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CPI BLOG
National healthcare reform has been kicked around for 60 years, becoming more urgently needed each year it is delayed. As it escalates, the health insurance crisis continues to cause great suffering, crippling personal costs and a tremendous drain on the national economy.
Yet, the rightwing chorus is again bombarding this year’s efforts to reform health insurance with a time-worn, two-note mantra:
1. Why the rush?
2. If government is involved, we’re all doomed.
Sometimes business groups lie so blatantly that even their strongest allies in Congress have to call their bluff.
That’s what happened this week when the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to put new limits on the credit card industry, passing a bill to curtail its ability to raise interest rates at will and charge unreasonable fees. The bill also will require credit card issuers to explain their terms in fewer words and use plain English. The Senate voted 90-5 in favor, following a 357-to-70 vote in the House on April 30.
With Peter Dreier.
In its first 100 days, the Obama administration did more to address global warming and the environmental crisis than the Bush administration did in eight years.
The new president is moving on many fronts. So far, Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider California’s request to regulate pollution from auto emissions. He directed the Department of Transportation to finalize new fuel-efficiency standards. He made environmental progress a key feature of his first proposed federal budget by including tax breaks for clean energy research and eliminating a host of oil and gas industry tax breaks. The savings, along with revenues from Obama’s proposed cap and trade policy, will generate billions for renewable energy projects. And, he restored science to its rightful place in the formulation of environmental policy.
With Peter Dreier.
Universal health care and the reform of outdated labor laws are shaping up to be the two great policy battles of the year, if not the century. Business interests are dusting off decades of campaign rhetoric warning about the doomsday scenarios if Congress enacts “socialized” health care and the Employee Free Choice Act to give workers a decent shot a organizing unions. They’re wrong about both issues, but will politicians and pundits believe them anyway?
Crying wolf has been a successful formula for business lobby groups. It has helped them thwart every attempt since the New Deal at achieving universal health care and leveling the playing field for workers. Now, after 40 years of declining wages for most employees, as well as growing numbers of uninsured and underinsured families, the stakes for workers and the economy couldn’t be higher.
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