Keep wishing.

The legislative process is by definition messy. In fact, you don't want an efficient process. James Madison figured that one out correctly a couple centuries ago.

Things are moving along, that's the important point.

Dan

It'll be a milestone if it accomplishes something. Until then, it really is a mess.

The conservatives are strangely out of touch with basic human rights, and it's stunning to behold.

Guess the country!
(And it's not the US.)

In 1898 - the Conservatives (C) voted against extending the vote to all males. (25+)
In 1913, C voted against extending right to vote to all women.
In 1919 - they voted against the 8 hour day.
In 1936 - they went against pensions for the elderly.
In 1937 - they wanted to deny state support to the handicapped and the blind.
In 1947 - the Conservatives were up in arms about the state offering student loans at subsidized rates.
In 1959, they were against unemployment payments.
In 1961, they fought the decision to introduce a state run program of support to those too handicapped or incapacitated to work.
In 1967, they refused to join their own coalition government when it was time to vote for a universal pension fund.
And it just goes on until the present day.

Norway. By many considered to be the world's best place to live - and the Conservatives were against this development every single step of the way.

In 1981 - against having an Ombudsman for Children.
In 1991 going against the establishing of child care centers in school to let both parents be able to work full days.
In 1994 against the universal right to higher education.

Conservatives?

Fuck 'em. We don't need them.

it was, however, a good week for john mccain.

It's not a perfect bill . . . . And it would lead to near-universal coverage.

Yay! People will be forced to buy crappy, expensive, high-deductible insurance that will drive them into bankruptcy if they ever have to use it.

Yay! Teeny-tiny fines that will do nothing to deter insurance corporations from denying claims or dropping coverage altogether -- after collecting federal subsidies, of course.

Yay! I, along with about 95 percent of the country, will be stuck with my expensive, crappy, high-deductible insurance because we won't be permitted to buy into the "public option".

Let's pop the champagne! Or better yet, let's put the bottle into storage. By the time Congress gets around to improving whatever they pass -- after a few more election cycles -- it should be a pretty nice vintage.

Saying the Democrats had a good week wouldn't fit the pre-agreed to narrative.

Now for the really important question...does anyone know what channel President McCain will be on tomorrow? They wouldn't force us to go cold turkey would they?

If you want to vote for "Most Satanic Candy" and research the relative merits of the nominees, go here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/29/christian-broadcasting-ne_n_338738.html?slidenumber=lTwhyGV5Ksg%3D#slide_image

I'm still wavering between "Fun Dip" and "Blow Pop."

"Yay! People will be forced to buy crappy, expensive, high-deductible insurance that will drive them into bankruptcy if they ever have to use it."

Steve you clearly have not read the bill. At all. While I suspect Krugman has. For example under the bill we ACTUALLY HAVE high-deductible, catastrophic insurance is not even legal. Plus there are no annual or lifetime limits, medical bankruptcy will be essentially impossible.

You are battling against a bill that exists only in your (and many others') fevered imagination. Try getting some first hand knowledge of the bill. It is not hard, I put up some links to the bill and extracted some of the relevant provisions before noon on Thursday.

READ. Then vent. Because over the last eight years a lot of people ended up with egg on their face thinking they knew more about things than Krugman.

http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/10/read-bill.html

It is not "Conservatives" as exemplified by the dim, dumb and delusional victims of fanaticism of rampant irrational religiosity and decades of the corporatist control of the means by which misinformation, disinformation, misrepresentation of fact, and the creation of fantasy presented as fact that had been so successful in producing a nation the most dismally and abysmally, willfully and purposefully ignorant demographic in the known universe. This nation has been for some seven score and five years and will continue to be (with apologies to A. Lincoln) ...a nation of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations.

Literally hundreds of millions of Americans wanted a universal healthcare system such as Medicare for All. However, a mere handful of corporations determined that this was not in their financial interest. So they pulled the strings on their Congressional and Senatorial puppets and what was once characterized as The Great Unwashed but is now the Gravely Brainwashed end up with a program hardly less toxic than the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Just another example of
Oligarchic Corporatist Wealthcare!

The Democrats will try to cast the disaster in a good light, sort of like the coach whose football team has just just been pummeled 72-0 who comments,

"Well, we had a couple of good plays... remember that sweep around the left side which went for just a 12 yard loss!"

One word: reconciliation.

You write, "everything is good news for Republicans."

Yes. And especially for John McCain. Which Sunday program will he be on this week in order that he may expound upon his ongoing, never-ending triumph?

If enough pundicks say "it's a mess" long and loud enough, quite a lot of people will believe it, eventually. They'll get too dispirited to keep pushing for improvements and improvements won't happen. And they'll be too disgusted to keep pushing their representatives to vote for it -- it's crap, not worth the effort". And then we'll just have the same old, same old that we've had till now.

Seemingly, it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy but, in fact, a subtle manipulation of the popular opinion towards conniving at the scuttling of the whole thing for another 15yrs or more.

Something similar has happened, I think, with Deeds' campaign in Virginia...

Don't watch cable news. It's useless. Please, Steve, we get it. Those guys are idiots, venal idiots at that.
The sane response is not to watch. 99.999 percent of your fellow citizens made the sane decision this morning.

I'm going to agree with Joe, but not for the same reasons. (And I don't watch cable news.)

HCR has split the Democratic party base. The HCR bill looks like nothing more than massive taxpayer bucks to the medical insurance industrial complex that trashed American healthcare.

GDP numbers are clearly cooked by Cash for Clunkers. The Democratic party has to dump the idiots "fixing" the economy by giving away taxpayer bucks to the idiots that wrecked the American economy and start busting up TBTF and enact real reform. (Note: even right wing economic pundits called the proposed legislation to "fix" the banks the worst proposed bill they had ever seen.)

Maybe if everyone thinks it was a bad week for Democrats they'll lay low and give it a rest.

Chew on this. The CBO report on the House plan said that the 'public plan' will have a higher premium than any of the private insurance company plans in the 'exchange.' So exactly how is that going to provide competition to the health insurance industry? I'm happy that those who are without health insurance will be able to get it by subsidization. That's enough for me. But in general I agree with those who say this whole reform effort has been incredibly compromised. I'm back to being cynical after a few months of hope.

"The column wasn't about the punditocracy" - Steve, where do you get that? Krugman says:

"As a result, everyone in the political class -- by which I mean politicians, people in the news media, and so on, basically whoever is in a position to influence the final stage of this legislative marathon -- now has to make a choice. The seemingly impossible dream of fundamental health reform is just a few steps away from becoming reality, and each player has to decide whether he or she is going to help it across the finish line or stand in its way.... History is about to be made -- and everyone has to decide which side they're on."

Aside from the word "politicians," every word in that paragraph can apply to the punditocracy, and a great deal of that paragraph - "people in the news media, and so on, basically whoever is in a position to influence the final stage of this legislative marathon" - is clearly aimed at them.

Yep, he's talking to them.

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