What is the chain of events that connect the Borg — the evil cyber-bio villains of “Star Trek” fame — and health care reform.

The blog a grammar asks and answers this in a post called unsung heroes of healthcare reform.

This morning, for reasons that are PERSONAL and MINE,* I wound up watching “I, Borg,” the 1992 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the crew picks up a wounded Borg and nurses him back to health. Also they name him Hugh, he becomes friends with Geordi, and over the course of several colloquys about humans, individuality, and friendship, he learns to use the word “I” and concludes that “resistance is … not futile?”

But consider the following chain of events:

1. The deprogramming of Hugh from collective Borg to individual “I,” in this episode, sets the precedent for the 1997 introduction of Seven of Nine, the ex-Borg crew member on Star Trek: Voyager.

2. The 1997 casting of Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine surely changed the course of her 1999 divorce from Illinois politician Jack Ryan.

3. In 2004, Jack Ryan sought to replace retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald, and won the Republican primary, but withdrew from the race after details of his divorce were made public, including a bunch of stuff about maybe trying to pressure his wife into swinging or public S&M. “We did go to one avant-garde nightclub in Paris,” he said, “which was more than either one of us felt comfortable with.” (When in doubt, blame the arts and the French; they’re just freaky like that.)

4. His withdrawal left one Barack Obama running basically unopposed, except by Alan Keyes (who doesn’t count because c’mon, Alan Keyes).

5. You can take it from there.

So, after the fashion of the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the globe, I — as someone who looks forward to one day purchasing fuller health coverage on a standardized exchange — would like to say KUDOS TO YOU, HUGH THE ADOLESCENT BORG WHO LEARNED TO SAY “I,” for your hand in this historic reform.

That’s a little how I feel about the drive for a health care bill. Rationally, I know it is going to climax one way or the other, but there’s also a part of me that thinks it’s never going to end.

Not quite a year ago, on another project, I remember writing that we were approaching the legislative “end game.” Hah! Not quite. First, we had to suffer through thousands of headlines involving Max Baucus, Olympia Snowe, Nancy Pelosi, the public option, death panels, tea parties, town hall tirades, Bart Stupak, the abortion issue, Ben Nelson, the Nebraska giveaway, the Medicare compromise, Joe Lieberman and the death of the Medicare compromise, Scott Brown and the Massachussetts Democratic smackdown, the reconciliation controversy, and dozens of Barack Obama campaign-style events, as he desperately tried to lead his followers to the promised land of enacting a bill that many observers think will make or break his presidency.

But now, it appears that we are genuinely approaching a finale that will resolve the issue one way or the other. AP wrote on Thursday:

Well, if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past year when it comes to this topic, the word “inevitability” has without fail proven to be the wrong description. Meaning: “It aint’ over till it’s over.”

Here’s some commentary from Washington Post and New York Times readers on the impending vote:

User responses on Ezra Klein’s blog on the Washington Post:

Hurray! We are so close to passing something no one understands, that’ll cost billions and won’t do anything to fix health care! Hurray!!!! But we were promised Unicorns. And Skittles. Lots of ‘em.

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Forget about all the massive improvements that this legislation will bring to healthcare for Americans. Just think of it as the biggest deficit reduction bill in history. This is even bigger than Clinton overcoming the objections of every Republican in Congress to set this country’s fiscal policy back on a responsible track in 1993 following 12 years of profligate Reagan-Bush spending. And the ONLY new taxes it includes are for union fat cats whose insurance policies cost nearly $30k per year.

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If this bill does pass, it will be an aberration — a rare exception to the continuing trend of Democratic gutlessness. (And I say this as a Dem who WISHES we had a few more spines on the Hill.)

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When you look at the primary items in this bill, it’s a no-brainer to vote ‘yes’. Having said that, the amount of lobbying money by insurance companies and laughable reporting by media led to this fiasco. Some are rightfully afraid to speak or take a step. The courageous will do the right thing and pass this legislation. I’ve worked with many in Congress, the Senate and the current Administration over the years. My guess is there is a 95% probability it will pass.

Probably 2% of Americans can correctly identify what is in the bill. I don’t fault the other 98%. The BS and politics affixed to healthcare reform is mind-boggling. I’m a pragmatist and realist. This bill is not perfect, but the economy cannot sustain our current healthcare system. Faux News keeps repeating that it’s 1/6 of the U.S. Economy. True, but the Federal Government is 90% of their business. We already have socialized medicine in this country. We are just paying way too much for it.

