This is where I always thought the Serious Debate about the costs of health care reform was headed (Bobo):
Health care reform is important, but it is not worth bankrupting the country over. If this process goes as it has been going — with grand rhetoric and superficial cost containment — then we will be far better off killing this effort and starting over in a few years.
Tell that to the people whose stories are being compiled here.
Amy
This fuckwad has health insurance for himself and his family so there’s no real concern about people who are suffering without care and with huge bills. Brooks may be a “moderate Republican,” but he’s as self-oriented as the rest of them.
Zifnab
Is this like a reverse-paraphrase of the old Ben Franklin quote, “We all need to hang together or we’ll all hang separately?”
And, really, I’m getting a little tired of the wingnut logic trifecta – “We can’t raise taxes or we’ll bankrupt the country! We can’t pay for government programs because we can’t raise taxes! We can’t help you because we can’t pay for government services!”
I wonder if the K-Street lobbyists get to hear about all the things government can’t do for them.
...now I try to be amused
Bobo, did you ever write:
“Invading Iraq is important, but it is not worth bankrupting the country over.”
“Massive tax cuts for the wealthy are important, but they are not worth bankrupting the country over.”
No? Then fuck you, Bobo.
zhak
I’m guessing this fella has insurance. (And from his lack of empathy, he’s clearly Republican.)
gex
We know that the current system has been and will increasingly continue to bankrupt American workers. We also know that the current system is bankrupting corporations who provide care under the current system.
Frankly, the threat of a national system bankrupting the country just isn’t that scary in these circumstances. We’d at least take some action at that point. Right now we just let people, families, and companies die in the name of obscene profits in an uncompetitive marketplace.
schrodinger's cat
I wonder if Brooks would have this opinion, if he had no health insurance. Selfish bastard.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Maybe Applebee’s can offer a special salad bar discount for those without health insurance. That should offset some of the burden, and best of all, no government involvement!
SpotWeld
I wonder how the stories going to that site are being checked.
The font kerners must be drooling at thier keyboards to get out there to check garbage cans for marble countertops and mustard bottles.
Napoleon
BS like this ignores what I mentioned in a thread yesterday which is that if you intend to save on medical care by letting people die in the street then you have already made a decision to cover the cost, its just a matter of whether its public or private or some combination. Like the right and all of establishment Washington’s habit of pretending defense spending is cost free, they like to pretend that if the government spends money on health care it is as if they are suddenly spending money on something we would simply get for free if we just let the private sector take care of it on its own.
It is as intellectually dishonest as you can get.
PeakVT
Health care reform is important, but it is not worth bankrupting the country over.
And not reforming health care will bankrupt the country. Brooks knows this. Everybody who isn’t a Limbaugh fan or a Republican Senator knows this.
Brooks can kiss my ass.
Lilly von Schtupp
Rigid, entrenched and antiquated. Bobo’s answer to everything.
oh really
Representative Jim McDermott (Com., WA) was on KUOW (public radio) yesterday and he explained that we’re going about health care reform all wrong. According to Mcdermott, the first step is to decide what the system should be and what benefits it should offer (based on the needs of real people). Then, we figure out how to pay for it, i.e., what combination of program cuts (duh, how about the F-22 for a start), tax increases, etc. are needed to pay for the program we need.
When you think about it, that is the way normal, rational people go about getting things they really need. Unfortunately, since our fiscal thinking is driven by insane people (Republicans), what we do is decide we have a buck eighty-five to spend and then go looking for something that will buy. That’s a fine approach to one’s allowance or pin money, but it is idiotic when applied to a national health care system.
Brian J
Oh, now I get it. Because of a few conservative Democrats whose home states have what amounts to monopolies for a few insurance companies, because of a political party that is using baseless slogans from two decades ago, and because of a media that has at least half of its members apparently incapable of covering a debate properly, we can’t fix a wasteful system that could bankrupt the country. We can’t ask questions about why we spend a trillion dollars more per year than other advanced countries and get less for it; we certainly can’t propose any solutions to divert this money into more productive means. And there would certainly be hell to pay if we proposed anything close to a “public option,” because while this system would be the equivalent of punch to the throat, it wouldn’t be so awful that people would refuse to sign up for it. Yes, that’s right, those paragons of efficiency known as private insurance companies can’t compete against the government, despite how awful the government is.
You know, for all of the pissing and moaning that people are doing about how Obama isn’t doing much, I think he realizes how he needs to use the force of his personality to get this shit done. And he’s about to do just that. Good for him.
