Commentary
I’ve been following health reform since Candidate Obama promised, midst many other promises, that he would sign a universal health care bill within a short time after winning the presidency.
But, as of October 2009, we still do not see a health care bill. Neither do we see other campaign promised fulfilled, including Gitmo closed He promised not to tax anyone earning under $50,000—or was it under $250,000, 240,000, 200,000, or 150,000–who knows. He promised a five day period of review before either house passes a bill, to not approve any earmarks, but the first bill he signed included 9,000 of them, and many other promises that have failed.
I remember that passing a universal health care bill was one of Barack Obama’s major goals. He obviously has a lot of support. But, what has happened?
President Obama has garnered the support of the American Nurses Association, the American Medical Association (with only a fraction of American doctors involved), an agreement from drug companies to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors, which AARP supports.
The Democrats are continually pressured by Planned Parenthood, Naral, various Hispanic groups, i.e., National Council of La Raza, the Chicana Latina Foundation, Latin American Youth Center, National Latina Health Network, Congresso de Hispanics Unidos, and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund to include abortion costs in any health bill passed. This is interesting as most Hispanics are pro-life.
We add unions such as UAW, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and many smaller unions which are on board with a government health care package.
Then, we have many organizations against a government health care program for various reasons: Pro-life groups against taxpayer support of abortions, gun owners, Second Amendment support groups against an administration against gun ownership, and conservative groups against big government and high taxes, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who are against government policies destroying capitalism. The Democrats, who are financially supported by numerous special interest groups, are calling those groups against universal health care, ‘special interest groups.’
We know that the Republicans in congress in general are against a government sponsored bill. But, now we are seeing Blue-dog Democrats against a government health care, including a bill with a public option. And it has not been un-noticed that Republicans have been left out of many health care meeting.
One group, made up of individual citizens, which the government and many of the leftist news organizations are ignoring or trying to minimize, are beginning to make their voices heard. The tea party members and other citizens are flooding the White House, Senators, and Congressional Representatives with emails and telephone calls to the extent that switchboards and computer servers occasionally go down.
But a sleeping giant has been awakened, and a corrupt government will be hearing more and more from it.
