THERE IS NO ORBIT

(Since I wrote this piece, something seems to be happening. Health Secretary Sebelius had to backtrack on her comment about "public option,"and the President appears to have taken another look and is backing away from his earlier "cave-in.")

There has just occurred, in America, where Health Care reform is spinning out of control, a significant reflection of how greed triumphs over patriotism, how cupidity replaces honesty, and how, in the final analysis – it is every man for himself and the devil take etc….

The Health Care “change” is like a satellite in space gone berserk. Gone is the measured pace of change with its predictable route and final fulfillment.


It looks very much like Obama is caving in. He is wilting under pressure. He is, in the most stupefying turn of character, actually trying to say that the “public option” is just a small piece of the puzzle. If you check all the statements the President has made through the last several weeks. “public option” is utterly dominant. He was emphatic that the private insurance companies were no longer going to have their way. It looked like he could win. He gave up. Between the dissidents in his own party, running scared for 2010, the rigid Right-wing of the Republican party, the hooters and hollerers who shout down civil discourse at Town Hall Meetings, and his own fear of being labeled “Socialist” – he has mortified his supporters and left the promise of change in shambles.

This about face is so archetypically American It is so ideologically driven. It is so much a reflection of the need to have “less government,” whatever that means.


When Obama spoke about his plan (which he said could exclude public option) there we people attending who – in the spirit of the 2nd Amendment, came to the meeting with visible guns, even one with an automatic rifle strapped to his back! While the President pleads hopelessly for decency, Internal Revenue has name FIVE THOUSAND AMERICANS (!) who have cheated the tax department by sending money offshore and to Swiss banks. The same people who rail that any new “Socialist” system of health care can’t be paid for are themselves avoiding taxes by brazenly sneaking money out of the country. (We should not be smug about it. Hordes of Canadian wealthy dodge taxes by sending profits offshore.)

This screed from me is perhaps a little shrill. But it no more shrill than the grotesque inconsistencies of a failing health care plan played against a background of terror and greed.

Through this preposterous maze of duplicity, I smile as I remember Brian Mulroney saying that Health Care was a “sacred trust.” The Obama about face will give courage to Canadians who think of system doesn’t work.
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