The 'centrists' damaged what could have been an even more powerful stimulus bill a few months ago. Don't let them do the same with health care.

In the stimulus fight that rocked the nation about three months ago, a somewhat impressive stimulus bill was weakened by compromises at the behest of legendary 'moderates' like Sen. Arlen Specter and Sen. Susan Collins. These moderates claimed that they were worried about runaway government spending, so they trimmed down a bill worth hundreds of billions of dollars by shaving off around ten percent or so. At that point, they decided that $787 billion did not count as runaway government spending. The same kind of tortured logic and status quo politics threaten to derail what could otherwise be a great year for health care reform.

The big battle over health care reform will be about the so-called "public option," which refers to a government program that would compete with private insurers. Liberals got some good news recently when Sen. Specter indicated that he would consider a public option after previously suggesting he was opposed to it.  In a letter to the liberal group Health Care for America Now, Specter assured them: "I look forward to discussing and considering this issue." Meanwhile, conservative lies and propaganda on health care, peddled by Rick Scott and his cronies, continue to insist that government involvement will stifle individual choices.

That non-sense wouldn't be true even if we went with a single-payer system, which Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), the big shot in charge of health care reform in the Senate, has said he opposes. Judging from his comments in March, it seems like we're headed for another 'compromise' solution that will help the situation move along without fundamentally solving our problems. Back then, Baucus said:

"We need to come up with a uniquely American solution, which is a combination of public and private. I think we'd be spending capital inefficiency to pursue single-payer. I think there should be choice, flexibility in our reform package. This is not a single-payer country."

It seems like he's bought the talking points of the right. What gives me some hope amidst all this blather is that even a multi-payer system with a public option will eventually transition into a single-payer system down the road. The fundamental reason why the health insurance industry opposes state intervention is because they are worried that a government plan would actually attract more support than the crap they currently offer. It's a jarring contradiction: on one hand, the corrupt, status quo, and right-wing plutocrats view the government as inefficient. They claim that the government would botch health care. On the other hand, they feel threatened that a state system might actually succeed enough to steal away their customers, driving them extinct. We have two glaring headlines here: "Government is inefficient! Stick with us!" and "Government is too good! It will drive us out of business!" Which one the centrists use depends on their predicament at any given moment in time. The tide seems to have turned, however, and the United States will have some major public option that will finally eliminate the stain of having to think that we are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not provide universal health care.