Medicare Bill Passes

As James of OTB reports the medicare bill has passed the Senate. On a related noted, he has a wothwhile post on the realistic differences between the two parties.

As he noted the other day, there is a substantial difference between philosophers and politcians (especially legislators) on what it means to be conservative and liberal.

Another point worth making, despite the fact that we like to talk about policy-making in rational and logic terms, the honest to gosh truth is that 1) we never really fully understand the entirely of a given policy problem, especially ones as complex as this, so therefore 2) the solutions are never as clear-cut as they seem, and 3) this is compounded by the give-and-take of legislative politics.

As one political scientist (Charles Lindblom) put it, policy-making is the "sciene of muddling through" which is unsatisfying, but nonetheless true.