Taibbi on Healthcare

Matt Taibbi said something really interesting and really stupid in his brief promo-interviews on RollingStone.com for his new article Sick and Wrong. The interesting thing he said was that the bills have a grandfather clause that allows terrible insurance policies to stand, which will give a competitive advantage to firms with shitty and cheap policies versus those who will have to generate new health insurance policies in the future. This is interesting for the very reason that it means that reform will not really help those people who are say, employed by Wal Mart.

The stupid thing he says is that health insurance reform will be like the Iraq War for Democrats, i.e. something they will ultimately have to apologize for. That's stupid. A good bill is possible without single payer and even a public option. Here are nine reasons why a bill, even without a public option, is a good thing.