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PEACE & JUSTICE
CALENDAR
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Jean Buskin
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Cartoons of
Dan McConnell
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Tiny the Worm
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Kill The Bill
(Before it kills us)
by Janice Van Cleve
Editor's note: Many people have recently been extremely hopeful about the possibility of a universal healthcare system in the US. However, the version that we are being offered now has been laundered by a hundred special interests, as writer Janice Van Cleve points out below. This makes me wonder, is it possible to have a meaningful universal healthcare system without first fixing the basic problem of our politics: the influence bought by campaign donations?
The load of sludge making its way through the US Senate called the "Health Care Reform Bill" is nothing more than a windfall for insurance companies so big and so awful that it makes Wall Street bankers look like Mother Teresa's nuns. It has no public option. It has no extension of Medicare to folks under 65. It forbids buying cheaper drugs from Canada. It continues to protect health insurance companies from anti-trust laws. It continues to give insurance companies state wide monopolies. It does not restrict premiums or co-pays yet it increases the restrictions on abortion.
This bill does not insure another 30 million Americans. This bill forces 30 million Americans to buy this piece of work or be fined! The federal government will force uninsured Americans to buy this insurance at whatever price the insurance corporations charge or fine them. If they are too poor to pay the premiums or the fine, you and I get to subsidize their premiums so the insurance companies will not have to suffer lower profits.
Who's pushing this load of sludge onto the backs of American taxpayers? Senators like Joe Liebermann who raked in $2 million in campaign contributions from health care insurance companies and big pharma. (He's from Connecticut, after all—home to some of the biggest insurance companies in the country.) Who is standing up for the American people and saying "NO"? Not Senate majority "leader" Harry Reid. There is no surrender too low to which he will not stoop. Not President Obama. He still clings to the fantasy of bipartisanship. Not them. They want a pretty signing ceremony before Christmas and they are willing to sacrifice anything for the photo op.
There are people standing up to say no. Good old Governor Howard Dean says no, and he even had the guts to call these senators out. The SEIU and AFL-CIO are in emergency executive session as I write, and they may say no as well. One of the best and most articulate spokespersons saying no is Keith Olbermann. Here are his comments:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34455168/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann
When state power is used to enslave a population in service and for the benefit of corporations, it's called Fascism.◆
"The Criminality of Forced Allopathic Medical Insurance"
Forced medical insurance is a threat to the lives, health and freedom of millions of Americans who neither want, nor can afford, to buy into this forced allopathic medical insurance plan our government wants to ram down our throats.
For many Americans, allopathic medicine is against our beliefs, a violation of our religious or moral code. It’s like forcing vegetarians to eat meat, or forcing all Americans to have to be protestant, or forcing us to all have to be Republicans or Democrats. And it’s comparable to forcing non-drivers to have to buy auto-insurance.
To read the rest of my letter, go to
http://greenertimes.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/january-4-10/