Look, I'm confused by all of this stuff. I'm not an expert on health care. I haven't spent YEARS researching it and coming up with my own plan. I'm vacillated between "this bill is the worst thing ever!" and "eh, the bill could be worse" (I've never actually thought it was a "good" bill, go figure). But lately there has been a "kill the bill" meme going on that makes me question whether doing "nothing" is really better than the bill. Senator Harkin was on the Ed Show last night, and he put it in a way that made me think killing this bill may not be the "best" idea:
And I‘ve got to tell you, the way I‘ve explain this bill to my liberal friends is this—look, what we‘re buying is a starter home, not a mansion. You know, but it‘s got a good foundation. We‘re covering 31 million people. It‘s got a good roof, protects people from outrageous abuses by the insurance companies.
But you know what? We can build some additions on it in the future. But if we don‘t have that starter home, we‘ll never be able to build those additions in the future. That‘s the way I look at it.
Is not having a foundation to build on at all, really better than having the foundation of this bill to build on?
I still don't like the mandates because I'm not totally convinced that the insurance companies won't jack up prices. But we can always add to the bill. It will be pretty hard for the Republicans to repeal it if they ever DO get into power because hopefully the bill will do everything its supporters are claiming it will do. And according to Senator Harkin, there is a good chance that we WILL get a Public Option out of conference. So wouldn't our time be better spent trying to make sure that whatever comes out of conference does have a PO and maybe even the medicare buy-in?
Again, I'm not an expert on HCR (I like to think I'm looking at it as an average uninsured person), but I think I'd rather have the foundation there than NOTHING, and I really don't think this bill will be voted on before 2010, so there's still time to try to get the stuff we want in it.
Maybe we shouldn't rush in to kill the bill because we don't like certain aspects of it? Maybe we should spend our time pushing the GOOD thing in the bill and pushing the Congress Critters to fix the crappy stuff. We all know whatever comes out of all of this WILL be signed by Pres. Obama, so lets spend our time trying to make it the best bill instead of trying to kill it (because we probably won't be able to kill it, and then valuable time will be wasted.)
Besides, I read this earlier and it made me uncomfortable:
Republicans who are trying to defeat the bill found themselves happy to have Dean's help.
"If you live long enough all things can happen," Republican Senator John McCain said with a smile. "I now find myself in complete agreement with Dr. Howard Dean, who says that we should stop this bill in its tracks, we should go back to the beginning and have an overall bipartisan agreement. Dr. Dean, I am with you."
Do we REALLY want to help the obstructionist Republicans be obstructionists? Even if we did "kill the bill" and send it back to the beginning, do you REALLY think we'd get everything we want the second go 'round, especially after the Obstructionists taste "victory" in defeating the bill the first time?
