Talking about vaginas

The New Neo Posted on by

Feminist author Naomi Wolf writes about “the resurgence of blatant sexism in politics.” The opening paragraph of her article goes like this:

When I published a book called Vagina four years ago, arguing that targeting the genitals and sexuality of women was a political ploy, and that women need to defend their sexuality””and even their genitals””overtly in order to be a potent political force, the topic was seen to be outré, and I was chastised for introducing women’s reproductive organs into politics. The vagina has since made many rather shocking appearances in the political fray. Donald Trump and Billy Bush talked about grabbing women’s vaginas without permission. The New York Times ran the word “pussy” on the front page for the first time in its history. And when a woman with a national platform””Fox News’s Megyn Kelly””called Donald Trump out on broadcast television, like a metronome, Trump invoked for viewers the image of Ms. Kelly’s bleeding vagina. This attack was meant to silence Kelly, just as attacks on women’s vaginas always have been.

So now, let’s see where this “resurgence” came from. Donald Trump and Billy Bush’s “talk about grabbing women’s vaginas without permission” made a “rather shocking appearance in the political fray” solely because Trump’s enemies searched for something to use against him, and dug the incident up from a minor 2005 appearance of his that wasn’t part of the “political fray” at all (or, for that matter, the public fray) even back in 2005. It was a private conversation “caught on tape” during a recording session for an “Access Hollywood” clip. It could not have been further from public political discourse until the Democrats went looking and found it and publicized it, hoping to make political hay of it. And then that’s why the Times ran the word “pussy”—because Democrats hopefully introduced it into political discourse.

And what of the invocation of the image of Megyn Kelly’s “bleeding vagina”? Let’s revisit that incident:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Friday night that Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly “had blood coming out of her eyes” when she aggressively questioned him during Thursday’s presidential debate.

“She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions,” Trump said in a CNN interview. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base.”

(On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted that he was referring to Kelly’s nose. His campaign also issued a statement, claiming Trump said “whatever” instead of “wherever,” while again repeating that the reference was to her nose.)

Trump certainly mentions blood, but the orifice he specifies is eyes. You can fill in the blank yourself for the “wherever” or the “whatever” that follows, but “vagina” would not have been the first thing I would assume he meant, and it doesn’t even make sense. “Blood coming out of his/her eyes” means someone being agitated or vehement, and Trump also used the phrase again in the same interview to refer to Chris Wallace’s eyes, as well. No vagina image there. If Trump “invoked” the image of Kelly’s bleeding vagina in people’s minds, it was in a subtle way that relied on an association that I certainly didn’t make. It was his enemies who specifically invoked that image, once again—and I wonder what percentage of listeners would even have thought of it without their helpful and explicit suggestions.

So the “resurgence” of all this vagina talk is on the Democratic side (and Wolf gives many example when she describes the images women brought to the post-inauguration march on the Mall), not the Republican or Trumpian. And that’s exactly what Ms. Wolf says she had been accused of doing when she wrote her book Vagina: “introducing women’s reproductive organs into politics.” It makes perfect sense for the left to do so, because the idea that Republicans are attacking their genitals is certainly a good way to encourage women’s natural tendency to vote Democratic anyway. Wolf knows that full well, and exploits it mightily, just as she’s doing in her New Republic piece.

Here’s another genitalia invocation by Wolf:

Within days of assuming office, President Trump signed an executive order limiting access to birth control and safe abortions in countries that receive US aid. In the photo of the signing, he is flanked by seven white men with their hands folded nervously over their gray-suit-clad penises. With its painful irony, the photo went viral.

I think Ms. Wolf needs help; she’s fixated on genitals, both male and female, and seeing them everywhere.

Speaking of which, she adds:

The penis has made dramatic political appearances as well. Anthony Weiner’s snaps of his genitals on social media became a powerful opposition tool for Republicans. Missteps””even serious missteps””of errant sexuality by powerful white men in the past were politely glossed over by other white men. Now, they have became lurid fodder for political battle. Anthony Weiner’s penis was used as a way to attack both his wife, Huma Abedin, and her boss, Secretary Clinton, replaying traditional uses of the phallus to smite powerful women.

