I just wanted to say a few words about health care reform. If you are still reading, you probably have a high tolerance for politics. I know I am certainly tired of it. This is not going to be Obama bashing. But please read on if you dare.
First off, I would like to say I do believe Barack when he said this was a first step to universal health care. So the fact that it's not perfect (far from it), does not bother me. Change is a slow process, and it needs to be, because of unforeseen consequences. I can think of no better example than the Patriot Acts, both I and II, which were probably some of the most rushed legislation in history, and probably more abused than we will ever know.
I don't know if we women will ever receive equal access to health care in America. There always seems to be a new misogynistic prick waiting in the shadows to make HIS career out of denying women the right to make their own moral and medical choices. While the HCR made no progress on this front, it wasn't a regression either. We will continue to privately fund health care for poor women who need it and we will continue to fight in court. This issue will NEVER go away, as long as women are the ones with wombs.
The issue that bothers me the most about this round of health care reform seems to be an obvious one. If it wasn't clear before, it certainly was clear to everyone when Barack held his health care summit and invited the Republicans to sit down and behave like adults and make progress, that they had no intention of allowing any reform legislation to pass. In typical scorched earth fashion, their only attitude is 'shut it down'. In fact, you might even make the argument that they already partially shut down the ability of the country to govern itself by being the party of no.
What bothers me is that the Democrats knew this. They knew they were going to have to use reconciliation to make this work. The Republicans played their card. So, reconciliation should have given Democrats a clean slate almost to remake the bill in any way they wanted - including a public option. So that means that their must have been significant resistance on the democratic side to reform in the House. We knew that the 'pro-life' issue was going to be a problem. That was dealt with. But yet, so many other things could have been including the fixes package - but wasn't.
So while we know how Republicans operate, I think we need to take a much closer look at how the sausage was made in the House. The talking heads seem to think this was an absolute blow to Republican ideology. But in all honesty, this is centrist bill at best. Think about how many things that won't happen in this bill, and then ask yourself - who and why.
I am glad that I won't face being kicked off the roles, or denied enrollment. I am also glad insurance providers will have to compete. I don't mind the mandate (so far). But I don't want people to think the Democratic party did they best they could given what the circumstances were either.
Just my thoughts. What about yours?