Nov 7th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Do It Like Medicare
A lot of absurd things have been said during today’s health care debate, but I think obscure Representative Vernon J. Ehlers of Michigan took the cake for sheer nonsense just now. He accused the Democrats “ignoring the Republicans” and said that instead of producing a “Democrat bill” the parties should have worked together “like we did on Medicare.” That’s right, Medicare. As if Ehlers and other Republicans would have voted for the bill if only Nancy Pelosi had moved a single-payer to the floor. Come on.
59 Responses to “Do It Like Medicare”
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November 7th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Let’s see, Pelosi is asking her members to walk the plank on a very left-wing health “reform” bill. A bill that will, in no way, be agreed to by the Senate and she can barely get 218 votes. And will get those only by buying off the Blue Dogs on state Medicaid payments, getting the bishops off her back on public funding of abortions and ducking the immigrant issue. Get real, this ain’t passing, as it shouldn’t.
The Dems should have worked in a bipartisan way as His Holiness, Barack Hussein Obama campaigned he would. Get real.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Maybe he meant “do it 40 years ago” instead of now. You know, with the time machine, and LBJ and all.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Also, this country is not ready for the radical Nancy Pelosi (who WENT TO SYRIA) bill which would mandate that churches pay for free gay abortions so that underprivileged Marxists would have sandwiches made out of fetus meat.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Let’s see, Pelosi is asking her members to walk the plank on a very left-wing health “reform” bill.
Let’s see, you’re smoking crack. Now fuck off back to McArdleville.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
That would be the Medicare that St. Ronnie Reagan attacked in exactly the same terms the wingnuts are attacking this health care plan, saying it would end freedom in America. Right? Not a different Medicare?
November 7th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Yeah, let’s see…a weak public option is a “very left-wing bill,” and if only the Democrats had created an actual single-payer system like Medicare, that would have counted as working with the Republicans.
Oh, and also, it’s not going to pass, because “Mike K” knows so much more about the whip count in the House in 2009 than Nancy Pelosi.
pseudo, I think you’re going to start getting hate mail from crackheads for equating them with this guy.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
el cid, i suspected the same thing, so i went and looked it up, and sure enough, 70 gop members in the house and 13 in the senate.
i don’t have the time to look through the records as to who they were, but i’m willing to bet, sight unseen, that not a one of them would survive in today’s gop, which consists entirely of people as stupid as mike k.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
sorry, that would be 70 gop members in the house and 13 in the senate voted in favor of medicare in 1965.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Not that it matters, but I seem to recall Pres. Obama requesting Republican input together with various efforts to involve Republicans–which request and which entreaties were met with resounding silence.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Just when I want to respect the Republicans, they ruin it.
Look, the Republicans think that a federal health care overhaul is a bad idea. They’re against it. The Democrats said “we’re going to do a federal health care overhaul.” The Republicans said “no, we’re against that.”
That’s fine. I wish more political fights were that way. Bipartisanship, at least of the kind envisioned by the Villagers, usually results in the worst policy of all.
However, you don’t really get to whine that Democrats “didn’t work together” with the GOP on the health care reform bill. The GOP is against the bill! What’s to work on?
November 7th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
What would a non-left-wing bill that provides a universal social provision look like? Hot ice? Dry rain? Unicorn poop?
The right wing’s raison d’etre is that there should be no universal social provisions, with the possible exception of the draft…
November 7th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Interesting data, howard. It brings to mind a question that has been bothering me for a long time. How can the present Republican party maintain such iron discipline? You’d think that, apart from being a good thing, getting behind HCR reform would be to the electoral benefit of at least some Republicans.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Man, Mike K wins the thread for putting up a stupid comment first, so we can all laugh at it. Did you watch the video MY posted of House Republicans trying to shout down women Congresspeople? They have no interest in bipartisanship, they will vote against it no matter what. It’s not the Democrats who are ruining the discourse, it’s conservatives arguing in bad faith that they want to compromise, only to stick it to everyone when the vote comes.
Bipartisanship is for wusses.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I don’t think Representative Vernon J. Ehlers is saying he and other repubs would’ve voted for something like medicare, I think he’s saying they would’ve voted for a more bipartisan bill. Basically, I think he’s saying Pelosi should let repubs chair the committees and set the agenda if dems want repubs to go along with the agenda.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
You’d think that, apart from being a good thing, getting behind HCR reform would be to the electoral benefit of at least some Republicans.
