Healthcare 'reform' passes! A step in the right direction

It sure was entertaining to watch on CSPAN last night. The House passed the Senate bill 219-212, then went on to pass the Reconciliation fixes. This bill will be sent to the Senate, which should get passed by simple majority. Hopefully, Obama can sign this by this weekend and we can move on to focusing exclusively on the economy, the deficit, carbon, and the mid term elections.

What are my thoughts on this bill? It's far from perfect. It gives too much away to Big Pharma, it doesn't tax all employer-based health care plans, it paints insurers as the only bad actors in the health care sector. My preferred system is a single-payer, "Medicare for all" type of program that cuts out insurers completely and leverages all 300+ million American's needs with doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and medical equipment providers. This is what the rest of the industrialized world has done. This is the only way that I can see to effectively manage costs. Tort reform and buying insurance across state lines, Republican's 'silver bullet' remedies to healthcare costs, don't amount to much savings. This bill looks very similar to what Republicans proposed as a counter reform to Clinton's 1994 healthcare propoal. It's also very similar to what Mitt Romney and Massachusetts enacted a couple of years ago. So Republicans are left with just being the party of 'No, no, hell no".

I agree with Dennis Kucinich and other Progressives who want even more reform, but I am hopeful that these incremental reforms will prove that even more reform is needed. But attempts to kill the bill because it doesn't do enough is foolish in today's political climate.

This is going to be a good week for the President.

Oh, and lets not forget that tucked into the reform bill is another reform, one that eliminates the middle man from student loans. See, right now a lot of student loans use government money, but the money is given out through third-party bankers. These banker made a tidy sum giving out the money, but if the student defaults on the loan Uncle Sam guarantees the loan will be repaid to the third party. So does it make any sense at all to have the third party at all? No. So this little reform eliminates the third party, saves something like $60 billion over 10 years. Part of this savings will be used to give out more Pell Grants, the other part will go towards reducing the deficit.

Andrew Samwick shows how the Republicans complaints of the process used by Democrats to get the bill passed are bunk.

David Frum thinks that passage of the health care bill is Republican's Waterloo.

For a rundown on what parts of the bill will try to control costs, Ezra Klein has that right here.

People are against the health care bill, but then are for it once they learn what's in the bill. This should worry Republicans who think that November will give them the House. William Saletan agrees that Republicans are risking much by opposing this bill.