The health care reform fiasco was everything we feared it would be.A period of behavior foul enough to make a dung beetle turn away in disgust. From the uninformed teabaggers of the summer, to the dishonest posturing of Republicans. From the spinelessness of the Democrats to the noodle-armed lack of muscle from the White House. It was a morality play whose last act was the venal slouch towards Bethlehem that was Joe Lieberman making his way to the microphone with words as shamelessly untrue as his claim to decency and principle.
Health care reform is dead, keeping us the only industrialized nation that cares for the sick and injured based on what they can pay.
We will continue to pay twice as much for half the service. We will continue to create insurance millionaires by driving families into the street, bankrupting 2 million Americans every year, including 700,000 children.
Will this crippled, barely-breathing infant of compromise that's been pushed onto the stage fix any of this? No. It will only make the insurance companies richer and the rest of us poorer.
So I say kill the bill. Obama should take this feeble mutt out back and put a bullet in its head.
I know others disagree. Even my old friend, Dusty Rhoades says:
"Do I want any health care reform AT ALL killed because I don't get everything I want in this bill? No. I realize that politics is the art of the possible. If you can't get everything you want, you get everything you can get, and regroup to fight another day."
I say, move on to things we can change. We've wasted enough time on this rigged game. The corporations, with all the rights of people and none of the responsibilities, own the dice. We were suckers to believe otherwise.
But I do agree with Dusty about one thing. I'm sick of following these ugly actors in this ill-scripted bit of rancid dinner theater.
Aside from a few Christmas cartoons and other hopefully funny posts, I'm taking the rest of the year off. Maybe if I ignore people like Glenn Beck and Joe Lieberman they will cease to exist, at least for a little while.
16 comments:
I'm taking the rest of the year off.
Yey!!!!
It was a bad bill. Some health care reform needs to happen, but what Harry and Nancy were trying to pull was not what the vast American majority wanted.
Good riddens!
"Just do something to just do something" is what the Democratic controlled Congress is all about. Save the taxpayers money and please leave D.C. until next year.
I reluctantly agree. If it's to be the death knell of a Democrat as President, if its passage needs to compromise everything good in it, let it come later. I know this is what has been said for forty years but....
Why can't we do what other civilized countries do and take care of ourselves? Taxes are not evil. They give us peace of mind.
Wake up people. It's about them not us...
"The expenses racked up by U.S. Democratic lawmakers traveling for a conference last month included one for the "control room." Besides rooms for sleeping, the 12 members of the House of Representatives rented their hotel's fireplace-equipped presidential suite and two adjacent rooms. The hotel cleared out the beds and in their place set up a bar, a snack room and office space. The three extra rooms -- stocked with liquor, Coors beer, chips and salsa, sandwiches, Mrs. Fields cookies and York Peppermint Patties -- cost a total of about $1,500 a night. They were rented for five nights. While in Scotland, the House members toured historic buildings. Some shopped for Scotch whisky and visited the hotel spa. They capped the trip with a dinner at one of the region's finest restaurants, paid for by the legislators, who got $118 daily stipends for meals and incidentals. Eleven of the 12 legislators then left the five-day conference two days early. The tour provides a glimpse of the mixture of business and pleasure involved in legislators' overseas trips, which are growing in number and mostly financed by the taxpayer. Lawmakers travel with military liaisons who carry luggage, help them through customs, escort them on sightseeing trips and stock their hotel rooms with food and liquor. Typically, spouses come along, flying free on jets operated by the Air Force. Legislative aides come too. On the ground, all travel in chauffeured vehicles."
"Taxes are not evil. They give us peace of mind."
The gov't just let CitiGroup walk away from $38 BILLION in taxes so they could pay the TARP money they got from the gov't bailout.
They ever let you ignore your taxes so you could pay your mortgage, lady?
CitiGroup can thank Obama.
I'm with you, David. I'm so disgusted by the corporate buy-out of America that I'm wishing I could move to a civilized country to live out my old age. Washington is just a crock of chicken poop!
Cyndi, What is stopping you from moving to a "civilized country"? I hear many Liberals saying this, but they never leave. Lets face it, we have it pretty good here!
Anon,
If I could find a comparable job in Europe, I'd take it. But emigrating is very hard to do. Other countries don't want us.
That said, it still breaks my heart to watch a country that I love squander its leadership in government, industry, and social responsibility to a bunch of Ayn Randian greedheads and corporate shills.
When China calls in its debt and the dollar collapses, when all the companies bought in the last 30 years by Equity Patners are crushed by the money they owe and a few million more are thrown out of work, when the really bad shit comes down, I'd like to be someplace else. But it looks like I'm here for the duration.
Make sure you buckle up, Anon. I guarantee it's going to be a rough landing.
And thank your Democrat leadership for that!
Boy, If I had as much lack of pride as David has being an American, I'd leave this country tomorrow.
Al (a lover of my country, America)
You know, if we didn't love our country, we wouldn't be so disappointed in it. And I don't think the finger can be pointed solely at the Democrats. I think the Republicans have been bought and paid for as well. How tough can it be to pass DECENT healthcare reform with a majority in both houses of Congress? Surely if Lyndon Johnson could pass civil rights legislation, some leadership on President Obama's part could have made healthcare legislation an achievement instead of an embarrassment. So sad. And so criminal.
Anon,
I served my country. Did you?
I love this place. I would die for its principles. And yet, for the past 30 years I have watched as this land of opportunity inches its way toward oligarchy. That makes me very unhappy.
But it makes me no less proud of the Constitution and the country a Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, stood for.
What do you stand for, Anonymous? What would you risk your life for? Talk is cheap. Waving the flag is easy, and is often the action of the false patriot.
You don't even have the courage to stand by your words.
You're not the only one who served in this great country. Some of us even served in war. Don't talk to me about "false patriot." I've seen a lot of guys like you when I was in the service, mostly they were cooks or pounding a typewriter.
Anonymous Al
Al,
In the spirit of the season, let me say welcome home.
I'm sorry I assumed you were just another rightwing chickenhawk. There are so many of them.
And you're right. I was a REMF, and happy to be. I hate sleeping outside.
So, please accept this apology and my genuine desire for you and your family to have a Merry Christmas.
David
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