Decisions, decisions. My area congressman finally came around to making one on the health care legislation, and it was to vote with Boehner, Cantor, and Pence. I could see if there was some strong 
principle behind this choice – for example, the fact that the bill is flawed, that it gives too much to the insurance companies, that it doesn’t have a strong public option, that it is not a single payer plan, etc. But his reasoning appears to be based solely on political calculus. He’s reading the polling, and it’s showing a large majority of his district turning against the bill. Now, this isn’t too surprising, since the airwaves have been flooded with attack ads over the past month in particular, many sponsored by the national Chamber of Commerce (the folks who helped bring you our lack of a national health insurance plan in the first place). And, of course, they’ve stripped out some of the most popular aspects of the original plan in an attempt to please people who would never vote for the legislation in any form.
From what I’ve seen, though, the numbers he’s looking at were gathered from a poll sponsored by – wait for it – the Chamber of Commerce! I’m sure that didn’t contain any inherent bias. Whatever the source, Mike Arcuri is trying to appeal to people who will never consider voting for him… and in so doing, he’s alienating the only people who are ever likely to vote for him. So this effort at self-preservation is really self-defeating. Without the dedicated Democratic cadre turning out in November, dialing the phones, driving people to the polls, and actually going out and voting, where are his votes going to come from? In an off-year election, those votes matter much more than during presidential election years.
Mike’s take on this as that it should be done incrementally. Note to Congressman Arcuri: this is doing it incrementally. It would be a mistake to think of this bill as the last word on national health care. It is merely a stake in the ground, establishing the principle of a national system. Yeah, I think it’s a mess, and I’ve said so. It excludes far too many people. It preserves the profits of large sectors of our money-obsessed health care delivery system. It lacks the virtue of a public option for people who simply cannot get a decent plan in the private market. But the alternative is the wild west system (or lack of same) we have now. That is clearly unsustainable. Voting against an admittedly imperfect solution simply to please people like Don Jeror and other “tea party” basket cases is farcical, at best.
So, what the hell. Sorry, Mike. But people like me might just sit on our hands this November. Either way, we’ll get somebody who supports the Boehner agenda.
luv u,
jp
all. Well, that may work for bread. I’m not so sure about anything else. I mean, if you need a car, and you ask your spouse to go out and find one for you, and s/he comes back with one axle, a steering wheel, three tires, and a seized engine, you still are not going anywhere. Same deal, it seems to me, with health care. For all the cautionary comments about “not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good,” we really do not have a whole car here, so far as I can see. For one thing, they stripped out the most popular provisions, namely, the public option and Medicare expansion – features that would benefit people immediately, save money, and make for a much more reasonable system.
Well, let me tell you why. Because too many people would opt for it. That doesn’t work for the money-drenched cretins that the insurance companies have sent to Washington to represent us. I’m afraid I have to include my own congressman, Michael Arcuri, in that number. He has thrown up his hands on health care, and while I wouldn’t blame him for not supporting the Senate bill, he should join with progressives in trying to pass some reasonable version that has a strong public option. They put the scare into him, and the insurance lobby is buying lots of T.V. time in our market telling people to call Arcuri and have him vote against the bill (which, ironically, he has already said he will do). Don’t just sit there and vote no, Mike – pull together with some of your colleagues and make it better.
comprehensive health insurance reform? Never. Rebuild the entire thing to suit them, and they’ll still vote against it purely for spite. The problem here is, of course, the democrats themselves, who can’t seem to recognize when they’ve got something that’s both popular and worth defending. I’m referring to the public option, Medicare expansion, and other measures denounced as “socialism” by the other side (and conservative dems) but which the general public is strongly in favor of. The reason why people aren’t fired up about the current plan is that they stripped those measures out to please conservatives. Obama – congress – get a clue! Pass something that will make a real positive difference in people’s lives quickly, and they will support you.
The latest Afghan campaign continues unabated. I’ve heard the Taliban being accused of using civilians as human shields. Just a couple of weeks ago, though, the U.S. and local Afghan government leaders were encouraging people to stay in Marjah so that there would be someone to govern when they had taken over; and there have been reports of refugees being blocked from exiting by our military. Numerous civilians have been killed in what quickly became a war zone. How is this different?
raising taxes, cutting popular programs, etc. That is, however, the main reason why they have been sent to Washington D.C. – to decide where the money for the federal government comes from and where it goes. If they are unable to grapple with these issues, they might consider applying for jobs at the corporations that paid for their campaigns. What irks me about the deficit reduction commission, aside from the participation of paleocons like Alan Simpson, is that they are not directly accountable to the electorate. Even more than that, commissions are usually mustered to do particularly dirty work, like cutting or privatizing Social Security to save a few bucks.
Death and Texas. Jesus christmas. No one likes paying taxes, or going to the dentist, or taking exams, or eating their Maypo (well…. almost nobody), but this software executive in Texas who flew his plane into an IRS building should have taken an anger management seminar or something stronger.