Democrats vs republicans

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Another example:

Mitch McConnell is asked why seven of the Republicans who co-sponsored the Conrad-Gregg fiscal commission turned around and voted against it. McConnell says he now wants a spending reduction commission because heaven forbid we can't have them considering any tax hikes for the rich. Leave it to Republicans to take a bad idea and make it worse.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Clear Pattern of Obstruction

This is all part of the Republican plan to deliberately stop government from working, as part of a playbook to retake Congress and hamstring the change voted for in 2008, and one that is eerily similar to the one they used in 1994.

This playbook consists of 5 distinct steps:

Step 1: Avoid Responsibility for GOP Failures

Step 2: Increase Negativity

Step 3: “Throw the Bums Out!”

Step 4: The New Contract on America

Step 5: Retake Congress

Where the filibuster should have a legitimate role in a functional democracy to protect minority rights, it is a procedure that is highly susceptible to abuse. In the past, this was always kept in check by the morality of individual senators, but in the 111th Congress, the sheer number of times it has been used indicate a clear pattern and dangerous precedent.

Reaction to Obstruction

Lou Gerber, the Legislative Director of the Communication Workers of America writes, “Under Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Republican Senators have instituted “new math” in which 60 votes have replaced 51 votes as the required majority to pass legislation.”

Ali Frick of ThinkProgress adds, “The Republicans have become experts at using Senate filibusters — or often just the threat of filibusters — to block the Democratic agenda while in the minority.”

This congress has had a record number of filibusters.

[sagreenia 0]

Ariscus99,

I think I see that you are a conservative pretty clearly and against medical care for all in this country. I have been a nurse for 30 yrs, i have worked in many different specialties and currently am in a large HMO. I have to say I am for socialized medicine hands down. I feel that we could provide everybody basic health care much more affordable than the current system of "just show up at the ER" after things have gone to far. If we paid for yearly preventative physicals, mammography, cholestesterol screenings, BP and pulse checks and get to those who have preventable illness or find problems early. This would save us all money! Also mother baby care and those who are disabled need to have regular health screenings. I think that we just cannot go wrong by doing this. Look at what has happened to youngsters in school when we allowed big business in the set up mcdonalds and taco bell in schools and decided PE was to expensive to keep for the kids? It would have been so much better to have excellent healthful cafeteria's in schools and push for PE and sex education in schools? these poor kids have suffered. Socialized programs that serve the public as a whole are much better than waiting until folks are sick and disabled and then trying to make lame excuses why we cannot help them because oh my it is "socialism". This is America and we can afford to do this once we clean up after the republican mess of the past 25-30 yrs of damage. The gap between rich and poor is just shameful and we all need to remain vigilant until we can get back on track but we don't abandon our own. I am an independent and have been for many years I am conservative about some issues fiscally but really none socially.

[BJean 16]

What many middle class Americans who have conservative values just don't seem to understand is that the very wealthy have control of their party and the middle class is simply a means to an end for them - the end being a means to increase their wealth, not middle class Americans' lot in life.

If the very wealthy cared one whit about middle class Americans they would put them to work. That's what the Republicans have promised Americans for years and that's what they sell as a pledge when they run for office: "Vote for us. If you ensure that we control the wealth, we will take care of you... we won't make you pay more taxes and we won't take away your guns and we will value your Christian beliefs and get abortion banned."

Guess what? They seriously could have done all that but not only did they not do it, they did just the opposite. So why anyone listens to them anymore and even worse, that anyone actually believes the rethoric, is a real mystery.

And the Republicans who are smart enough to see through it are now claiming they are Independants. And who can blame them? Too bad it doesn't help anything for them to vote that way in the elections.

[BJean 16]

sagreenia, I didn't read your post until after I wrote mine, above. I didn't mean anything I said as a slam toward conservatives - especially those who are now Independants. In fact, I respect someone like you who has real experience and intelligence about this whole mess. I also believe that many Americans know what you're saying is true but we are controlled by the extremely wealthy who control congress. But their P.R. campaigns are falling on deaf ears these days. We know what is going on because we live it everyday. They don't.

