Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

By "free riders" do you mean the government and service workers unions that are exempt from any costs in the Senate health "reform" plan that you seem so desperate to have passed? The bottom line is that 80% of Americans have health insurance that they are basically happy with and they do not feel that now, with massive deficits, 10% unemployment and a shaky recovery, is the right time to pass a bill that will not make the system more efficient, will not cut the deficit (anyone who believes this will be deficit neutral is delusional) and will still not cover everyone.

Passing a terrible bill just so that Obama can claim a political victory is not putting the country's interests first. The American people have made it clear that they do not want this bill and if Obama and his party continue to press forward without listening, they will be slaughtered in the 2010 elections. They will meet the same fate that the GOP met when Bush refused to listen to the people about Iraq and instead embraced a "my way or the highway" attitude. Obama needs to stop talking so much and start listening.

I simply don't agree that this is a "terrible" bill; I think, barring radical overhaul from the right or the left, it's the best we're going to get. And the task now is not to kill it - and any meaningful reform for a decade - but to ensure that it works, that the cost controls are real, that the Medicare cuts are followed through.