Paul Krugman: Huge Victory on Medicare
Paul Krugman writes that Wednesday was a huge victory for universal healthcare advocates in this country. And what's more, the Democrats have identified one of the main weaknesses of John McCain this election cycle -- healthcare. Instead of coming and voting, like Barack Obama did, John McCain cut and run from this important vote. By contrast, even Senator Teddy Kennedy, in the hospital for a brain tumor, made it to the floor to vote.
The Wednesday vote was a vote that restored cuts back in 2003 that the Bush administration made to doctors. He did so by ramming the Medicare Modernization Act in the dead of night when nobody was paying attention bypassing doctors and making Medicare payments directly to insurance companies. So, instead of making Medicare a basic human right for everyone, the Bush administration turned around and made it into a gigantic corporate welfare package.
The main goal is that Medicare has to be available for everyone, and not for the select few. Yet the 2003 bill gave corporations special rights to determine who was fit for Medicare and who was not. The end result, as Krugman notes, is that the corporations decided to insure the healthier people and exclude the people who were not as healthy. This is not accidental, but part and parcel of the Republican blame the poor mentality that has permeated GOP ideology. If you are too sick or too poor, then it is your fault because you did not work hard enough.
What this battle shows is that the Democrats can and do show a spine when they have a mind to. And it also shows that they can and will listen to us when they have a mind to. The difference between now and 1993 is that the Democrats were able to hold together, and it was the Republicans who caved in, fearful of facing voters fearful of where they would go if they got sick and they were sent somewhere which did not accept Medicaid.
There is a lesson to be learned from the FISA struggle as well. The fact of the matter is that in order to defeat bills like the FISA bill, we have to be able to reach critical mass and convince our legislators that such bills are bad legislation and bad public policy. But what the left must do is be able to reach across ideological lines -- why should a single mother with twin sons who is having trouble finding work and who is having trouble paying the rent and caring for her kids care about this sort of legislation? If these debates can't be resolved, then Congress does what Congress always does -- they kick the can down the road for the next Congress to deal with.
But the healthcare crisis in this country has reached critical mass and affects everyone. Even people who have regular jobs are getting taken to court for unpaid medical bills, and I would say that around 90% of all the civil cases here are over unpaid medical bills. People worry that if they get sick, they will get hit with a huge bill because their doctor will not take Medicare. Insurance companies engage in price-gouging, seeing patients as a commodity to make profits off of, similar to Big Oil. Another issue that has hit critical mass for everyone is Net Neutrality; it affects everyone. When Comcast started charging customers for their use of the Internet beyond a certain limit, the once-compliant FCC has flipped thanks to public pressure and is now handing out stiff fines and requiring them to disclose information about their practices.
Obamathon
