In this analysis in Forbes, Dan Gerstein calls Harry Reid's decision to opt for a public option in the Senate health care bill the beginning of a "clean ideological street fight over the role of government." Well, at least one thing is now clear.
Monday's big news that Harry Reid was opting for the public option in the Senate health care bill provided one of those rare clarifying moments in American politics that actually exceeded the hype it generated. In one fell (and potentially felling) swoop, the soft-spoken Senate Majority Leader gave Democrats sole ownership over the riskiest experiment in social policy since the New Deal, gave the kiss of death to Obama's still-born hope of a new post-partisan era and, most significantly, cemented the reactionary battle lines that will likely shape our national elections for years to come.
1 comment:
thanks for the distortions Suissa
1. medicare was a bigger"experiment" than this. Of course your folks are simultaneously telling seniors to be wary of a single penny cut from their medicare benefits and decrying govt involvement in healthcare (and your guys opposed medicare when it was first adopted).
2.the medicare drug benefit of W was far far larger than any public option particularly when all the states run by your side will opt out
3. I would rank fighting a war and cutting taxes simultaneously for the first time in US history a much more far reaching "experiment"
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