The damage Olympia Snowe does to healthcare in America

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24156

The damage Olympia Snowe does to healthcare in America
by Brent Budowsky | October 2, 2009


Every voter and reporter in Maine should ask Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) why she opposes the public option while she states she may not support the current bill because it may not make insurance affordable for Americans. Of course it doesn't, because it doesn't include the public option, courtesy of Sen. Snowe.

Every voter in Maine should ask Sen. Snowe how many subsidies the taxpayers should finance to pay higher premiums that will be forced because of Sen. Snowe's opposition to the public option.

Sen. Snowe urged the president to withdraw the public option because Republicans were universally against it. What kind of argument is this? That's like asking the chicken to vote for Col. Sanders because the chicken eaters are hungry.

I oppose the Finance Committee version of the healthcare bill, and hope and believe it will be dramatically changed before it goes to conference. I believe the public option lives and the fight must be waged all out, in full force.

The Senate Finance Committee wasted an eternity with bogus negotiations with a Group of Six that represented only small states and included two Republicans who would never vote for a good healthcare bill, and one Republican who should be a Democrat but opposes the most important provision because she says it is universally opposed by members of her party, which she states has left her on major issues.

Andrew Jackson once said that "one man with courage makes a majority."

Olympia Snowe demonstrates that the healthcare of America can be distorted and disrupted by one senator who says she wants healthcare to be affordable but votes to make healthcare less affordable.

[msongs]

1. dems can do healthcare without snowe but they CHOOSE not to. She is not the problem....

the problem is that dems cannot get their own people in line to move legislation due to weak leadership.

Msongs

[babylonsister]

3. Nice of you to defend her, but I also think she's a big part of the problem.

Is this about providing for Americans who need health care or isn't it?

[katandmoon]

2. SNOWE ain't the problem. DEMOCRATS are the problem, up to and including Obama

[Cleita]

4. So anyone want to do some activism?

It will cost a little money, the cost of a death certificate of some one whom you knew, who died because they couldn't get the health care they needed in time to save them. You can make copies then and mail them or fax them with a short story about the circumstances that the friend or relative died and mail them to the President, and every member of Congress, particularly the Blue Dogs and Olympia Snowe. I don't know if they will pay attention but maybe it's worth a try. Also, anyone who knows of some one who died because of a specific denial of insurance should mail the death certificate copy to the CEO of the offending insurer.

[babylonsister]

8. I think that's a great idea!

Luckily I don't know anyone who died due to lack of insurance, but we all know they're out there.

[Cleita]

9. I don't know directly either, but there was an incident of a homeless man in

my community who died of cancer in a wet field with other homeless people trying to make him comfortable while he died. A local throwaway paper picked up on and printed his story. It shouldn't be hard for me to get the evidence to mail and fax to them. I also know of another incident that happened in Idaho shortly after DH and I stopped living there. That was in the papers too. I think if you search among your friends you will find a story you can document. Also, anyone who attends a liberal church or a community political club could get their members to pool their stories and their resources to get something going. A church bake sale could help raise money to get the certificates and pay for postage. As a matter of fact the pastors of those churches probably can provide you with many horror stories of people they officiated at funeral rites for that didn't have to die but did for lack of coverage.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. The sad and sickening thing is that Maine is #2 in the country for use of food stamps.

I'm sure there are a lot of borderline Mainers who make too much for food stamps and don't have employer healthcare.

Olympia Snowe is a tool and I have no idea why Maine keeps her even if they "like" her - God knows why.

Maine! Take a lesson from the Rhode Island playbook and get rid of her like Rhode Island dumped Lincoln Chaffee altho they liked him personally. They traded Chafee and got Whitehouse!!! There's no question whether they got upgraded representation.

[Cleita]

10. In my travels I have noticed that the Republican run states have the poorest people.

Sometimes, I was the only person standing in the checkout line at the supermarket, who didn't have food stamps.

[stray cat]

6. Scapegoat - the dems are the problem along with the vast number of repubs

Snowe is only one vote and is generally even thoughtful and rationale compared to many

[MadHound]

7. Hmm, let's see here. Large Democratic majorities in Congress, a Democrat in the WH,

With enough Dems to prevent a filibuster.

Yet you're blaming this all on Snowe?

Wow, that's some major, major scapegoating.

The Dems should simply punch health care reform through Congress, with the public option, with or without Snowe and other Republicans. They have the numbers to do this, the power to do this, and the public will to do this. Instead they are obeying the wishes of their corporate masters and once again screwing over the average citizen.

And here you are trying to rationalize it all away, onto the shoulders of Snowe.

Wake up and smell the reality. Snowe is not to blame, the blame rests solely on the shoulders of the Democratic party in Congress and the White House.