Democrats mull options for moving health care bill
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0
Molenir
Health care, in its present form, is dead. The Dems may not want to admit it, but theres no question they no longer have the votes. There are only 2 paths left. Reconciliation which won't work, or starting from scratch, and finding common ground with Republicans, which will. The question is whether they have the will to start over, and come up with a bill that at least some Republicans are willing to agree to.
Reconciliation won't work because its an emergency budget measure. This allows Republicans to strip any non budget items out of the bill, leaving it a wreck. A wreck that would then have to be passed by the House as well. Is it possible? Technically yes. Will it happen? Not a chance in hell.
Coming up with a new bill is doable. If they offer something to Republicans, something substantive, they will be able to get at least one, probably more to cross the aisle and vote for it. It will have to be much cheaper then what they wanted, it won't be the socialized medicine many were hoping for, but it will be something. If they include Tort reform as part of it, which they won't do since they're so in bed with the Trial Lawyers. But if they did, I suspect they could gain a majority of Republican votes.
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yabits
If the Dems in the House wanted to, they could approve the Senate bill and have it on President Obama's desk within a week.
The Republicans will never, ever approve anything that would be perceived as giving President Obama any kind of victory. For the vast majority of them, it is not about health care -- they have their own taxpayer-funded health care plan, so screw everyone else -- it is all about politics and sticking to the Democrats.
In my opinion, the Democrats were foolish not to include some kind of tort reform along with a public option as a horse trade. Tear out the public option, you tear out tort reform.
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yabits
Here's where President Obama needs to exert leadership abilities: Persuade the House to approve the Senate bill, and then consider additional amendments to the bill during a reconciliation process.
Remember the bill gets passed, and so reconciliation only involves things currently outside it.
0
Wolfpack
Democrats couldn't pass health care reform when they had complete and total control of Congress. They still have overwhelming majorities but chances are they will be incapable of giving up on their utopian socialist agenda and will fail again. President Obama should admit that his plan to further nationalize health care has failed. Congress should concentrate on the things that both sides agree upon, portability, protection against pre-existing conditions, etc...
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yabits
The Democrats in Congress should not waste a moment's time worrying about what obstructionist Republicans will agree upon. The GOPers think that winning one senate seat gives them some kind of special power -- aside from their very special ability to lie artfully about everything.
0
amerijap
This is what the Obama administration should focus on most, rather than trying to fix every problem with current system at the same time. Providing the coverage to all uninsured people itself is a daunting task. It's not a solution that can be fixed easily, regarding that they have been 'left out' for so many years.
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USAFdude
yabits - excellent post. It's amusing to see the Repubs crow about Brown (their new Messiah?! LOL!) as though he alone will overturn all the great things our Democratic leaders are accomplishing. Well, I say let the Republicans keep crowing - it'll make the stunned looks on their faces even funnier when the Health Care Reform bill passes.
The Americans still have a majority over the Republicans, thank Christ!
0
adaydream
While the democrats worry and try to pass health care reform bill the republicans will be trying to tear down health care bill reform and protecting Wall Street, insurance companies and banks from any reform that will put them in check. < :-)
0
Molenir
Yabits, I don't know whether you're trolling, being deliberately dense, or are just naive. Maybe some combination of all of them. Neither Dems nor Republicans are some monolithic voting bloc. Some Republicans are that way, you're right, however not all of them. Remember Dems only need 1 vote, thats all, just 1 vote. If they get more, thats fewer things they need to pay off their own members to get. A lot of Republicans would be flexible on some issues. However they would have to be approached honestly, not the way they were previously, with an attitude of, if you won't help us, screw you, we don't need you. That caused even liberal Republicans like Snow and Collins to close ranks with the rest of them.
Again, naive at best. The House will not pass the Senate bill. Period. At best they have 100 votes, they need more then 200. Its not just Republicans that won't agree to it, its Dems as well. Not only that, but if they tried, it would infuriate the American people. As most people would see it as being an end run around the voters and the Democratic process. People who are happy that Dems no longer have complete control. Thats most Americans. Independents and Moderates who want to see Dems and Republicans work together. As well as conservatives, who are by far the largest group of voters. Thats why they won't.
Now, assuming they did do pass the Senate bill anyway. The reason why what you're suggesting with regards to reconciliation wouldn't work, is because Reconciliation is a poor tool to amend anything. Its a budget tool only, and any non budget items can and would be stripped from the legislation. Any attempts at using it would infuriate the opposition. Guaranteed, if they tried it. Dems would need 60 votes for everything. It would effectively put an end the session as the Senate would be forced into recess.
