Obama did offer an amendment to make health care a right. He then revised it under lobbyist pressure

[rodeodance]

Forum Name General Discussion: Primaries
Topic subject Obama did offer an amendment to make health care a right. He then revised it under lobbyist pressure
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4253786#4253786
4253786, Obama did offer an amendment to make health care a right. He then revised it under lobbyist pressure
Posted by jackson_dem on Mon Jan-28-08 06:10 PM

Some Obamites, especially one, continuously post that Obama offered an amendment in Illinois to make health care a right. Sounds impressive doesn't it? That part is true. But it is very misleading. What they airbrush from Obama's record is that he revised that amendment. More importantly they don't say why he watered it down. He did it on behalf of lobbyists for drug and insurance companies. The record needs to be corrected on this. We have let Obamite memes spread for far too long.


-snip-

The bill originally called for a "Bipartisan Health Care Reform Commission" to implement a program reaching all 12.4 million Illinois residents. The legislation would have made it official state policy to ensure that all residents could access "quality healthcare at costs that are reasonable." Insurers feared that language would result in a government takeover of healthcare, even though the bill did not explicitly say that.

By the time the legislation passed the Senate, in May 2004, Obama had written three successful amendments, at least one of which made key changes favorable to insurers.

Most significant, universal healthcare became merely a policy goal instead of state policy - the proposed commission, renamed the Adequate Health Care Task Force, was charged only with studying how to expand healthcare access. In the same amendment, Obama also sought to give insurers a voice in how the task force developed its plan.

Lobbyists praised Obama for taking the insurance industry's concerns into consideration.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/23/in_illinois_obama_dealt_with_lobbyists/?page=2