The man once slated to head Barack Obama's health care system overhaul is now coming out against one of the chief components of that effort. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said on Wednesday that the Obama White House would likely have to scrap a federal public option for health insurance coverage if it wanted to get the votes needed to pass systematic change.... "We've come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail over disagreement on one single issue," the Senator and one-time HHS Secretary nominee said, according to ABC News.
I used to believe, and not so very long ago, that this country really could fix a health care system that's beyond irretrievably broken. Now, I'm becoming convinced that any "fixes" will be little more than yet more Band Aids applied to a system so far beyond repair it's laughable. A little bit of moral courage would seemingly go a long way in this case. Instead, the Obama Administration is allowing itself to be nibbled to death by ducks on this issue. Once again, Democrats are about to cave to Republicans and special interests. Instead of having meaningful health care reform, we're about to experience 1993 all over gain. Hillary Clinton tried this once. She went down in flames when entrenched special interests combined to torpedo Clinton's efforts AND paint her as Evil Incarnate.
Now we're being expected to swallow a plan being pushed by Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and Howard Baker...all in the name of "bipartisanship". When prominent Democrats begin to water down the idea of health care reform, what chance do we really have of seeing anything resembling change? How can we expect to realize a system that guarantees a basic level of health care to all Americans when Democrats insist on playing the "bipartisanship" card? When "bipartisanship" means caving to Republicans and their insurance company benefactors, will "reform" end up being a meaningless aggregation of smoke and mirrors?
OK, so it would probably be too much to expect Democrats to do the right thing because they actually have the votes to do it. Still, when people like Tom Daschle are leading the race to capitulate to special interests, it's difficult to believe that Democrats are the majority party in Congress. When are they going to start acting like it??
