Okay, so here’s how it works.
The Senate version of health care reform absolutely sucks, and progressives need to oppose it as loudly and effectively as they can, even threatening to torpedo health care reform entirely if there aren’t some pretty big changes. And then we all have to bite our tongues and support the final bill that comes out of conference, even if it largely resembles that sucky Senate bill.
Why? Because as sucky as it is compared to what we all wanted, it’s a helluva lot better than what the American people have now. And, if you think the Democrats are going to have a larger majority in either House after 2010, especially after failing to pass health reform, then you’re smoking crack.
The Democrats are going to lose seats in 2010, because that’s the natural order of things for the party in control of the White House during off year elections, and because many of the seats we picked up in 2006 and 2008 are seats the Republicans never should have lost. (ID-01 a Democratic stronghold? Enjoy your crack.) And as President Clinton learned in 1994, promising to deliver on health care only to fall flat on your face, doesn’t much help at the polls.
You want Obama to fail? Reject health care reform. You want the Democrats to lose a ton of seats in 2010? Reject health care reform. You want to stop insurance companies from denying you coverage due to pre-existing conditions, or dropping your coverage once you get sick? Well, even the sucky Senate bill does that.
Yeah, I know that conservative Dems and insurance industry shills like Lieberman have us over a barrel, and that totally sucks, but that’s the way it is. We lost this debate when Ned Lamont lost in the general, and there’s just not much we can do about it at the moment.
So I’ve got no problem with progressive Dems yelling and screaming and complaining, and doing everything they can to blow the damn thing up. Call your congressman and your senators and tell them they can kiss your vote goodbye if this is what comes out of conference. That’s what I’m planning to do.
But once the deal is done, I’m not embarrassed to admit that I’ll be flip-flopping faster than a flapjack on a hot griddle.
Cynical? Yeah, sorta. But that’s politics.
Could someone point out where it states in the United States Constitution, that government may compel its citizens to purchase health care or face a fines and jail time?
“The Senate version of health care reform absolutely sucks”
Not really, Goldy. It’s more like a girlfriend without lips, tits, or ass.
Once this bill — tepid as it is — passes, the Goopers will need 60 Senate votes to repeal it, and that ain’t gonna happen in your lifetime. As Goldy says, the Dems will lose seats next year, but they won’t lose that many, either next year or ever; after January 2011 we’re looking at a Senate split of around 55D – 45R, which means absolutely nothing will pass Congress.
Well put Goldie. Beat them back with their own weapons, as they’ve been shown to work. Until such time the liberals learn some solidarity and party discipline, which may actually be getting through their skulls at last.
Just so we are clear, the camera is on the other side of my phone so how do you know that I am smoking crack? Is there a multicolored mirror on my hobnail boot?
No matter, I think you are right (other than the crack I may, or may not, be smoking).
This is the high point, lefties, sad to say, but it is true.
@1
Could someone point out where it states in the United States Constitution, that government may compel its citizens to purchase health care or face a fines and jail time?
i say we all pull a rosa parks and refuse to buy
#1, #6- Dude, seriously? Did you go to school?
The Constitution isn’t a list of things your government is “allowed” to do…Jesus. It’s a list of general responsibilities and rights, mostly involving the structure of government. Where in the “Constitution” does it require me to pay for a full time military and war in Iraq? Where does it require my to pay for a Dept of Ag and meat inspectors? Where does the Constitution forbid gay people from getting married?
Unless the Constitution FORBIDS it, then Congress and the states are FREE to pass a law, any law, no matter how silly. You’re free to vote out your representatives (you won’t, they have a 98% re-election rate). The only thing Congress, or the President, can’t do is anything explicitly unconstitutional (violating a specific enumerated right or rule in the Constitution).
#6
You don’t have insurance now? I’m gather 95% of the folks on here already have insurance. So when you say “we all” should refuse to buy, we already have insurance and that won’t change. I’m not going to “buy” this mandated insurance…I already have health insurance coverage. I have since I was 22, from one job to the next. Matters not to me. Whether this bill passes or not, tomorrow I have the same insurance coverage and the same doctors, and the same hospitals available.
