Was any previous effort at reform -- expanding voting rights, civil rights, environmental protection

[villager]

--as botched as this one?

Allowed to turn into a bill that is as much its own opposite, as the thing the rhetoric claimed it would do in the first place?

Did a weak congress allow EPA legislation to come with strip mining provisions? Civil Rights legislation to have an "exclusion" where there could still be some "colored" drinking fountains someplace?

Etc.?

Is this a classic textbook fuck-up? A sign of the permanent far-right decay of America? A sign that that the "two" party system is really "Dead Man walking?" or what?

[DJ13]

1. Classic diversionary politics

Make the issue so confusing to all involved that provisions no one would publicly support designed to be a perpetual conduit of government money to an entire industry gets inserted without any fanfare because people are too busy hating on Kucinich.

[ipaint]

2. That's exactly why abortion was thrown in the mix.

What better way to avert attention.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I don't know, why don't you look up how many freakin years it took to get any of those things?

This is the first tiny step toward doing something and you've probably seen the last of any health care reform in this century with the House passing a bill.

[villager]

4. yes, yes we know about the *number of years*. What about the actual legislation?

Civil Rights act of'64?

The act establishing the EPA? or Endangered Species Act?

Would those things be rolled back later under malicious GOP and weak Democratic rule? Sure.

But were those acts as initially compromised -- in terms of what they were ostensibly established to do - as this one?

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Go to the Medicare History site and read all the chapters and try to add up all the 'bills' that got

us to where we are today.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/corning.html

Seems like about 50% of DU wanted the perfect bill passed in 90 days.

[villager]

6. Medicaire was expanded, but did it *roll back* previously granted "franchisements"

in order to get passed?

[sinkingfeeling]

7. What are 'franchisements'? And what is being 'rolled back' in the

health care reform bill? And the point of history is that there were many bills passed to provide the function of Medicare prior to 1965.

[villager]

8. What's being "rolled back" in the house bill? You ever talk to any women with insurance?

Out of curiosity...

[sinkingfeeling]

9. Yeah, I'm a woman with insurance. Is this about the abortion amendment?

Then, I've wasted my time trying to find out what you were talking about.