So, let’s get this straight. According to Wolf, when Democrats uncover a private Trump conversation from 2005 and use it politically during the 2016 campaign, it’s Trump who’s responsible for bringing pussies into today’s political discourse. But when Weiner emails photos of his genitals in the present, and Republicans use that fact politically, it’s the Republicans who are responsible for bringing penises into the fray as “lurid fodder for political battle,” and a way to attack women, not Weiner, thus “replaying traditional uses of the phallus to smite powerful women.”

I wasn’t particularly familiar with Wolf prior to writing this post, but while researching it I discovered that she’s parlayed writing about women’s bodies and genitalia from an outraged feminist point of view into an entire career, not just in leftist academia (where you’d expect it) but on the popular front as well. Along the way, she’s become so profoundly paranoid and irrational in her writing that even many of her fellow leftist feminists have been condemning her.

And then there was the time in 2004 when she accused Professor Harold Bloom of having made a pass at her twenty years earlier when she was an undergrad at Yale. There are many articles on the subject; you can Google and read them yourself if you’re the least bit inclined (here’s one more). But the gist of it—if you take everything Wolf herself says as the gospel truth, which we’ll do here for the sake of discussion—is that he was her professor, they were having dinner at her house, they were both drinking and probably drunk, he touched her thigh, she told him “no,” and he stopped and left the apartment, but not before she had vomited in the sink at the horror of it all and he had delivered the line “You are a deeply troubled girl.”

It’s hard to disagree with him; the remark sounds nothing if not perceptive. How on earth would a student of twenty (Wolf’s age at the time) not understand that the setting—her apartment, the drink, the older prof with the beautiful (Wolf is quite attractive) younger woman—would be highly likely to engender a pass? Bloom didn’t press the situation, either. So why the horror, wherefore the outrage?

I’ve already written too much about Wolf and her oeuvre, probably more than it warrants. But Wolf has influenced—and continues to influence—generations of young women, and continues to be published. Reading her work, I’m struck not just by the extremity of her feminist rage and paranoia and her reliance on jargon, but in particular by her intellectual laziness and lack of logic. With her impeccable academic credentials (Yale, Rhodes Scholar), how is it that she can’t seem to think straight?

That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.

[NOTE: In somewhat related news, Michael Goodwin believes we will have Hillary Clinton to kick around some more.]

Good news coming on the judicial front

The New Neo Posted on by

Very good news indeed:

President Trump is expected to announce his selection of at least five conservative nominees to federal appeals courts as early as Monday, building on his successful nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Sources close to the process said Mr. Trump will nominate Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen and Louisville, Kentucky attorney John K. Bush to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals; Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras to the 8th Circuit; University of Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett to the 7th Circuit, and Alabama lawyer Kevin Newsom to the 11th Circuit.

Justices Larsen and Stras were on the president’s list of conservative judges whom he said during the campaign he would consider for the Supreme Court.

The president also will appoint four judges to district court seats.

This is the reason a lot of conservatives voted for Trump. And this will have far-reaching effects, just as President Obama’s many federal appointments did.

The nominations should sail through the Senate, thanks to the Republicans’ continuation of the nuclear option the Democrats put in place when they controlled that legislative body.

Macron wins…

The New Neo Posted on by

…handily.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at all.

However, it may be somewhat surprising that the polls were relatively accurate in the case of this election, at least in the general sense that they forecast a Macron landslide victory with an enormous gap between the two candidates. In fact, Macron seems to have done even better than the 20% margin predicted by most polls towards the end, getting around 66% to Le Pen’s 34%.

France now follows in the footsteps of the US and Canada in choosing a neophyte to politics for its highest post. I’m unaware of any other time in recent history when this was the case in so many major countries in the West, or even any countries in the West (unless you count this):

Macron will now face huge challenges as he attempts to enact his domestic agenda of cutting state spending, easing labour laws, boosting education in deprived areas and extending new protections to the self-employed.

The philosophy and literature lover is inexperienced, has no political party and must try to fashion a working parliamentary majority after legislative elections next month.

His En Marche movement — “neither of the left, nor right” — has vowed to field candidates in all 577 constituencies, with half of them women and half of them newcomers to politics.

Macron was a socialist just a short while ago, but some of his proposals don’t seem to fit into a socialist box:

…[Macron’s] economic agenda, particularly plans to weaken labour regulations to fight stubbornly high unemployment, are likely to face fierce resistance from trade unions and his leftist opponents.

