Who said this:
This piece was supposed to run on the front page of the Washington Post. They turned it down went cool on it on the grounds that it was too long and too supportive of Obamacare. It’s worth remembering before we all go into a Beltway frenzy about SCOTUS and the ACA – that this issue affects people’s lives in the most graphic and direct way imaginable. It becomes the difference between living with chronic illnesses or being healthy. It can be the difference between a short life and a long one.
I’ve evolved on this issue. In general, I find a huge amount to admire in America’s private healthcare system and wouldn’t want to alter its essential private structure. But its simply staggering inefficiencies, massive costs, and failure to provide health to the working poor persuaded me of the need for reform. And at some deep level, when I consult my conscience, I find denying people healthcare different than denying them a job or a mortgage or a car or an iPhone, or any other material goods. Without your health, you can enjoy none of this.
I remember my instant, sustained reaction when my friends became sick and died for so many grueling years. It was inconceivable for me then that these people should be left to suffer and die in a country as wealthy as we are. If that’s true of my friends, it must also be true of those I have never known, whose bodies are no different than mine, whose pain is no less acute, whose lives are no less sacred. You can call this the Golden Rule if you want. Or Christian principles.
Eighteen years after pimping Betsy McCaughey in the TNR, two years after reform was passed (again, with his principled Burkean objections a constant obstacle), and perhaps a month before SCOTUS strikes the law down (or worse yet, kills the individual mandate while leaving the rest intact so as to blame Obama for the inevitable premium increases that will come with no mandate- and would anyone put this past Roberts and Scalia, who are basically Karl Rove in judicial robes?), the Beard of Self-Reflection finds the need for health care reform.
In other news, in 1965 the surviving members of the Titanic crew decide maybe they should have looked out for icebergs.
amk
Awww @ “when I consult my conscience”
BGinCHI
As the phrase goes, I’ll believe it when I see it.
But with Sully, it’s “I’ll see it when I believe it.”
Ass backwards logic.
burnspbesq
You have a bit of a standing problem when it comes to criticizing people for taking too long to figure it out.
Steeplejack
And yet he can get to that point only by relating it to his own circle:
rikyrah
you want the truth?
I think more than one person actually told Sully – to his face- what I wanted to tell him.
yeah, I know that’s cold.
maybe cruel.
but, sometimes, reading him, from his ridiculously perched, always had fucking health insurance pomposity, as he lectured the rest of us mere mortals..
I always hoped someone would spit that out to his face.
Steeplejack
And it kills me that the epigraph on Sullivan’s site is the Orwell quote: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” He is the poster boy for that.
Chad
@Steeplejack: This a million times over, it took him decades to figure out “hmm I don’t like it when MY friends die, perhaps there are other people who I’m not familiar with for whom this is a problem?”
jfxgillis
John:
Don’t be too hard on the guy:
Baby steps!
Yutsano
@rikyrah: He always has an escape valve. IIRC he is still a citizen of the Crown. He can always sponge off the NHS and boom he has healthcare again. Of course he’d have to go back home.
PurpleGirl
@rikyrah: And he can always go back to England (or go to Canada as a member of the British Commonwealth, I think) and get his health care. It’s a little late in the game to figure this out.
Yutsano: Great minds and all that…
Quincy
Why are we making this thread about Sullivan when it should be about the horror of the Washington Post deciding that poor people dying is too partisan a topic to report on? Unless there was a separate thread about that earlier that I missed?
Valdivia
I wish I remembered what he wrote back then. I am sure it pissed me off. And yes as @Steeplejack: points out that ending kills me.
On the other hand–he owns up to changing his mind. Who else with that kind if platform does that?
J.W. Hamner
@rikyrah:
Even the blogmaster here has joked that Sully only cares about things that affect him personally… but at least in this particular instance he is able to imagine that people who are not his friends could also be unjustly suffering.
Reklam
This is why Sullivan’s so savvy – he knows to show support for Healthcare just before it gets struck down.
This is a demerit and not something to praise.
