The Passage of the Senate Health Care Bill, 60-39 @7:19 AM
"The greatest and richest nation the world has ever known," said Senator Harry Reid on the floor this morning, will now see an end of the dominance of the "greedy insurance companies."
"This is just the beginning," Reid said. "The opponents of this bill have used every trick in the book to delay this day." (It was, by then, 7:03 a.m., and the vote was already itself just a bit delayed.) "It is regrettable that they choose to view our citizen's healthcare through a political lens," he said.
Then at 7:05 the roll was called. Senator Byrd coughed up that his "aye" vote was for Teddy Kennedy. Also, one was unable to tell from C-Span 2 exactly why the Senate cracked up for like 30 seconds when Reid voted, and no one was awake on the Internet to explain.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was, quite obviously, passed. You may go read it now, if you like. 27
Underparenting, with Tom Scocca: No H1N1 Vaccine For You, Kiddo @10:30 AM
"Keep calling back," the receptionist at the pediatrician's office said, ringing off. They were out of H1N1 flu vaccine, she had told me, and they didn't know when the next batch might be coming. So keep calling.
I would rather not keep calling. That was my third or fourth or fifth inquiry about the swine-flu vaccine, by phone or in person at the office while getting other shots for the kid. This is not because I am a hysterical parent, unable to bear the thought of my child going without medical intervention. I do not snap awake at three in the morning with flu panic, worrying that some filthy stranger may cough around my precious offspring before he has been properly immunized, cursing the government for not coming up with vaccine fast enough, scheming to intercept the life-saving product before it goes to someone else's child. (Let the other child die.) READ MORE 24
'Thousand Jokes' Finally Has Its Day of Cannibalistic Infamy @11:45 AM
It was bound to happen that me and Heather Locklear's proud semi-hometown of Thousand Oaks would end up in the news for an act of politically-motivated cannibalism. (Heather went to Newbury Park High School. That means she is a slut! I went to Thousand Oaks middle school, which was an idyllic place of breezeways and white people—the kind of middle school where the librarian got upset because I was reading The Color Purple, inappropriately adult material. You know, no matter that it won the Pulitzer that year! Idiots.) Thousand Oaks was actually created by a corporation, by the way! The Janss family, real estate developers, made the massive town out of a charming, bunny-infested chaparral valley, and gave the streets names like "Avenida de Los Arboles," which—really, white people? There's something odd about a town that hates Mexicans yet gives the streets "classy" Spanish names, no? Also, they were big on cul-de-sacs. So now, yes, a "65-year-old man had his finger bitten off Wednesday evening at a health care rally in Thousand Oaks." READ MORE 12
The Death of the Public Option: The Sloppy White House Healthcare Briefing @3:11 PM
Oof, today's White House briefing! It just ended. It is ridiculous, and sort of tense, like alligators wrestling for sex. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggests if perhaps there were two restaurants, each would be less expensive! This is a metaphor for healthcare. But people are like, yeah yeah, but is there going to be a "public option." Then Gibbs says: WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT SAY ON SATURDAY? NO NO NO NO, WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT SAY? I think he used the word "essential" someone volunteers! So if he did—GO FIND THE TRANSCRIPT. (Robert Gibbs shininess threat level, by the way: very matte!) YES, JAKE TAPPER? No we have not vote-counted, no really, we have NO idea if this thing will pass. (Um. Right. As if.) READ MORE 10
At the Forum: the Los Angeles Field Hospital @11:00 AM
The first sound you hear is the high-pitched wheeze of 60 dentists' drills buzzing inside of open mouths. Splayed out on a show floor generally reserved for millionaire athletes and rock bands are: a hundred dental chairs; five RVs filled with X-ray equipment; mammogram machines; a 60-person triage station; rubber gloved paramedics; long picnic tables of surgical equipment; and about 1,000 recipients of free healthcare. Since last Tuesday and until tomorrow, the Forum in Inglewood is the biggest free healthcare clinic in Los Angeles. The bill will be picked up by the Remote Area Medical Expedition, a 1,300-person volunteer effort of medical professionals. RAM got their start treating villagers in the Amazon in 1985. Now they have ventured to the first world—their first time treating patients in Los Angeles. READ MORE 20
A Rock 'n' Roll Song About Town Hall Meetings @11:00 AM
Set to what is apparently the karaoke track to Billy Idols' "Rebel Yell," here is a song about health care protests. My mind is a little blown? 14
The Nanostory and the Healthcare Propaganda War @10:20 AM
Bill Wasik, flash mob inventor/invigorator,and author of And Then There's This, is working to explain These Modern Times. His contention is that much of what passes for news is, obviously, roar and thunder. Current events explode in little bomb clusters of emotion-imbued waves of opinion—in part because the actual news is actually very difficult to understand. These "nanostories," he says, "serve as the lens through which we comprehend truly large, important, long-term stories." READ MORE 8
Republicans and the Town Hall Strategy: "Political Terrorists" @10:01 AM
2008 Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Pearlstein warns today in his Washington Post column that he is going to go "over the line." This sounds exciting! But actually he just asserts some basic facts in this bullshit, fabricated, ridiculous and saddening summer-long political propaganda fest over healthcare. For instance! "The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems. " 82
Hang On, Sickies! @1:34 PM
Health care reform vote in the Senate will take place in September. Or later. After they think about it, you know. Hope not too many of you DIE or anything meanwhile. 1
