The lead in an article in today’s New York Times (1/26/10) tells us that the White House and Congressional Democrats will soon decide “whether to use a procedural maneuver” to pass a healthcare bill with less than 60 votes in the Senate. That process is called budget reconciliation; it would be a complicated process, to be sure, and as the Times tells us “it carries numerous risks, including the possibility of a political backlash against what Republicans would be sure to cast as parliamentary trickery.”
Well yes, they could indeed say that–and reporters will type it into stories. As the article elaborates: “Republicans, however, have made clear that they will portray Mr. Obama and Democrats as trying to use a hardball tactic to win passage of the healthcare legislation.” That was followed by a quote from Republican Rep. John Boehner, who lambasted the administration’s “job-killing policies.”
Read further, though, and you come to this: “The mere mention of reconciliation infuriates many Republicans, even though they occasionally used the tactic when they were in the majority.”
Wait–what was that last part again? Republicans are infuriated by a tactic they used when they were in power? Isn’t that hypocrisy a little more important than boilerplate GOP complaints?
This article has a familiar feel. In fact, the problem here was the problem with another Times article eight months ago, written by Robert Pear–a co-author of today’s piece. As I pointed out then, Pear called reconciliation “obscure” and “high-risk,” before adding, almost as an aside: “The fast-track procedures have been used 19 times since 1980 to pass major legislation, including much of President Ronald Reaganâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢s domestic policy agenda in 1981, welfare overhaul in 1996 and President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.”
There was little protest from the corporate media to passing tax cuts for the wealthy using reconciliation. Healthcare reform, for some reason, is treated differently.
Would that it were truly “healthcare reform” – aka single payer – and deserving of playing “hardball” to pass.
But it isn’t, is it?
So maybe we should choose our terms more carefully?
We need heath care reformed
Doug,
Sure, this isn’t what we wanted, but it moves in the proper direction.
And, Democrats will get creamed in the next election (just like with Clinton) if they fail to pass something.
Joshua, maybe you have insurance. I don’t, and I don’t want what’s proposed to be shoved down my throat and yanked out of my wallet.
I think a lot of folks feel the same way, and don’t see giving Insurance Inc. millions of captive new “customers” for a terrible “product” as “moving in the proper direction.”
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is a nation of masochists.
Maybe that’s why they keep voting for a Democratic Party that’s simply “the good cop”.
Sure the beatings hurt … but they aren’t quite as vicious as “the bad cop’s”.
So I guess they aren’t masochists.
They’re just kept woefully ignorant of reality.
Howard Zinn died yesterday. That’s what he devoted his life to changing.
I try to do my (very) little part, too. If you choose to believe it, fine. If you choose to believe in “change you can believe in”, have at it.
Good luck. I think you’ll need it more than me.
In view of the fact that Congress & The Senate wasted a year of precious taxpayers’ time on a document that is thousands of pages long, that works right into the pockets of the insurance industry & the pharmaceutical companies, held closed door session, & we still don’t know what they have proposed and also many of us do not sleep at night because of foreclosures, unemployment & basic service cut back I believe that; All US Senators & US Congressmen, the Executive branch, the Cabinet, & the Judiciary should take responsibility for themselves by paying their own health insurance & life insurance, take a 15% cut in pay, a 25% cut in pensions which will only be good for ten years.
After all George Washington stayed in the cold with his soldiers. What is wrong with our self infatuated elected officials?
2003: Single-payer. 2008: Single-brayer. 2009: Single-prayer. 2010:
Single-betrayer! And so it goes: BOWEL (Barack Obama’s Worth Ever
Less) Movement. Down and OUT: 2012! Only 1085 days To GO!
Doug, are you a healthy person? My always healthy son came home from work one day at age 28 and had
a grand-mal seizure. He had no health insurance, and the seizures continued (more than one is
considered epilepsy. He finally had to seek medical assistance, is now 38, with a family and
health insurance. He had to pay for insurance for a year without epilepsy being covered. He was able
to get the medication (a must have) through the company that manufactures it. But no blood tests to check
levels of the med, and when he had a seizure, no doctors visits. Yet he paid around $70 a month.
How’s that for money yanked out of your wallet?
Susy, that’s pretty goddamn awful – and wouldn’t happen in a nation with a gummint that valued the health of all its citizens.
Or I should say, in a nation whose citizens forced its gummint to value it, because that’s the only way it’s going to happen, isn’t it?
And I’m relatively healthy, for my age, but I’ve got a couple of nagging problems I’d like tended to, but can’t afford to.
So much for Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, huh?
The bottom line is we need single payer health care now. Why do we need the middle man, the insurance companies. As an R.N. I’m tired of these greedy bastards not giving a damn about patient’s health. They are only interested in making a huge profit. I don’t understand why Americans don’t see this. Remember Medicare is a socialized program and it works and ask anyone who has it, they woudn’t give it up. Also, remember people have contributed their whole working lives into Medicare so contrary to what everyone under 30 thinks Medicare recipients didn’t get it for free. Please don’t be fooled by the health care lobbyist we need single payor now.
Single payor will provide the best health care at the lowest cost. Pay a doctor and medical staff to provide good health care, not some parasites that just want to make a profit off of someone else’s misery.