I hope my excellent friend and brother J_ forgives me for quoting without express permission but I thought he summarized well the current mess in a recent post at BaptistLife.Com.
What is even more interesting is how all of these Obama supporters, who spent a great deal of time and energy over the past 8 years decrying Bush’s spending and the serious increase in deficit spending, want to get this particular piece of legislation done before anyone has really had a chance to debate it.
This thread is [a] case in point. This is an economic stimulus bill. Why not keep the healthcare stuff out of it and reserve that for a debate on healthcare? Same goes for a lot of the other items.
I give Obama a great deal of credit for being able to manage a run and gun offense to get a bill loaded up with a virtual leftwing wishlist, call it a stimulus, declare that the world will end if it is delayed, all while providing signals that this is only the first step in his spending plans. May he stay in office long enough to have to deal with the fallout that reasonable folks like those at the CBO (and hundreds of credible economists) tell us is surely coming if this bill become law.
Of course, I give our former president even more credit for this. Were it not for Pres. Bush and the Drunken Sailor Republicans of 2001-2006, Obama might still be a Chicago political underboss.
What he said.
By the way at the risk of disappointing some of my conservative friends as much as I vehemently oppose the Obama-Pelosi-Reid “stimulus package” I am less unsympathetic toward changes in the American health care system. Quite frankly I wish we did have some sort of national health insurance or national health service. Yes I know what the potential problems are. I know about Canader. And I lived in Great Britain for five years. But it does bother me when people suffer and/or go broke because they are between jobs or whatnot.* If there was some way to provide basic health care for everyone without sacrificing quality and availability I think we should explore it. (That does not mean what Obama-Pelosi-Reid have in mind is the right answer.) I am fairly sure I have seen conservatives express concern about the whole “you have health insurance only because you have a job” thing – because it discourages job mobility.
But that in no way detracts from what I thought was a very well written post full of truth and common sense.
*When my wife switched careers a few years ago we had to get through three months without the normal health/hospitalization coverage she had as a state employee. I was beginning to experience severe foot pain but refused to go to the doctor because I did not want to pay the full cost. Because I waited so long scarring developed and three years later still have (although less severe) chronic foot pain. One could argue that was my choice and my fault. It is one small ancecdote to illustrate the problems with linking health insurance to employment status.
