The new name for #tcot.
The sobbing, the whining, the shrieking, the out-of-control apocalyptic hysteria over the passage of a health care reform bill so conservative that Richard Nixon would have loved it is really something to behold. I wonder what would happen if they’d passed single payer health care instead of just a few lame little insurance reforms!? Not that I mean to understate the positive effect these reforms will have on some people, but the vast majority will find that life goes on, the sky remains unfallen, abortion remains unfunded by public money, the death panels won’t have started calling the Roll of the Doomed and the insurance policy they currently hold is as rotten as ever, just the way they like it. In another 6 months, health care reform horror stories will have been all but forgotten, and people will be shaking their heads and wondering “What was that all about?”
David Frum makes some excellent points, from a conservative perspective. The GOP decided early on to cast their lot with the furious brainless extremists in their midst and refuse to legitimize the Obama administration by allowing it as major a legislative achievement as health care reform. Had they chosen instead to work in a bipartisan manner, it could have been their achievement too. Now, with not one Republican vote having helped pass reform into law, the GOP will forever be known as the Party of Fuck You, the Party of No Healthcare, the Party of You Lie! and Baby killer!, the Party of Bullshit about Death Panels and Government Takeovers, and the Party of Pre-existing Conditions and all the rest of the odious villainy visited on American citizens by the health insurance industry.
Wear that in November, motherfuckers. It looks great on you.
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/tny_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
unrepentant old hippie 
Frum’s excellent points come not from his own brain but straight from Obama himself, during the GOP retreat’s Q & A where he handed their asses to them.
Indeed. It’s amazing really — they had so many chances to get on board and start acting like a functioning opposition and now they cry about bipartisanship. FAIL.
David Frum’s father is Dr. Murray Frum, a dentist.
As the son of a medical practitioner, young David would
be given the best treatment by doctor friends of the
family as a professional courtesy.
I’d like to ask him how moving to the US changed his
view of universal healthcare particularly in view of
his childhood of privilege in regards medical treatment.
—-
Oh yes, the Republicans have buried themselves nearly
alive with their refusal to work with the government
to produce a workable healthcare scheme. It will live
on as their legacy for several decades–particularly with
those in lower income brackets and those who have been
greatly hurt by the present system and those who have
lost loved ones and those who now have irreversible
life situations.
It’s amazing what becomes a party’s legacy.
Our Conservatives had Mulroney’s drinking to cope with
and Diefenbaker’s cancelling Avro Arrow and the devalued
Canadian dollar.
The American Republicans have their own intransigence
to live down during the next 2 decades.
What I find so mind-numbingly bizarre was that this is the Republican plan of only a few years ago. There is nothing that was in here that Republicans haven’t proposed at one time or another.
Far from being socialism, this kept an unravelling system in private and for-profit hands, yet addressed some of the worst aspects of the healthcare system. It was a conservative plan. It was a business friendly plan. Heck, it was almost identical to Romney’s plan down to even the individual mandate.
Republicans were in favour of it. So that makes all the howler monkey screeching even more disingenuous.
Torontonian – As a Canadian, David Frum knows good and damn well that what just got passed is a long way from single payer, and even a public option isn’t the end of the world. Especially when private insurers are allowed to compete. In fact it is a very conservative bill.
Frum has a piece up today at NatPo which points out that the bill is a lot like Romneycare in Massachusetts. It’s also similar to a counter-health care reform bill proposed by the GOP in response to “Clintoncare” in ’93. It’s more conservative than what Nixon was proposing in the 70s. There was a lot in this bill that the GOP should have been able to live with, if they could only live with the Democrats being the ones to pass it and not them.
They had their chance and blew it.
toujoursdan
Exactly. As I said above, it’s like Romneycare, and the GOP counter-proposal to Clintoncare.
If the Dems had started negotiating at Single Payer, this bill could have been presented by the GOP as an alternative that would have been acceptable to everyone. It would have been a bipartisan bill and the GOP could have taken credit for it. But they were determined not to let Obama have this legislative victory — they voted against their own amendments, FFS. That is all this was about — for some insane reason, they thought they could hitch their wagon to the nutcases and win.
And now they’re screwed. When people start realizing that this bill isn’t so bad after all, they might start asking Why the GOP never brought in something like it. Even if they don’t ask that question, the GOP will be remembered as the party who fought these reforms tooth and nail.
If they think they’re going to ride that pig to electoral victory in November, I think they are sadly mistaken.
and i hope it sticks!
p.s. i love your blog.
Thanks, masakosan!