Is Senate Health Care Bill Worth Passing? Yes

Putting aside for a moment that the Senate health bill is not the final bill (something the media and some on the Left seem to forget), is the current form of the legislation worth passing from a Democratic perspective? The answer is an absolute YES, and here are some reasons why.

Matt Yglesias of Think Progress and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post are two of the most intelligent Progressive bloggers, particularly when it comes to health care. Here are their thoughts on the Senate bill.

Yglesias

But to repeat—despite flaws, I think this is an excellent piece of legislation. Among other things, it represents a return, after fifteen years, of the idea that congress should be trying to pass major legislation that tackles major national problems. And even beyond that, it restores an even longer-lost tradition of congress trying to pass major legislation on specifically progressive priorities. Link

Yglesias also provides a more constructive strategy to Democrats who are not happy with the bill (versus slamming the President and other Democrats at a fever almost pitch equal to Teabaggers).

I’m sure there are other action-items people can think of. But I wanted to make clear that my point about Weber this morning wasn’t just that people should meekly accept compromises. It’s that you accept compromises and then keep on working to build more political power. You do it by contacting members. You do it by urging friends and colleagues to contact members. You do it by donating to and volunteering for good candidates. You do it by turning out and voting for the better candidate in the race even when that candidate is disappointing. You do it by urging viable candidates to mount risky primary challenges against incumbents who don’t reflect the real possibilities of their constituency. You do it by staying engaged, and working hard. Link

Klein

This is a good bill. Not a great bill, but a good bill. Imagine telling a Democrat in the days after the 2004 election that the 2006 election would end Republican control of Congress, the 2008 election would return a Democrat to the White House, and by the 2010 election, Democrats would have passed a bill extending health-care coverage to 94 percent of Americans, securing trillions of dollars in subsidies for low-income Americans (the bill's $900 billion cost is calculated over 10 years, but the subsidies continue indefinitely into the future), and imposing a raft of new regulations on private insurers. It is, without doubt or competition, the single largest social policy advance since the Great Society. Link

Al Giordano, who more than any other blogger, understands President Obama and is political strategy, sums up the choice that Democrats face:

And if this once in a lifetime chance to get the foot in the door with a health care law through Congress falters, it will likely be another 60 years before there will be another.

The unsubstantiated claims that this bill can be ripped up and the process can start anew ignore the lessons of the last six decades of US history. As Ted Kennedy understood, every issue has its moment and the iron has to be struck while it is hot. When “Hillarycare” crashed and burned in the 1990s, was there a second chance a year later? Nope. Not until now. If this bill gets killed, the game is over. That’s the fire that the bill killers are playing with.

Do it for the 30 million uninsured. Or if you don’t really care about poor and working folks (as seems evident to me reading the bill-killers’ “look at ME!” discourse) then at least go out and win this one - or get out of the way - for Teddy. Link

Wooster 912 Project Holds Meetings at PUBLIC Library?

The Wooster 912 Project holds monthly meetings at the Wayne County Public Library. Lets repeat — meetings at the PUBLIC library. How are public libraries primarily funded? By taxes and government grants. Can you say irony, or maybe more appropriately, hypocrisy?

PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'Death panels'

Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.

"Death panels."

The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a television ad. Sarah Palin posted it on her Facebook page. Link

The lie of the year wasn't committed by a talk show host like Rush Limbaugh (althouth it is probably already assumed most of what he says is a lie), but by the Vice President nominee of the Republican Party last year. And possibly the 2012 Republican candidate for president in 2012.

Democratic Presidents Create Twice as Many Private Sector Jobs as Republican Presidents

Not that you needed any more evidence to mock Republicans for calling Democrats Socialists, but if you want a devastating FACT, try this one out.

Since 1959, the average private sector job growth under four-year Democratic administrations is 11.7%. Under Republican administrations, it's 5.4%. Link

Part II: President Obama's Brilliant First Year

Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and a columnist for Newsweek magazine, responds to those critics who say Obama hasn't really done anything in his first year of office:

This conventional wisdom about Obama's first year isn't just premature—it's sure to be flipped on its head by the anniversary of his inauguration on Jan. 20. If, as seems increasingly likely, Obama wins passage of a health care reform a bill by that date, he will deliver his first State of the Union address having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency. This isn't an ideological point or one that depends on agreement with his policies. It's a neutral assessment of his emerging record—how many big, transformational things Obama is likely to have made happen in his first 12 months in office. Link

Chicago Tea Party Patriots Heckle Family Who Just Lost A Daughter and Grandchild

Truly appalling.

Like Medicare & Social Security? These Programs Were Far From Perfect at the Start

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post makes the point that I think many, including Democrats, have missed during this health care debate. Barring the passage of really bad legislation, getting an imperfect bill passed is better than nothing at all. Because the next time around it will be harder, not easier, to make the bill more robust.

Failure does not breed success. Obama's defeat will not mean that more ambitious reforms have "a better chance of trying again." It will mean that less ambitious reformers have a better chance of trying next time.

Conversely, success does breed success. Medicare and Medicaid began as fairly limited programs. Medicaid was pretty much limited to extremely poor children and their caregivers. Medicare didn't cover prescription drugs, or individuals with disabilities, or home health services. Link

Paul Begala, former advisor to President Bill Clinton, expands on this point in evaluting the evolution of Social Security.

No self-respecting liberal today would support Franklin Roosevelt's original Social Security Act. It excluded agricultural workers -- a huge part of the economy in 1935, and one in which Latinos have traditionally worked. It excluded domestic workers, which included countless African Americans and immigrants. It did not cover the self-employed, or state and local government employees, or railroad employees, or federal employees or employees of nonprofits. It didn't even cover the clergy. FDR's Social Security Act did not have benefits for dependents or survivors. It did not have a cost-of-living increase. If you became disabled and couldn't work, you got nothing from Social Security.

If that version of Social Security were introduced today, progressives like me would call it cramped, parsimonious, mean-spirited and even racist. Perhaps it was all those things. But it was also a start. And for 74 years we have built on that start. We added more people to the winner's circle: farmworkers and domestic workers and government workers. We extended benefits to the children of working men and women who died. We granted benefits to the disabled. We mandated annual cost-of-living adjustments. And today Social Security is the bedrock of our progressive vision of the common good. Link

John Judis of The New Republic echoes what Begala says about Social Security, stating:

[I]t was a bare shell of what it became in the 1950s after amendment. Benefits were nugatory. And most important, coverage was denied to wide swaths of the workforce, including farm laborers.

[T]he bill that the House passed last Saturday is considerably more robust that the original Social Security bill. Link

And there is the take away from this debate. We are on the precipice of passing a health care bill that is a more progressive than either Medicare or Social Security in their initial stages.