Midnight Deals to Pass Health Care Bill Have Familiar Stench

All these fer­vid asser­tions that the Health Care bill must be passed now, many of which giv­ing rea­sons like so the Pres­i­dent can talk about it in his State of the Union address, or so the Pres­i­dent can have some­thing to show for his first year in office, all stress the need for speed, the NOW aspect of the need, with­out men­tion­ing any­thing to do with health care or the fact that the bill’s main par­tic­u­lars don’t kick in for years.  And it made me think of another time some­thing had to be done now because of a State of the Union address to please a pres­i­dent and because repeated mis­fires had drawn scorn from some in the media, rather than any­thing hav­ing to do with the real­i­ties of the mis­sion.  That was the Chal­lenger launch.  I’m not try­ing to be funny.  I get the dis­tinct odor of things being forced to hap­pen in ser­vice to sched­ules that have noth­ing to do with any­thing other than pol­i­tics and ego grat­i­fi­ca­tion.  The Chal­lenger should not have been launched in below-​​freezing weather.  They knew that.  But they were feel­ing embar­rassed and it was time for the State of the Union address.

There was no rea­son the Chal­lenger had to launch that day and there is no rea­son this health care bill has to pass with­out more dis­cus­sion and disclosure.

If you don’t remem­ber the Chal­lenger, Dr. San­ity was flight sur­geon for the launch and her mem­o­ries are here.

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Tags: Challenger, healthcare, immediately