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A Dangerous Dysfunction
It was, however, a close-run thing. And the fact that it was such a close thing shows that the Senate - and, therefore, the U.S. government as a whole - has become ominously dysfunctional.
After all, Democrats won big last year, running on a platform that put health reform front and center. In any other advanced democracy this would have given them the mandate and the ability to make major changes. But the need for 60 votes to cut off Senate debate and end a filibuster - a requirement that appears nowhere in the Constitution, but is simply a self-imposed rule - turned what should have been a straightforward piece of legislating into a nail-biter. And it gave a handful of wavering senators extraordinary power to shape the bill.
Now consider what lies ahead. We need fundamental financial reform. We need to deal with climate change. We need to deal with our long-run budget deficit. What are the chances that we can do all that - or, I'm tempted to say, any of it - if doing anything requires 60 votes in a deeply polarized Senate?
Some people will say that it has always been this way, and that we've managed so far. But it wasn't always like this. Yes, there were filibusters in the past - most notably by segregationists trying to block civil rights legislation. But the modern system, in which the minority party uses the threat of a filibuster to block every bill it doesn't like, is a recent creation.
The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, "extended-debate-related problems" - threatened or actual filibusters - affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.
Some conservatives argue that the Senate's rules didn't stop former President George W. Bush from getting things done. But this is misleading, on two levels.
First, Bush-era Democrats weren't nearly as determined to frustrate the majority party, at any cost, as Obama-era Republicans. Certainly, Democrats never did anything like what Republicans did last week: G.O.P. senators held up spending for the Defense Department - which was on the verge of running out of money - in an attempt to delay action on health care.
More important, however, Mr. Bush was a buy-now-pay-later president. He pushed through big tax cuts, but never tried to pass spending cuts to make up for the revenue loss. He rushed the nation into war, but never asked Congress to pay for it. He added an expensive drug benefit to Medicare, but left it completely unfunded. Yes, he had legislative victories; but he didn't show that Congress can make hard choices and act responsibly, because he never asked it to.
So now that hard choices must be made, how can we reform the Senate to make such choices possible?
Back in the mid-1990s two senators - Tom Harkin and, believe it or not, Joe Lieberman - introduced a bill to reform Senate procedures. (Management wants me to make it clear that in my last column I wasn't endorsing inappropriate threats against Mr. Lieberman.) Sixty votes would still be needed to end a filibuster at the beginning of debate, but if that vote failed, another vote could be held a couple of days later requiring only 57 senators, then another, and eventually a simple majority could end debate. Mr. Harkin says that he's considering reintroducing that proposal, and he should.
But if such legislation is itself blocked by a filibuster - which it almost surely would be - reformers should turn to other options. Remember, the Constitution sets up the Senate as a body with majority - not supermajority - rule. So the rule of 60 can be changed. A Congressional Research Service report from 2005, when a Republican majority was threatening to abolish the filibuster so it could push through Bush judicial nominees, suggests several ways this could happen - for example, through a majority vote changing Senate rules on the first day of a new session.
Nobody should meddle lightly with long-established parliamentary procedure. But our current situation is unprecedented: America is caught between severe problems that must be addressed and a minority party determined to block action on every front. Doing nothing is not an option - not unless you want the nation to sit motionless, with an effectively paralyzed government, waiting for financial, environmental and fiscal crises to strike.
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61 Comments so far
Show AllThen I am not crazy....woo whoo!
The Senate Health Care Bill is "a huge step forward" only if you own stock in drug and insurance companies.
The only conclusion that can logically be drawn from the author's accusations against Democrats is that the Democrats are the party of capitulation and the best we can hope for by voting for any of them is the feeling that we didn't vote for a Republican.
The drug companies will further enhance their revenue by selling more anti-depressants once the US electorate realizes that Obama and Congress sold them down the river with "health care reform".
Senate rules? Long-established parliamentary procedure? More lipstick on the corrupted Senate pig! This God-damned "healthcare reform" is another corporate looting of the treasury and another unconscionable screwing of the average American. Get angry, already, and, by the way, believe nothing that comes from the New York Times.
Tony Vodvarka
Paul Krugman,
Dead wrong. This bill will continue the consolidation of corporations which are relentlessly destroying our representative democracy and sucking the lifeblood out of our country. A further loss of people's power and rights. This bill was written by the insurance industry. This bill is a sellout of the American people. It is a windfall for the economic opportunists. Another mandate for the people, another loss of freedom, another billion dollars in the pockets of scumbags. Sorry Krugman, I don't buy the bullshit. There is a right answer. It's Medicare for all. Anything less, and justice hasn't been done. I strongly suspect that neither you, nor your family members have had to declare bankruptcy due to uncovered health care costs. I'd further ask Mr. Krugman, what percentage of your income goes to health insurance premiums?
