Brilliant post from Matt Langer.

So here we are after months of debate, after months in which the White House and other Democratic party leadership stood idly by while the right wing not only dictated the terms of the national debate but dragged that debate into the fascist-Nazi-communist gutter, after months of bowing down before moderate Democrats and Republicans from Maine, after months of allowing the 60-vote cloture goalpost to slide farther and farther away from anything the Democratic party campaigned and won on in 2008—after all of this, we find ourselves tonight beholden to one senator from Connecticut who is demanding a compromise on the previous compromise of the initial compromise.

If anything, I’m just embarrassed I didn’t see this coming. I’m embarrassed I let Obama’s rhetoric of “hope” lead me to believe the American left had actually grown a pair. I’m embarrassed I failed to remember that whatever balls the American left can lay claim to remain firmly in the clutches of the healthcare industry—or any other industry, for that matter.

It was difficult not to quote the entire thing.

We have had a transforming political event—it’s called Barack Obama—and lest you think that isn’t a transforming event, when two states of the Confederacy and Indiana vote for a black guy for President?

—Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD, “Healthcare, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America”, University of Virginia Medical Center Hour, 19 November 2008

I used to like Keith Olbermann, first on ESPN and later as an outspoken MSNBC talking head, but in the last year or so he’s become a little too belligerent for my taste, leaving the door open for the brilliant Rachel Maddow to take his place. This, however, is well-spoken and well worth watching. (Or, read the transcript here.)

(Can you tell I’m emotionally invested in this topic? It’s gotten me blogging again, however briefly.)

Not so sure about those new glasses though, Keith.

I’m getting pretty sick of how ridiculous a notion it is for American citizens to go without access to health insurance, to not be able to afford health insurance, and, in some instances, including mine, be forced to pay insane medical bills even with the appropriate insurance. It’s both embarrassing and infuriating for me; I can’t imagine how the uninsured must feel.

The cost associated with the proposed health care reform is perhaps the most commonly cited reason against implementing it. Who cares, I say. We are making a lot of poor choices in spending a lot of money in a lot of other places; my feeling is that we need this, and despite its cost, we need to make it work somehow. The politicking surrounding this issue has become nauseating, and we have to start deconstructing it and looking at it for what it will provide from a moral and social standpoint instead of what it may or may not lead to from a financial standpoint. It trumps most other things in my opinion, and it’s a relief to read that others feel the same way.

This is one of the best articles I’ve read in a long, long time. A few choice snippets from the article:

Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So [forgoing health insurance is] their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.

Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.

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In January 1917, Progressive Magazine wrote: “At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance.” More than 90 years later, we still have that distinction.

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When nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, we began wars and were willing to devote more than $1 trillion in additional expenses. Yet about the same number of Americans die from our failed insurance system every three weeks.

Dead on the money. It’s a must-read.