No, as I said before, the only way they can pass as health care bill, is to start over, and go the nonpartisan route. See what they can get people to agree to. They won't get what they want, but they can get something.
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Molenir
I thought this deserved a separate response. What you are suggesting wouldn't have worked. Its a nice dream, but its just a dream. The reason being, is that Dems couldn't get the public option past the Senate. Its a non starter. A lot of congressmen were opposed to it as well. Its not just Republicans, a lot of Dems opposed it as well. In the House they had enough votes to force it through anyway. With a 70 vote margin, Republicans, even with Dem defectors, couldn't stop it. In the Senate though, there were at least 8 Dem Senators, and 1 Independent that opposed it, in addition to the 40 Republican Senators. 2 Republican Senators were willing to work on some form of it, though only 1 offered anything that would have been a possible compromise. It was only after Dirty Harry stripped that out that he was able to buy up the votes he needed from the holdout Dems.
Tort Reform while a good thing, wouldn't have sufficiently sweetened the pot in order to pass it. And in holding it out, Dirty Harry would have lost a lot of Dem votes as well. People who are truly beholden to the Trial Lawyers association. To put it simply, it couldn't happen.
0
yabits
The Dems have enough control over the House to pass the Senate bill (with some possible last minute changes) and send it to President Obama's desk for signing.
The Republicans main goal has been to stall things. They have not acted with any good faith and therefore, for the present time, they should be considered the closest-thing-to-irrelevant party that they are -- as decided by the voters in the last two elections.
I understand that the Republicans want to dig their heels in until this coming November, but it won't work. The Dems take one out of Tom DeLay's book and tie the ranks together to get real health care reform passed for the American people.
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yabits
The truth:
"The seismic events of the last few days ends, in some respects, the phony war of the first year of Obama's presidency. As is the case in truly fracturing democracies, the opposition simply does not and cannot accept the fact that it is out of power. The incoherence of the opposition to Obama - that he is both Jimmy Carter and Adolf Hitler, as Stephen Colbert pointed out last night - reveals the irrationality of the hate. It began immediately on the FNC/RNC right. And the ferocity of the campaign against Obama, the sheer dickishness of the GOP and its acolytes, the total oppositionism to everything he has done and indeed anything he might do... suggests that any hope for some kind of cooperation from this rump is impossible....
"Look at what we are facing right now: a take-no-prisoners right, empowered by a massive new wave of corporate money unleashed by the Supreme Court, able to wield a 41 seat minority to oppose anything Obama wants, setting up a cycle of failure for a president whom they can then pillory at the polls, and unrepentant about near-dictatorial powers for the presidency, and the routinization of torture in the American government. These forces cannot be appeased. They simply have to be confronted.
So fight, Mr President. And to the House Democrats who won't go along with the only way to salvage health reform: this is the only sure-fire way you will lose in November. If you pass this bill, you may also go down in this climate. But you will have done something you can be proud of. Politics cannot always be about narrow self-interest. If it always is, nothing important can get done.
Do your duty. And grow some. Fight back. Explain why you're right. Tell the liberals they can always come back later to reform the bill. Just get this passed.
0
yabits
The quotes in the previous post should be credited to Andrew Sullivan, courtesy of The Atlantic.
0
pathat
History repeats itself on health care reform: the Clinton administration in '93/'94 and the Obama one in '09/'10. I guess they'll never learn.
0
Gombei424Canada
Scott Brown's pickup is the most terrifying portent of doom and fascism I have ever seen.
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Molenir
Yabits, again I point out you're being naive in pushing this. They have enough Dems in congress to pass anything they want, however they have to convince them all to vote the same way. Or at least convince enough of them that its in the best interest of their country and themselves to do so. Pelosi herself has admitted she doesn't have the votes. I heard another Dem congressman say that they would be lucky to get 100 votes to pass the Senate bill. A far cry from the 200 plus that are needed.
If find it amusing that the left is criticizing the right for being critical of the President. I would like to remind you, that no President or for that matter Vice-President, has been more demonized and vilified then the previous President. When you talk irrational hatred, no conversation would be complete without mentioning the Democrats and their attitude toward Bush. I at least have good reason to despise him. He broke the Republican party, leading them down the path of big government fiscal irresponsibility, effectively turning them into the Demolite party. Dems on the other hand, ought to have nothing but love for Bush, who essentially handed them the Keys to the country with his policies.
