One of the enduring myths of this Summer of Health Care Reform Discontent is that Congressional Republicans are somehow stonewalling the process and running a massive disinformation campaign. Both of these claims ignore a couple of glaring facts: Republicans in Washington don’t have the numbers to stonewall anything and they aren’t even influential with their own constituents at the moment.
Wait, I missed a third fact: the current group of Republicans in charge haven’t been able to formulate a coherent message on any subject for several years now, it’s highly unlikely that they finally turned into a well-oiled propaganda machine, even if aided by money from BIG EVIL INSURANCE (another myth for another day).
If the Democrats want to see who is standing in the way they’re going to have to get big mirrors installed in both the House and Senate (several for the House, as the Botox Hag is bound to crack each one she gazes upon).
Pundits and politicians on the left can throw “Glenn Beck!” tantrums from now until a new Fox News guy to hate comes along and it won’t change the reality that one of the key battles in Reformapalooza is happening between President Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
Both are Democrats, by the way.
“The Congress will pass and the president will sign this year health insurance reform that will lower costs, retain choice, improve quality and expand coverage,” said Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami.
“It’s gonna happen, we’re all good…”, right?
Not so fast. Grandma Nan is insistent that the public option (a.k.a. “The Bridge To Single Payer”) is included in the bill. Why? Because she represents a constituency that still hasn’t washed all of its Woodstock mud off.
Pelosi has vowed to include in the bill a government-run insurance plan, commonly called a “public option,” to compete with private insurers.
I’m still working on the concept of a performance/results based private sector company “competing” with an arbitrarily funded government entity that can rewrite its own rules as needed.
Next on Pelosi’s agenda: maintenance-free puppies and a house elf for everyone!
Many centrist opponents of the bill don’t like the public option, or don’t want to vote on such a controversial plan when it’s unlikely to become law.
Several Democrats won’t vote for any public option because they are paying attention to their constituents rather than the party line, a rarity for members of either party in this Congress.
It would seem, then, that the sensible thing to do for the Democrats would be to follow the president’s lead and not make the public option a deal breaker.
More problems there:
At least 60 liberal Democrats have pledged to vote against a healthcare bill with no public option, which they view as watered-down reform.
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) has said dropping the public option completely would lose 100 Democratic votes.
Not a Republican in the way for miles.
Once the noise machines are turned off on both sides the reality is this: while many may agree that health care in this country needs some fixing, most aren’t on board with a radical overhaul that’s full of unspecified ways to pay for it. As I, and history, have said before: creating a new layer of federal bureaucracy (be it a Commissioner, a public option or both) in the name of reducing costs and introducing efficiency should be listed in DSM-IV as a mental disorder, not in the Congressional Record as sound policy.
However, President Obama and his ever-faithful mouthpieces in the press keep the story going that a complete overhaul is something that everyone wants/needs/positively lusts after and if we don’t get it soon it will kill us faster than Al Gore’s floating polar bears. Always safe inside the echo chamber, those devoted to the president can’t imagine why anyone would want things to be different. When it’s not working out their inclination is to blame the eternally evil Republicans.
The Republicans in Washington aren’t evil at all, they’re just small and inept. This group couldn’t block a field goal kicked by a toddler, let alone legislation that all the Democrats truly wanted passed.
They have met the enemy and the enemy is them, no matter how many John Boehner masks they’re wearing.