Nancy Pelosi says no way a health care reform bill gets through the House w/o a public option. I guess that’s the best we can hope for at this point, though I still have real doubts – especially about the Senate. If the Senate passes a bill with no public component, the House version can be stripped in the conference committee. Hopefully the Progressive caucus will keep that from happening. Assuming some version of a public plan makes it to Obama’s desk, the big issue will be what this “public option” looks like.
Combined with a mandate to purchase insurance, a crappy public component will provide no competition to the insurance industry vultures, and no incentive to lower costs and improve care. But, we’ll see. Even though more than 3/4 of “We the People” are in favor of having the choice of a public option, there’s still an awful lot of stupid to overcome. For instance, Michelle Bachmann wants Obama to keep his hands off her body (Michelle, honey – he’s just not that in to you). And the President doesn’t seem to realize that his attempts to compromise with people who will never do more than stab you in the back at the end of the day is only making us less confident in his ability to get things done.
That’s been the big surprise for me. Not that I thought he was a bleeding heart liberal, but that his well-oiled political machine has been so stunningly incompetent when it comes to health care reform. He set himself up to fail right at the start, and it only got worse from there.
The Obama administration should have been pushing for single payer. If you want to fall back on “public option” later, well, OK, that’s how the sausages are made. But when you that off the table from the start, you screw yourself. And us.
Let’s hope the House progressives can shame him into doing what’s right.
I guess if I was a billionaire, I’d think millionaires were barely above the poverty level, too.
Yeah, I bet Obama is planning on sweating his ass off trying to rebuild his kitchen this weekend, too, while trying to decide whether to buy a new stove, a new gas tank for his van, or 3 tons of wood pellets so he doesn’t have to freeze his ass off this winter.
The Rethugs are making me depressed. It makes me think about the Clinton years when those ^*_)(%*&$## Rethugs went after everything he did beginning with a 20 year old land deal on which he lost money. They accused Hillary of murdering Vince Foster and finally came up with poor Monica and Paula Jones.
I know many people think that Clinton was “Republican Lite” which, although true, I think is probably the best he could do given the atmosphere and the many many idiots who inhabit this country.
The Dems need backbones, true. But, the idiots are a force that can’t be denied.
To me, old school teacher that I am, our present education system that wants reading and math skill drills to replace all thinking and creativity, can only make things worse.
Lincoln encounters some controversy.
Why did that bad man make that hawk kill the poor mousie?
In my humble opinion, this is an incredibly bad idea.
Here on Shelter Island there is a situation that always reminds me of what’s going on with healthcare.
We have a huge problem with ticks that carry Lyme Disease. Many, many folks out here have had the disease. In my family alone my husband has had it, my mother had it and my daughter’s dog has it. I was recently tested for it, but my private for profit health provider neglected to either perform the test or report the results so I have to do it again.
Anyway, the town has installed 4 posters which feed the deer. In order to get the food the deer have to walk through the device which puts permethrin , a tick killer, on them. The tick population has been cut in half. Where once a walk through the backyard would result in several ticks hitching a ride, we now find none.
Sound good? Not to a vocal group of folks who have been fighting the four posters for a couple of years. They have collected several hundred signatures on an anti-four poster petition and write weekly to the local paper. They make several claims: there is no confirmed Lyme Disease on the Island, the permethrin is poisoning the island and they can’t enjoy hunting because the deer may not be edible. They always represent themselves as the majority and they have kept the program and its implementers on the defensive.
No amount of scientific discussion satisfies them.
Finally, there was a meeting devoted to the four posters and a large group of Islanders turned out. Says the local reporter, “The ayes vastly outnumbered the nays.”
Now, if only that would happen with healthcare.
Joe Ferraro was a little anxious when it came his turn to question President Obama about health care reform during Michael Smerconish’s call-in interview on Thursday. Obama asked him how he was doing.
“Oh, I’m scared out of my mind talking to you here,” said Ferraro. But he quickly got his act together.
“I’m getting a little ticked off that it feels like the knees are buckling a little bit,” Ferraro said. “We have overwhelming majorities in both the House and the Senate. And we own the whole shooting match. And I’m just getting…It’s very frustrating to watch you try and compromise with these people who aren’t willing to compromise with you.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/21/joe-the-nerd-the-man-who_n_265523.html
Larry Knechtel passes
Larry Knechtel
🙁 :gate:
Scahill on Maher. Can’t wait!