My reaction to today’s sudden silliness is below. But both Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post have weighed in as well–and they are two of the wisest, best-informed health care wonks extant.
This issue is just too serious for preening or ranting. There are millions of poor people who have no health insurance–tens of thousands of them with serious illnesses–who will be subsidized to buy health insurance and able to receive both preventive and chronic care for the first time if this imperfect bill passes. This is a massive move toward progressivity, an enormous new entitlement for the working poor. The opposition by Republicans was no surprise, nor was the chicanery of a few Democratic conservatives in the Senate, but I’m just dumbstruck by those on the left who would oppose this for whatever ideological fetishes they imagine are being traduced. It is simply amazing and absolutely disgraceful. Grow up.
And More: Jay Rockefeller, Sherrod Brown, Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum
And Especially This: Nate Silver (thanks, Kate!)