And the bill itself has been christmas-treed with miscellaneous crap. One of the provision is an outright gift to the nursing home industry, as it repealed a provision of Obamacare that encouraged home-health care over far more expensive nursing home care. So you have to wonder who got some
The bill fixes little, though. It does kick the can down the road a few months. Which seems to be about the best that we can hope from those fucktards in Congress.
I'm actually somewhat surprised that a deal was reached. Both sides can claim some sort of mandate on behalf of the voters, for the Teabagger congressmen largely hail from gerrymandered seats.*, ** They are only vulnerable to challenges from the even nuttier Right. Some of them may pay for this in 2014. They know that, which is why there will be less incentive for them to reach any deals as time goes on.
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* Not that the Dems would not have done the same thing if they controlled more statehouese in 2010.
** Not that I'm completely against congressional dysfunction. Hell, I'm counting on it to sink Feinstein's proposed gun-confiscation legislation.
The only xmas decoration that really concerns me in that bill is
ReplyDelete"extension of American Samoa economic development credit"
depending on how much of an economic "Guantanamo Bay" American Samoa still is.
Another provision,
"special expensing rules for certain film and TV productions"
could be evil, hinging on that key word "certain". My guess: it is for either religious or political propaganda groups.