Interesting gambit from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell here.
“Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office,” Mr. McConnell says. “But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday’s election. But we can’t plan on it.”
You see, in some ways this is a bit disingenuous; when it comes to killing bad bills and worse existing legislation, Congress has more tricks at its disposal than is commonly admitted*. Two-century old legislatures usually do. The question is going to be, will the Senate minority back up the new House majority when the latter uses some of those tricks? – Because I’ve talked to about a third of the new House freshman Republican class directly, and they have all said the same thing: they have plans when they get to Washington, DC. Plans that usually involve getting rid of Obamacare. And I imagine that the rest have similar sentiments.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*Mostly involving funding.
ObamaCare should certainly be repealed, completely, for several reasons.
But, can the Republicans present a plan for healthcare reform, which ends the greed of health insurance companies; breaks the nexus between healthcare businesses and politicians; and creates an environment in which the doctor-patient relationship, the essence of medicine, is free of external control from payers: government, private insurance carrier, or managed care?
My belief is that they can’t and won’t. They can’t because, so far, it seems that politicians take little notice of the effect of their proposals on individual doctor-patient relationships. Politicians do not seem to have developed the capacity to think in these terms and contemplate the downstream effects of their legislation on the health care of individual Americans.
They won’t because they don’t want to. Once they arrive in Washington,DC, they concentrate on re-election and dues paying to those, who were major financial contributors to them.
I have been told in the past that Republicans have too many dues to pay to seriously consider my ideas. I expect that it is the same for Democrats. Until politicians become honest, transparent civil servants, who understand that the medicine of medicine is primary and the business of medicine must assume a secondary supportive role, wonderful healthcare reform just won’t happen.
In America, the business of medicine is privatized (unbridled capitalism) and the medicine of medicine is socialized (the doctor-patient relationship manipulated and controlled by various payers and others). If politicians will change this reality, we could be on the way to wonderful healthcare reform. ObamaCare does nothing to change this. I doubt the Republicans will come any closer.
R. Garth Kirkwood, MD
http://www.equalhealthcare.org
doctork@equalhealthcare.org