Yes, Democrats are fighting to pass a Republican version of health care reform. Wheee! E.J. Dionne:
Here is the ultimate paradox of the Great Health Care Showdown: Congress will divide along partisan lines to pass a Republican version of health care reform, and Republicans will vote against it. Yes, Democrats have rallied behind a bill that Republicans or at least large numbers of them should love. It is built on a series of principles that Republicans espoused for years.
[. . .] Republicans always say they are against socialized medicine. Not only is this bill nothing like a single-payer health system along Canadian or British lines. It doesn’t even include the public option that would have allowed people voluntarily to buy their insurance from the government. The single-payer idea fell by the wayside long ago, and supporters of the public option sadly, from my point of view, lost out last December. [. . .] Democrats, including President Obama, are so anxious to get everyone health insurance that they are more than willing to try a market-based system and hope it works. It’s a shame the Republicans can no longer take yes for an answer.
The ‘reform’ we hoped for will never happen. Another give-away to the $$$$$$ people who have dual citizenship. All insurance companies are owned by the $$$$ people. This is a ‘bail-out’ for the $$$$$ people with dual citizenship.
Looks like one doesn’t have to wait for a Tim Burton sequel to see what’s on the other side of the looking glass.
I’m not sure that Dionne places the “shame” where it belongs, so there’s some extra-meta topsy-turvy for you.
Silly Dems. Why would you craft a bill that appeases the Thugs knowing damn weel that they won’t support it? Is this some sort of “crafty” political strategy designed to help the Dems in ’10?
dandy: See under the ratchet effect. They don’t care. Anybody who “loses” an election is made anyhow — job for life on K Street, the teebee, or whatever. Being an elected representative is just an unpaid internship to these guys.
Yes, and courtesy of the historical conservative icon, Winston Churchill, the socialistic British alternative other wise known as the National Health Service was a Tory creation. Under the prevailing infantile principle that whatever my enemy I’m against, and vice versa, so-called progressives would have killed that one, too.
This analysis and determination for what one is for and against according to what private entity might be benefiting behind the scenes is the scourge of progressivism — the central cause of its on-going marginalization. This is like being against Medicare because doctors will get more patients. Labor laws will benefit lawyers. If we raise the top marginal tax rate to 90%, it will be a gravy train for accountants.
The only thing to analyze is what something is intended to do to help Americans and the extent to which it does it. You frankly should not give a shit whether it’s a “Republican” plan or not. The reality is that many Democrats in Congress think that way, or feel compelled to act that way because of their voters, and that was the primary driving force behind the compromises that were made. Without them, there would simply be no bill at all. Anyone who thinks this is worse or no better than the current destructive non-system has never read any detailed description of what’s actually in the bill and what is not in the bill — just like the, um, the tea-baggers with their “death panels.” Reading Jane Hamsher’s characterizations — at this point self-serving to justify her set-in-concrete positions — does not count for developing a comprehensive understanding of the legislation, something which she, in fact, does not have.