Well, you’d think the same of the Blue Dogs. I mean, Heath fucking Shuler, millionaire failed NFL QB, voted against the procedural stuff today, and will probably vote against the bill, while nearly a quarter of adults in his district have no health insurance.
But that’s based upon the premise that re-election hinges on voting in ways that benefit one’s district, as opposed to voting in ways that “sound right” to the people who are most likely to show up to the polls, while screwing the people who’ve mostly given up on politics.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
This is similar to the GOP web site that listed a bunch of black people from the 19th century as “GOP heroes.”
The modern GOP shares very little in common with its pre-Southern Strategy manifestation. But for some reason they won’t even admit it.
They want to pretend that they’re the “party of Lincoln” and still dominate the confederate flag flyer vote. That’s understandable, I guess.
Now they’re trying to argue that the Javits/Rockefeller wing of the party were really conservatives.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
J, what i think is that we’ve had a process of self-selection in the gop whereby the only people who are willing to hang out in the party, so to speak, are authoritarian personalities who are willing to accept party discipline.
in conjunction with that, my estimation of blue dogs is that they are the republicans who are scared to hang out with the authoritarians, so they hang out with the less threatening dems.
but of course, we need to remember the entirely different political dynamic in 1965: there was still a residual liberal republican element in the north and there was still a residual dixiecrat element in the south distorting the ideological lines that are more clearly drawn today and creating the world that david broder still immortalizes without realizing how much times have changed.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
I think he’s saying Pelosi should let repubs chair the committees and set the agenda if dems want repubs to go along with the agenda.
I know you mean this sarcastically, but as we saw over 12 years of Republican control of Congress, HCR was never on the agenda.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Couldn’t this just be a reference to medicare part D (the prescription drug benefit)?
November 7th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Ehlers’ presumable hero Ronald Reagan famously prophesied, a la Hayek, that we would lose all of our freedoms if we adopted Medicare. But my guess is that Ehlers, along with most of his Republican cohort, is ignorant of the legislative history of Medicare rather than deliberately misrepresenting it. If you are the sort of person who reads history and remembers things, core Republican constituencies are certain to view you with suspicion.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I take it that Democratic pols don’t produce inane statements of their own on a daily basis. It’s only the other party that does that.
It’s too bad that partisan hacks like Yglesias aren’t the ones that are unemployed.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Ehlers is an idiot, but your buddy Pence is giving him a run for the money now!
November 7th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
notuswind, Democratic pols at least occasionally produce other kinds of statements as well. Republican pols? This is the best they can do.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
notuswind, you can take it that the democratic members of congress produce far fewer inane statements per cap on their own than the gop, absolutely, positively, beyond doubt, and without question.
the gop being filled with moronic authoritarian stooges, it’s like the democrats, with their more random and normal distribution of intelligence have an unfair advantage in these stakes, but that’s how it goes when you fetishize stupidity the way the gop has for 45 years.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
matt w,
Rule number one of partisan hackery: The opposing team is always evil and stupid.
Rule number two of partisan hacker: See rule number one.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
your buddy Pence is giving him a run for the money now!
He did get somewhat pwn3d by the speaker who followed him. What a fucking bag of warm flatulence.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Ahh, it’ll be OK, notuswind. If it’s any consolation, you’re not unemployed because you’re a partisan hack. You’re unemployed because you’re a fucking moron.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
notuswind, sometimes it’s true.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I keep hearing Republican members stress the dire economics of passing a Health Care bill when our 10.2% unemployment rate is the highest since 1983. Uh……that would have been when St. Ronnie was President, wouldn’t it… a fact none of them seems to remember.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Seitz,
I am a moron because…?
Or is this like the kiddie playground where we hurl random insults at people who don’t agree with us.
By the way, I’m not unemployed but I know many good folk who are.
matt w,
Right…
The problem here is that partisan hackery is not motivated by a desire for truth but by a certain kind of reptilian political instinct (you may think of this as the Nietzschean will to power).
November 7th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
pseudononymous in nc
You are the one smoking crack if you think anything like a progressive HCR will be passed. Pelosi is going to just barely get 218 on this vote, what about the final conference bill? 35 Dems are voting against it because they know they will be turned out of office next November, if they vote for it. If the best the Speaker can do is barely pass this bill now, it is a dead duck.
