Please click on the link below which will take you to a NYT video of
Joshua Cohen of Stanford University and Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute discussing the question of "why the G.O.P. lost the fight over health care reform."
Oh, and by the way, if you delve beyond this "introduction" you can also check out my own pov re what they had to say and associated issues. Thanks!
In today's NYT "Blogging Heads you'll find.....
"G.O.P.'s Misplayed Hand Joshua Cohen, left, of Stanford University and Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute discuss why the G.O.P. lost the fight over health care reform."
Here's a guy from the CATO Institute that agrees with me when I say that the health insurance reform bill that just passed is a version of Republican Mitt Romney's "reforms" in Massachusetts. This discussion also makes the point that the current bill is also much like what the HERITAGE FOUNDATION proposed in 1993 ...as a conservative alternative to what the Clintons offered!
The approach that today's Republican "leadership" has taken of declaring Obama a "socialist" is factually false and politically unsane. I hope it bites them in the ass in November.......but that will NOT happen unless the Democrats rub the Republican's (i.e Beck, Limbaugh et al) noses in their own bullshit.
If the demagoguery is NOT completely exposed for what it is....it could further inflame the passions of the ignorant and of the bigots (which is a somewhat oxymoronic juxtaposition ;-).
It's up to the Democrats not to back down one inch to these hateful bullies!!! If they do that, they win big enough to have the political capital to pass a serious public option that would actually BE health care reform as it would give people the right to choose an alternative to the insurance industry.
This could be done in 2011.....and if done well it would sweep Obama into a 2012 re-election and the Dems back into super-majority status in the Senate and the House......all of which brings us to the passage of single payer by the end of Obama's second term.
This scenario all depends on the Democrats willingness to actually FIGHT for what they believe in, rather than be cowed by Republican demagoguery.
The approach that today's Republican "leadership" has taken of declaring Obama a "socialist" is factually false and politically unsane. I hope it bites them in the ass in November.......but that will NOT happen unless the Democrats rub the Republican's (i.e Beck, Limbaugh et al) noses in their own bullshit.
If the demagoguery is NOT completely exposed for what it is....it could further inflame the passions of the ignorant and of the bigots (which is a somewhat oxymoronic juxtaposition ;-).
It's up to the Democrats not to back down one inch to these hateful bullies!!! If they do that, they win big enough to have the political capital to pass a serious public option that would actually BE health care reform as it would give people the right to choose an alternative to the insurance industry.
This could be done in 2011.....and if done well it would sweep Obama into a 2012 re-election and the Dems back into super-majority status in the Senate and the House......all of which brings us to the passage of single payer by the end of Obama's second term.
This scenario all depends on the Democrats willingness to actually FIGHT for what they believe in, rather than be cowed by Republican demagoguery.