This is all about people who DON’T have insurance, can’t GET insurance, or are kicked OUT of their insurance for getting “too sick”. I just wanted this thing to provide SOMEHOW for folks who can’t get insurance to get it. One of my best friends is an independent contractor with Type 1 diabetes (from birth). He couldn’t buy insurance if he wanted right now….just not available.
@5 “how do you know that I am smoking crack”
Reasonable inference from the evidence.
@6 Spoken like a true freeloader who wants to keep mooching off the rest of us at his local emergency rooms.
Although I spend over $10,000 a year for health insurance for myself and Mrs. Rabbit, I don’t have to. As a veteran, I can get free health care. All I have to do is be poor enough.
Damn stock market …
I made $1,200 in the stock market today, and my portfolio is now worth more than at any time since the crash. I’ve doubled my money since the March lows. Sure beats working!
Goldy is right – this bill lacks either the teeth to regulate the insurance industry or the public option to force it to cost less….so it is a bitter pill.
However, it does try to cover everyone and it does get rid of the catch-22 of pre-existing conditions.
The house bill is much better, but the archaic rules of the Senate are what keep progress from hapenning.
When Leiberfool is writing (inserting) law, while being in the pocket of the insurance companies….you know that the bill will lack any real teeth.
I read an interesting note the other day about all the horrible flaws in the original Social Security legislation passed in 193X. And all the fixes/expansions that have occurred since then.
Yes, Goldy, there won’t ever be a better time to get a better first bill enacted. Start now and improve it over time.
Point to ponder:
Ronald Reagan took office with the lowest approval rating (51 percent) of any U.S. president in the modern era. Eight years later, because of a popular foreign policy, tax cuts and a sunny leadership style, he left office with a sky-high approval rating second only to Bill Clinton’s among post-World War II presidents.
On topic, last might at 1 am the last of the ridiculous 60-vote hurdles that the obstructionist Republicans are forcing on every legislative initiative that comes though the Senate (all of them IOW) was successfully 60-voted onward, and the Senate version of the health care reform bill is now set for a 51-vote-or-better up or down vote. I don’t knwo if it will be today or tomorrow but the Republicans are big losers whom we just successfully fucked in the ass, and health care reform will pass despite their insane America-hating opposition.
You know they blocked funding for “the troops” to delay HCR, right?
Aw, fuck it. We and America win, and Republican teabaggers are left with mouths full of scrota.
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
The good news: It looks like after the 2010 census, Washington (state) will pick up a 10th Congressional District. As long as the Democrats are still in charge of the state legislature, we’ve got a reasonable chance a a re-districting which makes sense. Reichart, if he’s still in office, may find his district becoming considerably more difficult to keep.
The bad news: In the rest of the country, states which tend to vote Democratic will lose House seats, and those which vote Republican will gain seats (Texas may get three more seats all by itself).
Presidential political impact: remember that the electoral college votes are determined by combining the number of senators and house representatives in each state. This means that the electoral math may change for the 2012 election.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34579822
@6
Sorry, can’t join ya. Not only do I have insurace through my job, the insurance comes with a clause that all employees must have insurance. That insurance doesn’t have to be through them, but no insurance = no job.
@1
Show me in the consitution where it says you have to have a drivers licence & car insurance to drive.
…and if you believe that fairy tale, you are either smoking crack or just plain fucking ignorant (or option 3, you believe unquestioningly the dumbass president who has promised you something he can’t guarantee). A Government option means your employer will be dumping your dumb fucking arse into the public pool and that plan you have now will not be available to you- Get it?
So keep fuckin’ dreaming sunshine, cuz if this bill passes, yours and many others nightmare will have begun. My Advice? Punt
@21
empty suit
you mean you dont believe the governement can deliver……
healthcare cheaper and better than we now have
for 50 million more people
that will actually shrink the defecit
and not cut medicare????
oh, you’re just a fear mongeror.
