The Talk of the Town (And no, it's not Tiger Woods)

Well, I am officially finished with my first semester of college. Today, I shall be on route to home, once again. My dad is taking the time out of his Monday and Tuesday to drive the 6 hours here to pick me up. So again, I have a fun car ride in store for me.

In the news, the healthcare reform bill is still the talk of the town. And by talk of the town, I mean the filler between Tiger Woods stories.

The most recent update, from what I have heard, is that Public Option and Medicare Buy-In are no longer in the bill. This action was taken in an attempt to allow the bill's passing (Which seemed otherwise impossible), by gaining support from such skeptics as Joe Lieberman and Olympia Snowe. If you have been living in a hole (result of not watching CSPAN or browsing news websites for the non-celebrity or ukulele kid stories), public option is a federally supported option for health insurance. Many people opposed it, and so in order to have any chance of passing, this change was made.

However, I still have little hope. Why?

Joe Lieberman will
Always find some way to prove
His douchebaggery


Seriously, he's a democrat, he's an independent, he's a democrat- he needs to make up his damn mind. He's hated by democrats, and loved by republicans. He was even encouraged to join the republican party but chose not to (even though he lost the Democratic primary for a senate seat in '06). He ran with Gore in 2000, but went on to support McCain in 2008. He was in that group of people who supported the war, and then was too old and stubborn to admit that he was wrong (much like McCain). His reason for not wanting public option is that it would allow people as young as 55 to get Medicare. I think that the phrase he used was "get off my lawn you young wippersnappers!" Except Lieberman, believe it or not, is rather progressive. He supports gay rights, abortion rights, and other such issues. So why exactly does he insist on trying his best to go against the democratic party? I blame douchebaggery.

I have a more concrete theory though. If I were to guess, bribing... I mean lobbying might somehow be involved. Healthcare lobbyists spend millions of dollars to try to save themselves from any sort of government regulation. According to one article I read, they averaged 1.4 million dollars in spending per day earlier this year. Now, I'm no econ major (though I'm probably better at math than many of the athletes- I mean econ majors here), but that seems like an awful lot of money. Maybe if some of that money went to health care instead of lobbying, we might not need reform?


If you're interested in more, here's a good read about Joe Lieberman from a like-minded, and more educated-on-the-issue individual.