Now you go back to Dreamland, wishing for more government handouts in your dreams.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Says the dipshit who makes no arguments, and provides no evidence, and just posts to call Matt Y a hack. With your lack of self awareness, you’d make a great Republican candidate for Congress.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
The problem here is that partisan hackery is not motivated by a desire for truth but by a certain kind of reptilian political instinct (you may think of this as the Nietzschean will to power).
Oh god, it’s the Kevin Kline character from A Fish Called Wanda. Let me assure you that, whatever you’re talking about, it doesn’t have dick to do with the Nietzschean will to power. Points for spelling his name right, though.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Believe it or not, folks, you can be as incoherent as rugged individualist Mike K and still be allowed to fly planes.
He really should fuck off back to McArdleville, where he fits in like a charm.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Pseudonymous in NC
I am not allowed, I am licensed and employed for 30 years doing it. It is pretty hard to be as stupid as you and be anything except what you are–a ward of the state.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Oh, put your dick away. The children are laughing.
As a public service, before you fuck off back to McArdleville, let us know for whom you fly, just so that we can minimize the risk of having a sputtering Randroid asshole at the controls.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
mike k, doncha get tired of being stupid and wrong so consistently?
as for notuswind, nicely played matt w!
November 7th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Okay, Mike K, is everyone who’s not a professional pilot a ward of the state? And are you comfortable with us ward-of-state engineers designing the airplanes you fly?
November 7th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Publishing drivel is the whole point of this blog! I never said everyone who is not a pilot a “ward of the state”, I just said pseudonymous in nc was. That was based on his willingness to support programs like HRC which will put the Federal Government in control of everyone’s health care. I am hardly a Randian, I just want to have control over things like my health care, how my money is spent, how to plan for my retirement.
I won’t give out my employment, but suffice it to say you have ZERO chance of a flight with me in command. I have great respect for aerodynamicists and engineers, in general. I do not respect those who refuse to take responsibility for themselves
As I have pointed out before, if government health care is so good, why not have government food provided or government housing or government cars. Oh, wait a minute, we are trying that and not successfully, either.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
fostert
I wasn’t kidding on the drivel here. There is NO reasoned or reasonable argument, no respect for the posters, no respect for the United States. Most posts are genuflecting at liberal shibboleths, being pissed-off at whoever disagrees, nasty, impolite language posing as thinking, agreeing with those who post anything leftie. Sad, really.
Yes, in nc, McArdle’s blog is considerably more civil, more thoughtful and more adult. Real people arguing real politics, real economics; not posting silliness like yours. I suugest you zip up your pants, the adults are laughing.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Congratulations to supporters of HCR, you won tonight 220-215; any bets on how your bill will fair in the Senate? Or how the Senate’s bill would fair tonight with immigration health care prohibited? Just askin’.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
oh mikey, my sweet, don’t go away mad.
just go away.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:00 am
The ‘ward of state’ jibe is particularly amusing, since Mike K relies upon a large public bureaucracy for his daily bread.
I support universal healthcare, not just because the lack thereof makes the US a laughing-stock in the civilized world. There’s a pragmatic rationale, given the capacity of the American non-system to bleed as much as it can from people’s wallets, thus contributing in the not-too-long-run to the nation’s rapid decline down the shitter.
If rugged individualists like K want to cheer that on and bequeath the consequences to their heirs and successors, telling the sick that they should be thankful for the freedom to die in a ditch or be bankrupted by medical bills, then it’s really not my lookout.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:07 am
matt w,
The Nietzschean will to power can be loosely understood as the main driving force in those organisms seeking to establish dominance over their respective environs.
In the specific example of modern political parties we find the creation of a peculiar kind of discourse whose sole purpose is to act as a mechanism for achieving political power. You may think of this peculiar form of discourse as political hackery. And you may think of the driving force behind its creation as an instance of the Nietzschean will to power. So there.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:30 am
To be fair, we should point out that there was actually a republican that voted for the bill! Joseph Cao did a brave thing, the amount of hate and pressure hell be buried under for doing this will likely be enormous. So bravo Joe Cao, you weirdo!
November 8th, 2009 at 6:52 am
pseudonymous in nc exactly you idiot. The only way to have freedom is if a quarter of the population can be killed to make some of us rich. How can you not understand this?
November 8th, 2009 at 6:54 am
I’ll repeat.
Let’s see, Pelosi is asking her members to walk the plank on a very left-wing health “reform” bill that 60% of the country supports.
Electoral defeat will come to democrats for fixing the country we Republicans destroyed.
