The following essay started out as a facebook comment reply. And it just grew and grew, so now I figure it deserves a blog post of its own, so here is another rant:
Yeah, I was overstating some of my points just for the fun of ranting. I’m not saying that we don’t have a right to complain–freedom of speech is part of what makes our country great. I agree that higher taxes are not the solution, but I do think that “We shouldn’t do this because it will raise taxes!” is a piss-poor argument that gets used ad nauseum. If it raises taxes, but accomplishes something useful with those taxes, then by all means, let’s raise taxes.
Realistically of course, it’s also a matter of cutting all the waste and fraud in the system as well, but that’s another argument. As is Prop 13, which I think should be repealed. And I think gas should cost $5 a gallon, or really $1.50 per liter, except that it affects the poor unfairly. Okay, let’s leave all those for another rant.
I absolutely believe that people in a higher tax bracket should pay more for other people to have healthcare, and that healthcare is something that should be available for everybody. I don’t view healthcare as an “entitlement,” I view it as a right. Taxing people in a higher bracket may take more from them, but they’re still left with far more than the lower brackets.
I’m not wild about the healthcare bill that passed either (if a good compromise makes everybody unhappy, then this healthcare bill is the greatest compromise ever). However, to suggest that everything is worse with government intervention is a huge overstatement (how well would the police or military function as a for-profit enterprise?). Nobody’s saying that the government runs things at peak efficiency, but sometimes you need the government to run things. The success of Medicare and government-run healthcare in other countries shows what can be done when the government runs things properly. Selling cellphones should be a capitalistic business, but the healthcare industry needs to have a non-profit option, and that’s where the government comes in.
I COMPLETELY disagree with your statement that the Republicans are not to blame for the dysfunctional passing of this healthcare bill. The Republicans were TOTAL obstructionists in this process, offering useless faux-solutions, spreading lies, and inciting fear instead of working toward a solution. Their proposed solution to healthcare reform? TORT REFORM, which would have taken care of 2 freakin’ percent of healthcare costs which are increasing nearly exponentially. They shouted “SOCIALISM,” “HIGHER TAXES,” and “DEATH PANELS!” just to freak people out.
Since Obama took office, The Republican’s objective was not to do what was best for the country, but to cripple his administration so they could take over again (Rush Limbaugh: “I hope Obama fails”). Toward that end, they filibustered everything they could (even bills that they eventually voted for), they put hundreds of Presidential nominees on hold, and stalled and bickered solely to try to stop progress. And they succeeded to a certain degree–Obama originally wanted healthcare reform passed in August of 2009. And when healthcare reform was inevitable, what did they do? They shouted, “LET’S START OVER!” Did they really want to start over? No, they just wanted to stall some more. Even now, all they want to do is repeal this bill.
The Democrats are to blame for being a bunch of wussies and trying too hard to gain consensus. They kowtowed to special interests to get 61 Senate votes when they should have just gone the 51-vote reconciliation path all along. They lost the PR war by not holding pro-healthcare rallies the way the Republicans held anti-healthcare rallies. They didn’t blatantly call out the liars as liars. They inserted 200 Republican Amendments to the bill in a naive attempt to compromise and gain consensus. Instead, they should have realized that the Republicans weren’t going to vote for it regardless, and really rammed a powerful reform down the Republican throats.
Obama is to blame for not pushing hard enough–he abandoned Single Payer immediately, didn’t push enough for Public Option, and cut a sweetheart deal immediately with the drug companies. If he had pushed as hard early on as he did in the last two weeks, we might have been able to get a Single Payer Public Option Healthcare Plan that would have really worked.
The fact that not a single Republican voted for this bill reflects just how determined they are to obstruct any progress by Obama’s administration. This current bill is extremely similar to the bill proposed by Republicans when Clinton was trying to reform healthcare; Clinton rejected it because it wasn’t strong enough. And yet not a single Republican voted for it this time. There are freakin’ 200 REPUBLICAN AMENDMENTS in this bill! And you want to blame the Democrats for not trying to achieve consensus?
The fact that some Democrats voted against the bill doesn’t make it a bad bill. Some Democrats were against it because of abortion concerns, and some Democrats were against it because they felt it compromised too much.
Finally, while compromise/consensus seems like the fair thing to do, it isn’t always the best tactic. Why? Because one side can skew what is moderate by going way over to one extreme, and thereby force the compromise onto their side (Sam Malone to Diane on Cheers: “I want to have sex with you 100 times, and you want to have sex with me 0 times, so let’s compromise and have sex 50 times.”). The Republicans were well aware of this, and dug their heels in on one extreme and refused to budge, thereby achieving a LOT of concesssions from the Democrats, most notably, the loss of Single Payer and Public Option. But they still didn’t vote for it, thereby making it look like the Democrats refused to compromise, when in reality, they had no intention of voting for anything the Democrats proposed.
Soapbox so high…can’t get down…
Vic Chao 