MikeJ
The healthcare bill I want to see introduced: every employee of every insurance company will be executed at dawn. If need be, we can negotiate down, let the lunch room workers and janitors off the hook. If we need to negotiate down again, we move the executions to noon.
Bill E Pilgrim
See, I actually blame these middle-brow apologists more than the screaming froth monsters. They have the basic intelligence and levels of information that mean they should know better.
To be calling for millions of people to go uninsured so DC won’t have to tighten its beltway or the mood might get snippy is just inhuman, when you clearly know what it is you’re saying.
John Cole
We should start a petition for the NY Times to dump health care coverage for all their op-ed writers.
KXB
The next time someone objects to a public insurance option, just calmly point out that public schools and private schools exists side by side, the post office co-exists with FedEx and UPS. When I want to go into the city, I can take my car, or ride the public transit. Public hospitals exists alongside private hospitals. And yet – the world has not gone to hell.
A public option would be a good stop gap measure for people who are between jobs, just graduated, or want a supplemental plan.
Obama needs to get a little LBJ on the Dems asses, pick up the phone, and remind those schmucks that they would still be in the desert if it wasn’t for him. No other democrat (maybe Clinton) has the appeal of Obama right now, and for Democrats to be the key obstacle in this hugely important issue reminds me why I can’t join that party.
Michael
I like it – concise, to the point, it makes sure that lots of ’em have some skin in the game.
Off topic, the Mayberry Machiavellis have wrecked horeseracing in Kentucky.
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/2009906220330
The senate leader (David Williams, R-Asshole) is a small towner with great aspirations within the wingnutosphere. Nothing gets to the full floor without his say-so, and he’d vowed that it wouldn’t happen.
Strings got pulled.
Tracks are already announcing closures, and Churchill Downs is down to a 4 day schedule. It will put about 100,000 people out of work.
I’m sick.
Little Dreamer
But if Barack Obama wanted to fly a bunch of planes over Iran and drop a bunch of bombs, I’m sure they could manage to come up with an argument why THAT is a great idea.
Margarita
Newsflash! Dateline Reality: The country is already bankrupt.
Aren’t there any other efforts that leap to mind that we’d be far better off killing than, you know, our actual physical bodies? I vote for our delusions of grandeur to be the first item on the chopping block. We can always start over in a few years.
The Other Steve
Aren’t we already bankrupt? Isn’t healthcare reform largely about reducing overhead costs?
gbear
The more they delay, the better the chances that Al Franken will be in the Senate for the debate. I just can’t wait to hear his six month of pent-up frustrations vented at the Senate republicans. Can you imagine the stuff that’s in his notebook by now? With any luck, it should happen this thurday.
Richard
As someone who just experienced a fourfold (from $60 to $240/mo) increase in my contribution to my employer provided health “insurance”, for a policy with higher copays and now deductibles, I think it’s time for Obama to go all Inigo Montoya on all their asses, starting with those members of his own party who have obviously forgotten who the fuck elected them. My own “Democratic” Senator, Dianne Feinstein, can kiss my underinsured ass.
As for the Rethugs and the entire “health insurance industry”, why wait until dawn?
satby
I called Blue Dog Rep. Dan Lipinski’s office this morning to voice support for a public health care option; I told them how nice it would be if Lipinski, who is supposed to be a brittle diabetic, would ponder how he would cover his health needs if he ever lost his job and it’s excellent health insurance.
Everyone needs to call their reps in Congress; they hear all the time from people who wouldn’t pay a dime extra of tax even if it went directly to feeding their grandmother (people like David Brooks, for instance) but they don’t hear as much from those of us who are fed up and want this situation fixed for everyone. Partly because fatigue sets in, but this is a fight worth having. Calls and emails can make a difference.
Ash Can
OK, let me get this straight. Brooks doesn’t want this country bankrupted. Because that would cause, well, a decline in our overall standard of living, right? And we don’t want that because it would lead to things such as, well, poorer general health, amirite?
::headdesk::
I’ll start believing the points people like him are trying to make as soon as they start making any fucking sense at all. And I’ll award them bonus points if they can explain to me how every fucking other civilized country has been able to adopt single-payer systems — and sustain them over the long term, I might add — without going under, and explain it in such a way that I’m able to keep from laughing in their faces.
BDeevDad
If publicly funded healthcare is not good, why do Senators and Congressmen utilize it. Make the old farts go out on the open market and try and get good health insurance.
ericvsthem
..never mind that a robust public option would eventually drive down health care costs, making most companies more profitable as they spend less money on employee health insurance. Those increased profits could be used for good stuff like R&D spending, expansions, new hires, higher wages, fewer layoffs, etc..
