Wednesday, July 29, 2009

On co-ops

It sure looks like the public option is going the way of the dodo, but while my opinion on it hasn't really changed, I'm beginning to think that liberals are placing too much stress on this one part of reform. In any event, the public plan is too compromised as it is--you can only get it if you're uninsured or a small business, etc. Good idea, but politically too explosive, it would seem.

Obama seems to be taking the right tack here. If it's possible to construct a national co-op that anyone can buy into, that can use Medicare rates, etc., then that could be fine. Maybe even better than the public plan under debate. I guess we'll have to see what happens. And it's probably the right decision to compromise here. To spend all your political capital on a plan that will cover just 15 million people seems silly, considering all the other good stuff on discussion.

And speaking of the other stuff, this is long overdue:
Barack Obama is going on the road today with a retooled pitch for health-care reform. In particular, he's emphasizing how reform will help the rest of us. To dramatize this, the White House has come up with the eight guarantees that will be written into health care bill.
It's worth looking at. As for the sluggishness of Obama's press operation on this, well, I guess he's still learning. It's easy to forget that the guy's only been president for six months.
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The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.