The C Word

With the August recess upon Congress and no Health Care legislation passed, president Obama must limp from town hall meeting to town hall meeting with sinking poll numbers and an imperiled agenda. Behind closed doors the big players in the administration are using the C word: Compromise. As in “We’ve got to compromise on health care or those blue dog democrat cunts are going to kill us." Oh yes, they’re also using the other C word. So what are the compromises needed to get Health Care across the finish line? One compromise Republicans would like would be for the plan to fail and for Obama to be a one-term president. There’s still much resistance to that plan in the White House, so here are ideas being floated as alternatives.

Death of the Public Option

Conservatives and Insurance companies railed against the “Public Option” a Medicaid like government plan which would be simultaneously too expensive and too cheap to compete against. Everyone knows that competition is the bane of any functioning private enterprise, so the public plan had to go. Of course, the public option was the best bet to keep prices low, and was the best thing about the Health Care plans floating around in Congress. An option gaining traction is the “Co-op” plan, which Republicans like because it won’t work.

Euthanize End Of Life Legislation

People shouldn’t get old and die, and they really shouldn’t plan for that eventuality. If they do, tax dollars shouldn’t pay for discussing such unpleasant things with a doctor. Doctors should only talk about nice happy things and give out lollipops.

Consumer Protections

The Obama PR push is touting changes it want to make in how Insurance companies do business. Insurance companies would have a cap on what they could charge for out-of-pocket expenses, would have to fully cover routine tests to help prevent illness, and wouldn’t be allowed to refuse coverage because of pre-existing conditions. They wouldn’t be allowed to gouge the very ill, charge more for services based on gender, and wouldn’t be allowed to deny children family coverage. Of course the fact that these kind of reforms haven’t been enacted before now shows what a bunch of whores Congress is, and how you really shouldn’t trust what any of them are saying.

Savings in Medicare/Medicaid

Blue Dog Cunt Max Baucus is proposing setting up an independent commission to find $35 billion in savings from Medicare. This would go a long way to breaking the “cost curve” that the Congressional Budget Office said was going the wrong way under the plans being considered. Of course, without a public option Insurance companies will still find ways to gouge profits off the sick, raising the cost of Health Care, but profits are more important than essential and popular programs, so we’ve got our priorities straight.

Lobbying Against The Sick

Who are these costly sick, and why are they allowed to cause us so much economic hardship. It turns out these are really unhealthy people, often contagious. If the special interests that buy our congressmen and run scare ads put the same energy at eliminating the sick, we’d be a healthier country. I think sickness should be outlawed, which would create a lucrative black market in germs, infirmity and injury. In fact, let’s outsource our national health care to the Mafia. They can break kneecaps and then set them again, probably with less corruption than insurers.

Some tortured and horribly muddled Health Care plan may yet emerge and land of Obama’s desk and he’ll take what he can get. I think we have to do the same. We have to get a public option as a compromise for not getting a single payer system, and we have to compromise to get that compromise. We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the horribly flawed.

--Dan Kilian

Marx Twain Socrates

The Obama Gates Crowley Beer