Howard Dean has a simple message for Holy Joe: either vote for cloture or hand over your gavel. Let's hope many, many more high-profile Dems take up that refrain.
Digby has the best quote of the day I've seen in quite some time:
And in case that didn't have you laughing hard enough, here's Palin getting pwnd by Canada's version of Jon Stewart.From a commenter at Krugman's blog:
With all of the comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis, young people are beginning to think that the allied powers defeated Nazi Germany because Germany had too much health care.
Blue Cross Blue Shield's little scheme to whip its customers into a frenzy of anti-health care reform fear is backfiring badly. Customers aren't scared, but pissed. And it seems a lot of agencies are suddenly very interested in probing the company. Just to prove the point that insurance company fools rush in where other insurance company fools have already tread and tripped, another BCBS entity is now trying the ol' whip-your-customers-into-a-frenzy tactic. They'll never learn.
Which is why I'm still skeptical of triggers, but there might come a time when a trigger's a good idea.
Bobby Jindal doesn't want any Teabaggers to know he's the one who wanted Landrieu to stuff the health care bill full of cash for Louisiana.
And, finally, if you were wondering why Ben Nelson voted for cloture, let's just put it this way: it has a lot to do with him being shit-scared Harry Reid will force reform though with budget reconciliation. Ooo, leverage.
Triggers? What people who think that a "triggered" public option will be better at controlling the insurance industry than any other public option need to keep in mind is this: This is a trigger that will never be pulled, no matter how bad the situation becomes. The insurance companies will make sure of that.
ReplyDeleteThis is so obvious it hardly seems worth discussing, but the fact is that smart people have been gaming these systems for years. Food isn't part of the Consumer Price Index, our chief indicator of inflation. Everyone needs food. We can, depending on our situations, not worry about housing prices, or automobile-related expenses, but food is basic. We all pay for it somehow. Yet they leave it off the CPI. They don't tell you the real level of unemployment every month, just the number of people who are still eligible for unemployment benefits.
The system will be gamed to benefit those who can afford to change it. Right now, that's the financial industry, including insurance.
Now, go back and think about how useful an option that will quite clearly never be taken is.
I agree cujo. The trigger isn't the answer, but the public option may very well be. It has already been achieving success in many states like Ohio. It's hard to ignore how well they have worked. http://cli.gs/z3AtaY/
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