordable? I haven't read or heard of anything thats in this bill that would drive costs down, but maybe you know something I don't.

Thanks.

someguy

03-10-2010, 08:42 AM

The President's latest proposal for health reform would create the greatest single extension of affordable medical care in our nation's history - offering high quality coverage (and tax credits for those who need help paying for it) to 31 million uninsured Americans.

I forgot to add this to my last post, but how are the 10%+ unemployed folk going to benefit from tax credits? They can't even pay taxes if they don't make any money, but under this bill, they are mandated to buy healthcare insurance. What are these people to do?

Tars

03-10-2010, 09:10 AM

how are the 10%+ unemployed folk going to benefit from tax credits? They can't even pay taxes if they don't make any money, but under this bill, they are mandated to buy healthcare insurance. What are these people to do?

I've seen this question raised numerous times over the last several months. I can only paraphrase Obama's response; I don't have a direct quote on it. One word: "subsidy". There would be means testing, as there already is in gov't sponsored health plans. If a person doesn't have the means to pay for the insurance, the fed gov't would subsidize them. This is one of the parts of the plan that sends the GOPs into paroxysms of "NO!".

This idea isn't much different from the status quo, as far as government involvement goes. I'm reminded of Sonoma County's CMSP program. Except the fed has more funds to work with.

Ben Zolno

03-11-2010, 09:58 PM

Excellent interviews -- 8 minutes on TV and 25 minutes of audio -- of Kucinich and why he took the stand he did.

Kucinich Interview on Why this Bill Is Bad Medicine (https://bit.ly/c37yjA)

When it comes down to it, the only thing reforms healthcare into a better state is labeling the bill "healthcare reform". Also see this Quickguide to the latest bill:

Remember folks, we're not talking about healthcare in general, we're not talking about what Tea Partiers want, or any of that. We're just talking about this version of the bill.

Quick Guide to Current Healthcare Reform Bill March 8 2010 (https://bit.ly/dhfGC3)