Kaizen is a Japanese term that means small and continuous improvement. While usually applied to business, I've adopted this term when people question changes or forward moving direction I take in my own life. If you're improving, even in baby steps, you're still better off than you were before.
This blog has been weighing in on my mind for a while and many of you will disagree with me. The senate bill on health care reform isn't going to revolutionize much. It's doesn't have bells and whistles. It isn't sexy and it isn't what we voted for last November. But it does offer small improvments, that if continued, can change the way Americans are treated by their health care insurance providers. Not much else, though. Right now, Kaizen is the only positive spin anyone can put on this mess.
I won't write the tombstone for health care reform just yet - the Democrats DO have a supermajority in Congress, after all - and they need to remember that. Bernie Sanders said on Fox Business Network last night that he is not prepared to vote for the bill as it stands today.
It's about time that the liberals in the Senate start throwing hissy fits and temper tantrums like the conservatives have been. Make the moderates tailor the bill to the wing of the Senate that the people overwhelmingly voted in to tackle this monster health care problem. Perhaps if not all liberals are a blanket "yes" vote on a package, no matter how weak, the debate will move back the other way. Sadly, this isn't much of a reality because it's almost the end of the year. All progress on the Senate bill needs to be done this week.
Where is the President of the United States on this? If I hear "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" one more freaking time I'm going to lose it. How about "Don't let the shitty be the enemy of the good?"
Pardon my french.
huey you speak my mind. i'd rather have half a loaf if i cannot get a loaf of bread. but i'd also do with one slice should the half be placed outside my reach. i've already posted too many lengthy reasons i have for supporting the bill, but it was not until tonight that i may have come to terms with my true reason: i am beginning to intensely dislike republicans. and this is a bit uncomfortable to admit, because usually i am a peace loving, get along with any and everybody kind of old hippie. there, i said it. feel better already:)
I don't think it will take many years to get revisited. It took 17 years to get another push for universal healthcare, but once you have actually have universal healthcare, there will always be constant pressure to update and improve it.
It's much easier, politically, to build on top of a reform bill that has already been passed then it is to actually pass the bill. The example I use is social security. It wasn't universal when it passed. Someone else on another thread mentioned the civil rights legislation of the 60's. Both are great examples of bills being passed that were less than ideal, but were stenghtened over the years.
If this bill isn't passed, then we'll never get what is needed.
Do we really want to turn down a bill that extend coverage to 30 million people because it doesn't contain a public option?
It is a large step. It just stops short of what is needed. If this one is what gets enacted, it will be many, many years before it will be revisited. It took us 17 years to get here from 1992, the last big push to improve healthcare. How long will it take to get any further or have so many people feeling hopeful of real change.
If only.
...i would agree that kaizen would have been the preferred approach to healthcare reform...
....instead, what have progressive democrats offerred up...muri - absurdly burdensome and muda - wastefully bloated...pelosi/harrycare...
...i won't even dignify it as obamacare because he has been absent without leadership during the entire process...so much for hope and change...
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Editor's question: So what's your solution, ketsunoana?
ABSOLUTELY. Pointy toed boots. They're not just for killing roaches in the corners.
I little less pragmatism and a little more LBJ? Yes, please!