PZ
I wonder if Tina Brown’s little experiment is going to be failing soon and Sullivan now realizes he might have a very tough time on the insurance market if he finds himself out of a job.
Sully is the epitome of why we liberals see conservatives as nothing more than ungrateful bastards. When he came to the states, he became what economists would call a free rider. Public universities were either free or very cheap so that kept the tuition of a place like Harvard way down as they had to compete with institutes like Berkeley and Ann Arbor. As a journalist, while he probably didn’t work at union shops, he got the benefits of labor in the news industry as non-union shops paid a wage comparable to their union counterparts.
How has he paid back those who he benefited from? By spitting in their face. Last year, he claimed guys like Scott Walker and Paul Ryan were Serious People who had ideas to be listened to. When there were those who complained about how their proposals would harm millions of people, he dismissed them as shrill and gave them all Moore Awards. He may huff and puff about “real conservatism” but at the end of the day, he’s just like the rest of them-I got mine and that’s all that matters.
Yutsano
@PurpleGirl: I don’t think the Commonwealth protections extend to health care. But I’d have to check with friends who are citizens to be sure. Any Canuckistani is free to weigh in here.
Ash Can
Meh. Bully for him, but so what if he changes his mind now, sooner, or later? It’s not as though he’s going to have any influence on anyone else’s opinion.
Chad
@Valdivia: it’s getting old, “I’ve evolved on this” works until it begins to look like his constant evolution is just him working through the fact that the positions he advocated in the 90s and 00s are wrong and he’s trying to deny this until it’s absolutely obvious that he was wrong. I’m still waiting on him to “evolve” on The Bell Curve
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@rikyrah: What Steeplejack said and this too. Andrew Sullivan is an entitled ass who doesn’t really get it, but then he has lost a few friends who couldn’t afford HIV treatments, so perhaps there is something to this health care reform after all.
srv
So you can ponder your navel for several years and find a conscience?
The only thing that explains Sully is that he missed the Golgafrincham B-Ark, so the Brits sent him here.
Chad
@Quincy: because it ran in the Tennesseean and the wire service is backing WaPo
Chad
@Quincy: because it ran in the Tennesseean and the wire service is backing WaPo
David Koch
Meh.
Sully is small, no, strike that, tiny potatoes.
I really have no idea why anyone pays him any attention, and I say that even when he agrees with me.
MikeJ
@David Koch: He is big, it’s the blogs that got small…
wetcasements
Sullivan is a piece of shit and always has been.
cokane
John Cole
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_WEST_VIRGINIA_GOVERNOR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-06-18-17-36-36
PurpleGirl
@Yutsano: Okay. He can still return to England and the NHS.
Rafer Janders
It’s always, always gotta be about his own frame of reference, doesn’t it? He’s really unable to understand any moral principle unless it affects him and his own.
PeakVT
At this rate, sometime around 2027 Silly Sully will figure out that single payer (not single provider like Merrie England has) was a good idea. Unfortunately, the country will be bankrupted by rising healthcare costs serveral years before that.
The man is a menace to the Republic. Seriously.
Rafer Janders
@Quincy:
Hear, hear.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
Says the apologist for the Roman child rape cult.
Rafer Janders
@burnspbesq:
Leaving aside the irony of someone with a noted problem of being unable to figure it out criticizing someone else for not being able to figure it out, it’s not quite the same because (a) Cole is quite upfront about the fact that it took him far too long to figure it out, (b) he flagellates himself for it constantly and has never forgiven himself for it, (c) he came to his turning point honestly, without having to filter it through the lens of terrible things happening to his own loved ones, and (d) he doesn’t constantly excuse himself for his failings by pretending that they were the result of his own Burkean humility and a conservatism that rested on the eternal verities to be found in Plato and Aristotle as further refined by succouring himself with his Oakeshott in Widener.
joes527
@Cacti: actually, in this case bbq has a point.
BGinCHI
Watching the movie “Chicken Run” which oddly reminds me of Sully.
