Your Daily Dose of Health Care Reform Stupidity

So. Much. Stoopid.

While it's hard to decide, Max Baucus' little scheme is probably the most stupid. See here for why it could get poor people frozen out of the job market, here for why it gives insurance companies incentives for offering even shittier plans than they do now, and here for the real cost to the middle class, who if this passes will have to get used to taking it right up the back passage more often than they do already. It's too bad we have to wait for elections to fire Senators for incompetence, and then rely on an incompetent public to get the firing done.

Meanwhile, the Cons are back to claiming our main problem is too much insurance - as in, we wouldn't go for all those costly procedures if insurance companies weren't paying for them. We can save money by not getting medical care! Funny - the insurance companies have already come to the same conclusion, and are more than happy to assist us with cost-cutting - such as dropping folks after emergency gall bladder surgery because their husband didn't report his high cholesterol. Call it "insurance-assisted suicide." But, you know, we can't ensure that doesn't happen to people anymore, because that would be welfare or something.

Cons may be slipping a little bit in their opposition. I think too much sustained stupidity has put them under a terrible strain. Otherwise, they would've been more careful than to choose a man who backed death panels to deliver their rebuttal to Obama's health care speech. Maybe they think his street creds as a Birther cancel that out.

And Chuck Grassley's just losing his shit completely:

Yesterday in Ohio, President Obama noted how easy it is for Republican critics to attack health care reform, while refusing to step up with a GOP reform plan of their own. "You've heard all the lies," the president told union members. "I've got a question for all those folks: What are you going to do? What's your answer? What's your solution? And you know what? They don't have one."

On CNN this morning, John Roberts asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) about the charge that Republicans aren't offering a credible alternative. The question apparently left Grassley with no choice but to attack CNN and embrace circular, foolish, run-on sentences. (via John Cole)

"...I would be working towards a bipartisan effort. And if we don't get a bipartisan effort, then, of course, there are so many things in what I've been working towards that could easily go into my plan or a Republican plan and then don't forget that there's already four Republican plans out there introduced by other members of our caucus. But because we're the minority party, you at CNN and other places haven't given our plans much publicity because I suppose we're in the minority and you want to help the president so much so that I hope that if we -- if we don't have a bipartisan plan, that you'll start giving some attention to the Republican plans that are out there."

Remember, this is the guy Democrats have been counting on to negotiate in good faith and strike a bipartisan compromise on health care reform.

If you cut through the meandering nonsense, you'll note that Grassley refers to "my plan," without noting that he's never actually produced a plan. He adds that there are "four Republicans plans out there" with their own plans, without noting that none has been embraced by the GOP leadership, and the proposals themselves are impossible to take seriously.

Sucks trying to defend the indefensible, don't it, Chuck?

The fact the opposition is so fucking stupid makes it all the more infuriating that Dems can't get their shit together and just annihilate the fuckwits. Instead, we get Dem "ally" Joe Lieberman blabbing about how the public doesn't support a public option. The man apparently can't read polls.

Blue Dog Mike Ross got screamed at by a few Teabaggers and is now convinced that Americans shouldn't get the option of a public option.

House Progressives Michael Capuano and Sam Farr don't understand that no means no and have decided that, despite the letter they signed, they're totally okay with a trigger. Jane Hamsher's totally okay with primarying their asses.

Despite their spineless cowardice, Progressive leader Raul Grijalva's standing his ground. So are John Conyers and Yvette Clarke, who just today took the Pledge, and Betty Sutton, who while not Pledging yet says a robust public option is a necessity. Good on them.

Those enamored of triggers might want to consider two things. First, triggers are a disaster, and secondly, Nancy Pelosi would be happy to ensure that a trigger leads to a public option that would make insurance companies cry for Mommy. Suddenly, a trigger sounds kinda good...

And, finally, to lift your spirits: watch Sean Hannity get his bottom spanked by the Nanny:

Actress Fran Drescher, a cancer survivor, really lets Sean Hannity have it over the state of this country's health care system.

"We have to stop thinking that Big Business is going to do right by us," she says after Hannity recites a long list of government enterprises he says are bankrupt.

"Oh, you poor brainwashed man, you," she says after he gives another speech on the superior workings of the free market.

I heart Fran Drescher.