I would like to see the rapid and complete destruction of the health care insurance industry. Finished. All people who work for the health insurance companies would be eligible for federal funding to be retrained to produce something useful for society. The money saved by our country in one year alone could easily fund this.
Mr. Krugman, a theoretical economist may come to your silly conclusion. A good business person would look at the real numbers. 30% waste, fraud, undue influence upon social policy, zero contribution to the real economy. No useful goods and services to the nation. Deception, false advertising, life-ending abuse to it's customers.
Mr. Krugman, your article strongly suggests you are completely removed from the people. Living in a bubble.
The Nobel Prize has been thoroughly discredited and debased this year. The artificial edifices propping up the status quo are crumbling. This healthcare bill is a disaster. Those who support it I consider dangerous to decency, and humanity.
Points well taken BUT...what is your solution? It seems "We the People" no longer have a voice. Faxes, phoning, letters, signs do no good. What do you propose and how do we make it happen?
If we were honest and open, we'd be in jail.
I know what ya mean bud. ;-)
Wayout:
Exactly! Well said.
A huge, Obamanible step forward, off the cliff!
This bill sets the path for reform within the nexus of private insurance. All reforms will happen within that context of private for profit employee based insurance. There is no cost control---premiums will go up--the only consumer alternative is to buy increasingly crappy high deductable insurance which will still bankrupt you in a medical crisis. There is no pooling of risk so even if you are not denied insurance you might well be priced out of it by a prexisting condition, no open access to Medicare so in my case I will have to work till age 67 to assure my wife's health care, no uniform standard of care--3 levels so that if I am poor only 70% of my costs are covered. An average level of care will have a $1500/yr deductable and copays extending out to $5500/yr so my colonoscopy will costs me $2500 instead of about $100 that I would pay now-- I might just forgo it to save money. And finally there is the funding mechanism to make me pay about $3000/yr in additional taxes for this increasingly crappy care to subsidize even worse care for those worse off than me who will still find it even more unaffordable than I do. I can resent the subsidy and those worse off economically can resent my "Cadillac" care. Oh, this is a winning formula alright. The Democrats want to push this through-- they will pay for it at the polls once the public actually understands what is being put upon them. Look to the Mass mandated care model if you want to see how it's working out. It will hold up for a few years and then collapse. Maybe then we can get what we really need Imroved and expanded Medicare for all. Just remember who brought you this "health reform" misery and don't vote for them again.
tammons,
Thanks for the context. Well done.
This legislation is designed to fail.
And when it collapses under its own inefficiency the Republicans will point their bony fingers at "liberals" and scream "socialism".
They will then ravage Medicare, Medicaid and the VA.
Of course the CEOs of the insurance companies will become even more incredibly filthy rich in the process, as planned.
From the ashes they'll build an even more cruel privatized system.
Don't for a minute doubt that's possible.
"Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. It's a seriously flawed bill, we'll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it's nonetheless a huge step forward."
A huge step forward? This is more like what happened at Copenhagen: yet another "first step."
When you're stuck at "first step" for too long, it starts to look like foot dragging.
But the heath care carrot remains! They care more about their carrots than they do our health care.
Now, after this passes, we'll begin to hear a lot of hot air about this being a "first step," so stay with us, trust us. A great big, HA!
The Democrats screwed us, again. Is that working for us, getting screwed?
Among Democrats 88% prefer single payer. The president is Democrat, both chambers of Congress are Democrat. hmmm. Notice anything peculiar?
PK must be fortunate enough to live on some other planet. Unfortunately, I'm stuck on this one and with this so-called reform, my premiums are going to go up and up and up. Starting immediately. And I can't afford them now.
Yes I readily believe that Tom Harkin and Lieberman collaborated on a bill, I'm from Iowa, Harkin is one of the Senate's top recipients of $$$ from the insurance cartel. He's a complete corporate shill.
With our current corporate controlled congress, we're better off with the super-majority required for passage of legislation because whatever these narcissistic clowns come up with will benefit the elite and devastate the people.
Come on, Paul. The Dems played this 60 vote requirement in order to get the insurance company-friendly bill they finally got. This wasn't about Republican obstructionism. It was about a Democrat ploy to gut the public option and take Medicare-for-all off the table. You may have a Nobel Prize in Economics, but you still don't get the politics.
