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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Petri/Kucinich Alliance?

OK, not really, but Open Congress reports they agreed on this:
During the House Education & Labor Committee’s mark-up of the health care bill (H.R. 3200) today, Rep. Dennis Kucinich [D, OH-10] proposed and passed an amendment that would remove legal barriers barring a state from creating a Medicare-like single-payer health care system to guarantee insurance for all of their citizens.
Thirteen Republicans voted with Kucinich, including Wisconsin's own Petri.

This would allow states to create their own single payer health care systems.

Recent debates have largely turned on the question of whether or not the federal government should get involved in what is largely private enterprise (autos, banks, health care). There is another question, though, that in my mind is just as important.

We have many other levels of government in this country, some of which might be better suited to address the concerns of the citizenry. Maybe sometimes there is a need for government intervention, that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the federal government.

2 comments:

Dad29 said...

1 point for subsidiarity.

But as Mass. and Maine prove, idiotic plans NEVER work, no matter the sponsor.

Jeremy R. Shown said...

Dad29,

Would TARP qualify as one of those idiotic plans?

For those wondering:

subsidiarity: A term (the Latin subsidium for aid, help) from Roman Catholic social philosophy which expresses the view that, whenever practicable, decisions ought to be made by those most affected by the decisions. Put another way: the national government ought only to do what the states cannot; the states only what communities cannot; communities only what families cannot; families only what individuals cannot.

From The Catholic Thing.