NYT Now Admits the RussiaGate Saga Is Harmful to Our Health

While Donald Junior's "scandal" is even eclipsing news of the crack-up of an entire continent, the supposedly moribund stealth care reform bill is thrashiing through Congress like a silent but deadly sidewinder rattlesnake.

Before millions of victims even know it, they'll have been bitten right in the ass, without recourse to the antitoxin which normally would be on standby from the first responders of the erstwhile Loyal Opposition (a/k/a the Democratic Party and their media sycophants.)

It seems that our legislators are just doing what they do best. They pick a time when people aren't paying attention, and then they ram their latest bolus of poison through our veins. What more exquisite "serious crisis" timing could there be than the smoking gun of Donald Junior's secret meet-up with a Russian femme fatale with a law degree? American oligarchs can't wait to sink their fangs into what is still left of the democratic body politic.

To his credit, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt has somewhat broken ranks and written a panicky piece entitled "Table Russia, Focus on Health Care" in today's edition. 

It seems that the Senate majority is trying a bait and switch that makes Don Junior's victimhood at the hands of a Russian lawyer promising Hillary Dirt look like he actually won the Super-Ball Lottery. That's because the so-called Cruz Amendment would allow insurance predators to sell policies as worthless as a degree from Trump University.... as long as they also pretend to balance their graft with just the tiniest bit of honesty. People aged between 50 and 65 would be forced to pay the highest prices for increasingly worthless coverage.

Leonhardt writes:

The next few days seem crucial. Senate Republicans are meeting today and plan to unveil their new bill. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has vowed to vote on a motion to proceed next week.

There is a risk that the Russia news, important though it is, will keep people from paying attention to what’s going on in the Senate. Millions of Americans’ access to decent health care is at stake.

Leonhardt issues his belated warning based upon a panicky email he received from a former Obama administration official. Since nowhere in his piece does he mention the verboten phrase "Single Payer Insurance" as an antidote to the reptilian malevolence, you have to wonder if what they're mainly worried about is that establishment Democrats, rather than the GOP, will end up getting blamed at the polls. Their obsessive-compulsive devotion to RussiaGate to the exclusion of the actual public interest will come with a cost.

Since establishment Democrats are demonstrating themselves to be so weak and panic-stricken, what better seriously critical time than right now to make them an offer they can't refuse? Support Medicare for All, right now, or go down in defeat in 2018. If, as they claim, health care is a universal human right, then it should not be O.K. to let tens of millions of American remain either totally uninsured, or so underinsured that they avoid going to the doctor and can still go bankrupt if they get sick or hurt.

Unity, schmunity.