http://www.oliverwillis.com/2009/12/17/kill-the-bill-save-the-bill/Kill The Bill! Save The Bill!
December 17th, 2009
Where I am:
I don’t like that the public option is out. Not even the weak versions like the trigger, the opt-out, and the Medicare buy-in. That sucks, and Hell has reaffirmed the special place they have had on reserve for Joe Lieberman.
I also don’t think President Obama inserted himself in this debate enough. As I stated before, I think they strayed too far away from the Clinton model of being too involved in the crafting of this legislation. The strategic mistake of leaving Harry Reid in charge of anything will be remembered for history to record. In the midst of this most important legislation, Reid proved once again that he’s no Lyndon Johnson. He’ll go down in history as one of the weakest minority/majority leaders and frankly I hope he isn’t re-elected.
On the President personally, I reject the conspiracy theories that he’s a tool of corporate interests as the facts don’t bear that out, nor was I ever of the belief that he was uber-progressive. Barack Obama is on the cautious, deliberative center-left. That’s where he’s always been.
In an ideal world, this point in the debate would have been reached in August. But we live in the real world, and that’s why I think for all the good that isn’t in this bill, it should be passed anyway. We needed to get to the end zone, where we are is about on our own 44 yard line. “You play to win the game.”
On the course of this debate I’ve come to hate the U.S. Senate and if we played under the rules as they are used today, I would still be waiting for civil rights legislation to pass. But that’s also why I think the argument about scrapping the bill isn’t realistic. The best hope at getting something on the books is for the current bill to be passed before Christmas. Either that happens or I believe, health care reform goes on ice for another decade. Congress won’t be passing anything this controversial next year, an election year (if the Democrats are smart, they’ll be passing bills called “The Jobs For America Act” and “Employ An American Now Act”, etc.). Any law pushed after that will be a setup for the 2012 election, and so on. I doubt health care will come up again in this major a format until the post-presidential election.The bill is what it is. The design and the mandates aren’t pretty (though I think Ezra Klein makes a decent pro-mandate case here), but I think it gives a framework for future, needed modifications. And sure, in the unlikely event Republicans take control of congress, they could dismantle it, but my guess is enough people get on board, that is as likely to happen as the elimination of Medicare or the privatization of social security – both conservative daydreams.
I favor passage.
I think ripping up the bill gives the teabaggers and the GOP what they want, and helps to feed into the growing Fox News narrative of Democratic indifference.
For this of course, I am an Obamabot Broderite Centrist. Despite everything I’ve ever written for the last 10 years, but so what?
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