The only question I have about the healthcare bill any more is: What is being passed after all this noise? For in my book, if it looks like crap and smells like crap, remember not to step on it.
Cousin Bina has the most coherent answer so far: “They are watering down the principles they started out with (universal health care, public option markets for individual insurance to increase competition). They are now voting on a bunch of amendments — most recently about subsidies for Medicare — and it still has to be conferenced after the final vote.”
Some liberal friends contend that it is important to get anything passed, however warped and contrary to the original intentions of the bill, just to prove to constituents that the Democrats can pass something. They’re passing something, alright, but let it not be termed healthcare legislation. How does this bill help the growing number of uninsured Americans get access to affordable healthcare? How does it decrease the chokehold enjoyed by the insurance cartel? It doesn’t change a damned thing! Between the Republicans, who don’t know the meaning of the word “bipartisanship,” and insurance-company-bought and centrist Democrats, we don’t need foreign enemies, y’all.
I’d go on but Cliff does such a nice job of laying out the entrails:
… Now you don’t want to seem bipartisan so you are willing to do anything he wants to get to the official 60 votes on the health care bill. That means the public option, Medicaid buy in and any single payer system is dead. That’s funny because the insurance mandate is in there which means that not only will insurance companies keep getting paid, we will all have to buy it from them or face the consequences. That’s enough to make me want to join a tea party. I say this while for the third time in the last two years my employer searches for a cheaper insurance plan that won’t cripple the agency. That’s okay though. We still have our freedom to hire all new employees part time so we don’t have to give them any benefits. I would like to thank Senator Lieberman and the rest of my government for preserving that privilege.
It’s all fun and tea parties and special interests until you lose your job and your kids get sick. Won’t you be glad then about what your activism accomplished.
