Saturday, January 23, 2010

What health care reform means

To all of us.

Update: Emptywheel responds.

8 comments:

Steve Bates said...

I am sorry, but that post is a GROSS misrepresentation of three things: what the current healthcare reform bill actually contains, why many liberals (including me) oppose it, and... not incidentally... what it is like to live with incurable mental disease, due to physical causes, in a loved one. I am sorry that this person, who has obviously suffered greatly, is determined based on whatever agenda to blame liberals for a far broader, deeper failure of Congress and Pres. Obama to deal constructively with healthcare funding reform. But I'll be GODDAMNED if I'll put up with being blamed so shamelessly. If you have experienced what that man... and I... have experienced, feel free to use it to grind your own political ax. Otherwise, STFU. Enough is enough. I'll be back to your site when I see reassurances that your readers will not be subjected to obscene, egregious misrepresentation about the evils of liberalism. Email is probably a good way to communicate with me about this. Or not... it's your choice.

Anonymous said...

well, wow. That's quite the reaction up there. Wondering what triggered it.

Steve Bates said...

Ali, read the post ellroon linked. The linked post literally demonizes liberals for their (my) position on the Senate healthcare reform bill... and it uses a circumstance not unlike my own to tug at the heartstrings to accomplish the demonization. I will NOT be demonized, and I am pained to see ellroon, of all people, pointing others to such an egregiously slanted, assaultive and yes, dishonest post.

Ali, I do hope you do not have to suffer the death of a parent due to a degenerative disease not adequately covered by your country's healthcare funding system to reach an understanding of why someone... liberal or otherwise... might feel ill-treated by the demonization. It just isn't that complicated.

Steve Bates said...

ellroon, thanks for posting the link to emptywheel's reply; it's a start. IMNSHO, Kurtz has a lot to answer for, posting the original letter with all its invective against people of good will... good will and in my case similar circumstance. I do not apologize for my anger (I'm still angry 45 minutes later), but I do regret you caught the brunt of it rather than Kurtz. Yes, I emailed him; if he's going to be a reporter, he needs to learn how not to get suckered.

ellroon said...

That's ok, Steve. If I get sloppy and post something I don't fully understand, I need to be ..um.. informed. Emphatically.

Thanks for the heads up. I will go back and educate myself.

Dusty Crickets said...

Digby and D Day among others have supported Marcy's assertion that the numbers just aren't there..

Digby:

"The fact still remains that that even if every liberal voted for the Senate bill, they still wouldn't have the votes because of Stupak and his handful of anti-choice zealots. And I'm seeing nothing out there that indicates that they have changed their minds in the wake of Brown's victory and are now persuaded to vote for health care reform if only those damned liberals weren't making such a fuss. Indeed, quite the opposite:.......I would love to know which of Stupak's ten or eleven anti-choice zealots are going to change their votes and vote yes now? Because unless they do, there will be no bill no matter what the liberals do.

It's driving me nuts that people don't see where the real roadblock is here, but I suppose it's always easiest to blame the hippies --- "

So it's inaccurate to blame Reps. Grijalva and Nadler....but MD seems to feel that he and his family is better off with the Senate bill than no bill at all...no reform at all.....maybe not ..maybe so..,
I'm not sure I'd call it a" Gross misrepresetation", but then I haven't been though what Steve has..

Steve Bates said...

Dusty - precisely; there aren't enough votes with or without liberals (where did the word "liberal" reappear, anyway, and used the way Republicans used to use it, as if it belonged in a dictionary of obscenities?), but damned if we do not get the blame. I'm sure the man who wrote the "sob story" did not think he was misrepresenting his circumstance, and that he really has been taught to blame liberals, but jeez, what's with all the "journalists" waving his post about like a red flag? That, not the poor man's original post, is the core of the dishonesty.

mahakal said...

Okay, the Senate bill is dead. Filibustered by Scott Brown, to be sure, if the slightest change is made, and the House of Representatives would be DERELICT to lay down their own coequal authority to just rubber stamp it unchanged.

We have one and ONLY ONE route, reconciliation, and we can pass a public option. No legislation passes except by this route.

50 is the new 60.