Barney Frank gets Paul Ryan to admit Republicans failed to fix health care on their watch
Listening to the golden boy, Paul Ryan present his argument about how to reform health care is the disease that needs to be given immediate health care attention to. Turning to the free market has failed America and he knows it and admits that too, but can't break from his party to tell the truth on how we should fix it. However, Barney Frank corners him into admitting that Republicans/conservatives, (whatever you call the party of George Bush) failed to reform health care for the eight years that they ran the country.
FRANK: I just want to ask Paul one question. … When did you figure that out? Because apparently for the 12 years that the Republicans were in control — eight of which had a Republican president — that hadn’t occurred to you. So I’m glad you now understand that. Can you tell me at what moment the revelation occurred?
RYAN: First of all, I introduced on this subject about six years ago.
FRANK: You had control of the Congress. Why didn’t the Republican Congress fix it?
RYAN: I will have a moment of bipartisan agreement. We should have fixed this under our watch and I’m frustrated we didn’t.
I doubt he's frustrated because Republicans never, ever wanted to fix health care for America. Michael Moore's movie called "Sicko" really was instrumental in shining a light on our health care nightmares to the country and made it a problem that no longer could be ignored. He deserves a lot of praise for that. And Frank gets major props for getting Ryan to admit that at least they failed under Bush. The next question is to ask the media: why then should we give a good damn about what conservatives have to say about health care if all they do is make outrageous claims about death panels and obstruct in an effort to discredit the president?
At the rate they are going, Democrats will fail to fix health care on THEIR watch.
Really, major props!? I will wait until Barney Frank ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING res publica rather than just talk about it.
HR 676 is the minimum.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
They have proven themselves unworthy of being included in reforming health care - move on without them and form the strongest program possible, and make sure it's working by 2012. That will be the Waterloo for the Repugs.
Is Conyers/Kucinich H.R. 676....
but sorry all you 72% of the American People who support "Medicare for All"....
"Medicare for All", thanks to the bribes to our Congress/President, is OFF THE TABLE AND OUT OF THE ROOM AND INTO THE STREET....AT THE CURB ACTUALLY.
What an embarrassing shame.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
This is one of those things that don't need to be 'admitted to' since they are self-evident.
That in itself however shows how worthless the RNC is. That getting one of them to admit something self-evident is considered a victory
that help businesses, corporations and industries but NEVER to help the people.
* Veterans = 20 Million/ages 65 and above
* Baby Boomer = 65 Million /ages 47 – 60
* Generation X = 50 Million /ages 38 – 45
* Generation Y = 78 Million /21 – 40
Most of the immediate profit (cash confiscation) waits in the first two groups obviously.
I am not sure I am following your reasoning. I am a baby boomer and a veteran and if you think they could make a profit off of me no matter how much of my monthy pay I spend on health care your mistaken the profit comes from covering those in generation Y who still have no idea what age feels and looks like. Believe me it's not pretty.
who wants that when we could have tax cuts instead?
big business is tweaking and modifying the laws to benefit themselves.
McCain would have been doing right now, as his signature policy. Health Reform would have been completely in the wilderness, and instead right now we'd probably be debating an extension and expansion of Bush's tax-cuts to the rich.
That's if the country wasn't in martial law at this point.
Don't get sick and if you do, die quickly.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
who was too busy doing all that freakie dikie stuff with his former borg wifey to pay attention to lesser matters like healthcare?
have law degrees and the attorney fraternity class feels they are entitled to take forever to get things accomplished. For exorbitant fees of course.
"present his argument" . . that's an attorneys secret weapon.
Broad brush time?
Jack Ryan.
But cut from the same Repub slime mold.
Even when they are married to smoking hot ladies, these people just can't help themselves.
is yet another snake oil salesman selling the lies of the market to the sheep in my state. Paul Ryan is inept and incompetent. He can't even keep jobs in his district and this is the GOP "great white hope".
The Dems better attack and discredit this charlatan or we'll probably be calling him President Ryan based on the voting patterns of the Sheep.
the public isn't it.
when it's easier to say . . we'll try this method, there is hope and the results have been good. You can do it put up a good fight.
Knowing damn well of course your patient is going to kick the bucket regardless of what treatment you administer.
This is more proof that only openly gay men should be elected to represent.
Straight Dem hets are too full of themselves......
I don't know....I know a lot of evil queens out there...;)
Myself included.
But yes, Frank's got it going.
Why was it clipped there? He was still talking and he follow up was edited out. Just because Malkin "Becks" our speakers doesn't mean we should "Beck " theirs.
Beck v to take out of context so as to prove an unprovable point.
Typical Republican rhetoric. Scare people, then claim to have "workable" solutions. Which are usually only one or two favorite "ideas". And, as Frank points out, never seem to be codified. Why not? Because Republicans know that their "solutions" won't stand up to close analysis.
It's not anomaly that Republicans did nothing for health care reform. They've consistently left it to the Democrats (at least since 1934) to do the heavy lifting on social issues.
Then they say, "OK, problem solved. Now, let us get back in power so we can drag the country into another mess".
Republicans never acknowledge one basic fact: for every dollar that a person pays into Medicare through taxes (FICA), that person averages $3 in treatment costs when under Medicare.
Yet let any Democrats mention the need to consider that reality, and Republicans will head off to scare Seniors.....(not to mention that Seniors themselves are apparently not concerned that their own children/grandchildren might not get Medicare because of them).
not to mention that Seniors themselves are apparently not concerned that their own children/grandchildren might not get Medicare because of them
They (a majority) won't even get behind reform when the accounting does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to Medicare in terms of service or coverage, why would they consider sacrificing even a penny for the sake of everybody else in this country with a bill that actually asked them to cut back even a tiny bit?
