Florida Congressional Frosh Goes Blue Dog On Dem Health Reformers

Who do you trust in American politics?

Who do you trust in Florida politics?

If the epic health reform debate and current congressional legislative endgame proves anything, it’s that Yes doesn’t always mean Yes, and No doesn’t always mean No, not when it comes to Politics - and especially not when it comes to Electoral Politics.

Since the election of Barack Obama - a moderate, mainstream Liberal - as our forty-fourth American President, most Republican Party leaders and organizations have embarked on their own twisted version of a Three R’s-style “re-education” campaign - Reflexive, Reactionary, Relentless efforts to discredit and derail every attempt by the Obama administration to reform the trio of corrupted, dysfunctional linchpins of American life: the economic system, the healthcare system, and the energy system.

Yet nationally and state by state, the GOP has failed to advance any credible, viable solutions to these most daunting of challenges we face as a nation. This is not a partisan attack, rather a statement of fact, based on careful analysis of what passes for meaningful Republican proposals in these three critical public policy arenas. “You could look it up”, as pinstriped pundit Casey Stengel used to say.

The “reform” initiatives advanced by the Republican Party just don’t add up, don’t hold up to the harsh light of close examination, and don’t offer any evidence of ever working - at least not for anyone other than the entrenched business and special interests that such proposals seem shamelessly designed to benefit the most.

The GOP has therefore been labeled by critics as “The Party of No” - and rightfully so. The decision has obviously been made at the highest levels of their national party and almost all of its state incarnations to zero in on and attempt to inflate and exploit the irrational fears lurking in some segments of American society.

I think we’re past needing to itemize those irrational fears by now. We may debate how widespread they are, but we know that they exist, and we know what they are.

The thing is, there is a proud history of public service in America that runs counter to this trend, that has been and is dedicated not to the inflation and exploitation of such fears, but rather to the sensitivity to and easing of them - for the greater good, for the benefit of uniting and uplifting struggling working and retired Americans and their families, rather than dividing them for political and economic gain.

Which brings us to the curious case of Suzanne Kosmas, first-term Blue Dog Democrat “representing” Central Florida’s historically conservative-leaning 24th U.S. Congressional District. Kosmas voted No on the historic House of Representatives version of a health reform bill that passed anyway on November 7th, 2009, by a thisclose 220-215 margin of victory.

House Energy and Commerce Committee research shows that among other potential accomplishments, the House version of the bill that Kosmas voted No on would have the following direct impact on Kosmas’ district by:

• Improving coverage for 463,000 constituents who have employer-based health insurance

• Offering subsidies that would help pay for health insurance coverage for up to 176,000 more households.

• Closing of the notorious prescription drug “donut hole” gap in prescription drug coverage for over 120,000 Medicare beneficiaries, while strengthening the overall Medicare program

• Allowing over 20,000 small business owners to obtain affordable health care coverage for themselves and their employees, while providing tax credits that help reduce costs for nearly 20,000 small businesses already offering coverage.

• Insuring almost 100,000 constituents who currently have no health insurance coverage whatsoever

Given that compelling body of evidence, Congresswoman Kosmas still voted against the landmark House bill. Could that be because she was the second biggest recipient of health insurance industry contributions in 2009 of any first-term member of Congress?

Yes or No, your call.

Organizations like the Service Employees International Union and the Florida Alliance For Retired Americans, among others, without whose efforts Kosmas would never have been elected in the first place, are left feeling betrayed, along with thousands of voters who thought she would stand with the Democrats in voting for this first major step toward healthcare & health insurance industry reform in American history.

Kosmas has explained that she felt compelled to vote against the legislation because it did not do enough to control healthcare costs - and because she favored a funding mechanism for the bill that stressed taxing the most generous private health insurance plans, rather than taxing America’s wealthiest citizens.

Now then, It’s one thing for a highly principled Progressive Democrat (see Dennis Kucinich) who gets elected with the support and faith of Progressive organizations and activists to vote No on something as fundamental as your own party’s health reform bill, due to ideological objections over the party not going for the Full Monty - in this case, a national not-for-profit single payer healthcare system.

That kind of No vote is in fact a Yes vote for the kind of genuine healthcare reform that America will ultimately join the rest of the industrialized world in enacting…someday.

But it is something else altogether to vote No on this incremental but still transformative step in the right direction, due to totally self-serving political ambition, calculation and large-scale campaign contributor quid quo pros - while justifying your ranks-breaking vote with hollow talking points pulled right out of the opposition’s playbook.

This kind of a No vote from Kosmas on this kind of an issue - a No vote, by the way, also cast by another longtime but more openly Florida Blue Dog Democrat, U.S. Representative Allen Boyd - warrants a matching response from the organizations, activists and voters who now feel so misled and let down by her.

Yes, of course, mission number one is to defeat Republicans and conservatives, and in Florida in particular to turn the state legislature as Blue as can be in 2010 and beyond.

But it is also time to hold duplicitous pols like Kosmas, and wrong-headed ones like Boyd - the enemies within - accountable for their desperate attempts to have it both ways in districts they fear are too unreceptive to genuine Progressive Democratic change.

It is time for Democrats, Independents, Liberals, Progressives, Greens and all free thinkers to say, once and for all, NO to the “compromise” of complicity.