From Reich’s blog:
“The Senate Finance Committee is set to vote Tuesday on a healthcare bill that just got a seal of approval from the Congressional Budget Office and is very likely to garner the vote of Republican Senator Olympia Snowe — a twofer that gives the bill preeminence over four other healthcare bills that have emerged from House and Senate committees over these long months. Unlike those bills, though, the Senate Finance bill won’t it have a public insurance option to compete with private insurers. Nor does it allow Medicare to use its bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices, or adequately subsidize millions of middle-class families who will be required to buy health insurance that will be hard for them to afford. In short, it’s a great deal for private insurers and Big Pharma but not such a great deal for middle-class Americans.”
See more here.
Reich seems especially disillusioned with the prospect of progress being made in D.C. Note this statement from the post:
“My friends in the Administration and on the Hill repeatedly tell me ‘don’t make the perfect the enemy of the better,’ or words to that effect. Politics is the art of the possible, blah blah blah. True. But in each of these areas — healthcare, financial regulation, environment, and jobs — the ‘better’ is really not that much better. Forget perfect; anything that offered real reform would suffice for now. But in every case, what should be the centerpieces of reform are being left out.”
Timing is as important as a positive attitude!
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