Still small voice comment:
I struggle to see how an essentially Senate result can be “improved”. There is no apparent vehicle for improvement, just more subsidies.
Medicare buy-in was most important because it established a legislative precedent for medicare expansion : every younger person added solves both a lack of insurance problem and medicare’s shitty risk pool at the lowest cost to the taxpayer.
But this may also be an opportunity since expanding medicare can be easily justified as a budget deficit reduction measure, meaning it is ready made for reconciliation and only 51 votes.
I’m hoping that this is on dimension 9 or 10 of the 11th dimensional chess that O is reputed to play.
@10 Rodent:
‘@6 Spoken like a true freeloader who wants to keep mooching off the rest of us….’
This coming from YOU? Ha! Kettle black and all asshole….
Hey DimBulb Love, If Americans win with the passage of this bill…then how come the majority of Americans don’t want this bill to pass?
Re 8
You’ll lose your insurance in time with passage of this bill. That is, after all, the point of it. First you put out a private industry ‘solution’ that makes the problem worse. Than you say that private industry can’t do the job and government must. Then you introduce some form of single payer communism. Bait and switch politics democrat style. But good luck for the next few years while you have quality if expensive care provided by private industry.
Re 20:
Apples and oranges, and I suspect most of the folks who raise this canard know it.
I have a priviledge to drive. This priviledge can be revoked for poor driving, non-payment of fines, or not providing insurance to protect others exercising that same priviledge. Whether the state has actually got the legal right to do this is arguable, but it is in no way the same as buying health insurance.
At what point do you decide that the risks I take are mine and not those of society at large? Can I invest in real estate while it’s low or does that expose my neigbor to too much risk? Can I take a high risk stance in my retirement investing or does that expose my countrymen to the risk of providing for me in my old age? This is simple nonsense and hypocrisy on the part of the Obama administration eagerly swallowed by his sycophants.
Having said all that- Merry Christmas to all of you and a happy 2010.
@18: Actually, redistricting in Washington State is done in a way that can’t favor the majority party. There’s quite a bit of horsetrading involved, but both parties would rather form districts that can’t be successfully attacked in court, which is unpredictable. Hence the commission system.
Each of the four legislative caucuses have a vote, and access to significant resources to conduct analysis. The seemingly randomized borders that can occur are largely a result of a sincere effort to follow logical cleave lines, while still having to maintain very close population counts, as a challenge to the (unpredictable) courts might result if the numbers don’t match up.
Washington State does not have a Tom Delay to “fix” the district.
@26
Not apples and oranges at all. My comment was aimed at showing the the govenment can require us to do things, like carry car insurace, that are not outlined in the Big C.
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
@25 when the senate passed the bill there was a jump from 36% to 42% approval of this bill according to a CNN poll it seems the more people know about this bill the more they support it. Kind of like how a majority of Americans though that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 after 9/11 and after they were educated that number went way down.
The far right and the far left hate this bill, perhaps that says something.I think this bill is a good first step, not perfect but it can be improved on. And no I do not want to see single payer, rather a public option when there is a choice of government involvement, after all this is a fundamental ideal in this country, the freedom of choice.
Wrong stupid. See this for an example of what we can expect from retarded legislation by retarded Democrats and an equally retarded and unaccountable government here in the U.S.
Why do liberals hate freedom so much?
Hey Michael, were cars around in 1776?
@32
Yep, and we have horror story after horror story about people getting sick and getting denied treatment that they need and 50% of the bankruptcies in America are do to healthcare costs.
There’s no magical, fuck-up free, system out there.
‘Oh, and Avastin, the drug in the article you linked to, it’s covered by medicaid in its generic form Bevacizumab.
