It will take 4 years to get health care right but it only took 45 days for the Patriot Act

[ThomWV]

October 26, 2001 the Patriot Act is signed into law, spawned by the events of September 2001 if we are to believe it. Just a month and a half from inception (yeah, right) to implementation. Health Care legislation requires decades of debate and if passed a full Presidential term to put in place; if it were passed today no public care would exist before 2013. How can that be.

[notesdev]

1. It's not like the Patriot Act is "right" -nt

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. The Patriot Act didn't cost anywhere near $900 billion and had 9/11 to spur it on.

Seriously, you haven't thought this one through at all.

[ThomWV]

6. That 45 days if my benchmark for every bit of legislation - and yes, I have thought it through.

Don't get it, do ya?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

10. I get that you have set an extremely poor benchmark. (nt)

[sabrina 1]

15. The Patriot Act has cost untold billions of dollars

probably way more than than healthcare. To enact a law like, costs billions of dollars, and on a continuing basis.

Every institution that is mandated to comply with the Patriot Act has to spend money to do so. Banks were the most affected financially, according to reports early on. Municipalities, airlines, schools, just about every institution that deals with the public has had huge increased expenses. Not to mention the money spent on Homeland Security, equipment etc.

George Bush never signed a bill that his friends could not profit from.

http://www.world-check.com/regulatory-compliance-overview/

The costs associated with meeting compliance mandates using in-house infrastructure is staggering, and generally places a huge administrative burden on key resources within an organisation.

[emulatorloo]

3. Patriot act pretty much got it wrong.

I like the idea of the "safety net" coverage that will be available until everything is up and running.

[librechik]

4. just goes to show you. When Republicans WANT to get something done

they are quite efficient. They are quite efficient at killing efforts to get things done as well.

I just thought Pukkkes are in the minority now, and it's time for Democrats to do things their way now. I guess it really doesn't matter. Bullies will always be there to take our lunch and make us eat bugs.

[Autumn]

7. Think maybe we could learn a

lesson from the pukes? Maybe then we could get what we want.

[librechik]

12. no. Liberals could never operate like Pukkkes

We respect ourselves and others too much to walk over them like they were doormats.
In the movies the good guys always win. In reality, the bad guys are too powerful to lose.
At least nowadays. We need a new approach, certainly. But learn what from them? Political assassination?

[katandmoon]

5. That's because no way had to be found for it not to step on big campaign donors toes first.

[eleny]

8. The PA was an open cash register for the powers that be

Real health care reform does not giveth - it taketh away.

[RufusTFirefly]

9. If you keep thinking that way, your head will explode

We always seem to find the way to infringe on rights or wage illegal wars without obsessing about the costs, either to our treasury or to the health of our democracy. But when the time comes to take care of our citizens, we are drowning in indecision and details.

[moondust]

11. Panic/hysteria.

[Hekate]

13. The "USA PATRIOT ACT" was pretty clearly already in existence, waiting for the herd to panic....

And when the herd panicked due to 9-11, the wolf-pack struck. It was not one of our finer moments as a nation.

At least that was my theory then, and remains so.

As for why Congress panicked, just recall the atmosphere that day, that week. I have friends who were working in Washington DC that day: they heard that airplane crash into the Pentagon, they felt the buildings shake. I myself have been in close proximity to a plane crash (a fighter jet landed on my elementary school in the 1950s) and you do not forget that sound, even if it doesn't involve whole skyscrapers collapsing. My cousin who lives in Arlington is married to a now-retired naval officer who had personal friends who died in the Pentagon. Congress was in session that day.

So, our putative leaders panicked.

Health care for all is different. Congress has been studiously making it go away for 100 years, 60 years, 40 years, 15 years. There's no panic. All-too-few even feel a huge sense of urgency....

Hekate

[Hannah Bell]

14. or the time it took to bail out banksters.

medicare instituted 1965.

why do we need another system, forty-plus years down the road?

[damntexdem]

16. I guess it must be easier to crush rights than to do something positive.

So just try not to burst your appendix for four more years or so.

[OneBlueSky]

17. nobody in Congress read the Patriot Act, but they're going over the healthcare bill(s) . . .

with a fine-tooth comb . . .

[newspeak]

18. actually, the Patriot Act had already been written

it was created after the Oklahoma City bombing. I remember when they introduced some form of it in Congress immediately after the bombing. I thought, please don't approve this, it will be the end of the Bill of Rights and Constitution. It's so funny that those Republicans in congress under Clinton publicly expounded on how it infringed upon our rights, are the same sweepingly and without question, passed it under *.