So McCain has his very own Harriet Myers...

Do they never learn?

Posted at August 31, 2008 5:58 PM in response to The Backlash Cometh: MSM Op-Eds Make The Anti-Palin Argument For Obama

Amen Opti Mo,

We have become so conditioned to believe that the term "health care" refers only to the financial liability incurred by purchasing private insurance that we neglect to notice how ridiculous our entire system of actually providing care is. The notion that access to medical treatment should be tied to employment is bizarre. Tying health care insurance to employment was a post-WWII enticement offered by companies desperate for workers. It outlived its usefulness long ago and is now some sort of aberrant social scheme that no one is very pleased with. It puts an undue financial burden on American business in an increasingly competitive marketplace (although corporate America is doing a darn good job of passing those costs on to workers)and it unjustly either neglects or punishes those productive and tax paying citizens who unfortunately don't work in mainstream corporate America.

In a reasonable society, people should have access to medical care regardless of where, when or how they work--the two are fundamentally unrelated, yet we keep insisting that this is the only acceptable approach to health care. I get that we have to start with "baby steps" in order to get anything done, but the current plans being offered by the candidates essentially only tweak the fatally flawed system we now have and are, I fear, doomed to failure. As a society we need to decide if we believe that access to health care is a right for all people or whether we believe it is a privilege for those who can afford to play within the arbitrary rules of the private insurance game. I think both candidates are trying to straddle the fence--most likely in an admirable effort to get some sort of comprehensive health care plan passed. However, fence riding is a dangerous sport more likely to end in a painful and humiliating wedgie than any meaningful policy reform. Hope I'm wrong. Bet I'm not.

Posted at February 4, 2008 11:10 PM in response to Krugman Wrong on Obama and Mandates

So are we supposed to believe, under Wyden's plan, that employers will voluntariliy "convert" insurance costs to higher wages for employees? Clearly some regulation will be needed, undermining the supposed free market aspects of this plan. I'm glad to know that Wyden's plan includes subsidies for the unemployed, but what about the self-employed and the "uninsurable?"

Can't understand this push to keep health care in the purview of corporate America. It is ridiculous that employment status should determine access to health care. We need to rethink this entire approach--fast.

Posted at April 10, 2007 1:17 PM in response to Health Care and The Right's Tactics