Obama at 350
From Zanecorpwiki
- Health care labors along, and I'm increasingly worried that it'll be a net negative. Can't turn down for prior conditions, and other positives are there, but there's also huge give-aways to drug companies. Far from being reformed, insurance companies may end up with a lot of free money and bigger profit margins for less work. Worst of all, there's now almost no notion of Shaking Up a Failed System
- Finance reforms an absolute disappointment. Almost no chance of any real change.
- On the plus side, economy does look to be coming back. Do have to give credit for (it seems) smoothing out the bottom, but seriously... does our ambition only reach so far as slightly less stumbling through the next boom-bust cycle? After all, we do understand the problems and how to fix them.
- The Nobel Peace Prize is now a joke. They gave it to Obama (I guess) as a snub to Bush and the Neocons... Obama's speech was pretty good as a speech and well received (outside of the room at Oslo at least). Problem is, just war is a joke too.
- Transparency? Pretty much out the window at this point.
- Human rights... closing of Guantanamo not yet accomplished, but that's not surprising (and I don't mean that cynically). It's a hard nut to crack and there's lots of other stuff going on. About the best thing that's happened so far is the announcement of trials in civilian courts. I for one am a big believer in justice in general, and the American criminal courts in particular. Of course, the one really good and surprising thing Obama's actually accomplished so far has been heavily criticized... doesn't anyone actually believe in the strength of America?
Personally, I still believe that Obama is trying and failing. I also don't much care what his motivations are, just the results. It's worth pointing out, though, that many of the problems are systemic rather than with Obama's policy. You've got a situation where liberal democrats who really won the election wanted a single payer system, then compromised on a public option. Lieberman, pretty much single handedly killed that. So the liberals compromised on expanding Medicare. Lieberman killed that too.
The problem wasn't that he killed it, so much as how he killed it. By simply refusing to consider it. The reason he gave, that it would add to the deficit, are bullshit. The Congressional Budget Office, however, disagreed. No problem in disagreeing, but you'd have to bring some ammunition to the table rather than just make statements. Of course, the CBO isn't perfect, but they're track record is as good as anyone else's and there's no good evidence for internal bias.[notes 1]
What we're seeing here is not debate, it's just sound byte generation and it's ruining our chances of getting good policy. Not just on health care, but everything.
Notes
- ↑ CBO Forecasting Record; some would argue that the record has been bad, but it's been no worse than any other predictions. This is to say it very well may be that the CBO is wrong, but you can't just say it's wrong without putting forward something better and we don't have anything better. There is therefore no basis for Lieberman's statements. The biggest reason the CBO "gets it wrong" (along with everyone else) is that administrations change policy. As when the CBO projected a budget surplus and Bush used that to slash taxes. It's not really surprising that there was no surplus. That's not a case of the CBO getting it wrong, it's a case of politicians fucking up.
