If all goes according to plan, Barack Obama in his first 100 days as president will prevent the passage of a decent and full healthcare  plan for at least another 100 months. He doesn’t say that, of course,  nor does the media nor does the Obama fan club. But it’s the truth  because if Obama gets his fake universal healthcare plan through at  the start of his term, it will inevitably take years before  politicians will deal with the issue again.

Obama’s alternative is a bill that would expand the subsidy to the health insurance industry, a subsidy financed by expanded required use  of said industry. Unlike automobiles, where the claim can be made that  no one has to drive and so can’t complain about required insurance to  do so, everyone has a right to live without having to funnel money  into the parasitical and useless health insurance industry. There is  no justification for Obama’s approach other than a desire to get  funding from the health insurers and to avoid their wrath.

It is not only a wrong policy, but an immoral one. And, if he is  successful, America will continue to have one of the worst healthcare  plan of any developed country.

This is not just some progressive idea. As the Twin Cities Daily Planet wrote recently:

“Last year, Minnesota Medicine magazine reported its results from the  first-ever random sampling of state-licensed physicians. Physicians  were asked what type of health care financing structure they’d  prefer among three choices: single-payer, health savings accounts (tax- free savings accounts to which individuals and employers contribute),  and managed care (market-based private insurance plans). Sixty-four  percent said a single-payer financing system would provide ‘the  best health care to the greatest number of people for a fixed amount  of money,’ according to the Minnesota Medicine report.”

Obama is, of course, not alone in attempting to foster the private health insurance con on the public, but he stands the best chance of seeing it to fruition. It is also not the only way that Obama betrays  his alleged status as an agent of change. His plan for Iraq is, at  best, vague; he supports such conservative atrocities as the Patriot  Act, the drug war and No Child Left Behind, and he seems singularly  indifferent to numerous economic crises confronting the country. But  because, with healthcare, he knows what to do and when he wants to do  it, it is the most pressing domestic danger Obama presents.

The conventional liberal approach to this issue is indifference. Like  the liberal eunuchs who helped elect Bill Clinton and then never said  a mumblin’ word as he turned the Democratic Party into GOP Lite, the  Obama crowd has not shown any interest in what their man will actually  do once in office. They have accepted his evangelical euphemisms on  faith and faith alone.

There was a time when political activists in the Democratic Party were  interested in issues rather than merely in icons. Which is why  liberals stood up against Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Richard  Daley. They knew where they stood and they knew where the others did  as well.

Now it’s not like that. Other than a vague commitment to end the war  in Iraq – a commitment stunningly absent in detail – there is not a  single major progressive issue that liberals can point to and say with  any confidence, this is what Obama will try to do.

This is not a question of how you vote; it’s a matter of how you treat  politicians. Are they are your tool or are you their pawn?

If Obama were a Republican he would now damn well the answer; just the  Christian right would keep him watching his every word. In fact, the  GOP has it down to such a science that Obama feels he should talk  about putting some of them in his cabinet. Have you heard about him  talking about putting Bernie Sanders or Russ Feingold in his cabinet?  Of course, not.

So it will be when he is in office. He will gather his post-partisan  assembly to discuss healthcare or whatever and you can almost bet the  most progressive person in the room will be one of the secretaries

Just about ever day I get an email message saying that this union or  that group has come out in favor of John Conyers single payer  healthcare bill. Google it and you’ll find 32,000 mentions. Now switch  to the news media search on Google and you’ll find six.

The only way Obama can be a good president is if he is pressed into it  by progressives wise enough to realize that a vote should only be a  ballot and not a free pass. The issue wars of the Obama administration should begin right now. A pro-single payer group called something like Labor and Doctors for Obama might start the revival of a Democratic  Party which actually cared about what it did and not just whom it  elected.

It is way past time to expect far more of candidates than just hope.