March 22, 2010

Healthcare passes!

Holy shit. I never thought it would, to be honest. And when Scott Brown won Teddy's old seat, I thought we were sunk. Have to give credit to Obama and to Pelosi and Reed for pushing this through. Is it perfect? Hell no. But it is a damn start. I am reminded that Social Security originally left out most African Americans. We fixed that. We will have to fix parts of this, I am sure. That is the nature of democracy. As I noted to SOF, however, imagine what it would have taken to get a stronger bill. This one barely passed. And it passed with all sorts of Republican misinformation thrown in. There are legitimate concerns about this bill, but Republicans chose to go the "totalitarian" or "socialist" route.

As Adam Serwer notes, our opposition is unhinged:
"the conservatism of today, which sees liberalism as a force to be annihilated and liberals as traitors if it sees them as Americans at all. It expresses itself in apocalyptic rhetoric that teeters on the precipice of endorsing violence as a political tool. Where the Obama liberals of today internalized the conservative critiques of liberalism in the aftermath of their defeats, conservatives concluded in the aftermath of theirs that liberalism has nothing to teach them, even to the point of rejecting the functionally bipartisan civil rights reforms that extended basic rights to all Americans in the 1960s. These are the circumstances of the present. Where conservatives go now, after having portrayed Obama as the second coming of Stalin and health care reform as the beginning of totalitarianism I do not know--particularly since the conservative soul searching of recent years has only led them farther to the right."
I will take this victory for what it is. A good one in the face of a nihilistic right. But in many ways, just the beginning of the work we have to do.

9 comments:

leighton said...

I never thought it would pass either. I'm very happy to have been proven wrong.

I think my favorite "This is terrible" comment from a Republican so far is the Pentecostal on Greg's blog who thinks that when God wants people to be healthy, he'll heal them himself.

leighton said...

Sorry, Greg's FB thread, not Greg's blog.

Streak said...

Nice, Leighton. I saw a lot of comments over there and didn't click in.

I am wondering why so many people think this is so radical? Insurance companies are still in place, as are the big pharmaceuticals. I honestly think that some of these conservatives believe that we are now handing out "free" healthcare to illegal immigrants, or something like that.

Luther said...

For those who consider health insurance yo be a "right"; because of this bill, I will now have the "right" to be forced, by the government, to purchase the health insurance that is supposedly my "right". Does anyone, besides me, see a contradiction?

Streak said...

Luther, I don't think you understand the concept of insurance, actually. Yeah, I do think it is just you.

steves said...

I don't think this bill says that healthcare is a right. Does it?

Comrades, I have already heard rumblings from some that Obama's next task in his "glorious 5 year plan" is to work on immigration reform, and by work I mean that he will legalize millions of illegals and they will all vote Democrat. Seriously, I have heard people suggest this.

leighton said...

Right, because under Obamamnesty, excusing unlawful presence in exchange for a nontrivial back tax payment is exactly the same thing as naturalization. Votes for all! My only regret is that I have but four walls to cover with posters of Lenin.

leighton said...

Streak, you didn't miss anything in that thread. Mostly the objections are along the lines of "My hope is in Jesus, therefore you shouldn't talk about politics."

P M Prescott said...

This is just a start, but Obama did get it passed,now we're going to have to fight like hell to keep it from being thrown out by the courts.