@32 So I suspect you were reeeeel happy with Bush eh ESO? Never met a defense contractor he didn’t like. We all have health care. You fall off a ladder and the ambulance comes and you go to the hospital. If you have no, or sucky insurance, you lose everything you worked for your whole life. What could be better in a “conservative’s” world? You weren’t “lucky” so now you pay. You shouldn’t have fallen off that ladder!
750,000 bankruptcies a year from medical bills. A conservative’s wet dream! Bankruptcies. And 62% of them had insurance. Whoda thunkit!
ESO, do you do anything besides lust for other people’s stuff?
Hmm, then it would seem more logical to simply lump those that qualify into the existing medicaid system and not throw the baby out with the bath water and fucking up everyone elses health coverage. But then, that isn’t the
proregressive agenda, which is to increase the cost of healthcare while lowering the quality of care with government incompetence at the healm (as it usually does).Brilliant!
What I love most is how the Republicons did everything they could to attack, stall, or kill health care reform. From death panels, to kill yer grandma, to “guvvmint takeover” bs lies. All with the “providers” spending millions to also attack the process, and our elected officials. Now the bill comes out and it doesn’t slow down the health care MAFIA’S “killing fields for profit”, they are complaining? Loudly…..
The word Republicon makes anyone with half a brain want to hurl.
BTW I got a new sign for my car. It reads:
Talk
Jesus
Serve
Satan
G.O.P.
I wonder how many of the inbreeds opposing health care reform ever got real sick without insurance……
Yeah, I thought so.
Why don’t they just get a GREED tattoo full sized on their foreheads.
I got insurance, screw you.
The christian way….
USA! USA! USA!!!
Where health care insurance profits matter more than people’s live possibly could!
“Sorry sir, paying for your treatment would cut into our bottom line. Now just go away and die somewhere wouldya!” We will keep the $100,000 in premiums you paid us though….
USA! USA! USA!!!
So, after a lifetime of hard work and the diminishment/elimination of their IRAs, older people will now support younger people by paying 3x the rate for health insurance? That’s what is going to happen.
So, goldy, put it into perspective. None of us like it; but some of us are paying for it to a greater degree than you are.
The Senate bill will prevail because of the likes of Leiberman and Nelson. Reid did the best he could, I believe. But Obama did not. I’m not sure that I might not join the tea baggers. I’d like to see the Progressives become a tea bagging party of their own and root out some of the corruption.
Did you see the FDL letter and petition signed by Jane Hamsher and Grover Norquist? That’s my kind of political action. http://firedoglake.com/2009/12.....signation/
Jane Hamsher, Grover Norquist Call for Rahm Emanuel’s Resignation
@36
Um… That’s what having a single payer public option was all about.
Please, don’t confuse me telling you you’re full of shit with me supporting this healthcare package.
Single Payer = Yes
Supporting Corporate Death Panels = No
Think of the savings! We could start 2 or 3 more unnecessary wars with that kind of dough!
because that’s the natural order of things for the party in control
BULLSHIT, That is the result of a party that blatantly refuses to fight for the promises of their leadership. Not deliver, but fight for.
If one is advocating supporting the final product no matter what, then where is the incentive for any of those in power to fight for anything remotely progressive? Talk about moral hazard.
@ Goldy
Doing this will insure that what ever bill finally comes out of the conference committee will be just as shitty as the one we currently have. Why would they change anything if they know we’re going to go along with whatever they’re going to do in the end anyway? Your solution lacks an enforcement clause. LBJ was a big fan of enforcement clauses…
Passing the Senate bill will be a total and complete failure that is likely to sink the Dems unless the Repubs keep ramping up Teh Crazy. There are NO cost controls, no public option, no drug price negotiation, NOTHING!
You apparently want old people to be FORCED to buy absolutely SHITTY mandatory underinsurance from the same useless parasites who pay their employees bonuses for denying claims as THREE TIMES the price. Crappy barely more than catastrophic “coverage” doesn’t help with ongoing medical expenses until a ridiculous deductible is met.
