Health Care

[pattygreen 5]

Why are you ignoring the way your party seems to have aquired their 60 votes needed? Embarrassed? I would be.

[tdslf1 0]

This is an issue that will be debated forever. But I think we will prevail because why we feel this way is as American as apple pie. Freedom. Freedom to have the choice just as in healthcare. Which will give people choice of staying with their insurance or going with something else. If you can afford it, stay with who you wish. People who can't afford it have the choice of getting into the government sponsored one or buying one they wish to buy. Single payer would make it so most people would be driven practically to the government run option. We won't get single payer. Public option is different. Maybe the insurance companies need to go out of business since they seem to want to extort the American people with premiums out the roof. This too won't happen, but people can get reasonable coverage with public option. Let's hope they reconcile the public option or something similiar during negotiations in the coming months. WHo is going to be up at 1am to see history and the Repugs get a slap in the teeth?

Edited December 21, 2009 by tdslf1

[pattygreen 5]

WHo is going to be up at 1am to see history and the Repugs get a slap in the teeth?

That's another thing. 1AM? What the heck is up with that? Sneaky, coniving tactics. While the world sleeps, congress votes on what THEY feel the people need, yet polls prove they don't want!!! Just waiting for 2010. That's all I can say.

[tdslf1 0]

Unfortunately, the American people don't know what they want other than not wanting socialism. Most people or the majority of people want health care. The debate got stolen by the tea douche baggers in the summer and they distorted the facts. Their best argument is too much money. As I said earlier, I don't give a hoot about the cost as long as people get covered and I don't have to see people go to the doctor or emergency room sick and come out with a 3k bill because they can't get some kind of coverage. It should not be out of reach for people like it is now. No reason a person who works at Walmart should not have insurance at the age of 23. They should be able to afford it and this bill goes that way to helping them get it. Not everything I wanted, single payer, but it can start to get close.

Oh, people have known about this 1am session for a couple days. Good enough. If the Repuglicans keep trying to stall this instead of being productive and helping make the bill better, the American people won't benefit. Not left or right. The people. We also would not be having this shotgun session.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

WHo is going to be up at 1am to see history and the Repugs get a slap in the teeth?

That's another thing. 1AM? What the heck is up with that? Sneaky, coniving tactics. While the world sleeps, congress votes on what THEY feel the people need, yet polls prove they don't want!!! Just waiting for 2010. That's all I can say.

In order to meet the Christmas Eve deadline and because the OBSTRUCTIONIST REPUBLICANS have used every procedural delay tactic (reading of entire bill, etc), the vote had to be scheduled at 1 AM.

So you see, it isn't sneaky but rather a timeline scheduling problem created by the delay tactics of the republicans. And since everyone knows about it, how can it be sneaky?

And I don't see what difference it makes what time they vote on it. It's not like it would make a difference if it were held during the day.

And as for 2010 what miracle do you think is going to happen then? Yes, democrats will lose seats. The incumbent party always loses seats in midterm elections. So what? The republicans that win will just join the rest of the party of no and continue to be obstructionists.

They had their day in the sun under bush and we had 8 years of failed policies. Other than a tax cut for the rich and an unnecessary war in Iraq, both raising the deficit, nothing was done. No problems were tackled. Not the economy, global warming, job creation, clean, renewable energy, or healthcare. Why would we ever want to go back to THAT?

[tdslf1 0]

Saw the vote. Was watching CNN. At one point, Dr. Sanjay took a call and the call was amazing. Not only did the caller express her displeasure at the bill, but she actually spouted the same talking points heard here about HC.

Tort reform

Across state line insurance

This was like word for word what has been mentioned here. I wonder is there a standard website where they get these talking points? Oh, I forgot, Fake Noise. The exact same talking points, amazing the rank and file crowd. If we as liberals would hear the dog whistle and fall in line instead of thinking for ourselves, we could actually get some things done productively without all this hagling.

[tdslf1 0]

Hey all,

Now we need a blend of the bills in both House and Senate. Let's hope pressure has been brought to bear to keep public option. Ladies, hold the line for demolition of the Stupak(Stupid) Amendment. No way we need to go backward in that regard. HOLD...THE...LINE!!! We are not taking one for the team!!!

