|
Brain -> RE: The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists (8/23/2009 12:59:31 PM)
|
By PAUL KRUGMAN /The New York Times
Published: August 20, 2009
And let’s be clear: the supposed alternative, nonprofit co-ops, is a sham. That’s not just my opinion; it’s what the market says: stocks of health insurance companies soared on news that the Gang of Six senators trying to negotiate a bipartisan approach to health reform were dropping the public plan. Clearly, investors believe that co-ops would offer little real competition to private insurers.
But there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. It seems as if there is nothing Republicans can do that will draw an administration rebuke: Senator Charles E. Grassley feeds the death panel smear, warning that reform will “pull the plug on grandma,” and two days later the White House declares that it’s still committed to working with him.
It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.
Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable.
So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/opinion/21krugman.html?_r=5
quote:
ORIGINAL: rightwinghippie
And Republicans do have several ideas on the table. Malpractice reform, allowing national sales of insurace, lowering thresholds (and other improvements) for HSAs, and technicall reforms to the regulation of Insurance (no pre existing clause, among others) are just some of the ideas Republicans have tried to include.
You can disagree with some or all of these, but to pretend they are not is just ridiculous. That's how some posters roll, are you reallly one of them? We got Weak Lenny Bruce hipster immitations (where they guy never takes a stand, just snipes), we got evangelical atheists posting random links on several threads, making almost no sense. People making up words. A democrat just the other day posted Sieg heil 25 times in a row to drown me out. All to drown out the debate.
Is this really what we are as a nation?
|
|
|
|
