Kucinich: House Dems bill not better than status quo

The healthcare bill House lawmakers passed Saturday is just as troubling as the country's current insurance system, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) stressed Monday.

Kucinich, one of only a handful of Democrats to break with the party and vote against the proposal, blamed the bill's adverse effects on lawmakers who "whittled down" its core principles of affordability and choice.

"It locks us into a for-profit system that the government subsidizes," Kucinich told Democracy Now on Monday. "It's not going to save money in the long run, it's not going to provide the broad healthcare services the American people need. It's going to limit choices people have over a longer period of time, and people will have to buy private insurance."

"This bill doesnt effectively moderate what [insurance companies] can charge for premiums, or co-pays, or deductibles; it just says people will have to have insurance," the congressman added. "Well, insurance doesn't necessarilly equate to care, and care comes at a cost."

House Democrats expected Kucinich to vote against their healthcare bill because it lacked either a robust public option or a single-payer insurance system -- two provisions he staunchly defended (and said Democrats had abandoned) throughout the healthcare debate.

But Kucinich on Monday admitted that the inclusion of single-payer provision in particular would have been a "tough ride," considering the country's current political climate. However, he said he knew of no cogent reason why Democrats did not at least permit states the ability to pursue their own variations of such a system, another policy alternative he pushed to include in the final bill.

"If we were able to ... protect the right of states to have a single-player plan, then maybe this bill would have been worth voting for," he said, adding he wanted protection for single-payer states from insurance companies' legal attacks. "But what are we left with now: [A bill promoting] for-profit health insurance that the government subsidizes."

"We have to ask ourselves, why is this the best we can do?" Kucinich inquired. "Why should we settle for this without fighting back? Why shouldn't we insist that a robust public option is the only way the American people have a fighting chance with the insurance companies?"

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