[sagreenia 0]

I should say I used to be a democrat and got sick and tired of them making promises they did not keep, getting control of washington and then not getting it done! I still have almost never voted republican and guess I am just a pissed off democrat but could not even venture to vote republican unless some one like Tom McCall of oregon came back to serve.

so that is why i am still an independent,but even that pisses me off because I would like to be a proud democrat again.:biggrin:

[sagreenia 0]

That is Ok BJean I don't like not being a democrat anymore but I guess I am hoping to find a place of honesty in politics, and you go Cleos mom very good work there and all so true. We must all be vigilant and vote and I wish we were heard as loudly as the tea party, maybe some of those heinous signs? Oh no I could never think of a sicker more juvenile way to state your views than racist sick ignorant signs that those folks make and carry.

[BJean 16]

Hey I totally hear you. I haven't been completely thrilled with some of the things this congress and president have done, but they have moved us in the right direction for the most part. I would like for them to do much, much more and stop all this compromise which only makes for getting a lukewarm resolution to things. And the housing market just keeps failing big time, which is killing us.

They bailed out the banks and the banks were supposed to be making loans but they aren't. Until things loosen up there and they unclench their tight little fists from around all the money, we aren't going to realize improvement in the economy. People are personally hurting and that's why they'll be voting Repubican. Unfortunately getting more Republicans in control is not the answer - we know that things can sure be worse. But Dems have got to do a better job of educating the voters about what they're planning to do and what they've already done.

[ariscus99 1]

Ariscus99,

I think I see that you are a conservative pretty clearly and against medical care for all in this country. I have been a nurse for 30 yrs, i have worked in many different specialties and currently am in a large HMO. I have to say I am for socialized medicine hands down. I feel that we could provide everybody basic health care much more affordable than the current system of "just show up at the ER" after things have gone to far. If we paid for yearly preventative physicals, mammography, cholestesterol screenings, BP and pulse checks and get to those who have preventable illness or find problems early. This would save us all money! Also mother baby care and those who are disabled need to have regular health screenings. I think that we just cannot go wrong by doing this. Look at what has happened to youngsters in school when we allowed big business in the set up mcdonalds and taco bell in schools and decided PE was to expensive to keep for the kids? It would have been so much better to have excellent healthful cafeteria's in schools and push for PE and sex education in schools? these poor kids have suffered. Socialized programs that serve the public as a whole are much better than waiting until folks are sick and disabled and then trying to make lame excuses why we cannot help them because oh my it is "socialism". This is America and we can afford to do this once we clean up after the republican mess of the past 25-30 yrs of damage. The gap between rich and poor is just shameful and we all need to remain vigilant until we can get back on track but we don't abandon our own. I am an independent and have been for many years I am conservative about some issues fiscally but really none socially.

Yes I'm conservative about many things, spending is a big one. I don't like to think that I work my butt off while others do nothing and get to benefit from me. I donate a pretty substantial amount of money to charities every year, that's the only way I want my money redistributed, by my choice. I'm also pretty liberal about things that would make many "conservatives" cringe; abortion, and gay rights to name a couple. Your statement there is pretty sweeping. Do I want medical care for everyone in America? Of course, but I don't think that I should have to pay for your medical care, nor should you pay for mine or any one else's. If you read the article I posted on the first page you will see a pretty clear example of how I feel about handouts. The article is titled "healthcare is not a right" but talks about many handout programs and is pretty spot on with how I feel. I've been in the medical field for awhile now and am getting deeper in it now, but I have to say in my experience, you are the exception and not the rule in the medical field. The vast majority that I've met(and this only goes for in the state of California because it's the only place I've worked) in hospitals up and down this state are against obamacare and any form of socialized medicine, from nurses to doctors, to admitting staff, to the custodial staff, I try to talk to as many people as possible and like I stated the vast majority do not feel how you feel. You say you work for an HMO? Talk about capitalism at it's "finest". I recently spent two day with my cousin who is an gastroenterologist with kieser, a large HMO, and was shocked and disgusted at what she has to go threw and the hoops they make their customers jump threw. My cousin told me she has never been so miserable but had signed a contract with them in order to pay off much of her student loans and she had to finish the contract, but the day it was up, she'll be leaving and never coming back. If the government wants to run my healthcare anything like an HMO I don't know what I'd do.

