On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, Ben Smith was quoted:
> <http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=1143F138-3048-5C12-007527E75640696F>
>
> Clinton set to unveil health care plan
> By: Ben Smith
> September 17, 2007 10:58 AM EST
<snip>
> The Democrats all seem to sense that major health care reform, handled
> carefully, could be within reach for a Democratic president backed by a
> Democratic Congress in 2009, but all aim to avoid a repeat of the
> tactical mistakes of the Clinton Administration's drive for universal
> health care in 1994.
How on earth is this learning from her mistakes? This exactly repeating those mistake. A complex, insurance infested scheme will be easy to attack because it will be unaffordable, crappy, and boring. It will be attacked even harder if they make these unmeant hints. And when it crashes and burns it'll discredit the idea for yet another decade.
Learning from their mistakes would mean realizing that single payer is both the one political solution -- because it's a simple and inspiring panacea, like the Repugs serve up all the time, so people can easily grasp it and can get enthusiastic about having all their problems solved at one stroke -- and it's the only economic solution, because it's the only way to pay for it, through the savings we get from cutting hundreds of billions in administrative costs. And lastly its the tactical solution because it's only in that form that the Republicans can never take it from them.
This Democratic "realist" postulate that gradual is always by definition better is beyond stupid. It's like that old Soviet Joke about reform, that in the future everyone will drive on the left, but in order to ease the transition, only half the drivers will obey the new regulations for the first five years.
Michael