It’s the same with this health care bill. Who among us did not know this would happen? It’s been clear from the start that the Democrats would make a great show of doing something real, then they would fold prematurely, ram through some piece-of-shit bill with some incremental/worthless change in it, and then in the end blame everything on Max Baucus and Bill Nelson, saying, “By golly, we tried our best!”
Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, or anyone else. If the Obama administration wanted to pass a real health care bill, they would do what George Bush and Tom DeLay did in the first six-odd years of this decade whenever they wanted to pass some nightmare piece of legislation (ie the Prescription Drug Bill or CAFTA): they would take the recalcitrant legislators blocking their path into a back room at the Capitol, and beat them with rubber hoses until they changed their minds.
The reason a real health-care bill is not going to get passed is simple: because nobody in Washington really wants it. There is insufficient political will to get it done. It doesn’t matter that it’s an urgent national calamity, that it is plainly obvious to anyone with an IQ over 8 that our system could not possibly be worse and needs to be fixed very soon, and that, moreover, the only people opposing a real reform bill are a pitifully small number of executives in the insurance industry who stand to lose the chance for a fifth summer house if this thing passes.
It won’t get done, because that’s not the way our government works. Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters. The situation we have here is an angry and desperate population that at long last has voted in a majority that it believes should be able to pass a health care bill. It expects something to be done. The task of the lawmakers on the Hill, at least as they see things, is to create the appearance of having done something. [...] But these Democrats aren’t even pretending to give a shit, not really. I mean, they’re not even willing to give up their vacations
Yeah. Pretty much. These fuckers are worthless.
6 comments:
I tried really hard to find a silver lining, but I can't. They're just as disingenuous and weak as the former majority.
It's hard to stay angry with all the fail, isn't it?
Not sure I agree...yet.
If nothing else, I cannot emagine that Obama wouldn't want to accomplish what FDR, Truman, Johnson and Clinton couldn't. That pretty much cenments him in history.
The way I see it, if the insurance lobby is going to play the dirty tricks they are playing, (dethers, astroturf crap) Congress should ram through a no-compromises bill with the minimal number of votes to pass. Screw the bluedogs and screw bipartisanship. Not that that sissy Reed has it in him.
The wealthiest country in the world cannot even take care of its citizens health. People in power are more concerned with remaining in power and collecting money from insurance lobbyists than running the country properly. Who can say this isn't rampant corruption?
I wish I could believe that, Bob, but I don't anymore. Until Obama convinces me otherwise—and this would be a fantastic place to start—he's politics as usual, more neatly packaged.
His financial team is filled with FAIL, and this is shaping up exactly as Taibbi asserts.
I am obviously glad I voted for Obama and the Dems over the alternative, but the difference is not as stark as one would hope—especially with Congress. This put the brakes on what would have been disastrous policy and results had McCain won or the GOP in control of congress, but it's much more of a slow stop to a shitty status quo than a turn for the better.
I feel like a chump.
I think this is an incredible complex problem, but that is no excuse for not attempting some kind of reform.
Fuckers, indeed.
Yeah, its a complex problem and we have dozens of other successful models from which to choose. Its not that frickin' hard. If you want to do the US public right, single payer. Period. End of argument. Screw the health insurance companies, they are not in it for the good of the people.
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