Not sure why.
Rafer Janders
Squirrel finds nut: news at eleven.
Cacti
No Sully, the desire to elevate the human condition and not watch your fellow humans suffer needlessly is called humanism.
No deities or fables required.
Yutsano
@Rafer Janders: Water is still wet. Also. Too.
General Stuck
Wow!! Wildly cool. Playing the Plato card on BJ. I salute you, sir. That’s grabbing both hands for the brass ring/
dp
I’m frankly less concerned about Sullivan’s personal journey or whatever, and MUCH more concerned about the fact that the Kaplan Daily chose not to run an article because it was TOO DAMNED FACTUAL.
May the fucks burn in hell.
Another Halocene Human
Sully is horrible if Sully has influence. I have yet to be convinced that he has any pull with anyone. He has no constituency, other than his stalkers and gawkers and other follower-not-leader trendy types who use him as confirmation once their minds are already made up (but they must wring their hands about all those other positions that The Tory hasn’t yet come around too but will, they’re sure, real soon now).
He’s trendy. At times. Among a certain low information set.
Wow. I’m literally quaking in my imaginary boots.
Cuppa Cabana
“And at some deep level, when I consult my conscience …”
GAK.
How does Cole read this shite without blowing chunks ?
Cacti
@dp:
+1
Sully writes Inside Baseball stuff for the political nerd/blog commenter crowd.
A major daily newspaper spiking a story because it reflects well on the PPACA is some straight up Orwellian bullshit.
Violet
From Sully:
I like how he just claims to “admire” the private healthcare system we have here, and then follows with how it’s a complete disaster. WTF is there to admire? How do private insurance companies add ANYTHING of value to the system? He doesn’t begin to address this question. No one who supports private health insurance ever does.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PurpleGirl: British citizens are not automatically allowed to live in Canada. They are considered foreigners just as much as Americans are.
amk
@Violet: The CD right there blows your mind, doesn’t it ?
ReflectedSky
@Steeplejack: A) It is always so with Republicans. They’re for mental health benefits when a family member has mental health issues, they’re for women’s rights when their daughter hits the glass ceiling, etc.
Also, Sullivan’s logic here holds for every aspect of the social safety net. Is he arguing that everybody has a right to health care, but only his friends have a right not to starve in their old age?
+1 to whoever pointed out the focus should really be on the WaPo article — except that’s not any more surprising than Sullivan’s “evolution” that perhaps citizens are worthy of direct benefits from their taxation.
PurpleGirl
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Ah. I did not know that.
Beauzeaux
@PurpleGirl: I moved to Canada in 2004 and I’ve been a citizen for two years.
Our health care system isn’t perfect, but without it I’d be dead. I couldn’t move back to the US even if I wanted to. Can’t afford to be sick there.
The US system is fine when you have insurance but without it you’re well and truly fucked.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PurpleGirl: I found it out because I am eligible for more than one passport, and looked it up a while ago.
Trentrunner
@Violet: Sully admires the private system because he believes it was that very private system, with its capitalist incentives to innovate and compete, that came up with the drugs that are now keeping him alive.
And so you see, we once again come back to Andrew Sullivan’s own asshole to explain his “moral” “conscience.”
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating:
Andrew Sullivan is a cunty git.
piratedan
add another voice to the who the fuck cares if Sullivan finally found the light, I’m much more interested in how one of the remaining major media outlets decides to bury a pro president piece just because it can when it highlights the very issue that will brought up for consideration before SCOTUS this week.
I’m very daunted by the hill we collectively have to climb in this “fair game” when it’s becoming more and more evident that the strings are being manipulated behind the scenes and feel we need to expose the puppetmasters and get the word out there versus beating that dead horse Sullivan. Unless you can get that horse (Sullivan) to the gate and add his voice to the chorus, why focus on his facing the oncoming train moment and stay on target with the people moving the goalposts.
