Jajuna

The evidence is mounting that the health care reform bill will not include a public option. As reported today by Democracy Now, a recent Business Week article entitled “The Health Insurers Have Already Won” suggests that the medical-industrial complex, in collusion with their anti-democratic right-wing allies, have managed to shape the health reform debate to such a degree that it is all but certain that the Obama administration and the democrats (many of whom are also owned by big pharma and health insurance corps) will cave on the public option. Here is a qoute from the article:

The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable. Health reform could come with a $1 trillion price tag over the next decade, and it may complicate matters for some large employers. But insurance CEOs ought to be smiling.

As insightfully outlined by Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, this reform agenda is shaping up to be nothing more than a sham and an affront to democracy. If the democrats abandon a public option there will be nothing in place to keep the insurance companies honest and will guarantee trillions of dollars funneled directly from taxpayers into government subsidies for the health insurance companies. The abandonment of a public option will thus enable the further upward redistribution of wealth from the public to the private and is painfully indicative of the steady erosion of the American democratic project. I fear it also signals the looming failure of the Obama presidency.