Kucinich's Entire Approach ("Fix it later, are you kidding?" ) Has Repeatedly Been Proven False.

[Emit]

A RECORD OF POST-PASSAGE PROGRESS....

~snip~

The liberal Ohioan talked to Benjy Sarlin yesterday about his position, and repeatedly cited the work of Jacob Hacker, the Yale professor who was largely responsible for crafting the idea of a public option. That's an odd rhetorical choice -- Hacker has repeatedly said he wants Congress to pass the Democratic proposal. Kucinich is citing a scholar, while ignoring the scholar's judgment. Perhaps he doesn't know about Hacker's conclusion?

But this observation, related to the public option, was even more striking.

Kucinich says he doesn't buy Obama's latest argument to progressives that there will be other opportunities to improve upon the legislation once they help him pass this bill.

"Fix it later, are you kidding?" he said. "If you don't get it in the bill up front, it's not going to happen."

... Kucinich's entire approach has repeatedly been proven false.

~snip~

When Medicaid passed, for example, it did very little for low-income adults, which is now seen as the point of the program. ...

~snip~

When Medicare passed, it all but ignored people with disabilities, didn't cover prescription drugs, and made no allowances for home health services. It was, at best, a limited program at its inception. ...

~snip~

When Social Security passed, the benefits were negligible, and the program excluded agricultural workers, domestic workers, the self-employed, railroad employees, government employees, clergy, and those who worked for non-profits. The original Social Security bill offered no benefits for dependents or survivors, and included no cost-of-living increases. ...

~snip~

Notice a pattern here? FDR and LBJ had huge electoral mandates and gigantic Democratic majorities in Congress (bigger than the congressional majorities Obama currently enjoys), but they still couldn't get everything they wanted.

~snip~

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_03/022846.php

[brentspeak]

1. Inane comparison: Social Security and Medicare did no harm as this atrocity of a bill will do

Social Security and Medicare were good programs that were made even better; the Obama plan is a bad plan that immediately enslaves Americans to private insurance companies.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Medicare has contracts with private insurance companies to process Medicare claims

Is that an atrocity too?

Don

[brentspeak]

8. Does that have anything to do with the above post?

[gratuitous]

2. I do notice a pattern

Social security, Medicare and Medicaid were all passed in the Before Times. Some of us of slightly more recent vintage remember how "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was going to be a preliminary waystation. Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again for the last 17 years. And NAFTA? Well, it was important to get the legislation in place NOW. We'll take care of those environmental and labor "side agreements" down the line. Well, the environment has seen another 14 years of degradation, and workers in Mexico and the United States have been sold down the river in a never-ending race for the cheap labor bottom.

Love him or hate him, and the verdict seems to be in at DU, Kucinich has a valid point about fixing it later.

[DJ13]

4. I notice a pattern too

The more Kucinich reminds people the leadership (and the WH) are selling us out with empty promises the more he gets attacked by certain less than liberal Democrats both here and throughout the MSM.

If Kucinich is wrong they have no reason to attack him as he'll look bad when the bill is improved.

That tells me they know he's right, and they want him to shut up about it so they can ram it through no questions asked.

[laughingliberal]

5. +1000 nt

[420inTN]

3. There's a difference between "fixing" and "expanding".

Let's use a car analogy:

You need a car that works asap. Will you buy a car that's broken and doesn't run now, with the intent to fixing it up later, even though you know that it could be years before you can get it fixed?

Or will you skip that car and keep shopping for a car that works? Sure, later down the road you might want to change the rims, or change the paint, or soup-up the engine a bit, but for now it's a working car.

Personally, I think that that Congress should scrap the two plans they have now, and stop trying to merge the Winnebago and 18-wheeler.

If they want to do the incremental plan, start with something simpler, instead of a 1000-page goliath, and work from there.

Pass something that works, then expand it as necessary.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. None of your examples are valid, as none of them are fixes

of a broken or bad law, they are one and all expansions of good law. Adding to is not the same as repairing.

[G_j]

9. that was a vastly different time

can you find some recent examples?

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

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