Trentrunner
@piratedan: That’s not a mix of metaphors; it’s a frappe.
piratedan
@Trentrunner: i know, I know… but it’s late and I crossed the Rockies twice today… I just want more focus on the nefarious shit going on in plain sight as well as behind the curtains and ragging on Sully is a distraction, despite his apparent epiphany
Kane
@Quincy:
WaPo instead ran with an op-ed from Robert J. Samuelson entitled, The folly of Obamacare
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-the-folly-of-obamacare/2012/06/17/gJQAf5o1jV_story.html
Citizen_X
@Chad:
Um, so? Doesn’t that make the point even more awful? The Post, and the wire service, are spiking a key story because it’s full of unfortunate facts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dp: Yup
@Another Halocene Human:
I think Sullivan is a symptom, not a cause. I’d say at this point, the difference between Sullivan and anyone you’d hit swinging a dead cat in the green rooms of the Beltway is that Sullivan admits to his conservatism. I don’t think there’s much of a difference in policy between Sullivan and Beltway Liberal Joe Klein (did you know he used to write for Rolling Stone? And he attended Sullvians’ wedding, so you can’t question his liberal credentials)
suzanne
@Rafer Janders:
SERIOUSLY. He really must be the least imaginative person on the planet. Can’t imagine anything sucking unless he can imagine it sucking FOR HIM.
My eight-year-old is more empathetic and compassionate.
ReflectedSky
Not precisely on point (except in the “corrupt corporation fueled by for profit education” way), but do any of you savvy people know if the theory that the President of UVA was fired because she was getting in the way of Goldman Sachs running a for profit ed scheme through the school is Twitter crack or actually valid?
Just curious, as I listen to the sweet, sweet fiddle music and warm my hands on the toasty fire of democracy.
freelancer
Sully is dragged to the reasonable, human conclusion the rest of us came to upon reaching an age where reason and empathy combined to make us decent, caring people. Yawn.
He’s since made nice with Tina Brown’s newest hiring practice debacle. He’s still in my feed, but he’s also in my mental “people that I monitor and mock as needed” category.
Also, this post stepped on my Anne Romney snark in the previous thread. Go back and applaud or mock as you see fit.
pseudonymous in nc
Remote Area Medical was set up by a British guy who settled in the US; what should shame the Very Serious People is that he’s applying to Tennessee (and places that grant him permission) the same model that he originally used in the developing world.
I’m not bothered about Sullivan, because subjectivity is what he does. I’m bothered that the WaPo spiked a story for explaining, at length, that the American Way of Healthcare is sufficiently fucked that it compels the kind of efforts normally used for humanitarian crises. Oh, and that those efforts don’t prove that “charity” is the solution.
dp
I went to the Post’s website and sent an e-mail to the executive editor about this. I’m certain that will resolve the issue, right? LOL
dp
@Kane: And Samuelson’s op-ed was as full of shit as, well, a Samuelson op-ed.
Hill Dweller
We have 8.2% unemployment, but the House is sitting on a transportation bill that would create 1.9 million jobs. The media says nothing.
The Republicans have tried to destroy Obama from day one of his Presidency, but the media sits by while they shamelessly say he was too partisan.
The media is bought and paid for. Even the liberal MSNBC is on the take. Their morning and afternoon coverage is every bit as bad as CNN and Fox.
Viva BrisVegas
@Yutsano:
It’s not a Commonwealth thing, but one of the unsung benefits of universal government health care is that it makes reciprocal agreements possible between various countries.
For instance from Australia, I can go to New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Belgium, Malta, Slovenia and Norway and expect free or mostly free health care, particularly for serious injury.
It’s a nice deal to which not a lot of people give much consideration.
You’ll notice that Canada is not on the list, yet.
Yutsano
@Viva BrisVegas:
Don’t hold your breath. It most likely won’t happen until Harper loses his majority. His only purpose is making his cronies rich and getting out before he gets caught.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Viva BrisVegas: Interestingly, Ireland’s national health care system dates to 2005.
