Tom provided the following in a comment but I thought he added measurably to the discussion the nation should be having (instead of the one we are having) and so wanted it to have more visibility.
I gave up stuff like this when I went from political to wine blogging, but yesterday I got into an email argument with a friend and spent much of the afternoon reading through sections of the House version of the bill. The sections I read focused on whether the bill would make the government plan mandatory, as is widely believed.
I think I read about 50 or 60 pages of it, legal language with lots of references to other parts of the legislation and even standing laws going back to the 1950s. And I’ve got to say: this law is really well thought out. (Keeping in mind that it won’t get really cluttered with special interest crap until it goes to conference.) The protections in the law for people who don’t want to give up their private insurance are detailed and comprehensive.
It got to be kind of fun. My friend would email me a complaint, and I’d go find the relevant portion of the legislation and discover that the rightie scare story he was reading had the law exactly wrong. It’s going to forbid companies from offering private insurance! No, it’s not. It’s going to force me into the government plan! No, it’s not. If I have another kid, that kid will have to go into the government plan while the rest of the family stays in the private plan! No, it’s not. If I decline the government plan, I’ll have to pay a tax penalty! No, you won’t.
The legislation bends over backwards to let people and companies make their own choice, but to hear the opposition tell it, it’s a Nazi takeover. Instead of town meetings, politicians should host small-group readings of the legislation. I thought the afternoon was fascinating.
There are things in the law worth debating. (For example: The tax on small business seems to me kind of extreme, “small business” being defined by size of payroll, with the tax kicking in at $250,000. That’s a small, small business.) But it’s amazing, after an afternoon of exchanges with a friend who is a serious wingnut, that absolutely none of the complaints he raged over turned out to be true in any way, shape or form. That’s a pretty good batting average, if you think about it. Almost like someone is deliberately making things up.
Please ask Tom to address this:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/12/gop-congressman-there-are-death-counselors-authorized-in-the-health-care-bill/
This whole thing is just so stupid. These protesters can disrupt all the meetings and yell and scream all they want.
An overwhelming majority of Americans voted for the President – for whom health care reform was a major campaign plank. Likewise, Democrats who supported health care reform were voted in huge numbers into the House and Senate.
Why are we letting the minority – the LOSERS – run the debate? I can understand questioning the specifics. But the question of whether or not to do this was already answered, in November.
I will add to Jill’s comment that health care reform was also part of McCain’s campaign platform.
Mark, last I heard we all still die, so I’d say death counseling is a good thing with nearly universal application, as I’m sure you know. I don’t know the specifics. Maybe Tom does.
There’s no need to analyze the bill — The fix is in:
nytimes article
Tom doesn’t have to address “death counselors” because the AARP already has.
The law provides for the reimbursement of physicians for end-of-life counseling. That is, sitting down with your doctor before you’re terminally ill and deciding what level of care you want at the end of your life. Do you want to die with tubes running down your throat, or do you want to die at home with your family? Do you want to live years on a respirator, of be allowed to die naturally?
Far from being ominous, this provision gives individuals control over their own destiny. If you want every heroic effort expended to keep your heart beating no matter what, you can do that. It is, like most of the things my friend worried about, a twisted reading of a protection of individual rights, not a usurpation of individual rights.
It’s also instructive that some of the loudest voices on the right — I’m talking to you, Newt Gingrich — were advocates of living wills until the opportunity arrived to create outrage among the ignorant, angry Republican base. You want to talk usurpation: the right is usurping the American public’s right to meaningful political discourse.
It’s hard to prove that something isn’t. It’s much easier to prove that something is. The idea that government is sneaking a program of euthanasia into the most scrutinized law since the last time we tried to reform health insurance is sufficiently absurd that the burden of proof needs to be on those claiming a “death panel” provision exists, rather than those who say it doesn’t. You will find that crazy people do not often offer proof that their delusions are real. They simply continue to believe what is unreal. That’s today’s Republican Party, in a nutshell — so to speak.