Democrats in Turmoil
Aug 20th, 2009 by David Anderson
There is a pitched battle over health care. Do you have a government option? Do you have single payer? Do you have co-ops? Do you cover abortion? Do you push panels which set benefits and determine coverage for seniors and others? Do you raise taxes? Do you have individual mandates or employer mandates? These battles are before the Republicans even come to the table.
When the Democrats decided to go it alone, they alone became responsible for solving the most perplexing public policy problem in America. Right now the public doesn’t think they are up to it. I agree. It is time to toss aside artificial time deadlines and start over. We can begin by looking at all of the proposals even the ones made by “evil” Republicans. The Democrats won’t be hurt politically (Senator Carper are you listening?) by using market based solutions. They will be hurt by a government takeover real or perceived. Not one liberal is going to lose reelection because co-ops are in the plan instead of a government program. A lot of blue dogs would if the reverse is true. The left wing of the Democrat party is squandering the good will of the people faster than any party in an 100 years. America has no majority party. When you look at polls of people who vote in off year elections the numbers are far grimmer. Realignment is dead. The best they can do now is to hope to avoid Armageddon. At the rate they are going
We can begin by looking at all of the proposals even the ones made by “evil” Republicans.
I don’t think you get it. Republicans forfeited their seat at the table. You guys (and the insurance companies) overplayed your hand and were never negotiating in good faith. Death panels and Hitler indeed.
Democrats will pass this billl with the public option. The health care industry will get 45 million (or whatever) new customers and be very very happy. Those newly insured customers will vote.
Republicans can go tell it to the deathers and teabaggers. That is your base now.
This Administration needs to pass the existing healthcare plans (or something simular to it) to get control of the industry as part of their Marxist agenda. The moderate Democrats are joining the Tea Bag movement, because they also see the agenda and don’t like it.
As a proud tea-bagger and member of The Angry Mob, I think it is the Democrats (Pelosi and her crew) who have overplayed their hand. The Democratic party is not united on H.R. 3200, and I cannot see how anyone who has actually read the legislation can be 100% for each provision in the bill.
It is like trying to put bedpans in the Post Office. The “Health Insurance Exchange” will establish a bureaucracy that will rival the IRS (and its thousands of pages of unintelligible provisions). We see how well “Cash for Clunkers” has been managed. Wait until we get “Cash for Grandma”.
Lord help us all.
Shirley,
It is because of deliberate misrepresentations such as yours that health care will now be fixed without you and the Angry Mob.
Welcome to the wilderness.
Ed Heath opines: “This Administration needs to pass the existing healthcare plans (or something simular to it) to get control of the industry as part of their Marxist agenda.”
Ed, your “Marxist” agenda works very well to your liking when corporations and the wealthy get almost total control of our country, isn’t that right?
Well you lost several elections; now the Dems have a turn at fixing a few rather important things that you folks either broke or neglected!
Democrats Infight…Blame Republicans
Try and figure this out. If the health care legislation currently being debated has the public option, then the Democrats will lose most of the 52 Blue Dogs and most of the 15 moderate Democrats in the Senate. If it doesn’t have the public option, then Democrats will lose most of its liberal wing. Either way, the Democrats can’t put together a bill that will have enough votes to pass. Now, that sounds to me like a problem that affects Democrats and Democrats only. In fact, with 60 votes in the Senate and 256 in the House, the Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for not passing any legislation. They have enough votes to create a sort of Parlimentary majority. (by parliamentary I mean like the British parliament where the ruling party passes its entire agenda and when something doesn’t pass that’s a no confidence vote)
The Democrats can bemoan and cry about the Republicans refusal to get on board, but all of it is nonsense. First, they don’t need Republicans to get on board. Second, if they had a bill that the people wanted, they wouldn’t care if Republicans were on board. Third, and most importantly, if they wanted a bi partisan bill, why is the bill they have crafted so liberal. It’s 1017 pages. It has 53 new bureaucracies. It expands Medicaid and Medicare. It includes business and individual tax increases. It doesn’t include health savings accounts. It doesn’t allow for health insurance to cross state lines. It has no tort reform. Just think about that for a minute. The Democrats craft a bill with every liberal fantasy and allow for no conservative ideas, and then bemoan the Republicans’ lack of bi partisanship
http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/
Annoni, your monologue about the bill is worthless, because we don’t have a bill yet. We have only HB 3200.
Neither you nor anyone else has any idea what the final bill will have.
You act as though HB 3200 is the final bill. It isn’t.
Your arguments are therefore garbage, which is where they currently belong, in the trash can, for now.
That said, there are some items you listed that I would like to see in the final bill, like tort reform, just to pick one example.
It’s a work in progress, the exact way it is supposed to work to craft a bill, especially one this complex. So be patient!
Perry, I think the objective is to ensure that whatever health care legislation is passed doesn’t carry all of the negatives and extra baggage of HR 3200. Also to ensure that some of the elements such as tort reform are included in the health care reform process.
To dissmiss HR 3200 the way you and others often do is just about as disingenuous as to give the impression that it is the final bill. That bill is being seriously considered in the House and was the starting point for the bills which came out of the three committees. It is also the bill featured in the Library of Congress. If they can discuss and debate it in Congress so can we, and we should.
By “tort reform,” you mean changing the law to make it easier for consumers to recover full damages in court? That would be cool.
Jane (perry the shill) you ignorant slut…
(from when SNL was funny)
so, we dont have a “bill” we only have HB3200, huh?
What does the HB stand for?
Well?
HOUSE BILL!
The Senate Health Affordability Act is little better than H R 3200. In some aspects it is a job killer.
Timothy, of course we should debate the house bill, and speak out for or against the various provisions.
But I find that most on your side treat it as though it is the final word. Moreover, it has only been voted out of the committee, with no floor vote yet. We also have three Senate Bills which are not even out of committee yet.
And then, your side distorts what HB 3200 says, and states some outright lies. This then is not a debate!
It strikes me as quite interesting that Obama is trying to avoid the Clinton mistakes of 1994, permitting Congress to work out a bill themselves, without presenting them with a final bill then asking for an immediate vote. For that he gets chastised, even by his own side, who wants him to draw lines in the sand. It is not time for that yet, but it could well come to that in order to produce a final bill that he would sign.
David: “In some aspects it [HB 3200] is a job killer.”
If the jobs ‘killed’ are the MBA bureaucrats whose job is to deny coverages, discontinue policies of the sick, or deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition, I don’t mind seeing those jobs gone. Then Wall Street can hire them!
Not, HR 3200, the senate bill, http://www.delawarepolitics.net/will-health-reform-hurt-wages/
Perry, I will agree that the distortions on both sides are really muddying the waters on this process. If “my side” really thought this was the final bill we would not be arguing the way we are now. We are arguing because it isn’t final yet, and we still have time to change it, or get it struck down. Once we have the “final bill” it will be, for all intents and purposes, too late.
If you want to claim that President Obama is trying not to make the same mistakes as President Clinton did, thats great. The problem is that President Obama is making all new ones.
Perhaps ObamaCare II will encourage live organ donations. There was a segment of a documentary (“The Meaning of Life”) that showed how this could be performed. It might reduce revenues to some New Jersey entreprenuers.
“…health care will now be fixed without you and the Angry Mob.”
Socialism doesn’t ‘fix’ anything. And, according to just about any recent poll I’ve read, the ‘Angry Mob’ seems to be the majority of the American people. Socialist-Democrats from moderate districts who vote for the Obamacare Bill will lose their seats in ’10. This is setting-up to be the most short-lived majority ever.
Stop the Commie bastards.