Open Left

The Administration is not writing the bill (0.00 / 0)

By all means don't read the rest of the comment. Why learn something about the way the health care debate is actually unfolding between the Tri-Committee bill and the HELP and Finance versions in the Senate?

Get self-important much?

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by: Bruce Webb @ Sun Jun 28, 2009 at 12:50:57 PM CDT

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Ok, I will! (4.00 / 1)

Excerpting:

For example say we have a public option... Or decided that ... Or say decide...  Once you have universal access there would seem to be little way to establish leak-through barriers that would prevent incremental movement of more and more people over to single payer over time.

First, thanks for proving my point that public option is no "line in the sand" because there's no there there. The "mush" is so great that it overwhelms "the goodness. I see definition after definition -- unlike single payer, which is embodied in legislation -- and because there are so many definitions, there's no way to hold anybody accountable for anything.

Second, thanks for this: "[T]here would seem to be little way..." Forgive me not being re-assured by "seems." Frankly, I, I assume like you, am not an expert in how legislation can be crafted. So, on this matter, I'll take a former state legislator, governor, and administration spokesperson as the subject matter expert on how legislation can be crafted. If that be argument from authority, in addition to evidence of intent, then so be it.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

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by: lambert @ Sun Jun 28, 2009 at 13:00:59 PM CDT

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That doesn't prove your point at all (0.00 / 0)

I could have said "no way" and been a dogmatic asshole. By saying "seems" I was issuing you an invitatation to spell out some examples about how you could in practice establish a firewayll between a public option and single payer. I gave some examples of how leak through would work, you provide nothing and then brag about how that validates your opinion.

"unlike single payer, which is embodied in legislation"

A version of single payer may be embodied in legislation but there are all kinds of varieties of single payer programs out there, Canada's single payer is not at all like Britain's single payer, which in turn is not like Germany's single payer. If you think 'single payer' is a hardened concept while 'public option' is hazy I suggest the mush here is somewhere between your ears.

"Frankly, I, I assume like you, am not an expert in how legislation can be crafted"

Why would you assume anything about me? For example one of my best friends in college is currently the floor director for the House Majority Leader. I suspect there is very little Rob doesn't know about the legislative process given his more than twenty years of progressively greater responsibility in moving legislation. For all you know we have lunch together every week. As it happens I haven't seen, spoke or written to him since I flew up to Seattle to visit him in around 1982, at this point he might not even recognize my name. But you had no way of knowing either way.

Assumptions, like opinions are dangerous. Like assholes everyone has one, and holds others. But far better to judge me on what I write or have written elsewhere than on your conclusions about my authority.

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by: Bruce Webb @ Sun Jun 28, 2009 at 14:03:08 PM CDT

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