[lbo-talk] showdown over piece of crap

[Somebody Somebody]

One argument in favor of the current bill is simply that each iteration of health care reform seems to be more conservative than the previous proposal. The current bill is well to the right of Clinton's bill, which put the financial burden more squarely on employers, but was itself much more conservative than the Medicare for all that liberals had been holding out when they opposed Nixon's proposal. Since the American working class doesn't give the slightest indication of ever emerging from it's grave to do battle as a "class-for-itself", there's no reason to presume that the right-drifting trend will reverse itself.

It may be difficult to imagine a more conservative health care proposal than the one on offer that still makes a gesture at covering the uninsured, but you could certainly conceive of a bill with fewer subsidies, less regulation, and an emphasis upon private health savings accounts.