Let’s hear it for Gov. Spitzer, who managed to make headlines last week without uttering any four-letter words or threatening any senior citizens. Call it . . . progress.
Spitzer announced a plan meant eventually to enroll an additional 3 million people in New York’s taxpayer-funded health-insurance system.
This may be a spectacularly bad idea. But it changed the subject for the gov – even if only briefly.
Lately, as everyone knows, Spitzer has been reduced to using gutter language in his battles with 78-year-old Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.
And he’s been dogged by questions of whether he asked State Police to keep tabs on Bruno’s travels.
His health-care plan diverted attention from that sordid affair, even if just for a day or two.
Spitzer’s plan, as he acknowledges, is a first step toward Michael Moore-style socialized medicine for New York. That raises huge questions – like, how do you pay for it, given that taxes in the state are already through the roof?
But, again, at least there are signs of executive leadership in Albany.
Whether he’s serious about the plan remains to be seen. But as a diversion, it’s surely worthy of applause.
At this point, even a glimmer of a substantive agenda by the state’s chief executive is a positive development.
However wrongheaded the details may wind up being.