Health Care and the Ds

Simple conclusions disappear in the complexity of the topic.  The nation stands, teetering and barely balanced, on the precipice of universal health care coverage.  It is a heroic accomplishment.  Especially because it is realized only by fighting through every bobby-trapped Republican-and that would be all of them-in the House and Senate.  Ds in the House show more style and substance than their crawling, scraping counterparts in the Senate.

Senate sausage makers would achieve universal coverage using a deeply flawed system.  Pumping billions into big health care corporations they reward the past casual exchange of human life for monetary profit.  Is it very different from handing billions to the Wall Street titans who now stand against minimal protective regulation?  The pattern holds no promise.

Ah but included are these new regulations of the health care corporations.  Yes but they’re invisible when you stand within view of regulations in Switzerland-a country successfully using a private system to provide universal coverage.

Tied in a Christmas bow is the bottom line question:  will we stand between 31 million Americans and health care coverage because we so hate the corrupt corporations that will provide it.  Howard Dean and MoveOn.org demonstrate the answer isn’t easy.  The good doctor notes the rising value of these corporate stocks as he warns that Senate Democrats condemn us to purgatory for decades.

Victory, even the bitter tasting, is victory.  Swallowing this pill should carry future rewards:  a Democratic party with the courage to learn and enforce minimal party discipline.  Hire political moving vans to carry “Democrats” willing to sacrifice common good for personal political gain to the home of their living dead soul mates-the Republicans.

And finally, our President must find his voice.  He grew hope from the soil of a very dark American chapter.  Carried to the White House on the shoulders of millions, audacity-not timidity-burned in the hearts of both army and general.

We hunger for audacity.  We need audacity.