Pretty much no one is happy about the current health care legislation. The Reps don't want it - regardless of their protestations to the contrary, IMO, most want nothing to do with any of it. They much prefer the status quo. After all, Rush informed us after his hospital stay in Hawaii, that our current health care system is just hunky dory. It is good to know that if you happen to make 33 million dollars a year, our health care system is working just fine.
The left doesn't like the legislation - especially the Senate version - because so much was given away as regards single payer or public options among other things. Some, from all over the political map, don't like it owing to abortion and/or immigration issues. There is significant anger at the apparent sweetheart deals gained by pharma and insurance providers.
There is no doubt that it is a watered down, bastardized, overblown pile of legislative dreck.
And I think it imperative that it becomes law.
Should this health care legislation fail to pass and be signed by President Obama, that is where any attempts at health care reform will end, probably for at least a generation. No president, regardless of party, will consider hanging his or her administration's hat on health care reform. It will be avoided like the plague. No one in Congress will bet their seat on any significant health care legislation. No one will touch it.
The calls by Reps and some left wingers for the current legislation to be trashed in order to start over are at best disingenuous. Obama has been attacked for pushing too hard, too fast on health care reform. Yet it is Obama who fully understands the reality: If it doesn't get done now, it will not get done. There will be no enthusiasm in Congress to take up health care reform again, especially as this is an election year. The fact is, if it fails, it will die. Again, most Reps would say Good! and good riddance! It should also be pointed out that the bill's failure would serve as a major nail in Obama's political coffin. There are those for whom that is more important than any health care reform. More than a few Republicans have stated as much.
Flawed as it is, getting this bill passed into law will at least make some positive changes - making health care more affordable and accessible to more Americans, among other things. It will at the least set the stage enabling further changes down the road. Hopefully, some if not all, of the crap in the current bill will get wrung out of it in the coming years.
Again, if it fails, its dead - for a long time.
TLS
3 comments:
As I've noted on Facebook and elsewhere, if Brown wins the Massachusetts Senate race, all bets are off. Health care is dead.
Recent polls indicate that Brown will in fact win. Should that be the case, it is just another instance when Democrats have screwed their own pooch.
Perhaps the Democratic Party has become too big a tent for its own good.
Sorry about the health care stuff Terry. You haven't gone over to Facebook, have you?! :-)
Zoe,
Yeah, the health care legislation is likely to die.
Yep, I'm on Facebook. Not terribly versed in the logistics of "Friending" but I could always use more. :)
Post a Comment