Democratic Vaccilation on Health Care for Jobless, June 13, 2010

With real unemployment at close to 17% (http://www­.bls.gov/n­ews.releas­e/empsit.t­15.htm), and by some measures higher even than that, and with unemployment likely to remain persistent for some time (http://www­.csmonitor­.com/Money­/2010/0609­/Bernanke-­sees-subdu­ed-inflati­on-but-per­sistent-un­employment), this is extremely difficult to understand.

It's clearly the wrong thing to do for people in terribly difficult circumstances whose health, or whose children's health, is threatened (imagine being on chemo and out of work); and it's clearly economically wrong, or at a minimum very poorly timed, with the economy still limping along and more in need of stimulus than deficit reduction initiatives. And even if there were a need for deficit reduction at a time like this, there would be far better targets than vulnerable families (US military expenditures significantly more than the next ten nations combined (http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/L­ist_of_cou­ntries_by_­military_e­xpenditure­s), and of course we could focus on generating revenue instead of cutting.

In this context, that Democrats in particular would be abandoning families in need, because of a "treacherous election year" (read: fear of low information Tea Partiers) is disappointing to say the least.