Legal Commentary

The Wimpy "Angry Left"

By Big Tent Democrat

Pass the POS. Don't pass the POS. But don't tell me we're all moving forward together through a historic moment. Y'all sound like idiots. -- Charles Pierce

The title of this post is a reference to myself (which is silly of course, while I am angry, I am hardly Left) and people like me. People who agree with the critiques made against the bill, who disagree with the the "regulatory reform" framework that bill elevates, who believe in the public insurance reform framework that would be undermined by the bill - but do not oppose the bill. How can I support passage of the bill? Well, I'm not there yet, but I can tell you why I do not oppose the bill - the expansion of Medicaid eligibility. Having the wealthy pay for public insurance for the less well off is an important good. I just can not bring myself to oppose the bill because of that.

The debate between the proponents of the bill and the opponents of the bill is, at this point, an empty exercise. Lines have been drawn. Insults have been hurled. Credibility has been sacrificed. I mean, at this point, is there a credible actor in the discussion? No. For me there is nothing left to say that I have not already said. I leave you with this - Charles Pierce speaks for me:

My new favorite futile argument for passing the current POS is that, in our politics, simply by passing the aforementioned POS, we forever will have established, banners aloft, the notion that healthcare is a right or, at least, an affirmative obligation of the national government. As a result, we will be freer to move forward as the years go by. This is a fine argument, provided that you were cryogenically frozen in 1958. Let me explain to everyone holding this particular view what is going to happen. The POS is going to pass. The Republicans are going to oppose it and run against it. The Democrats are going to look ridiculous for a year defending it, and the Democrats who most opposed it are going to look the most ridiculous, because it is going to be politically impossible for a Democrat to run against this bill. The prevailing media narrative will prevent it. Millions more American will have health insurance, but millions of Americans will be forced by law to fork over their money, during a grisly recession, to the greediest and least popular industry the country has seen since the railroads were running amok in the 1890's. These people will go broke a little more slowly, depending on how sick they get. The industry will jack up its rates until we all have to put in new attics. The subsidies will fail to keep up. And then the industry will lie about doing any of it, and the White House will send out a sternly worded letter. The industry will be stopped by the new "consumer protections" approximately as effectively as a butterfly stops a freight train. By the end of 2009, these "reforms" will be thoroughly despised by a healthy portion of the electorate. The Republicans will then use the weaknesses of the reforms to assume control of the Congress, whereupon they will leave the mandates in place, gut the regulations, and laugh their way to the bank doing it. And that is what's going to happen.

[. . .] Bob Cesca is a smart guy, but if he thinks we're going to add a public option before 2013, I wish he'd tell me where he buys his mushrooms. (So we "mobilize around" the idea. Who's even going to listen, let alone act on it? The White House? The Democrats? Please.) Ezra Klein has forgotten more about this debate than I'll ever know, but if he and Paul Starr believe this FANTASY, then they need to get out more.

How can anyone seriously look at the past 30 years of how we've governed ourselves and believe that anything will succeed simply because it has established a new entitlement? [. . .] [H]ow firmly is [Obama] going to stand behind [this], no matter how "historic" he can convince himself it is? I have no faith at all at this point. The president is going to sign the POS because this is what he's wanted to do all along.

[. . .] Pass the POS. Don't pass the POS. But don't tell me we're all moving forward together through a historic moment. Y'all sound like idiots.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 22, 2009 (boomark / email).