Krugman: "we'll spend years if not decades fixing it,"
WTF?!?! Who is this "we"? His statement implies that the "we" has the power to "fix" it through future changes in the law by Congress, but that sure as hell does not appear to include anyone who is not a corporate elite, a lobbyist, or a politician who is a shill for corporate elites. The rest of the "we" just got shafted.
I always look for silver linings, no matter how small. Are Obama and his corporate Dems just putting the final nail in the coffin of the Democratic Party? If so, progressives should not be too quick to celebrate, for progress from here will not likely come through ballots (it may even involve crossing a river of the red stuff). The oligarchs laugh at ballots. They will hold onto power by hook or crook until, in the words of movie Moses in a different but not unrelated context, someone pries it from their "cold, dead hands."
Yeah, this is the dangling carrot MO. Decades chasing the Democrats and their carrots.
I'm sick to death of these decomposing carrots they trot out every so often.
Stick with us! Look over here! a little carrot! You don't want to spoil your chances of a gaining a shriveled up little carrot, do you?
It's a seriously flawed bill, we'll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it's nonetheless a huge step forward.
----------
Mr. Krugman believes that as the health insurance companies get STRONGER, WEALTHIER and CEMENT their position as the hub of our health care system we're going to be able to improve the legislation in the favor of patients over profits in the coming years?
As Presidents hold confidential meetings with insurance and pharma CEOs and this process becomes normalized.
As patients become poorer.
As millions more lose their jobs and homes.
As media further consolidates and eventually drowns out ALL opposition voices.
As budgets are slashed to pay for our wars and debts.
As our rights to protest our government are slowly chipped away.
As we watch Medicare, 40+ years old, become slowly privatized.
Mr Krugman, thinking that this legislation is going to be improved upon is counter to EVERY TREND I see occurring and highly irrational.
Absolutely. I always try to think of the feedback loops involved, and passing this bill, and rewarding the entire process of developing this bill and getting it passed, does everything to strengthen the feedback loops benefitting the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations, their lobbyists, and the more corrupted Congressvermin, as well as strengthening more general feedback loops involved in congressional and governmental corruption.
Those who are telling us to relax, this legislation will be made more patient-friendly in the years and decades ahead are not to be trusted.
They're the same ones who told us a healthy public-option would be included because it was necessary to make this legislation have any value whatsoever.
Now that there's no public-option or medicare buy-in all they can do is disingenuously tell us that we will improve upon the legislation in the future.
This thinking is counter to EVERY trend occurring in our economy.
Medicare is being chipped away at as we speak, not strengthened.
Same with prescription drug plans.
Mr. Krugman can only be spewing such nonsense to try and prevent rioting in the streets.
Would you please apply for a job at the New York Times. Krugman seems to be imploding.
Garbage.
Ever notice the Republicans generally get what they want?
In fact, the Republicans get MORE of what they want when the complicit Democrats compromise by adopting policies the Right couldn't even push through on their own.
When you get it wrong Krugman --it is because you are insulated by your class identification.
You know we've fallen down the rabbit hole when we read such things as:
"Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. It's a seriously flawed bill, we'll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it's nonetheless a huge step forward."
It's an "awesome achievement" to pass a "seriously flawed bill" that will take "years if not decades" to fix?! A healthy mind cannot believe two opposite things at once.
And as for:
"G.O.P. senators held up spending for the Defense Department - which was on the verge of running out of money - in an attempt to delay action on health care."
Hello? Some of us think it would be a Good Thing to "hold up spending for the Defense Department". Congress is supposed to wield 'the power of the purse' to control and guide public spending in the people's interest. Well, that's the theory, but purse-snatchers have taken the purse, the funds, even our identity.
wtf! this clearly shows just how little attention is paid to the bill payers here- us.
this clearly shows how little there really is between parties! its just about money and power as we lose even more of our democracy!
at the time, cheney threatened the "nuclear option" and the GOP said it was going to end the filibuster, period; but "centrist" mafioso senators from both parties who were afraid of losing their "veto" power formed a group that would deliver a "bipartisan" chunk of votes to reach (or not) 60 votes in contentious cases. that way they saved the filibuster for later when it was going to be needed to screw the average joe, which is what senators are elected for. and so during the remaining reign of W, the right managed to put in the supreme court every fascist proposed by W and the dems deluded themselves that they had saved the filibuster to control W, yeah right. now dems and their bribo-senators keep invoking the threat of filibuster to block anything their bribers do not like... as if the nuclear option had never been waved at them. and note that this idiotic "we cannot overcome the filibuster" faux hysteria started before obama's inauguration and it was the bribo-dems (not obama) who started it. bribo-dems were afraid of change from the very beginning !