What about this for a post-“reform” health care story? “Poor 55 year old Joe Blow, a diabetic who used to have a good job with good insurance, got laid off and can only find work for $10/hour. Pelosi and her Obamacare thugs made him buy basic coverage, but it doesn’t cover his insulin—it’s actually just catastrophic coverage. He can’t pay for his insulin if he pays his premium, because even subsidies don’t help when your premium is three times as much because of your age. He decided to go for the insulin, so now the big librul gummint IRS is after him taking 2.5% of his money. See what happens when you have gummint involved in health care?” You think the slimy fake Repub populists won’t spin it this way? They will, and everything will become the fault of Democrats.
Anything worth supporting in the bill can be pulled out and passed separately. I wouldn’t think of that as a failure at all.
My problem with the senate bill is the mandates without a public option. I haven’t researched it, but there might be something to the constitutional challenge on the grounds of an illegal taking, that is the government requiring each citizen to buy health insurance that provides private insurance companies with up to 15% profit. If they are going to force people to buy health insurance, then it seems only fair that 100% of the funds to purchase the insurance go towards coverage. Otherwise, this bill is just a big bailout for heath insurers, who don’t need it.
@42
Yes!!!
@39 “So, after a lifetime of hard work and the diminishment/elimination of their IRAs, older people will now support younger people by paying 3x the rate for health insurance? That’s what is going to happen.”
The average person incurs 90% of his/her lifetime medical expenses in the last three years of his/her life, so it actually works the other way around — the young subsidize the old. It’s fair because we were all young once, and we subsidized the old when we were young.
@36 Funny how people can’t wait to reach 65 and get on Medicare, isn’t it? Maybe that’s because their private coverage is so lousy, ya think?
@44 So now the wingnut line is that health care reform will keep diabetics from getting their insulin?
Priceless.
@45 “I haven’t researched it, but there might be something to the constitutional challenge on the grounds of an illegal taking, that is the government requiring each citizen to buy health insurance that provides private insurance companies with up to 15% profit.”
Those of us who are lawyers can tell you haven’t researched it.
Sorry, Roger. I I’d been born old, that might work out. But I was one of the young ones once. I’ve paid for myself several times over. So have you.
Your math is little triangulated.
@51 Now that we’re both old and sick, we can start collecting what we paid for all those years.
You may be sick, but I’m not. And I don’t appreciate you’re assessing my health. Nor do I appreciate you’re thinking that health is a matter of age. It’s a gift. Often from your parents.
The problem with the young is that they think they’ll never have an accident; get a non-age related disease. Old people know better. You should, too. Go ask Lance Armstrong.
Truthfully, I had my benign tumor at C5 when I was 33 and at the peak of my sports-playing health. You never know. I’ve been 100% healthy since the operation.
Seems the trolls have run out of steam for now.
And you know, that operation cost $13,000 total. Today it would be $100,000. Health doesn’t follow the rules, Roger.
President Abraham Lincoln
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow; and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
And he was a Republican…………….
@56
Todays Republicans are yesterdays Whigs. Todays Democrats are just totally fucking lame and useless. But, they sure do have nice hair!
Why I Own Coal Stocks
Man, with people like this shilling for my shareholder interests, how can I not own coal shares?
http://motherjones.com/mojo/20.....09-edition
Gun Waver Worked In Bush White House
“The man who was arrested with two guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition near the Capitol during President Barack Obama’s health care speech in September had been an employee of the George W. Bush White House.
“The arrest of the man, Joshua Bowman, was widely reported at the time, but the news stories made no mention of his previous employment: For several years he worked in the Executive Office of the President, dealing with tech issues, including White House emails, his lawyer, George Braun, tells Mother Jones.”
http://motherjones.com/mojo/20.....e-employee
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Of course, he meant no harm — he’s just a stupid wingnut:
“Bowman had driven up to a security checkpoint and told officers he wanted to park, but his lack of a permit for the area aroused their suspicions, and they asked to search his car.
