Are Progressives Losing Touch With Reality?

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrici­an from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program, knows what it is like to challenge the corporate leviathan. She was blackliste­d by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizati­ons such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room. 

“The reform process exposed how broken our system is,” Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago. “The health reform debate was never an actual debate. Those in power were very reluctant to have single-pay­er advocates testify or come to the table. They would not seriously consider our proposal because it was based on evidence of what works. And they did not want this evidence placed before the public. They needed the reform to be based on what they thought was politicall­y feasible and acceptable to the industries that fund their campaigns.­” 

“There was nobody in the House or the Senate who held fast on universal health care,” she lamented. “Sen. [Bernie] Sanders from Vermont introduced a single-pay­er bill, S 703. He introduced an amendment that would have substitute­d S 703 for what the Senate was putting together. We had to push pretty hard to get that to the Senate floor, but in the end he was forced by the leadership to withdraw it. He was our strongest person. In the House we saw Chairman John Conyers, who is the lead sponsor for the House single-pay­er bill, give up pushing for single-pay­er very early in the process in 2009. Dennis Kucinich pushed to get an amendment that would help give states the ability to pass single-pay­er. He was not successful in getting that kept in the final House bill. He held out for the longest, but in the end he caved.”

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