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.
In the newest edition of Rethinking Schools Fred McKissack reminds us that while Obama’s election marks an historic moment for racial justice in America it far from signals the achievement of a post-racial society.
From his article:
Exactly how can we be in post-racial America when nearly 40 percent of black children under the age of 5 live at or below the poverty line? How are we in post-racial America when the level of school segregation for Latinos is the highest in 40 years and segregation of blacks is back to levels not seen since the late 1960s? How are we in post-racial America when the gaps in wealth, income, education, and health care have widened over the last eight years? In 2006, 20.3 percent of blacks were not covered by health insurance, compared to only 10.8 percent of whites. For Latinos, a whopping 34.1 percent were not covered. In 2007, the unemployment rate for blacks was twice as high as that for whites. We are all Americans, but the pain of poverty is disproportionately cracking the backs of minorities. There are those who insist that the gap in wealth, income, health care and education is due to an inherent culture of victimization. If people of color only worked harder, they’d be fine, we are told. But it’s a flawed premise. This economy has never provided enough jobs for everyone. The funding of education gives a leg up to those who grow up in wealthy districts. Lack of health insurance is a necessity for those without the means. And institutional racism persists. Now is not the time to avert our eyes from the prize. Indeed, the nation needs to refocus its attention on tearing down the walls that keep us from living in a truly post-racial America.
If we are to “tear down the walls that keep us from living in a truly post-racial America” then we will have to radically recommit to the ideals of public education in a democratic society. This is why Obama’s appointment of Arne Duncan marks such a dangerous moment for the future of race, education, and democracy in America. Which path will the new ed secretary follow? The path of privatization, high-stakes tests, and zero-tolerance instituted in Chicago? Now is not the time for more market driven solutions to social problems. If we are to realize the promise of a more egalitarian multicultural society where all children are afforded the same life chances regardless of race, class, and gender then foremost on the politcal agenda must be to institute broad-based progressive reforms for public education. Its up to us to push Obama and Duncan down this path.
Currently there is a growing mobilization of corporate interests who view the excessive emphasis on rote-learning and high-stakes testing mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act as harmful to workforce development. Enter the 21st Century Skills coalition whose board of directors is made up of representatives from some of the most powerful corporations in the United States. This network has developed an educational framework which they are pushing on individual states and are agressively lobbying to make official policy under the Obama administration.
At its root the 21st century Skills partnership represents a pro-corporate plan for education which advocates widening curricular mandates in order to produce more entrepreneurial, flexible, and creative workers. On the surface the proposals may strike some as representing much needed progressive reforms, for instance the skills framework calls for media and civic literacy programs. However, when one spends any amount of time reading the policy papers of 21st Century Skills their agenda appears far from civic oriented. Instead, it promotes the privatization of public education and the commercialization of curriculum. For those concerned with the direction of public education under the Obama adiministration, the 21st Centruy Skills partnership is definitely an entity to start monitoring.