I HAVEN'T BEEN PARTICULARLY activist on this blog, but this one is important.
I'm going to ask you to do something. I'm going to ask you to go here, and sign a petition.
The United States needs to have health care fixed—really fixed—for a whole list of reasons, including, but not limited to:
- how many people can't afford it,
- how many people get refused, for pre-existing conditions, or other excuses,
- how many people who have insurance find it won't pay for the procedures they need,
- how much the industry is costing the country,
- what that cost is doing to our economy,
- ...and the list goes on...
The vast majority of Americans want the reform which is being put together by the Democrats in congress—including a robust public option.
The vast majority of our elected representatives in both houses want the same thing.
But the health insurance industry, after getting provisions put in the bills to make them a whole lot of money, don't want a public option.
They don't want it because it would mean competition, and they don't like the idea of actually having to compete with anyone.
They're getting help from the Republicans.
The Republicans don't particularly care about the health insurance companies, except insofar as they represent campaign donations, but they do want to make sure that "Obama fails".
They've picked health care as a way to make the Democrats look bad, as a stepping stone toward regaining power in the next election.
They're betting that people won't realize that the only reason reform didn't happen was a Republican stonewall.
That's if they succeed.
So this isn't really, in the end, about health care.
It's about who gets to run things: the American people, or a group of political hacks and a bunch of corporate executives.
I, for one, am pissed.
Harry Reid has started a petition to help give him leverage in the battle ahead.
The bill isn't perfect, and we should be pushing him and all the other Democrats to make sure it includes a truly robust public option, without any opt-out clause, by the time it's made law.
But right now we should support his efforts, sign his petition, and help him get the votes.
We should also be ready to put the pressure on Reid, and everyone, to find a way to do it with fifty-one votes, and do it right.
It's time Americans took our country back—it's been held hostage by corporations and stone-walling minority politicians too long.
At least, that's what I think today.
Click here.