kel thanks for the post, i've been arguing with my liberal friends for days that since we so grossly underestimated the power of the party of no, the only course of action is the resort to being the party of yes. there is no upside to republicans scoring a "waterloo" for obama's first year, regardless of how this has been botched. i was trained many years ago to mediate, while working in the legal field when plantiff's & defendants were forced to attend mandatory mediation before a judge would allow a suit to proceed. the first rule is to negotiate, the second is to do so with an understanding that compromise is an absolute if a workable solution is the desired outcome. diplomacy is an essential element to this process, and nobody will get everything they want. unfortunately, what is going on here seems to be republican exercising precision discipline, sticking to frank luntz's advice of divide and conquer. strict adherence to membership in the party of no, with full knowledge there exists no such club as the party of yes. as of today the big tent has proven that too many cooks spoil the broth. ben nelson is hung up on abortion like stupak, liberals like bernie sanders have been taken for granted. sanders is expected to hold his nose, suck up his principles while nelson and the anti-choice coalition must be acommodated? this is a gross miscalcuation on reid's part, because while sanders is often inclined to compromise, zealots like nelson who base their politics on ideology are not. ted kennedy might have been the only person capable of pushing the cameras out, closing the door and thundering a lecture to remind democrats what is at stake here. ok, no public option, no medicare buy in (which was a cheap public option replacement). but how about the chips coverage, sceduled to expire in feb which is in the bill to become a mandate. or the under 26 child dependent coverage in the bill? all but three of my nieces and nephews under 26 are presently uninsured. ok democrats, you screwed up, let the tea party define america while we elected obama and sat on our hands. where were all the town hall meetings for democrats? far and few between that's where, because they adopted a strategy of "ignore them, they'll go away after the summer" but they didn't. instead they got dick armey's astroturfed money and glen beck's book deal and crazy train. now i would like for democrats to suck it up and introduce the party of no to the party of yes. clean up your mess!
Good points gang. Nice job Kelly.
I'm with stex, Huey, and SSTM. I also am hoping that the "man we elected president" shows up one morning in the White House with two six guns and a whole belt full of ammo. And that he walks down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol with that theme song from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" playing in the background. (They can do that in editing, you know) And I can hear Lieberman saying....."The President is Near". And the whole senate begins to quake because they know he has the IRS on "speed dial".
Agreed, Huey.
If I had to, I'd hold my nose and vote for this ugly, smelly bill, because, as ugly and smelly as it is, it contains even more good (and far more potential for good down the road).
Actually, small steps could get us additional steps in the future, although I would argue that the current bill is a large step.
Look at the history of Social Security and Medicare. These same battles were fought back then and progessives lost(or at least it was initially thought so) those battles too. Once the bill is passed, there will be pressure to continuously lower costs. Let's not forget, the public option is a cost saving mechanism, not a mechanism to increase the number of people with insurance. The great liberal goal since the Truman administration has to been universal coverage. I don't think we should not pass a bill that gets us to universal coverage because we're upset that not all of the cost control mechanisms are included.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's a very good bill. We're talking about spending 900 billion dollars over the next 10 years to insure 30 million more Americans. It would outlaw the practice of discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, it would force large companies to offer insurance to their employees and fine the ones that don't. It also provides tax credits for small businesses who normally can't afford to offer inurance to be able to offer it. When we look at what's actually in the bill, we see that it accomplishes a lot. As Krugman pointed out, the Senate bill in its current form is the largest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare.
If the bill is killed, no POTUS would even attempt to reform healthcare again for at leat another 10 years.
As far as President Obama's leadership on the issue, I think he's made some mistakes, but also think he's doing a good job, but that's a whole nother subject.
Kelly, I understand what you are saying and normally I would agree with you. The problem I have with small steps on Healthcare is that small steps here won't get us bigger or additional steps in the future. All it will do is let the employees of the industry (read Congressmen) point to the small steps as revolutionary and use that as an excuse to stay away from re-opening the debate in years to come. Hell, they kept the debate to a soft roar since Hilary and Bill opened the debate back in 1992. Nothing from that movement ever saw the light of day. We originally tried to shape this one as a "we hate everything Obama", but its more than that. As long as PACS are allowed to throw money at key Congressmen and they are venal enough to accept it, real change will never happen. On this and other issues, as well.
Thanks for the smile this morning.
Where is the President of the United States??? Oh.. for some leadership. T'would be nice.
I just wonder, since almost 60% of the American people were in favor of the public option...
do you reckon the people will ever get what they overwhelmingly want?
Brass tacks. It's our fault. We elect these jokers to office.
I'm going to lose it... if I read again "don't throw the baby out with the bath water" and/or "moderate" Ben Nelson, or "centrist" Joe Lieberman, or "liberal" Bill Clinton. Give me a break.... please.
"Bernie Sanders said on Fox Business Network last night that he is not prepared to vote for the bill as it stands today"
He wouldn't vote for it in any shape or form anyway.