As the health care reform debate enters what appears to be the home stretch (albeit not for the first time), what Washington is offering us (the citizenry) boils down to a choice between bad and worse. The legislation now under consideration, both the Senate bill and the slight variation on same presented as “Obama’s bill,” is the end result of a process that has methodically stripped away almost everything that made this reform effort worth undertaking in the first place. They’ve thrown out the baby and kept the bathwater.
Tags: Alan Grayson, Bart Stupak, Blue Dogs, Congress, Democrats, Dick Durbin, health care, insurance, Max Baucus, Obama, Pelosi, progressives, Rahm Emanuel, Reid, Republicans, Senate
Posts Tagged “Democrats” Sen. Max Baucus (D-Insurance Industry) (And thank heaven for that.) So Sen. Max Baucus’s Finance Committee has finally released a health care “reform” bill, months after every other committee charged with the task. (Or a “Chairman’s Mark” version of one, at least—i.e., something actually readable by laymen [pdf]). The predictable result? It’s awful. Any Democrat who would vote for a bill that looks like this has absolutely no political sense whatsoever, much less policy sense, and should be drummed out of office on general principle. Fortunately, most of them seem to realize that. Tags: Democrats, health care, insurance, Max Baucus, Republicans, Senate So, where did I leave off?
…That’s right, there was a speech Wednesday night. A pretty significant one, in fact, for reasons I described at some length. What of it, then? I can’t deny that it was a very, very good speech. Rhetorically powerful. And yet, what it says about the direction of health care policy, and thus about Obama and the Democratic Party itself… still remains substantially up in the air. (Even as every pundit who can string three words together attempts to read the tea leaves and tell us otherwise.) I’ll try to avoid that kind of divination. But opinions? Analysis? I have those. Tags: Blue Dogs, Congress, Democrats, government, health care, insurance, Obama, progressives, Rahm Emanuel, Reid, Republicans, Senate
Sep
09
2009
 
Uncertainty, Obama, and the nagging voice of cynicismPosted by Chris J. Miller in Policy, PoliticsAugust is a strange season in politics. In the final weeks of summer last year, we had the incredible (and incredibly short-lived) public buzz surrounding Sarah Palin, before people realized she just used those glasses for looks, not reading. This year’s dog days brought us hordes of astroturf Teabagger Republicans demonstrating that they think public discourse boils down to “whoever shouts loudest wins.”
But Labor Day is behind us and silly season is over, and the president gave a major speech on health care tonight, and it’s time to take a serious look at where things stand. Tags: Democrats, Glenn Greenwald, health care, Obama, Paul Krugman, progressives, Rahm Emanuel
Aug
06
2009
Some thoughts on health care and hypocrisyPosted by Chris J. Miller in Policy, PoliticsOne could go on at literally exhaustive length about the ins and outs of the current “health care debate” in Washington, but I’ll try to avoid that. The media and the blogosphere have provided a constant play-by-play in terms of both substantive policy and, even more, political strategy. (Jonathan Chait at TNR has been particularly diligent. Meanwhile, much of the MSM seems content merely ringing premature death-knells for reform.) Me, I’ll just try to provide a few observations from a mile-high view. Tags: Blue Dogs, Congress, Democrats, health care, House of Representatives, insurance, Medicare, Obama, Paul Krugman, Rahm Emanuel, Republicans, Senate |
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I’ve sat back and haven’t posted a great deal in recent weeks (although it’s been impossible to avoid following the theater of it all). For one thing, there are better things to do when the weather is nice (not all that common a condition in Chicago). For another, there’s been a lot of justifiable uncertainty and skepticism developing among progressives about exactly where and how Obama and the Democratic party are willing to take a stand, and I’ve been genuinely unsure of my own assessment, wavering from cynicism to optimism sometimes on a daily basis.
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