The job of President, when it is applied to the greatest issues before us, is not to explain stuff to us, nor is it to cut backroom deals, all though that's part of it. The job of the leader of the free world is to demand accountability from congress, and to lead the entire country forward. The job isn't a legislative one, it is an executive one, but the President seems to want to serve as the chair of a phantom legislative committee where he observes from above and makes a few suggestions while the members of his own party fall out of line. The reason health care legislation is in the sad state it's in, is that the activists here, at MoveOn, ActBlue, FireDogLake, and all the workers, callers, donors and creative professionals who have put everything they had into helping the President get comprehensive reform accomplished this year have been left holding a bag of fail, while the President negotiates with the people who created the problem negotiating away most of the essential elements of real reform. Does anybody think giving tax credits to people who can no longer work for their insurance coverage will improve the system? Does anybody think an individual mandate without cost controls guaranteed by the Federal government will help people afford insurance? Does anybody believe negotiating with people who have opposite goals, and whose actions are antithetical to reform are the people to depend on to institute reform? Does anybody believe that progressives with real conviction should be happy to just fall in line under these circumstances? The correct answer is no. HELL, no! I'm ready to fight, to work, to give, to risk failure - but only for something worth winning. It is no longer the time to restudy the issue. Everyone who is serious about health care knows that private, for-profit health care delivery is a failure, not because of doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes or researchers, but because too many of these health care providers are more responsible to stockholders than patients, and they cannot change it themselves. Only the Federal Government can do that. We elected a whole bunch of Democrats to fix health care, end the Middle East wars, and set the nation on a responsible course on a whole host of interrelated environmental issues. These people are not doing the job we sent them to Washington to do. The President is the only single person who can look these people in the eye and tell them what he wants, and what he expects. Then he needs to tell us the same things. Then he needs to hold his convictions and hold his ground, and he needs to fight. When he does, I'll be there to fight with him. |