[Cleo's Mom 257]

One of my two mantras that I offer on here all the time is: If it weren't for hypocrisy the republicans wouldn't have anything. The examples are seemingly endless. I will add another but first I want to preface it by saying:

Since he lost the presidential election McCain has been a pain in the butt. He has been a sore loser and more than ungracious. Pres. Obama has reached out to him, invited him to a White House dinner in his honor but McCain never lets an opportunity pass to criticize Pres. Obama. It makes it so much more obvious that the better man won.

Now to my mantra: When Sen. Franken didn't allow Lieberman more time than he was alloted to speak on the Senate floor, McCain was outraged - saying never in 20 years has he seen such a display, etc.. ad infinitum, ad phoney outrage. He has a short memory because HE DID THE SAME THING TO A DEMOCRATIC SENATOR and here it is:

Flashback: McCain Objected To Granting Dem Senator More Time (VIDEO)

Eric Kleefeld | December 18, 2009, 6:39PM

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On Hardball this evening, Chris Matthews dug up the video to prove that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wasn't being totally truthful when he complained that he'd never seen anything like when Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) denied Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) more time to speak -- in fact, McCain himself has done it.

Yesterday, McCain vehemently protested when his friend was denied an extra moment to finish his speech, claiming that it had never happened before and damaged the comity of the Senate. (Franken said he had been instructed by the leadership to hold people to their time limits, as the presiding officer.)

"I've been around here 20-some years. First time I've ever seen a member denied an extra minute or two to finish his remarks," McCain said indignantly. "And I must say that I don't know what's happening here in this body. But I think it's wrong."

But as Think Progress pointed out, McCain certainly had seen it happen before -- and in fact had perpetrated it in 2002, when he lodged an objection and thus denied extra time to then-Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) during debate on the Iraq War.

Matthews tonight provided the video. "And now John McCain says this has never happened before, he's never seen anything like it," Matthews observed wryly, "when in fact he did it."

[pattygreen 5]

Those who are all for this HC bill don't have a clue to the expense of it. When has Congress ever kept to a budget? When has the government ever started a program that hasn't gone in the red?

In CT, child advocates complain that Governor Rell's proposed budget reductions target children. Yet, there have been decades of public policies that created and fostered the economic, social and cultural rot that put the children at risk in the first place and left them and their parents addicted to the government programs taxpayers no longer can afford to provide at levels demanded by child advocates, whose money is made in treating the victims rather than curing the ills!

We can't afford all the handouts anymore! It's time to quit it! Put it in reverse.

[tdslf1 0]

You keep beating that cost drum. As I expressed earlier in a post. Cost is less important than getting people covered with insurance. People first, then the cost. Not saying cost is not important but it is less important than getting people covered who are dying. Maybe I am crazy like that. Maybe I am the only one, but that's how it works for me. So giving us quotes about the cost, fall on my deaf ears. Argue the merits of the bill but cost,......pleeeez. Oh, nothing to say regarding the hypocritical McCain?

[Cleo's Mom 257]

You keep beating that cost drum. As I expressed earlier in a post. Cost is less important than getting people covered with insurance. People first, then the cost. Not saying cost is not important but it is less important than getting people covered who are dying. Maybe I am crazy like that. Maybe I am the only one, but that's how it works for me. So giving us quotes about the cost, fall on my deaf ears. Argue the merits of the bill but cost,......pleeeez. Oh, nothing to say regarding the hypocritical McCain?

First the criticism was that the public option or medicare buy-in would put the poor private health insurance companies out of business and create a government take over, so now that those are stripped, it's the cost - despite the fact that the CBO has said it will REDUCE the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years.

You see, when a non-partisan organization like the CBO comes out in our favor, it is ignored. It's only when it supports their opposition is it cited.

Their same repeated, lame arguements against health reform just ring hollow.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

The right's harping points: unemployment, job losses, deficit spending - all of a sudden important under Pres. Obama. Well let's take a look at some of those things under bush and Obama:

The 2010 Elections:

I'm looking forward to the 2010 elections. We need them.

Many dread how badly the election is shaping up. Commentators predict double digit Democratic losses in the House and further retreat from the sixty vote threshold in the Senate. We fear a progressive era strangled in its infancy.

