Sanitas

The absent blogger Greg asked me to write a post about the recent battle in the senate over health care. The question I asked myself is what exactly do I write about? Do I go into detail about how Joe Lieberman uses live penguins as firewood? Should I go into a rant concerning how Howard Dean is really Frankenstein's monster and secretly sucks his thumb while listening to the Pet Shop Boys?

All that aside the one thing the American people will hopefully realize, finally, is how horribly corrupt and staggeringly inefficient the federal government is. Anyone who's tuned into CSpan and have watched the blood suckers debate for over a day on what to name a federal building should already know this, but voters have a really short memory.

Nationalized health care, or even simple insurance reforms, is not a new idea. Franklin Roosevelt attempted it as well as Truman, Johnson, Nixon, and various others have presented...wait a minute...Nixon? Richard Nixon's administration wanted congress to pass reformations regarding tightening the industry's policies?

Everything seems so different now.

Many pundits claimed that now is the time for a change in America's health care system and what better way to bring it about than under the watch of the messiah of the Democratic party? Obama campaigned hard that he would revamp the system for the benefit of all. Then he got inaugurated with a strong Democratic majority and people believed that his promise would come true easily.

They forgot about what really rules Congress, the lobbyists. Yes some seem to be shocked that politicians usually vote along the lines of corporations that fill their pockets with cash and provide them with high priced call girls, designer drugs, and loose moraled interns. The shock waves rippled through the media and the discourse shifted dramatically. Teabaggers protested in numbers exaggerated by Fox and Palin warned against death panels. Congress people desperate to explain the merits of the bill were being shouted down by unknowing pawns with the capacity of their lungs surpassing their brains.

It got stupid. Real stupid.

Obama then decided he'd lay back and watch the fireworks. Instead of going to states that were represented by Senators who were on the fence and telling the people how this will be in their best interest he seems to have packed his schedule with other things. Granted he's a busy man. I get that, but if he really wanted this to pass he should show a little more effort.

I have to hand it to the lobbyists. They've drug this out so long that people are starting not to care. The American people have little patience with domestic policy debate. With the economy still in the toilet the public is burnt out on hearing about how we all might lose our right to quality health care, even though we rank very low in industrialized nations. People have bought into the fears of having a single payer system, something that's nowhere in the bill, and somehow the public option will force the insurance companies out of business even though it covers people that don't have insurance. The logic of those arguments beguile me and should most. They've done a good job and my hats off to them

Sadly those that do care have done little to combat this lobby.

We could have better health care and we don't have to rely on the feds for it. We could have reforms in our own state, but we won't. We'll make excuses not to write a simple email to our senators or stand in front of a Costco for four hours on a Saturday asking people to sign a petition to ballot. We instead will look a body of people who are far removed from representing us and can't even pass a bill on a simple majority.

I seriously want to amend the constitution to not require this 60 vote nonsense.

Let's see what happens on Monday.