Yglesias on rushing health care reform

Link here

Since late July, it’s been clear that the strategy for killing health care reform is to delay it first. And it’s clear that killing health care reform is the top priority of the Republican Party leadership.


Francois' response: It's true that Republicans want to delay it so that it will die. It is also true that Democrats want to rush it through Congress before the public has had time to digest what's going on. If the bill had public support, then it wouldn't matter how long it took to get it done. Heck, it doesn't go into effect until 2013! You can wait until 2011 to pass it if you want and still have plenty of time to lay the groundwork.

Matt's been bitching about the fact that the bill isn't being rushed fast enough, he's bitching that it can't be passed with only 50%+1 of the vote in Congress. Then he starts acting as if he's more pro-democracy than the rest of us while he's trying to get a bill passed that only 35-40% of Americans favor. It's all understandable though. Health care is a top priority for liberals and they have a lot of emotion invested in it. Even many of the good liberal commentators are losing their heads over it, saying things which they would normally know to not be true, and rationalizing breaking the rules to get it passed(like leaning on the parliamentarian).

The number one rationalization is that Republicans just want to kill any health care bill. Yes, some do. But some don't. There are votes that can be picked up. Why not call the GOP's bluff and bring the Demint bill to a vote? Or the Coburn bill? Both would be better than the status quo.

Is this about giving Americans better access to health care and cutting costs, or is it about a political victory? If so, then Democrats are behaving no differently from Republicans. They'd rather see no health care reform rather than Republican health care reform.