Not only is the sales pitch fundamentally dishonest (and incompetently, transparently so), but people aren't buying it, and they're still hellbent on ramming it through. Why? Because It's the Right Thing. That we haven't read. Kind of breathtaking, if you take a step back and marvel at it.

Doesn't look like they have the votes even in the House at present, much less the Senate. That deadline is sort of a mirage. No matter how far you walk toward it, it's still the same distance away.

Now you can too! (3.27MB pdf)

AMA, AARP back House health care bill

And it went a little something like this.

"Hey, I need a new car," I said.
"We can't afford a new car," she said.
"Well! We could certainly afford your new car, and this house, which was your idea, and we could afford to clothe, feed, and shelter our child–which, I remind you, was your idea."
"Hey, you're right! Go get yourself a new car. You deserve it."

Once we realized it was her fault I couldn't afford a new car, suddenly the decision to get a new car anyway became that much easier.

You have not read a 2,000-page bill in one day. I'm callin horse-pucky.

The AARP supports anything that enables them to sell insurance, and the AMA was blackmailed into it by threats of having their payments cut by 21% next year.

And none of them have read it either.

But few pieces of legislation taking on so large a problem get it perfect out of the gate. That should be obvious to any rational person. And Congress is not ignoring its consitituents -- that's more hyperbole. Even Rasmussen shows a majority of people want reform and think we need it. They get scared about specific legislation because critics keep telling them healthcare reform is going to give their children cancer and destory the United States as we know it -- more hyperbole.

And you have the gall to accuse those supporting this bill of misrepresentation. But that's the beautiful thing about selling fear -- you never run out of credibility. Especially since, if you do it well, then people will never risk trying the things that would prove you wrong.

You personally don't like the federal government spending money. On anything. And you'll say anything to keep that from happening. You may even believe it. I get it.

. . . if you ultimately went out and were able to buy a new car, then you obviously could afford it all along. You just had to cut through the bullshit about why it could not be done and you had to be dishonest as to how you did that because this has apparently become the status quo for getting things done in your household.

My wife and I use compromise sometimes too. We just try to be more honest than you are about our priorities.

That is why I post on the Fray, so as to have sinister influence on the direction of national policy. Many Blue Dogs are reading this very post, in fact. And I'll say anything to achieve my goals.

And you have the gall to accuse those supporting this bill of misrepresentation. [did I stutter?] ... critics keep telling them healthcare reform is going to give their children cancer and destory the United States as we know it -- more hyperbole.

Was that intentional irony? I can never tell.

Heck, you're just upset because the latest attempt to shove the thing through this weekend before anyone reads it has foundered on the rocks of, um, still not now having the votes, or having ever had the votes.

This is doubtless due to we humble and tireless spreaders of hyperbole.

That wasn't an actual conversation. It was a reductio ad absurdum. My point is that blaming Bush for the wretched state of the country's finances doesn't make massive health care reform any more affordable–even if he does deserve the blame, and he does.

You assumed two things. First, you assumed that when the wife says, "We can't afford a new car" that this is absolutely true and not some sort of bias or even purposeful evasion on her part. That doesn't make the husband's approach any more ethical but it does not make his desire to buy a car necessarily irresponsible.

You also assumed I was saying we should spend a lot of money on healthcare reform because Bush spent money on bad things. More precisely, I argue we shouldn't use having overspent money on frivolities in the past as the reason why we can't spend money on critically important things now. If the wife in your hypothetical said their child needed an operation, no parent would argue "they couldn't afford it" because both had bought cars they couldn't really afford in the past. No, they would do what needs to be done because it is the right thing to do.

I do not think the real problem is that American cannot afford healthcare reform but we don't want to afford it even though most of us realize we should make the effort to get it done because it is the right thing to do. "The budget won't allow it" is a cheap excuse in this instance, in my opinion.

I know you're not saying that we should spend money on health care reform because Bush spent money on bad things. But having overspent on frivolities (to use your nice phrase) does make a difference in what we have to spend right now. As you eloquently put it, we couldn't actually afford to cut taxes and fight a couple of wars simultaneously, which, sadly, makes it difficult to pay for more massively expensive stuff right now. I realize this is terribly unfair.

I don't get why you're claiming that the budget is a "cheap excuse". This is what we're looking at as far as future deficits: link. The image is hosted on the Heritage Foundation's blog, but the source is the Washington Post, so don't let a partisan link scare you away. That's pretty terrifying.

You personally don't like the federal government spending money. On anything.

Not to speak for Urq, but I'm guessing that he would not be opposed to the federal government spending money on border control, defense, or Harlequin-related matters.

Seed:

What you can not afford is to do nothing which the increases under private insurance will outstrip the cost of universal healthcare. We can spend trillions for defense and the rescue of W$; but, we argue over the rescuing of those who have no healthcare or healthcare insurance or have healthcare insurance under private plans. If you have a private plan it is not insurance and can disappear in a day.

I wonder if fascists in other countries were/are as willfully and stupid as these foks are. I fear them, as all zealots do. There has been very thoughtful and well-spoken coverage and commentary about this bizarre event on MSNBC (in the evening) but nothing on CNN and surprisingly, nothing much about it from the Washington Post although, the paper spent all day Wednesday crowing and rotating photos of Republican winners in Va and New Jersey, Absolutely nothing about NY-23rd - just a mention tucked in between articles about the elections. I'm convinced the beltway establishment and the msm think that President Obama's presidency is nothing more than an experiment, he has to prove himself every single day, he's been under more critical scrutiny since he took office than Bush was in the eight, long, murderous years he was in the White House. Just think if Pres. Obama took off for his "ranch" (in Texas! lol) every other weekend, what the media would say?

The thing that galls me about the Democrat plan is the individual mandate: throwing the responsibility on all of us individually to purchase private (in most cases for profit) health insurance or be fined. And this coming during the worst recession in 26 years, at least. That smacks of 'let them eat cake'. It is a textbook example of fascism in my book--to require people to patronize private business under pain of penalty. Instead of learning from European solutions, the Dems crafted a 1,990 page Rube Goldberg plan more complicated than the Medicare drug plan passed by the DeLay congress in 2005. That the Repukes call it "socialism" is idiocy. But if the Repukes aren't as dumb as we think, there may be method in their madness, and they may be craftily playing a winning hand. After the folks get saddled with an unpopular mandate to buy crappy and expensive insurance, what is to prevent employers from easing up on providing their workers health insurance? The workers would end up blaming Democrats for this state of affairs. While most people are focused on the potential for more hikes in premiums that the insurance companies are threatening if this bill passes, the reality is that premiums have been rising for years with no 'socialized medicine'.Insurance companies that collectively eat up about 30% of private healthcare dollars spent have been--and will remain under the Democratic plan-- in the drivers seat. How is this progress?

So premiums will continue rising, employers will stop insuring their workforces, individuals will be stuck with the mandates to buy unaffordable insurance, and government which is borrowing like there's no tomorrow promises to pick up some of the tab for those who don't make enough money to pay for their insurance. Who trusts government? I see a lot more downside than upside.

Why should employers have to be responsible for their employees health insurance? If we had govt. supported universal health care, that would take the burden off of thousands of employers who have only a small work force and they would feel free to hire more employees. Also, Medicare/Medicaid is reputed to be very efficient, this might extend to universal health care if we had it. People could still be given the option to buy their own private insurance if they choose to, with separate waiting rooms in Dr's offices for them ...