Why I'm Voting 'Yes'

[IndianaGreen]

Published on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

Why I'm Voting 'Yes'

by Dennis Kucinich

The following are the prepared remarks offered by US Rep. Kucinich today regarding his plans for the upcoming health care vote:

Each generation has had to take up the question of how to provide for the health of the people of our nation. And each generation has grappled with difficult questions of how to meet the needs of our people. I believe health care is a civil right. Each time as a nation we have reached to expand our basic rights, we have witnessed a slow and painful unfolding of a democratic pageant of striving, of resistance, of breakthroughs, of opposition, of unrelenting efforts and of eventual triumph.

I have spent my life struggling for the rights of working class people and for health care. I grew up understanding first hand what it meant for families who did not get access to needed care. I lived in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including in a couple of cars. I understand the connection between poverty and poor health care, the deeper meaning of what Native Americans have called "hole in the body, hole in the spirit". I struggled with Crohn's disease much of my adult life, to discover sixteen years ago a near-cure in alternative medicine and following a plant-based diet. I have learned with difficulty the benefits of taking charge personally of my own health care. On those few occasions when I have needed it, I have had access to the best allopathic practitioners. As a result I have received the blessings of vitality and high energy. Health and health care is personal for each one of us. As a former surgical technician I know that there are many people who dedicate their lives to helping others improve theirs. I also know their struggles with an insufficient health care system.

There are some who believe that health care is a privilege based on ability to pay. This is the model President Obama is dealing with, attempting to open up health care to another 30 million people, within the context of the for-profit insurance system. There are others who believe that health care is a basic right and ought to be provided through a not-for-profit plan. This is what I have tirelessly advocated.

I have carried the banner of national health care in two presidential campaigns, in party platform meetings, and as co-author of HR676, Medicare for All. I have worked to expand the health care debate beyond the current for-profit system, to include a public option and an amendment to free the states to pursue single payer. The first version of the health care bill, while badly flawed, contained provisions which I believed made the bill worth supporting in committee. The provisions were taken out of the bill after it passed committee.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/17-9

[AnOhioan]

1. I will still support Dennis in general...but today he made horrid decision

[NYC_SKP]

2. Last four paragraphs:

...However after careful discussions with the President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Elizabeth my wife and close friends, I have decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation. If my vote is to be counted, let it now count for passage of the bill, hopefully in the direction of comprehensive health care reform. We must include coverage for those excluded from this bill. We must free the states. We must have control over private insurance companies and the cost their very existence imposes on American families. We must strive to provide a significant place for alternative and complementary medicine, religious health science practice, and the personal responsibility aspects of health care which include diet, nutrition, and exercise.

The health care debate has been severely hampered by fear, myths, and by hyper-partisanship. The President clearly does not advocate socialism or a government takeover of health care. The fear that this legislation has engendered has deep roots, not in foreign ideology but in a lack of confidence, a timidity, mistrust and fear which post 911 America has been unable to shake.

This fear has so infected our politics, our economics and our international relations that as a nation we are losing sight of the expanded vision, the electrifying potential we caught a glimpse of with the election of Barack Obama. The transformational potential of his presidency, and of ourselves, can still be courageously summoned in ways that will reconnect America to our hopes for expanded opportunities for jobs, housing, education, peace, and yes, health care.

I want to thank those who have supported me personally and politically as I have struggled with this decision. I ask for your continued support in our ongoing efforts to bring about meaningful change. As this bill passes I will renew my efforts to help those state organizations which are aimed at stirring a single payer movement which eliminates the predatory role of private insurers who make money not providing health care. I have taken a detour through supporting this bill, but I know the destination I will continue to lead, for as long as it takes, whatever it takes to an America where health care will be firmly established as a civil right.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic Congressman from Ohio.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/17-9

:patriot:

[grantcart]

3. and I think we all agree on this

As this bill passes I will renew my efforts to help those state organizations which are aimed at stirring a single payer movement which eliminates the predatory role of private insurers who make money not providing health care

[provis99]

4. you might as well be spitting in the wind...

Single payer insurance is over, forever.

[IndianaGreen]

5. The for-profit monopoly has been enshrined into federal law, assuming HCR passes

The American people lost!

[grantcart]

6. Well that was not the experience in Canada, after a small provincial

half begining it was slowly expanded, the process took 20 years, it did not, as some like to think happen with a single piece of legislation.

Once a public option is added it will be a matter of time before most plans collapse against it.

Finally we have single payer, medicare and polls show that the highest resistance for its expansion are older Americans and Americans younger than 30 are much more for expanding government than any previous generation, even 5 years will make a dramatic change in the overall electorate.

Just like single sex marriage half the battle is simply a matter of waiting out natural selection.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Half the battle is overcoming the apathy that cries 'wait it out'

Someone once said, "justice delayed is justice denied" and I agree with him, not those who say sit home and wait, let your neighbors suffer, the young people coming up will deal with it.
Those who sit beside and wait out natural selection to bring justice, rather than rise up and make justice, make injustice occur.
Peace.

[grantcart]

8. Not suggesting we wait

replying to a poster who said that "single payer is dead forever".

[GinaMaria]

10. Health insurance cos. cannot survive against a PO

That's why they threw everything they had at preventing it. PO would be much more affordable compared to private plans. They cannot compete. While we wait for the right thing to happen, I will go back to volunteering at the free clinic to help those who do not have access to healthcare otherwise. As a nurse, I believe it is unethical to turn anyone away who needs help.

Peace

[GinaMaria]

9. I'm torn

On the one hand all I can think is "You broke my heart, Fredo. You broke my heart."

On the other hand, I hope he cut a good deal for single payer in exchange for his vote. I hope he walked away from this with something good for us. I hope it was worth it.