Stuff & Nonsense

It looks like Sunday will be the big day for the health care bill, with the House prepared to vote on the legislation that previously passed the Senate, as well as on a second piece of legislation that would amend the Senate bill (and subsequently require passage by the Senate).  As things stand right now, every House Republican intends to vote no, along with some indeterminate number of Democrats; my guess, though, is that the number of Democrat no’s is insufficient to kill the bill, because otherwise it’s very unlikely the leadership would ever have scheduled the vote.

Since you asked what I think — what?  You didn’t ask?  Well, it’s my blog, so I’ll tell you anyway — I support the bill.  Not because it’s perfect or even particularly good, but because it’s a necessary first step.  If this particular bill, which has spent a year being debated in Congress and pushed by an administration that was willing to gamble its future on both its passage and its success, did not pass, it would be roughly a gajillion years before another bill like it merited serious consideration.  I’m a believer in incremental solutions, and I think that this bill is a good start.

Even more than that, I think that the opposition are, well, tools.  Republican Rep. Phil Roe of Tennessee had this to say in response to the scheduling of the vote:

“The health care decision should be made between a patient, their family and their physician. Not the insurance company, not the federal government. And this is a great intrusion by the federal government in that decision-making process.”

Nevermind that 50 million Americans have no physician because they have no insurance.  As we know, Phil Roe is content because the medical insurance for Congress is plenty good:

“Among the advantages: a choice of 10 healthcare plans that provide access to a national network of doctors, as well as several HMOs that serve each member’s home state. By contrast, 85% of private companies offering health coverage provide their employees one type of plan — take it or leave it.

Lawmakers also get special treatment at Washington’s federal medical facilities and, for a few hundred dollars a month, access to their own pharmacy and doctors, nurses and medical technicians standing by in an office conveniently located between the House and Senate chambers.”

Did I mention that Roe was also a doctor for 31 years?  I wonder how many insurance dollars he collected in that time, and how many patients he treated who were uninsured?