Weak Pulse Detected
The health care bill remains alive if rather unstable and probably permanently deformed.
I think the best lesson to derive from all this is summed up rather well by E.J. Dionne and Paul Krugman,
Here are a few other random lessons dished out over the past year.
1. The system was unresponsive BEFORE and DURING the reign of GW Bush. Not surprising it remains so AFTER.
2. The system is not changed by people voicing or blogging their support or opposition for this or that. It is changed when people change it. Voting for a candidate is the first, not the last, step in engaging in real political reform.
3. The powerful special interests are called that because they are. They did not evaporate a year ago November. They had to be negotiated with not because it was a pleasant task. Negotiating and compromising with and to a degree capitulating to them is an accurate reflection of the real balance of political forces. Too bad but true. It is also an accurate reflection of the degree to which principals in the political system are willing to represent those interests. That was true before Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid assumed congressional leadership and they hardly were inclined to change it.
4. The bill taking shape in Congress will not provide Single Payer coverage because there was nothing near the mass political support needed to force Congress to pass such a sweeping measure. Indeed, there wasn’t even enough pressure to force a “public option.” Too bad but true. Don’t tell me about polls supposedly showing this or that level of support. Show me what political and organizing action was taken to make those opinions count, please.
5. The overall effects of this bill are yet to be seen. But anyone who underestimates the “trickle-down” reform of erasing recision and pre-existing conditions is not an adult who has ever had to battle with a vulture insurance company.
6. Anyone who writes off expanded access to health care to the currently uninsured as merely “more corporate health insurance” either already has his or her own such insurance or needs to get to a doctor real quick. When my 25 year old daughter left her corporate job early this year and I helped her look to buy her own insurance, as a young healthy person it was still hell on wheels. And the benefits, as compromised as they might be, have already greatly outweighed what would have been the cost of basic care of the last 10 months.
7. The bill shaping up in Congress, by expanding Medicaid and providing sliding subsidies to those families making up to $88,000 per year will make insurance available now to as many as 30 million who have no coverage. Sitting on one’s own ass and saying that doesn’t mean much is akin to saying that someone who is currently unemployed is better off than getting a $9 an hour job at Wal-Mart. Easy for you to say. Perhaps you would like trying to live on air or paying the ER with…. what?
8. Those additional 30 million will be, in many cases, overcharged, short-changed, co-payed to death and denied essential services just like all of us are who are currently subject to coverage by for-profit insurers. No doubt about it.
9. Neither is there any doubt that given the choice between having a half-assed private policy that covers catastrophic illness and having a bunch of lefties throwing hissy fits and telling you that it is better to have nothing rather than something is in itself a form of mental illness.
10. As a client of an employer-based private insurance plan, my stay in the CCU two-and-a-half years ago ran up a tab of about $117,000 which cost me, out of pocket, about $1700 plus a couple of thousand a year for my portion of the premiums. A $50,000 medical device for my heart cost me $150. Was that great? Hardly. Was it socialism, no? Am I grateful to my all-powerful insurer who holds my life in its hands? Fuck no! Health care is a right, not a privilege (at least by moral accounting) But was it better having this “corporate, private health insurance,” than having a speech from Dennis Kucinich “supporting single payer” in my back pocket as I was admitted to the hospital? Um, yes.
11. I now have a Pre-Existing Condition. Even comfy, solidly-middle-class-me is happy that about the time this bill comes into effect I might be retiring and an insurer won’t be able to deny me coverage based on that history. I, at least, hope that is true.
12. Seven previous presidents have tried or claimed to try to get some form of national health care. This is the first president to succeed in at least an initial form.
13. Long walks begin with first, stumbling steps. Not with one snap of the finger.
14. If my aunt had balls she would be my uncle.
Class Dismissed.
December 21st, 2009 at 8:32 am
“…having a bunch of lefties throwing hissy fits and telling you that it is better to have nothing rather than something is in itself a form of mental illness.”
Yes, some on the left seem to want to flaunt their powerlessness. What a strategy!
December 21st, 2009 at 9:02 am
I thought Howard Dean did a good job on Meet The Press of taking the strongest stance against the bill while it’s still being negotiated in conference. If he still stands against passage AFTER conference, I’ll consider his position “insane”, to quote David Axelrod, but I’m glad while the negotiations are still on that some prominent, credible Dems are engaged in harsh criticisms and pointing out the degree to which this thing has been bent to appease insurance, pharma, etc. Of course, everyone knows that progressives and liberals will take even half-assed reform, while the Liebermans and Nelsons are willing to let the present system stand before they’ll even compromise on relatively modest sections they want to kill, so it’s not the most convincing bluff, but to want to see the people who care push as hard in the conference negotiations as they possibly can to, at the least, strengthen regulation of private insurers as long as they own the insurance delivery system.