Macron is a supporter of the EU, so Brussels can breathe a sigh of relief. But although I’m not an EU supporter, I’m also not a big Le Pen fan and would have been extremely nervous had she been elected. As commenter “expat” writes:

I’m happy about Macron because he is not the anti-American pro-Putin socialist Le Pen…She was also proposing 2 currencies, the Franc and the EU. Macron maybe an unwritten chapter, but he is said to be smart and he wants economic reforms. He did not pin himself down to many specifics, which I hope means that he will be able to look at situations and act pragmatically. We will have to wait and see.

Where have we heard that before? We’ll see.

Sheila Nevins and sleeping with your boss

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t get HBO and don’t think I’ve ever watched one of their documentaries. So the name “Sheila Nevins” meant very little to me, but the headline of this article caught my eye. It features an interview in which Nevins is promoting her new book, and the title (of the article, not the book) is “HBO Docs Genius Sheila Nevins Says She Slept With Bosses Early in Her Career.”

So hey, my curiosity piqued, I clicked on it. Here’s Nevins, who is one of the most honored (in the sense of Emmys, that is) documentary producer in television history, describing her rise to power:

Sheila Nevins, the lauded documentary maven of HBO, recently told “CBS” that she slept with her bosses early in her career. “I don’t know that I slept my way to the top, but I didn’t not sleep with my bosses in the early days, when they wanted me,” she said in an interview with Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes.”

However, with the rise of feminism, and taking inspiration from Gloria Steinem, Nevins said she ditched what can be described as a “Mad Men”-era strategy and began succeeding on her own merit.

“It just splashes you in the face and you say, ”˜Why have I done this? Why am I wearing tight jeans to work? Why am I starving myself on some diet? Why am I sleeping with the boss? And why am I thinking that’s the way to go up?’ And it was the way. It worked. I would love to say it didn’t work. It would be so appropriate, so now. But it worked,” Nevins said.

So, it was only Gloria Steinem who motivated Nevins to ask questions like “Why am I sleeping with the boss?” Did Nevins have no prior moral sense or psychological curiosity at all, irrespective of feminism? And was she sleeping with bosses she wasn’t even attracted to, in order to get ahead? Were some of these bosses married (I would be very surprised if the answer wasn’t “yes”)? Are any of them still alive—or are their wives—and is this revelation going to screw up what remains of their marriages?

Nevins’ blithe mindset, then and now, and her extreme self-interest and self-promotion, is hardly unique. Hey, it worked, as she says. So that must make it right—in the practical sense, anyway. And is there any other, according to Nevins?

Perhaps in her book Nevins expresses some form of regret. I haven’t read it; maybe I will, out of curiosity. But in that article she seems utterly pragmatic, as in it’s what you had to do to get ahead, and so I did it, and I didn’t question it until Steinem the feminist removed the scales from my eyes.

The subtext of Nevins’ discussion is that, prior to feminism, this was the only way to get ahead, but that after feminism merit was more likely to be rewarded, and that that justifies her earlier behavior. Well, for those who put ambition above all else, I suppose it would. Is it even true? Not strictly (I knew exceptions, even back when I was growing up), although Nevins seems to be using it as a justification.

It’s ironic, now that women are acknowledged to have achieved the ability to advance without sleeping with everyone in sight, they’ve become exceedingly touchy about anything that even smacks of sex or sexual advances in the workplace. But does anyone doubt that some women are still using the time-honored “sleep your way up” routine to facilitate their climb, and fully justifying it with hey, it works? Sometimes, anyway. The boss in question had better be careful though—because afterwards, he might get slapped with a harassment suit.

And, since I can’t seem to get away from talking about health care coverage reform lately, I couldn’t help but notice another quote from Nevins:

Early on at HBO, Nevins developed the series “Real Sex” and “G-String Divas,” which received backlash for their portrayal of sex work. She said that colleagues asked her, “How could you?” But Nevins found that there were far bigger issues. “Why not? Well, who was getting hurt? The real pornography of life is living without healthcare; it’s not sliding up and down a pole for a buck,” she told Stahl.

