The Congressional Healthcare Bill in America I spent a good deal of this morning and yesterday reading over the proposed American healthcare bill (or at least, a compound version; there appear to be five doing the rounds). I don't want to blog on the details of it immediately. It's also a bill, which may well stall in the Senate or be overtaken by events, and which could yet be critically amended. It is the product of Congress, not the administration per se, and the lawyers have not yet got at it. I had some instant worries about it though. In no particular order, I'll list them; Firstly, it can't allow individuals to choose their doctor and treatment in the long run; instead, it will practically formalise the role of doctors as salaried employees of large medical groups. Sarah Palin is onto something with the idea that this will then allow essentially ideological or non-medical outlooks on, say, euthanasia, abortion, transgender issues, or non-emergency treatments of c...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.
Comments
Perhaps the police perceived the cross to be an offensive weapon. After all it would be to the anti-christ. (ok, perhaps I may be exaggerating).
Actually I thought the whole thing was very respectful from both sides. As a former policeman, I was impressed with the way they handled the situation aside from hanging something around his neck which is probably just procedure.
Not sure what you were shocked by.
Thanks for the comment.
Savour this moment. And savour its context: the beginning of at least the forty-year dominance of the historic party of Catholics, white Evangelicals and the black church, to which the first two are returning in droves, having seen through the party that courted them by pretending to oppose abortion but which did absolutely nothing about it while oppressing the poor and waging wars that pointlessly harvested the young men of the Catholic, the white Evangelical and the black churches.
These are the people thanks to whom Barack Obama is President Obama. The people who reaffirmed traditional marriage in California and Florida, and who declined to liberalise gambling in Ohio or Missouri, on the same day that they voted for him, in all but California’s case decisively.
There is no realistic doubt that he won Missouri. And he certainly cannot win in 2012 unless he carries there, Ohio, Florida, and indeed California, centre of moral and social conservatism that it clearly is, as Arnold “Yes We Cannabis” Schwarzenegger should bear in mind. The Freedom of Choice Act is “not a high priority”. The Employee Free Choice Act is. The Pregnant Women Support Act, a Democratic initiative as such things always are, should be. And President Obama’s Commencement Address at Notre Dame has as good as said that it will be.
Democratic America still needs a proper Republican Party, not least to make the case for a strong defence capability used sparingly because used strictly for its proper, defensive purpose. But there is no sign of the re-emergence of any such party, partly because the old broadly or very conservative lay base of the old mainline Protestant churches is in such decline. So registered Republicans are down to a mere fifth of the electorate.
And America, which never had an avowedly pro-life majority under the Republicans, now has an avowedly pro-life majority under the Democrats.