You call THIS healthcare reform?

As Jeff Goldblum said as Ian Malcolm in the movie Jurassic Park, "Boy, do I hate being right all the time."

I said it in my earlier posts & blogs: This is only going to end up being the first of many reforms for medical care, because somehow, someway, Congress will find a way to get a little bit done right, while getting most of it wrong. Sure enough, that's exactly what we're getting. I called it.

I also said that this basically was a choice between government and the insurance companies. The choice our buh-RILLIANT legislators have come up with, favors the insurance companies.

As Ian Malculm also said, "Now, that is one big pile of shit!"

That's two for two. But I also said that DNA technology would guarantee that the insurance companies would someday, very soon, have genetic profiles on all of us, and thus be able to deny us the very coverage we need, when we need it the most.

I'm about to go three for three, unfortunately.

We've taken one small step in the right direction, in that those who are 55 or older will be able to buy their way into Medicare. But we've stepped beneath the sword of Damocles in order to do it. The buy in option is good only if those over 55 are of a certain income level, and even then, it will cost them. The rest of us are saddled with being forced to buy from private insurers, and so the chances of our actually surviving to the age of 55 goes down considerably! Presumably, at least a couple of these private insurers will be not-for-profit, but I'll believe that when I see it. So we're giving insurance companies, who are guaranteed to screw us, even more control over healthcare?

Yeah. You can just see the tremors rippling in your coffee cup, announcing the arrival of something very old, and very monstrous.

Remember, the DNA technology obeys Moore's law. It gets half as expensive and twice as powerful every two years. That means that public option is not dead. It will be back again someday, and when it returns, we'll simply have no choice but to embrace it fully, because the private insurers will be unable to take on any genetically guaranteed losses.

Oh yes, I know what some neocons might say: We should try to pass laws preventing the insurance companies from using DNA profiling.

Quoth Ian Malcolm again, "The type of control you're attempting is.... not possible."

We can't even keep illegal drugs out of the hands of the poorest Americans. We certainly cannot keep illegal information out of the hands of the wealthiest! Make no mistake, public option is inevitable. It's a black hole, and we've passed the event horizon. There's death, taxes, and the public option. Get used to it now, people, and fuck off with your "tea-parties" already!

So, basically, this latest incarnation of healthcare is a mistake. A BIG mistake. The senate kept falling back, and compromising, and falling back, and compromising some more. Now, one last big compromise has been reached, and there's so little to fight over that it's barely even worth it. We've essentially given a starving multitude one, solitary grape, and said, "bon apetit!" But we'll end up passing it, and we'll end up calling it a victory in the media, mostly because at this point, even a Pyrrhic victory is still a victory of some sort. But then we'll have to wait two to three years before the issue can be revisited, and by then, it will be too late to avoid the medical mayhem.

I'll go four for four when DNA technology causes private insurance healthcare to finally all but destroy the medical industry. But that's going to cost our economy dearly. To save us all that headache, it would be far, far better to put in the public option now, seeing as how it is as guaranteed to happen as the disappearance of one's sex life after having children. But something tells me that we're going to need to literally have babies dying in front of hospitals before we finally get public option passed. Apparently, some of us are just that stupid.

What a shame. We were sooo close!

One thing's for certain: We've had any illusions about having a "super-majority" completely destroyed. We don't have a super-majority. We have 56 votes and a few milk-toasty dipshits who think they can hold the entire nation hostage. But let's not overly blame Joe Lieberman. He was only one of a whole clown-car full of assholes who fucked this up. The real culprits are the Republicans, who had what I can only call a "super-minority," where they held firmly together with complete solidarity, for the absolutely wrong thing. So the best thing we can do, is fire those goons in the midterm elections. The only way we can get it done, and done right, is to render the wrong side out of a job.

"Don't you mean, 'extinct?'" Dr. Malcolm would say.

Eric