"Bipartisan" farce

I think Obama has given bipartisanship a good try, and it didn't work. So it's time to cut the losses and the losers (Sen. Grassley, I mean you) and get on with passing a decent health care reform bill without the Republicans.

Arianna Huffinton got it right, I think, when she appeared on MSNBC's Countdown:

She argued that President Obama needs to give up his delusion that both parties and industry interests can all come together to achieve real health care reform. She said the president needs to realize that "there is a whole industry here working against reform and the president needs to stop acting as though everybody's interests are aligned." Arianna added that to accomplish meaningful reform with a public option and the ability to negotiate for lower drug prices, Obama should be saying: "If you are with us, come on board. If you are not, get out of the way."

I think he should also come out swinging and insist on his public health plan. It's the only way any significant savings are going to happen, and in fact even that is a small, pale imitation of what we should be working for: a single pay system.

The people would accept it, if you believe the polls. Sure there's opposition from the industries that would be affected. What's new about that?

We have to get over the idea that our first responsibility is to commerce and that the business of health care is more important than health care.

Go for single payer and phase it in over a long enough period of time for the insurance indurstry to adapt. It's not like there's no precedent for industry having to adapt to innovations. Do you see any typewriter manufacturers being propped up by governmental subsidies? They learned how to make computers or ATM machines or whatever. They adapted. So can Cigna and the Blues.

Ralph