One thing that I think has gotten lost in all this health care brouhaha . . .

. . . is that even if we liberals get absolutely everything we're pushing for, we don't get anything particularly impressive.

What we're asking for is a federally-funded insurance program to help insure people who aren't getting insurance by the commercial market.

That's it.

That's what "the public option" is.

The whole SocializmGonnaDestroyAmericaDeathPanels thing is -- an extra health insurance plan that goes in addition to our current system. No government-run health care. No NHS. No health care rationing. Just a program to help insure the people who aren't insured.

One idea about this is that there's not going to be a "needs test" to get in. If you're rich, and you want to go with the public option, sure, go ahead.

And THAT'S what the insurance companies are so worked up about. They don't think that they have the ability to offer anything remotely as attractive as what the federal government can offer.

Government incompetence and waste? The insurance industry is convinced that the government incompetence and waste is going to be so much LESSER than their OWN incompetence and waste that nobody's gonna want to go with THEIR things.

And THAT'S the big deal. The insurance industry is convinced that they have made such a god damned mess of the whole thing that anything the federal government can scrape together, no matter how pathetic, is going to be SO much better than THEIR shit that nobody's gonna want to buy their shit any more.

That doesn't really inspire confidence in them, does it?

(no subject)

"The primary difference between these two subspecies of Formicidae is that the one on the left has longer legs and therefore a greater height from the ground," Tom Swift said tolerantly.