Some Things Are Certain

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After any Democratic Party legislative accomplishment, even an accomplishment that’s not really an accomplishment yet, such as last night’s Senate vote, there are some reactions you can count on.

Someone on the Right will explain why the accomplishment was not, in fact, an accomplishment, but a failure. Or a sign of weakness. Or a portent of failures to come.

Someone on the Left will explain that Harry Reid (or Rahm Emanuel, or Chuck Schumer, or Barack Obama, etc.) isn’t really one of us and has been planning to sell us out all along.

I’m still waiting for the third reaction, although it will no doubt be all over the Sunday talk shows — A majority of “pundits” will solemnly declare that whatever the Dems want to do will have no chance of success unless progressives adopt the wiser, more temperate positions of “moderates.”

14 thoughts on “Some Things Are Certain”

  1. What we accomplished last night was no small feat – we got the patient on the operating room table. Unfortunately there’s 40 GOP doctors in attendance who are out to euthanize the bill and a number of ‘moderate’ Democrats who think they are supposed to perform a castration. It’s the health care of the American public that’s on the table – and we are all nervous.

  2. Also certain – someone on the FAR right will bring a boatload of crazy. Glenda Beck is crafting a “100 Year Plan” – Does anyone remember the Charlton Heston movie “Soylent Green”? Whenever I envision the utopia we’d likely attain under the right wings “Next Hundred Years” I always think it’ll be pretty much be like that. But, seriously a tie in with Martin Luther King Jr.? How bizarre is that? – I don’t think that will play well with the base. Next time Glen plans a launch and needs a date to tie in to he really should stick to April Fool’s day. It’s a lot closer to home.

    http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/22/beck-100-year-plan/

  5. York, that moussed, helmet-haired hysteric, is, as usual, gloating over something, anything, to make Democrats look bad.
    Right now, some form of universal health care is further along than at any other time in our history.
    Will it happen? I honestly don’t know. I pray that it will. It will free up a lot of creativity that is squelched because people can’t, or won’t, start their own small businesses because they fear they’ll lose their coverage. This could be “The Change” we’ve been waiting for. And it will come from the people the Republicans claim to love – small business owners.
    Why is NOBODY writing about this? Oh, yeah, the left-wing media. Give me a break… The Republicans are fighting this because they know that this will HELP small businesses. Which means that owners and employees will vote for Democrats for a generation or two.

    And btw – did you read the comments on York’s site? Where was this indignation over the two occupations, and the government give-away known as MediCare drug reform, which will cost maore than the current reformation of our health care system? Assholes…

  6. Dr. Steven Taylor at Poliblog has an excellent response to Byron York’s silly piece. And I agree about the post at Firedoglake. It really annoyed me. Can’t we give Harry Reid (of whom I am SO not a fan) credit for what he accomplished yesterday — something I never would have imagined he’d be capable of — before we criticize for what he might do but hasn’t done yet?

  7. The opposition from the right regarding health care (and almost everything else)
    reminds me of the last line in Kipling’s poem “Young British Soldier”,

    “When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
    And the women come out to cut up what remains
    just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
    and go to your Gawd like a soldier
    go, go, go like a soldier!
    A soldier of the queen! “

  8. You forgot to mention us terminal pessimists who believe that no matter what goes down, the insurance industry will walk away with a big big bag of excessive profits, and the common Joe will end up fleeced and uncovered.
    I know I shouldn’t be such a stick in the mud, but years of observation and conditioning has tempered my thinking to believe the game is fixed. If we don’t socialize medicine like following Canada’s lead..we’ll end up going nowhere.

    That’s just my unAmerican opinion!

  9. One thing I have never heard anyone question is exactly what value do private health insurance companies bring to the health care proposition? How do they add any value whatsoever? The answer of course is that they don’t. All they add is unnecessary costs, due to the fact they pay their executives multi-million dollar salaries and stock options with your health insurance premiums! Why not have a government middleman shuffle the same paper more cheaply? Why do many people assume corporate bureaucrats shuffle paper any better than government bureaucrats? There is an inherent prejudice against government employees I find insulting and degrading. AFSCME and other governmental unions should be taking out ads addressing this degrading bias head-on.

  13. The change in recommendation was handled poorly. What is not understood in this country is that when it comes to medical care, MORE IS NOT BETTER!!!!! We should tattoo that on our head and run around screaming. I have an example. Woman has mammogram, ‘suspicious’ in both breast. Biopsy is done with a incision 270 degrees around the nipple (better cosmetic result). Woman doesn’t know that these is a nerve in lower outer aspect of area that is part of the oxytocin feed back loop controlling sexual response of area. Thereafter foreplay in the area felt as good as someone playing with her elbow. Hasn’t gotten better in 15 years. True story and only one of the complications of biopsy. Don’t get me started on what happens to all these cervix that have abnormal cells removed. No one can tell you if it will turn into cancer but they sure as hell know your chances of preterm birth are much higher if cervix is messed with. A woman’s sexual organs are complex and should not be touched with a knife unless absolutely necessary. Not for the 2 % chance of cancer that was enough for my radiologist to recommend cuts. Waiting 6 months is going to kill very very few women if any at all!!!! These are complicated decisions and ones to be made with all the information available. But remember, CUTTING is not risk free.

  14. Swami, I am tempted to change my name to terminal pessimist. It is quite fitting today. Every single good thing in the health bill is being stripped away. I continue to believe it has become worse than nothing. More and more people are going to be unhappy with their insurance and when that reaches critical mass, single payer will look great. It will not take more than 2-3 years because the greed of insurance companies knows no bounds.

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