Tweet
Cross-posted from Slobber And Spittle
Regular readers of Slobber And Spittle may have noticed a lack of articles on the health care "reform" effort recently. That’s largely because, to my way of thinking, things went south in this effort quite some time ago. Robert Reich explains:
So the compromise that ended up in the House bill is to have a mere public option, open only to the 6 million Americans not otherwise covered. The Congressional Budget Office warns this shrunken public option will have no real bargaining leverage and would attract mainly people who need lots of medical care to begin with. So it will actually cost more than it saves.
But even the House’s shrunken and costly little public option is too much for private insurers, Big Pharma, Republicans, and "centrists" in the Senate. So Harry Reid has proposed an even tinier public option, which states can decide not to offer their citizens. According to the CBO, it would attract no more than 4 million Americans.
It’s a token public option, an ersatz public option, a fleeting gesture toward the idea of a public option, so small and desiccated as to be barely worth mentioning except for the fact that it still (gasp) contains the word "public."
This sort of thing has been a staple of Congressional politics for years. Call something what it is not, and then have a big, public struggle over the thing that is no longer what it was supposed to be, and then claim a great victory when it finally passes in a form that is completely useless for whatever purpose it was begun. I wrote the articles, wrote to Congress, and all we got was this piece of crap.
That’s where we are now with health care reform. What’s worse, this is probably the last time this group of ethical midgets will take up the issue. If we’re very lucky, their successors will pick it up again in another twenty years or so. Unless they’re a lot more progressive than the current bunch, it won’t go any better.
Incidentally, Reich’s article is well worth reading in its entirety, to learn how the sad arc from health care reform to health care "reform" played out.
My advice to anyone who is a young American who wants to have health care when he (or she) reaches his mid-forties is this: Learn a foreign language. Learn it well enough to make a living overseas. Then acquire another valuable skill to go with it. Unless you’re one of the lucky few who get rich in this country, you won’t be able to afford being ill here.
That’s the future the jokers in Congress and the White House have left you.
Now, I think we’re done with health care.
12 Comments
Mais oui. Je parle Francaise!
Unfortunately, I forget French nearly as quickly as I learn it. Not much motivation to use it in this country. At least, there hasn’t been until now.
it’s been a great success! how many people are talking about the medicare cuts? or undermining state insurance regulations? or subsidies? or market distortions the cms report says to expect may prevent access?
all i can say i don’t intend to accept the 20 year time out.
no support –none– for any politician –no exceptions– who doesn’t support single payer or some other workable universal healthcare policy.
I’m with you there. I guess the question is will enough others take that stand? Based on past experience, I’d say they won’t.
A bit of a confusing title. Canadien is the French form of Canadian..’g’.
For esthetic reasons, I’d been debating which way to spell it.
Dunno about that. If they kill this bill, private insurers will choke on their own greed. Rates will continue to climb at +10%/year, more and more people will have to declare medical bankruptcy, and popular outrage will force us to take another look at single payer. At least that’s as I see it. Insurers are just too greedy for their own good. So there’s hope yet if they do not pass this bill.
Maybe, but I think we’d be there already. Roughly a quarter of the country isn’t getting the health care it needs right now, thanks to the way we finance it. The government already insures or cares for the highest-risk portions of the population. What’s the breaking point, one third, one half, or is it only when it starts to affect the very rich? In the latter case, it will certainly be awhile.
I hope you’re right, but I fear you’re not.
Already filed my papers a couple weeks ago to begin an attempt to emigrate to Vancouver B.C.
This is how I put it in another thread when asked to explain:
HiYa Cujo359, I agree with everything and your very nice expression of the general pattern, but I don’t agree with this:
If we don’t kill this bill, it will be a little while longer until we take it up again. But once people realize that the high-risk pool in the band-aid period gives them nothing worthwhile at all, and that the end of rescissions doesn’t mean that they’ll be able to afford the insurance costs, they’ll be pissed, probably by 2011, but maybe even by election time 2010. Anyway three diaries here, here, and here, call for killing the current bills.
All I can say is that if I were your age, I’d be trying to do the same. Good luck.
I’m assuming something will pass, and the current group of “leaders” will have to be gone before anyone else is willing to try again. It may not take twenty years, but I think Obama will be gone before anything constructive happens. Congress is so far removed from the concerns of everyday people that it will have to change radically before we get serious health care reform.
That’s the real lesson of this year. I wrote that here several months ago.