Kelly O’s awesome photos from last week’s rally outside of Sen. Maria Cantwell’s Seattle office highlight yet another challenge the current health care reform push faces:
Gray hair.
Which is not to say that Americans older than, say, 35, lack political clout. If they were well-organized and loud enough they could force real health care reform all on their own. But imagine how much more momentum would be behind the reformers if “Generation Obama” was taking to the streets, too. The problem: we under-35ers tend to be a pretty hale bunch, and as a result don’t spend a ton of time fretting about our country’s broken health care system—until we’re broken ourselves, either by age or accident.
Not that it’s difficult to find an argument for younger Americans to get behind health care reform. Here’s one: people between the ages of 19 and 29 live the perilous uninsured life at higher rates than any other age group. Which means they stand to gain more from a push toward universal coverage than just about anyone else.
Is it too early for a post on the failure of healthcare reform?
I saw probably one of the saddest protests for health care reform at Volunteer Park yesterday. It was about three people, elderly people, walking slowly around the park with some home made signs.
You might as well go protest against meat a Cafe Flora.
This ain’t one for “generation Obama”, this is one for generation AARP. Which is going to get a whole lot bigger very quickly. And once the boomers are exposed to paying for their own health care, which they are going to expect a lot of, shit will get done.
@3 – you ain’t joking.
Most government programs that Edge Gen gets are as a result of the 2900 lb gorilla known as the Boomers waking up and demanding things.
And most of them are talking about health care right now.
No, this is absolutely our problem (younger people). Who do you think is going to be footing the medicare/medicaid bills going forward, we have as much to lose as our grandparents if this campaign fails. Call Cantwell, support Public Option, her number is 202-224-3441.
It’s everyone’s problem.
If the Democrats can put health care for all in their trophy case, all of us young folk (who sign up for health care this year and keep it until we get real jobs) will vote for them for a generation.
A lot of “Generation Obama” have jobs. Trying to get them downtown at noon on a Thursday wasn’t the easiest of tasks to begin with .
Stranger writers… how long will it take for you to title one of these posts, “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?”
Maria?
Voted for the Iraq war enabling legislation, and its renewal.
Voted for the PATRIOT act, and its expansion and extension.
Generally waits to see which way a controversial vote goes, waits some more, then hops on the prevailing side.
Real progressive leadership, there. Blah.
Imagine how much energy there would be if someone like OBAMA would call on generation OBAMA and all of us to get off our butts and hit the streets and make it happen.
But no, he is not doing it. He’s leaving it up to others, which means, nobody.
Rangel had a GREAT proposal Friday: tax the rich. By simply taxing a surtax on those making $350K a year or more, a surtax of just 1% or 1.5% or 3% ratcheting up at $500K and a million bucks, not sure of details, turns out that HALF of the trillion dollar transition cost is paid for. PRoblem half solved!
So, did we see Obama get on the nation’s airwaves backing that plan?
Nope.
Is he backing any specific plan?
Nope.
It’s pretty hard for the grass roots to do shit if we elected a leader who give up on grass roots based change. He’s sitting in the White house awaitin’ on congress because you know if you tell Baucus what to do, oh my god! he won’t do it. so Obama has left some freaking senator from freaking MONTANA be in charge of crafting our health care plan, and he’s DEFERRING TO HIS POWER which sorta disses the 75% of the econmoy based in things called cities where we really don’t give a shit it we tax the superrich a bit more. They can afford it and there’s no national health care plan in place anywhere THAT DOESN’T DO THAT!
Btw it’s nice that you’ve moved into the blame MAria mode, and now a bit into t6he blame generation Obama mode, but the guy you really need to blame for the failure of attendance at rallies and the overall failure of leadership on this whole thing is you know who. Despite his breaking promises on DADT there’s a huge reluctance to blame him for stuff, still.
Health care was his promise. The promise was also changing politics as we know it. Why his 11 million e amil list isn’t up to 30 million people screaming for single payer by now is a total mystery; he’s basically chickened out from real CHANGE.
PC @ 10,
Caligutard gave Obama the Presidential Book of Secrets after the election, and here they are:
1) The banks, oil companies, war profiteers and insurance companies own the government.
2) – 9) All that matters is # 1) above.
10) Gay-bashing will keep you in power.
Maybe the problem is that “we under-35ers” tend to 1) not vote; 2) not read.
@10: Obama refuses to take the fall. He saw what happened to the Clintons on health care, saw how it galvanized a resurgence in the rabid right. Obama would rather label any reform, even worse-than-nothing-reform, “change”, so he can come out claiming to be a winner heading into 2010. That invariably will mean “cutting costs” not by cutting corporate profits, but by passing them on from the government to the consumer. And calling that “reform.”
Obama doesn’t believe that he could beat corporate power right now, at the polls or in Congress, even as Wall Street is begging for his help and even as outrage at corporate crime is at its highest in decades. Worse, he might not even see corporate power as the problem, even as he talks about the need to take the profit motive out of the health care industry.
But then, Obama’s supporters were never united around any kind of specific program anyway. Why then expect him to keep his campaign machine going behind an uncompromising legislative agenda, when his machine was not about policy and his approach to everything is to hold the center rather than push anything to the left? Why blame Obama for the silence of so many of his young supporters?
Obama’s caution will be proven right if he shows he can retain voters’ support without withdrawing from the Middle East, regulating Wall Street, or creating a public option for health insurance. By “right” I mean he will likely retain power, even if it is as a corporate liberal who raised so much “hope” for so little “change.”
I second 7’s statement. Most people are working jobs at 12:15 on a thursday. The retired are the ones who are free to just show up.
Well, the retire and the independently wealthy, but they like that our current system gives them unfettered access to care because no one else gets it.