The previous weekend, Bowman and Braun had gone duck-hunting, according to Braun. Bowman forgot that he still had the guns in his car when he consented to a search of his vehicle, a Honda Civic with a bumper sticker proclaiming, ‘I’ll keep my guns, freedom, and money…. you keep the change.'”
Okay, let’s recap: A wingnut with a smart-alecky pro-gun bumper sticker on his car drives up to a security checkpoint where the president is gonna give a speech, lets the cops search his car, and they find a trunkful of guns and ammo. How stupid is that?
Apparently too stupid to completely delete the e-mails he was in charge of deleting. This is gonna be fun! The new U.S. Attorney for D.C. will know exactly which jail to find his star witness in.
Goldy is completely correct on this one. The American public doesn’t pay much attention most of the time to care about legislative battles. Except when the media portrays a battle as lost, like in 1993 with the Clinton healthcare proposal. Obama knows that we simply have to get a bill passed this time. The GOP leadership knows that it is fucked if that happens. The substance doesn’t matter that much, in the Realpolitik that happens in this country. If the GOP fails to stop “healthcare reform,” then they are headed for the gallows, given that the GOP otherwise stands for policies of 1890. So, those of us who would like a better bill just need to suck it up and know that improvement happens down the line.
If you want to protect Liberty then kill the bill. If you believe in the constitution then kill the bill. If you believe that your health and welfare is no one’s business but your own and think the goverment has no authority to force you to buy health insurance than kill the bill.
Merry Christmas
@61 Boo-fucking-hoo! Cry me a river! This is what elections are about, dude! We had to eat wingnut shit for 8 years. Now it’s your turn.
@62 Fo eight years your side fought every thing you did not like. Now it is our turn. When we were in the majority you said that you had the right to oppose the President and the congrss. Now that you have the majority do you feel that my side cannot fight. I don’t think so. I will go to prison before I live under goverment health care
Don’t tread on me. Give me liberty or give me death.
Merry Christmas
63
Cry me a river. And, don’t ever take “Don’t tread on me,” away from those of us who are true patriots. You don’t understand what that means. You folks have made idiocy a common value.
Despite our political differences, I, too, wish you a Merry Christmas.
Enjoy Leavenworth or wherever. I don’t care.
Bush made his own rules. Executive Orders and signing statements hardly depended on Congress. And when it did, you turned out the lights, turned off the microphones, and locked up the meeting rooms. Then held 15-minute votes open for three hours. Your side kept our side in virtual prison and now you say :give me liberty?” Your side deserves to die so that democracy can live.
Good god, man. Do you have a memory or a conscience at all?
skagit,
Go to bed. You do both sides, when it is clear that only one side is right. So, I guess, I must say, go fuck yourself.
Skagit, we are NOT a democracy. We never were. We are a Republic. A represenative goverment. Yes, we use democratic means to choose our represantives. If we were a democracy we would have no congress, state legeslators, city council members or county coulcils. Everything would be decided by public vote.
One more thing. If we were a true democracy our civil rights would be subject to popular vote. Because in a democracy the majority rules. If 50% + 1 wants no free speech for you than you get no free speech.
God save the Republic of the United States.
“You want Obama to fail?”
I think he’s already failed–most of us just haven’t found out yet.
I’m not supporting this compromise unless it gets a lot better in conference. I won’t defend it to my artist and writer friends, who will most likely be harmed by it.
The Raven’s first rule of health care reform:
Well Raven, The CBO has given new numbers to the Senate Bill. The CBO says the $500 Billion in medicare savings is being used to extend the life of Medicare AND to help pay for the new Healthcare programs in the bill. That’s standard Democrat double dipping accounting.
So which is it Raven? Do you use the savings to pay for the new programs in Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmcare, which means Medicare is screwed. Or do you use the savings to help extend the life of Medicare which means Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmcare will drive up the deficit and the promise of the Senate bill being deficit neutral is a cruel lie!
