Home > Messages from the Ether > #hcr

#hcr

There's much to ignore in this post-health care bill climate--possibly more noise now than when the bill was being debated. There are the expected accusations that supporters were fooled into a flawed compromise, yet shouldn't all legislation that seeks to satisfy 300+ million citizens contain some compromise? Few were so dreamy-eyed as to think utopia would or could be achieved (especially considering the stonewalling that Republicans tantrumed at us up to and including complete contrariness in the final vote). And the mincing over abortion was absurdist theater. The primary goal of this health care reform was to insure the uninsurable and to lighten the load for those nearly uninsurable and the religious tried to stop that. It would have been nice to have the Canadian system (man, they lord that over us, justifiably) so that everyone would pay less. But looking again at those zero Republican votes, we should consider this the best compromise we could hope for.

It bears repeating how the misguided and superstitious wanted to continue to allow those poorest of us to die by blocking the bill, and hoped to do it based on the merest fraction of how the bill would actually work. If you want to view moral cowardice, watch those same people cheer their tax dollars as they are used to kill foreign civilians. There's no more clear example of how religion holds back social progress. They are base opportunists. A writer in The Independent back in August 2009 pointed out that there are some areas in which a conservative philosophy could be a useful corrective. But that's not what these so-called "conservatives" are providing: instead, they are pumping up a hysterical fantasy that serves as a thin skin covering some raw economic interests and base prejudices. It hasn't changed a bit since then.

Summaries of note:

• Top 5 lies about health care from Politifact
• Top 10 facts to know about health care reform from Politifact
• A look at the health care overhaul bill from WaPo, a quick summary published shortly after the final vote
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act from Wikipedia; not as dauntingly long as I'd expected
• The Fourth Branch from FiveThirtyEight, arguing against alleged impropriety in Democratic pursuit of HCR
• Health Care Overhaul: Constitutional? from FactCheck