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Okay, a quick note; lot of things I could write about the prospects for health care policy in America and the politics of them, depending on the Supreme Court decision expected a couple of months from now which obviously no one can simply wait for.

But here’s what I think is the most important point. Health insurance is already fucking expensive. And getting more expensive, and more expensive, every year. Given what I pay now, another ten years of double-digit premium increases will mean either spending nearly 20% of my pre-tax income on health insurance, or else switching to Fly-by-nite Insurers LLC and a $15,000 deductible. Or some compromise in between the two.

And yes that is based on my current income, which I certainly hope I can exceed ten years from now, but 1) given everything we know about the 21st century economy, is that really a safe assumption? and 2) even if I’m earning more, there will probably still be plenty of people trying to live on $30k/year and change in 2022, barring a revolution. That aside, what else is going to prevent this outcome in the absence of some kind of reform? I can’t see what, or how this outcome is going to be feasible when multiplied by millions of other Americans.

And therefore, I think it’s necessary to ask whether any scenario, which assumes that a Supreme Court ruling against the Obamacare insurance mandate will mean health care reform is  going to be “dead” in America for a generation, is really realistic. That still leaves various possibilities, but “GOP wins, Democrats lose, health care reform just fails and that’s the end” won’t be among them IMO. I just have serious doubts that the relentless financial pressures can possibly be ignored any longer, at any rate for more than a very brief time, even if they are still concealed from a majority of Americans whose health insurance is a “free” benefit of their employment.

I just don’t believe that’s a realistic possibility, for all that Congress is amazingly capable of ignoring things. Maybe I will prove to be wrong about this, of course.

In the meantime, um, maybe I had better start looking into moving to Massachusetts eh? (Or as always Canada.)

“Help save this congressional district for our community.”

Really—???

Oh, Dennis. I guess there is just about no low you won’t sink to, in order to save your job. On top of everything else you’ve flung at this race, now you’ve robocalled me twice in one day to attempt an 11th-hour Hail Mary throw based on the most absolutely shameless, primitive us-vs-them tribalism.

Apparently “we” absolutely must keep “our” congressional district in the hands of a Clevelander, and prevent its being hijacked by one of “those other people” all the way over in Toledo. Wow.

This is just sad. And, frankly, disgusting. And certainly in no way remotely progressive.

That does it for me. I don’t know who will win this primary, which thankfully ends within a few more hours, but I’m not voting for Dennis ever again. Not sure where that will leave me, as I believe other parties have rarely bothered trying to compete against Kucinich from the left. But if I have to just sit out the election for that office, I will. Just utterly fucking horrible. You’re horrible, Dennis Kucinich, in fact if anyone deserves the name of “slut” it’s probably you. Shame, shame, shame.

Update: Looks like Dennis is all done. Good. Not sure that Marcy Kaptur ran a much better campaign, but one thing at a time. Unfortunately Graham Veysey only received four percent of the vote; at least close to double digits would have been nice. Oh well. Meanwhile it seems Romney squeaked out just enough wins to remain safe as the eventual winner, but not enough to make his primary opponents go away. So that isn’t really too bad.

Update Two: “In a news conference at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Kucinich said Kaptur will have to explain to Cleveland-area voters the negative campaign she ran against him.” Unbelievable. I’m adding this post to the category “brass fucking balls.” So glad this twerp is gone. What a way to go out leaving a bad taste, Dennis.

So apparently it’s all over. I actually missed it, last week, thanks to various distractions and a relatively cryptic headline, and was still planning to go look for a petition to sign this week until I checked out the party web site and saw this.

I suppose I’ll start with the good news, because there isn’t much of it: it’s probable that this broad-daylight heist of congressional representation will at least be a catalyst for major reforms to the redistricting process here, simply because the stink has probably gotten too awful to ignore.

Which leads directly to the bad news, of course, the foremost item being that this outcome still really, really stinks.

