Someone should abort that hairdo
“The absolute refusal of Republicans in the Senate to support health care reform and the hijacking of the bill by defenders of the insurance industry have brought us a Senate bill that is inadequate,” said Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO.
His criticism of GOP lawmakers aside, Trumka’s blast seemed aimed at Nelson, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and possibly other members of the Senate Democratic caucus who have stripped the legislation – a year in the making – of any form of government-run insurance option.
As I said from the beginning, the legislation would start out strong (public option) then in the end be stripped of anything good in it, help few people and cost too much. I hope it does fail, and so does Howard Dean;
Andrew Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, said he, too, is deeply disappointed in the proposal.
But, like Trumka, he stopped short of urging its defeat. Not so Howard Dean, the former national party chairman, who has said he opposes the legislation because it does not include a strong enough role for government in a remade health care system. Dean unleashed his criticism this week after Lieberman won the deletion of a proposed expansion of Medicare.
I would go farther and say Medicare should be available to everyone, it would be the ‘Public Option’. I have also felt that if you are going to force people to have private insurance there should be a 75-100% write off in your taxes for the cost of premiums, you would think that would be something the private insurance companies would support.
The legislation’s current form is a gigantic turd that won’t do anything for anyone, and for once, I agree with Thune, it needs to go down in flames. BUT, after the Holiday recess they need to start fresh, offer a strong public option TO EVERYONE and get it done before November 2010 when the Republicans will likely gain more seats.