This is the caliber of the mind shaping the documentaries at HBO. Now, I have no doubt Nevins knows how to produce a documentary that grabs viewers. But no; pornography is pornography, and living without healthcare is living without healthcare, and it’s another problem entirely. And then there’s EMTALA (as I keep repeating)…

In researching Nevins and her life, I also happened across this incident in which Nevins and her husband were involved in January of 2009:

Sheila Nevins, the president of HBO Documentary Films, was flying with her husband Sidney Koch to New York January 20 [at the time of Obama’s first inauguration] from the Sundance Film Festival in Utah aboard a Delta Airlines flight. Ms. Nevins, in first class, had checked beforehand to make sure that live television would be available, according to her lawyer, John Horan.

But shortly after takeoff, many of the television monitors in first class failed, including Ms. Nevins’ monitor, Mr. Horan said.

Adding to the aggravation were announcements from the cockpit of the sort that “those on the left side of the plane can see some lovely scenery .”

“Sidney had been watching Obama’s speech and a couple times when President Obama was speaking, the airplane pilot made a public address interrupting Obama’s speech,” said Jean Frost, an assistant executive director at the Directors Guild, who was also in first class. “Sidney got very upset at that happening and went to talk to the stewardess.”…

“There was a customer who was upset that the in-seat screen wasn’t working and became verbally abusive to a flight attendant, and that flight was met by local law enforcement,” said Betsy Talton, a spokesperson for Delta…

Port Authority police at Kennedy Airport led Mr. Koch and Ms. Nevins off the plane and they were questioned in the public waiting area, Mr. Horan [Nevins’ lawyer] said. “They were detained at JFK in a public space for two hours and were humiliated by the experience. It was ghastly and unnecessary.”

Ah, but maybe that’s the real pornography .

Trumpcare: the worst, most heartless, most cruel thing on earth, causing untold suffering and death

The New Neo Posted on by

You would think so, from the coverage of it in the press.

You would also think from the way they’re carrying on that it was an actual statute passed by both houses, with the force of law, and not a first pass subject to change in the Senate.

The headlines are replete with words like “shameful”, “horrific”, and “abomination.”

Typical and not at all unusual was this tweet from Senator Elizabeth Warren:

HCA will devastate Americans’ healthcare. Families will go bankrupt. People will die.

Let me repeat that this is not a law yet; it’s the very first legislation, passed by the House. Maybe the shock of the MSM coverage will kill some people, but that’s the only way it could happen. But let’s ramp up the fear to as high a level as possible.

Here’s an article that discusses the viciousness of the Democrat reaction. Let’s take a particular look at this response in the WaPo:

The health-care bill that the House of Representatives passed this afternoon ”¦ is an abomination. If there has been a piece of legislation in our lifetimes that boiled over with as much malice and indifference to human suffering, I can’t recall what it might have been.”¦ It is no exaggeration to say that if it were to become law, this bill would kill significant numbers of Americans.

All this for a bill that is more liberal than the health insurance laws were just a few short years ago, when things were pretty good, actually; a bill that would restore some health insurance choices that were taken away by Obamacare, as well as even perhaps cost less. Perhaps. And did we repeal EMTALA, and leave poor people with no health care at all? If we did, I must have missed it.

Amidst so much purposeful propaganda and hype, how to find the truth about the bill? Most of us are not equipped to analyze it ourselves. But in the past I’ve come to trust Avik Roy the most on these matters. And so I turn to him and get a review that’s a mixed bag—some excellent things are in the bill, as well as some things that are problematic and need fixing, but nothing that would justify the sturm and drang of the left’s propaganda. And here are his detailed suggestions for a fix in the Senate for the provisions that are unlikely to work.

Roy knows his stuff, unlike 99.99999% of the people writing about this topic. His prose isn’t as purple as theirs—it’s rather dry in style. But that’s what we need, although it’s vanishingly rare.

My hope is that the Senate is paying attention.

So, what about a more market-based Medicare?

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Big Maq” asks about all the people on the right who are asking for a more market-based solution to Obamacare:

How many, who make these calls here, have been actively convincing their aged cohort to give up Medicare, in return for a more “market driven” solution? …

How are y’all successfully selling that idea?

Are you selling it?

It’s a good question.

