What will the pro-incrementalists say? $86.2 million were given to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by the largest health insurance corporations, which the Chamber used to undermine health care reform legislative efforts in 2009 and 2010.
As eventually became clear, but not until too late, health care reform became a Health Insurance Giveaway orchestrated by Democrats and opposed by Republican Teabaggers who were only hell-bent on destroying the Obama Presidency. They Republican Teabaggers could give a fig leaf less whether the legislation passed or not, or what form it took. They’re only interest is in putting a Teabagger back in the White House and continuing this country’s march back to the 1750s.
On the Democratic side, I read and talked to folks for months who advocated taking a small chunk, any small chuck that could be salvaged from the gutter and declaring the first step toward health care reform taken. Incrementalists were happy to point out that health insurance corporations were supposedly in negotiations with President Obama and Congressional Democrats in an effort to help pass health care reform. This news publicizes the lie behind that duplicitous sham. I’m sure the incrementalists will say now that those millions of dollars didn’t make much of a difference, that reform was successfully attained. I think it demonstrates how patently absurd it was for any Democrat to believe that the health insurance companies were negotiating with Obama and Democrats in good faith. They got exactly what they wanted at the end of the day. Can the same be said for most Americans?
I suppose the rest of us should thank the incrementalists for helping ensure 34 million Americans will be forced to purchase insurance from private insurers but remain without any public option that would help drive costs down. Or, we can stop listening to the incrementalists and stand up more forcefully for what we want – on health care and other issues.