December 21st, 2009 at 9:21 am
For years, whenever the right would make some advance– defunding abortion, deregulating corporations, whatever– their own rank-and-file were probably disappointed that they didn’t get Jesus’ dominion over the Congress that instant. I’m sure even Strom Thurmond got angry mail telling him he wasn’t fighting hard _enough_ against women, minorities and science. But, they kept making these small advances… and every time, we on the Left would wail about their inevitable victory and our inevitable ruin.
Yet here _we_ are, ready to achieve something that’s _very impressive_ despite the compromises… and a lot of us are willing to believe that “all or nothing” nonsense and scrap the bill entirely. Our enemies got a lot done in small, incremental steps, and we screamed about how much they were achieving…. so maybe we should learn that _that’s how it’s done_.
December 21st, 2009 at 9:57 am
What a great health care bill – one that outdoes Enron on its accounting, paid off Senators with tax money from other states, raises taxes on people at levels that Obama promised wouldn’t pay more, and will result in more restrictions on coverage due to rationing.
Here’s some fun reading for you:
Thanks for nothing. Bigger government is rarely the answer to any problem, especially one’s private health care. Now, let’s watch its cost escalate even higher than the overruns on medicare.
I hope your daughter likes paying for this the rest of her life, Marc.
December 21st, 2009 at 10:17 am
I pass…refuse to waste good holiday time “debating” Woody’s moronic twaddle.
December 21st, 2009 at 10:41 am
Woody is polite enough to provide the link to this quote from Atlas Shrugged. In other words, it’s a fictitious statement from a fictitious character in a not-very-good story. Somehow there are lots of surgeons and internists all over the industrial world who not only practice under government regulated systems, they make plenty of money, enjoy enormous social status, and sit on important agency boards. There are still plenty of applicants to medical schools.
What’s interesting about the bill that is now going through the Senate is that it will involve more government regulation (the maximum levels of overhead and profit limitation on Reid’s amendment) than a bipartisan bill might have created.
The even more interesting thing, from a political standpoint, is that the Dems have shown that in a pinch (twice now in the past few days) they can ignore bipartisanism (sounds like a neurological disorder) and go it alone.
December 21st, 2009 at 10:59 am
Marc writes in Point#10:
“Am I grateful to my all-powerful insurer who holds my life in its hands? Fuck no! Health care is a right, not a privilege (at least by moral accounting) But was it better having this “corporate, private health insurance,” than having a speech from Dennis Kucinich “supporting single payer” in my back pocket as I was admitted to the hospital? Um, yes.”
——————————
‘HEALTHCARE IS A RIGHT NOT A PRIVILEGE’ SO WRITES OUR HOST.
Yes.
To vindicate our rights it will take people like Dennis Kucinich raising the issue and demanding their inalienable rights.
Placing Dennis in photoshopped tinfoil hats and making him the fall-guy in a private insurance success story is an attempt to marginalize his position…. a position which, at least rhetorically , Marc seems to support.
December 21st, 2009 at 11:38 am
“…having a bunch of lefties throwing hissy fits and telling you that it is better to have nothing rather than something is in itself a form of mental illness.”
Then I’m mentally ill. Abused Spouse Syndrome. Getting out of this very long-term relationship with the Dems, hoping they’d treat little old progressive me a little better, justifying their behavior. You know, they really love me and they’re doing it for my own good.
Yes, I’m mentally ill. Thankfully. Never been madder. Feeling alive. Finally.
December 21st, 2009 at 11:39 am
We can thank Woody for reminding us what an awful writer Ayn Rand was, although there are two new biographies of her out that already make this point.
December 21st, 2009 at 11:46 am
I guess Anita B. is going to organize her personal health care system for the masses?
If you want single-payer and universal health care, better build a movement and convince enough people to force Congress to do it. Oh, did we already say that? Perhaps we need to add that personal outrage is just dandy but not enough in today’s world; indeed, it was never enough, but there is plenty of it to go around.
