Quote:
Originally Posted by fishbones
Spence, out of curiosity, how much of the bill did you read? You commented about it as being centrist in nature in another thread, which led me to believe you were pretty familiar with it's contents. It's a pretty big bill which would take a lot of time for someone to even scan through it. With you having a full time job during the week and being a weekend Cosmonaut, I just don't see how you could be that informed about it.
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I've read a bit of the actual bill and have rounded my opinions from diverse and trusted sources. As you suspect, I'm a pretty important person and don't have time for idle reading.
Centrist is a relative position. The middle today already accepts a hybrid government/free market system that has been repeatedly endorsed by both parties. Even under Bush Republicans passed a massive Medicare entitlement that was inherently anti-free market in principal.
The lack of a true public option to provide competition and the many concessions to the health care industry keep this bill from pulling too far left, even if it does mandate coverage which clearly is a left of center element.
Ultimately there's a negotiated trade off underneath all of this...
The Government gets near universal coverage...while the private Health Care Industry gets to make Americans pay premium for prescription drugs and adds millions of customers to it's portfolio.
So by some accounts both the Government and Free Market have wins and losses which doesn't pull us that far from where we are now.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go influence the lives of others.
-spence