I think Jane Hamsher has been pretty insightful when reading between the lines on the health care reform battle, but I’m not sure I get this part (via John Cole):
The sight of pundits yucking it up about the “Democratic circular firing squad” have become as tedious and threadbare as those counseling “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Both of these admonitions have at their heart the notion that “liberals” are being irrational, unreasonable and rigid in refusing to accept the Senate health care bill.
But in the very next breath, they will then promote statistics that say the tea parties are more popular than either the Democratic or the Republican party, and wonder if it’s an opportune time for a third party candidate. (From the “right,” of course, because who would take the “left” seriously.) At no time do the synapses firing in their brains make the connection that both the “lazy progressive bloggers” and the tea party activists are saying almost the exact same thing about the Senate bill.
There are two aspects to political problems – being able to identify a problem and knowing how to fix it. Most people are really good at the first part, but it’s the second part that matters far more.
Imagine you have an old car that you need to fix up. It needs a new transmission, new brakes, a new alternator, new upholstery, and new tires. The mechanic tells you that you only have enough money to fix the transmission right now. You know the mechanic is dicking you around, driving up the price and making it seem far more difficult to fix the car than it really is, but you just don’t have the tools or the knowledge to do it yourself. It sucks. All you want is to drive it again. Your crazy neighbor, however, thinks that you can just tape some cardboard wings on each door and the magical unicorns in the sky will make the car drive. That same crazy neighbor may tell you that just fixing the transmission isn’t enough to fix the car, and he’ll be exactly right, but you’re still better off working with the mechanic to fix the car.
This is the dilemma that we’re facing right now. The tea party activists may be able to identify problems with our health care system – and some may even echo our own sentiments about the shared power between government and big business – but their prescriptions for fixing it far too often live in the realm of fantasy. They continue to advocate for less regulation of what insurers and drug companies can and can’t do when every other health care system in the world that’s more organized, efficient, and cost-effective has more robust regulation than ours has. This bill is far from perfect, but it’s not bad enough that we have to join ranks with the crazies and pray for the magical unicorns to save the day.
Though there is the possibility that the skeletonized version of the bill that we have now may, in fact, be worse than no bill at all.
Presently, the bill mandates that virtually everyone purchase a privately produced product and pay for it largely out of pocket without any guarantee that the company that offers that product actually provide any service.
It is a corporate hand out in which we have to write the checks ourselves.
One vote here for magical unicorns.
You can eliminate all your car hassles by doing without a car. Likewise, we can “solve” our health care problems by doing without health care (which is what conservatives want 50 million Americans to do). By this means, your life will be both simpler and less expensive — but probably shorter, too.
If you’re wondering how the pioneers made do without our complex and expensive health care system … the answer is, they died.
The health care bill that will pass is, once again, a triumph for big business.
Health insurance companies, even though they skim 30% of our health care dollars off the top, don’t make huge profits. I know, because I’ve looked at their stocks, and don’t want to own any of them. The return on investment is lousy in that sector. So where does all our premium money go? Mostly it pays for a gigantic bureaucracy whose only functions are to collect premium money, process payments to health care providers, and gin up excuses to deny claims and leave their policyholders medically bankrupt. Not much value for money there, I’d say, considering how much we’re paying for these “services.”
Folks, what we have here is private-sector bureaucratic waste that would make the most wasteful government bureaucracy blush. Yet this is the system that conservatives howl they want to keep.
Go figure.
Hey Rog there is a study showing that when the docs went on strike in L.A. about 1976 the death rate declined. Think about that for a minute will ya!
John Kerry scolds Howard Dean because:
I somehow doubt that people have been spending their lives working to come up with what’s coming out of the Senate now. Though I have to admit to not having seen an analysis of how the rest of the proposal really begins to make up for the loss of the public option, the much wimpier Medicare compromise, and the crumbling down on the abortion issue.
Does the Senate proposal really move us an incremental step forward or is it simply a very expensive steri-strip (with the adhesive removed to please Joe Lieberman and the insurance companies, and a compensatory leg gash to please Sen. Nelson) over a gushing jugular wound?
@1
Though there is the possibility that the skeletonized version of the bill that we have now may, in fact, be worse than no bill at all.
I agree that’s a possibility, but we’re not at that point yet. I personally think the Obama Administration could have done more to make this bill better, but just didn’t have the courage to take on the special interests. But that doesn’t mean that no bill at all is better than this thing.
@7 After thinking about it for approximately 5 seconds, I’ve concluded that taking away patients’ right to sue lousy doctors is a really bad idea.
@9 Given what a squeaker this bill is, I don’t think Obama could have done a damn thing to make it better. He gave away what he had to give away to get Democrats to vote for it.
Note that I said “to get Democrats to vote for it.” There are, of course, no Republican votes for this bill so no concessions to Republicans were necessary. The problem, as always, was those who call themselves “Democrats” knifing the ordinary people of this country who elect them.
In other words, same old, same old. There’s two Democratic parties: The Democratic party of the electeds, and the Democratic Party of the people. There is no connection between them.
@9 Lee: Truman would vomit if he read this bill. Even the plan the Nixon came up with was better than this. I seem to recall those who argued that Roads and Transit was our ‘last best chance’ to get light rail off the ground, and the admonition to not make the perfect the enemy of the good was bandied about rather indiscriminantly. And it was dead wrong.