December 21st, 2009 at 11:57 am
Oh my God – I didn’t read his comment, but quoting characters from the atheist-materialist Ayn Rand is about as dumb as it gets on the “conservative” right. Rand was a ferocious radical, not a conservative. Edmund Burke and, yes, Adam Smith would have considered her a full-blown nutcase.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I remember picking up Atlas Shrugged in college fully expecting to disagree with the politics, but I was shocked to find it so stupid and poorly written. I understand why they find her politics appealing, but I still think it’s weird that so few conservatives dislike her writing.
Also, Pablo has a point.
Third, I know most of you read TPM, but what an ass: http://bit.ly/7JM8x0
December 21st, 2009 at 12:01 pm
(No offense to our atheist-materialist friends on the Left who, contra the Rand cult, are de facto proponents of the moral tenets that hippy, commie Jew expounded in his bleeding heart Sermon on the Mount.)
December 21st, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Regarding the McCain link at TPM, I’ve come to the conclusion that John McCain is, more than anything, terminally stupid. He’s also disingenuous to the point of being a serial liar, but his mouth doesn’t seem to be connected to a brain. I used to sort of respect the guy, but he’s a Zero, not a Hero.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:08 pm
“there are lots of surgeons and internists all over the industrial world who…practice under government regulated systems”
If these gutless wonders had Ayn Rand’s superior moral sense they’d either commit suicide or euthanize the parasites clamoring for their services on their way out the door to a bunker in Montana.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Balter, good to see you around. Don’t be a stranger.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Thanks, Kyle, will try to check in more often.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Michael B – I hate to say this, but I don’t really enjoy your comments that much anymore because I almost always agree with them. I pine for the good old days when we often argued.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm
reg, I am sure we will get our chance to tussle from time to time, but it’s true we are in a different era now.
If I said that Obama is making a HUGE mistake in Afghanistan I suppose you would agree with that too?
December 21st, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I would agree that’s a perfectly rational prediction – I’m torn on this one and think a good case can be made that he’s probably making a “HUGE mistake” whatever he does. The only reason I support his decision – in the sense that I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt for a year or so – is because I respect the process he went through to arrive at it and I am swayed by the argument that there’s some strategic correction involved and that it’s worth the risk to try to give the Afghans a shot at consolidating against the Taliban before we just say “fuck it.” If I thought it was just a gangbusters approach to occupation, I would oppose it. Maybe I’m naive…
December 21st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Incidentally, my biggest beef with certain folks over the Afghanistan decision is with the complaint that he’s pulling some sort of bait-and-switch. He ran on making a case that we needed to put more forces in Afghanistan and push hard against the Taliban and al Qaeda in that region. The number of troops isn’t really relevant. That doesn’t mean he’s right now or that he was right during the campaign, in terms of the prospects for “victory” or how that’s defined, but I don’t buy the way some of the opponents frame the thing, like he’s stabbing his supporters in the back.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Also, I hope it was obvious I was making a joke in the first comment…
December 21st, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I agree that Obama is fulfilling his campaign promises on Afghanistan and no one should be surprised. That said, I will wait until the appropriate thread comes along to debate the matter. See how civil I have become?
December 21st, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Fuck your civility…this blog is no fun anymore. Woody’s puerile ranting doesn’t do it for me.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Okay, try this: reg, your politics stink and so does your dog.
Aw shucks, just don’t have my heart in it anymore.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I’d consider the dog comment beyond the pale…if I had a dog.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I wouldn’t expect liberals to read and understand Ayn Rand any more than I would them the Bible, which they also consider fiction. If you don’t like fiction, then don’t read Paul Krugman, either.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Lame…
December 21st, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Michael – you see why there’s no satisfaction in “debating” Woody ?
December 21st, 2009 at 1:42 pm
The Bible fiction? Mais, au contraire. Just look at this:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sumerians_look_on_in_confusion_as
December 21st, 2009 at 1:45 pm
And I most definitely do read Ayn Rand, especially for the steamy sex scenes. Dominique Francon and Dagny Taggart must be the hottest women in fiction, even if they look and sound like cardboard cutouts.
See, Cooper’s blog is a place for intellectuals to gather, a center for literary criticism and much much more.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Uh, reg, both you and Michael know something about debating me, because I’ve won the long debates that we have had.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:40 pm
From Marc’s linked article by Krugman, a supposed economist…. Now consider what lies ahead. We need fundamental financial reform. We need to deal with climate change. We need to deal with our long-run budget deficit.
