Summary
The Senate confirmed Dr. Mehmet Oz as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in a 53-45 party-line vote.
Oz will oversee healthcare for over half the U.S. population, including Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA programs, amid debates over Medicaid cuts.
He supports work requirements for Medicaid recipients.
He’s also embraced RFK Jr.‘s campaign to redesign the country’s food supply, reject vaccine mandates, and cast doubt on some long-established scientific research.
I think it’s gone underappreciated how much a government depends more on the quality of the people in power than the structure of government.
Yup. We have the people that destroy 100 yr corporations for their personal profit in charge… It’s gonna be great…
Especially by the nonfascist party with any power.
Part of what makes the Dem leadership so damn inept at protecting the people from the abuses of the GOP is their reverence for the “sanctity” of the systems and processes making them accept unacceptable outcomes.
For all the awful things that they do (which is pretty much everything they ever do), the GOP are right about one thing: in politics, getting the desired results is more important than following procedure.
That they’re being so hamfisted about it that they’re causing a shitload of unintended harm and that their goals are themselves extremely harmful to the vast majority of the people means that they’re still not right to do it though, of course…
A lot of their supposed ineptness aligns with a hidden wish to throw fights on particular issues. Like when they let the parliamentarian shoot down one of their immigration efforts when they held the senate and could dismiss the parliamentarian’s advice without so much as even a vote if they had wanted to.
This is the exact opposite take-away to draw from this. 😅
You’re asking for a dictatorship. You just want your dictatorship. And that’s bad. The structure of government still matters a great deal - it’s just irrelevant if the parties involved refuse to maintain the system. You want a democracy. More than you want outcomes (hear me out). Because without a democracy you are truly at the whim of a mad king. With a democracy, even a stagnant an ineffective one, progress can be made though it will be made slowly. BUT it is still preferable to a fast-acting autocracy that is unresponsive to the needs of the people.
On the contrary. I’m asking for politicians to focus on the real outcomes for real people alive today, rather than tying their own hands with avoidable bureaucracy.
Nope. Representing the will of the people more than the ideas of long dead slave owners is not dictatorship no matter how much you insist on your ridiculous strawman.
As a means towards the minimizing of abuse and otherwise making it more difficult to achieve malicious aims, sure.
Far too often, though, it’s being used as an invalid excuse for Dems to not do their REAL job of representing the will of the people who are affected by their actions.
Technically correct, but unrelated to my point. I’m not advocating getting rid of all rules and having a free for all.
I’m saying that for example allowing an unelected bureaucrat with only ceremonial authority to decide whether a minimum wage raise is allowed is farcical to the point of dereliction of duty if not malicious sabotage.
Correct. I want rule of the people. Not rule of the ancient and often irrelevant decrees of old.
This better be fucking good…
Again with the false dichotomy. I have never nor will I ever argue for autocracy.
There are other options than “you don’t get to have a living wage because an advisor said nah” and “let’s dictate policy on a whim!” 🤦
Again pretending that I’m arguing against democracy rather than for a more representative one 🙄
That’s the problem, though: it’s generally been one step forward three steps back since 1980 or so, since the least awful party won’t fight, has awful messaging, and care more about the sacred bureaucracy and their owner donors than the people in general.
Wow, you’ve built a dead horse out of straw and you’re still beating it! that would be impressive if it wasn’t so damn stupid.
that’s what I’m saying! That the Dems in their hyperfocus on norms and procedures ARE unresponsive to the wants and needs of the people!
BECAUSE their obsession with how Thomas Jefferson thought things ought to be done 250 years ago distracts them from properly focusing on the real life consequences of their actions and lack of same.
They’re acting like they’re in a fucking Aaron Sorkin show where ideology is the worst character flaw imaginable and whomever holds the best rousing speech about bravely weathering adversity deservedly wins everything 🤦