Democrats lost an important Senate seat in the Massachusetts race Tuesday. Indeed, it was painful to watch the seat of the great progressive Ted Kennedy go to a Republican who will oppose our efforts towards a health care system that benefits all Americans. This loss will surely add more obstacles to our struggle and delay legislation.
But we must not lose sight of the bigger picture. We lost a critical election, but that does not mean the fight for progressive issues ends there. It is just an election after all. Issues, ideals, values and the hope for universal health care extend beyond that. Elections come and go, we win and lose. That is just how it is. We cannot win every election and we should be prepared to lose many important ones. And then we have to be prepared to move on.
We can’t let the media characterize this loss as a loss for health care. The support for change remains with many, even perhaps a majority, of Americans. We will carry out the work of Ted Kennedy, even with a Republican in his seat.
The College Dems gathered last night to kick off the first evening of Health Care Week of Action with a screening of Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko. A big thanks to everyone who made it out! I hope you were all able to take as much away from it as I did.
Having never seen a Michael Moore creation, I had no idea what to expect. And though I was told that Sicko was well done, I couldn’t help but still come in alert and guarded. What I ended up seeing was the most compelling and emotional case for health care reform that I have yet witnessed. Even while searching for the possibility of bias in Moore’s portrayal, the fact that the stories from the film exist at all is a bitter stain on the record of our great nation. It is shameful and downright wrong that a nation that is capable of dropping around $1 trillion into defense/military spending annually is unable to provide basic health care to its citizens, especially when we seem to be the last developed nation to find a way to do it. If you didn’t get a chance to join us last night, I strongly recommend checking out the film and then sharing it with your family and friends. Unless they have been personally affected by an HMO atrocity, many Americans (myself included) may not fully grasp how much reform our system needs and how successful other nations have been in implementing universal coverage.
Sicko set the tone for our Week of Action by so eloquently affirming the reasons why we planned this all in the first place. There are many significant events still upcoming: tabling on Library Mall today through Thursday, the letter writing campaign happening tonight in the SAC, and the highlight of the week – a panel of experts from a variety of professions related to the health care debate that will speak directly to us about the issues on Thursday. Please attempt to find some time in your schedule to join in these worthwhile events. This very well may end up being the most important issue that we tackle all year, and we could really use everyone’s support.
An ABC – Washington Post poll released today is absolutely chalked full of good news in the roller coaster ride that is this current health care debate…
Americans divide about evenly on the reform plan and Obama’s handling of health care alike neither better nor worse for him since summer. But 57 percent support one of the plan’s most contentious elements, a government-sponsored insurance option, and that soars to 76 percent if it’s limited to those who can’t get affordable private insurance.
The proposal of limiting the public option to those who can’t afford private plans and having it run by the states even garnered a majority of Republican support – 56%! However, before we get too excited about appeasing our friends on the other side of the aisle, the poll continues…
Indeed, Americans by 51-37 percent in this latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’d rather see a plan pass Congress without Republican support, if it includes a public option based on affordability, than with Republican backing but no such element.
This bleak picture for the opposition party continued with the news that Republican self-identification fell to a 26-year low of 20%. Only 19% of those polled indicated that they trusted the Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions for this country. While I don’t mean for the focus of this post to be Republican bashing, these numbers are almost certainly the result of Americans recognizing the need for change in the health care system and a conscious rejection of the Republicans’ “beat Obama at any cost” approach to taking care of our citizens.
This news also comes on the heels of (or was the cause of?) Senator Baucus’ (D-MT) comments today that the public option “issue is alive.” As chair of the Senate Finance Committee, he was the chief architect of the bill that was just passed last week by that body. His bill contained no form of public option, but must now be merged with a more liberal bill passed by the Senate Health Committee before reaching the full Senate.
There couldn’t be a better time for the College Democrats of Madison to take on the health care debate. Let’s keep the pressure on our elected officials and make sure every last American knows what is at stake.
As we embark on a whirlwind week of Health Care Action, I wanted to kick off the posts by pointing out how important it is to have Stephen Colbert and fellow patriots to keep us in check. (And hopefully toss a little bit of humor into what will be a serious week of work.)
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) revealed this afternoon during a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee that she will vote in support of the health care overhaul bill currently being debated. After months of attempting to solicit bipartisan support, this is a huge victory for Democrats and President Obama, who has personally appealed to the Republican Senator in recent weeks. Could this defection lead to more breaks in the iron curtain of Republican opposition to health care reform in Congress? Not likely… but we can certainly hope.
The Senate Finance Committee will vote this coming Tuesday on their version of a health care overhaul bill. The Baucus bill, named for the committee’s chair and primary author, was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to cost $829 billion, but would help reduce the federal deficit. Unfortunately, the plan still fails to cover about 25 million Americans and lacks a “public option” that many Democrats have been pushing for. However, this more centrist piece of legislation may be the Democrats best shot of finally passing some sort of reform on an issue that has been controversial between and within the parties. Disagree? Let me know in the comments below.
Posted by Molly Rivera 
The College Dems gathered last night to kick off the first evening of Health Care Week of Action with a screening of Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko. A big thanks to everyone who made it out! I hope you were all able to take as much away from it as I did.
(And hopefully toss a little bit of humor into what will be a serious week of work.)
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) revealed this afternoon during a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee that she will vote in support of the health care overhaul bill currently being debated. After months of attempting to solicit bipartisan support, this is a huge victory for Democrats and President Obama, who has personally appealed to the Republican Senator in recent weeks. Could this defection lead to more breaks in the iron curtain of Republican opposition to health care reform in Congress? Not likely… but we can certainly hope.
