pudge's Journal: Slowing It Down To Kill It

The unions are telling us that "when something goes slow enough, it's easy to kill it, dead in its tracks."

When I first saw this ad I thought they were making the argument for slowing down health care reform. But they are apparently trying to say we should speed it up.

See, to me, if something is easy to kill when it's moving slow, that's because it's pretty weak to begin with, like the snail in the ad. And besides, since when is it wrong for the public -- and their representatives -- to actually analyze and discuss a major change to the American way of life before enacting it?

Can anyone think of a really good bill that got a ton of press coverage that didn't pass because the public looked at it too much? And even if you can think of one (I can't), isn't that worth the price that democracy demands of us, having an informed electorate, and informed representatives voting on our behalf?

I am up front when I say I don't want this health care reform to pass. I am against government-controlled health insurance, against the Health Insurance Exchange, against price controls, against market controls, and so on. I don't want to amend this bill, I want it dead.

But even if I wanted it passed, I can't see myself violating my fundamental principles by pushing it through before the public could have a chance to take a good look at it.

Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.

Privatization of Social Security

[mwlewis]

The closest example I can think of was the privatization of social security, though I don't think it ever even got to the point where there was an actual bill. Though I suspect that if the media had been as critical of the current health care reform, or cap and trade, or stimulus, they might have shared the same fate as Bush's attempts at reforming social security.

Something must be done!

[Qzukk]

"This is something..."

Who knows, maybe someday insurance companies will get around to doing their job (i.e. risk reduction) rather than sitting around to skim off the top. The problem is that it's a field with a ridiculously high barrier of entry, so there's little motivation for established companies to change when nobody is going to show up tomorrow with a hundred billion dollars and decide to "make a difference".

Until then we get to dick around either doing nothing and hoping magic happens, or doing ine