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Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich decides to support health care bill

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March 19, 2010

Lindsay Huth

Some see him as a George Washington; others, Benedict Arnold. He’s Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and, after being one of 32 Democrats to vote against the Affordable Health Care for America Act, he’s decided to support it.

“… Even though I don’t like the bill, I’ve made a decision to support it in the hopes that we can move towards a more comprehensive approach once this legislation is done,” Kucinich said according to The Huffington Post.

The Cleveland-area representative originally opposed the plan because he felt that the proposal to work within the existing insurance industry was not transformative enough.

“There are some who believe that health care is a privilege based on ability to pay,” Kucinich said in a news conference on Capitol Hill. “This is the model President Obama is dealing with, attempting to open up health care to another 30 million people, within the context of the for-profit insurance system. There are others who believe that health care is a basic right and ought to be provided through a not-for-profit plan. This is what I have tirelessly advocated.”

He explained last November that insurance companies are causing the problem by hiking up costs and dropping patients. Believing that health care is a right, he pushed for an overhaul of the entire system, according to The Cleveland Leader.

The massive flip in support of the bill occurred after President Obama invited him for a ride on Air Force One on Wednesday to discuss it. Now he’s decided to work with the current plan in hopes that it will lead to the single-payer system he envisions.

“As this bill passes I will renew my efforts to help those state organizations which are aimed at stirring a single payer movement which eliminates the predatory role of private insurers who make money not providing health care,” Kucinich said in the news conference.

In fact, a single payer system is exactly what the then-candidate Obama outlined during his campaign.

“It is my belief that not just politically but also economically, it’s better for us to start getting a system in place — a universal health care system signed into law by the end of my first term as president and build off that system to further — to make it more rational — by the way, Canada did not start off immediately with a single-payer system,” Obama said in a campaign speech. “They had a similar transition step.”

Obama hopes the plan will come to a final vote this week, and both he and Kucinich have worked to bring health care to all Americans.

“I have taken a detour through supporting this bill, but I know the destination I will continue to lead, for as long as it takes, whatever it takes to an America where health care will be firmly established as a civil right,” Kucinich said as he ended the news conference Wednesday.

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