Obamacare is taking all the energy and was the subject matter of the 2016 campaign (and even earlier campaigns, as well). Obamacare is very new (as opposed to Medicare), and people have been clamoring for its reform ever since its passage. So naturally that’s what we’ve been talking about lately.

But you can find people who have discussed reforming Medicare in that manner for years, and the arguments they’ve been using. Just Google something on the order of “more market-based solution to Medicare” and you’ll get a host of articles. For example, if you really want to delve more deeply into the subject, there’s this one at the Heritage website.

It would certainly be philosophically consistent to be advocating those things in addition to a more market-based replacement for Obamacare. But there are several very practical reasons why someone promoting a more free-market solution with Obamacare wouldn’t be promoting it for Medicare, and they all boil down to: it’s political poison.

Medicare has been in operation for so long that there probably really is no turning back unless a crisis of major proportions precipitates it and necessitates it. In addition, our tax system (payroll taxes in particular, and/or the self-employment tax) are structured to pay for a significant portion of Medicare (particularly true of Part A, which is the hospital benefit), and between that and the actual premiums people pay for Medicare they feel they’ve directly earned it (see this for the statistics). If you attempted to change the benefits and structure at this point there would be an enormous furor and most people would find it completely unacceptable.

Of course, you could grandfather in those who’ve already paid in for a significant amount of time, and structure the future differently for the young who are just starting out. That’s been proposed at times, if I’m not mistaken, for Social Security, and it never went anywhere. The same would probably happen with Medicare.

In addition, although Medicare is a huge federal tax expense, it actually works pretty well for most people and patient satisfaction is consistently high.

So putting health care for those over 65 back into the private sector is not gonna happen, period. And it’s a waste of time to talk about it.

Of course, it’s not a waste of time to talk about it on the blog. Right?

Can North Korea…

The New Neo Posted on by

…be turned into East Germany?:

The difference between Germany and Korea is that while East Germany wanted only to be left alone, North Korea keeps threatening to conquer South Korea and reunify the country under its control, and to fire nuclear-armed missiles at the U.S. itself…

Simply put, it may be possible to defuse the current crisis without a war by cutting a deal along these lines: If North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons and cease threatening South Korea and the U.S., the U.S. and South Korea will guarantee North Korea’s sovereignty.

When I first read that, it sounded ludicrous. North Korea isn’t acting that rationally! But stick with it and read the rest.

Here’s the author’s bio:

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. He is author of Why is the World So Dangerous.

When I followed the Amazon link to Meyer’s book, I found more information of interest:

Mr. Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior US Government official to forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union — a forecast for which he later was awarded the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, which is the Intelligence Community s highest honor.

That’s impressive, and an exception to the trend I discussed here.

Take a look at 20/20/20

The New Neo Posted on by

I came across a video about this charity the other day, and I found it impressive. If you’re looking for a place to donate your hard-earned money, you might want to consider it:

Congenital cataracts are a big part of what 20/20/20 deals with. Cataracts tend to be a problem of the elderly, but the problem of congenital cataracts in children isn’t so well-known. Here’s the scoop on the surgery; it’s not as simple as you might think.

Isn’t Trump just proposing “dialogue” with foreign leaders?

The New Neo Posted on by

And isn’t that good?

I’m so confused.

I thought the left believed in keeping the lines of communication open.

I thought the left believed in dialogue with everyone, even dictators, even enemies.

Actually, I thought the left didn’t believe in the word “enemies,” except to refer to the right.

So why are they so critical of Trump’s willingness to dialogue with dictators such as North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and the Phillipines’ Duterte?

All of these are rhetorical questions, of course. The answer is because he’s Trump and not Obama:

Asked in a 2007 Democratic debate whether he’d be willing to meet “without precondition” with “the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea,” Obama said this:

“I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them–which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration– is ridiculous.” He noted that Ronald Reagan met with Soviet leaders while calling theirs an evil empire.

I have no idea what would happen, good or bad, if Trump were to talk to these dictators. But his suggestion that it might be good idea is hardly preposterous, nor is it evil. Is it narcissistically deluded? I might have said so a year ago. But although I’m still very skeptical, at this point I wouldn’t be too critical of Trump for having confidence in his abilities to schmooze and to persuade, and to accomplish things the world at large pooh-poohs him for thinking he can manage.

Public perceptions and the GOP health coverage bill

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m going to start with a bunch of questions.

