Hedging bets on a longshot…

I heard a Democratic strategist say today that it was more important to maintain the Democratic control of the House and Senate in the mid-term elections next year than to pass a public option.

Wrong. One of the most important things the Obama administration can achieve – whether in one term or two – is health care reform.

REAL health care reform.

Let’s face it, if history is a predictor, Democrats will lose a lot of seats in the mid-term elections, regardless of what goes on in the world. But will they lose enough to lose control? Their performance in the current session will have an impact, no doubt.

The first 22 months are the one sure shot they have at accomplishing the platform that got them elected in the first place. The question then becomes, what’s more important – achieving the most important of the goals, or hedging their bets on a long shot?

Real health care reform, achieved immediately, not by 2013 or 2020, will do more to win votes in 2010 than appeasing an electorate in districts that are iffy. For God’s sakes, the great majority of the people of this country want health care reform WITH A PUBLIC OPTION!

No amount of fancy bells and whistles, as Rep. Anthony Weiner says, that they keep cramming into the existing Senate Finance Committee bill will save enough money to make health insurance affordable, so any reform without a public option will fail. Pure and simple. And any bill that fails will put the nail in the coffin of affordable health care for all for generations to come.

True competition and choice will drive down the cost of health insurance, and help control the costs of health care in general. That will help ease the strain on the economy, give us a healthier population, and let us get on with other priorities.

No one who has a plan today will be forced to lose it because of a public option. Only those with no insurance get to “opt in” to the plan.

Is this really so hard to understand? If we don’t get this right, we won’t get another chance for decades to come.

This is only ONE of the important platform elements that elected Democrats. If they don’t achieve this, what hope do they have of fixing the economy? Getting out of Iraq? Defeating al qaeda and the Taliban? Limiting nuclear arms? Slowing down global warming? Improving education?

Any Democrat who won’t support – at the very least – an up or down vote on health care reform with a public option, should be investigated for either being on the payroll of the health insurance industry, or being a closet Republican.

What’s more, any Democrat who loses their seat to a Republican in 2010, given the ongoing disintegration of that party as we know it, clearly couldn’t articulate his or her message effectively to at least half of his/her overall constituency. Or worse, his/her Democratic constituents were completely disgusted at his/her lack of spine. Or much worse, everyone saw that he/she was more interested in keeping their job than doing what is so desperately needed for the health of the American people.

Wake up Blue Dogs! You’ll be ensuring your own demise if you join with the Republicans in obstructing health care reform!


JM