Bruce S
@Kane:
Ah yes, Robert Samuelson.
jl
I am not into hating on Sullivan so much over this. Who knows? Sullivan may make something of himself someday. It’s not like he is a Brooks or Douthat, IMHO.
Maybe I was distracted by the WaPo hate. What do those words mean that the WaPo “
turned it downcooled on it”?Except for an easily changed byline and a couple of easily omitted sentences, the story was about Remote Area Medical clinics in the US. RAM has had clinics in every region in the country, in rural areas and big cities like Los Angeles. They are always mobbed by sick people who cannot afford care and who are suffering.
How is the vast majority of that story too positive on Obama’s health care reform?
RAM was founded to deliver health care to the most isolated and impoverished undeveloped countries in the world. Seems to me the fact that its clinics are swamped all over the richest country in the world, from it largest cities to the rural boondocks, would be news worthy.
But not for the WaPo. Their line that they were reluctant to print the story because it is biased in favor of Obama’s health care reform is outlandish. More evidence that the WaPo editors are corrupt and vicious hacks pushing an agenda that hurts the country in favor of small but powerful interest groups. That’s my opinion and what I think should be the focus, not Sullivan.
Rafer Janders
@Trentrunner:
Because if there’s one thing that motivates medical research scientist above all else, it’s the monetary rewards.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Rafer Janders: or securing their next grant.
James E. Powell
I see the LA Times has a blurb on its website pointing out that without Obamacare, the ERs still have to treat the uninsured and we all end up paying for it.
Did they run an article like that when everybody was shouting about the death panels? I’m betting that 1 in 20 Americans, at most, know this.
Mike. s
“It can be the difference between a short life and a long one.”
Yes! And whoever would attempt to deny or minimize that fact is a sick SOB… too bad there are so, so many persons fitting that description.
I’m not a fan of ‘Obamacare’, of delivering us all into the hands of the rapaciously greedy private insurers. Yet extension of coverage to MILLIONS who would not otherwise have health-care is undeniably significant.
Clearly there are better ways to achieve certain goals, clearly crappy means are better than no means…
TenguPhule
I believe the term for this is Heel Face Door Slam.
Richard W. Crews
If the Supremes strike down the mandate, but leave the rest – it will be a giant but painful step to national healthcare. If insurance companies have to comply with all other parts – especially the no pre-existing condition exclusions, the companies are on the way to broke. Sure, at first they raise rates and for a few yeras insurance and decent care gets more expensive. More and more will be without insurance. ER will go up while known sick buy insurance. The companies will BEG for either the mandate of a national health insurance program. Which might mean they don’t beg for it; they just slip out the back door into some other finance bogus business, leaving even more – this time paying customers – without coverage. All problems only get solved with mandate or national plan.
Bring it all on!
Quincy
I just cant get over what WaPo did here. Its editors are never overcome by concerns about partisanship when they run inaccurate cover stories about social security going broke. Of course that’s because they think gutting SS should be a bipartisan issue. And who the hell are they worried about offending? Every conservative thinks WaPo is a liberal rag and always will regardless of evidence. John, is there any way for you to boost readership by 70-80 million for the good of the country? Maybe a sports section? Coupons?
Elizabelle
@ReflectedSky:
I am hoping Tom Levenson will turn his attention to what’s going on at UVA.
It appears to be sickening, and the Board of Visitors rector, Helen Dragas, has got to go.
Complicated story, but Charlottesville’s alternative weekly has been on it.
http://www.readthehook.com
Also — pleasantly — some strong reporting by the Washington Post aka the Kaplan Daily (think about that one). Weirdly, civil reader threads about UVa and not the usual sewer dwellers.
Also Charlottesville’s Daily Progress, and a bit by the Richmond Times Dispatch.
Something massively wrong behind the scenes at UVa.
Also: why should the Board of Visitors — mostly major political contributors appointed by governors — have such influence?
Dragas, the rector, is a Virginia Beach condo developer.
Elizabelle
He’s often a douche, but I think we have to give Sullivan some credit for highlighting the Tennessee story.
