Health care reform shorts: The Californicating of America

Neera Tanden, an executive at the Center for American Progress thinktank who worked in the Obama and Clinton administrations, assures conservative Democratic Congresscritters that they can get behind the health care reform bill because it is truly "A Blue Dog Dream."

Some House moderates criticized the House bill for taxing the rich. Lucky for them, that’s barely in the Senate bill. While the House bill used the millionaire’s tax to raise $460 billion in revenues, the Senate bill has a Medicare tax that raises only $87 billion from high-income folks.

As I explained in the previous post about education in California, it is structural barriers against taxing the wealthy (the people who do have money) that have led to the largest state's inability to balance a budget, provide for its residents, or even run a less than laughable government. Insofar as the (d)evolution of the health care reform cements the principle that Washington cannot tax in order to do the work of government, the "reform" is a deform.

Nonetheless, on balance I hope they pass the thing. For all it's many faults, some people would get access to doctors who don't have that now. And I would rather be able to agitate for its improvement than have to agitate solely for Democrats to get some backbones.

(Saturday scenes and scenery will return next week. I figure regulars don't need another photo essay right after the one posted yesterday. Making decisions like that with no argument is one of the perks of having one's own blog.)