The Pelosi-favored health care bill will come to a vote in the House very soon. Conciliation with whatever the Senate passes will come later. Right now, I have more questions than observations. My main questions are these:
1. Should we oppose this legislation vigorously, or can we try to reconcile ourselves to the argument that the few good aspects of this bill (specifically, the new rules on pre-existing conditions) outweigh the many bad points (a weak or non-existent public option, mandates, fines, no savings)?
2. Suppose a bill passes, and suppose there are major problems. Will the country say "Well, we tried socialized medicine and it failed"? I fear that the citizenry will say just that, even though the House bill does not come close to any reasonable definition of socialized medicine.
3. An allied question: Has the moment for reform passed? As mentioned in previous posts, I can sense the national mood shifting back its default mode: "Laissez faire cures all evils."
4. If the moment has passed -- and if the Pelosi/Obama bill dies the ignominious death that many claim it deserves -- what then? It's easy enough for lefties to say "Back to the drawing board. Next time, let's go for single payer." But how do you know that there will be a next time? If single payer was politically difficult or impossible in 2009, when the country was in a rare liberal mood, then how will it be possible in 2010 or 2011?
How will it be possible after Congress changes hands, as it likely will?
The teabaggers are growing louder by the hour. I recall how ugly the anti-Clinton rhetoric became in 1994 and 1995. The anti-Obama rhetoric will soon become (already is?) uglier still. I foresee more militias, more calls for secession, more weird conspiracy theories, more talk of a military coup, more craziness. Now imagine the effects of a new terror attack. Or a Starr-like grand jury investigation on one pretext or other.
This country could soon be in a mood to goosestep. Again I ask: If single payer was impossible in 2009, how will it be possible in 2010 or 2011?
My suspicion: Obama had but one shot at this thing, and he blew it.
9 comments:
If Congress wanted to fix the worst elements of our current system, they could have accomplished that with a three-page bill--not a 1000 page bill. Max Baucus the Obama-appointed leader on health care? What a sick joke on poor, deceased Teddy Kennedy. Somehow I think Teddy had in mind "health care for all", not "private industry health insurance for all". The current set of bills represent politics over people. My opinion: tank it. It's a loser. I think Artur Davis is correct: you only get one chance to make it right, and this isn't it.
grayslady
Too often this country has accepted less then what's right and correct. Let this plan fail either in vote or in action and TRUST citizens to recognize it for what it is, another capitalist sell out of the consumers. As with all co dependency if you don't allow the bottom consequences to occur no change or recovery is possible.
"As mentioned in previous posts, I can sense the national mood shifting back its default mode: 'Laissez faire cures all evils.'"
I was thinking about the conservative preferred response to the financial crisis, to let a depression happen, and thought it is essentially the Christian Science response to illness. Conservatives pray to the free market, Christian Scientists pray to god, don't take any action and believe everything will be all right. The conservative response to the health care crisis is where they intersect with Christian Science.
The mandated purchase of private insurance, with fines for those who don't pony up, kills the whole deal for me. I was insured through my employers throughout most of my working life, but started my own business 3 years ago and cannot afford insurance. What we pay for my husband is already over 50% of our mortgage payment (and that isn't a fancy policy, just basic Blue Cross coverage); insuring both of us would put health insurance as the number one expense in our household. There is something really wrong, and the "solutions" being offered by the insurance company employees - er, I mean "our representatives in Congress" - will only make things worse.
--tle
Joe, you raise great questions and concerns. Unfortunately, Baucus/Bama & Co. never had the rest of us in mind with this insurance industry "reform" pay day that will, in conjunction with the great American jobs giveaway program to imported workers be the final kiss of death to this country's middle class. Key hustle points:
1. MANADATING everyone subsidize the death insurance industry while this administration cuts U.S. jobs and imports cheap workers and
2. PRE-EXISTING CONDITION COVERAGE
WILL BOTH BANKRUPT MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS
Forcing or mandating millions of people to buy health insurance is a guaranteed prescription for removing those already struggling in the middle class to welfare status. For the majority, the current option NOT to buy these insurance mafia plans has been the ONLY thing keeping them from losing their homes and putting food on the table.
But the "pre-existing condition" clause is perhaps the most cynical of all. THE PRE-EXISTING clause is a straw carrot to make this reform's cost-prohibitive medicine go down easy.
FACT: Yes, the bill's language states that no one with pre-existing conditions can be "denied" their cost prohibitive health coverage, and there is nothing that prevents insurance companies from forcing such mandated coverage at costs that most middle class people (being laid off in droves) can't afford. Nor does it state that insurance companies can't/won't limit vital procedures/surgeries past a certain level, anyway, just like the esteemed insurance industry already does today?
You ask how likely any progress can be made on the health care front if this dog of a reform bill doesn't pass. Isn't it Gore who is now openly saying "civil disobedience" is a good thing to spark change? Is that what we are down to? The clueless teabaggers will be the least of our worries to prevent the Have party from turning what's left of the middle class into soup kitchen refugees. This is not a health care bill, it is anything but the universal care we need to help us protect against health and financial crises and disaster.
You think Obama "blew it'? Obama never blew what he didn't want...
Sorry for all of us - but this dog don't hunt.
Great questions. Though I think a bill will pass as a single payer advocate I'd like to see the whole thing go down in flames. It is a bad bill as far as i can tell now.
I don't think Obama cares about health care-he is doing this because he made a deal to get elected.
I think this is Pelosi's health care bill and she essentially has signaled what it means. She wants to carve health care into granite and then the fine tuning comes later.
So I support the bill, without really knowing the details, because once an entitlement program starts it is almost impossible to kill it-all you can do is change it and I think this may be the only way in this country to get universal health care given the opposition. It wont come in through the front door-it will sneak in through the side window.
Why not phase a single payer system in by expanding the CHIPs program to cove all children then every few years up the eligibility age?
This is a bad bill; from forcing people to buy insurance with punishment of higher taxes and perhaps jail time for not purchasing insurance to the lack of a real public option and everything in between it deserves to be defeated. A majority of Americans dislike Obamacare. Should it pass the repercussions in November 2010 will make last Tuesday’s elections look like sweetness and light. It is like the Democrats are both tone deaf and did not listen to voters last Tuesday and have a death wish too.
And no, a bad bill should not be passed or sneaked through a side window. If this bill passes both Houses and is signed into law it will mean Republican rule for the next 10-20 years. Republicans may well take both Houses next November if this bill passes. Additionally, since much of the bill does not take effect (except for the taxes portion) until 2013 the Republicans can make a lot of changes to the statute. And I am betting those would not be good either.
Kill the bill and start over from scratch. If you want true health care reform just open up Medicare for anyone who wants it. Simple. You don’t need 2000 pages and 111 new federal departments and threats of higher taxes and jail time.
Do the right thing! For once.
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