Category Archives: Health Care

Don't like the way the health care bill is shaping up? Glenn G. says Blame Obama.

Sounds about right to me.

Note that this is in one sense worse than the expansion of the war in Afghanistan. Obama promised us more war in the campaign. This health care bill — and the administration's Rahmian maneuvers about it — breaks several promises.

(The war and the health care bill both involve life and death decisions; arguably the war is worse as so many of those being killed have not even a theoretical say in the matter.)

The Plum Line has the video, Watch Lieberman Endorse Medicare Buy-In Three Months Ago. Now he says that the inclusion of the very proposal he formerly claimed to support is why Lieberman opposes the health care bill.

It seems increasingly the case that the core of Lieberman's ever-shifting objections to health care reform is summed up in this classic song:

It would be nice if our Senate could transcend the Marx Brothers. I am not feeling hopeful about that right now.

Billionaires for Wealthcare Serande the Masses on Capitol Hill – 11/5/09 (HQ)

Tough pro-public-option video from a former Obama campaign staffer in Maine, President Obama: It's Time To Fight

Video by the Progressive Change Campaign Comission. It gets a nice shot in at Olympia Snowe, too. She deserves it since her stand seems entirely unprincipled and driven by fear of her caucus.

One thing, though: although an Obama campaign white paper did mention the public option, he really didn't campaign on it. Indeed, Obama's somewhat cautious health care policy was one of the reasons why I wasn't a bigger fan in the primaries. The problem with Obama's policies here is, to me, more one of consistent timidity rather than going back on a pledge. And then there's Rham too…

Daily Kos: Harry Reid abdicates his leadership role.

Seems the X-rays emerging from the Majority (q.v.) Leader's Office are not encouraging.

Maddow reports on the search for a Democratic spine

The search for a Democratic spine has consumed more than a decade, almost two. Signs of one were briefly located in Howard Dean, but the party's antibodies seem to have rejected him. Signs of small ones have been seen in the House although the incidence is very erratic. Now Rachel Maddow claims that two “major power brokers,” unnamed, are trying to inject one into Harry Reid by having the party strip committee chairmanships and subcommittee chairmanships for anyone who voted to support a GOP filibuster on health care reform.

My guess is that this is atmospherics designed to spur the uncertain rather than something that can actually happen. Do spines grow back after they atrophy?