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News & ArtsMonday, December 21, 2009
Health Now That the Democrats Have 60 Votes...
Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 10:20 AM
It's time to remind Seattle Times readers of the paper's Dec. 18 editorial, "Set health-care reform aside"?
That's exactly what the Times is doing right now on its homepage, and it's a rather amazing link choice.
Really, the newspaper truly believes, even now, as Democrats are on the cusp of making history in the senate, that:
THE health-care dance in Washington, D.C., has gone on long enough.
Come on, Seattle Times, can't you wait three more days? No!
Congress needs to focus on the economy and set health care aside.
Wow. Has your editorial page always felt this way? No!
This is a change of position for us. This page supported Barack Obama for president, enthusiastically. We have supported the health-care effort until now. We still support universal coverage as a social goal.But the longer the fight goes on, the more it feels that the timing is all wrong. The economy is wounded. Employers are hurting. The time to think about loading employers with new burdens is when they are strong. Not now.
Right now, Congress needs to focus on the economy.
Because health care costs have nothing to do with the economy. Because three more days before Christmas is just too much time to spend on historic reform. Because—well, just not now ok!
1
But is the Senate version REALLY an improvement? Or, is it going to bite us in the ass? Or can the House and Senate work together to improve a very messy bill that doesn't really lessen the power of the insurance industry?
2
The Senate version of the bill is worthless. The American people lost. The insurance companies and their lobbyists won.
As for the timing of the health care reform initiative by Obama, I have to agree with the Seattle Times on this. His approached this topic too early in his term. He didn't have the political equity yet to take on this monumental task. I guess 52.9% of the popular vote is not the mandate by the people he thought it was. (Who could've forseen the "death panel" lies?) He should've waited for the economy to pick back up and use the success of that to strengthen his campaign for health care reform. (Probably realistically not until his second term) Instead he's a sitting duck whose an easy target for the right and he's losing support centrist independent voters and impatient leftists.
As for the timing of the health care reform initiative by Obama, I have to agree with the Seattle Times on this. His approached this topic too early in his term. He didn't have the political equity yet to take on this monumental task. I guess 52.9% of the popular vote is not the mandate by the people he thought it was. (Who could've forseen the "death panel" lies?) He should've waited for the economy to pick back up and use the success of that to strengthen his campaign for health care reform. (Probably realistically not until his second term) Instead he's a sitting duck whose an easy target for the right and he's losing support centrist independent voters and impatient leftists.
3
And the White House is only pushing its passage to save face. I guess any victory is better than nothing, even if the Senate bill has no real reform. A defeat of this bill after all this time will be a HUGE blow to the Obama administration's credibility and authority.
4
jinushaun @2 & @3, I'm not sure which statement of yours is more clueless:
A. That the Senate bill is worthless.
B. That Obama got the timing wrong politically.
I know it may be a little much to be asking you to do your homework before you make sweeping judgments about complex policy matters that are not best distilled into sound bites. But for all the value substance-wise and politics-wise to this bill I would refer you to two wonky Jews*:
Ezra Klein of The Washington Post
Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com
* My Jew-dar speaking. If Klein and Silver aren't Jewish, then they deserve honorary Hebrew status. Just like Lieberman needs to have his Jewishness revoked. (I'll leave it to your imaginations to visualize how that would work).
A. That the Senate bill is worthless.
B. That Obama got the timing wrong politically.
I know it may be a little much to be asking you to do your homework before you make sweeping judgments about complex policy matters that are not best distilled into sound bites. But for all the value substance-wise and politics-wise to this bill I would refer you to two wonky Jews*:
Ezra Klein of The Washington Post
Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com
* My Jew-dar speaking. If Klein and Silver aren't Jewish, then they deserve honorary Hebrew status. Just like Lieberman needs to have his Jewishness revoked. (I'll leave it to your imaginations to visualize how that would work).
5
I've got to point out just a couple idiotic comments among many from jinushaun. Regarding Obama:
Hmm, so how exactly does this political equity thing actually work? Does it involve securing compromising photos of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson? Does it involve giving money to Blanche Lincoln and Olympia Snowe? Does it involve some weird kind of mind control over the members of the U.S. Senate so that they lose all free will?
There's this fantasy that if Obama had just spoken up more forcefully for the public option something would have happened. It's a bit like saying if Jim Mora just coached a bit harder the Seahawks would be a Super Bowl contender.
Um, has it ever occurred to you that one of the problems keeping the economy from picking back up is our messed-up health insurance system that discourages hiring and leaves our nation at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the industrialized world? I'm not about to say that the current reform is a silver bullet to promote employment, but at least it's a start to the extent that it (A) helps small business compete and (B) begins to chip away at our self-defeating American expectation that health insurance must be tied to employment.
He didn't have the political equity yet to take on this monumental task.
Hmm, so how exactly does this political equity thing actually work? Does it involve securing compromising photos of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson? Does it involve giving money to Blanche Lincoln and Olympia Snowe? Does it involve some weird kind of mind control over the members of the U.S. Senate so that they lose all free will?
There's this fantasy that if Obama had just spoken up more forcefully for the public option something would have happened. It's a bit like saying if Jim Mora just coached a bit harder the Seahawks would be a Super Bowl contender.
He should've waited for the economy to pick back up and use the success of that to strengthen his campaign for health care reform.
Um, has it ever occurred to you that one of the problems keeping the economy from picking back up is our messed-up health insurance system that discourages hiring and leaves our nation at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the industrialized world? I'm not about to say that the current reform is a silver bullet to promote employment, but at least it's a start to the extent that it (A) helps small business compete and (B) begins to chip away at our self-defeating American expectation that health insurance must be tied to employment.
6
It's never the right time to do things that cost money. When the economy is bad, we can't afford it. When the economy is good, it might go bad if we start spending money. When it isn't a crisis there are more important things to do and when it is a crisis it's too late to do anything but damage control.
We are a "buy now, pay later" society from the top to the bottom.
We are a "buy now, pay later" society from the top to the bottom.
10
So let's see, the Times was FOR Rossi, AGAINST light rail, FOR Susan Hutchinson, FOR Mallahan, and now has drunk the republican kool-aid to come out AGAINST healthcare. So predictable. SO glad I cancelled my subscription.
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