Yay! (kinda)
Mar. 22nd, 2010 10:37 amHealth care reform: passed. Even if it turned out to mostly be health insurance reform, it's definitely a huge step forward.
This bill is flawed. For awhile, I was ready to declare it worse than nothing and wash my hands of the whole thing, thanks to the Stupak Amendment and the lack of a public option. Fortunately, I was talked down from that position: the expansion of Medicaid, the insurance exchanges, and most especially the new regulations that will block the insurance companies from dropping people once they get sick are all good and important, and we will be better off to have them.
This doesn't keep me from being irritated at how the Democrats let Obama's stubborn hope for "bipartisan support" (support that the Republicans were never going to provide) take over the process for so long, not to mention their total inability to get their message into the media (but what else is new?). And of course the whole Stupak/Nelson/abortion-as-political-football aspect of the negotiations makes me see red; please, Michigan Democrats, somebody please mount a primary challenge against this guy! It seems likely that history will judge this a victory for Obama and the Democrats, although how the voters will feel in November is anybody's guess.
But we can worry about that later. For now, we can thank Nancy Pelosi, and hope that the GOP's plan of total obstruction screws them over as badly in the long term as David Frum seems to think it will.
This bill is flawed. For awhile, I was ready to declare it worse than nothing and wash my hands of the whole thing, thanks to the Stupak Amendment and the lack of a public option. Fortunately, I was talked down from that position: the expansion of Medicaid, the insurance exchanges, and most especially the new regulations that will block the insurance companies from dropping people once they get sick are all good and important, and we will be better off to have them.
This doesn't keep me from being irritated at how the Democrats let Obama's stubborn hope for "bipartisan support" (support that the Republicans were never going to provide) take over the process for so long, not to mention their total inability to get their message into the media (but what else is new?). And of course the whole Stupak/Nelson/abortion-as-political-football aspect of the negotiations makes me see red; please, Michigan Democrats, somebody please mount a primary challenge against this guy! It seems likely that history will judge this a victory for Obama and the Democrats, although how the voters will feel in November is anybody's guess.
But we can worry about that later. For now, we can thank Nancy Pelosi, and hope that the GOP's plan of total obstruction screws them over as badly in the long term as David Frum seems to think it will.
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