Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Saving Health Care After Coakley

Dylan Loewe writes in the Huffington Post, Saving Health Care After Coakley:

"It's not the Senate bill. It's not reconciliation. It's both. The House could agree to pass the Senate bill, but with the caveat that the substance of their negotiations be dealt with later this year, during the reconciliation process. This does a couple of things: it allows liberals in the House to vote for the Senate bill they don't like, assured that in the very near future, they will be able to improve it. It allows Democrats to take a curtain call on health care, perhaps even in time for the president's State of the Union on January 27th. And most importantly, it presents the potential for creating a health care bill that is substantially stronger than it otherwise would have been."

My day-after thoughts on the election:

She ran a really bad campaign. The Gerald Amirault case gave a lot of people early trepidation. Being on vacation 3 weeks before the election is lazy. Misspelling Massachusetts was laughable. Insulting Fenway and Schilling sealed the deal.

And Brown ran a good hard campaign, relating to the working class voter. The truck driving (in MA?) pro-waterboarding, pro-life average MA voter. Wait, what?

I think people were uninformed on the issues and voted the personalities. Nice hard working guy vs lazy out-of-touch woman with poor judgement.

As Jon Stewart said, the Dems will have to pass legislation with a bigger majority than Bush ever had. I don't know if they can manage that. The GOP hive-mind makes it difficult. I'd like to see real filibusters happen, the Mr. Smith kind.

I'd also like to see health care bills that don't give Nebraska a free ride. Maybe they'll clean it up now. In and ideal world that would give them more votes, but there's that hive mind again.

2 comments:

Irina said...

I voted for her dreading that she'll win and I would see her face and hear her voice yet again. She was beyond contempt during Fells Acres Day School trial and afterwards. Still I thought of the greater cause, you know, aim justifies the means. I was wrong to vote for her, I should've just stayed home. It was the first time in my life that I voluntarily voted for somebody I knew was so undeserving, so horrible as a person. Means don't justify the aim, this is how you end up in hell. Gerald Amirault and I are glad that she did not win.

Howard said...

"The Dems will have to pass legislation with a bigger majority than Bush ever had."

I still think they should hire West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin (and give him coke if necessary) to write speeches and positions papers for them. They need much better marketing.