You have to bring more to your case than an unsupported assertion(“It’s got some good points, take my word for it”). And really, nobody is seriously making the case for joining up with tea baggers, so stop already.
As for your car analogy. What’s the use of getting stabbed to get the transmission if the brakes don’t work? Like, how dumb is that?
This is a tough call. Don’t make it worse by impuning the integrity and sense of your erstwhile team members. Tell me the advantages of this bill as opposed to not passing it at all. What will this bill fix? And how?
Howard Dean is starting to appear to be one of the individuals presently involved in American politics who isn’t either certifiably insane, a fucking liar, crooked as hell or all of the above.
I seem to recall that he tried to run for President a few years back, and got abandoned by his own party leadership and spit-roasted by highly-paid character assassins of the other party, because he yelled in public….once.
And of course, Republicans never never never ever raise their voices in a public forum now, do they?
@11: Indiscriminate outrage or apathy by Democrats in 2010 would be a mistake (look at what we would get with the alternative!), but targeted outrage at the ones who really screwed us is necessary.
Interesting discussion of these issues here:
@8: Yup. I don’t recall the decades long fight by Democrats for the concept of an “insurance exchange” or “mandates”, unless I slept through all those meetings.
The Senate measure, as currently configured, is a bitter disappointment.
One part of the car anology is that the thing doesn’t need to have nice upholstery or a thumping stereo to get its owner from Point A to Point B….so why the hell do we expect health insurance of any sort to pay for:
(1.) Boob implants, except for restoration (i. e. post mastectomy)?
(2.) Nose jobs?
(3.) Viagra?
(4.) Hair restoration?
(5.) Abortion as a routine means of birth control?
@13 Click here for photo of the type of people who pilloried Howard Dean for his “Dean scream.”
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_5XvBYfxU.....imgmax=800
@14: Good discussion, that. Kutner made a good point about the lack of a social movement.
The way things are continuing to deteriorate, such a movement may not be far off.
@12
Read the linked article from Jonathan Cohn. Or read Krugman’s take on this bill. Or Ezra Klein’s. I could go on.
People who are far more knowledgeable about health care than me are still supporting this bill even with its flaws.
I discussed the analogy with roads and transit earlier this week. In that case, we were able to come back the next year and get it done right. I’m not at all sure that can happen here. And if 2010 turns out as most first term mid-terms go, the window will close even further.
@19 I’m not at all sure that can happen here.
If they pass they pass the legislation in the current Senate form – a big if, incidentally – I think it highly unlikely there will be another chance to substantially improve upon it any time soon. The environment going forward – the mood of Obama’s base, the loss of independents, the legislative numbers, other issues looming (a weak recovery, Afghanistan, Iran) – is not likely to be as favorable IMO. I think this is a major miscalculation the administration – and Democrats – will rue.
The reason the beltway media takes teabaggers seriously is that they have guns. Maybe liberals ought to show up at a few rallies packing (legal) heat. Except for gun control rallies. The hypocrasy there would be a little too stark.
@21
The reason the beltway media takes teabaggers seriously is that they have guns.
The reason the beltway media takes teabaggers seriously is because the teabaggers buy into the broad political ideas that keep allowing corporations to write the laws that regulate their behavior.
@20
I think this is a good argument for passing the bill. And another thing I mentioned earlier this week is that once it’s passed, then the Democrats who voted for it own it. If it’s terrible, it then becomes a political liability, which would then motivate them to fix it.
The car needs brakes first. Without brakes both car and driver will probably die.
The current bill provides absolutely no reform whatsoever and it’s not going to prevent anyone from dying for lack of health care. It provides an option-out provision for the states and they, being all broke, will indeed option out. The “brakes” for the bill would be cost control, and there is none provided. Without that, people will die because neither Americans nor the government can afford the constant increases by the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry.
@22 Probably. But let’s try guns for a while and see if it doesn’t work.
I still don’t understand why it is OK for someone to say they don’t want their tax money going to abortions because of their personal beliefs — and having that notion accepted AND enforced on us all — but if you are morally against a war, you have no hope your taxes not going toward the war.
Golly Lee, that’s what your “teabagging” president Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm did when he negotiated with big pharma and then tried to lie about it.
Golly Lee, that’s what your “teabagging” president did when he negotiated with big insurance in the healthcare debate and then tried to lie about it.
Golly Lee, that’s what your “teabagging” president did when he negotiated with SEIU in the healthcare debate and then tried to cover it up.
Golly Lee, that’s what your “teabagging” president did when he negotiated with ACORN in the voting and census taking for 2010 and ACORN got busted and then tried to cover it up.
Yep Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm fits Lee’s definition as a real “teabagger”.
So headless@25,
Will you be against war if the US is attacked by a foreign nation?
Would you be against war if Major Hasan was acting as a agent for some country?
What do your silly beliefs really mean fool?
…
Blue: It’s just over this bridge Charlie!
Pink: It’s a Magical Bridge of Hope & Wonder!
Charlie: Is anyone else like getting, covered in splinters? Seriously guys we shouldn’t be on this thing.
Blue: Charlieee, Chaaaarlieeee, Chaaaarliee, Char…
Charlie: I’m Right Here! What Do You Want!
Blue: We’re on a bridge Charlieeee!
Pink: We’re here!!
…
@26
Was that comment supposed to make sense?