Check out Chris Hedge's commentary on the health care bill, "The Health Care Hindenburg Has Landed," at http://www.truthdig.com/, including these comments:
"The mendacity of the Democratic leadership in the face of this reality [of the broken health care system] is staggering. Howard Dean, who is a doctor, said recently: "This is a vote about one thing: Are you for the insurance companies or are you for the American people?" Here is a man who once championed the public option and now has sold his soul. What is the point in supporting him or any of the other Democrats? How much more craven can they get?
The bill is another example of why change will never come from within the Democratic Party. The party is owned and managed by corporations. The Washington Post reported that up to 30 members of Congress from both parties who hold key committee memberships have major investments in health care companies totaling between $11 million and $27 million.
Obama and the congressional leadership have consciously shut out advocates of single payer from the debate. The press, including papers such as The New York Times, treats single payer as a fringe movement. The television networks rarely mention it. And yet between 45 and 60 percent of doctors favor single payer. Between 40 and 62 percent of the American people, including 80 percent of registered Democrats, want universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans. The ability of the corporations to discredit and silence voices that represent at least half of the population is another sad testament to the power of our corporate state to frame all discussions.
Change will come only by building movements that stand in fierce and uncompromising opposition to the Democrats and the Republicans.
