Healthcare

Put away those Confederate uniforms.

As it turns out, we don’t have to re-enact the Civil War. The healthcare law is so bad, we don’t have to stretch back to the 18th or 19th century (or the 20th century, for that matter) to come up with analogies to fight it.

We don’t have to channel our inner John C. Calhoun and come up with a nullification theory about this law.

Every statewide elected official , Republican and Democrat alike, woke up Monday morning with the stark realization that they now have to pay for the mess Congress has created. And I guarantee you every one of them began the thought process with similar words: “Unlike Washington, we have to balance our budgets … what are we going to do?”

I have always believed when someone hits you or spits on you, you should turn the other cheek. That will fake out the assailant, and then you beat him to a pulp.

But that's me. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) believes otherwise. He didn't hit back. More power to him. But he also didn't have the crazed Tea Party guy who spat on him arrested and charged to the full extent of the law.

I am not one to quote liberal bloggers like the folks at Fire Dog Lake. But when they are right, they are right.

They analyzed this health bill, and their conclusions are devastating.

In a nutshell, this is what they say:

Forgive still another sports cliche, but oftentimes it's true that the "Best Defense is a Good Offense.” As an example, in a contract negotiation, sometimes the best way to get someone to stop making ridiculous lowball offers is to respond each time not by reducing your price but by raising it.

In the same way, then, maybe the way to confront those who are hell-bent on repealing healthcare reform through politics and destructive legal action is again not by resisting them but instead hammering them with aggressive tactics, raising the stakes.

Look at the driving forces inexorably leading to increased health costs.

First, the demographics of the aging baby boom generation will result in more senior citizens requiring expensive healthcare.

Second, healthcare technology is expensive. Moore’s Law does not seem to apply to medical technology.

A.B. Stoddard answers viewer questions on the passage of healthcare reform and suggests that Republicans should develop their own plan for healthcare reform.

The structure of institutions matters in politics, and you ignore them at your own peril, but what happened Sunday night in the United States House of Representatives was a triumph of the unpredictable nature of political action.

Even though all the pundits pronounced healthcare dead, it survived because citizens came together and reaffirmed its importance. Healthcare reform eventually passed because there was enough political wisdom and courage present to push it forward. It came from both unlikely corners, including the nuns who broke with the bishops and the members of Congress who voted yes even though they are almost certain to lose in November.

Forgive the self-indulgent self-flagellation, but it's time to own up. I was wrong. I was one of the many Washington lemmings who had abandoned any prospect of real change once the Massachusetts rats had jumped the Democratic ship.

Do you know the sound that Washington lemmings make as they move in a mass? We murmur. And as we marched in lockstep through the snows of February, we were all murmuring, "Healthcare reform is dead. Healthcare reform is dead.” Murmuring? Hell, we were shouting it from the cable news rooftops.

The Democrats and their allies are feverishly trying to spin their healthcare victory as a victory for their political fortunes. Stan Greenberg, in The New York Times, says, “Democrats today could easily be at the beginning of a hopeful six-month period, starting with the signing of the healthcare legislation that will further raise the public profile of the president and the Democratic Congress.” Mike Barnicle, on Morning Joe, asked Joe Scarborough, after ticking off the law’s many giveaways, “Joe, how do you run against this?” 

The answer is simple. You run against everything that has happened thus far.   Read more...