But there's a sunny side too. The election can bring the fight out of us. We can turn complaints about how bad things are into complaints about how we got here and how long it will take us to dig out. Like in 2008, the elections in 2010 give us an opportunity to point out the failures of long conservative reign and dare conservatives to try to take us backward.

• Don't like the deficit? Three times as much of it came from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (unpaid for) and the Bush tax cuts (without offsets) as from the Obama's Recovery Act.

Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

• Don't like the job situation? We lost 11,000 jobs in November. That's bad. But we lost 533,000 jobs in November of last year, the crowning achievement of Bush's presidency. It will take a long time to turn this around. But at least we're turning.

Source: AFL-CIO

• Frustrated about health care reform? Me too. But don't forget how bad it was. Health care spending rose from 13.8 percent of GDP when Bush took office to 16.6 percent last year -- even as the number of uninsured grew by a million people every year. So we spent more every year but got less for it. In personal terms, the cost of a family premium more than doubled, from $5,791 in 1999 to $12,680 in 2008.

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

A few years ago, guaranteed, affordable health care for all was an impossible dream. Now it's just a few votes away. Let's thank the progressive forces that got us this far rather than assailing them for compromise. Save the attacks for the forces that compelled the compromise.

Other changes haven't even begun to take effect. We're beginning efforts to regulate financial markets so Wall Street serves the real economy, not the other way around. We're taking baby steps towards energy independence, and even starting to make sure that the components of our new energy economy are made in America -- so we don't replace a dependence on foreign oil with a dependence on foreign manufacturing. We're starting to reign in private contractors who took over public functions but left the public interest behind, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[BJean 16]

Theodore Roosevelt said in Syracuse, NY, on September 7, 1903:

"Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing and commonsense... We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us."

Theodore Roosevelt also said in Osawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910:

"The object of government is the welfare of the people."

and he also said on June 17, 1912, in Chicago, IL:

"This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a resonably good place for all of us to live in."

The greed and unfair dealings of the insurance companies and lobbyists have made health care "reform" a necessity in this country. The question should not be whether we need or want health care reform. The question should be how do we get the job done for the good of this great nation of ours so that it can be "...a reasonably good place for all of us to live in."

[pattygreen 5]

Theodore Roosevelt said in Syracuse, NY, on September 7, 1903:

"Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing and commonsense..

I suppose if the feds were honest, decent, fair and had commonsense, then we could accept what they deal out to us. But they're not, so his words fail me. They are hypocritical today. He wants ALL people to be those things, not just the ones being ruled, but the rulers as well.

. We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us all.

True. But that does not mean that you don't have to achieve your own well being, or that we all need to provide for those who don't do as well as others.

Theodore Roosevelt also said in Osawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910:

"The object of government is the welfare of the people."

Welfare is the doing well of people, not what we consider it today. (recieving government assistance) Welfare for the government means taking care of our safety. Therefore, it's not the governments job to be Robinhood.

and he also said on June 17, 1912, in Chicago, IL:

"This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a resonably good place for all of us to live in."

The greed and unfair dealings of the insurance companies and lobbyists have made health care "reform" a necessity in this country. The question should not be whether we need or want health care reform. The question should be how do we get the job done for the good of this great nation of ours so that it can be "...a reasonably good place for all of us to live in."

I would say that it is reasonably good that 85%+ people like their Health care. This is not only a reasonably good place to live, it's the best place to live. America is the most blessed nation because Jesus is with the majority of the people who live here, and he blesses his children and those who believe in him.

[BJean 16]

What 85% of people are you talking about liking their health care? Well Americans LIKE their HEALTH CARE, when they can get it. But they don't like what they're having to pay for it and they don't like being denied coverage by their insurance companies when they're paying astronomical premiums off the top! You're waaaay out in left field on this. On the right side of the left field, of course.

You're always spouting about what our country is supposed to represent and what we're all about. Well, you're saying it's all about greed and disenfranchisement in your posts. I disagree with you. I believe that what has made this country great is people like Teddy Roosevelt - NOT Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch - who are all about keeping the little man down to make themselves more powerful.

Merry Christmas oh ye of grumpy thinking.