An article “Single-payer health care plan dies in Senate” describes how Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent and socialist, sought to offer an amendment to the health care bill and was almost thwarted by the unusual tactic by Sen. Tom Coburn, Republican, who insisted that the entire 767-page proposal be read out loud, thus preventing the usual unanimous consent to simply enter it into the record.
WATCHDOG: How mean spirited have hard core, ‘Big Pharma’ ideologues become that they will try to deprive a colleague, speaking on behalf of a large portion of the American populace, of an opportunity to debate the virtues of a single-payer health care system for at most an hour? The precedent that comes to mind were the “gag rules” of Southern slave holders to maintain the practice before the Civil War and that of Southern Segregationists afterwards to thwart civil rights legislation.
But just as with the abolitionists, the Watchdog predicts that ultimately Sanders’ stance will prevail. After the nation bleeds even more from the excessive cost of health care, businesses and unions will rise up and bring about true reform, by one method or another, and most likely through a form of single-payer.
