WITH THE results of the 2008 elections, liberals thought they had a "perfect storm" of conditions that would allow them to win fundamental reform of the health care system.
They had a Democratic president who said in campaign speeches that he considered health care a "right" for all Americans. They had a large Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and a "filibuster-proof" 60-vote Democratic majority in the Senate. And they had an economic crisis whose ravages illustrated the need for health care reform, while discrediting the free-market Republicans who had been one of the main obstacles in the past.
...What happened?
...PERHAPS ALL one has to know is that the various proposals for health care reform kicking around the Congress have drawn support from the main pharmaceutical industry lobbying group, America's Health Insurance Plans (a.k.a., the biggest health insurers), the American Medical Association, and a host of other organizations that, in the past, have opposed any notion of health care reform.
...The "stakeholders" are writing the legislation, and Obama's campaign for it has seemed to pay more attention to satisfying them than to mobilizing public opinion on behalf of real health care reform. Meanwhile, liberal politicians and the organizations that support them have tried to counter the right-wing scaremongers' campaign against any reform with often-passionless words of reassurance...
...Until there is independent pressure from a mobilized social movement, combined with a real political challenge from Obama's left, the type of reforms--even the prospect of reforms--are likely to follow the pattern we're currently seeing in the health care debate.
http://socialistworker.org/2009/08/03/excuses-for-health-care-non-reform 
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