the left has to harass *progressive senators* and push them to filibuster i) for full antitrust control of, and 5% profit limit for, the whole healthcare industry (including doctors); ii) free medicare for those w/o employer insurance, with the ensuing costs payed by taxing the profits of the healthcare insurances and every healthcare-related salary above $200k; and iii) buy-in medicare for industries that provide healthcare but at 2/3 the premium they would pay to the private cleptomedical complex for the same coverage.
"the left has to harass *progressive senators* and push them to filibuster"
Now, we all know that calling them up has no effect, writing letters has no effect, signing petitions has no effect.
If you want to have any effect, you have to tell them - and mean it! - they will lose your vote. If enough of us did that, we might have some leverage over this system. If we can't do that, we don't deserve democracy.
The "individual mandate" contained in the bill is a poison pill for the Democratic party. If the bill passes, the Democrats are done.
The corporations that control the US government killing that same government, as they have long promised.
Honestly, it's time to pull the plug on USAcorp.
Paul, I usually agree with you but you're wrong this time, ol' pal.
Healthcare "reform" that does not provide coverage for every soul in America is not good enough.
Healthcare "reform" without even a foot-in-the-door towards single-payer is not good enough.
Healthcare "reform" that allows the for-profit health industry to continue its predatory practices unchecked, while adding dunning new customers to its bag of tricks, is unacceptable.
Healthcare "reform" dumbed down to the level of Senate Republicans, Joe Lieberman, and Ben Nelson is a travesty.
Healthcare "reform" without the "reform" is not reform and it needs to be rejected so we can have a shot at actual reform.
Obama has had three unprecedented chances to loosen the grip of corporate power from the throat of the American worker - true healthcare reform, real financial industry reform, and direct government assuption of bad mortgages. He has rolled over on them all. He has sold out his supporters. We could have gotten the same results from McCain/Palin without the false promises.
lets make it 55 votes for cloture
then we would have had a much better bill
and lieberman could caucus with the republicans which is what he really is
jbentham
Rants just aren't enough, folks... of the many and varied ways to put our bodies on the line, the most effective of all would be our refusal to buy health insurance from private companies. True, it is going to be far easier for those already on medicare and medicaid to do this (no fines for us), so from my way of thinking that puts us in the vanguard. No medicare supplementals; no medicare advantage; a non-violent route of refusal to play this game any longer.
You forget-- in the Senate it's all about them-- not us. Anything like these arcane rules and procedures which make it easier to obstruct make the Senator who would use them more valuable to those who have an interest in obstruction-- read corporate America. To reform the rules would mean that individual Senators would have to gie up some power--hence some fundraising potential. They will not do that. We need a constitutional amendment to reform or eliminate the Senate. We need to move to a parlimentary system or some kind of multi party politics before things will get any better.
To say a bill is worth passing even though it is SERIOUSLY FLAWED and may take DECADES to fix (Krugman's words), I don't get that kind of reasoning.
And if he's so concerned about dysfunctional systems, what do you call it when the government, by law with penalties for non-compliance, requires a citizen to support a profit-making enterprise. Is that still Capitalism, Mr. Krugman?
I've been looking more critically at his columns for some time now. I think it started after he initially praised Bernanke (an academic colleague) but has never, since the meltdown, addressed the Fed chair's role in the disaster.
For someone who said he valued not being an insider, Krugman appears pretty frequently on Sunday morning TV round tables. I guess that hob-nobbing and all the Nobel money can't help but shift a fellow's perspective.
America's problem is California's problem: we don't have a democracy. Until we fix that, expect this to continue. The Republican Party has been a party of anarchists for some time now: they want to tear government down. They ALL want to drown it in a sink. This is WHY they are irrelevant in a democracy.
But, this isn't a democracy.
Krugman is reminding us that if it weren't for the 60-40 filibuster 'rule', Democrats would have passed healthcare legislation far more progressive than they did. It would have included a public option, i.e. a way out of our dangerous dependence on corporate health insurance. The reason Republicans still wield extraordinary influence in this supposed democracy is because its NOT a democracy. We need to find a way to make majority rule the law of the land again, or we'll always find ourselves held hostage to the Palin Party.
