Following the passage of the US Senate’s version of the heathcare bill, many Democrats, progressives and liberals have predictably fallen into a conciliatory stupor. Gone are the sharp criticisms of Obama’s handling of the illegal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Ethiopia. Neglected are official validations for torture and extraordinary rendition, illegal wire-tapping, targeted-assassinations, legal obstruction, and the oppression of minorities. Forgotten is the public rancour that followed the passage of the bankers’ bailout, as well as the second classist assault which was branded as “economic stimulus”. Ignored is the underlying reality that almost everything that passes through the American political system is corrupt, undemocratic, inhumane, and classist. Many of the same naive-but-well-meaning “humanists” who are excited over the passage of the bill voted for Obama, and some of them still cling to the fantasy of Hope & Change™. But this is a shallow fantasy. I generally think a healthy fantasy life is a good thing, but when your fantasies are accessories to oppression and murder, I draw the line. And that’s exactly what’s happening here: A fantasy view of the “American political reality” is trying to pass itself off as noble and pragmatic. The passage of the bill is, according to this ilk, a monumental step in the right direction. I couldn’t disagree more.
The first illusion I’d like to challenge involves Obama’s claim the bill came from the “bottom-up”. For anyone who knows anything at all about the history that led to the document that will probably be signed by the president, it will be obvious that the president was outright lying. During the Middle Ages if anyone called the monarch a liar they could face execution or torture. Today, I claim that calling president Obama a liar is an act of integrity. To present this bill as having been drafted from the bottom-up is not only disingenuous, it’s perjury. Obama has shown a consistent trend of catering to special interests and blocking the type of “bottom-up” agitation he’s branding this bill as exemplifying:
A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week. The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.” – (Huffington Post)
I’m a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I’m appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying arm to buy their support.
Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That’s basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it’s proven a bonanza for the drug industry. A continuation will be an even larger bonanza, given all the boomers who will be enrolling in Medicare over the next decade. And it will be a gold mine if the deal extends to Medicaid, which will be expanded under most versions of the healthcare bills now emerging from Congress, and to any public option that might be included. (We don’t know how far the deal extends beyond Medicare because its details haven’t been made public.) – (Salon)
On Monday, Ed Shultz interviewed New York Times Washington reporter David Kirkpatrick on his MSNBC TV show, and Kirkpatrick confirmed the existence of the deal. Shultz quoted Chip Kahn, chief lobbyist for the for-profit hospital industry on Kahn’s confidence that the White House would honor the no public option deal, and Kirkpatrick responded: “That’s a lobbyist for the hospital industry and he’s talking about the hospital industry’s specific deal with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee and, yeah, I think the hospital industry’s got a deal here. There really were only two deals, meaning quid pro quo handshake deals on both sides, one with the hospitals and the other with the drug industry. And I think what you’re interested in is that in the background of these deals was the presumption, shared on behalf of the lobbyists on the one side and the White House on the other, that the public option was not going to be in the final product.” – (Huffington Post)
• In the end, what decided the bill’s passage was pressure brought to bear by the White House, acting on behalf of the most powerful sections of the financial elite. There has always been a stark difference between the public appeal made by the Obama administration, accompanied by phony populist attacks on the insurance companies, and the fundamental strategic aims guiding the health care overhaul, which were worked out by Washington think tanks behind the backs of the American people.
So the suggestion that this bill represents the interests of those at the “bottom” is completely specious. Obama wheels and deals. He doesn’t represent the interests of the American people. If you doubt that, consider the American public’s response in anticipation of the bill’s debate last week: fury and outrage.
Roll Call reports that the congressional switchboard has been overwhelmed with telephone calls for four consecutive days, since conservative Talk Radio host Rush Limbaugh encouraged to call their congressmen and protest Obamacare. “Calls to the House numbered close to 100,000 an hour, creating a bottleneck in a phone system only meant to handle 50,000 calls an hour. The chamber has been similarly overloaded for four consecutive days, beginning on Tuesday when radio host Rush Limbaugh told viewers to call the Capitol switchboard phone number,” Roll Call said. – (Washington Examiner)
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