Jobs, Paul! Jobs!
Obama’s stimulus package sure didn’t work, the carbon tax is a job killer, the national deficit and debt will result in runaway inflation, mandates and taxes will kill small business growth, interest rates will kill borrowing ability, cash for clunkers was a waste, and so are all the “great” economic ideas of liberals.
At least, I thought that Krugman would recognize jobs as a challenge that isn’t cured and lies ahead still.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:04 pm
According to this Obama is the one with the weak pulse:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/leadership-obama-style-an_b_398813.html
I have to agree…as many do.
December 21st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Some cartoonist must have seen Marc’s post comparing a man sitting on a toilet with passing the health care bill. — Harry Reid’s Road Apple
December 21st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Anna, we are waiting to hear from you about ur source of insurance, please.
Pablo,, u are a gigantic waste of time. You are free to post whatever you like here but I am through arguing with you. I wasted too many years of my life in Friday nite meetings with folks like u when I could have been out drinking instead.
I wonder, however, if you deign to answer one question before I erase you from my memory bank. Can you explain why Mr. Kucinich only got about 2% of the Democratic primary vote? I really want to know why. Please enlighten me
December 21st, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Marc – I think you asked, and Anna answered, about her own insurance situation in the previous thread.
December 21st, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Cant wait to see.
December 21st, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Bob G: Somehow there are lots of surgeons and internists all over the industrial world who not only practice under government regulated systems, they make plenty of money….
Plenty of money under socialized medicine? Not those that I’ve asked.
Every physician client that I have who is originally from India started in the U.K., went to Canada, and then finally ended up in the U.S., their ultimate goal and where they could earn what they are worth without government telling them how much they can make…until Obama. Same with physicians from Canada.
A story doesn’t have to be non-fiction to be accurate and to predict the future control of government. I sure didn’t laugh at “1984″ when I read it.
December 21st, 2009 at 6:36 pm
There is a certain Irony in Woody debasing Krugman (and
Enron! yep, if we had seen the warning there we would have
been spared The Wood Man’s idiot President melting down
the world economy) on Marc Cooper blog. They were on the
same page last year; when Cooper berated Krugman (obviously,
one of the wisest and most honest talking heads we’ve got)
as “vermin.”
The bill obviously makes Hillary Clinton something of
a hero in the struggle for decent health care for all Americans,
but suggesting this probably gets me branded as “vermin”
too. Her efforts, both in he clumsy hail mary in
the 90s and the pressure She applied to make it a
campaign issue last year, put the issue on the table
in a fashion that it wasn’t going to go away, no matter
how bored the President seemed with the whole thing.
Since losing coverage with a job a couple of years
ago I rely on free clinics, which I balance out
philosophically with monthly donations of blood
platelets. I believe progress can occur incrementally
so I’m for the bill. The Free Clinics, by the way, are
pretty worthless if something serious goes wrong.
Reforming Health Care is just one of an
across the board uninspiring first year from Obama.
One truth Marc Cooper knows but will never cop
to: Obama had opportunities for improving the
Country Clinton never remotely had, and for whatever
reason, he took a pass. Frank Rich mislabels
what people like me think of Obama as “Spineless.”
I’m afraid the word is “callow.”
December 21st, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I wouldn’t expect liberals to read and understand Ayn Rand any more than I would them the Bible,
Understand the Bible just fine, especially Matthew Chapter 25, Verses 31-46.
Perhaps you might want to familiarize yourself with it.
December 21st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Bible verses offend Obama.
Obama administration bans Bible verses in the Pentagon’s reports
December 21st, 2009 at 8:09 pm
As 9/11 has proven, Bush didn’t read his daily intelligence briefings.
December 21st, 2009 at 8:12 pm
(Randy, of course, thinks that Bush is responsible for 9-11.)
December 21st, 2009 at 8:16 pm
That’s not what I said. He neglected to act. That’s an error of omission not commission.
Please don’t blame me for the fact that you ‘re too dim to know the difference.
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 am
OK, I have full coverage PPO provided by an employer and I strongly support the bill. I consider the European countries and the UK to be strongly government regulated in terms of health coverage, and doctors in all those countries do well financially. There is a difference, however, between what they make over there and the expectation by American med students and resident trainees that a specialty practice will bring in $400 K plus per year. This is not far off the mark, as we have seen advertising fliers looking for surgical subspecialists that guarantee this amount or higher.