You say "this is America and we can afford it." Based on what? We're how many trillions of dollars in debt? How big is a our budgetary shortcoming? And I know it's all Bush's fault. But we're here we need to really fix it, not by showing fake numbers of unemployment going down, because we all know very well that the numbers that are reported are only of those claiming benefits and as benefits expire these people fall off of the spectrum and the dems then say they went back to work. I enjoy how it went from "jobs created", to "jobs saved", to what they're calling it now "lives touched". The real unemployment rate in this country is higher then ever, but there's no proof because the government only tracks people who are actively collecting unemployment benefits.

The best fix for healthcare, IMO, still would have been insurance reform. Now I know that because cm thinks I'm a conservative that that means I want no government whatsoever and no government regulation whatsoever. For some reason she can't see that there is a happy medium somewhere along the line. Had we made some strict regulations for ins companies, got rid of the pre existing conditions restrictions, and had some MAJOR tort reform, most of this could have been fixed.

[loserbob 11]

Ariscus99,

I think I see that you are a conservative pretty clearly and against medical care for all in this country. I have been a nurse for 30 yrs, i have worked in many different specialties and currently am in a large HMO. I have to say I am for socialized medicine hands down. I feel that we could provide everybody basic health care much more affordable than the current system of "just show up at the ER" after things have gone to far. If we paid for yearly preventative physicals, mammography, cholestesterol screenings, BP and pulse checks and get to those who have preventable illness or find problems early. This would save us all money! Also mother baby care and those who are disabled need to have regular health screenings. I think that we just cannot go wrong by doing this. Look at what has happened to youngsters in school when we allowed big business in the set up mcdonalds and taco bell in schools and decided PE was to expensive to keep for the kids? It would have been so much better to have excellent healthful cafeteria's in schools and push for PE and sex education in schools? these poor kids have suffered. Socialized programs that serve the public as a whole are much better than waiting until folks are sick and disabled and then trying to make lame excuses why we cannot help them because oh my it is "socialism". This is America and we can afford to do this once we clean up after the republican mess of the past 25-30 yrs of damage. The gap between rich and poor is just shameful and we all need to remain vigilant until we can get back on track but we don't abandon our own. I am an independent and have been for many years I am conservative about some issues fiscally but really none socially.

Thats why I pay to send my kids to Catholic school. They have a company called the nutrition group who does their lunches. Last year they used Aramark whose lunches where terribly unhealthy. They served alot of processed foods, chix nuggets, frozen waffles, everything was easily prepared. Parents complained so they have a company who pays more attention to nutrition and health. They have no soda pop machines, at least not for the kids. My kids are both in elementary school and I think its very important to start youg, theyre very influencial and only know what theyre taught. Why not teach them to be healthy!

[Murpel 0]

"If we aren't a country that provides for health insurance for all of our people then what are we?"

Answer: If we do provide medical procedures and facilities for "All", then we are a communist state.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If we tell a little 8 year old girl that her diabetes can't be treated because we don't have insurance or the money to pay for it and there is no government program, what does that say about us?"

Answer: There is a program in place, it's called Medicare or Medicaid, or by the state... in AZ it's called Access. Want to guess who pays for this?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The republicans want everything to be about privledge - the haves and the have nots."

Answer: This Republican would like it to be about accountability and choice.

This Republican would like to see all the aid and money that goes to other countries stay in this country. Why feed starving kids in other countries when children in MY United States are going to school hungry, going to bed hungry, wearing shoes with holes in them?

Too much to want? I think not!

Edited August 27, 2010 by Murpel

[ariscus99 1]

:biggrin: I agree

"If we aren't a country that provides for health insurance for all of our people then what are we?"

Answer: If we do provide medical procedures and facilities for "All", then we are a communist state.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If we tell a little 8 year old girl that her diabetes can't be treated because we don't have insurance or the money to pay for it and there is no government program, what does that say about us?"

Answer: There is a program in place, it's called Medicare or Medicaid, or by the state... in AZ it's called Access. Want to guess who pays for this?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The republicans want everything to be about privledge - the haves and the have nots."

Answer: This Republican would like it to be about accountability and choice.

This Republican would like to see all the aid and money that goes to other countries stay in this country. Why feed starving kids in other countries when children in MY United States are going to school hungry, going to bed hungry, wearing shoes with holes in them?

Too much to want? I think not!

[Cleo's Mom 257]

"If we aren't a country that provides for health insurance for all of our people then what are we?"

