Okay, I wanted the "public option." I wanted "Medicare for all." I did not get what I wanted. Still, Obama succeeded where there has been nothing but failure for the past half century. Where the Clintons failed. We have a much needed national health care system. Of course it needs improving. Of course it needs to cover the needs of all Americans, and there are those who are still left out in the cold.
To those who say it was not skillfully handled, that the process could have been a smoother one, that better communication would have made it so, I say: perhaps. There were ugly bumps along the way. But the opposition was implacable, and well-funded. And the thing got done.
I write this, of course, in the context of yesterday's unveiling of the Republican alternative, a thinly disguised and deeply misguided plan to kill not only the Obama health care plan but even Medicare itself--a system that enjoys the enthusiastic support of countless millions who reap its benefits, and many more who still count on it being there for them. Instead, we are offered the prospect of a plan that envisions the health care of Americans as a profit-making industry, a cash cow for the insurance companies at the expense of the rest of us.
To which I say, Long live Obamacare!
When I hear Obama's opponents speak, I hear nothing but concern for their small base of political supporters and their own political hides. It's my belief that this man really does care about the well-being of his fellow-citizens, and works his tail off for us.
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