Community | September 15, 2009 | 20 comments

Dennis Kucinich-- "The Senate Will Kill the Public Option, But Not the Mandate"

source: http://kucinich.us/index.php

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asherp
Dear Friends,

It is said one should not ask how sausage or laws are made. Are you concerned about a public option? Let me share with you some insight about health care legislation which may not be good for your health.

A lesson in politics. The Kucinich Prediction: Here's what's going to happen ...

1. House will make a big deal about keeping/putting a public option in HR3200 because it competes with insurance companies and will keep insurance rates low.
2. The White House will refer to the President's speech last week where he spoke favorably of the public option.
3. The Senate will kill the competitive public option in favor of non-competitive "co-ops". Senate leaders like Kent Conrad have said the votes to pass a public option were never there in the Senate.
4. The bill will come to a House-Senate Conference Committee without the public option.
5. House Democrats will be told to support the conference report on the legislation to support the President.
6. The bill will pass, not with a "public option" but with a private mandate requiring 30 million uninsured to buy private health insurance (if one doesn't already have it). If you are broke, you may get a subsidy. If you are not broke, you will get a fine if you do not purchase insurance.

This legislative sausage will be celebrated as a new breakthrough and will be packaged as health insurance reform. However, the bill may require a Surgeon General's warning label: Your Money or Your Life!

The bill that Congress passes may pale in comparison to the bill that millions of Americans will get every month/year for having or not having private health insurance.

It will take four years for the new legislation to go into effect. During that time we are going to build a constituency of millions in support of real health care, a constituency which will be recognized and a cause which is right and just: Health Care as a Civil Right.
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20 comments // Dennis Kucinich-- "The Senate Will Kill the Public Option, But Not the Mandate"

  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • I support Dennis Kucinich and I don't agree that he is bonehead at all. He is one of the only politicians in Congress telling us the truth.

      Without a public option, installing a mandate to force the uninsured to buy insurance or pay a fine, is no different than an organized crime syndicate walking into your place of business or your home and demanding payment for protection.

    • 2 years ago
  • thefatbear
    • 0
      thefatbear  

    • If Kucinich wasn't such a bonehead, he would make sense. He petitions to define health care as a civil right, and then bellyaches at a mandate? Is it possible for a human being to be so wrought with cognitive dissonance, but yet completely oblivious of it? A mandate forces us to become insured or pay a penalty. Just as if we violate another civil right there are penalties to pay. A mandate for health care enforces this "right." (Note: The word "right" is kept in quotations because health care is not a right at all except when viewed through a distorted lens, as I have entertained for this example.)

      It is odd, however. He does not seem to be guilty of demagoguery, as most politicians who cannot apply reason are; but, he seems to genuinely believe what he says. It is sad, as this is merely an indicator of the degradation of education in America.

      His belief that health care is a civil right is very cute, but wholly inaccurate. His claim rests on the infamous "general welfare" clause that has been exploited by every despot throughout history.

      These general-welfarians claim that the constitution creates a government "to promote the General Welfare" of the nation. It's complete rubbish, as it opens up doors for them to roll out any program or law that can be reasoned to be good for the "general welfare" of the people. But don't take my word for it, look no further than the Father of our Constitution for an explanation of this grand fallacy:

      "With respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

      - James Madison, Father of the US Constitution

      We should thank god for these subversives-of-liberty that the populous is too ignorant and consumed with some insignificant incident surrounding some insignificant award ceremonies involving some insignificant people who write rubbish of music to notice.

      America, be sure to wipe the drool from your chins between commercials.

    • 2 years ago
  • hammywill
    • 0
      hammywill  
    • thefatbear:

      Well since these rights outlined in the Constitution are invented by men, one could make as much of a case that Health Care is a right as the Right to Bare Arms. Since these right are invented by men, I propose we add another to the list, that way we can debate it on its merits.

      (As to your first point, I am not sure how that is logically defensible. Otherwise the government would force everyone to buy a firearm since it is your right to bare arms.)

    • 2 years ago
  • montesooma
    • 0
      montesooma  
    • thefatbear:

      hammy i dont recall healthcare being spelled out in the amendments. If it was it would read "congress shall make no law respecting the healthcare or the obtaining or choosing not to obtain....

    • 2 years ago
  • hammywill
    • 0
      hammywill  
    • thefatbear:

      I said they were invented by MEN. Since they were invented by men, and I am a man too (men in the generic sense, so as not to confuse anyone) I have as much of a right to say that Health Care is a right as well as anything else in the Constitution. The Constitution does not MAKE rights anyway. It also says that there are rights that are not enumerated and that just because they are not does not mean the Government may take them away.