Answer: If we do provide medical procedures and facilities for "All", then we are a communist state.

Then make sure you don't accept social security or medicare, both socialist (or in your view, communist) programs. And if you live long enough you will receive more in benefits than you paid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If we tell a little 8 year old girl that her diabetes can't be treated because we don't have insurance or the money to pay for it and there is no government program, what does that say about us?"

Answer: There is a program in place, it's called Medicare or Medicaid, or by the state... in AZ it's called Access. Want to guess who pays for this?

Medicare is for those receiving social security, not an 8 year old. :biggrin: And all of those without insurance don't automatically qualify for medicaid. There are government programs, like SCHIP for children, which I strongly support and which many republicans don't. And yes we pay for this as taxpayers, so what? I don't want kids to die for lack of health insurance. Do you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The republicans want everything to be about privledge - the haves and the have nots."

Answer: This Republican would like it to be about accountability and choice.

This Republican would like to see all the aid and money that goes to other countries stay in this country. Why feed starving kids in other countries when children in MY United States are going to school hungry, going to bed hungry, wearing shoes with holes in them?

Too much to want? I think not!

Our foreign aid to children is really only a small part of our government spending compared to what we spend on aid for children here, whether it's aid to families with dependent children, SCHIP, or subsidized school lunches, among others.

Edited August 27, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Tort Reform Myth: The Legal System Causes High Malpractice Insurance Premiums

Wayne Parsons

Attorney

What causes high premiums for doctors' malpractice insurance? The insurance industry would have you believe that the cause is the legal system. The truth is that insurance company investment practices are the cause. Americans for Insurance Reform - one of the leading consumer advocates for regular people not the privileged and powerful, has issued a series of fact sheets on these tort reform myths:

INSURANCE INDUSTRY’S INVESTMENT PRACTICES –

NOT THE LEGAL SYSTEM –

CAUSE HIGH MALPRACTICE INSURANCE COSTS

Here are the facts, not the insurance industry hype:

THE INSURANCE CYCLE, NOT THE LEGAL SYSTEM, DRIVES UP RATES

• Typical Soft Market
  : Insurers make most of their money from investment income. During years of high interest rates and/or excellent insurer profits, insurance companies engage in fierce competition for premium dollars to invest for maximum return. Insurers severely underprice their policies and insure poor risks (where there likely will be claims to pay) just to get premium dollars to invest. This is known as the “soft” insurance market.
  Americans for Insurance Reform, Stable Losses/Unstable Rates 2007.
  
  

• Typical Hard Market
  : When investment income decreases because interest rates drop or the stock market plummets, or price cuts during the soft market make unbearably low profits, the industry responds by sharply increasing premiums and reducing coverage, creating a “hard” insurance market usually degenerating into a “liability insurance crisis.”
  Americans for Insurance Reform, Stable Losses/Unstable Rates 2007.
  
  

• Periodic Cycles:
  Such “liability insurance crises” associated with “hard markets,” have occurred three times in the last 30 years – in the mid 1970s, in the mid-1980s, and between 2002 and 2006. Eventually, rates stabilized and availability improved everywhere as the “soft market” took hold.
  Americans for Insurance Reform, Stable Losses/Unstable Rates 2007.
  
  

• With each new hard market, insurers have tried to cover up their investment losses by blaming lawyers and the legal system.
  To buy this position, one would have to accept the notion that juries engineered large jury awards in the mid-1970s, then stopped for a decade, then started again in the mid-1980s, stopped 17 years and the started again from 2002-2006. This is ludicrous, and not true. At no time did claims or payouts spike during these period and since 1975, medical malpractice payouts have risen almost precisely in sync with medical inflation.
  Americans for Insurance Reform, Stable Losses/Unstable Rates 2007.
  
  

• Today.
  Investment losses throughout the industry now threaten to cause another hard market.Kathy Chu and Sandra Block,
  “Insurance premiums rise on sour profits,” USA Today, April 20, 2009
  .
  
  

The facts produced by Americans For Insurance Reform are devastating to anyone who cares about the truth - journalists and elected politicians, are you listening and reading and thinking? The fact is that insurance company insiders have agreed:

• Victor Schwartz, General Counsel, American Tort Reform Association:
  “Insurance was cheaper in the 1990s because insurance companies knew that they could take a doctor's premium and invest it, and $50,000 would be worth $200,000 five years later when the claim came in … An insurance company today can't do that.”
  Honolulu Star Bulletin,
  April 20, 2003.
  
