Proud member of the Firebagger Lefty blogosphere!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Mandates are a disaster

The DailyKos, normally blind to actions and real intent of the Obama Administration, is starting to get a clue. They seem to now understand that the individual mandates in the Baucus Health Reform bill that would force people to pay a monthly tribute to the Health Insurance Deities are a disaster for the Democratic Party. Since the insurance they will be forced to buy will most certainly be junk the mandate will be wildly unpopular with the voters and the Democratic Party will rightly be blamed for them. Here's a link to the post and the important paragraphs:
"Under the Baucus plan, nothing would force the industry to compete for these new customers. Industry would effectively hold them hostage. The only proposal that's out there to provide the competition this system needs is the public option, and without it, the public will be held hostage to the whims of the private insurance industry.

The problem here isn't the notion of a mandate. A mandate -- or something like it -- is an essential part of reform because it requires everybody to take responsibility for the risks they impose on the system. But when the mandate forces people to buy private health insurance without offering an alternative, you have a situation that is untenable, and would quickly turn into a monumental political disaster for the Democratic Party."
However, the following paragraph shows that they really don't totally understand what's happening yet:
"The upcoming days and weeks will be the biggest test so far as to whether progressives in the House and Senate will be able to stick together to achieve meaningful change -- or whether they will simply roll over and cave once again to the special interests who own senators like Max Baucus and Kent Conrad."
Now, if they could just understand that Baucus and Conrad aren't acting on their own - they are just doing the bidding of the Obama administration we will really be getting somewhere. Obama is out enemy not the two stooges - Baucus and Conrad.

No comments: