Health Care Reform vs Social Security, Why the Democratic Party should be pleased with PROGRESS.

[TheBigotBasher]

It is a simple fact that no previous Congress or President has got as far with health care reform as this. On health care reform we have watched 50 years of failure. A failure that has cost real lives. Yes single payer is the better option. However Congress does not have 60 Democratic Senators singing from a Democratic hymn book Far too many a turn coats all to ready to use a united GOP to blackmail the Democratic Party with whatever agenda they want.

This has however always been the case wth the Democratic Party. It is a Party that unites for General Elections but then disintegrates into a cacophany ranging from Neo Classical Liberals and Catholic Conservatives to Liberal Lions, proud of their Liberal heritage. It is for that reason Single Payer will not get through a Democratic Congress. Fifteen Blue Dog Senators on the inauguration of Barack Obama signed up to a pact to "moderate" him the very next day.

So major structural changes need baby steps. Social Security as it is today, looked nothing like it does now.

Look at Social Security

The Social Security Act was passed by Congress as part of the New Deal and signed by Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. Most women and minorities were excluded from the benefits. Jobs that were not covered by the act included workers in agricultural, domestic service, government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers. The act also denied coverage to individuals who worked intermittently.

* 1950 inclusion of domestic labor, household employees working at least two days a week for the same person were added in, along with nonprofit workers and the self-employed.
*1954 Hotel workers, laundry workers, all agricultural workers, and state and local government employees were added in.
* 1956 Disability benefits were added
* 1961 Retirement at age 62 was extended to men.
* 1962 Benefits of covered women could be collected by dependent husbands, widowers, and children.
* 1965 MEDICARE was added.
* 1972 The bill also set up a cost of living adjustment (COLA) to take effect in 1975.
* 1977-1990's Amendments regarding the indexing of payments and dealing with the Trust Fund were enacted.

Look at what is coming out of the still largely Conservative leaning Senate.

* Triggered public option
* Medicare buy in 55-64
* Creation of health care exchanges
* Allow individuals to access the Federal Employee Health Benifits Plan (what Congress has)
* Creation of national non profits regulated and negotiated by Federal government (available to all)
* Expansion of Medicaid to cover many millions of low paid workers.

Does anyone really think that this is worse than a McCain Palin plan? Does anyone really think that the solution to Blue Dogs blackmailing the Democratic Party would be to have more Republican members of Congress?

It is not quite the British NHS, but small steps baby, small steps and very much along the lines of if you like your plan you can keep it, if you don't you can have what Congrss has.

[Frances]

1. What a sensible post

I appreciate your taking the time to write it and hope you will post it again in a few days so people who miss it today will get a chance to read it then.

[Better Believe It]

2. And next year we will have a bi-partisan cut in Social Security benefits led by Democrats ....

Little steps indeed!

[ipaint]

3. Regulated by the federal government???

This I've got to see. First time in 30 + years.

What's changed?

[TheBigotBasher]

4. I made my views clear about those people.

Republican voting Democrats prepared to use a united GOP block vote to deliver their agenda.

The Party has Leadership Elections. They lost. They should not get away with blackmailing a Party that clearly does not want their agenda.

[Armstead]

5. It is backward by forcing us to by a private product with no real price controls

Hell, if they were such chickenshoots, they should have just focused on meaningful reform of private insurers, including strict price controls and regulation.

Instead they have put in place a convoluted mess that misses most of the original targets they publicly set.

The Democratic Party has been devolving on economic issues so far that hope for incremental progress is the longest of longshots.

[TheBigotBasher]

6. I was never in support of mandates

and I strongly opposed Hillary Clinton for that very reason. I would have preferred the very simplle anyone can buy in to the Federal programme. If you then complicate that by setting a no pre-existing condition rule you ned mandates to keep the insurance costs down. Sad but true. Or you need single payer and as in the UK - allow people to buy private insurance if they want hotel style hospitals. The latter was not going to get through.

The solution to that is never more Republicans.

[Armstead]

8. Unfortunately, these days the solution is not more democrats either

I would not object to mandates if there had been a strong and affordable and universally available public plan to go with it.

Without that, mandates are nothing more than a gift to the insurers. What good is the "no pre-existing condition" clause if it is still unaffordable?

[TheBigotBasher]

11. It is about more Democrats

and those in tune with the wants of the people. Voters supported a radical reform agenda. The extent of the recession only highlighted why that was needed and as a result enhanced the support of the then Candidate Obama Every Senator in every Swing State is there on his coat tails.

To repay that with ConservaDem defeatism means defeat at the polls. So what is needed is a demand for some loyalty to the agenda that got them elected or they face Primaries. This should mean something. Look how few votes it took to get Coakley selected.

[Clio the Leo]

7. Well said. NT

[goclark]

10. Well said ~ thank the poster

[R. P. McMurphy]

9. k & r n/t