Health Care Reform: Another Typical Blue Dog and Pony Show

[Truth2Tell]

So we are barreling toward an "imperfect" health care reform bill. By barreling I mean maybe September, and by "imperfect" I mean utterly useless.

But, but, but... isn't "something" better than nothing? Isn't "perfection the enemy of the good?"

Well... I hear this argument all the time on DU - that we should support half-measures and partial solutions to problems. If we would just eat the watered down gruel we would eventually find ourselves on a slippery slope to REAL solutions. Slippery slope. Sounds good. And fast. Woohoo.

Sometimes this philosophy works. In fact, in many individual areas of life this is a strategy that actually works quite well. Employment progress, financial progress, personal growth, etc. In these areas, gradual progress down a slippery slope is a very common sense and effective approach.

HOWEVER.... observation and experience should have taught us by now that half measures do NOT actually produce eventual functional results in our legislative bodies. They almost never lead to real reform. History teaches us just the opposite.

Why is this true? Because more often than not our legislators are looking for ways to have their cake and eat it too. This is the crux. This fundamental dichotomy is why "slippery slopes" have no slide in our Congress.

For example: most of the political jockeying we see right now over health care is being done by a large swath of center/right corporate sponsored Democrats. These Dems know that they need to follow through on the promise of "health care reform" made by their President and Party leaders, and supported overwhelmingly by their constituents. The problem is that the last thing most of these corporate Dems want to do is ACTUALLY reform the health care system. REAL reform would damage the bottom lines of some of their key financial sponsors and they simply cannot have that. So their only political out - and this is what everyone is scrambling now to devise - is a proposal that appears to reform health care on the surface, to satisfy the base - but doesn't ACTUALLY reform health care in a real way, to satisfy the sponsors.

This game - of shitting in our hands and calling it reform - has been played again and again by many of our elected Democrats. It's not about starting down slippery slopes to real reforms - in health care or anything else. It's about having it both ways politically and PREVENTING real reform.

The sooner we recognize this pattern - played out as usual right before our eyes - the sooner we can wash off our hands and clean our house. Until the Blue Dogs are gone there will be no health care reform. Don't be fooled by the present blue dog and pony show. We have a long long way to go.

[debbierlus]

1. We are barreling towards a WORSE situation then we are in now

Mandatory coverage of private insurance with mass cuts to Medicare and Medicaid services

It is NOT working out well in MA.

It is corrupt, it does not provide equal coverage, it is unaffordable for many people, and it still allows health insurers to deny doctor ordered procedures.

It will also be completely financially insolvent in two years.

Yeah - this is what we want for a national system.

This needs to be FOUGHT. Not embraced.

[nightrain]

2. Rec #2. Yes, that phrase is so worn out and inaccurate.

It's just more fear.

[Laelth]

3. K&R. The measures being considered are WORSE than doing nothing.

Forcing people to buy insurance is no more the solution to a failed health care system than forcing people to buy houses is the solution to homelessness.


:dem:

-Laelth

[Truth2Tell]

4. The "leadership" of our Party is bought and paid for.

Trying to reform anything - much less something as massive as our health system - with a mostly corrupt bi-partisn legislature was an excercise in futulity to start with.