Public Option is the new Toxic Asset

[dpbrown]

The banks who own the government told the government "we're too big to fail" after undermining regulations for the last 40 or more years, channeling more and more of our GDP into the permanent clutches of the top 1%. Then they demand that the government buy their "toxic assets" otherwise they'll bring down the economy of the world. Blackmail. Yet, that's just what the government did. Hold them responsible? Not so much. Remember when the public rose up and demanded that the government let the banks fail - capitalism at work, right? And then when the toxic asset bailout was defeated, Congress just waited until the middle of the dark of the night, and passed the bailout again. Banks got what they wanted, and we got saddled with more corporate corruption enshrined permanently as a bailout for their arrogance and stupidity.

Oh, how we never learn.

The "public option" has been transformed from the plan that the CBO predicted would cost less and cover more, with a robust government plan competing with private insurers saving us and the government money, to a plan that shovels off the people most likely to use insurance into a "public plan" (saving them from having to deal with them) with a MANDATE that the rest of us buy private insurance, which, by the way, might immediately increase in price by 25%.

Once again, corrupt, bloated and greedy corporations show who's really in control of the government by transforming "change we can believe in" into another overpriced bailout of the status quo. Health insurance companies are, if possible, even more despicable than banks, in that they purposefully feed off of the death, disease, pain and suffering of regular people. People who represent the prize asset that we are going to export to the rest of the world, according to our President. People whose innovation built the world. People who gave the world the weekend. People who are trying to get "a piece of the dream" not quite believing that they are all scrambling over an ever-shrinking share of the national treasure, as the plutocracy permanently locks up more and more wealth.

Democrats were elected with a mandate. A mandate not to be George Bush. A mandate to put some real populist measures in place. A mandate to stop illegal spying. A mandate to place "we, the people" more in parity with the powerful, the connected, and the corporate.

Instead, they dusted off the Hank Paulson bailout and used its basic form to forgive the health insurance companies for their avarice just as they forgave the banks for their usury.

Treating people as toxic assets shows exactly what both the insurance companies, and their tools, our elected representatives, think of us.

The government of the United States does not exist to protect and serve industries and corporations that do not serve the interests of the body that provides the underlying legitimacy of the government, the people of this nation. The secular humanists who founded this country, with the memory of the biggest private act of vandalism in history against the biggest multinational corporation in the world - the Boston Tea Party - fresh in their minds, knew that corporations had to be limited and kept in check. For nearly one hundred years after the country's birth, that's the way it was. No longer.

Now we've come full circle, and form swallows function as Democrats become everything Republicans always say they are with a health bill that rewards private industry for their despicable discrimination, while doling out endless dollars to "help" people buy their corrupt products. "Big Spenders." "Welfare." "Big government." How ironic that the Republicans can now attack the Democrats using the new government fellating of the health insurance industry as evidence that Democrats stand for nothing but more welfare for the poor and more big government spending.

Stop the bailouts. Demand accountability. End the death-grip the private health insurance industry has on our lives.

Bring us Universal, Single-Payer Health Care - Medicare for All - Now.

[Stinky The Clown]

1. OooooOOOOOoooooo ......

You're not going to make the cheerleaders happy.

Some meanie may even unrec you.

OOOOoooooOOOOOOooooo

[dpbrown]

2. This bill is like a bad characterization of a health care reform bill

It gives the industry everything they want, and puts more burdens on regular people.

This is another reason why we need a national health program.

[kenny blankenship]

3. They've learned that there's no crisis so dire that they can't use the cry for reform

as an opportunity to create a screwjob that's even worse than the status quo ante.

Call it Disaster Capitalism, or just Crony Capitalism in the Clinch - it's our future.

[Mari333]

4. 2010 will not bode well for Dems.

[dpbrown]

5. That's for sure

And it won't be because the party out of power makes regular gains. It'll be all the people who start realizing how they're still being taken advantage of, and even more so.

[Go2Peace]

6. Your right, but unfortunately our most powerful are not getting it yet.

seems that we always have to learn our lessons late and after repeated failures of the same ideas time and again.

[dpbrown]

7. This also feeds into the idea that the parties don't differ much

I just don't see why Democrats, with a mandate for change, decided to give a hand-job to the corporations that are keeping the people down.

[dpbrown]

8. I just don't get why we couldn't just do the reform correctly the first time

National Health Care is in the nation's best interest. We don't exist to keep poorly run corporations afloat.