The Web is on Fire....

Full on liberal panic. Progressives are good at it. They love their circular firing squads.

So in instead of pointing to the various liberal/progressive pundits pleading with people to keep their shit together, instead I am going to head to the libertarian/conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan.

Why? Because he is not a supporter of some of the positions I favor (single payer for example), but even he is dismayed by what he sees:

The second explanation is the Brooks/Noonan theory that somehow everything feels wrong to the Independent or conservative-leaning voters. They have an instinctual fear of more government and, even though the Senate bill couldn't be more minimalist within the confines of expanding access and controlling costs, this gnaws at them. I think this is a legitimate feeling (I have it too) - but an illegitimate argument.

Look: the markets conservatives have believed in have failed.

As the more honest conservatives (Greenspan, Posner, Bartlett) have noted, the financial crisis was a clear indicator that we need a more active and vigilant government in regulating the financial sector. And when you look at the results of America's hybrid and dysfunctional healthcare system, it is more than clear that the status quo is unsustainable. Yes, this system has pioneered amazing breakthroughs and a pharmaceutical revolution that has transformed lives. But the cost and inefficiency of this is simply staggering. Look at the graph above. If you think it's great, support the GOP. They don't want to change anything, but a few tweaks.

The current system insures fewer and fewer people and costs more and more. It is crippling other sectors of the economy and will bankrupt the entire Treasury if some painful adjustments are not made. If America cannot grapple with a crisis this big, and cannot accept an imperfect but reformable piece of legislation that makes a start on this, then America is incapable of grappling with its serious problems. And if Republicans are in the forefront of defending every cent going to Medicare and refusing to offer a single credible path to cutting spending and offering even more tax cuts as some kind of panacea, they are much worse than the feckless Democrats. Even the drug and insurance companies know that the current system is broken. At least Obama seems interested in government. The GOP seems interested only in politics and rhetoric that can sustain the bubble of deep denial they live in.

This is someone who is making a conservative argument for Health Care reform. The system is broken. Honestly there is very little debate on that. But doing nothing harms the democrats so republicans have embraced that firmly.

-Cheers