{"id":1438,"date":"2009-07-07T06:46:22","date_gmt":"2009-07-07T10:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morningseditionists.com\/msblog\/?p=1438"},"modified":"2009-07-07T09:57:48","modified_gmt":"2009-07-07T13:57:48","slug":"same-as-it-ever-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/2009\/07\/07\/same-as-it-ever-was\/","title":{"rendered":"Same As It Ever Was"},"content":{"rendered":"

Single-Payer healthcare has long been a dead issue, and we’ve been told that a very flawed “public option” is the best we can do. Looks like even that’s<\/em><\/strong> gonna be a no-go now, as it appears that the White House is ready to abandon the public option<\/a>, in favor of a gift to insurance companies that will make Medicare Part D look like socialized medicine.<\/p>\n

It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is no doubt part of a “stealth” plan on the behalf of President Obama – who once declared that single-payer was the way to go, but we first had to take control of the House, Senate, and White House in order to make it happen<\/a> – to sneak his progressive agenda in through the back door. Stealth, of course, because – to the uneducated – it certainly looks as if Obama is unwilling to stand up and fight for much of anything. Even when public opinion is on his side. Maybe that’s being practical. Bill Clinton couldn’t get national healthcare, so Obama’s afraid to push for it. Or maybe he just figures he needs to completely enrage “we the people” so that we’ll force Congress (and him) to do the right thing.<\/p>\n

Seems he once promised to fight for equal rights<\/a> (if not marriage) for gay people, too, and to get rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell,”<\/a> and was finally shamed into granting some<\/em><\/strong> rights to federal employees<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I thought he was also a proponent of open government<\/a>, but he seems to think we aren’t entitled to know who gets face time in the White House (we wouldn’t want to find out that lobbyists from the healthcare industry are on the visitor list). And we can’t investigate the people who tortured or approved torture in our names<\/a>, because, well, I guess because we just can’t handle it. <\/p>\n

Oh, I know. Nothing he can do with the Senate DINOs in office. 51 Democrats? Not enough. 55? Nope. 60? Nah. Not with Harry “I’m not good at twisting arms<\/a>” Reid running the show (not sure he understands the “leader” part of his Senate Majority Leader title). <\/p>\n

Oh, if LBJ was President, he’d goddamn sure ram his agenda through with a House majority and 60 Senators, you can be sure of that (he wouldn’t have a damn Portuguese Water Dog, either; too hard to pick up by the ears<\/a>). Especially with public opinion on his side. Then again, LBJ took a conflict he inherited in Vietnam and escalated it, afraid of looking as if he’d “lost” there. And that was crazy. <\/p>\n

About as crazy as fighting a war in Afghanistan would be. Just ask the Russians.<\/p>\n

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Single-Payer healthcare has long been a dead issue, and we’ve been told that a very flawed “public option” is the best we can do. Looks like even that’s gonna be a no-go now, as it appears that the White House is ready to abandon the public option, in favor of a gift to insurance companies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}