Is the bill perfect? Anyone who thought that we Americans would manage to craft even a bill even moderately acceptable to liberals doesn't understand how things work. Abandoning health care reform when we are so close to actually accomplishing something would be the height not just of folly but of social irresponsibility. If you don't believe me, read this:
If I feel abandoned, it's not by Obama and the Democratic party, it's by those on the left advocating to kill the bill.
I am unemployed and have a pre-existing condition that requires daily medicines, quarterly doctors visits and an annual test. I am on COBRA, which runs out mid-2010, when I will have to find new health insurance. I will need to purchase some kind of health insurance, assuming I can find provider who will insure me
I don't pretend to understand all the intricacies of the health care reform bill, but I do read a lot. From what I can glean, if the bill passed, I would be able to find health insurance because I could not to be turned down due to my pre-exisiting condition. And based on my income at the moment, my premuims would be subsidized.
Am I disappointed in the reform effort? Yes. I believe in single payer. I was terribly disappointed the Medicare buy-in for 55 and older was dropped, not because I give a rat's ass about Lieberman or the political wrangling involved, but because I am two years shy of 55 and I would have loved to be able to tough it out on the private market for a little while longer knowing Medicare coverage was just around the corner. Believe me, it's scary being 52 and unemployed with a medical condition. Any form of security is vital.
My case is not unique or unusual. In fact, it is common. I am one of thousands if not millions with the same issues that this bill would affect. And when I read or hear people from the left arguing against the bill that would likely provide me and people like me with some modicum of security because the bill doesn't accomplish everything they had hoped it would or it doesn't help every last person or the insurance industry will benefit, I do feel abandoned.
Again, the bill is not perfect. It might not even be marginally acceptable. Liberals, at least those most vocal folks on the internet, are sounding more and more like the right when it was in power, disdainful of politics and revolted by the legislative process, disgusted by the shallowness and vanity of politicians. Some, I think, wish that Democrats behaved as Republicans did when the latter were in power. Rather than have an actual debate and include the minority in the process, just steamroll over everyone. Yes, the Republicans can and are stonewalling - but that is the way the process works.
While I am quite sure there are people who could point to this or that provision of the bills before Congress that fail to address the concerns expressed in the above, I find that kind of thing meaningless. The bill may not be what we want in details; in principle, however, it will be established that Congress can set the ground rules for health care coverage. As this generation of politicians passes in to history, more will become accustomed to the reality that health care is an issue over which Congress has control. It isn't a pretty, or easy, process. In the end, though, health care will be like Social Security, a third, or perhaps fourth, rail.