Either way peeps are screwed. Since Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm is on record to say he wants the savings to fund Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmcare, old people will be screwed as originally said this summer.
And you know who votes in elections… OLD PEOPLE!
Only if his policies are anti-freedom, wich they are. Obama is so far off the path that our founding fathers envisioned for this country that he’s stumbling through the trees of ignorance. The founding fathers believed in “rugged individualism”, Oba-mao believes in “learned helplessness”. So, yes, Oba-mao’s failure is not only an option, but a probability to clear thinking Americans. In November 2012, it will be made expressly known to him.
Coming from an avowed pro-bort such as yourself, that is as macabrely humorous as it is disconnected with logic.
If you want a public option, it means making it impossible for insurance companies to exist. Get rid of their anti-trust exemption, make them take all customers regardless of health problems, and make them pay all claims.
The insurance companies will abandon the market to the feds. Then have real tort reform – build the price of malpractice into the cost of those premiums we’ll be paying so we get the trial lawyers out of the game.
Lastly, fund massive expansion of docs, nurses and other health care workers. More docs and nurses means lower salaries to docs and nurses.
It’s a pretty easy way to change the health care system, but it’ll take a decade or two to have any real effect.
“The problem with the young is that they think they’ll never have an accident; get a non-age related disease.”
Or…unless their Daddy’s rich (not even if their Momma’s good lookin’) they’re working at some shit job with no benefits and facing a monthy choice between insurance and rent…or any one of a bunch of things.
Another mythical construct, like “welfare mothers” and “tax cheats”.
The real spectre of this bill as it’s presently “crafted” is that employers will get a pass on providing health coverage, and stop doing so. Meanwhile the insurance companies will turn their fleets of lawyers loose devising new policies that wheedle their way around the new rules. We’ll all end up being forced to pay out-of-pocket for overpriced plans with shitty coverage, while those same companies fatten their bottom lines with taxpayer subsidies.
Yes, A republic – “if we can keep it.” A democratic republic. Let’s be accurate,
proud leftists: sort of a sourpuss, aren’t you?
I am for passing the bill because something has to change. I don’t like the timing. I think it all sets us up for unpredictable outcomes over the next two elections. But insurance companies have already raised rates with more to come. Truthfully, none of us really knows how this will play out. I have to believe that Rockefeller who adamantly wants this bill knows what he’s doing. That the game isn’t over..
Both sides, leftist? Maybe. But I have to trust somebody and it gets the community health centers for all the states – thanks Bernie, Dean’s slight approval and Rockefeller championing it vigorously. Those three think it is better than what we’ve got. Now, let’s see.
66. proud leftist spews:
Your Lutheran Pastor daddy would be real proud of you.
Merry CHRISTMAS!!
63 mr
Yeah, sure you will.
re 73: Regarding tort reform:– The purpose of suing a doctor or health insurer is to obtain enough money to get the medical care you need.
A- There will be free medical care provided.
B- Disability payments will replace much of the injured person’s former income.
C- Ipso Fatso, there will be ‘tort reform’, as the reason for suing the lying bastards will have been removed.
re 72: So, YOU know what the founding fathers meant when they wrote the constitution?
Explain your qualifications for this.
Anyone who has actually made any sort of serious attempt to know the past understands that, try as we might, we see the past through a lens, darkly — as if peering through wax paper.
Our view of the past is of necessity tinctured by the times we live in.
So don’t give me your simpleton right-wing BS that you somehow ‘know’ the founding fathers’ intentions. We wouldn’t need an amendment process if that were true.
The Republicans have agreed that there is a need for universal health coverage.
They just don’t know how to do it without ripping everyone off.
@78,
Are you a trial lawyer, Harry?
@72, ESO: why do you call him “Oba-mao?” He’s a conservative, not a Maoist.
#72 I love it when wing nuts mention Freedom. Like DeMint says freedom every other word because it makes wing nuts wet their pants.
