health care (basically) passed! and a local shoutout
Mood: ecstatic
Posted on 2010-03-22 14:28:00
Tags: lj for webos essay projects politics links
Words: 409

The health care bill passed the House! The plan is for the Senate to pass it this week and then Obama will sign it into law.

The bill: Here's some information on the final bill - it was confusing for a while with the House bill and the Senate bill, but this is the final one. It expands coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. It prohibits lifetime limits on insurance coverage and denial of coverage due to preexisting conditions. Yes, it's not a perfect bill, and it's hard to predict how well the cost control measures will work, and there's no public option, but there's a lot of good stuff in the bill. And it will be easier to adjust this bill in the future than if we had started over or given up because it wasn't "good enough". As James Fallows said:


There are countless areas in which America does it one way and everyone else does it another, and I say: I prefer the American way. Our practice on medical coverage is not one of these. Despite everything that is wrong with this bill and the thousand adjustments that will be necessary in the years to come, this is a very important step.

The politics: A bunch of reactions. My thoughts: elections matter, and this is why. (why yes, there is a difference between the Republicans and Democrats!) It's certainly possible this will be a political loser for the Democrats (although I think it will be popular in the long term), but the point of having power isn't to maintain power, it's to get things like this done.

Other randomness:
After canvassing the house for my lost camera, I bought a new one today from Precision Camera and Video. I was happy there - they let me play with it a bit and even open a few cases to find one I liked, and I get a free basic photography class which I might actually take advantage of. Good service and good prices!

Today marks the 100th sale of LJ for WebOS - thanks to all who have purchased it! I have a few new features I'm planning on working on soon. Coincidentally, I just got my first PayPal deposit from Palm, so that's exciting :-) I put myself up on theymakeapps.com.

Capital MetroRail opened today! Finally, commuter rail in Austin. Unfortunately, turnout wasn't great this morning, but I'd give it at least a few months to see how it goes.

2 comments

Comment from destroyerj:
2010-03-22T16:41:36+00:00
Ooh, which camera did you buy?

I want to go to a photography class! Maybe I'll go buy a camera so I can get a free one too :)

Comment from gregstoll:
2010-03-22T16:51:58+00:00
I went with a Canon SD1300, which looks fairly similar to my lost SD1100, but with more zoom (4x vs. 3x) and a newer processor. (I went over to show it to you but you're not here, as you probably know...) And they're running a sale on all Canon cameras - 8.25% off (i.e. no tax) until the weekend!

Yeah - the description for the class doesn't look super advanced, but I could probably learn some things. If you buy one, we could take it together!

This backup was done by LJBackup.