Comments on: National Public Health Care Passes U.S. House

By: admin

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:58:29 +0000

A reply from the Kicinich campaign:

Dear Rowland,

Thank you for your comments.

While I do not speak for Dennis, I can tell you that I definitely support his NO vote on the health care bill, H R 3962. I have been working for years to get universal, not for profit, single payer health care for all. H R 3962 is not about that type of health care. It is about keeping insurance companies in control of health care. That is not any true change at all and certainly not change we can believe in.

Health care belongs to “we the people.” We the people are the government. We have let corporations take our government away from us. That must stop. No true change will happen in this country until more Congress members can show the courage that I see time after time in Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

In hope and peace,

Gail Heyn
Volunteer
Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee
http://www.kucinich.us/

By: admin

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:57:49 +0000

Via e-mail, a letter to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who voted against the bill:

What a terrible mistake! Voting NO was a great mistake on your part, no matter what your arcane and mostly unreadable “statement” said. I was a big fan. Positioning yourself with a NO vote on health-care was something an insensitive and unsensible man would do, and your reasons for voting this way are lost in the shuffle. You’ve become what you were fighting against all this time. I suppose if you get Cheney in jail for his serial crimes, you might get me to believe in you again. Otherwise….

Rowland Scherman

By: Glynn Wilson

Glynn Wilson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:42:04 +0000

A former Texas governor who should be tried and convicted for war crimes. My next column may be about the difference between Larry Langford’s small time crimes and Bush’s great big crimes. Langford’s story has been selling newspapers in Alabama for a couple of years now, while none of the papers in Alabama have paid any attention on the front page to Bush’s crimes. I doubt if there was a single front page AP story in six years pointing out there was no WMD in Iraq, no connection between Sadaam and Osama. Nor has there been a single story about how many people have died as a result of that corrupt war, or how much money was stolen from U.S. taxpayers in Iraq.

The Republicans want to scream about the deficit now that a black Democrat is in the White House. Where were they when their Republican president was running up the biggest budget deficits in U.S. history? Where did all that tax money for rebuilding Iraq — and New Orleans — go? Where did Sadaam’s gold go? Is the U.S. news media even asking? Not that I can tell. Is there a single newspaper in Alabama interested? No! They just continue to make fun of the black mayor of Birmingham, the one guy in town with an idea in his head…

By: Yana Davis

Yana Davis — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:15:47 +0000

Even without a health care victory for Obama, it seems to me very unlikely that Sarah Palin could become president of the United States. But stranger birds have flown into that coop, like an unknown former governor of Georgia and a Texas governor who should have opted to return to baseball team management.

By: Glynn Wilson

Glynn Wilson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:42:09 +0000

All of these questions, good ones, can’t be answered yet, but here’s my late morning reaction over coffee…

First and foremost, if Obama does not get a “win” on national public health care reform, we may end up with Sarah Palin for president in three years. So for practical political considerations, we must get a plan of some kind passed. It seems to me the most important thing, for the health care system and the economy, is to get everyone covered. My understanding is the current bill ties payments to income, so just like Medicare, poor people would pay almost nothing.

I think the opt out for states is a political bean bag and should be fought in the Senate. Since Ron Sparks seems to be the only candidate for governor in Alabama who favors national public health care, he would be the most approachable here. As the folks on this list probably agree, none of the Republicans running for governor of Alabama could or would be for it nationally or here, and if one of them is elected (because the wrong Democrat wins the primary) this state would probably take the opt out.

There are a couple of stories on the news page today to consider.

http://www.locustfork.net/

One, some progressive Democrats are going to try to fight the amendment outlawing the funding for abortions in the plan. I say the left needs to get off the abortion issue. It is too controversial anyway and funding abortions in the bill would kill the plan.

And Dennis Kucinich makes his case for why he voted against the bill.

http://www.locustfork.net/#region

While I agree with him on the type of plan we should have, I suspect he voted against it to make a point, knowing it would pass. Davis seems to have decided to vote against it well before passing it was certain, so one can only assume he did it for fund raising purposes.

I honestly don’t know how anyone calling themselves a progressive Democrat could vote against Obama’s health care bill and the climate change bill and still get any votes in a primary for governor anywhere. But of course this is Alabamaland. I also don’t understand how an anonymous, lefty blog can still support Davis after this. But life is full of mysteries.

I’m told Wayne Flint’s book Poor But Proud has some insights on some of these things. Maybe if anyone here has read it, you could summarize…