The Moderate Republican: An Endangered Species

[marmar]

from Truthdig:




The Moderate Republican: An Endangered Species

Posted on Mar 23, 2010
By Robert Scheer


Boy, the Republicans know how to make Barack Obama look good. What are they going to do now, threaten to repeal a law that forces insurance companies to cover the sick? Or block the provision that allows you to keep your out-of-work kids on your policy until they are 26? Whatever the failings of the bill—and they are real, especially in the area of cost control—its proponents will clearly have an advantage over those left bemoaning the loss of the untenable status quo. Particularly so during the first years, when its very sensible restraints on the insurance industry go into effect.

The bill that the president signed into law is limited and hardly provocative, but it unquestionably gets us over the first huge hurdle, already surmounted by every other economically advanced nation, to finally regard health coverage as a societal obligation. We already do with the rules governing admittance to hospital emergency rooms, but now that obviously humane assurance carries the majesty of landmark law. For that achievement, Obama and the Democrats who supported him have secured their marker in the nation’s history, and the Republicans, without exception, should be remembered only as wannabe spoilers.

As Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, observed correctly in holding his nose and casting a vote for a bill that is at best a work in need of much progress, it is “castor oil,” which may not do much to improve our health but certainly won’t make it worse. It’s also pro-business; that’s why the stock market boomed Tuesday in a 17-month-high rally led by a 4.1 percent rise in the value of Caterpillar, the company that claimed the bill would hurt business interests.

Quite the opposite, actually, and even the health industry will do very well. Just as the auto insurance companies benefit from the requirement that all drivers have insurance, the health industry will have plenty of opportunity to make profits off the broad new market of captive consumers with no serious threat of effective government cost controls. The public option that might have provided an attractive cost-control alternative has been banished, and it won’t take the health insurance companies long to figure out how to game those new insurance exchanges to increase profits. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_moderate_republican_an_endangered_species_20100323/

[DCBob]

1. They exist but are afraid to open their mouths...

for fear of being Teabaggered... perhaps literally.