The Lethal Downside To The Health Reform Bill

By not attempting to pass any form of universal health care, President Obama has helped condemn 23,000 Americans a year to unnecessary deaths.

How did this lethal equation come into being?

Why was Single Payer never pushed by the White House?

Why was the Public Option given the most meager of lip service by Obama?

Who decided 23,000 deaths a year was acceptable collateral damage?

Did anyone ever actually say, “Mr. President, if you don’t push for universal coverage, we can get this through and you won’t expend any of your political capital. Only 23,000 Americans will die every year, but that’s OK with us.”

Why aren’t more people discussing the deals made by the White House with the pharmaceutical companies and the hospitals? Did these deals have anything to do with the White House not campaigning for Single Payer or universal health care? Have these deals ever been published on the Web or anywhere else? Or were these the ultimate backroom arrangements which will leave 23,000 Americans a year to die?

Transparency in this White House? I think not.

The argument used is that this pitiful health care reform bill was the best they could do. I’m not going to get into why that is a laughable defense, but we all know, you can’t win if you don’t try. The White House didn’t try. Never once did Obama use his bully pulpit to demand that 23,000 Americans not die each year.

23,000 living Americans are just a bit more important than “bending the cost curve.”

Today 23,000 Americans a year will be allowed to die unnecessary deaths. That’s less than it would have been without this present bill but it is the least that could have been done. It is a meager achievement at best and a massive sales job by the insurance companies at worst.

Today 23,000 Americans a year might have been saved if President Obama had raised his voice in righteous indignation and demanded that the right to health care be enforced in this country.

But instead Obama did nothing to save them.

Obama and all those in government who did not use the power of their positions to demand universal health care, have chosen to allow 23,000 Americans a year to die unnecessarily.

For someone known for his oratory, President Obama kept surprisingly silent as 23,000 Americans a year were left to die.

Congratulations on passing your bill.
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