The embedded video was created by these guys, who are fighting for single-payer in California. If Jerry Brown becomes our next governor -- and he will -- there's a not-bad chance that SB 810, the proposed California single-payer legislation, will prevail.
Once this state paves the way, all others will eventually follow suit. It's inevitable. Businesses will want to relocate to a state where employers do not have to pay for health care. To stay competitive, other states will soon have to follow California's lead.
That's why Obama, Reed and Pelosi are pushing through their bill on the federal level. They (and their funders) know that the only way to prevent SB 810 is to supersede it. Federal law trumps state law. That's why Obama made clear that he would not tolerate any bill that would allow states to go their own way.
Give them credit: These guys are chess players, and they can see three or four moves ahead. Most of the citizenry, alas, cannot.
How to foil this scheme? Call and email your senators and tell them to KILL THE BILL. The first vote may come a little after 1 a.m. on Monday morning (i.e., late Sunday night). We need to turn around but one of 60.
12 comments:
How in the world will Cali be able to pay for it?
It's cheaper than what we're doing.
You are daft. Do you really believe that Bill could become law in California with the state legislature's polarity as fixed as it is? And the money? We can't even keep tenured teachers on salary, let alone fund single-payer. And Jerry Brown WILL become Governor? While I might like to see that, the odds that such a thing could are pretty damn iffy.
I don't know enough about CA politics (even though I lived there for four years) to comment whether single payer will pass or not. But I hope it does.
And right now I appreciate any ray of hope that comes my way after Nelson caved.
At the federal level things look grim right now as regards true health care reform. But there may be a fight looming in the House over single payer/public option, weak as the House version is, with the Senate version with no single payer/public option.
Also I have also heard that several House members do not think the Senate version is strong enough on abortion and that Stupek will rear its ugly head again in the House. All this will take place after Christmas when the two bills must be reconciled.
Illinois activists have been working for years toward a single payer plan here.
That's why some of the versions of the health care bill have FORBIDDEN states to offer its citizens a better deal. It's like they really want us to grab our pitchforks and storm the barricades.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Has anyone found out if the language in the Senate bill forbids states from enacting Single Payer? I know it was an amendment permitting states to do so was not even allowed into the House bill, so I can't imagine that the Senate would allow it, and would expect that it would be actively forbidden. Off to do some homework...
I think there is an argument that can be made when a state offers more rights than a federally mandated law that allows the state law to prevail-e.g CA laws on fuel standard-however I don't know enough about CA's law to even research it and I don't like CA much-. Its a nasty state of nasty people-a little suffering would serve them all well.
And Gerry Brown is a freak-who would want him as governor-you have to be kidding.
Surely to frame the attempt as a design to pre-empt CA's superior plan is incorrect.
We already have the Hawaiian and Massachusetts state health care plans of differing kinds in place, and I've not heard anyone claim whatever bill may be passed now at the federal level would vitiate their programs.
Various federal officials are pushing for HCR at the federal level because they write federal level laws.
They are also working to fulfill candidate Obama's own key campaign pledge, as well as address the cancer on the public that is the health care system (as many presidents have decided was true and tried to do comparable things-- Clinton, Nixon, Truman, etc.)
It really is better done on the federal level, because many versions of a state program would make that state LESS competitive, cause businesses and consumers to flee for cheaper situations for themselves, and you'd have a state race to the bottom for increasingly bad plans, which would cost less money.
Although I know that Jerry Brown will make a good governor.
XI
Federal law doesn't always supersede state law, especially when the state law is viewed by courts as being "better" (i.e., ensuring more rights, usually) than federal law. That's why some states can recognize same-sex marriage in spite of DOMA, for instance. It's an interesting and ongoing battle in the courts, actually, and it might be fascinating if California decides to push this. Yay for them if they do!
Petition:
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/killthisbill
Nice art, Mr. Cannon. Well played.
I am reminded of how crippled SS was when originally passed, or how ineffective was Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
Had there been movement lefties around in Congressional offices then, one can imagine the kinds of 'sell-out!' denunciations that might have obtained. In fact, we don't have to imagine, but simply check history, on how reviled Lincoln was by the anti-slavery factions, over his anti-slavery proclamation. (It applied only to states out of the union; several pro-slavery states stayed in the union, and his proclamation did not free slaves in those states, with a carrot/stick approach implying that IF the slave states in the Confederacy rejoined the union, they could also keep their slaves.)
History has judged Lincoln far differently from the judgments of his contemporaries, just as history hides the weaknesses of the original presidential 'fixes' to such large problems.
Which is what Sen. Harkin's 'modest starter house with a good foundation' analogy drives at.
XI
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