Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Reading Between The Lines

My read of Ezra's interview with a Wal-Mart spokesman (and I swear we read bloggers other than Ezra and Matt Yglesias) is that Wal-Mart signed on to an employer mandate hoping that by being on the inside of the tent pissing out, they can the level of coverage and/or at least force tighter cost controls onto the medical-industrial complex. I suspect that that's a deal I would be hunting for if I were Democrats; passage will require substantial business support, unless we adopt the Bernie Sanders method of returning to up-or-down votes for most legislation. Much better to get Wal-Mart to sign on to 85% of what we're looking for, then convince them to go lobby a few Republicans, than to strike a deal with Joe Lieberman's gang of wankers that gives us only 60% of what we're looking for.

1 comment:

Frank Wilhoit said...

Actaully this is the vilest and most shocking thing I have yet seen. What it means is that Walmart would rather pay a huge and growing amount of money in order to make sure they can second-guess doctors and make sure people don't get accurate diagnoses and effective treatments. It's the health-care non-delivery, stupid.