I likewise find it amusing how many liberals are in favor of censorship. Apparently in the belief that Americans are too stupid, and their thoughts must be controlled otherwise they might believe what the evil corporate interests want them to believe about some candidate. Its amusing that the ACLU is on the side of Freedom, while the Dems who talk a good game are on the side of censorship.
0
yabits
This will not be the first time -- and it isn't even unusual -- for legislation to appear not to have the votes, and then end up being passed as a bill. It will take leadership on the part of the president and congressional leaders -- along with the support of the many groups who really want foundations of what this health care bill promises to be put into law.
0
yabits
Interesting. You admit that the previous president deserves being despised but then only for what he did to the Republican Party. As though what he did to the country doesn't count.
As far as "leading" the party down some path, this is revealing too. Those were "being led" were willingly following along. Republlicans like yourself want to portray the guy as a Pied Piper who mesmerized everyone else in his party to a state of helplessness. This shows the sheer delusion and hypocrisy of Republicans like yourself, and why they so deserve the disdain cast on them by normal people who see clearly.
Of course, it's very convenient to blame one guy so that the rest of the party that followed is totally exonerated. Had a Democrat in 2000 promised to keep discretionary federal spending to within the limits of his predecessor and then in his first four years budgeted for an increase in that spending that dwarfed anything seen since the Great Society -- the Republicans (and the majority of Democrats) would have wanted to hold him accountable for his broken promise (yeah, it's a lie).
The Republicans kept defending the liar through 2004 and beyond. Really. You reward a guy who is destroying your party with a second term?
0
SuperLib
Pot, meet kettle.
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sailwind
The Democratic party of tolerance and respect for differing opinions on display I see once again.
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yabits
Guilty as charged. Many liberals obviously have not learned to tolerate and respect hypocrisy and the lack of integrity that the Republicans seem forced to accept as natural to their condition.
It is only those who operate from a position of good faith who can be called "naive." And so I have come to regard naive as a form of acknowledgement of good faith and honesty.
0
ShonanMaruNo2
Yeah yabits. Nothing spells good faith quite like Obama breaking eight separate promises to the American public in which he declared debate on health care reform would be televised on C Span.
Politicians lie, but this crook Obama is in a whole different league.
0
sailwind
My sympathies on the burden you must bare everyday by tolerating the naive unwashed masses and their unenlightened opinions that were gained through their real life experiences and not nurtured through the lofty halls of elite education and snobbery. I bow once again once again to a towering intellect and one day the masses will realize that you and the Democrats always knows what is best for us, despite those pesky voters in Massachusetts who just got a little uppity and threw that buzz saw thing down that the President mentioned in regards to the genius of his plan for health care reform.
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yabits
Care to provide any source for this claim?
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yabits
I truly do sympathize with people whose lives have been made worse by trusting Republicans and their Wall Street buddies (and folks like "Kenny Boy" Lay) over the past few decades. I especially sympathize when Republicans pin the blame on poor people who couldn't afford their mortgages for bringing down the entire house of cards their leadership helped create.
0
ShonanMaruNo2
Eight separate video clips of Obama promising he would, in good faith, hold health care reform negotiations on C span.
http://www.breitbart.tv/the-c-span-lie-did-obama-really-promise-televised-healthcare-negotiations/
Lies, lies, lies, lies and lies.
0
yabits
Yes, I can not and will not defend Barack Obama's foolishness for promising something that he could not or would not deliver.
The president does not control Congress, but I believe that if he showed he was pressing hard to get the debates opened up, it would have given the impression that he was trying to deliver on the promise.
By promising to make the debates transparent, Obama's heart was in the right place. By failing to deliver, or being perceived as not working hard to deliver, he has demonstrated (on this issue) that he has some serious failings.
0
Molenir
Out of curiosity, do you sympathize with those people whose lives have been made worse by trusting Democrats and their ivory tower masters? How about pinning the blame on those leaders who pushed and defended the policies that gave these poor people homes they couldn't afford? After all, theres nothing wrong with FannieMae and FreddieMac. Right? At least according to Barney Frank. But no, we can't have that, its Bush's fault. All Bush's fault. Certainly no one with a D beside his name should ever been blamed for anything.
So, you won't try to defend the lies of Barack Obama. Happy to hear at least one thing you won't defend him on. You do of course realize that thats only one of the many lies of Obama. He has made many many promises, then either ignored them, or backed away from them. He's a politician, they do that, but its very bad form to get caught in lie after lie after lie like this.
