Maybe we have a day or so to celebrate. Maybe.
John Kyl has already promised to try to kill the reconciliation bill with endless amendments.
John Cornyn has telegraphed the GOP strategy for November. Try to kill the bill in crib:
“The question you’re going to see Republicans asking in November is, ‘Have your health insurance costs gone down?’ ” Mr. Cornyn said. “And I think the answer to that is going to be no.”
Ross Douthat claims that unless the health care bill satisfies the most optimistic projections, then it will show the bankruptcy of liberalism and our “rendezvous with a bankrupt, Californian future” (conveniently ignoring conservatives’ responsibility for the Californian present).
Thomas Donahue of the US Chamber of Commerce pledges to to keep opposing the health care measure “through all available avenues — regulatory, legislative, legal and political.”
The forces of plutocracy are not giving up, and it is easy for them. When you represent the interests of the wealthy and powerful, you tend to have access to a lot of wealth and power.
By all means, let’s celebrate, and as Mark suggests, say a “Shehechianu” for this moment. And then: back into the trenches.
Jonathan, could you please reprint the list of Dems who voted ‘yes’ at the last moment? Right now, that list is scattered through several posts.
The whole point of the plan is that it doesn’t mess with your insurance. If you’ve got employer-based health care now, you’ll have the same plan in November. If that really going to be the talking point? That your premiums haven’t gone down?
“Ross Douthat claims that unless the health care bill satisfies the most optimistic projections, then it will show the bankruptcy of liberalism”
Well of course the way to solve this is to DAMN WELL DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE COST DRIVERS.
I’ve commented many times on some obvious ways to do this. For example
- an alternative medical training and certification path whose sole concern is whether professionals who what they need to know (as opposed to the AMA whose primary concern is throttling the number of professionals so that limited supply maintains high salaries)
- easy green cards for foreign medical professionals who want to move to the US
- alternative ways to finance medical education. What is especially poisonous about the US system is that anyone leaving med school with $250,000+ in debt naturally has, as their first priority, to get the highest salary possible. But, once that debt is paid off, a practitioner has come to feel that their salary (initially justified in terms of med school debt) is now their’s by right. Additionally, of course, this system ends any chance that many medical professionals will, when first out of school and full of do-gooder enthusiasm, spend a year or three helping the poor somewhere.
There seems no PRINCIPLED reason why all three of these reforms not be passed tomorrow — they are all good on policy grounds.
I personally have long opposed this bill on the grounds that it simply freezes a stupid and unsustainable status quo, rather than actually changing what needs to be changed. The supporters of the bill claim it is merely the first step in improving the system. OK, let’s see them put their money where their mouth is and get on with some more steps. Because right now, the primary step I see is the step that drastically increases insurance company victims; with fsckall of the step that reduces medical costs.
Well, one thing is guaranteed; 90% of those with current individual insurance will see their premiums go up. (That’s an intended and explicit consequence of banning underwriting.)
“The whole point of the plan is that it doesn’t mess with your insurance. If you’ve got employer-based health care now, you’ll have the same plan in November.”
??? Excuse me, my plan has a lifetime limit on payout, the ban on this kicks in immediately. Hence it is dishonest to say that I’ll still have the same plan in November. You can’t mandate changes, and claim there won’t be changes. Unless maybe you’ve got a split personality.
Jonathan Zasloff is a piece of crap
[...] this appears to be where Republicans opposed to more Americans having health care are planning to make their stand. Expect them to throw up a barrage of procedural obstacles, as they are going to pull out all the [...]
[...] this appears to be where Republicans opposed to more Americans having health care are planning to make their stand. Expect them to throw up a barrage of procedural obstacles, as they are going to pull out all the [...]