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From the New York Times Health Care Conversations site:

Ms.Pelosi , what part of “Political Suicide” don’t YOU Understand. This FORCED implementation of Health Care Reform is a direct plan established by Lenin Stalin, Hitler and the remainder of the COMMUNISTIC MANIFESTO. Your policies are those of James Jones in Ghana. Drink The KoolAid , My Children…this tabloid won’t post this note as they are “part” of this grand fraud, against the Real Citizens of The United States Of FREE America …

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I hope the criminals in Washingto realize that by bending all of the rules that our Constitution established they will be held accountable in the next election. Anyone who votes for ‘deeming’ and ‘reconciliation’ measures should be run out of Washington and made to work for a living. Health care is a mess, but living in a country with a Government you can’t trust to represent the People is worse. God help us.

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This could all be accomplished a lot easier and a lot cheaper by simply expanding existing programs to include all the uninsured and illegal aliens who are supposedly, but not, costing us so much. Expand Medicare to include retired people over age 55, put Medicaid in conjunction with Unemployment Insurance…Oh! Wait! We can’t do the simple fixes, because, the MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT won’t let us! American doctors like being the most highly paid professionals in the world! Why else would so many of them come here for training and then NOT RETURN to their country of origin? All these proposals have been floated before and defeated… in Congress… because the AMA pays for their election campaigns…

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I commend the President for trying to correct a perceived inequity in our society, but his solution only hurts the majority. It hurts those Americans who work hard, pay taxes and are struggling to support their families…

President Obama’s support of this legislation shows that he does not care who he hurts. There is actually a word that describes this betrayal of the American people. It is specifically identified in the US Constitution as grounds for impreachment.

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As Ralph Nader outlined today, it’s the same old same old. There’s nothing new here.
• legislation doesn’t kick in until 2014
• students can stay on their parents’ insurance policy until they’re twenty-six
• 180,000 Americans will die between now and 2014 before any coverage expands
• shovels hundreds and billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the worst corporations who’ve created this problem
• doesn’t require many contractual accountabilities and other accountabilities for people who are denied healthcare in this continuing pay-or-die system that is the disgrace of the Western world
• a bonanza for drug companies
• doesn’t require government to negotiate volume discounts
• allows new biologic drugs under patent to fight off generic competition
• doesn’t allow reimportation from countries like Canada to keep prices down
• no public choice or public option to keep prices down
• allows giant insurance companies to concentrate more power in violation of antitrust laws
• doesn’t safeguard the states from the litigation that’s facing Pennsylvania and California, that are now trying single payer

It’s time to vote out anyone who supports this failure of a bill. Once again, the real losers are the American public, whose “representatives” have given up on them in favor of the million-dollar-toting lobbyists who swarm the Capitol buying votes and capping any real reform and legislation.

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I am a conservative who believes it is obscene that a country as rich as ours does not have universal health care. I believe in being fiscally responsible, but I also believe we all have a greater responsibility to provide at least basic health care plan for every citizen…This plan is at least an attempt to provide health care to every citizen, and my hope is that over time we will fix the problems with the current plan.

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If this passes:

1) I get to cancel my insurance.
2) I will negotiate higher pay in lieu of health insurance with my company.
3) I won’t ever be denied for a pre-existing condition.
4) I will save thousands of dollars every year because the penalty is less than my family’s insurance premiums or out of pocket costs for shots and check-ups.
5) If I need insurance, I will go get it. (see #3)

Thank you Dems and liberals.

Politico: President Obama takes reform on the road
AP: Obama takes health care pitch to people—again

Bloomberg: Obama Set to Fight ‘Uphill Battle’ on Health Bill
Bloomberg: Obama to Appeal to Public on Health Care as Senate Struggles

AP: Obama’s health care pitch to Democrats: Trust me
AP: Obama makes last-minute appeal to Democrats for health care votes

AP: Obama to appeal for public support on health care
AP: Obama appeals for health care votes

CSM: To pass healthcare reform, Democrats may go it alone
CNN: Democrats May Pass Health Reform without GOP Support

NYT: Obama Takes Health Care Deadline to Democrats
AFP: Deadline looming, Obama urges health care action

