I admit I've spent the past
few months feeling annoyed, no, furious, with Pres. Obama and the Democrats in
general for cutting deals with Big Pharma, selling out to corporate interests
and not doing enough to help the people who elected them by living up to our
highest ideals. I'm painfully aware of how much better the Health Care Reform bill
could have been, of how much corporate money has diluted it. Part of the
problem, which needs to be addressed immediately, is the obsolete,
unconstitutional, segregation-era tactic of the Senate filibuster that requires
a 60-40 majority. That has to be changed so that a simple majority can enact
all legislation. Without cloture, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman would still be
groveling in near-anonymity trying to get someone to pay attention to them.
But on a related front, today I received a notice in the mail from Bank of America regarding my credit card, noting a few changes coming in February. I braced for the worst, then started reading.
Oh, right, in my fits of dismay I'd forgotten about the Credit Card Reform bill the Democrats passed, led by Barney Frank--another imperfect bill that didn't do all it could have. The letter reads in part:
Your rate for existing balances will no longer be raised for being a few days late with your payment.
Beginning Feb. 13, your APR on existing balances can only be raised if you do not make your minimum monthly payment within 60 days of the payment due date.
You will not be charged for going over your credit limit.
Any amounts you pay over the minimum payment will now be used to pay down balances with the highest APR first.
Do these sound like changes the banks would be making on their own? Do they sound like the result of legislation championed by Republicans? (The House Bill had 128 co-sponsors, of whom 127 were Democrats, although in the end many R's did vote for it.)
So maybe it's time to put the Health Care debate back in perspective. Much as I love the watchdog zeal of Jane Hamsher and firedoglake.com, I wonder what her endgame plan was in demanding that progressives kill the bill. How long does she think it will be before another Gargantuan effort at reform would be mounted? Finally, if every Republican and the majority of insurance companies still oppose the bill in its current form, and if even Bernie Sanders and, I presume, Maurice Hinchey will vote for it, why don't we just declare victory, fight for every inch we can get during reconciliation, and to all a good night?
As Paul Krugman concluded in his precisely reasoned column today, "So progressives shouldn't stop complaining, but they should congratulate themselves on what is, in the end, a big win for them -- and for America."
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