I woke up this morning at 5:00 AM, two hours before my alarm was set to go off and couldn’t fall back asleep. Why? I am so furious about the supposed demise of the public option I could spit, or scream or both. I don’t care if it’s not lady-like. It’s true.
Why the hell is the public option even up for negotiation? How many times have we heard President Obama say he wants a “uniquely American solution” to the health care crisis? I understand not wanting to dismantle the health insurance industry, if only because of the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people it employs. Still, the health insurance industry is currently failing at least 46 million people who don’t have insurance. Those are the ones we know about. Then there are the underinsured. Don’t forget the illegal immigrants who emergency, stabilizing treatment in emergency rooms, which hospitals are required to do and adds to all of our health care bills. (Not mine, obviously. I’m one of those “socialized medicine” Medicaid leeches. Yes, I’m that furious today. The sarcasm meter has been broken it’s so high. It’s either that or just have this entire post be a string of @#%&*(!)
Her’s what Howard Fineman had to say about Obama appearing to back away from the public option last night on Countdown:
“My sense of it is, and it has been for a long time, even going back to the rhetoric on the campaign, that Barack Obama has been much more interested in the idea of universality and in making history that way than in the public option, per se”
Thankfully, the fight doesn’t appear to be over. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senators Russ Feingold and Jay Rockefeller all pushed back in a Washington Post article this morning. Rep. Anthony Weiner has been on the offensive over the last 24 hours. Finally, this morning, the White House seems to gotten their act together – sort of. From Thehill.com:
Gibbs reiterated that the president’s preference to create competition and quality in health insurance is through a public option, but Obama is willing to listen to other ideas that would achieve the same outcome.
I’m not asking for a handout. In fact, just the opposite. I’m asking for help in getting off Medicaid, off the government programs. I want to be self-sufficient. I want to buy my own insurance.
Why is this so @#$!@%! difficult?
