Bingaman Fades; The Corrupt Core of the U.S. Senate Comes Into Full View; Is Obama One of Them?

Something tells me that, UNLESS I SEE DEMOCRATS FIGHTING and ADVOCATING PUBLICLY FOR THE PUBLIC OPTION AND REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM, I'll be one of those people at the handful of town halls we'll be offered who'll be chanting JUST SAY NO. For different reasons than the teabaggers, but just about as vehemently. What is being agreed to now by corporate shills in the dark recesses of the Capitol cannot be allowed to stand.

This morning I am thinking of all the wonderful, hard-working, honest, compassionate and well-informed people who have worked for years -- some for many decades -- to achieve for Americans what every single other advanced Democracy already has: a health care system that is affordable and provides high quality care to everyone, rich or poor, sick or well. The dedicated and passionately executed work of all those advocates and ordinary citizens is right now being undercut and mocked by the corrupt and venal forces who run the U.S. Senate -- and maybe even the White House. Who is fighting for the people? You tell me. When push comes to shove, they all seem ready to fall in line with the corporatist juggernaut.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman took it upon himself to break the news to New Mexicans in a thoroughly maddening interview with the Albuquerque Journal this Saturday morning. He didn't speak to those who have worked so long and hard for genuine health care reform. He didn't come out and meet his constituents face to face. He didn't send any direct messages to his supporters. No, he chose the compromised defender of all things corporatist -- the Albuquerque Journal -- to print his words of betrayal.

Oh, the Senator -- you know, in his heart of hearts -- supports the public option. But not enough to advocate in public for the necessity of having it in any bill that can pass muster as anything resembling genuine health care reform. No, he now believes we can achieve very much the same results with so-called "nonprofit co-ops" -- a creepy dodge of real reform devised by the insurance industry. The goal? To trick the people into thinking there is something being done to blunt the greed-fueled money grubbing of the corporate interests. The Senator surely knows this is the case, and yet he has the nerve to tell the interviewer that everything is fine, and we can depend on the "negotiations" of the Gang of Six oinkers who have been giving away the store for months and months, behind closed doors. Without even the imput of the rest of the Senate Finance Committee. At the direction of the Max Baucus-Kent Conrad-Charles Grassley donation-sucking machine -- assisted by Rahm Emanuel. By some of the very worst members of a U.S. Senate packed with the corrupt, the compromised and the arrogant.

It's finally clear -- the dream of Democrats in power, working to represent the will of the people regarding health care reform, is dead. Instead, we are going to get a "reform" bill crafted in every detail by Big Pharma, the mega-insurance corporations and every entrenched interest in the provider network. We are going to get a bill written with the lobbyists at the table, serviced by those like the craven Max Baucus and Kent Conrad, and designed to shovel huge quantities of cash into the coffers of the "industry," while putting a stop to every single provision that could conceivably force them to cut their monstrous profits to a justifiable level.

Instead, all of the "savings" will be taken from Medicare, Medicaid and our hides. Because, you know, we cannot abide forcing the profit slobberers to live like moral human beings. The business of America is business -- and maximizing profits for big business no matter how many people it maims or kills.

The headline screams at the top of the paper: BINGAMAN: 'PUBLIC OPTION' ON THE ROPES. Read it and weep.

So does Bingaman complain about the awful forces working against real change? No, he defends them and lies to claim the "co-ops" will do pretty much the same thing a public option would. Right, that's why the Baucus crooks will have no part of a real public option, but think the co-ops would be peachy keen. Do you think we're that stupid, Senator? Some quotes from Bingaman:

... says he still supports a so-called "public option" coverage plan but that overall Senate support is fading.

... said a compromise proposal to establish health care co-ops, or nonprofit, member-operated health cooperatives, to compete with insurers could achieve many of the same goals.

... I voted for a public option and I prefer a public option, but you could make a good case you could accomplish a lot of the same things through this mechanism.

... "I don't think its dead in the water," Bingaman said of the public option, "but there is a lot of opposition."

... said he would not oppose a bill simply because it did not contain a public option.

And then there's this topper:

"I don't know of any Republican in the Senate who has said they would support a public option, and several Democrats have said they would not. As they learn more about what's involved, those views could change [emphasis mine]."

Can you beat that? At this late date, when the Senate just went into recess, Bingaman thinks the bought-off Senate racketeers may suddenly have a change of heart once they're educated about the public option? What the hell does he think has been going on for months, with real Democrats, nurses, doctors with morality and advocates for real health care reform flooding the nation and the Congress with the facts? Does Bingaman really believe it's a matter of better education on the public option? If so, why isn't he willing to do that -- by speaking out on the details, by holding public town halls to inspire people to take a stand, to go on TV and tell the truth?

