The headline is a quote from Kurt Vonnegut.
Since the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, the prospects for successful passage of any sort of comprehensive health care reform have been growing dimmer and dimmer, despite the fact that bills have been passed in both the House and the Senate.
The unwillingness of the House to pass the Senate’s version of the bill and the shocking inability of the Senate to do anything at all with fewer than 60 Democratic votes means the chance of a conference committee bill ever being approved in both chambers is vanishingly slim. And despite presidential appeals to bipartisanship, it seems unlikely the “party of no” is going to change a political strategy that has been incredibly successful for them in the past several months.
The sort of comprehensive-but-moderate reform painstakingly negotiated in 2009 is now trapped between those who toe the party line and manipulate unfocused popular anger to score political points and those who cannot or will not understand that reform is never an all-or-nothing endeavor. Even if efforts at health care legislation continue in a “two-track” fashion, we will at best end up with a system that is barely workable and only marginally better. Unless there is a seismic shift in the Washington political culture, any sort of meaningful health care reform is dead in the water.
This represents a tremendous blow to Americans. For a few brief months, there was real hope that we would move from a system that rations health care according to employment and wealth and towards one that rations health care according to need. For a few brief months, there was a real chance this would no longer be a place where cancer patients are denied coverage because they forgot to tell their insurance companies they had been treated for acne. And for a few brief months there was a real possibility that access to affordable health care would be recognized as an essential component of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Although neither of the bills that passed the House and the Senate was perfect, they were both steps away from a system that is a blemish on a country as advanced as ours.
The most appalling aspect of this failure to legislate is that it did not happen in the wake of real debate or as the result of honest, irreconcilable philosophical differences. Health care reform failed because of overblown, absurd rhetoric about “death panels” and “socialized medicine” coughed up by hyperventilating con-men masquerading as pundits and news anchors. It failed because there are not enough legislators who are capable of doubting a little bit of their own infallibility. It failed because people who were legitimately angry about legitimate problems were sold empty slogans manufactured by the most Machiavellian elements of red team/blue team politics.
This failure and this loss are the fruits of aggressively partisan politics. And until the political climate in this country changes dramatically, we will continue to reap what they sow.
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dio 2 years, 3 months ago
I have many relatives in Scandinavia and I lived there for a while. I call BS on whatever "hello" wrote about Sweden. On top of that, my Canadian friends are calling BS on the Canadian part of the comment too.
hello 2 years, 3 months ago
To jssooner, I have family members living in Sweeden who have the national healthcare coverage you so desire in our country. In Sweeden people DIE waiting for routine surgery like my 43 yr old cousin. He died while waiting for over TWO YEARS for hospital space. He died because of bureaucratic enefficiency and the lack of doctors and treatment facilities. He died due to the government run, government rationed healthcare system that costs too much and provides too little. He died leaving a wife and two very young children. I also have friends living in Canada where there is a national healthcare system. They know that those who can afford to do so, come to the U.S. for medical care because the free market system is so much BETTER than their national one. Competition breeds excellence while a bureaucratic monopoly breeds incompetence. The answer to problems like pre-existing conditions is NOT to ruin healthcare for everyone. Rather, the answer is to focus intelligently on the specific reforms that are needed. Democrats and Republicans must work together to accomplish this. If the Democrats push the current healthcare bill through, the "blood of Americans" will be on THEIR hands.
hello 2 years, 3 months ago
Healthcare legislation failed because most people don't want it. We don't want the crooked backroom deals. We don't like the bribes. We don't want a half baked, constantly mutating bill (that almost no one has read) rushed to a vote. And we don't like the consummate arrogance displayed by our lawmakers in the process. Scott Brown's election by mostly Independent voters, should be a wake-up call to those on Capitol Hill. Sadly, they choose to keep on sleeping. Well, your "seismic shift" is comming. It just won't be what you are expecting.
hello 2 years, 3 months ago
Why, dio, have you nothing of substance to offer? Perhaps you could tell the readers here how many people are running to Scandinavia or Canada from the U.S. to partake of their "wonderful" national healthcare systems. Even Castro himself came to the U.S. for his medical needs instead of using Cuba's nationalized healthcare system. (Of course, if the ordinary Cuban citizen tried to leave "utopia" to do the same, he/she would risk being shot.) I call BS on what you wrote, dio. It is as empty as the current resident of the White House and his ideology.
TheJeff 2 years, 3 months ago
Say "party of no" all you want, but when a bill sucks, people like a party of no.
Why is it bad that the house doesn't "just pass" the Senate bill? A party of yes that blindly votes for anything can be just as bad as a party of no.
If the Democrats were smart, they could just for one time pull together and pass something without any pork, and put a gotcha bill out there to trap the Republicans. You couldn't get any public option, or subsidies, or any of that sort. But they could put real reform about industry regulations (Pre-existings, cross state competition, Monopoly), and governmental regulations (getting rid of tax codes that better or worse force tie insurance to a particular job, TORT reform). If they could do that, they'd force the republicans to say No to popular things. As it stands now, they allow the Republicans to portray themselves as heroes against a bloated bill of pork.
jssooner4 2 years, 3 months ago
I have family friends with genetic disorders who will be denied coverage due to their pre-existing condition. I would take all the backdoor deals, all the bribes, and the half baked bills if it meant people didnt have do die needlessly because we were too greedy to care for them. You can say they should end denial of preexisting condition, but then you are just contradicting yourself by stealing a companies right to make a profit. The only reasonable way to fix healthcare is to stop making it a commodity and start making it a promised characteristic of a free society. We spend BILLIONS of dollars on wars against terrorism, while our own citizens sit at home without medication waiting to die from their cancer simply because they do not have insurance and cannot afford to pay. If republicans block a healthcare reform bill from passing, the blood of Americans WILL be on their hands.