I find it amusing that you seem to only see the hypocrisy of others. Not the hypocrisy of yourself. You preach tolerance but only for those of your own viewpoint. You are for freedom of speech, unless you represent a company or other interest group, then you're in favor of censorship. Hollywood elitist types are harshly critical of what happened in the 50s with blacklists etc, but are busy recreating blacklists of their own.
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yabits
Whatever they may be would have to be weighed in the balance with the countless millions upon millions whose lives have been made better through Democratic programs like Social Security, Federal Deposit Insurance, the Marshall Plan, the G.I. Bill, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., etc., etc.
The attempt to blame any of this on Barney Frank is an act of desperation that can't be justified by an honest portrayal of any of the facts.
Really? The Republicans lie so much that there's little doubt that when they accuse Obama of the same, a large percentage of those are simply not true. Just like blaming Barney Frank -- no credibility whatsoever.
Absolutely. You couldn't identify the fools and the dishonest ones without it. We don't, however, allow the intolerant to try to define and judge what tolerance is.
0
sailwind
Why Yabits, your actually using real context for once, maybe there is hope for you after all.
0
WhiteHawk
The problem is that you (and many on the Left) refuse to see your own intolerance.
And since you brought up "fools and the dishonest ones", would you recognize a foolish or dishonest person if you saw one? You were foolish enough to believe all the hype and horror stories, all the fear-mongering, about the health care "crisis", that when I told you about the affordable health insurance I bought, you refused to believe me. Somebody was was finally honest and direct with you, used facts from their personal life, and you couldn't handle it.
Time for you to dismount from that high horse, to paraphrase the old saying.
0
WhiteHawk
USAFdude:
Who said that?!? Oh, I see, that's your comprehension impairment again.
It's not Scott Brown himself that the right is celebrating, it's that a district in the bluest of blue states elected a Republican senator for first time since 1946. I realize that span of time is lost on younger folks, but the historic impact of that election overshadows Scott Brown himself.
In fact that election, while based on the health care issue, is having an effect on other intentions of this congress:
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/national/endofcowardlylyinmRWfJbYLRlOqRxirNUoCxO
You consider Americans and Republicans to be two different and separate groups? Fascinating. Still, the majority of Americans are opposed to this legislation. Why haven't you absorbed that yet?
0
yabits
As I recall, you would not take the simple step of providing the name of the insurance company so that the claim could be verified. Furthermore, you appeared to imply that just because you could find "affordable" insurance, everyone in American could do so, regardless of medical history or preexisting conditions. (Otherwise, why else call the serious problems with health care all hype and horror-stories?)
Yes, those who lack intellectual integrity can be fairly easily identified.
0
WhiteHawk
Riiiight. I only gave you the website where I found it, my age range, and significant bits of my medical history. I gave you the map, what more do you want, a chauffeur?
Fine. Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Is that enough, or will you need me to scan my insurance paperwork and upload it to the web?
0
Molenir
Whitehawk,
That link you gave earlier to the NYpost doesn't seem to work.
Earlier we were discussing the lies of Obama. Found another one today. Previously he had promised to do away with No Bid contracts. Only to find out that his administration awarded a No Bid contract to a Democratic Donor. A contract that pretty clearly shouldn't have been a No Bid contract, became one.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/25/obama-administration-steers-lucrative-bid-contract-afghan-work-dem-donor/
0
WhiteHawk
I've seen that happen here before. When the link shows up here, the underscore symbols are gone, and the words between them become italicized.
Also, other posters seem to be able to use the "and" symbol, but if I use it, it ends the post. So if I quote someone's post where they use the "and" symbol, I have to go back through and replace them with [and]. Oh well, it is a better system than it used to be.
And tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest, I suspect another lie will surface. I only wonder how many it take before even the hardest of the hardcore JT Leftists cam no longer defend Obama.
I tried to warn them (and there were others) that they were building Obama up in the election to something he could never live up to. Not that they didn't have help from Obama himself. Still, someday it will be all to apparent - even to his most staunch defenders - that he's just another lying, scheming, crooked Chicago politician. Then it will be their turn to throw him under the bus.
0
Molenir
Oh, there will always be suckers so wedded to their own imaginary ideal, that they'll support Obama, even as he betrays that ideal. To be fair though, people on the right were for years defending Bush when they shouldn't have been. So its not just the leftists with that flaw, its most people.
0
WhiteHawk
Quite true.
0
WilliB
Here is a prediction, just based on looking at the players, their track record, and their situation:
They will pass something, it doesn´t matter what it contains. And then, after is passed, they will add "modifications", which don´t require all these pesky votes, and re-recreate the entire bloated monster that the majority of the public does not want.
Wait and see.
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