The freedom they seem to dream about is corporations being free to screw everyone, and have unlimited power. Nothing more.
You right wing lunatics don’t own the word freedom, and probably couldn’t imagine what it REALLY means with your tiny pea brains.
How free is that stop lossed soldier serving his 6th tour in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Freedom my ass. What you right wingers want is for us to all be corporate slaves. Subject to corporate death panels. You forgot about all them secret prisons, rendition, and gitmo didn’t you.
Freedom my ass DeMint et al.
Right wingers never seem to mention the fact that Bush violated just about every single amendment in the constitution without a single peep from the cowering right wing bed wetters. I think he put a constitution in his White House toilet so he could pee on it every night before bed.
Somehow finding a way for Americans to have equal access to quality health care is like the ultimate sin to a “Conservative” dirt bag? I guess they think health care should be for only the lucky, or the “have more’s” in America right?
They opposed improving health care because it will cost their campaign contributors money and Americans may actually like getting affordable health care and thank Democrats for delivering it to them. The end of the G.O.P. Good riddance if you ask me. If you are not rich and voting Republicon you should be in a rubber room.
“The founding fathers believed in “rugged individualism”,
really, those words are not in the constitution.
what we have is a system for a govt. based on majority rule, the power to tax, the power to regulate commerce and for the general welfare, plus states that often do not have constitutions spelling out specific powers yet they pass laws for the good of all that include making you educate your kids, pay for your kids, regulating your marriage, your commerce and contracts your defamatory words, etc. etc. There is simply no generic right to liberty in the constitution. What it says is no deprivation of liberty without due process of law; this assumes yes, you can be deprived of your liberty.
further, the founding fathers noted the articles of confed. were inadequate and when convened to repair them exercised the biggest big govt. power grab in history and threw them all out and wrote the constitution we have today. TOTALLY exceeding their limited power to revise articles of confederation.
So judging by their actions which btw include notions like everybody is in the militia, no freedom to escape it, their operating principle was to balance government and freewom in ways that make sense and thru democratic process. you right wingers continually lie, lie lie when you say there is some overarching vague right to liberty in the system we have. the specific system we have includes states that regulate you all the time and the feds with power to tax, legislate for common welfare, regulate commerce, etc., this sets up a very broad array of govt. powers that are mainly restrained thru the democratic process. the abstract notion of liberty you espouse was destroyed by the supreme court in the 1930s and when you continually espouse the view the founders were into liberty alone, instead of liberty in a democratic republic, you’re just wrong. Just like the right wingers are wrong in hailing DDec. 25 as xmas, when it is a pagan holiday, in claiming any nationalized healthcare leads straight to gulags, in cliaming gay marriage threatens straight marriage, in ignoring fossil evidence and denying climate change. it’s an all pervasive inability to use facts and logic and only requires that one respond by noting they are using reptilian brains devoid of reason, they fooled tools of megacoporations, and they don’t even know what they are spouting off and talking about most of the time.
they happily lie. it’s shamefull. go look in your stocking and play with your coal. when you’re able to use real history real acs an realo logic you can come back and talk to the adults.
@70
Couldn’t agree more. As Arianna Huffington has noted:
“Before he dives in, the president should spend some time reacquainting himself with his campaign promises to “break the stranglehold that a few big drug and insurance companies have on the health care market,” “let Medicare negotiate for lower prices,” and “allow the safe re-importation of low cost drugs.” Back then, Obama said, “I’ll have the insurance and drug companies at the table. They just won’t be able to buy every chair.” Turns out they did. Here’s hoping that, at the 11th hour, the president changes the seating arrangement to include the people who elected him.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....03964.html
Someone on another thread stated Obama has pretty much kept to his campaign promises. That, as Huffington will tell you, is total BS, and the flip flops go beyond health care.
Bottome line: obuma and the democrats SOLD YOUR ASSES OUT to the insurance companies.
how you liking that hope and change now?
suckers – and you dolts believed the line of crap the democrats fed you at election time.