I just finished reading The Times articles on the bill today, and it should come as no surprise that in addition to the "philosophical" concessions made to the likes of Nelson, Lieberman, and the repukes, there is plenty of pork in it for Nebraska, Connecticut, and (surprise) Nevada.
Your plutocracy at work for the American people.
I stopped reading this Centrist Beltway Garbage at the point that Krugman talks about needing 60 votes, but I was already gagging when he asserts this bill is a "big step forward".
Krugman obviously assumes that the Democrat leadership, and Obama, actually wanted significant reform. The same party leadership that took single payer off of the table.
As for the mythology that the 60 vote threshold made them do it, I say please show me some CSPAN coverage of actual filibusters. It is so telling, that the Democrats all talk of the need of 60 votes to stop a filibuster, however they never actually make anyone filibuster.
Whatever happened to principled persuasion? Where were the actual filibusters from so-called progressive Democrats demanding that the ill-named inept public option be spared?
Paul Krugman obviously has no worries as to the public mandate monstrosity, after all he must have a nice bank account.
Just politically speaking, the Democratic leadership has to be the biggest morons ever to hold a party's leadership in the history of the US, to not see that the public mandate equals political suicide in 2010, and 2012.
I'm never voting for another Democrat, save Dennis Kucinich.
Obama is the biggest fraud of them all. I was such a sucker to vote for the Great Pretender. Apologies to all.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This column by Krugman is a waste of space. For much better pieces this week skip over to DemocracyNow.org and read the sub-headline, Report: White Businesses Received Vast Majority of Stimulus Loans and take a look at those numbers {PHEW! the stench coming off this black president in terms of how he screws over his own people is unbelievable), then read Mike Whitney's piece on Counterpunch.org, Bernanke Tightens The Noose.
Paul Krugman?
He thinks he's a know-it-all but he is wrong on this one....
Just because he is right on many other issues does not make Krugman---the Obama shill correct here. Sorrrrrrrrrrr-yy.
Here's to double-crossing!
The historic part about it is that it's the only thing that Democrats have managed to accomplish in the last 9 years.
Krugman you gotta be shitting me!
How bad is the bill?
1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations -- whether you want to or not
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS
3. After being forced to pay thousands in premiums for junk insurance, you can still be on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses.
4. Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court
5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-ays
6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won't see any benefits -- like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions -- until 2014 when the program begins.
7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others
8. Grants monopolies to to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
9. No reimportation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years
10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of 4 will rise an average of $1000 a year -- meaning in 10 years, you family's insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.
I could go on, but it should be clear: this is not reform. This is a con job.
Sign our petition: kill the Senate bill.
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/killthisbill?source=email&subsource=122109
Make no mistake, we need health care reform. But the Senate's idea of reform is a disaster, and will make things far worse than they are today.
We will continue to fight for real health care reform. Now, we must kill this fake reform.
Thanks,
P.S. Please, after you've signed, forward this email to your friends, family, coworkers - anyone you know. It's critical we act fast to kill the Senate bill, and we need everyone we can on board.
FWIW, I expected to see at least a few comments to the effect that now that the great Krugman has given this abomination a thumbs-up, it MUST be a decent deal!
It's gratifying to see otherwise.
Work Within the System Moderates often comment, here and elsewhere, as "whips"-- self-appointed whips, I presume, though one can't always be certain-- determined to drive us all into the "sensible" orthodox herd.
During the 2008 campaign, such "whips" pounced on every remotely favorite squeak sounded by a Chomsky or Zinn to mount the psuedo-argument "even CHOMSKY (or ZINN... or KRUGMAN) supports Obama-- are YOU saying you're SMARTER than CHOMSKY (or ZINN... or KRUGMAN)?" Such eager critics, sure they had a devastating point to ply, were indifferent or oblivious to the anti-intellectual implications of this appeal to authority and blind faith.
Of course, "blind faith" was fuel to the Obama bandwagon.
Lacking an appreciation for the numbers and abstractions of economics, I don't pretend to "judge", much less trash, Krugman's technical competence. But politically, he's obviously a mainstream, moderate, centrist thinker and a cheerful "pragmatist". The terms "brilliant" or "deep" doesn't suggest themselves.
Although a respected kinda-sorta progressive-seeming economist, Krugman didn't have the personal connections or economic hitman chops required for Team Obama's nefarious purposes; Team Obama had its own killer economists, better suited to play with the hard-core banksters.
