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Views > February 19, 2008

Political Climate Change

By Joel Bleifuss

Paul Krugman, president of the Hillary Clinton fan club, writes in his New York Times column that if Barack Obama gets the nomination, there is no chance “that we will get universal healthcare in the next administration.” He has criticized Obama for not supporting mandates, as Clinton does, that require everyone to buy insurance.

Lost in this debate is one stark fact: Neither Clinton nor Obama are proposing a clean break with our for-profit insurance system.

Both Clinton’s and Obama’s plans allow for the possibility of a public plan replacing private insurance at some point in the future. But given the realities of Washington, it is easy to imagine a scenario in which the public’s money would subsidize a grossly expensive and inefficient private system into the indefinite future. At a time when progressives are starting to dream big again, why settle for a compromise with Corporate America?

Critiquing the Clinton plan in a Times op-ed in December, Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein wrote, “The ‘mandate model’ for reform rests on impeccable political logic: avoid challenging insurance firms’ stranglehold on healthcare. But it is economic nonsense. The reliance on private insurers makes universal coverage unaffordable … [O]nly a single-payer system of national healthcare can save what we estimate is the $350 billion wasted annually on medical bureaucracy, and redirect those funds to expanded coverage.”

There is really nothing to debate. According to Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org), Canadians, who have a single-payer universal system, spend far less per capita on healthcare and have better access to it than Americans.

The point is not that Clinton and Obama should see the light and endorse single-payer universal healthcare. That would be too much to expect, considering that the two candidates have taken $2.8 million and $2.2 million, respectively, from the healthcare sector, according to the Center for Responsive Politics website (opensecrets.org).

Progressives should reject the convoluted public/private hybrid systems championed by Krugman, Clinton and Obama, and say, “No thanks, we can do better.”

But why stop there?

An out-of-control War Department (as it was called until the age of polite euphemisms) will eat up 56 percent of the proposed discretionary budget for 2008, at a time when many urban and rural communities have Third World school systems.

Our criminal injustice industry has created a whole class of separate and unequal citizens: poor young men (and women)—white, black and brown—who cycle in and out of court and prison.

Candidates can’t be—and shouldn’t be—the vehicle for all of our hopes and dreams.

Clinton, Obama and others who aspire to federal office are constrained by the political realities of a system that was bought and paid for long ago.

Fortunately, we the people owe nothing to special interests. It is our job as advocates, activists and agitators to change the political climate in which politicians operate and to make the wrath of the angry multitude more fearsome than the displeasure of the lobbyist.

To quote an old song, “We want no condescending saviors, to rule us from their judgment hall.” Universal, single-payer healthcare? Functioning schools? Well-paying jobs for the dispossessed? We can do it.

Joel Bleifuss is the editor of In These Times, where he has worked as an investigative reporter, columnist and editor since 1986. Bleifuss has had more stories on Project Censored's annual list of the “10 Most Censored Stories” than any other journalist.

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  • Reader Comments

    I appreciate your points about defense budgets, and campaign financing, and single payer, etc., and in response I’d just add the url for the True Majority “Oreos” animation.
    http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/

    But the swipe at Krugman just isn’t right. It’s true he’s critical of Obama, but he’s hardly the “president of the Hillary Clinton fan club.” That’s just childish, Mr. Bleifuss.

    Posted by monkyhead on Feb 19, 2008 at 6:13 AM

    “Clinton, Obama and others who aspire to federal office are constrained by the political realities of a system that was bought and paid for long ago.”

    Yes, unfortunately there is little self-constraint in making un-fundable promises.

    Al Gore said he wanted all of us to have the same kind of health care the Congress has, which was of course, a totally unaffordable goal.

    I would be satisfied if somehow we could limit the Congress to benefits and salaries based on their constituencies. We would see much more effort to solve real problems and a lot fewer committee blocked proposals.

    Before we can expect tax reform, health care, or any other significant “change” we need to restore government of the people, by the people and for the people.

    Those in D.C. —
    • Set their own pay (automatic increases)
    • Create their own benefit plan
    • Control the agenda (committee mtgs off camera)
    • Put on a show of working for the masses

    We are powerless to impose term limits, force election varification, or any other action to remove the power which Congress has gradually assumed.

    What are the chances of a Constitutional Convention or amendment to limit their powers?

    We are evolving from a two party system into a two class system — those who make the rules and the rest of us.

    Posted by whattheheck on Feb 19, 2008 at 9:02 AM

    Well put, sir, especially your reference to The Department of War. Whether a progressive challenge of the established order is a viable option remains, of course, THE question. Observing the demise of the no-nonsense Congressman from Ohio and the ballsy litigator from Carolina was disheartening for those of us who cling to the prospect of at least token endorsement of leftist ideas from the Democratic party. Reading your writings for the past 20 years, I realize that no one has to convince you of our political system’s entrenched mockery of equal justice for all and that slogan hailing of, by and for. In the end, we have the comfort of knowing that, as always, virtue remains its own reward.  Without the Democratic party, we have, at present, nothing. I would urge you to devote yourself to exposing the opposition’s dangerously undemocratic predispositions and presentiments rather than score the likes of Mr. Krugman, who remains a rare example of mainstream journalism’s “liberal” commitment. Go get ‘em, Joel. Considering the Republican party’s actions and plans of the 21st century, they deserve no mercy and we need, desperately, the incisive and relentless journlism that has earned you the editor’s chair of one of the principal prongs of our attack on propriety, ITT. We have no choice but to support an establilshment candidate. You can’t wear a red star to the ball, but you can shadow those who seek to maintain that shadow of evil that GOP machinations have envinced from Mitchell to Gonzalez, Haldemann to Rove, Agnew to Cheney, Nixon to Bush. Si?

    Posted by Bud Wizer on Feb 20, 2008 at 6:10 AM

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