Damaged Almost Beyond Repair

After Joe "Short Ride" Lieberman's latest shenanigans obstructing meaningful health care reform, I decided that it was time again to write my Senator (the one with whom I might have an iota of influence). This is how it went.

Dear Senator Hagan,

I write to you today on the topic of the ongoing health care reform debacle in the Senate. Now that the public option has been stripped out, and the Medicare buy-in provision was bargained away, the bill that remains is far too industry-friendly. They may be forced to cover more people, but without competition, there is nothing to stop them from continuing to raise rates. With the subsidies remaining in the bill, they will not only be bankrupting families, but now also the US Treasury. This cannot be allowed. If the mandates and subsidies can be removed from the legislation, then the remainder can be passed as an insurance regulation bill; it would not be the fundamental reform that we need, but it would make the system a little fairer and more humane. If the mandates and subsidies are allowed to remain in the bill, then the bill should die.

Somehow, a Republican minority has maneuvered a Democratic majority into what is nearly a lose-lose situation - pass the existing bill and the insurance companies bloat up unaccountably at taxpayers' expense, or kill it and you will have "failed" at your reform mission. The only way out politically is to pass a purely regulatory bill, by reconciliation if necessary, and call it reform.

I hope you take my thoughts and those of other progressives into account when you make your admittedly difficult decision on this important legislation.

Happy Holidays.