Have you noticed how hard it is to figure out what to call the Republican efforts to replace (or shall we say modify) Obamacare? The natural solution is “Trumpcare,” but you could just as easily call it “Ryancare,” at least so far. However, in a little while the Senate will chime in, and then the bill won’t just represent Ryancare, although “McConnellcare” will never fall trippingly off the tongue even if the Senate manages to pass some version of it (which is somewhat in doubt at this point).

I actually prefer “GOPcare,” but I don’t think that name will ever catch on. And if the MSM has its way (see today’s coverage, for example, or the Times’ editoral “The Trumpcare Disaster”), the entire concept won’t catch on with the American people. Just compare the negativity expressed now in the MSM to the euphoria that greeted Obamacare—both of which are bills with major flaws, attempting to deal with a conundrum that is essentially insoluble—and you’ll see how much fear and loathing is already being stoked for the GOP version, even though this is the temporary first effort.

The goal on the part of the Democrats and the MSM (but I repeat myself): to frighten people—nay, to terrify them—and to have it result in Congress changing to Democrat hands in the next election.

Another question—have you noticed how the concept of health insurance has morphed, so that by now these bills (Obamacare or Whatevercare) are routinely referred to as providing health care? This was originally the way the left referred to them, which was a purposeful (and successful) effort to spread and solidify the idea that the federal government should be guaranteeing health care rather than regulating health insurance, and that without Obamacare people wouldn’t have health care and would be dying in the streets. Now it’s not just the left talking that way; it’s standard to refer to health care in reference to these bills.

That’s not a semantic point—it’s both a cause and a reflection of the dilemma the GOP faces. When Obamacare was passed, we heard a lot about how bills like this are impossible to repeal, because once people get used to them there’s no turning back. Now the GOP is trying to turn things back, and they probably have the power to do so, since they control both legislative houses and the presidency. But having the power to do it doesn’t mean that doing it will work. That’s because the public has gotten used to the idea that Obamacare provided health care, and that changing it is a tremendous threat to their ability to get medical treatment.

Another problem is that the private health insurance system of individual coverage that Obamacare dismantled has been—well, dismantled. Can the GOP put Humpty Dumpty together again, even if it wanted to and even if the public wanted them to? One can understand why the GOP might be reluctant to go back to the type of coverage that will provide the Democrats and the MSM (but I repeat myself) with many sad medical anecdotes to pin the idea of heartlessness on the Republicans. As it is, there will be plenty such anecdotes availiable no matter how much the GOP tweaks and improves the bill.

Here’s a quote from J.J. Sefton at Ace’s that encapsulates the problem:

Health insurance and health care are now seen as human rights, so naturally they must be guaranteed- no, they are GRANTED to you by the government! And any attempt to take away your human rights will result in “thousands dying in the streets!” For the benefit of the mal-educated (few here, thankfully), logic dictates that as crucially important as health care and insurance are, they are goods and services just like anything else and you get what you can afford to pay for. It’s up to individuals to take responsibility for themselves and make the right choices in their lives. It is not my responsibility to pay for others dissolute lifestyles and irresponsible choices. Okay, you’ve had your laugh for the day.

Unfortunately, health care and insurance are not “goods and services just like anything else.” Some goods and services are a matter of life and death and some are not, and that first type are considered different for that reason. Our society has come to the point that we don’t tolerate people going without those things (as Sefton of course understands, which is the reason for the sarcasm in the passage), and even before Obamacare there were laws (for example EMTALA, passed in 1986) that made it illegal for hospitals to turn anyone away for inability to pay. That law (and please read up on it if you’re not aware of it) was transformative, and reflected a point of view about medical care that predated Obamacare by almost 25 years.

In that Sefton quote there’s another problem, which is the idea that people get sick because of their dissolute lifestyles and irresponsible choices. Of course, sometimes they do. Smoking, for example, is one of the best examples of that, as is alcoholism, although we all know smokers and alcoholics who live to a ripe old age. But although it’s nice to have the illusion of control over whether we get sick or not, we most definitely do not, even if we make what’s considered sterling life choices that are supposed to maximize good health. Illness and injury are no invariable respecters of our efforts, and it’s folly to think they are.

