One More Step

Invoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama.

Which is, when you get right down it it, the key reason why the party of Hoover is against this bill.

So did Traitor Joe just stab his friends in the GOP in the back over this?

The legislative equivalent of bribery seems to be the reason some votes were cast, which is why some folks are referring to Sen. Landrieu's vote as "the Lousiana Purchase."

The Senate really has 100 Blanche DuBoises, a full house of characters inclined toward the narcissistic. The health-care debate was worse than most. With all 40 Republicans in lockstep opposition, all 60 members of the Democratic caucus had to vote yes -- and that gave each one an opportunity to extract concessions from Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) won a promise from Reid to support his plan to expand eligibility for health insurance. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) got Reid to jettison a provision stripping health insurers of their antitrust exemption. Landrieu got the concessions for her money. And [Sen. Blanche] Lincoln (D-Ark.) won an extended, 72-hour period to study legislation.

Nelson's provision has got to go, whether in this bill or any other. The insurers' antitrust exemption is one of the reasons why things are as bad as they are. Those fuckers bleat about "competition" and "the free market", but almost everywhere you go, you'll find that they are not truly competing. You may have two choices for insurance, or even one. There is truly no competition for health insurance. It is an oligarchy and an extremely inefficient and corrupt one at that.