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 “health care”
Feb
18
2010
 
Economic inequality increases social problems: who’da thunkit?Posted by Chris J. Miller in Policy, Politics, ReviewsAnd now, a brief interlude from all the Sherlockiana for a bit of politics and economics. After hearing a radio interview today about a fascinating new book, I’ve done a bit of digging and realized I may have come a bit late to the game, for—at least in England—this book has been gathering serious attention for the better part of a year now. It deserves to do the same here in the U.S. The interview was with Prof. Richard Wilkinson of Nottingham University, co-author (with Kate Pickett of York University) of The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. (The title is perhaps a bit less than apt; the authors apparently wanted to call it “Evidence-Based Politics,” which to my ear would have been superior.) Wilkinson and Pickett, epidemiologists both, started out studying data on public health outcomes and wound up with a project much larger than they had originally envisioned. Their data demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that economic inequality within a society, regardless of overall wealth, is the single biggest predictor of a wide range of other social ills, from life expectancy to violent crime and far, far more. Tags: books, economy, government, health care, inequality, Kate Pickett, Richard Wilkinson, The Spirit LevelYesterday’s inbox contained a political e-mail message forwarded by my girlfriend’s parents. They’re not especially political people; their sensibilities (to the extent they’ll even discuss them) tend toward a somewhat mushy moderate conservatism, the kind of folks who instinctively vote Republican, even though the party’s center of gravity has moved far away from them. Indeed, they even said as much in the forwarded message—”you’re much more interested in politics than either of us”—yet they invited a response, practically asking for an informed rebuttal even as they implicitly treated the viral message as credible and worthy of attention. Which, once I read it, was really hard to believe. This is the message they forwarded, word for word:  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
15
2009
The best-ever response to anti-government zealotsPosted by Chris J. Miller in Policy, PoliticsI have no idea who the original author of this piece is. It’s flying all over the internet, though, so presumably I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a thing of beauty that deserves to be shared. Next time you run across some halfwit opposing health insurance reform (or anything else) because he insists that “the government can’t do anything right,” just turn to this: — I Am An American Conservative ShitheelThis morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy. Tags: conservatism, government, health care, humor
Aug
15
2009
The inverted class warfare over health carePosted by Chris J. Miller in Policy, PoliticsEven as Dick Armey’s dick army continues to do the disruptive dirty work of its corporate-funded organizers (an onion Rachel Maddow has ably peeled for public view), even as its footsoldiers continue to spout fear-drenched talk-radio-esque bullshit about euthanasia, baby killing, and the evil plans of that Fascist Socialist Muslim Negro in the White House (who’s really from Kenya, you know!), even as they’re devoutly convinced they speak for Real America notwithstanding the fact that most real Americans are repulsed and embarrassed by what they see these people doing (and oh, yeah, disagree with them on the issues, too)… … some folks at the top of the Establishment, those who understand the real interests at stake here (hint: it’s not the footsoldiers) and who are actually capable of making calm, methodical arguments (i.e., they don’t think whoever shouts loudest wins), are showing their hand just a little too boldly. Case study: Fortune Magazine editor-at-large Shawn Tully’s recent pieces attacking what he dismissively terms “Obamacare.” Just as the right-wing culture warriors are perpetually projecting onto the left their own penchants for intolerance and bullying, likewise class war in America is almost always a top-down phenomenon, even as its practitioners try to cast it as the exact opposite. And Tully’s offerings on this subject demonstrate that phenomenon writ large, in glowing red letters. Note that I acknowledged his writing only as calm and methodical. I didn’t say it was logically sound. Let’s delve into the details… Tags: class war, health care, insurance, McCain, Rachel Maddow, Shawn Tully
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
May
24
2009
The politics of paranoia and paralogiaPosted by Chris J. Miller in Personal, Policy, PoliticsWhere did we leave off? I was writing about the difficulty of finding something meaningful to say in the wake of all the full-time, professional political bloggers out there. Too often I feel like I’m just offering a synthesis of what others have said, rather than any new insight. Perhaps I’m holding myself to an arbitrarily high standard. Posting seems easier on political discussion forums, where I can just spout off some quick impressions of the issue of the day without necessarily worrying about providing proper background and context for everything, and where the ebb and flow of responses from other posters guides the structure and flow of the discussion, rather than having to organize it entirely on my own. Nonetheless, I ramble on… Thus: I was also writing about the political environment in which the Obama administration operates, and the political pressures that have led the president to make some decisions that are very disappointing in the eyes of civil libertarians, and indeed of concerned citizens in general. Which, in the wake of events this past week relating to the disposition of prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere, leads us to the perplexing questions: Why has Barack Obama backtracked so quickly from so many of the progressive policy expectations of his supporters? and, moreover, WHY does the mass media keep treating Dick Cheney as a credible public figure? One of these questions may seem deeply relevant, the other facile… but the answers are connected at a deep level. Tags: blogging, climate, Congress, conservatism, Constitution, Dick Cheney, energy, Guantanamo, health care, international, journalism, libertarianism, media, Obama, Reid, Republicans, torture |
|
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.
Entries (RSS)