Needle in a Haystack

This is one of the very few thoughtful, ideology-neutral things I have read about health care reform in the past... um... forever.

The new compromise
To me, the far more disturbing trend here is the nature of the "compromise" that was ultimately reached. It wasn't a compromise between Democrats and Republicans, or "big" government and "small" government, or "liberal" and "conservative", but rather it was a pretty clear compromise between what the party in power wanted to do and what the relevant corporations wanted. The bill is not more friendly to Republicans, but rather more friendly (if not downright subservient) to the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies.

What should terrify everyone is that this exact same compromise was continuously played out during the Bush years as well. Outside of his failure to pass Social Security Reform -- a move which was staggeringly unpopular with the people -- all of his major policy changes ended up being compromises not with the Democrats but with the relevant lobbies. What was conservative (or liberal) about the prescription drug bill that he passed? What was conservative (or liberal) about the telecom amnesty bill?

There is one major party in the US and even when the Democrats or Republicans appear to be in charge, the results say otherwise.

—pza