Who did you elect? Congress or 'K Street'?
Monday, July 13, 2009 at 22:20 I just read one of the most scathing rebukes of this so-called healthcare reform bill process, that continues to stumble - like a hapless drunk - through Congress, by Bill Moyers. Here is an excerpt:
“Three out of four of the big health care firms lobbying on Capitol Hill have former members of Congress or government staff members on the payroll – more than 350 of them – and they’re all fighting hard to prevent a public plan, at a rate in excess of $1.4 million a day.”
And, there you have the ‘why’ as in why nothing ever seems to quite get done. Somebody forgot to take down the big ‘For Sale’ sign on the front of Congress.
Have you asked yourself, as you watch all the special interest group advertising carefully crafted to dissuade you from that nasty idea of a public healthcare plan - “why would ‘they’ be spending so much money?” Have you asked yourself who ‘they’ are?
‘They’ are the countless insurance and healthcare delivery executives who’ve grown fat on outrageous bonuses lifted from what could have been your benefits, lobbyists that are making a killing selling access to those who desparately don’t want to see change, special interest groups posing as patriots but shilling for the insurance, hospital and big pharma corporations, and then members of Congress - from each side of the aisle who need to keep those campaign coffers filled.
It’s become all about money, not healthcare delivery. Until we can pull the rug out from under the moneylenders, we’ll never get our country back, or a fair single-payer healthcare plan.
Don’t believe me about lobbyists? Take a look at who is giving how much to whom at The Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets.org. This isn’t about free speech, this is about a government for sale to the highest bidder, and if you’re not offended, you haven’t been paying attention.
People have to insist that the right thing be done by our elected representatives. We didn’t elect those people on K Street, and we have no mechanism for holding them accountable. With Congress, we do.
Until we do, bills will be proposed, fattened up like cattle, carved up to satisy special interests with the American citizen left holding the rotting carcass of an inadaquate, embarassing excuse for a ‘healthcare system’ … that even The Economist ( hardly a liberal magazine ) says is the worst in the industrialized world.
maven
Reader Comments (1)
I wish Obama every success in fighting the lobbyists and insurance companies. If he is successful, he will take his rightful place as one of the greatest Americans, just as Tommy Douglas is one of the greatest Canadians.