Choices

Because republicans always – ALWAYS – place a higher value on money and property than on human lives and health.

Yes, anything to improve human health is a “scam.”

But wars based on lies are not. Tax breaks that tilt way toward the most wealthy are not. Huge government bailouts of “too big to fail” corporations are not. Healthcare insurance monopolies and denial-of-benefits “death panels” are not.

But improving healthcare for Americans? That’s a scam.

Got it.

Want proof? What was the Bush-Delay-Frist healthcare plan?

And the republican answer is still: do nothing.

You shouldn’t sacrifice the good for the want of the perfect. This bill would vastly improve healthcare for millions of Americans who can’t afford it now, in spite of what the dean of Harvard Medical School said. I wonder how many grants he got from pharma for saying that?

In regards to the “multi-billion dollar entitlement program covering prescription drugs for the elderly,” that was designed to benefit pharma even more than the elderly (i.e. negotiating drug prices was made illegal). Again, republicans = money over health. ALWAYS.

The quality of healthcare for people who can afford it and/or have insurance in the U.S. is very good. Not great, but very good.

So, if this bill provides that same level of healthcare for millions of currently uninsured or uninsurable Americans, that is a good thing – it is an improvement over our current system of private insurance monopolies.

If it stops the denial of healthcare coverage to people for pre-existing conditions, that is a good thing.

On balance, this bill will dramatically improve healthcare availability in this country.

Other than your pie-in-the-sky pipe dream of a surplus of commoditized healthcare services where every sick person has the time and resources to shop around for the best price, you have offered no alternatives.

I wish that there was a reason to think that republicans care more about people than money, but neither you nor your party’s leaders have offered any healthcare solutions that demonstrate otherwise.

“If this was all the bill did, it would pass with near-unanimous support.”

Which is exactly why it was proposed and signed into law when Bush, Delay, and First were in charge. They really stood up to the insurance companies, didn’t they?

Oh, wait. Never mind.

It isn’t a “bad bill” now, but let’s talk after reconciliation. If it doesn’t have the public option, then it will be a bad bill.

I know that that probably isn’t your idea of what makes it a “bad bill,” but I haven’t read anything from you or your republican party that says why this is a bad bill (other than it threatens the big profits and death panels of the private insurance industry).

It is easy to shoot down the other guy’s idea when you have none of your own and didn’t even try when you had the chance.

“And it’s easy to blame the last guy to justify the ramming through of legislation that will make the situation worse in the long run.”

I haven’t used that for a justification at all, and I would not, because I think that this bill is a massive improvement over the status quo. I am simply pointing out that when your team had the ball to run with, you did nothing. If you think that this is bad bill, you have no one else to blame but your own party for not acting on HCR when you had the chance.

The republicans were able to peel off a few blue dogs for almost anything they wanted – they just never proposed HCR. Plus, the republicans used reconciliation on a number of occasions, like tax cuts, so they could have passed HCR without a single Dem vote. You know it and I know it.

“Plus, we would be doing the same thing today anyway.”

I am not sure what you mean by this. The second part of your statement is absurd. Tilting the tables so money flows from the lower and middle classes to the wealthiest Americans is what your party is all about. That is the definition of republican wealth redistribution. Talking about locking “as many Americans as possible into a life of dependency on the government” is ridiculous from a party has continuously sponsored the biggest welfare for the rich and corporations whenever it gets power. $700 billion in corporate bailouts, billions of dollars in government subsidies to massively profitable oil companies, and you have the audacity to claim it is the Dems feeding government dependence.

Trillions of tax dollars for wall street millionaires, oil companies, and militarists while children living in poverty continued to rise and more and more people went without health insurance. That is the republican mission accomplished.

A vibrant and growing middle class is the only hope for an economic recovery. Under republicans, the middle class shrank, the wealthiest controlled more and more of the nation’s wealth making it non-productive, and poverty grew much larger.

You say you want to solve problems, but you only argue for the same old solutions and non-solutions that everybody can see haven’t worked. People who hate government or say that “government is the problem” should never be put in charge of it again.

“Plus, we would be doing the same thing today anyway.”

So you write a bad sentence and then blame the reader for not understanding it. Who is the “we” and what is the “same thing”?

You may have opposed TARP, but you didn’t oppose the policies that led to it. You may have opposed Iraq, but you didn’t oppose the people and party responsible for it. You may want economic growth and fiscal responsibility, but the people and party that you support have always given us the opposite.

You may be for some kind of HCR, but you support people who have done everything that they can to stop it for decades.

You seem like one confused person.

Indeed.