Op Ed: Greed Drives Corporate Action, Delays Healthcare

GOP Obstructionism Kills Off New-Job Creation.

Courtesy: aseekingspirit.files.wordpress.com

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Leading healthcare corporations more than doubled their profit-take in 2009, while they worked constantly to eliminate many costly client-“sickies”, seek more and very substantial subsidies from federal funds, and deny or delay any healthcare system reform. (See Reader’s Note.)

Not content with massive predation on clients they were pledged to serve, they strove to support and even to extend lavish-lobbying tactics tied tightly to the GOP effort for obstructionism for ANYthing, at any level, suggested or initiated by the Obama regime.

GOPsters now routinely, and very adamantly defy, deny and delay -- then seek to defeat -- whatever they can construe as Obama-initiative. These radicals now thus block any possible constructive Congressional action on all key issues/problems -- with no regard for national or even international consequences.

While the economy teeters precariously on the too small tip of slowly-effective stimulus funding, with new jobs clearly the major massive cure demanded, these GOPsters are pledged to defeat -- by any means they can manipulate -- whatever is conceived, then begun, or even backed in any way by Obama, despite his election via strong mandate only just over a year ago.

They thus defy the fundamental principle of our democracy: “Let the legal majority rule and govern.”

So many and so much is now at risk by these nasty-negative actions of the Gopster radical cabal that it has become meaningless even to try to list the issues, problems, actions and demands on which these obstructionist tactics are targeted.

(For anyone needing examples, simply check out any reputable daily, choose nearly any major national OR local news broadcast, or pick up any one of numerous national news weeklies or major magazines. Notes for this Op Ed show more than 50 examples.)

Those revealing actions are speaking far louder than any concealing statements by top GOPsters, for millions now becoming finally and fully aware of “the Southern planter attitudes” very clearly reflected.

Those attitudes and actions are well demonstrated not just in public statement but in every and any means or manner throughout all Congressional protocol and possible action-patterns.

The same political jiujitsu is now being packaged and exported into every state in our union, for exploitation and rapid “management” of political obstructionism there too.

We in Oregon encountered the tactic in operation last and strongest in the massive whole-media-based manipulation of fact (AND fancy!) perpetrated openly to kill off any and all changes in Oregon’s tax policies relating to “fair share” payment of pertinent governance costs -- after SEVENTY YEARS duration for one part of those policies, the highly unrealistic “$10 corporate minimum tax”.

That potent-but-UNrealistic tactic is unique and unprecedented in our entire American history: Never before has any political party gone so far, with such radical means and actions, to bring to a screeching halt the complex recovery reconciliation we must have from our elected Congress.

Extending that action into the fifty states not only denies democracy in action at the real grass-roots level, but also threatens its very existence even as tattered-and-torn remnant.

These Gopster radicals are denying and delaying for our American nation the very steps Congress must take to move again towards complete recovery from the most dangerous and difficult economic collapse yet in world experience.

States by law and their constitutional provisions cannot run deficits, and must provide balanced budgets, made extremely more difficult by such Gopster attacks. That’s why MoveOn.org, now a potent political force in American life, is rallying its members to send ONE MILLION MESSAGES to Congress simultaneously to prove one single point: Undeniable, insurmountable, indomitable, massive and action-demanding proof that most Americans want political pandering abandoned, and now demand rapid response to national necessity for healthcare progress and insurance-system reform.

Key polls are now showing a full return to the original demand of Americans for rapid provision to cover and protect those nearly FIFTY MILLION of us now completely and dangerously vulnerable.

Earlier polls showed 3 out of 5 Americans favoring the public option strongly -- and the most recent ones show return to that sensible, sensitive concept again, now, after desperate, fear-driven attacks funded by huge outlays from corporations seeking to avoid the very competition they preach as key to “market magic” so cynically proclaimed at every possible occasion.

Moral, ethical concern for our commonweal is now clearly sacrificed by leading radical GOPsters -- at every turn and for any possible political advantage to be derived -- now or in the immediate future.

That morally-deficient political-primacy is what is so woefully, dangerously and defiantly delaying what we must now have on healthcare, for new-job formation, and to provide massive rehabilitation for our decaying national infrastructure -- and a host of other totally pressing problems and issues.

Political pandering for outmoded, proven-destructive economic and social policies has overwhelmed what the Grand Old Party once stood for, in a grateful nation.

Clean, clear, continuous, conscientious concern for what is widely seen as “demanded for our nation now” is understood by millions of angrifying Americans as what these GOPsters should be delivering. This line of GOP-attack on Obama’s Presidency is far and away a huge departure from Republican party tradition and flies right in the face of what honest real conservatives cite as what they believe.

How did this damnable denigration of honestly-held long-time, respectable political principle ever come about to concern sensible, sensitive, thinking Americans with its undeniable, unavoidable, and disastrous consequences? Current political history clearly shows its beginnings in the once-respected, even GOP-worshiped Reagan years, when radical invasion of the party began this inversion, leading on to full control by ideologues who simply cannot now accept the fact that others also have the right to govern: Won openly, honestly, ethically and with a strong mandate reflecting deep and realistic concerns for our democracy.

Hope springs eternal in the hearts of most truly patriotic Americans, even when faced with desperate design and near-dastard/level depredations now well understood as damaging our democracy.

What’s now demanded from all of us is Patience, Perseverance and then the application of People-Power. We have the means in “The VOTE”: If we have the political wit, will and wisdom to CHOOSE wisely and USE it well.

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Reader’s Note:
“Last week, the news broke that America's five largest health insurance companies (United Health, Wellpoint, Aetna, Humana and Cigna) had scored record profits in 2009, totaling $12.2 billion. This was a stunning 56 percent hike over the previous year, a drive made all the more impressive by the fact that these gains came during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.“

Excerpt from Jim Hightower: “Greed Trophy Up For Grabs”;
commondreams.org/print/52897.

Hank returned to Oregon to complete M. Ed. degree at OSU, went on to Indiana University for Ed.D. (abd) and special other course-work; was selected as first Information Director for NAVA in Washington, D.C.; helped write sections of NDEA, first Act to supply math, science, foreign language consultants to state depts. of education; joined Oregon Dept. of Education, where he served as NDEA administrator/Learning Media Consultant for ten years.

He joined Dr. Amo DeBernardis at PCC, helping establish, extend programs, facilities, Oregon/national public relations; moved to Chicago as Editor/Publisher of oldest educational-AV journal, reformed as AV GUIDE Magazine; then established and operated Learning Media Associates as general communications consultant group. Due to wife’s illness, he returned to Oregon in 1981, semi-retired, and has continued writing intermittently ever since, joining S-N in 2004. His Op Eds now total over 560 written since then.