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Public Option Battle Far From Over |
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Conservative Compass Blog
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Written by Bob Sordahl
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Sunday, 16 August 2009 |
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My friends, this morning the news is good , but beware, we face a determined foe. The Obama administration is waffling on the so called "public option" health insurance reform. They are signaling the possibility of dropping it from the legislation. Anyone with half a brain who read the CBO report knows that regardless of the various contentious provisions of the proposal, in whole it is fiscally unsustainable. What if the projected cost of this program balloons to nine times that estimate as Medicare did? Do we have any reason to believe that this federal program will be different from any other? Here are the facts: “Medicare (entire program). In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee predicted that the new Medicare program, launched the previous year, would cost about $12 billion in 1990. Actual Medicare spending in 1990 was $110 billion—off by nearly a factor of 10.”
Having said that, now is a very dangerous time. Like minded Conservatives around the Country are pushing hard enough for the administration to yield a bit. But watch out. There has been an unbelievable amount of money poured into this "public option" effort by many powerful special interest groups and industries. They will not walk away quietly or without a fight. If we let off on the pressure one bit, they will be back with their plan. They may call it something else (we have a short memory), or they may try to introduce it in small disconnected increments hoping we won't see the whole picture (we're a bunch of bumpkins).
Stay at it. Stay vigilant. This is a victory that can be won if we only want it bad enough to not give up. We've made our voices heard, and the Liberals in Congress are running scared. This is proof that our Country can move in the right direction, if we only hold our lawmakers accountable to our will. We may well win this particular battle, but the war to force common sense and fiscal responsibility upon the current leadership is far from over. Don't go home yet.
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