I spent some time today using a search engine to try to find out what's in the healthcare bill. The New York Times prepared an easy-to-use basic facts chart, which appears not to affect old people with no money (the subset I care most about) as adversely as it might some others.
It's advertised to cost $919 Billion over the next ten years. Whatever that means. When it ends up costing $919 Squillion, so what? We'll raise minimum wage to $545 per hour. When burger flippers are taking home $22k a week, and can drive a new Hyundai for only $7190 a month, a squillion won't seem like much.
Watching Jon Stewart tonight, it occurred to me that no big issue in my life has been argued so vehemently by folks absent so much knowledge about what's even in the proposal, let alone any way of forming a prognosis for its effects. That includes me.
I foresee tremendous fortunes being amassed by folks we really didn't intend to enrich as a result of those people being able to game a system designed to be gamed. The quality of medical care will decline, inasmuch we can measure that elusively relative word, "quality."
Will it provide access to medical care to a greater portion of those who live within our borders? Even that remains questionable to me.
I don't know that I can see our system crumbling as a result of even this huge a change in our social services branch of government. But I think I can safely predict that it will be the governing feature in a huge change in our lives over the next generation. And I'll bet there will be a shocking decline in Democrats in Congress in November. A Republican rebound rebounding from Obama rebounding from Bush; that's simply not a pretty thought.
You know how those Republicans think they're messengers of the Lord.
Monday, March 22, 2010
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I'll vote to reverse all this health care stuff if at the same time we vote to end all the mid-east wars. All or nothing.
ReplyDeleteIf we're really arguing for "conservatism" then lets BE conservative. Republicans are NOT conservative if they are only stopping the flow of money from their left hand and not their right hand as well...