Saturday, December 19, 2009

So, is US health care a sop or soporific?

There has been a nagging feeling deep in the back of Guambat head, way back in the thickest part where light don't shine, that Obama's heart was never really in the health care reform debate. Sure, it's something that, on principle, seems worthy, and many consider necessary. But, was it his fight, or Hilary's?

Guambat just can't help but feel the whole political row was just a bone tossed to Hilary to get her at least not off side, if not on.

Adding fuel to the wild speculation is the Chicago homeboy's Chicago Tribune, now tossing in the towel, hospital gown and tissues (to mop up the crocodile tears).

Time to Pull the Plug on Health-Care 'Reform'
Health-care reform is on life support now, and it's time to consider pulling the plug and letting it die peacefully.

It was a great idea, and there was and will remain a great need for the kind of radical reform that will pry the cold hands of Wall Street and the corporate boards from around the neck of medical care in our country.

There was some of that kind of reform in the first bills that began the long journey through the minefields of the U.S. Senate, but a cabal of blue dog Democrats and Republican know-nothings has pulled every tooth.

Our new president who arrived promising that he'd do everything to pass health-care reform did very little in the face of a big-money onslaught by an army of lobbyists for the big pharmaceutical corporations, the health insurance industry and other parts of the for-profit health-care industry.

His biggest mistake of all, however, was leaving it to Congress to negotiate the whole reform package in closed-door meetings of six senators here, 10 senators there, in committees controlled by senators whose votes already had been bought and paid for by the health-care corporations.

Where was the bold and courageous leadership so necessary for this badly needed initiative?

Whatever; hopefully Obama has an agenda item that he believes enough in to implement, and bring some change for the candidate who believed in it, or at least campaigned for it.

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