BDeevDad
My Congressman, Duncan Hunter, is an idiot. He has been receiving government run health care as the son of a Congressman, a US marine and a Congressman himself for most of his life, but, he is worried a government-controlled healthcare plan
The Other Steve
@gbear: I hope so. I hope the court rules soon.
gbear
@satby: I made the calls last friday. The staffers who answered sounded pretty happy to be hearing support for the public option. I also call both their DC and local offices. The more support, the merrier, I say.
Raenelle
My 2-word reaction to people who expect me to sacrifice for some greater good is always: YOU FIRST. If David Brooks didn’t have really grand health care, I might consider his arguments with more respect. But as it is, he can go fuck himself.
The Saff
The Organizing for America (Obama) website has a link that gives you the contact information for your representatives, as well as talking points for when you make your calls.
I made my calls yesterday even though I don’t care to talk to strangers. The issue is too important to let die.
Bill H
How many of the stories on that site are going to be about people who had health insurance and were bankrupted by “copays, deductibles, not covered” and the always favorite “above reasonable and customary” charges?
TenguPhule
MY health Care Bill:Congress is cut from government health care to save money. Most of them are old and use too much drugs and services anyway. They will be mandated by law to buy private insurance. Also, their pay will be cut to $50,000 a year and any and all financial perks are banned on pain of execution.
I expect a health care overhaul for the public to pass very quickly after that.
Jay B.
Brooks is right — I mean when has poor health care bankrupted anyone now? It’s hardly a drain on my wallet because I have it through my business. It barely went up 125% last year. And I only barely have worse benefits.
I’m sure glad it’s not a tax and merely a steep deduction taken from my paycheck twice a month.
Linkmeister
@gex:
My time zone cost me the opportunity to say this in a timely manner, so I’m glad you did. I’d add that if it continues in its present form, it will bankrupt the government as well.
It’s like global warming (or climate change, or whatever we’re calling it now), it’s coming, it’s inexorable, and it needs to be addressed.
mcc
“Invading Iraq is important, but it is not worth bankrupting the country over.”
“Massive tax cuts for the wealthy are important, but they are not worth bankrupting the country over.”
“Lasseiz-Faire principles in financial markets are important, but they are not worth bankrupting the country over.”
“Bank solvency is important, but they are not worth bankrupting the country over.”
bago
@John Cole: That was my first thought. Call it forced empathy, or call it lessons in virtualization, but a slight reminder that “things can change” would be useful for someone prognosticating on policy.
Jim-Bob
Did Bush’s 2002 tax cuts bankrupt the country?
Their projected cost is $1.6 trillion
Compared to that, the health care bill will be cheap–like the salad bar at Applebee’s.
jcricket
People like Bobo make me want to fucking vomit. It’s that mushy-mouth faux idealism that fucks our country even more than the crazy people on the right. It’s always these “moderate” Republicans who claim they’d support raising taxes just not “now” or “these taxes” or whatever.
It’s as if he wants you to believe that if we wait for things to get worse, a better solution will come along, and he’ll support it.
Well guess what, there’s a better solution right now, it’s called single payer. Cheaper, covers everyone, contains costs, gets better outcomes. Support it Bobo? No? I didn’t think so.
So fuck off and die. The rest of us will pass something now, and pass more later, and raise taxes little by little to pay for it.
We didn’t get into this mess overnight and we won’t get out of it overnight. The American public can be led to a better place, but it’ll take a lot of political will, multiple laws passing, Democrats winning elections again and again, etc. So I’m fine with incrementalism and imperfect legislation, even that which makes our short-term financial situation “worse”.
The alternative is waiting for a future that will never come.
ronathan richardson
God, Die in a fire, now, you pampered lily.
iluvsummr
Vermont socíalist Bernie Sanders is still holding out for single-payer health care. I think private insurers would see the light on the public option if there were enough voices pushing for single-payer health care. The debate would be about choosing (1) to maintain the status quo (unsustainable cost-wise in the long-term, 46 million uninsured, even the insured can go bankrupt as a result of severe illness, costs more than any other approach in the world and produces poorer health outcomes), (2) private insurance plus a public option, or (3) single payer health care. Too bad it won’t happen.
pseudonymous in nc
He’s covered for life under FEHB if he wants. It’s time to start suggesting to the people who are whining about cost and competition that they should put their own asses on the line and seek out coverage on the individual market. See if BlueUnitedCorpInc can do a proper quid pro quo.
Nancy Irving
If the bill doesn’t have a public option, it will be better to have no bill at all at this time. So far I would agree with Bobo.