That's about the reality of it

As an appropriately bitter and disgusted Thomas Suddes writes, “Substitute House Bill 369, Ohio’s new congressional map, tilts so far in favor of Republicans that the Leaning Tower of Pisa appears perpendicular.”

If the number crunchers have it right, Substitute House Bill 369 — the new Ohio congressional map — probably will award 12 of the 16 districts (or 75 percent) to Republicans. Yet even in 2010, a very good anti-Obama year for Ohio Republicans, who regained some of their 2008 congressional losses, the GOP captured 56 percent of the statewide congressional vote — not the 75 percent the new Ohio congressional district map implies.

And 75 percent isn’t politics as usual. That’s larceny.

And it’s now the law, locked in for the next five congressional elections; if this leads to reforms that may arguably be worth it in the long run, though it’s certainly a high price to pay. What happened?

Party Chairman Chris Redfern’s only official comment is a mealy-mouthed declaration of “victory” in the form of compromise progress, but the fact is that John Boehner basically got his way; nothing substantive appears to have been given up by the GOP in this “compromise” map. As I’ve said before, a pile of cow shit with a cherry on top is still a pile of shit.

In examining what happened to Democrat resistance efforts, the Plain Dealer‘s item offers these suggestions:

For one, Republicans were ready to force Democrats to vote on the primary unification bill without the map as part of the deal–essentially daring them to be the roadblock to eliminating $15 million in costs from two primaries.

But House Democratic members were also unsure whether Ohio Democratic Party chief Chris Redfern could gather the signatures needed to force the first map to the November 2012 ballot, which helped make the decision to fold their hand easier, one lawmaker said.

“It’s to bail the Republicans out of having two primaries and to bail Chris Redfern out,” said one Democratic House member who asked to remain anonymous. “That’s what is going on today.”

So, in a lot of ways, what happened here is what usually seems to happen: Republicans played hardball, tied Nell to the railroad tracks, and cackled away when Dudley Democrat ended up signing away the farm after all, rather than bear the responsibility for Snidely’s hostage being run over by a train. Never mind the fact that accommodating terrorist* demands simply encourages further terrorist activity.

And yet, as familiar and reliable as this story seems by now, I don’t think it’s quite enough by itself in this context. After all, fact is that Democrats seemed to be on a roll in Ohio. Union-busting was body-slammed last month, and voter suppression was successfully forced onto a referendum. Then, suddenly, we just ran out of gas.

Or, from what it sounds like, we ran out of cash; cold and holiday distractions have probably played some role, as has general fatigue, but the lack of funds to hire professional signature gatherers for a third referendum drive seems like it was critical. Which was basically what I feared, though it’s still as crushingly disappointing to me as it must be heartening to the reactionary fiends; for Boehner, Kasich et al. this has to feel very close to answering “check” with “checkmate.”

Meanwhile, I have to ask: where did all our allies go? The successful campaign against Issue 2 was supposed to have re-energized unions as a political force, here in Ohio, and rebuilt their alliance with the state Democratic party into an efficient machine which would be a major advantage for Obama in 2012. Given that whatever assistance union organizations may have offered on redistricting proved woefully inadequate and from my vantage point basically invisible, however, I have the feeling that it’s really dopey to count on any kind of momentum from Issue 2. I always thought that was overly optimistic, and this seems to prove it. It looks rather more like the grand alliance was simply a temporary marriage of convenience.

Whereas the GOP’s pile-on strategy of slamming opponents with one atrocious power-grab after another after another seems, if not a complete success, still effective enough that they’re hardly going to have a change of heart and abandon it for genuinely-positive reforms any time soon.

Bottom line, Ohio may be a “purple” state, but the red seems to have effectively tied the blue up inside of a sack.

* Oh, is using the term “terrorist” to describe domestic political opponents inflammatory and wrong, regardless of whether they are employing terrorist methods? Gee, gosh, “my bad.” So sorry. Darn old reality-based thinking.