Congressman Anthony Weiner, D-New York, has agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to have a floor vote on his Medicare for All bill. A press release from Congressmen Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (sponsor of HR 676, a single payer bill) opposing it helped tip the scale.
But Weiner did not ask Pelosi to include in her bill the Kucinich Amendment to allow states to create single-payer. Pelosi made clear that President Obama opposes that, and used the bogus excuse that providing everyone with comprehensive free healthcare would deprive them of the right to pay ever increasing rates for uncertain health “insurance.”
The removal of the Weiner vote undoubtedly helps the effort to force some of the 57 congress members who wrote to Pelosi in July keep their word. They said they would not support a bill without a public option tied to Medicare rates. If even 40 of them keep their word, the current bill will fail. And we will have a second round, in which we can push for single-payer and achieve at least a better result than the rotten corpse of a bill being voted on this weekend.
If we could have had a second round AND a strong but failing vote for national single-payer, that would have been better. But the single-payer vote was going to be used as cover for voting for a bad bill. Depriving conniving congress critters of that cover is decidedly a good thing, assuming healthcare advocates can come to terms with it and not rip each other’s throats out.
If congress members in favor of real helthcare reform were able to work with each other, or if activists were, other possibilities would open up. And if we have a round 2 in which advocates for a public option admit that single-payer would be better and include single-payer in all of their discussions as the ideal that Americans actually prefer, wonderful things might become possible. But unless single-payer advocates admit that winning in one state would be a good thing, rather than a loss of purity, we may not save any lives. Our most likely path to national single-payer is to get it in a state first.
And we could still facilitate that if we all got together and forced the conference committe to put the Kucinich Amendment back in, or if we forced House members to insist on voting No on Saturday unless the Kucinich Amendment is put back in.
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UPDATE: Congressman Henry Waxman has his own twisted logic:
Chairman Waxman’s Statement on Rep. Weiner’s Single-Payer Amendment
WASHINGTON, DC — Today Chairman Henry A. Waxman released the following statement in response to Rep. Anthony Weiner’s decision not to offer a single-payer amendment to the House Democratic health care legislation:
“Rep. Anthony Weiner has been one of the most tireless and effective advocates for health care reform. His decision not to offer his amendment on the floor was a difficult one for him, and for supporters of the measure. I believe Rep. Weiner’s choice will be enormously helpful in passing the health care reform package. His step is a correct and courageous one. I thank Rep. Weiner for it, and look forward to working with him closely. Rep. Weiner deserves a great deal of credit for helping to make quality, affordable health care more available to millions of Americans.”
I have been contemplating how to break the news to you all, that the United States of America has crossed the quintessential line years ago and the United States of America is NOW a full blooded fascist society. Not only in the most classical definition of fascism; the integration of the government with corporations such as the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan with the United States military for the sole purpose to benefit of the oil related industries, our fascism is continuing to evolve. This health care bullshit is purely a fascism maneuver and the Wall Street bail also; bringing the operational fascism structure to nearly perfect fruition. The clincher is making fascism legal, that the lower courts are falling in line and upholding the legal aspects of the unconstitutional acts of torture or militarily backed expansion by the United States of America and sanctioned by the United States government another critical milestone to pass on the way to a fascist nation. Specifically upholding the national secrets protections at every intersection thus the courts are reinforcing our national fascism actions and behaviors with their protection. Lastly the commercial media has to buy in and assist in the transformation that was done moments after the 9/11 spectacle.
First let’s understand that the two political party systems are fraudulent to their cores there is NO significant differences between the two major political parties the corporations always win! What I find disturbing is that Rachael Maddow and Keith Olbermann need to stop defending the Democratic Party the Democratic Party is far more fascist then the dimwitted republicans.
Lastly I need some help here, what fascist nation has endured for more then just a few years. Fascism is a concept that historically prospers briefly during the blitzkrieg expansion phase. Then fascism has a historical tendency to go bust; no nation has made that transition from the blitzkrieg expansion to an ongoing society. The only way that I have been mentally able to conceive fascism working for the long run would be the necessity of the existence of an extremely harsh two class society or a salve class and elite class. If Americans would wake up a study this neo conservative movement that was developed after the 1952 presidential elections the issue is that these people were attempting to designing a society that would survive a 1930’s type of depression. We are coming up on this new society 80 years to late. When one of the main founders of this neo conservative movement William F. Buckley acknowledges it as a complete failure before his death it may be worth taking notice and go back to our United States Constitution and restart our Republic.
We might as well have voted for McCain. I believe that Obama is a Trojan horse at worst and, at best, made a deal with the *real* powers that be to lie down on healthcare in exchange for getting elected. Where is the change we can believe in? That was a very clever slogan, as clever as anything the Republicans ever came up with and with the same result: millions of people were fooled, only this time it’s the very people who needed change the most. Let’s compare the so-called healthcare reform bill with what McCain was proposing and see how much change we’re looking at. The insurance companies are laughing all the way to the bank while working people and their families continue to go bankrupt and die.