The Real Health Care Debate

• Lost between conservatives and Democratic front groups were a few stalwarts including public health care advocates Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Carol Paris and attorneys Oliver Hall, Kevin Zeese and Russell Mokhiber who displayed a banner that read: “Single Payer Now! Strike Down the Obama Mandate!”
• Should Supreme Court Find Insurance Mandate Unconstitutional?
• The case for universal care at the state level

Chris Hedges, Truthdig

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People wait in line overnight in front of the Supreme Court for admission on the eve of oral arguments before the court on President Obama’s health care legislation. AP/J. David Ake

The debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act illustrates the impoverishment of our political life. Here is a law that had its origin in the right-wing Heritage Foundation, was first put into practice in 2006 in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Mitt Romney and was solidified into federal law after corporate lobbyists wrote legislation with more than 2,000 pages. It is a law that forces American citizens to buy a deeply defective product from private insurance companies. It is a law that is the equivalent of the bank bailout bill—some $447 billion in subsidies for insurance interests alone—for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. It is a law that is unconstitutional. And it is a law by which President Barack Obama, and his corporate backers, extinguished the possibilities of both the public option and Medicare for all Americans. There is no substantial difference between Obamacare and Romneycare. There is no substantial difference between Obama and Romney. They are abject servants of the corporate state. And if you vote for one you vote for the other.

But you would never know this by listening to the Democratic Party and the advocacy groups that purport to support universal health care but seem more intent on re-electing Obama. It is the very sad legacy of the liberal class that it proves in election cycle after election cycle that it espouses moral and political positions it will not pay a price to defend. And since we have no fight in us, since we will not punish politicians like Obama who betray our core beliefs, the corporate juggernaut rolls forward with its inexorable pace to cement into place our global neofeudalism.

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Related:

Should Supreme Court Find Insurance Mandate Unconstitutional? Real News

• Kevin Zeese: Mandate is both bad policy and unconstituional.
• This is an opportunity to push for "Medicare for All"
• How to Cover Everyone: Vermont’s Single-Payer Success
• Doctors for Single Payer Health Care Take On Supreme Court

The case for universal care at the state level, Amy Lange, Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune <>

• Surely few of us are satisfied with the way things are, or are convinced that the Affordable Care Act is the final reform, even if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds it. So let's hold onto the "unified and universal" option for Minnesota, with the knowledge that we can afford a system in which all newborns can be assured the essential human dignity of access to life-giving care, from the moment they enter the world until they draw their last breath.
• How to Cover Everyone: Vermont’s Single-Payer Success
• Should Supreme Court Find Insurance Mandate Unconstitutional?