I, along with many of my liberal and progressive friends, because of our strongly stated support for the House of Representatives' version of health care reform over the Senate's, are finding ourselves vilified and marginalized as "dissenting radicals" by...no, not the conservatives..., but by way, way too many of our colleagues and brothers and sisters in the democratic party .
Well, there are strong and legitimate reasons why we support one over the other and why we regard those who are pandering to the administration's support for the Senate version as sell-outs or criminally naive.
First, it would leave 6% of the uninsured, still uninsured! And, it would penalize, through taxation of health care benefits, working families who negotiated their so called "Cadillac" health plans in lieu of higher salaries, longer vacations and other benefits. There needs to be no second, or third. The first suffices as reason enough to say, "Hell no!"
The disheartening thing of it is that now we are witnessing the country-club, chamber-of-commerce, golf-playing, and wine-and-cheese partying democrats joining with their Republican brethren in an all-out attack on the middle-class and working America.
And, while the rank-and-file Democrats cluster like stewing hens while grandpa sharpens the axe, clucking; "it's progress, we'll get what we can and make it better later, and (my favorite), at least some of us get help", their senators have cut deals which range from relieving mine owners of the burden of providing health care to workers suffering from work-related disease and shifting that cost to Medicare to language which would relax the standards on information to be gathered on new gun-buyers.
Deals?, you ask. Yeah, I reply, the business-as-usual and same sort of scummy deals that we so despised during the "K-Street" revelations of the Bush II era. Only, this time, it is the Democrats at the trough, and I promise you, the names will surprise and disappoint you.
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