A simple word of advice from me to our United States Senators on health care reform and their "centrist" colleagues: just say "No" to Ben Nelson if he comes a-callin' with scary stories about getting all our citizens covered by health insurance this year:
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said he planned to urge the president not to force an arbitrary August deadline on health care reform.
Arbitrary?
Because 15 years after the last attempt at meaningful health care reform is too soon?
Maybe the 44 years after Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare Act is rushing it for Senator Nelson.
Arbitrary could be the 64 years since Truman said this:
In my message to the Congress of September 6, 1945, there were enumerated in a proposed Economic Bill of Rights certain rights which ought to be assured to every American citizen.
One of them was: "The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." Another was the "right to adequate protection from the economic fears of . .. sickness ...."
Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection.
The people of the United States received a shock when the medical examinations conducted by the Selective Service System revealed the widespread physical and mental incapacity among the young people of our nation. We had had prior warnings from eminent medical authorities and from investigating committees. The statistics of the last war had shown the same condition. But the Selective Service System has brought it forcibly to our attention recently--in terms which all of us can understand.
As of April 1, 1945, nearly 5,000,000 male registrants between the ages of 18 and 37 had been examined and classified as unfit for military service. The number of those rejected for military service was about 30 percent of all those examined. The percentage of rejection was lower in the younger age groups, and higher in the higher age groups, reaching as high as 49 percent for registrants between the ages of 34 and 37.
Wow, didn't realize the Republican "military lovers" could've killed that proposal -- even with Harry Truman's base militaristic pandering and the shadow of WWII looming over all of us.
Sadly, this self-interest of Nelson (to the detriment of America) only fuels the Republican obstructionism and makes statements like this one from Jim DeMint all that more frustratingly close to reality:
Last week, Sen. Jim DeMint (R) of South Carolina, arguably the chamber's most right-wing member, told an audience at the National Press Club that the United States is currently "about where Germany was before World War II." Everything about his remarks -- the sense of history, the understanding of current events, the philosophy -- was a special kind of stupid.
But DeMint seems quite pleased with himself, and keeps churning out new and creative insanity.
In an interview with the evangelical World Magazine titled "The Taxpayers' Greatest Ally," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) had some interesting things to say about his work with his colleagues in the Senate:
"I am not going to be able to persuade my colleagues to do the right things, so I am just going to have to create pain."
Okay, that is a bit intense. However, it may not even be the most intense statement from Sen. DeMint this week. On a conference call this morning, DeMint discussed health care reform: ""This health care issue Is D-Day for freedom in America... If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."
If you look back historically, you can draw a direct line from the defeat the Clinton suffered in '93 trying to push for Universal Health Care to his far less ambitious actions as President and the capitalization of the hobbled presidency by the GOP and their uprising with the Contract For America. It is critical that we not give the GOP an inch on that and we're certainly not going to be helped by Senators like Nelson who has a personal interest in helping the insurance industry.
