I ask this question in the light of listening to Lawrence O'Donnell's report last night on just how humiliating this defeat was. If you believe Mr. O'Donnell, and I have to say he makes a very good argument for his case, it wasn't just nine GOP members of the Senate who ended up being against this legislation, but rather that only five senators, including Mitch McConnell, who were actually willing to vote for it; with the reluctance on that side of the isle being split between seeing the legislation as being not nearly mean spirited enough, and those who thought the exact opposite.
And let's also be clear about the Democratic side. Though they generally do want people to have the care they need, you still have a pretty wide spread between Bernie Sanders on the Left, and the more conservative members distinctly to the right of him; and that gulf exists because the Dems don't know how to pay for health care any more than the republicans do; and when you are talking about a segment of our economy as large as health care is, that's a real problem. Especially when you consider that the Affordable Care Act is still in desperate need of repair.
What do you suppose is going to happen to that much needed effort now? And do you suppose, even if the Dems get back a good portion of the House in the coming midterm elections, they'll be able to propose the kinds of repair that will make a difference? Something that might actually pass a still GOP controlled Senate? Even if you have what you think are magic charms (like the supposed swell of support from kicking a de facto ex president out of office, along with the sycophants who supported him)? If you think it will be any kind of a truly good outcome you are whistling in a kind of dark I don't even want to try to imagine.
What really amazes me here, though, from both sides of our current two party spread, is how unwilling everyone is to accept that Health Care can't be done now as it should be done. It just can't. And that is precisely because it shows the ultimate absurdity of using "cost," calculated in the cold abstractions of money, which has to be taken from someone. And just like everybody wanting to go to heaven, but nobody wanting to die, you automatically get what is one of the hallmarks of an fundamentally defective form of social organization; the same run around of who pays and who benefits. Just as with National Defence. Or as with tackling, comprehensively, what needs to be done on climate change. Or as with affordable housing for everyone, just to name a few examples.
The simple fact of the matter is that "cost," that also has to factor in the capricious nature of both profit, and the value of skills, just isn't going to cut it any more.
No, only by figuring out how we can change things around (getting rid of that old operating system) so that our ability to have what we need, and want, is based on calculations of "effort, (where the effort is our own, cooperative endeavor, in the most direct sense, community to community)" can we have any hope of being able to meet those needs, and wants. And until we do we are going to be spending mountains of precious time spinning our wheels, getting all agitated and angry at each other, with nothing but good ratings for the news shows, and a lot more very sick (physically and mentally) people, to have to show for it.
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