The logical conclusion

[catsittingstill]

Interesting article in the New York Times blog here.

I realize that people feel very strongly about this, but don't think this behavior contributes constructively to the discussion. I think this response from one of the Congressmen pretty much covers it:

America always has room for open and spirited debate, and the hateful actions of some should not cast doubt on the good motives of the majority, on both sides of this argument. But Members of Congress and opinion leaders ought to come to terms with their responsibility for inciting the tone and actions we saw today. A debate that began with false fears of forced euthanasia has ended in a truly ugly scene. It is incumbent on all of us to do better next time.

Personally I am saddened that for several of my friends and friends-of-friends, lack of health insurance has resulted in desperate appeals for help paying medical bills.  The most recent appeal was worse--it was for help paying funeral expenses, for a guy who died of lack of health care at the age of 21.  Even from a cold economic standpoint this is a tragedy; the labor costs alone of raising a child are astronomical, as Bujold says, and here was this guy with his whole productive life before him gone, dead because he lost his insurance and couldn't pay for the the insulin to keep his diabetes under control.

Seriously, this is not right.  The status quo is not acceptable to me.  I hope it's not acceptable to you either.  We need to do something about it.  Admittedly the current bill is imperfect--even ugly.  And when you see the sausage being made, it's not unusual to lose your enthusiasm for sausage for a while.  But in my opinion an imperfect bill is still miles better than nothing at all.  And folks, the alternative is nothing at all.

Comments

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

A coworker was asking why people are willing to settle for the bill as it stands, rather than starting afresh and working out something better. Why the sudden push to get something, anything, through?

Because, not to put too fine a point on it, experience has shown that without this push, nothing would be done. We've had several years now of not doing anything at all about the problem, and look where it's gotten us.

Yes, it may well be that under this bill, it'll still be five years before those it's intended to help will have medical coverage; and where will those same people be in five years if the bill doesn't pass?

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yes. Why the rush?

Because, you know, the easiest thing to do is always nothing. Just go with the flow, drift down the river--when it don't rain the roof don't leak nohow, so why fix it today? If we want to get it fixed, we need to set a deadline; we've been farting around trying to find bipartisanship (and a handful of the GOP have been expertly playing us on this, costing us months only to walk away in the end) for more than a year.

So we've set a deadline.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

If I believed that any politically meaningful fraction of the opponents of the current bill were actually interested in fixing anything, I could go along with scrapping the current thing and starting over.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I would seriously consider it. The current bill certainly has its flaws.

But I no longer believe in the good faith of the Republican party. They have had every chance to be bipartisan and that is obviously not the direction they feel called in at this time.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

The Republican definition of "bipartisanship" has apparently been "We ask for something, and you give it to us" for some time.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

It's not just imperfect, it's awful, in a lot of ways which range from selling out women's rights permanently to just not implementing some of the basic preventions of the most egregious policies of the insurance companies for at least four years. It's definitely a case of "hold my nose and vote for..." I'm reluctantly of your opinion, that it's better than nothing at all, partly because I believe if national control of the health insurance industry becomes part of the status quo, people will eventually stop debating whether it should exist at all and start trying to fix the details, and we'll end up with something better in a generation or so. But I don't expect much help sooner than that from this bill. And I'm pinching my nose closed so hard it hurts.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

It sells out women's rights, but not as badly as the Senate version did, and no worse than they were sold out long before by the Hyde amendment. I agree that stinks but I seriously think it's the best we can get for now.

And once it's a fait accompli, maybe we can gradually fine tune it to be better.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Yeah. As I said, I'm reluctantly inclined in its favor -- as I was not in favor of the Senate version, however badly I wanted something to start with -- but damn, I wish we could get something sane passed.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

ditto.