Monday, January 04, 2010
In which Tom Brokaw agrees with me about health care reform
Regular readers know that I have been saying for some time that nobody -- by which I mean nobody, not even experts with a huge financial or reputational incentive -- actually understands the House and Senate health care "reform" bills as a whole, including what they will do to the cost and quality of health care services over the long term. It will take months, if not years, even for experts to integrate all that will change by this massive legislation. For example.
Imagine my surprise, though, to hear Tom Brokaw (of all people) say exactly the same thing on "Meet the Press" yesterday:
Well, I talked to a very senior member of the Democratic leadership in the House, getting ready for this weekend, and there is a real determination to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible so the president can have it in time for the State of the Union. Because the Democrats, for the next nine months, want to have a new two-stroke engine: jobs and fiscal responsibility. They believe that they really have to shift the attention of the country to that on their terms or they're not going to do well come the fall. When it comes to health care, I do think that they have some serious issues before they get this finally resolved. I don't think there's a person in America who completely understands what exists in both these bills. There's a lot of fear out there that it's going to have an adverse impact on the healthcare plans that people already have. So I think they've got a lot of work to make it less complex and make it much more transparent between now and the State of the Union on January 20th.
Exactly. The only differences between me and Brokaw are that (1) I think it is outrageous that the Democrats have gotten this far with legislation that nobody understands and that they will bypass conference committee in order to get it passed before the State of the Union for rank (as in reeking) political reasons, and (2) Brokaw thinks the Democrats can make the bill "less complex and more transparent" in the next 14 days, and I believe that they would be lucky to do that in the next 14 weeks.
4 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Mon Jan 04, 08:39:00 PM:
If the Democrats think that they can take this crap sandwich of a Health Care Reform Bill (which even the CBO finally had to admit was a budget buster) and the blank check they just wrote to Fannie Mae....and the quadrupling of the national debt....put it all together and come up with a platform of "fiscal responsibility"...then they are even MORE delusional than even I gave them credit for.
They should not be particularly worried, though. The Republicans have a long history of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.
By Purple Avenger, at
Mon Jan 04, 09:12:00 PM:
With anything this large and constantly morphing, the law of unintended consequences is going to bite Democrats very very hard.
By 
, at
Mon Jan 04, 09:58:00 PM:
Can we get a restraining order or something? These Congressional goofballs are like stalkers or home invaders. Crooks. It kills me that they're so pompous about it too, with all this talk of "history". The only history being made is voter enthusiasm for lefty opportunism.
By , at
Tue Jan 05, 08:45:00 PM:
They got this far because W. made voting Republican so unpalatable that a lot of loons got elected.
His dad attempted to tell him to watch the polls. I mean, for chrissake, bad policies have consequences in the future.
