Party loyalty is one thing. Actually killing off a bunch of Red Staters is another. That’s what Harry Reid’s working on, though—a bill that will kill people who live in the South, midwest and other places with dense (no pun intended) populations of Republicans and Tea Party people. Okay, the bill won’t actually kill them. They’ll commit suicide. The bill just gives them a loaded gun.
What the hell am I talking about? I’m talking about the merged health care reform bill that Harry Reid is trying to get together to present to the whole Senate for a vote. I’m talking about the one with the disappearing public option—the one that allows the individual states to opt-out of the public option insurance program. The one that will empower Tennesseans, Georgians and South Carolinians to condemn their fellow citizens to death with a simple vote of their state legislatures.
“Oh, heck, don’t be such a reactionary,” a lot of you Democrats will say. “You don’t understand. It’s a good thing. That stuff about how the states can opt out—that’s just political cover for those Blue Dog Democrats whose constituents don’t like the public option. It’ll let ‘em go back to their districts without catching too much hell from the Tea Party people. Ain’t none of those state legislatures gonna be dumb enough to opt out of the federal program.”
Think not? Think again.
This isn’t new. We’ve tried this opt-opt nonsense before. Let me tell you how it worked out.
Back in the late Seventies it became painfully obvious that the country’s bankruptcy code needed an overhaul. Though we didn’t have any debtor’s prisons at the time, our bankruptcy laws were relics of the 19th Century. The bankruptcy process left families with little more than the shirts on their backs and the family Bible. It left many families homeless. We needed a new law.
After working for more than three years on new, modern bankruptcy legislation that met the needs of the country, Democrats ultimately caved in to bought and paid for conservative senators who demanded that each state be allowed to opt out of the heart of the new legislation—the property exemptions it provided for debtors. Within days of the passage of the reform act Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina had opted out, effectively denying the citizens of those states the benefits of 20th Century bankruptcy reform. Within just a few months, more states had opted out than remained in.
By 2005 the Republicans and Blue Dogs were in a position to kill every last teensy-weensy provision of the bankruptcy code that did not meet favor with their financial industry overlords. In that year the Republicans enacted a new bankruptcy law, grandly named the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, that stripped away every remaining debtor friendly provision that remained in the 1979 Bankruptcy Reform Act. So draconian was the new code that even Republicans blushed at the thought of putting the bill in front of the American people.
They pondered how to make the new bill more presentable. Lipstick alone wasn’t likely to conceal the porsine character or barnyard odor of their obscene bill. Then, they were reminded of the gadget play that had worked so well in 1979—the opt-out provision that gave badly needed exemptions with the right hand while taking them away with the left. Voila, they did it again!
The 2005 bankruptcy act provides a reasonable schedule of exemptions which a debtor can claim under the federal statute. However, those exemptions are not available to the citizens of Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina or any of the 33 states whose legislatures have seen fit to opt out of the federal exemptions. The fresh start of bankruptcy, the very reason a debtor would seek bankruptcy protection in the first place, is denied to the citizens of 33 states. So will health care be.
It’s a certainty. You can count on it. The Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats are counting on it, and they know what they’re doing. A health care reform bill with an opt-out provision will mean no health care reform at all for most of America. It will mean that the corrupt health insurance companies win again. It’s a sham. It’s a fraud. It’s goddam treachery of the most despicable kind. It’s murder.
But, what the hell… it’s also the American way.
photo credit: phil scoville
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I don’t know why everyone seems to be taking their eye off the ball now as health care reform efforts move into a very critical period. NOW IS THE TIME TO WRITE, CALL AND EMAIL HARRY REID and make it known that we want a REAL PUBLIC OPTION.