This is the solution to our health care crisis. We all ultimately turn to God during times of crisis. This will create a propagating, everlasting, taxable income stream that will create jobs, pay for socialized health care and rebuild social security.

We’ve already cut clothing, OTC meds (only enough to buy the required RX), treats and niceties like the monthly candy bar, gone. Most likely we’ll go back to the strategies we used when we were younger, only running one light or appliance at a time, nothing on during the day, showering once a week, walking rather than driving, cutting computer use by 70% (although internet access is a fixed cost and required for both our job-loads), and not using the furnace unless the temp drops below 40F. We already got a letter from Aetna announcing the “enhanced” insurance packet–most of our needs will not be covered, we already cut my mental health costs by not taking care of me, my son was next, my daughter, well, she’s no longer covered any longer. Math is hard enough for me. I’ve been having to do a lot of it lately. I never thought I’d be teaching my kids how to mooch off wealthier friends. But I just did that this morning, aware of just how much less income we’re about to have under the congressional debacle and our insurer’s quick action to cut coverage and increase premiums and copays.

Pretty tough to envision anything but a dystopia when the harder we work the less we have and now, after a decade of steadily losing everything, home, vehicles, clothing, and now, many more basics because we’re required to pay for Aetna’s executive-level opulence, thanks to Congress and the owning-class who have all the power. Fantastic. Just fantastic.

I’m out of the fight. There’s nothing more I can do. I cannot afford to do anything but become a hyper-conserver and hyper-vigilant against spending any money beyond my mandated premiums. I’m just overwhelmed with joy and gratitude right now.

The reality is that it is unlikely that the Senate would ever pass something we liked. Maybe we have to organize to get senators to eliminate the super-majority for cloture (60 votes)–which, BTW, Harry Reid could change tomorrow with the backing of a majority of Dems in the caucus).

Quoting Ted Kennedy solves nothing. Progressives must move beyond outrage to real plans for action. In ACT/UP we said that “anger=action” and we did act. Voicing anger alone does nothing to remedy the situation.

Meanwhile, while we are furious that the insurance companies are richer, 30 million more people have some security about their health needs being met, numerous people who would be denied care because of pre-existing conditions, etc will be served, etc, etc. How does Obermann balance out these real gains with his outrage at corporate profits? why doesn’t he call for an excess profits tax (could be levied on other induistries too–say to pay for all these wars, etc such as was done in the past)? Call for organizing to remove anti-trust exemption that the insurance industry enjoys? etc.

He is wealthy enough to self-insure, so he wouldn’t risk loosing health care by his tactic. most others would–is that all we can do, ask folks to give up these real gains to try to pressure legislators? Why would legislators be moved by that when they have been so little moved by the existing situation of people going without health care. illogical.

The bill which has passed out of the Senate meets what I refer to as the Potter criteria and must be opposed by any person of conscience:

“If Congress … fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the President might as well be called ‘The Insurance Industry Profit Protection And Enhancement Act.’” — Wendell Potter, former Communications Director for health insurance giant CIGNA.

The strongest opposition statement which I have seen, the strongest statement with an plan of action, was outlined by Keith Olbermann in one of his [in]famous Special Comments:

“The Senate bill with the mandate must be defeated, if not in the Senate, then in the House. Health care reform that benefits the industry at the cost of the people is intolerable and there are no moral constructs in which it can be supported. And if still the bill and this heinous mandate become law there is yet further reaction required. I call on all those whose conscience urges them to fight, to use the only weapon that will be left to us if this bill becomes law. We must not buy federally mandated insurance if this cheesy counterfeit of reform is all we can buy. No single payer? No sale. No public option? No sale. No Medicare buy-in? No sale. I am one of the self-insured, albeit by choice. And I hereby pledge that I will not buy this perversion of health care reform. Pass this at your peril, Senators, and sign it at yours, Mr. President. I will not buy this insurance. Brand me a lawbreaker if you choose. Fine me if you will. Jail me if you must. But if the Medicare Buy-In goes, but the Mandate stays, the people who fought so hard and so sincerely to bring sanity to this system must kill this mutated version of their dream, because those elected by us to act for us have forgotten what must be the golden rule of health care reform. It is the same one to which physicians are bound, by oath: First do no harm.” — Keith Olbermann.

Keith Olbermann and Howard Dean are two of my political heroes. Both said that the bill which has emerged from the Senate is cr*p designed to fertilize the insurance thieves’ — er, companies’ profits at the expense of the common citizen. Dean initially called for the death of the bill but now says that the problems can be repaired in conference with enough effort. However K.O. has gone further and called not just for the dismantling of this travesty but for active resistance to it. How many of us will follow him to the streets, to the barricades, to the jails?

Adequate quality health care will only become a basic human right here in the U.S. if we take to the streets in civil disobedience as those who marched and sat-in refused to cooperate with immoral laws during the earlier civil rights push of the 60s. Health care is the civil rights issue of our time.

“This struggle [for freedom] may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” — Frederick Douglass.

The struggle for the civil rights issue of our time must be taken to the streets, to the community centers, to the corridors of power. We must not accept what is given if it is less than quality adequate health care as a basic human right.

“The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” — Senator Edward Moore Kennedy.

Let us pray that quality adequate health care as a basic human right does not remain a dream for our people and that we are not watching the health care system morph into an even greater health care nightmare for America. Let us pray that our hopes for real health care reform are not killed by institutional power. Let us pray tht the cause is not further eroded by the political equivalent of the “death of a thousand cuts”. Let us pray for the strength to persist in the work so that our children and grandchildren willl live in a culture which has finally caught up to the standard of care given by the Neanderthals to their sick and infirm (relative to their technology and resources).

And let us act in support of these prayers. When asked/ordered to purchase private health insurance, when given no choice of a single-payer/strong public option/Medicare Buy-in plan, we must be as Bartleby the Scrivner and reply, “I prefer not to.”

How do webalance the moral realities: 30 million people will be able to access the system who cannot do so now (a huge victory), no more Pre-existing conditions, etc, etc against the fact that the legislation will continue our paying monetary tribute to vested interests (insurance companies, etc). This is the cause of our angst.

If you read about or hear any of the stories of folks who have been screwed over by the exisiting system, it seems to me we have to be glad that those conditions will largely be ended by this legislation.