And how sad that the late Katharine Graham’s paper passed on this, ostensibly because it’s a local (Tennessee) issue.
You could see the same turnout in Alexandria, VA, right across the Potomac, were a dental clinic held.
The MSM could have covered ACA and healthcare access better.
They chose not to.
Elizabelle
@freelancer:
Appreciated your Anne Romney dancing horse snark from earlier.
Well done.
Elizabelle
In non-Sully news:
Paul Krugman eviscerated David Brooks, by name, in recent blogpost “Death Throes”
Short. Sweet. Lethal.
Randy P
What’s the part he admires?
That reads a lot like “Besides that, what have the Romans ever done for us?” to me.
harlana
is THAT how it works? REALLY, Mr. Sullivan?! Gee, I never thought of it that way!
kay
Most of the people in that gym or pole barn or whatever it is wouldn’t be there if conservatives and media had allowed Clinton’s health care plan to go forward.
We’re not going to see any remorse or second thoughts if the law is overturned. We didn’t see any the last time they blocked universal coverage.
As far as insurance companies being in a “death spiral” well, we heard that after Clinton, too. All that’s happened since then is we have many more people without insurance, and insurance companies are rolling right along.
The propagandists and paid PR hacks who killed the Clinton plan are still making millions, and many of them are celebrity journalists. It was good for their careers.
I expect to see outright celebrations, actually.
They won’t be able to restrain their joy.
MikeJ
@Randy P: If you’re rich the American medical system can do amazing things for you. Dick Cheney is a 71 year old man who literally doesn’t have a heartbeat yet they keep him alive. That’s pretty amazing. Meanwhile, in the same country that saw protests over Terri Schiavo, people are routinely removed from life support because they have no money left.
Baud
@harlana:
BREAKING: Other people are people!
NotMax
Have lost count of how many times Mr. Cole has vowed not to read or link to Sullivan, a scumdit™ whose influence is as over-inflated as is his ego.
Who is the more pathetic, truly? Andrew Sullivan, who has carved out a web fiefdom promulgating a primary industry of pissing into the wind, or the crowd which gathers to vicariously watch him doing just that?
harlana
the thing about what Sullivan said, most people feel that way. they could not give one flying fuck about anybody but “me and mine.” they don’t care until it affects them personally in a profound way.
and so it is actually quite an amazing statement for him to make considering that he DID watch people suffer agonizing deaths over many years and he is just now coming around. but of course, those were people he actually cared about and i guess they all had insurance?
but i wonder how many of them got coverage for that considering that, at the time, etiology was dubious.
the AIDS scourge began in the 80’s for crying out loud. that is PATHETIC.
kay
I’m cynical and bitter, I know, having watched this now twice in my lifetime, but I wonder if these “think of the PEOPLE” pieces we’re seeing are a kind of immunization against charges that conservatives and media are celebrating 30 million people being denied health care coverage.
Now that this is out of the way they can get right to the moronic, self-centered political story, having done their humanitarian duty with a nod towards poor people in Tennessee.
neil
Andrew Sullivan is a fine example of a splendidly educated nitwit.
TheMightyTrowel
@kay: I’m with you. This is inoculation against the totally merited charge that these people are utterly lacking in empathy and want the poor to go away and die quietly in the woods.
harlana
but, but, Mr. Sullivan, aren’t you a libertarian? Ron Paul says we should let churches take care of all this nasty business.
and, Mr. Sullivan, aren’t you an atheist? Cuz that would mean that if you couldn’t afford health insurance, you would have to accept help from those people who believe in fairies, the FSM and such.
that would be kinda awkward and incongruous, would it not?
PIGL
@burnspbesq: holly fuck, you are such an asshole.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: For the media, striking down the ACA is a better story. They would be able to do all kinds of pieces from post-mortems to speculation on whether single payer or medicare for all or just go to the ER would have been better to “where do we go from heres” to pieces decrying [hypocrisy alert] the terrible state of healthcare in the country and wondering whether someone is going to do something about it to “thoughtful” pieces wondering whether this is the end of the Obama Presidency. If the law is upheld, the story is “Supreme Court Upholds Clearly Constitutional Statute.”
