Mar 31 2010

Time to stop pretending

New Health Care Law a Republican Plan That Should Make Insurance Companies Proud

By: Jon Walker Tuesday March 30, 2010 2:22 pm

This new law at its heart is a pro-private health insurance, pro-big business Republican bill. It is not liberal or progressive, and it would be hard to justify even calling the law “centrist” because it lacks very popular elements like a public option and drug re-importation-reforms wanted by the broad “center” of the country.

It is nearly identical to previous Republican bills and laws. It is strikingly similar to a plan from the Heritage Foundation. It almost exactly follows the same proposal put forward over a year ago by the health insurance industry itself. After it passed, the drug companies spent big on ads thanking Democrats for passing this massive giveaway to their industry.

The law is a completely wasteful and poorly designed piece of corporate welfare. It is nothing for progressives to be proud of. If you want to argue that we should have supported it because the rampant corruption in our Congress and the fact that a huge number of senators are wholly owned by the health care industry means that this wasteful, pro-corporate bill was the only way to get some help to some people in need, I can at least accept the honesty of that argument. But let’s all stop pretending this was some great victory over the health care industry and for progressive policy.

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  2. …I haven’t been pretending.  I heard BO’s reluctance on anything progressive (medicare for everyone, single payer, public option) from the git go of his first pronouncements

    over a year ago.

    I can’t stop pretending because I was never pretending that anything good would come out of this.

    I may have said, “Perhaps!  I “hope” perhaps we might get something decent.  But my all pervading assessment was that nothing good was in the works here.  

    • Edger on March 31, 2010 at 20:02
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  5. health care plan is declared a historic Democratic victory and off shore drilling is a way to reduce oil consumption I’d say it’s time to stop pretending that this is a Democratic administration. Obama on drilling today:

    ‘Ultimately, we need to move beyond the tired debates of the left and the right, between business leaders and environmentalists, between those who would claim drilling is a cure all and those who would claim it has no place. Because this issue is just too important to allow our progress to languish while we fight the same old battles over and over again.’

    Chris Bowers calls it hippie punching, apparently Obama is the new left’s blogsphere most popular Democrat and as such can and will hippie punch the progressives into unity and we should, what, all genuflect and hail the asshole as were in checkmate? Wow just wow!  Doublespeak that is hard to believe in. Hasn’t anyone noticed he’s a Republican and not even a moderate one at that?    

    • TMC on April 1, 2010 at 02:17
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    Corker: Health reform won’t be repealed

    U.S. Sen. Bob Corker said Wednesday that Republican efforts to repeal sweeping health care reform are futile, and instead promoted incremental fixes in a wide-ranging talk in Nashville.

    In the immediate aftermath of the reform’s passage, many of Corker’s Republican colleagues, including 2008 presidential contender Sen. John McCain, have pledged to repeal the legislation. Corker described that as unlikely, given the reality of needing 67 votes in the Senate to overcome a presidential veto of repeal legislation.

    “The fact is that’s not going to happen, OK?” Corker told dozens of people at Vanderbilt University.

    (emphasis mine)

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