The Hardest Call
The Hardest Call
December 19, 2009
Here are three opinion pieces from liberal and conservative voices: two in favor of the health care legislation and one against -- but barely against.
The moment Ted Kennedy would not want to lose
By Victoria Reggie Kennedy
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My late husband, Ted Kennedy, was passionate about health-care reform. It was the cause of his life. He believed that health care for all our citizens was a fundamental right, not a privilege, and that this year the stars -- and competing interests -- were finally aligned to allow our nation to move forward with fundamental reform. He believed that health-care reform was essential to the financial stability of our nation's working families and of our economy as a whole.
Read more here.
The Hardest Call
By David Brooks
The first reason to support the Senate health care bill is that it would provide insurance to 30 million more Americans.
The second reason to support the bill is that its authors took the deficit issue seriously. Compared with, say, the prescription drug benefit from a few years ago, this bill is a model of fiscal rectitude. It spends a lot of money to cover the uninsured, but to help pay for it, it also includes serious Medicare cuts and whopping tax increases — the tax on high-cost insurance plans alone will raise $1.3 trillion in the second decade.
Read more here.
Pass the Bill
By Paul Krugman
A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.
But meanwhile, pass the health care bill.
Read more here.