Boston Globe: Obama steps up health care pressure
Politico: President Obama steps up health care push

AFP: Obama presents make-or-break health reform plan
NPR: For Obama, Health Care Overhaul Is Make-Or-Break

AP: Top Dems looking to Obama for health care momentum
Reuters: Obama tries to regain momentum in healthcare debate

Reuters: Obama seeks momentum, funds for Senate allies
Reuters: Obama team tries to regain momentum on healthcare

CBS: Obama’s Health Care Push: The Race is On
WaPo: Obama Health Care Push Resumes This Week

AP: Obama turns up the heat for health care overhaul
AP: Obama expands health care push

HuffPo: White House, Dems, Plan For Make-Or-Break Summit
Bloomberg: Obama Sets ‘Make-or-Break’ Deadline on Health Care

Some past debates:

• California is the first failed state (Jan 19, 2010)
  For the motion: Andreas Kluth, Sharon Waxman, Bobby Shriver
  Against: Lawrence O’Donnell, Van Jones, Grey Davis
• Obama’s economic policies are working effectively (Nov 16, 2009)
  For: Lawrence Mishel, Steve Rattner, Mark Zandi
  
  Against: James K. Galbraith, Allan H. Meltzer, Eliot Spitzer
• Blame Washington more than Wall Street for the financial crisis (Mar 17, 2009)
  
  For: Niall Ferguson, John Steele Gordon, Nouriel Roubini
  Against: Nell Minow, Jim Chanos, Alex Berenson
• Universal health coverage should be the federal government’s responsibility (Sept 16, 2008)
  
  For: Art Kellerman, Paul Krugman, Michael Rachlis
  Against: John Stossel, Sally C. Pipes, Michael F. Cannon

These numbers, represented in billions of 2010 dollars, were taken from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

As you can see, the two tax cuts increased the deficit about $1.8 trillion dollars, while the proposed health care bill will actually modestly decrease the deficit. As one of the main anti-health care bill criticisms is its cost, this is a potentially effective talking point. (Plus, both of the tax cut bills passed via the reconciliation process, the proposed path to passage for the health care bill and the subject of a major to-do between the two political parties.)

But not everyone is buying the argument. Two responses to the post on the site:

You betray your agenda in that you are using statistics to lie.

These are not even remotely similar and your facile comparision is misleading. You juxtapose two laws that are mostly tax cuts (which allow people to keep more of what they earn) with a tax increase and spending bill.

Yes, I will stipulate that the Republicans were irresponsible by cutting taxes without also cutting spending, but they were at least starting from a position of small surpluses. It isn’t immoral to return some of that income to those that produced it.

The CBO score for the (health care bill) is also horribly misleading. It omits the “doctor fix” and is frontloaded with deficit reduction before the expanded benefits kick in. Tax increases start immediately and ramp up ahead of outlays until they take the lead in 2016.

In addition, I find it hard to take the cost estimates from 2015-2019 at face value. Every single expansion of government involvement in health care has ended up costing more than the initial estimates. I fail to see why this would be different…

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This analysis is BS. It basically states that the health care act doesn’t hurt the deficit. However, a lot of the taxes are back end loaded (read, never going to be enacted) and the other taxes to pay for this cover 10 years, to provide services for 4 or 6 years, meaning it takes twice as many taxes per year to cover the costs on an annualized basis, meaning this really is all a bunch of BS and going to result in additional huge deficits. Especially since there are no real cost control measures.

One Tweet puts its finger on one potential problem of an event like this:

One argument, relating to the Bush-era tax cuts:

It is true that President Bush proposed, and in 2001 and 2003 the Congress passed and President Bush signed into law significant tax cuts, and that those tax cuts were not offset by spending cuts or tax increases. If President Obama believes that enacting these tax cuts without offsetting their deficit impact was profligate, then why is he proposing to do the same thing? His budget proposes to change the law to extend all of the Bush tax cuts except those Team Obama mislabels as “for the rich.” He is not proposing offsets for those tax cuts he would extend. It is inconsistent to argue that Bush was irresponsible when he did it, and that Obama is responsible when he does the same thing.

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic wrote a rebuttal to Hennesey called “Rehabilitating Bush.” On Hennessey’s above-mentioned issue of the tax cuts, Chait writes:

This is sophistry. First of all, Hennessey waves off the portion of the Bush tax cuts that only benefit people making more than $250,000 a year, but there’s a lot of money there, so Obama’s determination to let them expire represents a significant difference with Bush.

