Another major difference--by 2005 an increasing number of Americans had figured out that Bush had lied them into a catastrophic war, and then had topped it off with Terri Schiavo--his credibility was dropping like a rock at that point, just months after his re-election. Who was going to believe anything he said at that point? Obama has yet to have his own big lie, and if we're lucky, there won't be one.

No legitimate parallel exists - Bush's effort was to benefit the private sector at the expense of old age care, while Obama's effort is to help 40 million Americans who are not afforded reliable health care. The only possible parallel would have to do with the two different sides of the two issues Thompson entertains - on one side are the proponents of profit over people and on the other proponents of human dignity, no matter how flawed the delivery of such dignity may be! -Kevo

They could try to make yet another false comparison, but it would fail. Most people were uncomfortable with SS privatization, while a vast majority of Americans are this close to demanding healthcare reform or their Senator's cojones if they don't get it!

It seems like it has been quite some time since Satan took over The Atlantic monthly.

Has it been more than a decade?

I gave up on it so long ago I've forgotten...

In both cases, dramatic entitlement reform wasn't necessary - Thompson

I don't think anyone is making the argument that "entitlement reform" isn't necessary vis a vis medicare/health care.

Any bill that does not include a public option plan is likely to do more harm than good. Churchill once noted that the US always does the right thing-- after it has tried everything else first. We have tried everything else on health care. Now it's time to do the right thing. About 20 other first-world countries with heath care plans with universal coverage and/or single payer systems have better overall health care statistics and costs of 8-12% of GNP compared to our 16-17% of GNP. Pick one of the others you like the best(Germany, Japan,.Canada, France, Norway, Sweeden, Denmark, Netherlands, England, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, whatever) and increase the costs by 20% to cover what you don't like about that particular system and you've got a much better system than ours at 20-40% less cost. If you don't like any of them, quite frankly you're a deluded idealogue that no amount of real-world data will change.

Mr. Will -- Assume you have a pre-existing condition. Then try to buy health insurance on the open market. Good luck.

[...] vast majority of Americans are this close to demanding healthcare reform or their Senator's cojones if they don't get it! --Blue Girl, @15:18

Funny you should mention it... I just finished venting to my Sen. Mark Warner (on top of letting MoveOn send faxes, on my behalf, to *both* Warner and Webb. Can't hurt to harry both of them a tad). The xyz sent me a chirpy little note, about how all of us Virginians are now united behind Creigh Deeds and would I please look at his (Warner's) photo album, showing how supportive he is.

Well, I blew a gasket. Didn't offer to chew off his testicles, but sent him a little reminder of my priorities:

Mark Warner,

Never mind showing me some smarmy photos; tell me what your stand is on the public option health insurance.

Yes, we're energized and united behind Creigh but most of us can walk and chew gum at the same time. It's nice of you to be supportive of Creigh, but I would have never expected anything less; I never took you for a Traitor Joe (Lieberman). Now go back to the Senate and make sure I get a *strong* public option, and not some piddling co-op version. I'll be watching your position and your votes.

PS. How come Senator Webb can send me updates about bills he's proposing and co-sponsoring, while all I ever hear from you are photo ops and all I ever hear about you is that you're in cahoots with the "Dem centrists" - people who are mired, up to their waists, in corporate money? I may not have a whole lot of discretionary cash to dispense, but I still have my vote. And so do many friends of mine.

Best reg@rds,
T

Obama's detractors now insist that overhauling the health care system is really just a secret effort to impose a single-payer system.

If only his detractors were actually right about that.

Also it's the old addage: "who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes." When one of the concern trolls informs me that I have the 'best healthcare in the world', and insists that I do not want a guvmint bureaucrat between me and my doctor; I know this is BS, because I know my insurance sucks and is too expensive and that I have to get approval (or denial of benefits)from the insurer for every effing thing my doctor orders for me.

When Bush was running around the country demonzing his opponents, I knew that the stockmarket and bond market are not a sure thing. And come to find out, my FICA could have been invested in Triple A rated SubPrime Mortgage backed Securities.

Of course I want to work at a W-2 job until I'm 110; don't you?

Beleaguered Republicans could always sink health reform the way beleaguered 2005 Democrats torpedoed Social Security privatization: Paint the other side as radical conspirators against America.

Funny. That's not the way I remember it. I remember it as "Bush and the Republicans have already wrecked almost everything that's good about America and now they want to finish the job, while lining the pockets of their rich cronies and at the expense of regular folks."

Health care reform is totally like that, though. The parallels are, like, right there, side by side.

(Add The Atlantic to the list of publications apparently willfully committing hari-kari.)

Were I to make a comparison, I would compare efforts to enact health care reform to the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks - they've been taking place on and off for decades, everybody says they want a solution, but nobody involved really seems to want a solution.

yes, if only we were allowed to throw our social security money into the stock market.

I would add to this that the proposed social security 'reform' in 2005 was advertised by its own proponents as revenue neutral, meaning the underlying long-term solvency issues wouldn't even have changed.

Instead, it would have blown a TWO TRILLION dollar hole in the Social Security Trust Fund.

I think you're engaging in willful thinking, Steve. The comparisons are quite apt. The most important point you miss is that the administration is not really being totally honest about their health care plan. They say you'll be able to keep your current plan. But a public option, according to the CBO, will by its very existence cause 10 million people to lose their existing insurance. They also talk about cost control without really specifying what treatments they will deny. Obama's mom with the hip replacement is pretty obvious, but will we go as far as Canada and make people wait 16 months for hip replacements? Will all non-emergency health care feature long wait times?

The cost is where the real dishonesty is coming in. Saying that health insurance for all will pay for itself, even in the longterm, is just dishonest. If that was possible, it would have been done the last few times the government tinkered with Medicare and Medicaid. IF they don't have the political will to cut health care for seniors and the poor, they'll never have the will to cut it for the general citizenry.

To summarize, the public plan is a trojan horse just like Bush's privatization scheme was. It's just not necessary, and trying to paint it as an essential part of reform is dishonest,and will be exposed as such with only one 30-second attack ad from the AMA.

These right wing operatives, whether they work directly for the republican party, (can't) think tanks or pose as journalists, can not possibly be stupid enough to believe their propaganda, they do it for the money that wealthy people pay, directly or through their corporations, pay to spread the talking points that are designed to increase the wealth of moneyed class.

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