Just as one small example, I became a chronic pain patient in my very early forties after a lifetime of exercise that included yoga (in fact, one of my injuries was sustained from swimming, supposed to be so very good for you). I didn’t smoke or drink, and for the most part stuck to the recommended diet and was the recommended weight. I remember, during the height of my pain decade (which lasted about twelve years), listening to some woman expound on how she never got sick because she took good care of herself. If I’d been a more aggressive person—and not been in so much pain—I might have gone over and punched her, I was so angry.

That’s a digression, but it also illustrates how emotional these issues are for everyone, and how the idea of personal responsibility can be used as a cudgel to blame the sick. If the GOP is perceived as the party doing that, it will not go well for them.

The ACA replacement bill passes the House

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, well, well. They herded up enough GOP House cats to pass the first Obamacare replacement bill.

I say “the first” because I believe it likely that the Senate will modify it considerably before it passes there, and that it will be tough sledding in the Senate in general.

Here’s the way the vote went:

After a dramatic week of negotiations, lobbying from Trump and Republican leaders, the vote ended with 217 GOP lawmakers backing the measure. Twenty Republicans opposed it, as did all House Democrats.

It’s like a mirror image of the final passage of the original Obamacare bill in 2010, when all the House Republicans voted against, as did some House Democrats (34).

The votes on these two bills—the original 2010 Obamacare bill and now this one (Trumpcare? Ryancare?) show how evenly split the country was and is, as well as the tenuous nature of the popularity of either bill on passage, even in their own parties. The only bipartisan support for either was the “nay” vote for both.

The Democrats will capitalize on every flaw in the bill—and believe me, all health care reform bills have huge flaws because the problems are so large and the desires of the American public so contradictory (complete and sterling coverage guaranteed by the feds at low cost). The flaws of this bill will be endlessly shouted from the hills by the Democrats with the full cooperation of the MSM, with the hope of it backfiring and hurting the GOP. And the Democrats (who denied the flaws of their own bill) are not shy about saying so:

Democrats were unable to stop the GOP vote aimed at President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement. But after the final vote was cast, they chanted “nah nah nah nah hey hey hey goodbye” to their Republican colleagues, with a few members waving, as they believe the vote will lead to many GOP lawmakers losing their seats in the November 2018 midterms…

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blasted the bill and timing of the vote.

“Do you believe in what is in this bill?” she said Thursday. “Some of you have said … well, they’ll fix it in the Senate. But you have every provision of this bill tattoos on your forehead you will glow in the dark on this one.”

The remark was met with cheers and applause.
“You will glow in the dark,” she repeated.

Like the Democrats did after passing Obamacare.

Ah, but Nancy, Nancy—I thought health care coverage bills were like refrigerators, and you didn’t need to know the provisions, much less have them tattooed on your forehead [emphasis mine]:

[In 2010 Pelosi compared the passage of Obamacare] to the enactment of social security, medicare and the civil rights act.

And while she said it may not be perfect, it’s a bold step in the right direction.

”It’s like the back of the refrigerator. You see all these wires and the rest,” said Pelosi. “All you need to know is, you open the door. The light goes on. You open this door, you go through a whole different path, in terms of access to quality, affordable healthcare for all Americans.”

Clearly, Pelosi seems fond of those metaphors about lights going on in the dark, both good and bad—refrigerators and/or glowing tattoos like a mark of Cain. And clearly, she hopes the Republicans won’t “fix it in the Senate” and will be hoist on the petard of their own health care reform failures.

I hope they will manage to “fix it,” but I’m not particularly optimistic about that.

The CNN article I linked goes on to explain some of the provisions of the GOP bill, provisions that sound pretty good to me but which I’m pretty sure the author of the article thought readers should think are steps backward. They have the general effect of returning health coverage to a more insurance-like model (not a complete insurance model) compared with Obamacare. They also seem to provide more choices for the consumer and the states.

There are plenty of other articles describing the bill, and over the next few days there will be plenty more, if you care to check out the wires in back of that fridge. I’m not going to write that particular post today, though, because I’m waiting for all sides to check in more fully so I can evaluate as best I can what’s what. When I say “all sides,” it’s because although the bill’s provisions and their predicted effects are probably relatively straightforward, the analysis varies considerably depending on the point of view of the person performing the job.

And so, we’ll…see.