Krugman IS a Nobel-winner, but that distinction has become so cheapened over the years that it proves nothing; it was a friendly clap on the back of a generally humane, respectable, and innocuous Amerikan economist, possibly at the expense of the predator and raptor-class economists roosting in the treetops of government, and esconced in the banksters' eyries therein, in order to Send a Signal.
The Nobel hocus-pocus is all about the ATMOSPHERICS.
Otherwise, Krugman's one of those figures who "imprints" a sort of fan base during a critical period, in this case progressive and typically partisan (Democratic) moderates during the last maladministration. And is affectionately over-rated in consequence.
This is the sort of "endorsement" that makes the Huffington Post crowd ecstatic. That's why it's a relief to find these comments relatively fool-free.
Even though he's not part of Team Obama, Krugman's role as gatekeeper facilitates the State's predilection for manufacturing consent. I might as well go the length of the thought, and outrageously suggest that being a Nobel Prize winner hardly precludes also being a Useful Idiot.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Just to set the record straight, neither Chomsky nor Zinn voted for Obama. Noam told me personally that he voted for Cynthia McKinney. Zinn, who initially supported Obama, changed his mind and voted for Ralph Nader. Both, I'm afraid, support the lessor of two evils strategy. Both men vote in Blue states so are free to vote for whomever is the best candidate, in their opinion. Noam told me that if he lived/voted in a red state, he "would have voted for Obama, but very reluctantly."
". . . it's nonetheless a huge step forward."
Right! And it's only a mere coincidence that medical insurance company stock has jumped about 50% in the last two months.
What this bill has achieved (other than forcing people with no money to hand over their food budget to insurance companies) is to put off any attempt at real reform for about 20 years.
Welcome to the Barry and Rahm show. This is only the first act.
So "management" loves lying Lieberman, eh?
We knew that. The New York Times is a biased, hypocritical, war-loving, people destroying newspaper. If Mr. Krugman wants to keep any semblance of integrity, he'll start writing for CounterPunch.
All the blah blah about senate rules leaves out the fact that the status quo in the USA cannot be changed if it benefits the people. Our government was designed this way to provide security for the elite.
"If Mr. Krugman wants to keep any semblance of integrity, he'll start writing for CounterPunch."
What kind of salary do they offer over at CounterPunch?
Paul Krugman wrote:
"Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement"
____________________________________________________________
Awesome achievement! Really.? No shit!
This bill is a piece of crap and shame on Krugman to write such piece of nonsense.
No public option , and the uninsured will by forced to buy insurance without any control over prices whatsoever for both health insurance and medical and drug services, that bill is nothing but a give-away and sell-out to the health care industrial complex.
And that bullshit about a person can get insurance even if he has pre-existing condition is nothing but hog-wash, that insurance will cost him 3 times the regular premium.
What a charade.
Where does this Krugman fellow work? Oh yeah, the New Your Times! HA! And we trust his opinion?
commoner, "what a charade" is right!
Let’s use the Health Care bill as an Obama “teaching moment” --- not him ‘teaching us’ but us ‘teaching him’!
This 'Health Care' (sic) bill reminds me of the illogic of the Vietnam War:
"It became necessary to destroy the bill in order to save it"
And, in fact, the reason that this illogic applied then in the Vietnam War "abroad", and now in the corporatist tyranny over health care "at home" is precisely the same reason --- that a ruling-elite corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE makes all decisions, and not the people of America.
As Hannah Arendt presciently warned from her direct experience with empires:
"Empire abroad (always) entails tyranny at home".
Let’s teach Obama a critical lesson that he needs to understand. The famous old phrase was, “What goes around, comes around”. But today, “What goes around, comes home to roost” as his own minister tried to teach him.
Let’s tell Obama:
“If you are only going to pose as another front-man for the ruling-elite Global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE that controls our country --- by hiding behind the façade of its two-party ‘Vichy’ sham of democracy --- then that’s not the ‘hope’ and ‘change’ that we voted for.
We’ve been fed that old “Okie Doke” (as you called it) since the Vietnam War, for forty years!
Now if you really believe that times they are a changing, and that you don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowin, and that ‘Yes we can’ confront Empire, then why don’t you give us a chance, and help lead us in a second American Revolution for democracy against Empire --- cause if you’re not going to lead, then at least ‘get out of the way’.”
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
There aren't two "teams" in american politics, just one. This 60 vote rule is totally undemocratic and should be eliminated. The Democrats' failure to use it against Bush had nothing to do with "discipline" or "cohesion." It was just that too many of them agreed with the empire or were afraid to raise their hand against it.