Which proves that Bob Dole is now worth listening to. No, really.David Broder, ladies and lolcats:
When I did an interview with the two of them this week, Dole remarked
that “we started out working together, and then it fell apart” — the
victim of a massive lobbying campaign, a bunch of tactical errors by
the president and first lady, and Dole’s presidential ambitions, which
moved him into the camp of the Republican naysayers.
Now Daschle and Dole, along with another former Republican leader,
Howard Baker, have come together with a report outlining the provisions
of a possible bipartisan health bill and strong recommendations on how
to pass it. (The fourth original member of this Bipartisan Policy
Centerboard, former Senate Democratic leader George Mitchell, dropped out to become President Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East.)
In a phone conversation the day before theirreport
was released, Daschle and Dole agreed that prospects for enactment of
major reform are far better now than in 1994 — and better than they
would have been even two years ago. “The situation is far more dire on
costs and quality and access to care,” Daschle said. Added Dole: “You
have business, labor and a whole cross section of people saying, ‘We
have to have reform.’ ”
So basically, Bob Dole could have helped stop the massive flood of stupid that drowned health care reform in 1994, which would have given us 15 years of decent care in this country and saved countless lives, but because he wanted to be preznit, he said fuck it and chose to yowl about Hillarycare on the Sunday shows. And to Broder, this is proof not that he should be put in the public stocks but that he should be courted once again, lest we miss out on giving Bob Dole the chance to fuck us over twice in two decades.
Yay?
House, Dole urged Senate Republicans to give up any thought of
filibustering the health bill. “We need a group of Republicans who will
give an early demonstration that bipartisanship is possible,” he said.
Daschle, in turn, said he thinks the Democrats should not attempt to
ram a health bill through the Senate by using the budget reconciliation
device to pass it with 51 votes, rather than the 60 votes most
legislation requires.
Democrats should pledge to pass the bill with votes they don’t have, and Republicans should pledge not to filibuster it, which they wouldn’t need to do. Got that? Okay, just making sure.
controversy over whether there should be a government-sponsored plan to
compete with private insurers.
It’s totally significant that their plan does nothing to actually change things, yes. How cool is that? It’s a plan we can all agree on, and that’s what’s really important! So more sick people will die, so what? The dinner party guest list can remain undisturbed!
This man is sick in the head.
The HELL?
It was damned hard for me to eat this giant Snickers bar, given that it has no calories, chocolate magically doesn’t make me break out into teenage acne anymore, and it gives me all the nutrients I need for my daily life! It was damned hard to do that.
Probably. But to extract a bill that reforms health care? Not that hard when you have the votes.
A.