The U.S. Heath reform battle up to now

Right-wing talking points continue to suggest that the pending legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, sent down to it by the U.S. Senate on Christmas Eve is un-Constitutional, because it mandates that individuals give their money to private corporations.

The latest Tea-party spin is that this the fault of the Left. However, let's recount the history of events which have led to this present bill.

First off, way back when, the Left suggested we solve the health care insurance pricing crisis by having a Single Payer system.

That would likely result in an actual government take over of health care eventually, as it's in the interest of the government to cut out the middle man in every transaction. But all that means is the government would, where it was prudent, buy-out the owners of hospitals and related enterprises at a fair price and everyone would walk away from the table happy. It's an unfortunate side effect that the paper-pushing bureaucrats of the health insurance "industry" -- if that's even the right word -- would need to find a more productive line of work, but it's the boundless greed of their corporate masters that has caused this health care cost crisis to begin with. Besides: the ongoing Health Insurance industry consolidation is causing layoffs all the time and these will be continuing well into the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, Single Payer would be the cheapest, simplest, and most efficient solution to the crisis, but, oh well, we couldn't do that because the Right says it's Socialism.

Mind you, our police and fire departments are Single Payer systems and have been for 100+ years (for firefighting) and for many more (in regards to the police). There are already government health departments, of course, but they do little in the way of medical care.

Yet, the Right insists that we must have private competition, and Single Payer could eventually put an end to that in matters of health. A century ago, we had what the Right would now call a robust corporate system for fire-fighting too, but at some point Americans got sick of having a major city get burned to the ground once a decade or so. And although now there's no longer private competition in the local fire-extinguishing business, nobody around today seems to notice or care. Yes, many an independent fire company got bought up and their assets reduced to a number along the way, but still somehow the country survived.

Today, the government is in charge of putting out fires, and, obviously, if too many buildings catch on fire at once, the government must decide which fires to put out first. But, the Right insists, the government shouldn't have the same power over your health if you are sick as they do if you are trapped in a burning building.

Why isn't the Right actively campaigning to eliminate our nation's fire departments or even police departments? It's almost as if the Single Payer system works perfectly well when it comes to other matters of public safety and well-being. But for whatever reason, this idea was a non-starter for the Right.

So in order to try to find an intermediate, bipartisan solution,* the Left started a move to the right. Instead of Single Payer, they proposed a mandate with a Public Option. Citizens could decide whether they wanted to pay money to an insurance corporation or a similar fee to the government: they just would have to pick one. Which, by the way, was a perfectly Constitutional solution.

However, this idea wasn't good enough for the Right. Even though the simple idea of Single Payer had been abandoned, right-wing rhetoric continued to declare that this new solution was also Socialist.* As such, in crafting the bill, the Senate cut and cut and cut again the number of people who could be eligible to choose a Public Option. Still, nothing was quite good enough for the Right. Finally, independent Joe Lieberman jumped ship and declared that he wouldn't support the Public Option, just when all signs were the Senate bill was heading towards passage, and the Senate junked the Public Option entirely.

Now it's come down to a mandate for citizens to give their money to private insurance corporations, or pay a yearly fine, and the Right says that is un-Constitutional, and paint the Left as enemies of the Republic. But the fact remains that the Left had a Constitutional plan 4 or 5 or how ever many compromises ago.

Nothing the Left suggests is good enough, and it's all got nothing to do with half the Senate being in the pocket of Big Insurance. Right?

*(It's well worth noting the dates on these cartoons, created by cartoonist and blogger Tom Tomorrow, are well before the events predicted in them came to pass, leaving little to wonder at in his nom de plume.)