[Marxism] Top Democrat says national health care legislation is "off the table"--Surprise!

[David Thorstad <binesi@xxxxxxxxx>]

So, what's new? The Democrats are liars and, like their twin party, will 
say anything to get elected. Did anyone really believe Our Savior 
Obama's suggestions that his party would solve the health mess? Dream 
on. His Hopefulness focused on "affordable" health care (Democrat Party 
mantra code for continuing to let the private insurance companies get 
subsidies from the taxpayers), rather than single-payer health or, 
better yet, socialized medicine, which is the only way to solve the 
criminal ripoff system. Anyone who voted for His Saintliness believing 
he would usher in universal health care was dreaming with their eyes 
open. He's as much in the pocket of the insurance scammers as any other 
Republicrat. This fast backtracking is telling the public to go fuck itself.

David
===================================================================

House Democratic Leader Declares National Health Care Legislation "Off The
Table" This Year, Maybe Next
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
www.opednews.com

What does it mean when leading House Democrats, and apparently the White
House, repudiate their own campaign promises to enact a universal-coverage
national health care plan only days into the new Congress and new
administration, even though they have a popular president and the biggest
Congressional majority in two generations? What does it mean when this
doesn't even make the evening news? It means the awesome power of
corporate media decides the topic of our political conversation. It's not
about health care, or campaign promises, or hypocrisy. It's about Blago.
Or Britney. Or whatever they tell us it is.

In the bubble of false reality that passes for corporate journalism, the
week's biggest story was, and still is of this writing, the antics of
governor Rod Blagojevich, who showed on Larry King, the View and other
places comparing himself to Mandela, Gandhi and Jesus while the Illinois
legislature debates his impeachment in absentia.

If, on the other hand, the purpose of journalism were to inform rather
than entertain the public, the news cycle would be dominated by quite
another, and a vastly more important story. In a C-SPAN interview
broadcast Sunday, House Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina
declared that even with the biggest majority in a generation, Democrats
will not even try to put a universal health care bill on the president's
desk this year, or maybe the next either.

As recounted by Bob Cusack Monday in The Hill,

During an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program that aired on
Sunday, Clyburn said he doesn't anticipate that comprehensive healthcare
legislation will be approved in 2009.

While noting he does not know exactly when President Obama want to move
forward with a universal healthcare measure, Clyburn said, "If you take
what we've done with [the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill]
and then you follow with [more spending] on community health centers, you
would have gone a long way to building a foundation upon which to build a
universal access healthcare program.

"I would much rather see it done that way, incrementally, than to go out
and just bite something you can't chew. We've been down that road. I
still remember 1994."

This troubling statement by the number three Democrat in the House of
Representatives is unquestionably more consequential than the clownish
Illinois governor and his traveling circus, and profoundly troubling on
multiple levels.

To begin with, Democrats in Congress, and the Democrat in the White House
clearly ran promising the American people a national health care plan. A
public repudiation of that promise by a key member of the president's
team in the House less than three weeks into the new Congress and two
weeks into the new administration should be big news. But for some
reason it's not.

Secondarily, in the powerful position of House Democratic Whip, Clyburn
is a key member of President Obama's team, and consults with the White
House on legislation and legislative priorities multiple times a day.
Clyburn undoubtedly has the cell numbers of Rahm Emanuel and other White
House officials on his speed dial. The notion that Clyburn is not privy
to the Obama administration's decision of whether or not to push a
universal health care plan this year is something you have to be dumber
than a fifth grader to believe. There's only one president at a time, and
one leader of the Democratic party at a time. When Clyburn's lips move,
the Obama administration is talking.

You haven't heard the White House press spokespeople disown Clyburn's
backtracking on Democratic campaign promises to enact universal health
care, and you won't. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the rollback
of Democratic promises to enact a national health care plan is just a
Democratic congressional leadership thing. It's clearly the decision of
the Obama White House too.

Third, Clyburn is a longtime member of the Congressional Black Caucus,
and back in April of last year signed on as a co-sponsor of HR 676, the
Medicare-For-All single payer health care proposal advanced by Rep. John
Conyers (D- MI) and endorsed by Physicians For A National Health Care
Plan. Is Clyburn being forced to toe the White House line and violate
Democratic campaign promises and his personal commitments? Or are he and
the House leadership taking initiative on their own to violate those
promises and commitments? Again, the silence from the White House makes
the former the most likely. How many other co-sponsors of HR 676 just
signed it because it made a good press release, but have no intention of
seeing it ever brought to a vote?

Finally, Democrats at this moment have a popular and newly elected
president, along with the biggest majority in the House and Senate they
have enjoyed in a generation. If Democratic leaders are reluctant even to
try to put a national health care plan on the president's desk under
these favorable circumstances, when will they ever try? Mid-term
elections almost invariably shrink Congressional majorities as large as
these.

It is estimated that 18,000 premature deaths occur in the US each year
because of lack of medical coverage. Fifty or sixty million Americans
have no health coverage at all, and another hundred fifty million are
grossly underinsured. Democrats were able to pass SCHIP with a smaller
majority under the Bush administration. They did not run on promises of
"incremental reform". They ran promising to deliver national,
comprehensive, universal health care. Clyburn himself is a co-sponsor of
the single payer bill. So why are the expectations of House Democrats and
the White House, with a popular wind at their backs, so unconscionably
low now?

Despite the Obama administration's open phone lines and email boxes at
www.change.gov, and its hypocritical encouragement of supporters to hold
health care house meetings to voice their opinions, the Obama White
House, and House Democrats - just like their Republican counterparts
- are hip deep in campaign contributions private health insurance
companies. These private insurers, according to Physicians For a National
Health Care Plan, rake off thirty cents of every health care dollar under
the present broken health care system, so they have an enormous financial
stake in preventing universal health care, especially single payer health
care. Their dollars apparently speak louder than our votes.

The deep and multilayered hypocrisy around the issue of whether
Democrats, with huge majorities in the House and Senate, will even try to
produce national health care legislation is only exceeded by that of the
corporate news establishment, who won't tell the story, and instead
dangle the clownish Illinois governor before us. One supposes that in a
week when Britney Spears has remained sober and Paris Hilton has avoided
a public breakdown, this is the best and most important news they can
find.

For Black Agenda Report, I wish to recognize CD at www.correntewire.com
for drawing our attention to this story.
Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and based in
Atlanta. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com






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