What is pricelessly funny about the 13 attorneys general suing over health care reform is that the point they are suing about is the one thing that the health insurance companies actually want, the requirement that everyone be insured.
Without such a requirement, people would just buy their insurance on their way to the hospital. And the health insurance companies wouldn't be permited to deny them coverage based on preexisting conditions, nor to cap their coverage. Result -- without the individual mandate, the health insurance companies would all be going bankrupt.
Would the Democrats care? Not one bit. Medicare would have to be expanded to cover people whose insurance companies had gone belly up, and fairly soon the result would be single-payer.
So if there is one part of the health care bill that the insurance companies do NOT want to see struck down, it is the mandate.
None of the insurance companies are going to support an effort to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional, and I would imagine those Attorneys-General are going to be getting a fairly direct memo on this pretty quick. And judges too.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Annie, shut up
In the nicest possible way, the University of Ottawa tells Ann Coulter to watch her mouth. Oh, snap.
Still crazy
Taylor Marsh is still flipping out.
Sorry, but if women's right to chose to have an abortion had to get thrown under the bus so that 35 million Americans could get health care, then so be it. It's simply not the end of the world -- abortions will still be available, even though at a cost. But there is no way that the Democrats could have approved health insurance reform without Stupack and his six votes, however dumb and wrong-headed he is.
And Hillary, bless her heart, would have been even quicker than Obama to make this kind of deal.
Sorry, but if women's right to chose to have an abortion had to get thrown under the bus so that 35 million Americans could get health care, then so be it. It's simply not the end of the world -- abortions will still be available, even though at a cost. But there is no way that the Democrats could have approved health insurance reform without Stupack and his six votes, however dumb and wrong-headed he is.
And Hillary, bless her heart, would have been even quicker than Obama to make this kind of deal.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Shorter
Mark Steyn is in despair about American health insurance reform, because the American people will be paying so much for health care in the future they will turn all wimpy and they won't want to start wars and overspend on their military anymore.
Shorter version
Shorter version
We're all Frenched now!I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of this stuff over the next few days.
Yes, they can
Well, they did it.
I didn't think the Democrats in Congress would actually do it, and it was a lot closer than I thought it should be, but they passed health insurance reform tonight.
I just hope the progressives learned something when they saw how close that vote actually was. Without the pander to the anti-abortion crowd, it wouldn't have passed.
And in spite of all the negativity on the progressive blogs about how inadequate this reform was, they missed the point -- exactly what this bill did was never that important, as Canada has discovered -- its just going to be argued about and changed over and over anyway. The important thing was the acceptance of two basic concepts: that the government has the right to tell insurance companies and health care providers what to do, and that everybody must be covered by health insurance including the poor (ie, black) people.
This whole experience will toughen the Democrats immeasurably -- they have been called names and screamed at by idiots, and survived -- there's nothing like shared experience in the trenches to make people realise they must either hang together or they will hang separately.
I didn't think the Democrats in Congress would actually do it, and it was a lot closer than I thought it should be, but they passed health insurance reform tonight.
I just hope the progressives learned something when they saw how close that vote actually was. Without the pander to the anti-abortion crowd, it wouldn't have passed.
And in spite of all the negativity on the progressive blogs about how inadequate this reform was, they missed the point -- exactly what this bill did was never that important, as Canada has discovered -- its just going to be argued about and changed over and over anyway. The important thing was the acceptance of two basic concepts: that the government has the right to tell insurance companies and health care providers what to do, and that everybody must be covered by health insurance including the poor (ie, black) people.
This whole experience will toughen the Democrats immeasurably -- they have been called names and screamed at by idiots, and survived -- there's nothing like shared experience in the trenches to make people realise they must either hang together or they will hang separately.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Gold
Due to this darn flu and a few complications, I haven't been able to follow the paralympics the way I did the Olympics, but here are some photos.
Lauren Woolstencroft wins Canadian gold:
Canada's Greg Westlake celebrates after scoring against Sweden:
Irek Zaripov of Russia celebrates after winning gold during the Men's 2.4km Pursuit Sitting Biathlon:
Lauren Woolstencroft wins Canadian gold:
Canada's Greg Westlake celebrates after scoring against Sweden:
Irek Zaripov of Russia celebrates after winning gold during the Men's 2.4km Pursuit Sitting Biathlon:
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
What is the matter in Quebec?
The Quebec Immigration minister tells Muslim women:
If you want to integrate into Quebec society, here are our values.Mean-spirited, petty, divisive, cruel, anti-women -- yeah, I'm sure people can hardly wait to move to Quebec these days to share values like those.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Great line of the day
Steve V notes that four out of five Albertans hated Harper's idea about changing the words of the national anthem:
Nice one chess master. Renaming Calgary International Airport to 'Trudeau Rocked' International would have garnered more popular support.
It is to laugh
What a ridiculous way to write a school curriculum.
And if you asked these Americans which country was the most advanced in the world, they would say "ours". Because that is what their teachers have been told to teach them.
And if you asked these Americans which country was the most advanced in the world, they would say "ours". Because that is what their teachers have been told to teach them.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Flu
Sorry for the lack of posts -- I've had a horrible flu since Wednesday and finally starting to feel human again tonight, sort of anyway.
More soon.
More soon.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Other shoe
Last week Atrios made this perceptive observation
I'm really not sure how we got from we don't torture, to that torture stuff we do isn't torture, to anyone who opposes torture hates America. Apparently that's where we are.I have no doubt that a similar pushback on Canada's Afghanistan outrage will be coming as soon as the Cons can move the dialog from defense to offense. I think we're already seeing the beginning of it when Harper implies that continued questions from the Liberals and NDP on what the Cons knew about prisoner toture is acutally an attack on the public service.
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