The US health insurance debate boils down to just 2 factions. Health insurance industry profits and the health of the American people.

Those on the health insurance side want to kill the “public option” because they know it will create competition for the health insurance industry which will force them to give adequate care to their customers (which of course will cost them more money so their profit margins will go down.)

Polls show that most Americans are actually on the side of the American people (surprising, isn’t it?) Despite all of the lies that have been spread by the right wing media (such Fox News) most Americans understand that having more options is a good thing for them and would help to improve their quality of health insurance whether they stick with their private plan or choose the public plan.

According to a new poll, support for the “public option” to be included in health care reform is at 65% among the American populace as a whole. How often is this overwhelming support talked about on the news? Not often enough. They spend most of their time focusing on a few ignorant people screaming at Town Hall meetings instead of focusing on the fact that average informed Americans strongly support real health care reform!

It should be no surprise that Democratic voters support the “public option” most strongly with 81% for it with only 12% against. What’s really amazing is that there are actually Democratic Senators who are not coming out in support of something that is obviously the right thing to do and also has a huge amount of support among those who voted them into office.

What may be surprising is that even a plurality (although not quite a majority) of Republicans support the “public option.” Despite this, not a single Republican Senator seems willing to part from the party line and actually side with their constituents instead of the corporations for once. 47% of Republicans are for it, while only 42% are against.

Independent voters are also in support of the “public option” by over a 2 to 1 margin. 61% of unaffiliated voters are in favor while only 30% are against it.

I think it’s clear that this is a test of our democracy. Is it actually functioning at this point? Will the Senate do the will of the American people or will they do the bidding of the bloodthirty insurance industry which doesn’t care that over 40,000 Americans die every year due to lack of health insurance as long as they make huge profits?

Resources:

(1) Health Blog

(2) CBS/NY Times Poll On The Public Option

(3) Obama’s Health Care Speech