  

• National Underwriter
  : Standard & Poor’s Rating Service in London, recognizing problems created by “historic highs and lows of cyclical underwriting,” is calling for the industry to change its underwriting practices. S&P’s Christian Dinesen says, “A less cyclical insurance market would be revolutionary for the industry, with such fundamental change promising a more stable underwriting environment.”
  National Underwriter Online
  , October 29, 2002.
  
  

• Wall Street Journal:
  “[A] price war that began in the early 1990s led insurers to sell malpractice coverage to obstetrician-gynecologists at rates that proved inadequate to cover claims.… Some of these carriers had rushed into malpractice coverage because an accounting practice widely used in the industry made the area seem more profitable in the early 1990s than it really was. A decade of short-sighted price slashing led to industry losses of nearly $3 billion last year.”
  Wall Street Journal
  , June 24, 2002.
  
  

• Donald J. Zuk, chief executive of Scpie Holdings Inc.
  : “I don’t like to hear insurance-company executives say it’s the tort system – it’s self-inflicted.”
  Wall Street Journal
  , June 24, 2002.
  
  

• Charles Kolodkin, Gallagher Healthcare Insurance Services
  : “The [medical malpractice insurance] market is in chaos…Throughout the 1990s…insurers were…driven by a desire to accumulate large amounts of capital with which to turn into investment income. Regardless of the level of…tort reform, the fact remains that if insurance policies are consistently underpriced, the insurer will lose money.” “Medical Malpractice Trends?”, September 2001.
  
  

• National Association of Attorneys General:
  “The facts do not bear out the allegations of an ‘explosion’ in litigation or in claim size, nor do they bear out the allegations of a financial disaster suffered by property/casualty insurers today. They finally do not support any correlations between the current crisis in availability and affordability of insurance and such a litigation ‘explosion.’ Instead, the available data indicate that the causes of, and therefore solutions to, the current crisis lie with the insurance industry itself.”
  Analysis of the Causes of the Current Crisis of Unavailability and Unaffordability of Liability Insurance
  , Ad Hoc Insurance Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General, May 1986.
  
  

• Maurice R. Greenberg, them President and CEO of American International Group, Inc. -
  AIG:
  “The industry’s problems were due to price cuts taken ‘to the point of absurdity’ in the early 1980s. Had it not been for these cuts, Greenberg said, there would not be ‘all this hullabaloo’ about the tort system.”
  Business Week,
  March 31, 1986.
  
  

The tort reform movement is brought to you by the insurance industry - AIG and the same band of scoundrels who took Wall Street down with their financial misconduct and accept your premiums and deny your claims. Do you believe the falsehoods they spread? And where is our news media on these issues. The truth is easy to prove. Does Major media care about anything but ratings and getting sponsors? The news? Oh, that. Who cares. So you have to get it here and on The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post and The Injury Board. Americans For Insurance Reform are just getting into the fray. They are great at documenting the truth. Go to their website and support them. They make a difference in breaking down these insurance company tactics.

So, malpractice premiums go up when the insurance companies lose money in the stock market just like the rest of us, but we don't have a way to recoup those losses. They do. It's not because of rising jury awards, which, at least in my state, have decreased.

Edited August 27, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[sagreenia 0]

I see that you have some concerns about "wealth redistribution" that is such a buzz term and really silly. I happen to also work for Kaiser and have for 13 yrs and love it! We give good care and every one i work with is pretty happy including Dr's. it is not perfect by any stretch but we all do our level best to provide good care. I know alot of people feel differently than I do but the one thing we all have in common is a love of country and other Americans. I would do anything to keep our country safe and living in peace and I just don't beleive the republicans know what they are doing, they are so for the rich and the big business that may give them a great job or something when they leave congress or whatever. The democrats do it too. that is why I went independent. In the end us folks in the middle want to same thing a great place to raise kids and home to live in when old and feeble and healthcare for all. We deserve it and We should really make some hard changes to accomplish these basic care needs. The rich need to have that tax cut ended and our government needs to GET BUSY and get it done.