What all the well-covered employed folks should have long since realized is that (1) our coverage can increase hugely in cost or just go away depending on the financial condition of the employer and (2) if we lose a job, we might be able to afford the 18 months of Cobra coverage, but after that you’re on your own, and it’s very nasty. As I pointed out in another place, anybody over the age of 40 is likely to have something that would disqualify you, and even if you forget to disclose it or just didn’t think of it, the insurance companies have that recission gimmick they can pull.
No, this bill does not bring the next millenium or the socialist paradise, it just does a little equalization for folks who fall between the cracks (about half of us), but those equalizations are critically important to those people. What’s so important right now is that it creates a precedent for government regulation of the entire medical distribution and health insurance field. The teabaggers are, in a sense, exactly right about this, and we are correct to support it and to oppose them.
One last little point, but I think it’s the huge canyon in the paradigm cleft: it’s easy to claim that Obama sold out or the Democratic Party represents the status quo of corporate capitalism or any number of other self-satisfied rants, but what they all have in common is the refusal to accept the fact that a bunch of different Senators have a bunch of different viewpoints, and the democratic process allows them to work through those differences should they feel like it. And if they don’t feel like, they can kill most any bill. That’s democracy. We can graft another level of inquiry onto this framework by recognizing all the forces that push and pull on any Senator, starting with the campaign donors and the party apparatus, continuing with the bigots that elected him, and lastly, the Senator’s own education and judgment. It may not be very satisfying, but to grasp onto cynicism and paranoia is to miss the chance to accomplish something.
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:53 am
It’s far beyond that.
Single-payer is widely OPPOSED.
>4. The bill taking shape in Congress will not provide Single Payer coverage because there was nothing near the mass political support needed to force Congress to pass such a sweeping measure. Indeed, there wasn’t even enough pressure to force a “public option.” Too bad but true. Don’t tell me about polls supposedly showing this or that level of support. Show me what political and organizing action was taken to make those opinions count, please.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:01 am
Correct.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 am
Woody… good for Obama. He is exercising his constitutional right to freedom of worship. He chooses to have his military reports free of scripture. Or would u make that mandatory? Sort of like in the Soviet Union where all official documents were larded up with dogmatic slogans.
Now, If I were commander in chief, I would make a different call. I would insist that all briefings be adorned with quotes reaffirming my Atheism. Or better said, Anti-clericalism.
# Woody Says:
December 21st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Bible verses offend Obama.
Obama administration bans Bible verses in the Pentagon’s reports
One of the major prayer ministries in Washington D.C., the 15-year-old Capitol Hill Prayer Partners (CHPP) reported yesterday in their daily newsletter that the Pentagon on Monday said that it would no longer include a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings which it sends to the White House as was the practice during President George W. Bush’s administration.
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:28 am
I’m not so sure that Obama is doing the right thing by banning religion from his Pentagon briefings. If he wants his Afghanistan strategy to work, he needs to start praying daily.
December 22nd, 2009 at 6:14 am
He does. What he doesn’t want is the Pentagon sending him blasphemous shit like this, which Rummie used to send to Bush:
http://pgmccullough.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/armorofgod.jpg
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:10 am
“>4. The bill taking shape in Congress will not provide Single Payer coverage because there was nothing near the mass political support needed to force Congress to pass such a sweeping measure. Indeed, there wasn’t even enough pressure to force a “public option.” Too bad but true. Don’t tell me about polls supposedly showing this or that level of support. Show me what political and organizing action was taken to make those opinions count, please.”
That’s only half true. There was enough support to pass a public option if you only need a majority vote – you know – democracy style. Single payer certainly wasn’t realistic, but we had the votes for a public option. They just changed the rules.
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:14 am
Also, Marc, you can’t trash Pablo for sticking up for Kucinich on the grounds that he only got 2% of the vote. You were a Nadar man, for goodness sake. I haven’t followed Pablo’s comments and maybe he’s said something else to earn your ire, but his point about Kucinich is perfectly reasonable.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Those against the bill on the left argue some compelling
reasons (beyond a preference for single payer) that are
all over there sites. It would be nice to see some of this
honestly confronted, as laymen like me don’t really have
the all the facts at their fingertips. I’d start with Glen
Greenwald’s contention that the bill will make it impossible
for some people to get insured and really serves only
the insurance industry.
It’s a lot more meaningful than swatting the
nonsense of nutbags like Woody. That said, that new
R Crumb illustrated edition is a lot fun!