Pull the plug, Barack:

Pull the plug, Barack:
It's a mistake to try to
ram through health
care reform

Sunday, March 14th 2010, 4:00 AM

Health reform: Down the stretch it comes.
President Obama has gone so far as to
postpone an overseas trip in a last-ditch
push to get a comprehensive reform bill to
his desk.

He shouldn't waste his energy.

Not with unemployment justifiably the
nation's top concern and the possibility of a
double-dip recession still looming.
Remember how Obama said, in his State of
the Union reboot, "Jobs must be our No. 1
focus in 2010"? Well, apparently he
doesn't.

Not with the American people abandoning
the President's prescription in huge
numbers. Just one in four voters supports
the reform bill as written; half want
Congress to start over. Compare that with
the popular support other major pieces of
social legislation enjoyed before passage,

like welfare reform (68%), Medicare (63%)
and civil rights (60%).

Not with health care costs having risen 73%
over the last decade - with Medicaid
growing at 21% a year - and showing no
signs of coming down to Earth. Controlling
costs is the absolute, unconditional, a-
blind-man-could-see-it prerequisite for
expanding coverage.

Not with American health care quality
actually quite impressive in many respects,
including world-leading rates for patients
surviving cancer and among the shortest
wait times for hard-to-find treatments and
surgeries.

Not with a half-dozen accounting gimmicks
built into the legislation - including the fact
that federal budget projections are based
on 10 years worth of tax collections and
just six years of spending increases.

Not with the Senate, lacking even a single
Republican vote, having to resort to
reconciliation, a little-used parliamentary
maneuver, to get it through. Sure, it's been
used before - but not on anything that has
such limited public support.

Not after all the cynical back room deals -
.

Relevant Pages

  • More right wing lunacy
    ... I've been writing about "town hells" and anti-health care reform ... The next time any Republican apologist ... ideological and dangerous the GOP assault on health care ...
    (rec.martial-arts)
  • Re: How Health Care Stole Your Pay Raise
    ... example of why health care reform isn't just about reforming care. ... "Don't pay for the status quo," we're skirting the main issue here. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: Health Care Reform, at Last
    ... but the year-long struggle over health> care ... > reform came to an end on Sunday night with a triumph for countless ... It will provide coverage to tens of> millions of ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Tort Reform Unlikely to Cut Health Care Costs
    ... The claim that tort reform would ... "Tort Reform Unlikely to Cut Health Care Costs ...
    (soc.retirement)