Now, it’s true that Obama is keeping in place the tax cuts that benefit people who make under $250,000. But to equate that decision with enacting the tax cuts in the first place is absurd. Both public opinion and the political system have a huge bias toward the status quo. Once the Bush tax cuts were in place, anybody opposing them became a tax hiker. Hennessey understands perfectly well that Obama could easily maintain Clinton-era tax rates on the middle class if Bush had never cut taxes. Since Bush did cut taxes, restoring those rates in the face of unwavering GOP opposition would be a near-impossible task for Obama.

Now, Hennessey has responded in a new post. Regarding the overall strategy of continuing to cast blame on the Bush administration, he writes:

Even if I were to grant Team Obama’s characterization of what they inherited, they have the power to propose solutions. With enormous supermajorities in the House and Senate and a reconciliation process, they have the power to enact policies to improve the outcome, even if Republicans don’t play ball. They have so far not done so. I believe that at some point, failing to even propose policy solutions to a problem you argue you inherited makes the problem yours. Inaction is a choice which accrues responsibility over time.

From the New York Times:

A lot of people have taken to the idea of this kind of public give-and-take, likening it to Great Britain’s Question Time, when members of Parliament can hurl questions at the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, which they are obliged to answer.

Now, a petition is circulating on the Web and Twitter to Demand Question Time in the U.S:

We live in a world that increasingly demands more dialogue than monologue. President Obama’s January 29th question-and-answer session with Republican leaders gave the public a remarkable window into the state of our union and governing process. It was riveting and educational. The exchanges were substantive, civil and candid. And in a rare break from our modern politics, sharp differences between elected leaders were on full public display without rancor or ridicule.

This was one of the best national political debates in many years. Citizens who watched the event were impressed, by many accounts. Journalists and commentators immediately responded by continuing the conversation of the ideas put forward by the president and his opponents — even the cable news cycle was disrupted for a day.

America could use more of this — an unfettered and public airing of political differences by our elected representatives. So we call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly — and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries. We also urge the President and the Republican Senate caucus to follow suit. And we ask the President and the House and Senate caucuses of his own party to consider mounting similar direct question-and-answer sessions. We will ask future Presidents and Congresses to do the same.

It is time to make Question Time a regular feature of our democracy.

If you want, you can sign here.

Listening to Pres.Obama, who I happily voted for, pains me. He sounds no different than any of the other in office guys I hear try and make a point on the cliches of others. He says, “These are the facts… we need to reform the system. Single payer system like Canada or on the right, leave it to the individual to buy… now he says he accepts both. He says build on what works.. HEY- nothing works unless you are 66 and have Medicare…I love this guy, but he is pitching me like a long form Infomercial selling me a great real estate deal.

I will not be characterized as some sort of radical for opposing this health care plan. I happen to sincerely believe the government should not force anybody to buy insurance they can’t afford…the government should not promise subsidies it doesn’t have the money to deliver…the plan should not encourage employers to check if workers have insurance from their spouse in making hiring and lay-off decisions….I challenge anybody to prove those are misrepresentations (and) prove this plan is better than the status quo…You are making decisions that adversely affect my life, and I never got a seat at the table.

Response: You did get a seat at the table, it was called the 2008 presidential election and you lost.

OK here’s a radical idea. If the public option IS BETTER, then what is the freaking problem? And if it is not better, then don’t do it. I chose cheaper insurance because I want to pay less. Some people at my job have a PPO and pay more. What is the big deal? People won’t automatically chose the cheaper option, If that were the case, do you know how many clothing stores, car companies, etc, would not be here any more?

I just have a very hard time trusting health care to the government, I would rather have no health care than Federal care.

Wow, how morose all of you people are. I thought Americans were supposed to be optimistic people! I’m from the Netherlands, where ’socialist’ healthcare has been in place for decades, and I have to say it works really well, and everyone is more calm and happy knowing they’re taken care of. Call me naieve, but I think it would be a great idea to take a little of that plan to this country. I love living here, it is my home, and the optimism and visions of bright futures is exactly what makes this country so magical.

What’s up with all the Republicans staying seated when Obama said death panels are false? Now they look even crazier than normal…