Maybe it’s just because I’ve been out of touch lately and just so focused on personal stuff that I’ve found it difficult to keep up with the day to day changes in the health care bill and the many permutations it’s experienced, but I don’t care about the battle, except as a means to an end.
I want to be clear: this isn’t aimed at anyone’s specific comments or point of view. It’s more of a general perspective on the overall tone I’ve read and seen in a lot of different places.
But here’s the short and simple: I don’t care about the battle here. I don’t care who wins and who loses. I don’t care who comes out of this on top or looking best or anything else. I just care about health care reform and what we can get, what we will get, and how to get the best possible end result.
Franky, I think we’re kind of screwed, at least in the short term. We’re dealing with an opposing party that has, in no uncertain terms, demonstrated its complete and total unwillingness to be part of any sort of rational debate and discussion. They want nothing more than to take all of us down and that’s all they’ve got. It’s their one move, and I give them some small credit for playing it well and with consistency.
But our problems aren’t with them. They’re with our own side. It’s our own weaknesses that make this such a monster.
The legislation I’ve been reading about has good things in it, but it’s got some pretty bitter pills that we’d have to swallow and I’m having real trouble figuring out whether or not it’s worth swallowing. I am so completely and totally torn on this and I just can’t figure out which side I’m on. I’m leaning towards supporting passage with the hopes that we can improve upon it in reconciliation.
But I want to say something fairly simple: there are a lot of people who support health care reform who are very angry with one another right now and not treating one another particularly well. I’m not talking about the politicians. I think we have an active obligation to challenge Sanders, Leahy, Dean and every other public figure who supports health care reform to do the right thing on this bill, even if we’re not in agreement as to what the right thing is. We need to let them know that there is pressure from the left and that we’re not pleased and keep that pressure on, even if it’s just to ensure that all this gets addressed in reconciliation with the budget process.
But I don’t believe for a moment that we’re acting in bad faith. I don’t believe for a second that people on either side of this specific bill are being disingenuous, duplicitous or acting out of anything but an honest point of severe frustration with what they’re seeing go down.
We all want health care reform. We want it sooner rather than later.
What we’re disagreeing on is how best to get there.
We’ve got good reasons for disagreeing.
I have no answers here. I just want to say– I respect that we can have this fight and I respect our passion for our views, our ideas and our points of view.
I don’t care who wins this. I just don’t want us all to lose.
The trouble with this so-called health care reform that the Feds are trying is that it really benefits one side of the equation — the insurance companies and big pharma. There was the medicare buy in, for example. In all the polls about it that I read, about 70% favored it, but because the insurance companies would lose profits, and Joe Lieberman is certainly looking out for them, the senators simply killed it, without caring whether we wanted it or not. I am sure that we will get screwed with this bill before the ink is dry.
sorta what I feel about the bill… It had some pretty field leveling ideas, but when Dems who are elected from moderate to right wing states look at the next election, they vote for the material that will come up in their next reelection debate and not the best option for the American public.
I say it over and over again, but until we have meaningful campaign finance reform that will allow political folks the ability to say “I am free at last” to not have to worry about Pharma or NRA or Emily’s list or whatever buying me out of my next election bid, we get nothing from our legislature that isn’t filled with butt protecting, in the mainstream crap.
There are issues on both sides. If big insurance goes out the door due to single payer, a whole lot of folks lose jobs. 80% of claims processing becomes redundant. Same thing happened to chicken pluckers.. We survived.
Then there is spotlightJoe. Who knows ..
Julie, it all goes without saying. I don’t believe that my fellow Dems who think we should pass the Senate bill–in my opinion a piece of garbage–are acting in bad faith or disingenuously. I just think they are wrong. We’ll have to keep arguing.