Ok, enough.
Enough, Enough, Enough.
After reading this compilation by Thomas Schaller of various leading “progressives” views on whether the Senate bill should be killed or not, I am beyond disgusted at many of the putrid, spineless, stupid quislings who call themselves progressives.
Just… enough.
Exhibit A:
On MSNBC’s “The Ed Show,” Joan Walsh derides Joe Lieberman but compares progressives who want to kill the entire Senate bill to people who voted for Nader over Al Gore in 2000.
Thank you Joan “lesser evil” Walsh. That election has been trotted out ever since to justify voting for Democrats no matter what they do. It’s good to know that your support is completely unconditional. Of course, perhaps it might have helped if Al Gore and Joe Lieberman had actually fought. Buses full of union members and other demonstrators were willing to go, and Al Gore, the “good man” didn’t want to risk that flaring into violence. So he told them not to roll, and the Supreme Court, seeing that no one gave a damn, gave the election to Bush 5-4. The result was, literally, hundreds of thousands of dead people. Why? Because a good man wasn’t willing to fight. Just like you, a “good woman”, I’m sure. Just like Democratic progressive in Congress. If you won’t fight, and the other side will, the other side will always get what they want. But people like you, who belong to the party of wimps, never understand that, do you?
Exhibit B, Ezra Klein:
And as I spent yesterday arguing, it has a tendency to overshadow the lives in the balance. You can choose your estimate. The Institute of Medicine’s methodology says 22,000 people died in 2006 because they didn’t have health-care coverage. A recent Harvard study found the number nearer to 45,000. Since we talk about the costs of health-care reform over a 10-year period, may as well talk about the lives saved that way, too. And we’re looking, easily, at more than a hundred thousand lives, to say nothing of the people who will be spared bankruptcy, chronic pain, unnecessary impairment, unnecessary caretaking, bereavement, loss of wages, painful surgeries, and so on.
Why people think Ezra is capable of understanding policy has always been beyond me. He can’t, and he never has been able to. The bill will not save all of those lives. What the bill does is force people to buy insurance who don’t have it right now. Force them. The standard shitty insurance (the silver plan) is 70% of actuarial value, which means the company has to spend 70% of premiums on health care. And it’s not capped. So if you get seriously ill, you blow through the cap, and can’t afford the care which would save you life. I don’t know how many people the bill will save, but it’s not 220,000 or 450,000 over ten years. Anyone who thinks it is is incompetent.
Exhibit C, Jonathan Cohn, who writes for the New Republic (which should tell you everything you need to know anyway):
Is health care reform without a public option still worth passing? Unequivocally, unambiguously yes.
The case for is simple and straightforward: 30 million additional people, maybe more, will have health insurance. Many more who have insurance will see their coverage become more stable. The ability of insurers to exclude people based on pre-existing conditions will diminish significantly, if not disappear. And that’s on top of a host of delivery reforms which should, in combination, help make medical care less expensive over time. The bill could be much better, for sure, but to argue that it’s worse than nothing you have to make the case that nothing will somehow lead to more progress in some reasonable frame of time.
30 million more people will be FORCED to buy insurance, which many of them can’t afford. If they could afford insurance, many of them would already have it. What part of FORCED don’t these idiots understand? Let me repeat: Forced, Forced, Forced.
Yes, Jonny, it is worse than nothing, because it will push many of these people over the edge financially in order to give them insurance which is capped, and which, therefore when they get really sick, will not save their life anyway. Not just a moron, but a moral imbecile.
Angela Glover Blackwell, of some group called Policylink is the only person who swings for not killing the bill and gets some bat on the ball:
Politics is the art of the possible. It rarely gives us everything we want — and often it doesn’t even give us what we need. The health-care debate has been a case study in compromise — alternating between hopeful and infuriating and back again.
Oh puke. If someone tells me once more about the art of the possible, instead of the art of the necessary I am going toss my cookies all over them next time I meet them at some conference.
But we are still left with a proposal that takes several important, relatively moderate steps toward a more insured, healthier nation. The protections against rescission and rejections for “pre-existing conditions” should help curb the most egregious abuses of the insurance industry. And subsidies for low-income people will help bring millions of struggling Americans into the health insurance system for the first time.
Ok, that’s at least an argument that makes some sense. I don’t think it’s worth it, because again, the insurance they’re being forced to buy is shitty 70% actuarial value with caps it won’t save their bloody lives, and may well drive them into bankruptcy, because the subsidies are inadequate, but at least she mentions recissions and pre-existing conditions: virtually the only major things the bill does right.
With Progressives Like These…
Who needs Republicans or Conservadems? Honestly, mode one is always, “well, if someone is going to give me one cent, that’s better than no deal no matter what I give up in return!” Plop these fools down in a 3rd world bazaar with $1,000 dollars and they’d be begging for food by the end of their first week.
As Stephanie Taylor says:
When Democratic leaders refuse to fight, they can’t then ask progressives to cave with them. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is continuing to fight for the best health care bill possible, and we’re intent on holding Democrats’ feet to the fire. But we need to think very seriously about whether there will be a moment when it is clear that the bill does more harm than good–we need to be prepared to kill the bill.
Part of being a great negotiator is being able to walk away. (emphasis mine).
No more Mr. Nice Blogger. The idiots calling for surrender, meekly begging for table scraps, are not due any pretend respect or collegial refusal to call them out for their stupidity and cowardice.