There was only one thing about Dennis Kucinich that I liked. Just one thing: His staunch advocacy for single-payer.
But now, it seems, Dennis the Menace has turned:
WASHINGTON—Rep. Dennis Kucinich, in a reversal of his previous vote on health-care legislation, said Wednesday that he plans to vote in favor of a version of the bill set to come before the House.
Mr. Kucinich (D., Ohio), who has advocated for a single-payer health-care system in which the government would supplant private insurers, was one of 39 House Democrats to vote against the bill last November and was easily the most liberal lawmaker among those Democrats. At a news conference Wednesday, he said that “after careful discussions with President Obama; Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi; my wife, Elizabeth; and close friends, I’ve decided to vote in favor of this legislation.”
OK, so that explains it — if you looked like Dennis Kucinich, and had a wife who looked like Elizabeth, and she told you to vote for something, what would you do? If she told him to vote for a war resolution against France, he’d probably go for it. (And you never know; she might do that — she’s a Brit, you know.)
Seriously, I was hoping for some substance as to why he decided to vote for this watered-down mess. Maybe, if the reasons were good, I’d be for it, too.
All I got from this story was the fact that Dennis recently got a ride on Air Force One as part of the White House campaign to win him over. I worry about what else he might have been promised, because truly, I don’t agree with this guy about anything other than single-payer and his taste in dames.
Has anyone seen a good summary of what is about to be voted on? I haven’t recently, and I’d like to find one. Suggestions, anyone?
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The conservative blogosphere insists that this bill creates a slippery slope to a single-payer system. On the plus side, maybe they’re right.
Well, that would be wonderful, but I seldom trust “slippery slope” arguments. Slopes are seldom as slippery as alleged.
Slippery slope arguments are the province of those who either are too lazy to exercise judgment and monitor events or who would create fear in others who are too lazy to exercise judgment or monitor events.
That said, this Matt Warthen guy is funny!
At this point, I’ll be delighted to see health reform that helps anyone get health insurance. Perhaps they can amend it more later when people see that it does not cause the world to come to an end.
Nice, Matt… I made the same point to a conservative friend of mine who was arguing that the budget projections that make the bill appear to save money are just fiscal legerdemain. Maybe we won’t cut the deficit by $130 billion over ten years, but if they’re right and we do fall off the cliff into single payer we’ll be saving money by the bucketload.
I liked the piece on one of the ETV Radio shows, where a cardiologist bewails the reduced Medicare reimbursements, and the subsequent income reductions–because after all, even though cardiologists make many $100K a year, they don’t start making it until they are 30, but a family practice doc points out that primary care docs make less than half on average, yet still make around $200K a year…and they do a residency, too, albeit not quite so long.
The primary care doc was strongly in favor of changing from fee-for-service which incentivizes more and more tests and the like, to fee-per-diagnosis, which encourages frugality.
and yes, I WANT my doctor to be frugal. Even if health care were totally free, my time going to endless tests and the like is worth something, too. Don’t forget, either, that tests can turn up all kinds of false positives….
Doctors need to exercise judgment and accept some risk to justify their high rewards. CYA testing runs up a lot of bills.
It’s like the lawyers for the City of Columbia who far too often simply spot an issue and then advise against taking any action that *might* trigger a lawsuit. Look, any moron with a word processor and the filing fee can sue. Winning the lawsuit is what should be the issue. Sometimes you have to actually research and consider and exercise professional judgment. Professionals are paid to draw fine lines.