No Public Events for Bingaman
Get this. Despite the fact that Bingaman is one of the chosen (by whom?) Senators who have met behind closed doors for what seems like eons to draft the Senate Finance Committee bill -- he doesn't feel obliged to schedule a single public event in New Mexico during the August recess. It's not in the online Journal as far as I can tell -- just in the paper -- but here's what Bingaman's office says about what he'll be doing this month:

Sen. Jeff Bingaman does not host town hall forums, and instead prefers to meet with small constituent groups. Bingaman's staff encouraged constituents to contact his office to relay concerns, or to request a meeting: http://bingaman.senate.gov.

Notice you haven't heard of this before now. I wonder which "constituents" Bingaman has decided to meet with. You can guess, can't you? He'll probably be partying down with all the big donors from the health care "industry" to celebrate how well the public has been snookered by the special interests. Yahoo! Another win for the entrenched, corrupt big money players! No reason to worry boys! You KNEW in the end we'd topple real health care reform in favor of more money for the usual suspects!

Oh, and don't forget you can request a meeting with Jeff. Well, except I've heard those slots were all filled weeks ago. You know how it's done. And in the final indignity to the little people, Bingaman's office told me they don't -- as a matter of policy -- release his schedule. So we don't know where Bingaman will be traveling this month, we don't know who he'll be meeting with and we don't get to see him at any public events. How convenient. Hey, Senator, why not just spend the recess in Martha's Vineyard or flyfishing at Max Baucus' ranch in Montana like the rest of the monied movers and shakers, and not even pretend to serve the riff-raff in your district?

Where's President Change-We-Can-Believe-In?
President Obama -- who has never taken a strong stand on any detailed provisions he is ready to fight for in a reform bill -- seems totally content to accept a watered-down, lobbyist-written bill as some kind of "success." He seems to want a notch on his belt for "health care reform" even if the bill he signs may well do more harm than good after the industry hacks get done with it. A bill without any effective way to rein in the exploding pricing of the private insurers? Who cares! We'll take our "savings" out of Medicare, Medicaid and those other "entitlement" programs used by low-income and middle class Americans. After all, the corporatists on both sides of the aisle can't stand that kind of spending. There aren't any rich, elite lobbyists throwing money to members of Congress from the "entitlement" side.

The Gang of Six met with Obama on Thursday at the White House to give him an update.

"He encouraged us to keep up the effort, and try to find something we felt comfortable with [emphasis mine]," Bingaman said.

We wouldn't want the Senators to feel uncomfortable about sticking a knife into the backs of health care reformers and sick people everywhere, now would we? Well, we did learn this week that Obama had already given away the store months ago to Billy Tauzin and Big Pharma behind closed doors in the White House. He made a secret deal with the drug bigwigs, pledging that he wouldn't "allow" Congress to give Medicare the right to negotiate drug prices with the handful of drugmakers that dominate the world.

Remember way back in the days of HOPE, when Obama pledged to the American people that he would never allow legislation to be written by lobbyists -- you know, the way George Bush did it? Now, with each passing day, we are seeing more and more evidence that Obama and his Senate co-conspirators have done just that. Once again I quote one of my favorite members of Congress -- one who has the heart and soul and guts to be a real Democrat, a real progressive, a real representative of Hispanics and all Americans:

In an interview on Wednesday, Representative Raul M. Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who is co-chairman of the House progressive caucus, called Mr. Tauzin’s comments “disturbing.”

“We have all been focused on the debate in Congress, but perhaps the deal has already been cut,” Mr. Grijalva said. “That would put us in the untenable position of trying to scuttle it.”

He added: “It is a pivotal issue not just about health care. Are industry groups going to be the ones at the table who get the first big piece of the pie and we just fight over the crust?

Sure seems like it to me. Now the question becomes whether we want to support a tarnished, watered down, pseudo-reform bill that may give our President and Congressional Dems a hollow victory, but do very little to enact the health care system overhaul we need. We've seen how the reform bill passed by Massachusetts -- which looks very much like the "compromise" bill shaping up in Senate Finance -- has resulted in skyrocketing costs and heaps of dinero for the for-profit industry, while failing to achieve universal coverage. 

Is this what we want on a national basis? I don't think so.

I think we need to push our members of Congress harder than ever before to demand that a strong public option be included in any bill they vote for. Period. Without it, we have nothing but faux-reform, drafted by the greedy profit suckers for the greedy profit suckers. Do you agree?

We've already compromised hugely with the White House and the corporate medical-industrial-technology complex on the best way to reform health care coverage -- a single payer system. We've been pushed to accept a public option instead, and we've watched as that's been side-swiped and weakened by the DC lobbying command center. Now we're being told we can't even have that crumb. Enough is enough.

As I said at the beginning of this post -- something tells me that, UNLESS I SEE DEMOCRATS FIGHTING and ADVOCATING PUBLICLY FOR THE PUBLIC OPTION AND REAL REFORM, I'll be one of those people at the handful of town halls we'll be offered who'll be chanting JUST SAY NO. For different reasons than the teabaggers, but just about as vehemently. 

Are you with me?