The Nature of Things

The British are scared. They are frightened that their Conservative party-led government is going to blow up their long-established system of public health care and replace it with something like the American privatized system. This would not be acceptable to them and so they are worried and their politicians are having to repeatedly reassure them that no such plans are being made. Remember the health care debate in this country a couple of years ago? Remember all the bombastic, jingoistic right-wing commentators who loudly proclaimed that America has the best medical care system in the world and that people from all those countries with inferior systems, like Britain and Canada, want to come here for treatment? Remember all of that? Well, like so much else spouted by the right in that debate, (Death panels, anyone?) it was a blatant, bald-faced lie. The British are NOT coming and neither are the Canadians nor the French. In fact, citizens in just about every other industrializ...

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts." - attributed to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reviews bills that are being considered by Congress and determines how those bills will affect the budget. Since its creation, the CBO has always been accepted as apolitical and disinterested by both ends of the political spectrum. Its expertise about budgetary matters is unquestioned by any fair-minded observer. They have reviewed the Republican Congress' centerpiece, ballyhooed legislation, the bill they are calling "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," which will be considered this week. They have concluded that repealing the reform law would drive up the deficit by $230 billion over the first decade and much more in later years. And what was the Republicans' response to this review by the CBO? Did they take another look at their bill and try to come up with commons...

Finally, after all these months of debate about health care reform and after final passage of the bill, the Republicans have come out with their own plan for paying for medical care. It is simplicity itself. Instead of money, you are supposed to offer your doctor something of value in return for his/her services. In other words, you are supposed to barter for your medical care. In the famous, and now infamous, words of Sue Lowden, Nevada's Republican candidate for the Senate, you should bring your doctor a chicken to pay for your care. We used to keep a few hens in our backyard. They are wonderful animals and I value them, but, frankly, I don't see them paying for our medical services. The priciest hen would be valued at around $6 to $10. My husband recently required a medical procedure the total cost of which was right around $100,000. That's a lot of chickens . I don't think our backyard could hold enough of them to pay that bill. I wonder if the Republicans ha...

We are in the final countdown to Congress' action on the Health Care Reform bill and the opponents of reform seem to be getting more and more desperate, hysterical, and unhinged from reality and the norms of common decency. Yes, indeedy, there was another tea party at the Capitol today and the partiers showed their true colors - not that there had ever really been any doubt about their colors. They run the full range of hues from white to - um - white. These party-goers today jostled and shouted abuse at Congressional Democrats entering the Capitol to perform their duties as elected representatives of the people. Many of them carried signs with entirely heinous slogans, some threatening violence. The obscenities shouted, as well as the signs, clearly revealed the homophobic and racist tendencies of the crowd and said a lot more about the shouters than about the recipients of the verbal and, sometimes, physical abuse. At least one of the representatives was spat upon. Really? ...

Is this the week when we finally get a major health care reform bill, however weakened it may be, signed into law by the president? The signs are looking favorable and yet one is almost too terrified to hope at this point. The opposition has been so implacable and so utterly devious and unreasonable, so concerned for the welfare of their corporate sponsors rather than for the average citizen. I am sure they will fight an entrenched battle right up to the very end, so it is essential that those who are trying to pass this bill stay alert and stay strong and do not falter as they near the finish. From what I understand of what will be in the final bill, it is certainly not what I and many others had hoped for. It will not provide universal health care coverage to Americans, as most countries in the industrialized world provide for their citizens, and yet it is an important step forward. It is important because it is the first step, the foot in the door, so to speak. Once the princi...

He did it! Harry Reid, excoriated by both left and right and underestimated by almost everybody except possibly his caucus which elected him leader, has done what no other Majority Leader of the Senate, even the most legendary, has been able to do. He has held his fractious caucus together through months of bickering, marching them, cajoling them, bargaining with them toward this final result - passage of a Health Care Reform bill. It's not the end, of course. Under the arcane rules of legislation, this flawed bill must now be reconciled with the House's more generous bill and then voted on by both Houses again before it can finally land on the President's desk for signature. Still, this accomplishment must not be underestimated. It is a first, a beginning, and Harry Reid has done it. Good on him!

Sometimes I just don't get it. Liberals have been trying to bring meaningful health care reform to this country for my entire lifetime - and longer. Now we are closer than ever before to achieving that, and yet a sizable minority of so-called committed liberals rail against it. Every night on Keith Olbermann's Countdown, we hear his heated hyperbole about everything that is wrong with the Senate and House bills. THEY DON'T HAVE A STRONG ENOUGH PUBLIC OPTION!!! THEY DON'T COVER 100% OF ALL PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES!!! THEY ARE TOO KIND TO THE PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES!!! THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS AND IN THE WHITE HOUSE HAVE SOLD US OUT!!! THE WORLD WILL END IN 2012!!! Well, I made that last one up, but not really. Olbermann and his hyperventilating kind seem to believe that if we don't get 100% of everything that liberals wanted in this bill that there is just no hope for the Democrats in elections in 2010 and in 2012. The truth is that life is a...