@harlana: He is a Tory and and a Catholic.
past contingent
@Elizabelle:
I think Paul Krugman is tired of trying to reason with someone. If I were Brooks, I’d be checking my car before I got in.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed. How do we know this? Because that’s what happened last time!
Just fill in the blanks where Clinton’s name was with “Obama”.
The best guess I read was that the decision is announced next Monday. I have an all-day hearing next Monday, and I am extremely grateful for that, because I might have a stroke listening to that absolute bullshit again.
harlana
@Omnes Omnibus: i plead stupidly stupid which is not an isolated event
harlana
@Omnes Omnibus: mad this morning, but that’s no excuse. he certainly does not strike me as Catholic but he must affirm that from time to time of which i was not aware.
Omnes Omnibus
@harlana:
@harlana: Don’t beat yourself up. I am sure there are days when Sullivan himself doesn’t know if he is coming or going.
brantl
How about a new tag line? “Generalissimo Francisco/Andrew Franko/Sulivan is still dead/slow.” ?
brantl
@Cacti: Hear, Hear!
Zach
“I find a huge amount to admire in America’s private healthcare system.”
I love when someone says this without providing a single example. By nearly every metric, America provides equivalent or inferior care to a dozen or so national health systems (many in very similar countries in terms of wealth, racial diversity, age, etc) at twice the price. There are two admirable things about America’s health system: (1) we have the best teaching hospitals and (2) we subsidize drugs for the rest of the world (which isn’t good for America, but is a very nice thing to do). As nice as that is, it’s not worth over $1 trillion a year.
negative 1
I’m even more cynical —
He won’t be the last right wing commentator to come out in favor of the plan right as the supreme court strikes it down. That way they can pretend they care, but gee you know their hands are tied, gosh that supreme court done screwed you. But it’s not because the republican party doesn’t care, they care plenty, see this new op-ed I wrote?
Then they’ll point out that the ACA was a republican plan, and Rmoney’s new plan is the only thing the supremes will let you have, and it’s just as good don’t you know, so vote republican because it’s not true that they’d let you die in a ditch rather than lift a finger to help.
Joking aside, I think that this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to rehabbing their image. They’re not stupid – they’d be ahead in a landslide for this election cycle but people are saying that they don’t think that the republicans care about them. They have to change that, so it’s empty rhetoric time. And what’s more empty that mourning a bill that they couldn’t even re-pass if they wanted to?
Elie
I think that overturning any part of ACA is going to be a disaster for the republicans. I suspect that some of them are a little uncomfortable with the realization that this will not play well. The whole conversation changes to the little people who are going to be screwed. Adding to Richie Rich’s dilemma on how to spin this and the other spins he has to do around immigration and how to position his show horse. They are fucked.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Huh. Looks like he read that article in which it’s been found that “poz” folks have at least four times the risk of heart attack as those not infected.
Sully does not change his mind unless the additional data he’s fed affects him personally. This is one of those times, folks.
Rob in CT
Look, many people don’t “get” things until they watch somebody they know personally and care about go through some shit. Then the old maxim “there but for the grace of the flying spaghetti monster go I” actually sinks in and fires a synapse in their brains.
I wish it didn’t take actual effort to empathize with people you don’t know, but it does (for many people). So Sullivan’s realization/evolution/whatever is not at all uncommon, I figure. And I figure there is a chunk of his audience that will find it compelling, because they view things similarly.
I was pretty young when Sullivan was part of the anti-“Hillarycare” crusade, that that may be why I don’t feel the urge to spit on him for his evolution on the issue.
Davis X. Machina
@Elie:
They’re getting screwed now, and they’re not exactly all over the media now.
Why would that change? Everyone covering the story has insurance.
