party unity

that isn't as stupid as the shrub's plan is all right with me. I've plugged Verla Insko's Health Care for All bill, and the National Health Insurance Act (HR 676), and cheered almost any reform idea that comes along, because any step in the right direction is a start.

In an opinion piece that came out today, Phil Mattera of the Corporate Research Project asks,

"Why are we keeping a hopeless, for-profit health insurance system alive?"

You can read and comment on his article here.

Mattera opines on what each of several political figures want to do about health care reform, but basically all he says about John Edwards is that Edwards wants to tax the upper class to help the uninsured. I think Mattera has overlooked the most important features of what John Edwards is proposing to do, and how it could lead to phasing out private insurance companies' involvement with health care. Edwards recognizes that it's just not politically viable for us to jump straight to National Health (a la the United Kingdom or Canada). At this point in time, the insurance lobby is just not going to let fully nationalized health care happen, and Edwards knows that. What he calls for is to have both at the same time; consumers[I hate that word] people can individually choose between private health insurance or public health insurance, but everyone will be required to have one or the other. Because public health, like Medicare, will be more efficient, the insurance companies, in competition with public health, will have to streamline, tighten up, and (though Edwards doesn't say) accept more modest profits. Edwards sees this as a good way to transition, and his vision beyond is that eventually the people will vote on whether to keep a dual system or go fully to National Health. (It'll be a no-brainer.)

I've been reading *Crashing the Gate*, and it really drives home the point that because of divisiveness over every splinter group's special interests, the Democratic Party hasn't accomplished a whole lot since the 70s, the Republican right has torn down much of what we did accomplish, and we have the worst president ever. They give an example of one good progressive Democrat who was defeated because he happened to be anti-abortion, while his far right Republican opponent was pro-choice. If NARAL had put its special interest aside to get this seat, they would have been in no danger of an anti-abortion vote, but the party would have been stronger for it.

That's the trouble we're in because of our narrow special interests, and we only have to look to the Republicans to see how we should be shelving those interests and focusing on gaining effective political power. Power first; special interests will have something done about their specific issues later.