Option to Opt Out of Public Option? Ridiculous!

The last time I was infuriated over states' rights was as a child and during subsequent readings about the Civil Rights Era. Many leaders and citizens of southern states wanted to continue to enjoy the system of de facto racial segregation and discrimination despite the passage of Brown versus Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Now, to please conservative politicians and their ill-advised constituencies, the new Senate proposal on health care reform includes the ability of states to opt out of making available a public option!

This exemption is anathema for those who do not have adequate access to health care, who do not have health insurance, and whose disposable income does not make it feasible to purchase coverage from the private sector. Every state should be required to ensure all of its citizens have viable opportunities to insure themselves.

It is a tragic consequence of American democracy that people are given the liberty to deny others fundamental rights so that a certain standard of living can be maintained and enhanced. Moreover, what's more egregious, if that is even possible, is that success in the political arena nowadays seems to mandate even the mildest of progressives to mouth and support centrist views that not only defy common decency and morality, but also compromise their integrity and the trust that others who voted for them were assiduously promised.

I understand that politics is a game of compromise, but if conservatives and moderates are unwilling to participate in such negotiation, then it is foolhardy for progressives and leftists unilaterally to concede.

It is forty-one years since President Harry S. Truman sought to address the health care debacle. If we do not attend to this matter now in a constructive manner, we cannot wash our hands of the lack of patriotism and care of souls!