Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight blog has 20 questions for liberals who believe the Senate healthcare reform bill is too compromised to be supported and should be killed – a viewpoint expressed by Howard Dean in a Washington Post opinion piece and by Keith Olbermann on Daily Kos. Here are two questions that stood out and one more that made me laugh:
Over the medium term, how many other opportunities will exist to provide in excess of $100 billion per year in public subsidies to poor and sick people?
Where is the evidence that the plan, as constructed, would substantially increase insurance industry profit margins, particularly when it is funded in part via a tax on insurers?
How many of the arguments that you might be making against the bill are being made out of anger, frustration, or a desire to ring Joe Lieberman by his scruffy, no-good, backstabbing neck?
I’ll put it another way. Dear Howard and Keith, I feel your pain — and to the extent your comments are simply aimed at motivating the public and political communities to improve the legislation, I’m on your side. But the bottom line is that for all the legislation’s flaws — and there are many and they are real — there’s simply too much good here to just kill the bill.
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Well – we are about to see a ton of working class folks dropped from health insurance and transfered to the public sector – that is good if the public sector is efficient – lets hope the best – i doubt it and assume that Medicare expanded eventuall implode leaving a more bare bones public option HMO as the result – but a lot of pain and money making opportunities for Merger and Acquisiton folks as nonprofit hospitals go under due to the cut-backs to come