Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Health Reform by Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson wrote48 minutes ago
October 13, 2009

So the Senate Committee came up with a proposed bill today, calling it (inexplicably to me) "health reform."

As we know, the bill is a boon to the insurance industry because it mandates health insurance. Yet without a public option -- real competition for the health insurers -- there is not much in this bill to cut our costs, and a lot in there to increase their profits.

In the words of the late Supreme Court Justice Lewis Brandeis, "We can have great wealth amassed in the hands of a few, or we can have democracy. We cannot have both." The idea that we're giving over the health and welfare of the American people to one group of corporate masters makes me very sad. When I was younger, it made me angry. Now, it just makes me sad.

In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln wrote of the sacrifices of the Union soldiers, who fought and died so that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" would not perish from the earth. Yet a later President, Rutherford B. Hayes, would argue that we'd become a "government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations."

And still the contest continues. Even today, we're in a struggle to decide who owns our government: people, or corporations. And at least so far as how it looks within today's health care debate, it looks like corporations are winning.

Capitalism, yes. Capitalism sans ethics, no. Corporations free to do business, yes. Corporations free to run roughshod over the collective good, no. Money flowing in a healthy and positive way through our society, yes. Money running Washington, no.

We need public financing of political campaigns, and until we get it, all these "issues" that we argue about but serve as a cover over the real issue: Money runs America. And how truly sad that is.

No comments:

Post a Comment