words.
"We also seem to be heading toward a national version of the sort of personal financial crisis that our health system fosters. It’s an emergency; you stop paying bills, except maybe some when they catch you on the phone; you slash in some areas and spend more in others haphazardly. One day you wake up and your debt limit has been reached and your credit has been downgraded and you know it will take years to get back, if you ever can. The difference is that people don’t choose to get sick. The Congressional Republicans have not only chosen this, but they pursued it.
John Boehner and Ted Cruz and the House’s “suicide caucus”—willing to bring down the economy to derail Obamacare—appear to be making bizarre choices. Some in their own party think so. (Grover Norquist on Cruz: “He pushed House Republicans into traffic and wandered away.”) But their behavior should actually be quite familiar to anyone who has had the frustration of dealing with an insurance company. They are treating Obamacare—a law passed by Congress, affirmed by the Supreme Court, and whose namesake was reëlected President—as a claim that they can avoid paying if they just come up with the right disingenuous angle. They are doing the same thing with their basic legislative responsibilities; they are the little men in the distant office, sending out letter after letter: deny, deny, deny. Obamacare might at least make that type rarer in the health-care system. When are we going to remake our politics?"
THE NEW YORKER: The G.O.P.’s Emergency-Room Politics
SEE ALSO:
SLATE: The GOP’s Tantrum Is Bad for America’s Credibility
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