I imagine that, one way or another, they are going to pass this monumentally flawed health care entitlement legislation in the next few days making it against the law not to buy a health insurance policy but providing no not for profit alternative. The insurance companies must have the bottles of 1966 Dom Perignon ready to go while the execs there laugh their asses off. Personally, I think if our president really wanted to do the right thing, he would veto the bill and send it back to congress and let them know that he won't sign anything into law until it makes sense and can be passed in congress with more approval than just skating by on a couple of bought votes or some procedural effort of dubious constitutionality. It just seems too big, too important, too permanent, to do this way - and doesn't seem to address any of the core problems of cost controls outside of some wing and a prayer hope assuming "the Yen does this, the Dollar does that, and the Infrastructure does the other thing" (from OPM and the rubuttal here).I had such high hopes that we would actually get real reform, and get it now, because we need it bad. All we're actually getting, those of us who already have insurance and pay our own way, is another big tax increase. The folks on the hill no longer seem to care about what they are passing, only in passing something to say they did - no matter what it is. "Don't forget" they will say on the campaign trail this fall "that we were finally able to pass historic legislation mandating cleaner shit pails for very citizen of Uganda..." How the throngs will cheer.
Didn't they say it was supposed to be different this time around? If the republic fails or at best lapses into insignificance during our lifetime, I suppose we have only ourselves to blame. Such a disappointment. ~sigh~
Meanwhile, in an unrelated venue, Tam says:
"So the local news was running a blurb on the travel warnings for spring breakers in Mexico this morning, warning them to stay within one block of the beach, while camera footage showed an Acapulco swarming with grim-eyed, black-uniformed men with slung German assault rifles. Wow... ...We're living in the dystopian future of a Bruce Sterling novel."
Indeed, it certainly seems like it.
Update: (March 22, 11:22PM)
