Mark, in a perfect vacuum, your point would be credible – but let’s think back a bit, shall we?

When the administration of President Clinton expended huge political capital on HIS healthcare reform initiative, I very CLEARLY recall that one of the biggest – if not THE biggest complaints was that the administration had the AUDACITY (so to speak) or else the HUBRIS or the PRETENTIOUSNESS or the ARROGANCE to hammer out the whole damned thing “in secret”, and then roll it out as a complete thing, for Congress to vote on.

I recall hearing then, from many pundits who seemed to have a pretty good point, that “this is NOT the way big things are done in America”; the thought was that Clinton should have let Congress become invested in the process – set the goals and the parameters, and let the legislators do what they do best – negotiate/horse-trade/nix/propose/cull and then deliver.

I think the BIGGEST damned red herrings in this whole debate are the parallel canards about how there ain’t no plan/there’s a secret, malevolent plan/nobody can read the whole plan/everything is out of control and technically unexplainable!

Anyone who’s ever bought a house knows that even simple transactions like that involve page after page after page of legalese. In the case of buying a house, a responsible person hires a lawyer and then proceeds judiciously, just as a responsible member of congress hires a trustworthy staff that can systematically comprehend the whole of every bill to be voted on, and then she votes.

edit: I see Jolene her-own-self beat me to the response – AND she said what I wanted to say, more completely and in fewer words. Damn her liberal education!!

It’s not cooked yet, Mark. But I agree that it’s problematic to be spending so much time talking about reform when the proposed reform hasn’t been specified. But Obama is trying, perhaps overly hard, to avoid the fate of Hillarycare–a plan that was presented as a fait accompli that no one in Congress had any stake in supporting. It’s a difficult enterprise to figure out how to give people a say and, at the same time, ask them to sign on to an as yet undefined program.

But the observation that nothing that has been proposed resembles the scary predictions that some Republicans are making still stands.

All I can tell you after my welcome hiatus and reviewing the week with fresh eyes, is that the rhetoric, particularly from the Republicans, is getting worse. And I fear that the right wing will resort to major violence to impose their will on the rest of society. Perhaps we, as Democrats, could do as that NYT woman whose husband had a midlife crisis, and just ignore them, saying, It’s not about me, it’s about you and I will wait til your spell of madness has left you and you return to the political dialogue a rational person. But I don’t think most of us have that sort of patience. However, it would be nice to ignore the uglies, wouldn’t it?

And, Nancy, I am so sorry to hear of your puppy’s demise. After the huge welcome home my three gave me, it hurts to know that there is one waggy tail less in the world. My sincere regrets.

It works, I think. thank you, Rana. So easy, a caveman did it.

Be warned that it is a lot to download. and I pulled it from the first site I found with complete text (after Rana gave me the gift of linking), without looking at politics. Can’t verify that the text is completely current, either, but the first 20 pages looked the same as what i found last evening.

Jolene, it is unreasonable to expect a bill to tell us exaactly what the world will look like twenty years after passage. It is not unreasonable to expect a bill to tell us exactly what the law will look like twenty days after passage. That is the test Obama is failing.

And in this case Goodwin’s law isn’t being invoked. There have been people showing up to disrupt these town hall meetings carrying signs with Nazi markings. The Republicans are the ones bring this crap up.

One problem with talking about Obamacare is that Congress is still drafting the law instead of Obama presenting them with a plan for them to approve. In fact Obama has been painfully vague about what he considers to be an acceptable minimum plan. It’s hard to debate or defend a plan that technically doesn’t yet exist.

As for the Public Option, that everyone seem to think that a hundred million people will opt for a Public Option seems to indicate just how bad current private insurance is.