Many were infuriated with me for supporting Nancy Pelosi as speaker. They said I was reverting to an Establishment modal. That could not be further from the truth. It is true that at times I have been too pragmatic but this time it had to do with calculating reality. Here is the deal.
Nancy Pelosi beat Donald Trump. She sent the bully running away even if with bluster. He abruptly, with his tail between his legs, capitulated to all her demands.
Would Donald Trump have caved to a new inexperienced speaker who is not deeply embedded in the mechanics of government? I doubt he would. He sent many probes to test her, the meeting in front of cameras where she castigated him, her steadfastness in the meeting at the White House where he walked out like an angry child, and the letter informing her he intended to be at the State of the Union no matter what. Each time they fail to move or rattle her but instead deepened her resolved. While he did a lot of talking. She kept her answers short and to the point, absolutely no wall to open the government.
Nancy Pelosi made it clear it was the President’s choice whether the government would open or not. She ensured everyone knew where blame resides. Most importantly she validated the standard U.S. tenet of not paying ransoms lest the behavior becomes epidemic.
Nancy Pelosi can get things done because she knows and understands government. When Obamacare was all but declared dead when Democrats lost the filibuster-proof Senate, she found a way to engineer the bills in forms that conformed to law and the Senate’s arcane processes.
Most Americans want Medicare for All. Opponents are trying to mislead with the way they are defining it as increased taxes. Speaker Pelosi on a recent cable news network seems to use that same messaging. Many Establishment Democrats and Republicans alike are trying temper support by tacitly lying about its real cost. Their intent is to save the health insurance companies, immoral institutions that profit from the sick without providing any service other than enriching a few by skimming money off premiums by denying service.
Bottom line, most Americans will be paying more taxes but no healthcare premiums which means they will have more money in their pockets. Moreover, absolutely everyone in the country would have healthcare. That is security.
Nancy Pelosi is strong. She has the skills and the legislative chops to get any bill through Congress. Single-Payer Medicare for all is supported by most Americans and is the only moral answer to how healthcare morass.
Activist and everyday citizens must flood Nancy Pelosi’s phones, email, and faxes with demands that she take H.R. 676 seriously. The normal way of doing business is to put all the stakeholders around the table. Health insurance companies must no longer have a position of any strength and should be there just to help build a parachute for them to get the hell out of the health insurance business. They have killed enough people.