300baud
@jl:
Not at all. Reality has a well-known liberal bias. You can’t expect a newspaper to interfere in a political fight by introducing facts or logic at this stage.
Donald
A friend of mine says I’m very uncharitable to pundits, but he should read you guys. I despised Sullivan back in his “Fifth column” days and in his TNR era and he’s still a jackass on many subjects (like the Bell Curve), but he really does seem to be evolving, slowly, with baby steps. It’s more than most pundits ever manage to do. (I also have a soft spot for him because he’s on the right side when he argues with Jeffrey Goldberg, another Iraq War cheerleader who illustrates the fact that failing upwards is the smart career path in American journalism.)
Besides, as someone pointed out above (maybe more than one since I didn’t read the whole thread) the real story here is that the Washington Post didn’t put this on the front page because reality was, in this case, pro-Obama.
catclub
@kay: “media are celebrating 30 million people being denied health care coverage.”
Remember when some GOP crowd cheered that Chicago did not get the next Olympics? Any loss for the US was suddenly a loss for Obama, and that is all that matters. I wish it would be brought up more. … So I am bringing it up!
catclub
@300baud: This.
Reporting FACTS and real events is impolite. We also are not allowed to see pictures of dead US soldiers. But the rest of the world is allowed to. Impolite.
maven
Sully begins the Lord’s Prayer with ‘My’.
Do you think he has ever volunteered anywhere? Maybe going to Mass on the occasional Sunday is considered volunteering. After all; its his time he’s giving up……….
gex
Well, Mr. Slowly comes around has pretty much cocked it all up on two of the major issues of our time: terrorism and healthcare. But certainly he is still a very serious intellectual pundit and his always being wrong never ever indicates his inexplicable dedication to conservatism (defined as what ever Andy thinks is sensible at a gut level at any given time) is misplaced.
No, it means more excruciating mental gymnastics of trying to generally redefine being moderately liberal as being a Oakshottean conservative. While pretending liberalism is all about radical change for no apparent reason, consequences be damned.
gex
Dear Sully,
If you have to lie to get people to buy your stuff (and the GOP has to all the time) then you aren’t selling the good stuff. Why you continue to bemoan all the lying and obfuscating without acknowledging that the ideas that you love so much require those lies is beyond me. Southern Strategy, Christian Coalition. Your ideas were sold to Americans via the culture wars and stoking and fomenting hatred.
So bully for you on pushing for a war you now regret. And for helping to derail health care reform way before it became such a huge part of our national budget. Hey ultimately you were able to say “I was wrong.”
But it doesn’t do any good to see the error of your ways if you are going to keep Oakshottean Burkean reasoning the way you did on those other two issues.
Sincerely,
The rest of us who have to live in a world where our ruling class has to agonize for years to discover, “oh, I bet other people hate watching their friends and family suffer and die for no reason”
catclub
@gex:
http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2004_05_23_d-squareddigest_archive.html
one of the best explications of your theme.
John T
“I’ve evolved on the healthcare issue because I’m such a good Christian.”
Even when Sullivan does the right thing he comes across as a despicably smug, narcissistic bastard.
ReflectedSky
@Elizabelle: This is excellent, thanks.
I guess it’s not Twitter crack, just another flaming beam crashing to the floor as the house comes down.
I have a family member with a mental health problem and an independent insurance policy, AKA no health care access unless it’s cancer, as the policy has a gigantic deductible and yet costs so much that there’s no money available to pay for treatment out of pocket. An emergency room visit that involved nothing but intravenous ibuprofen to beat back a migraine (instead of following the detailed instructions from the specialist) and no visit from any doctor at all in the two hours there cost over $1,000 — why? Because they can. Actual treatment to cure her is impossible now, although it would be covered by the ACA requirement as a non-deductible item. So I guess that means as long as she doesn’t off herself anytime soon and the Supremes back off overturning the law, she can get help in 2014?
If only I had had the forethought to be a corporate lackey when I had the opportunity.
AhabTRuler
Still with the Sullygazing, eh?
No one could have predicted . . .