Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Stimulus Sausage

The speed with which the stimulus bill was written, rewritten and driven through Congress has led to expected glitches. The LAT has a story on one peculiar product of the compromise, health benefits are only made available to those who lost jobs since September 2008, even though the current recession started before then. People who lost jobs prior to September are shut out, they were part of the original bill, but were sacrificed to gain the necessary votes to pass the bill through both houses of Congress.

Many commentators have pointed out that the large number of health provisions in the bill make it a health bill, though it does not make the comprehensive changes some health care advocates have hoped for , including the passage of a single payer system.