If President Obama Doesn't Achieve a Government Health Insurance Option, His Presidency May be Imperiled

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

He promised us fundamental change and the diminished power of the "K Street" lobbyists, but on the healthcare reform bill -- regretfully -- President Obama acts like a man who has little control over money-fueled profiteerinng lobbying that imperils that very change and hope that he promised us.

The Republicans and their corporate sponsors have long known that if a governnment option gets a toe-hold it could to lead to a fundamental re-alignment in which many of the middle and working class Americans that they have demagogued to hate their government come to see the very same governnment as a friend and savior of their health.  This is what has happened in nations around the world that have national healthcare -- and a government option isn't even national healthcare, but it will be in time because once you take the profit and excess healthcare costs created by private health insurance out of the system, the default will be Medicare for everyone.

And if Medicare for everyone were to be extended beyond the lifelines most American seniors feel to their governnment -- along with social security -- the fear factor of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and their multi-millionaire megaphone bretherns would become history.

Yet, President Obama -- with all his promise of change and taking on the "K Street" lobbyists and the leeches who suck away at our treasury with programs that fleece the taxpayer --  won't wholeheartedly commit himself to a government option.  He almost comes off as someone standing on the sidelines while the forces with money pummel and ridicule the very historic alteration of America into a nation that benefits its citizens that he promised.

Maybe Rahm Emanuel, who made millions of dollars after the Clinton administration being a "rainmaker" for a financial firm, and others are telling him that the Dems can't win without the money of Big Pharma and the Health Insurance industry -- and Obama will have to suck up his campaign promises and accept that the only change he is going to get is a nickel.

Maybe it's that President Obama has the audacity of rhetoric, but not leadership. Maybe, he just doesn't like to feel the Washington D.C. insiders get upset with him, because he is a man who likes to leave everyone with a smile on their faces.  And on a daily basis, he doesn't see the voters in need of healthcare, he just sees the healthcare industry lobbyists and the centrist Dems who rely on the industry for campaign funds.  He'll worry about the voters later. He'll make them happy with soaring words and a smile, while he's covering up for change having evolved into more of the same profiteering for the status quo at the expense of the health of Americans.

We knew Obama in Illinois. As anyone who reads BuzzFlash knows, we fiercely fought for him in the Democratic primary and the general election.

But we did not know that his desire not to alienate the D.C. villagers would lead to his capitulation on change and evolve it into an acceptance that he is not going to risk leadership with the audacity of fighting for what Americans need for their healthcare, and what will be most cost-effective.  In short, Rahm Emanuel and others are telling him that the moneybags of the health insurance industry have too much power to be defeated by the President of the United States.

Many years ago, when Barack Obama was a state senator in Illinois, I was involved in a coalition led by a prominent Chicago religious leader to prohibit onerous financial rates on loans to working people. There were several hearings in Springfield and the industry doing the ripping off -- payday loan companies -- poured money into defeating regulation by the treasure chest full.  There were at least a couple of hearings scheduled and for one the payday loan industry allegedly paid shills to come down and express outrage that they would have no place to go if the payday loan industry were to fold because the industry would colllapse if they couldn't charge inordinately high interest rates (which was a lie used to intimidate borrowers and legislators alike).  So at one hearing these people who were allegedly paid to act as outraged consumers became very rowdy when proponents of a limit on interest rates and "rollover loans" spoke for change and reform.

In any case, one of the key advocates and hearing witnesses was a Chicago politician who was mad as Hell as to what payday loan stores were doing to financially destroy her constituents.  Allegedly (and I say this because I heard this through a third party who -- again -- allegedly witnessed the following encounter) Senate Barack Obama was scheduled to testify in support of reining in the payday loan compaines, but he never appeared.

The politician who testified for "change" and endured the catcalls and shouts of the alleged paid shills for the payday loan companies ran into Illinois Senator Obama a bit llater in the State Capitol and asked him what had kept him from appearing at the hearing.  Allegedly -- and I emphasize this is not confirmed except by a person who says that he/she witnessed it -- Senator Obama responded, "Well, I was going to testify, but i walked by and heard all those angry people and I didn't want to cause more of an uproar."

Maybe this happened; maybe it didn't.  But sometimes even apocryphal anecdotes have the ring of truth.

In the case of Barack Obama not taking the fight for the government option to the mat, we may be seeing a serious character flaw -- a man who can't distinguish between the raised expectations of fighting rhetoric and an actual fight.

As our BuzzFlash columnist Phil Carpenter has noted, if President Obama doesn't get a bill with a full government health insurance option, he may not only have caved into the powers with the profiteering billions, he may have lost his re-election campaign.

Because this would not be change; this would be business as usual, at the expense of the American people.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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