Kudos to Sanders, Clyburn and Wyden!

The more I read about the Sanders-Clyburn-Wyden Amendment to the health care reform bill, the more hopeful I become regarding the future of the U.S. healthcare system.

Apparently a system of "Federally Qualified Health Centers" already exists, based on legislation initiated long ago by the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Such health centers reportedly provide "primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling and low-cost prescription drugs for about 20 million Americans...basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations and cancer screenings...for patients covered by Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance as well as those who have no insurance."

Senator Sanders' initial amendment was to include $10 billion for community health centers around the country, which he projected would bring primary health care to 25 million more Americans and serve 10,000 more communities. It is also said to include provisions for loan repayments and scholarships, to "create an additional 20,000 primary care doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and mental health professionals." Representative James Clyburn intends to increase the proposed funding to $14 billion, and Senator Ron Wyden is said to be editing the bill to provide waivers for states that want to provide more health care to their citizens.

There are financial benefits to this plan, in addition to the physical benefits. Senator Sanders said that a university study concluded that this amendment would save Medicaid $23 billion over five years by reducing emergency room use and hospital costs. Furthermore, services cost substantially less at community health centers than elsewhere.

This amendment actually exceeds what I contemplated in an earlier post, and I hope it survives and flowers during the Congressional reconciliation process. For me, this would be change I could believe in: a resource I could count on in the event I lost my job or start that export business I am thinking about. I would call it a "public option" and be happy with it. And I will be grateful to all of the legislators who make it a reality.

Alex Budarin

Snowflake to the D's in Congress

How about creating a new Medicare program, "Part E", as the "public option"? Republicans are suddenly defending Medicare. They created Medicare "Part D". Their response to "Medicare Part E" should be comedy gold!

Alex Budarin


UPDATE: Okay, it already is comedy gold, courtesy of Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican Party. See his interview with National Public Radio here.

Republicans Behaving Badly

President Obama and his policies seem to bring out the worst in those people who constitute the current Republican base. Even when the topic is something as boring as government-insured healthcare!

I think I know the roots of this Mad Tea Party.

The core issue in this dispute is the role of government. Republicans believe that the government should have a role in our defense and little else. They trust corporations more than they trust government. Democrats, on the other hand, believe that government also has an obligation to ensure the general welfare and equal protection of American citizens. When corporations, public and private, fail to ensure the general welfare and equal protection of American citizens, democrats believe the government is obliged to intervene on behalf of American citizens. Because Republicans do not recognize any constitutional obligation for ensuring the well-being and rights of anyone beyond themselves, they are outraged that the arc of American politics since 1901 has inclined more and more in favor of the democratic ideal. This has been true even under Republican Presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt [Pure Food & Drug Act, Employers Liability Act, railroad regulation, and trust-busting] and Richard Nixon [Consumer Product Safety Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration]. But it has been most dramatic under Democratic Presidents, such as Franklin Roosevelt, who was responsible for the National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Administration, and Lyndon Johnson, who pushed for Medicare and The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Republicans fought loudly and bitterly against Social Security, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act. Franklin Roosevelt, like Obama today, was accused of engaging in socialism.

So, what happened after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s programs were enacted? American capitalism flourished and spread. And it will do so again with “Obamacare.” Far from destroying capitalism, it will encourage Americans to try setting up businesses, because they will never have to worry about finding and paying for individual health insurance for themselves and their families at the same time that they are trying to get a business going. “Obamacare” will be there.

The reality is that the government programs which were instituted to ensure the general welfare and equal protection of American citizens have helped maintain our society. The “America” that they replaced was an America that was obscene in its cruelty and callousness toward the well-being of Americans. Maybe Republicans love “America”, they just dislike and distrust their fellow Americans. We can not let this country fail just to calm their paranoia.

Republicans must remember that Obama has the power and the authority that a majority of the American voters gave him. He is doing what the majority of Americans voters elected him to do. Republicans will have to live with this like I had to live with the fact that George W. Bush was my President for 8 years.