      The Constitution is an idea created by men, I have the same right to reject or accept those ideas, and add or subtract from them as well.

      It is a man made document is my point. And I have every right to add or subtract to those "rights."

    • 2 years ago
  • noxidereus
    • 0
      noxidereus  
    • thefatbear:

      I think hammywill makes a good point, and I think we should add basic health care as a right of citizenship, as have (I think) every other industrialized western country.

      In this day and age what is the benefit of civilization and technology if all mankind cannot benefit from it? Being an empathetic human being, I really think a good measure of a civilization is how we treat the poor and infirmed. The better we treat them, I say, the better we are as a nation. I can't imagine turning sick and dying people away because of lost profits... but some people make a living out of doing just that. That's the health insurance industry for ya. We need reform and I am for a single-payer solution.

    • 2 years ago
  • montesooma
    • 0
      montesooma  
    • thefatbear:

      its not a good point since the bill of rights was written not to spell out the freedoms of people, but rather as a list of limitations on the central govnment to keep it from taking power that does not belong to it. This was one thing that obama said he didn't like about the constitution. This makes sense as adherence to the constitution has always stood in the way of the greedy progressives dreams of taking that freedom and setting themselves up as the deciders(dictators) of the lives of americans. They hate the idea of freedom. the constitution hasn't stopped them but it has forced them to rely on other tricks like radical judges, complicit media, propaganda, attacks on their opponents and downright lying to achieve their agenda.
      Barak Obama is the smoothest lier i've ever seen, as he is a dyed in the wool radical progressive who pretends to be otherwise. don't be fooled, im not.

    • 2 years ago
  • hammywill
    • 0
      hammywill  
    • thefatbear:

      MONTESOOMA: I think perhaps you are missing my point. The Constitution was written by men, the rights enumerated in it were invented by men, and have no greater weight than anything that we may feel is a right today. If the people decide Health Care is a right, then it is a right. The same way they enumerated and decided to protect the rights laid out in the Constitution.

    • 2 years ago
  • asherp
  • montesooma
    • 0
      montesooma  
    • thefatbear:

      asherp, the bill of rights is a list of don'ts meant to limit the federal govnment it would be counter productive and frankly suicidal to enumarate a power that gives the feds jurisdiction over the health of individuals.
      This would not preserve the protection of the people from a power greedy and ever expanding federal govnment. Given the proven track record of govnment to skirt the restrictions that are now in place and too expand itself, this would be a fatal mistake.
      Besides that 60% of people are against it, which makes it impossible.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • " The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power. " - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

      INFO+
      http://whitenoiserants.webnode.com//

    • 2 years ago
  • montesooma
    • 0
      montesooma  

    • what mandate? how can they be so clueless about the public will?
      People do not what the govnment taking over healthcare or the insurance industry.
      This is the same old play they use to grab themselves more power and control.
      Pretending that they are protecting us against the evil corps when we really need protection from them and their trickery.
      Of course they are in cahoots with the insurance companies to shaft us all.

    • 2 years ago
  • lionessgrrl
  • JohnA
  • noxidereus
  • hammywill
    • 0
      hammywill  

    • As a liberal, I have to say to all those other liberals who continue to support people like Pelosi, Reid, Feinstein, et al....You get what ask for. Those people are not for us.

    • 2 years ago
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  

    • Mandate without public option is unacceptable. Forcing people who can't afford insurance to buy it from the same companies who have ruined our current health care system, causing the prices to rise above what people can afford, would be a travesty.

      NO PUBLIC OPTION, NO MANDATE!!!

      WE SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO BUY THEIR INSURANCE! START WITH ACCOUNTABILITY. THEN TALK ABOUT A MANDATE, NOT BEFORE. NO ONE HAS BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE MESS OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS IN.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • samthesixth
  • futuregen
    • 0
      futuregen  

    • A few weeks ago Howard Dean said if the bill was not single payer or did not include a public option then the bill should be killed and/or renamed as an insurance reform bill (and then make sure there is insurance reform in it). Health care reform could be tackled later. What I'm afraid of is they are also going to pass ease in access to your medical history which will enhance denials for preexisting conditions and delete privacy factors. Everything will be over a computer and could be hacked in to. As long as healthcare is kept as a money making industry, the corporations will take advantage. I don't like that we are forced to buy into medical coverage that we may not want. If it it mandatory, then all insurance should cover alternative therapies, preventative medicine, vitamins, etc. With codex alimentaris out there, I don't have a good feeling about this.

    • 2 years ago
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