One mile at a time

A random animal picture in which Arpad explores his feminine side.

The long-running fight over health care reform reached a milestone Saturday as the House of Representatives narrowly passed its version. It has a lot of good features, including a major expansion of Medicaid, a public option, regulations on the insurance industry and subsidies to help people purchase insurance.

I would have preferred that it would have left the Children's Health Insurance Program intact, something WV Senator Jay Rockefeller amended into the Senate bill, but maybe that will be resolved in conference after--if--the Senate passes its version.

This has been a long, tiring fight, with plenty of drama and melodrama--and we're far from done. A lot of effort will be required to get something through the Senate and to arrive at some kind of compromise between the houses.

It reminds me of running a marathon. Having completed a few of those (none too rapidly, let it be admitted), I've found it to be a good strategy not to focus on running the whole 26.2 miles. Instead, focus on the mile you're running. Once you finish that one, focus on the next.

We just passed another mile marker. Now let's focus on the next.

HEALTH CARE WHACKADOODLE-ISM. Here's a mini-encyclopedia of it.

WHILE WE'RE AT IT, here's Krugman on the same.

STATE BUDGET WOES. West Virginia has its share, although so far it hasn't been as hard hit as many states.

ODYSSEUS LIVES! Long time readers of Goat Rope know that El Cabrero has a great deal of fondness for the epics of Homer and what they can still teach us today (search Iliad, Odyssey, Homer in the top left corner for earlier series on them). Here's an op-ed from the NY Times about the Odyssey and what it can teach us about the difficulties and dangers for veterans on their homecoming.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED