Thank You Congressman Stupak! Health Care Reform: DOA

Thank You Congressman Stupak!
Health Care Reform: DOA
By Dave Lindorff | CounterPunch

Medicare for all, while it would certainly have meant higher payroll taxes for all of us, would have been a huge net savings, because it would have eliminated the need for the Medicaid program for the poor ($450 billion a year), the Veterans Administration healthcare system ($100 billion a year and mounting), and publicly funded charity care by hospitals ($300 billion). It would have eliminated over $150 billion a year in private health industry administrative costs and between $75-100 billion in health industry profits. Total it up: that represents savings of over $1 trillion a year. Since adding the under-65 population to Medicare would only add about $750-800 billion a year to the program costs, that's a net savings of over $200 billion a year, without even counting the fact that businesses and citizens alike would no longer have to pay ransoms to the private insurance industry--a savings to individuals and employers of close to $1.5 trillion a year!

We need health care reform. 40 million Americans have no access to health care. 40,000 a year die because of lack of access. 30-40 million more have lousy care funded by state Medicaid programs, many of which are underfunded and few of which provide for routine care. The rest of us are indentured to our employers, afraid to unionize, afraid to strike, afraid to speak up on the job, for fear of losing our insurance coverage.

I never thought I'd find myself thanking the women-loathing, Christian fundamentalist-pandering Democrats in Congress for anything, but here it is: Thank you Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mich), for your outrageous amendment to the House version of the health insurance reform legislation in Congress, which bars any insurance company in the proposed health insurance exchange from offering a health insurance plan that includes abortion coverage.
This amendment, which would actually bar women or families from buying even with their own money and no government subsidy health insurance that includes funding for a medically recommended abortion, was supported by 64 Democrats along with all but one Republican in Congress.

Because it passed and was attached to the House health reform bill, it gives hope to the notion that the disastrous so-called health reform legislation in Congress will die.

And so it should.

Because of an utter lack of leadership from the president, and because of the massive corruption in Congress, which is wallowing in lobbying money from the insurance industry and other parts of the Medical-Industrial Complex, a historical opportunity to finally bring the US out of the dark ages on health care has been blown. Read more.