November 8th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Teabaggers oppose HCR because it is not “bipartisan”. It is not bipartisan because they and the Republican leadership oppose doing anything.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Mike K: I don’t know if “Government Health Care”, as you call it, will be great compared to all other possibilities. All I know is that “Government Health Care” is what the other industrialized nations use. Their “Government Health Care” systems ALL appear to work A LOT better for the average citizen of their countries (and even for visitors, from anecdotal reports) than our “Private Health Care” does for us.
I’m not willing to ruin my finances or my health to prove my devotion to the free market system or to “freedom” however you define it. I want to keep as much of my money as I can and to have reasonable health care. I’d like to give this “Government Health Care” system a shot. It seems to have worked for our seniors for 40+ years and for our veterans without ruining them financially.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
jonboinAR
I agree that health care needs reform, but the reform needn’t come from government. Today’s NYT Magazine has a great article on the perverse incentives of medicine as currently practiced and funded. We need to create more competition among health care providers, we need to measure outcomes better than we are currently doing, we need doctors and patients open to new ideas. Just turning more of the funding to the Feds won’t necessarily do it and it might just entrench more of our current pathologies even deeper.
Good government reform in medicine would push changes resulting in more competition, more patient awareness of costs and benefits. A doctor who did a spinal fusion on me 20 years ago (after an ejection seat ride) recommended a procedure recently–guess what, despite weeks of trying, I could not get even a guess as to the price or benefits of doing the procedure. Nada, so I didn’t do it.
If you look at the cost of the present Medicare system and the system’s own estimates of its financial viability in the coming years, you might reassess its future. Another pay-for-service that needs reform.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
The Nietzschean will to power can be loosely understood as the main driving force in those organisms seeking to establish dominance over their respective environs.
Says the guy whose only point is “I’m smart, you guys are all dumb!” And is too chickenshit to actually make an argument, but instead says that there are two sides to every coin. Hilarious.
November 8th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I’ll repeat.
And you’ll still be smoking crack.
It’s nothing more than self-indulgence when libertarians advocate a completely imaginary model of cool, pure market efficiency and cost transparency as the way to remake American healthcare, all because they have a personal dislike for the models that have been tried, tested and work elsewhere.
November 8th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
jonboinAR actually we KNOW that government health care is better then the private market; not only because every industrialized nation (and some who are not) who have government health care have cheaper better quality care then America, but because every government health care system in America is better then the private market.
Examples include Nevadas, and San-Fransiscos Public options, the VA, Medicare, Medicaid, and FEHB.
There is no need to look across the sea to see better government care then private, we have it right here.
November 8th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Mike K ,I agree that health care needs reform, but the reform needn’t come from government.
The private market has had decades to reform itself, so far all it has done is made things worse. In the early 90’s insurance companies medical loss ratio was 10-15%, now it is 20-25%.
America took the GOP do nothing route in the 90’s, and behold the results.
A perfect example is Mass. It’s government implemented universal care a few years ago, and already it’s government is advancing more prominent reforms then the private market has done in the past 30 years.
It seems only the GOP wants to wait 100 years for the private market to solve what government can in 5. Must we let millions of people die, and millions of peoples lifes be ruined just so we can keep up the charade that the private market works?
November 8th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
the stupid … it burns.
November 8th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
hello
The health care market needs more competition; that is why we can’t have a government insurance option, or antitrust legislation.
All we need is more competition. We don’t need more government, regardless of the fact that government is needed to create competition.
November 8th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
poor mike k, so ignorant he doesn’t even know the conditions required for a free market, including low barriers to entry for new sellers, informed buyers, and relatively undifferentiated products.
this is not the field of medicine, and as analysts have recognized for a very long time (hell, hayek recognized!), there is an extremely strong case taking access to medical care outside of normal market deliveries of goods and services as a result.
we can look around the developed world and see a variety of approaches, but they have two things in common: they all call for a larger governmental role in one fashion or another, and they all provide comparably good health-care outcomes for considerably less of a percentage of gdp.
in addition, in those countries, no one goes to bed worrying about being bankrupted by a medical emergency and people do not remain tied to jobs because their health-care access is derived from the job.
the rote mantra of “more competition” doesn’t mean jackshit in this context, but you’re mike k: that’s what you do….
November 9th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Time for Rush Holt and Bill Foster to throw Ehlers out of the Physicists’ Caucus.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Whoever posted this, it wasn’t the Real One