It may not be pretty, but it is a major achievement. Anything less would have been to admit defeat and lead to a major bloodletting in November. I think once all the angry rhetoric subsides, Americans will take stock in the new bill and see that it offers some significant reforms and should make the health care system more accessible to many more persons. Obama and Pelosi deserve a lot of credit in selling this bill when it seemed the Democrats were ready to back out.
History in the making.
ReplyDeleteNow if everyone can just stay healthy 'til 2014...
ReplyDeleteA great many deluded and angry Republicans say this is the embodiment of socialism. Little do these delusionals know that it was Republican Teddy Roosevelt who initially fought for this type of reform.
ReplyDeleteThey haven't even grasped the Constitution yet, much less the origins of their own party. These guys are Antebellum Democrats, who would be much more comfortable with the Articles of Confederation, if they even knew what it was.
ReplyDeleteBob Herbert's Op/Ed in this morning's New York Times says it all. The Party of No is a disgrace. Not one House member crossed the aisle, while 37 Democrats did. I have no problem with Democrats not voting for the bill. That not even one Republican broke with the party speaks volumes, as they say.
ReplyDeleteNow if everyone can just stay healthy 'til 2014...
ReplyDeleteOr in my case, stay a student.....
One thing that I found very disturbing watching the news last night was the almost mob-like quality of the crowds that taunted Congress.
ReplyDeleteI'm in DC and have seen some of the protests, but fortunately not the tea baggers. I had a meeting on Sunday afternoon or would have been at the Capitol.
I did join in a demonstration of hispanic workers for awhile. But then I had to head out here (I'm in Howard Hughes [endowed] enclave if you can believe it).
The irony of it all is that Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, was the first President to promote national health insurance. It gives you a pretty good idea how far this political party has drifted from its ideological center.
ReplyDeleteGood piece from Salon,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/03/22/frum/index.html
with excellent links to Frum and health care surveys conducted recently.
Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteThis should be an interesting six months. I'm glued to the news again.
This may be a little more than others are interested in, but just in case:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447696/
Looks like a very good piece on health care in America. Thanks, av!
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking that Obama could learn a few things from TR, and may be compared to him in the end, when I read in Maureen Dowd's column that he's reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.
ReplyDeleteWe may have even happier days ahead yet!
They're doing it...
ReplyDeleteSenate Passes Reconciliation Bill, 56-43
Here in Georgia some numbskull legislater has filed impeachment papers on the state's Attorney General, Thurbert Baker. Not only is Baker black, he's also a Democrat. Why impeachment? Because he won't file a law suit opposing the the health care law.
ReplyDeletelegislator
ReplyDeleteSo glad the Senate didn't hedge on the follow-up bill anymore than it did. The Dems only lost 3 Senators on the vote.
ReplyDeleteIt almost feels like a log jam has broken, and that the river is beginning to run free again.
ReplyDeleteNow they are talking about helping homeowners in over their heads. I know it's their own faults in many ways, but like the banks they are too big to fail. Everyone loses if they all go under.
Only their fault in that these first time home buyers fell for the low rates, not knowing they would have to face balloon payments and of course not knowing their homes would depreciate 50% shortly there after. It was like buying a new car.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it makes more sense to renegotiate mortgages than it does to foreclose and then sell these houses on the auction block for a fraction of their selling price.
Nice to know that I'm not the only one who thinks that. Reading the comments at the Times today you would think that this is the end of democracy and the free world as we know it. And yet when you read the particulars, it appears to be a modest proposal. And appears to help those neighborhoods where there are multiple foreclosures as much as the individual homeowner.
ReplyDeleteI suppose there are a lot of folks out there who would love nothing more than to pick up these houses at rock bottom prices ;)
ReplyDeleteYou have to love the recess appointments Obama has made,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/27/obamas-recess-appointment_n_515978.html
adding insult to injury as far as the Republicans are concerned. It is going to be a rough recess for the GOP'ers.
Yes, I hope this is the beginning of the beginning!
ReplyDeleteI think he may be seeing his presidency with a little more clarity now. And, from the looks of it lately, he may have kept the country from falling off a financial cliff, so he may have a little more time on his hands.
Now if he would just end the occupation of the Middle East, we could all live happily ever after.
My feeling is that Obama felt obligated to try to include the Republicans, given his campaign rhetoric, but seeing that the Republicans have no desire to be part of the current government, he now is playing hardball.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think he honestly believed he could do it. There's something almost above it all about him.
ReplyDeleteBut he inherited an economy on the brink of destruction, some very disaffected people with some bad cases of not-so latent racism, and Glenn Beck. I don't think he has any choice but to play hardball if he wants to get anything done.
My jubilation at passage and signing is only tempered by the wish that it hadn't been "necessary" to throw women, esp. poor women, under the bus with his executive order re absolutely no fed. funds for abortions.
ReplyDeletePutting game face on...wishing I hadn't had so much practice...
From Judt: "Inequality is corrosive. It rots societies from within. The impact of material differences takes a while to show up: but in due course competition for status and goods increases; people feel a growing sense of superiority (or inferiority) based on their possessions; prejudice towards those on the lower ranks of the social ladder hardens; crime spikes and the pathologies of social disadvantage become ever more marked. The legacy of unregulated wealth creation is bitter indeed."
ReplyDeleteHe includes a series of graphs on the difference between social mobility and income inequality (US low mobility/high inequality vs Norway, Sweden, et al., high mobility/low inequality).
He also shows one related to health and inequality (Japan, Sweden, Norway -- better health, low inequality vs US -- sort of off the chart all by itself when it comes to high inequality in both ill health and income). Not a pretty picture.
NY, I agree with you about the game face. I love how these white guys like to speak out against poor women. I'm also disappointed personally that it won't affect me for four years. Heck, I could be dead in four years.
Alas, I think it's the best we can do for the moment, although I hope that all the loopholes the insurance companies are finding will push someone somewhere to at minimum float the idea of a public option again if not a single payer system.
Delusional right wingers believe Congress cannot make laws which mandate private health care or other means of reform. Too bad they don't read American history like we do. Otherwise, they would know President Adams signed into law a private insurance mandate in 1798:
ReplyDeletehttp://rootswire.org/content/john-adams-signed-health-insurance-mandate-law-1798
As ultra right wing Scalia wrote in the Raich case back in 2005, Congressional authority over interstate commerce is virtually unlimited. The matter of legally mandated insurance was at issue in that case. Again, it's just too bad the deluded right wingers love to believe the garbage spewed by the Fox network on a daily basis as opposed to learning the truth.
It takes effort to actually look such news items up. Something Fox and their devoted following both lack.
ReplyDelete