The U.S. senate had an historic vote tonight. It was a vote to allow discussion of a bill to reform health care. Every Democratic Senator stood up for reform while every Republican Senator stood in the way. The conservatives voted to not even allow discussion of the single most important issue facing this country today. Conservatives want to keep everything the same. Even if it doesn’t work! Selfish and narrow thinking on their part. Seems to be characteristic of Republican conservatives. Selfishness and narrow-mindedness.
There is still a ways to go to finally achieve what we should have done 50 years ago. Hopefully the Democrats will succeed and universal health care will become a normal part of our way of life. The republicans will climb on board 40 years later. Too bad they don’t try and contribute to the process rather than kill it.
Truman would be proud.
It’s not quite “universal”, but compared to the regressive slide we’ve suffered through since Reagan and Nixon deregulated the health industry, this is a quantum leap towards a much healthier America.
Thanks to Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana for letting this enter the debate phase.
Both the Wall Street Journal and SourceWatch are reporting that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent $34.7 million dollars in the past three months alone to curry favor with our Congress. That’s over $300,000 a day, to fight things like health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act. That’s more than five times the amount they spent in the previous 3 months.
While they like to portray themselves as the defender of small business in the heartland, their biggest financial support has come from the oil companies (ExxonMobil and Chevron Texaco, to fight climate change legislation), and Big Pharma (Phizer, to prevent Medicare from competitve price bidding on meds for our seniors).
If health care reform finally passes in this country, will the Chamber of Commerce come to the Hill asking for a refund? And will the cons try to give it to them?
Last night I saw an image of Sens. Lincoln and Landrieu as two of the three sisters of Fate, I saw Landrieu as Lachesis measuring the threads of life in a few dollars for Louisiana and Lincoln as Atropos deciding whether or not to snip the life threads of the tens of thousands who die unnecessarily every single year.