On HCR: Brooks-"vote no"; Krugman-"pass the bill"

[pampango]

David Brooks in an OpEd piece yesterday, opined:

"If I were a senator forced to vote today, I’d vote no."

He gave 4 reasons he would vote for the bill and 6 to vote against it.

FOR: 4. "The fourth reason to support the bill is that if this fails, it will take a long time to get back to health reform. Clinton failed. Obama will have failed. No one will touch this. Meanwhile, health costs will continue their inexorable march upward, strangling the nation."

AGAINST: 6: "Sixth, if this passes, we will never get back to cost control. The basic political deal was, we get to have dessert (expanding coverage) but we have to eat our spinach (cost control), too. If we eat dessert now, we’ll never come back to the spinach."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18brooks.html?em

Paul Krugman: "A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.

But meanwhile, pass the health care bill."

"But let’s all take a deep breath, and consider just how much good this bill would do, if passed — and how much better it would be than anything that seemed possible just a few years ago. With all its flaws, the Senate health bill would be the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare, greatly improving the lives of millions. Getting this bill would be much, much better than watching health care reform fail."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=1&em

[jefferson_dem]

1. So Brooks agrees with all the Repugs. And Krugman agrees with (virtually) all the Dems.

Glad we know where and with whom people stand.

[Unvanguard]

2. Brooks is just flagrantly wrong here.

The bill before the Senate does not do anywhere near enough to cut costs, true, but (a) it is better than nothing and (b) because of the mandates, and because of the public commitment it makes to ensuring something close to universal coverage, it effectively forces the federal government to ultimately control health care costs--instead of just ignoring them as it does now.

[HuckleB]

3. K & R.