I got mine, FUCK OFF!!!
Republicans, if they really did have their way with Health Reform, would eliminate Medicare before they even thought about doing anything else.
Of course, that would just be stating the truth, and as we all know, in America and with Republicans, that's just smearing the GOP and playing partisan politics.
Medicare, Social Security, the Post Office. EVERYTHING, except Medicaid, which they will leave to the government because there is no profit to be made. I tried yesterday to find a local phone number for a post office near where I live. The only number I could find, besides one for a nearby PO that no one answered even after my repeated phone calls, was 800-275-8777. Just keep hitting zero until you get a live person. Then ask them if they are private contractors or are they the actual PO. They will tell you they are contractors whose company, "Convergencys" has been hired to answer phones for the PO. They were only allowed to tell me they were located in the "western part of the country." I asked if they were allowed to tell me what country, and they said they were NOT allowed to do so. A little research led me to the fact that in 2007, Bush Co. did this to advance privatization of the PO. Try it yourself. Every time I think it cannot get any worse, it does. And I have been keeping up since 2000, or so I thought.
Respectfully, Republicans as a party have earned a Time-Out.
We don't need their input on healthcare reform, nor do we need their input on any adult topics, as long as they remain the party of snotty, bratty, dishonest children. When they're prepared to grow up and stop playing silly little games, then they can be let back into the room.
When the same party guest breaks furniture and gropes your spouse *every time* they come to your parties, is it *really* being partisan or unfair to simply stop inviting them to your parties until they show they're ready to behave?
Republicans are assholes. It can't be said often enough.
Unfortunately for Mr Ryan, he is the first conservative to talk sensibly about healthcare (and why Obama's health reform is questioanble) in 30 years.
He says nothing dubious in this. Like him or not this is a different type of calm, reasonable Republican that I would welcome into the national dialogue.
to his many inane and static ideas being a citizen of Wisconsin and the love he gets from all outlets of the media here. Let me assure you, he does not talk sensibly or reasonably, he is spewing the same tired Reaganomic talking points of every one of his allies. I for one only welcome his ushering out the door.
His district has some of the highest unemployment in the state at 12 percent. If a "free market" republican can't even attract jobs to his district with his tax incentive siren songs he sings, what is he good for? Nothing. He has no ideas. He is singing the same tune, albeit in a calmer tenor.
But none for the citizens... Everytime I hear one of these motherfuckers talk about how the country can't afford Medicare for all I want to throw up. It's simple, your S/S number is your Medicare number. Write the law as such, whores.
Way to go Barney!!!
here's one of the problem progressives face;
we let the republicans make claims that are not true or are caused by their very principles
for instance we allow the republicans like paul ryan to claim medicare is going bankrupt when in fact it operates far more efficiently then private care and when in fact if it's operating at a deficit that's because the republicans gave away the assets in a tax give away to the wealthy marketed as some kind of "economic stimulous"
they took our money and then use that lack of funds to claim our programs are underfunded
he wants to privitise medicare, that's the "fix" he's talking about here
The short answer is funneling middle class tax dollars to the rich and funding wars for big oil, Halliburton and the defense contractors are and were the Republican priorities then and now. Helping the middle class wasn't then and isn't now a GOP priority.
Frustrated doesn't even begin to explain normal Americans' response to the way Republicans ignored or actively halted attempts to fix this problem "on their watch". Does ThinkProgress or someone else have the rest of this video? I'm going to go check, but first I just want to pose the question I hope Barney did as a follow up:
Since Rep. Ryan and his party DID fail to address this when in complete control of every lever of government, 1) why should they be given any credibility for their statements of support for reform? and 2) why should their ideas on reform be presumed to be effective, and not "poison pills" to keep business interests in control of the system?
CNBC has the video here http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1287053... (I don't particularly recommend watching, you don't get much of additional value), but that was pretty much the end of the segment...they cut off discussion with a crack about not having to yield the floor -- pretty convenient the way Ryan was minibustering about how great his ideas are.
I don't know about that. I would say that Bush and the GOP "fixed" us real good!
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
that I've been thinking about the past few days.
We keep hearing from virtually anyone against healthcare reform that health care for an individual is a privilege and not a right.
We also hear folks (myself included) who hit our heads against the wall trying to figure out why the Republicans had no f-ing problem committing billions of dollars to fight a war against a country that was no threat to us, yet will not only sit flat on their asses for 12 years and do NOTHING to reform health care, they will not now spend one dime for healthcare coverage for their own people.
Now, taking the above into account, this question comes to mind:
When Bush decided to commit this country and billions of dollars to rescuing the Iraqi people from an evil dictator in order to improve their lives, did he and the other war supporters see it from the viewpoint that it was the Iraqis' right to live a better life, or was it a privilege for them to have that opportunity??
Ahhhh, you've got to give it to the Repubs.
Former U.S. Rep. David Davis, Repub from Tennessee, interviewed at a recent Tea Party in our town:
When asked why “Tea Parties” weren’t held when the policies of former President George W. Bush were adding to the national debt, Davis responded: "I think there should have been."
Source
Seriously, Bush and the ReThugs didn't say a damn thing about health care until now. The ReThugs and the Blue
BitchesDogs are bought and paid for.NOBODY 2012
Insurance industry is making record profits, sounds pretty well fixed to me! Isn't that the job of government, to protect business? I mean if you don't think you're being treated fairly, you can just start up your own health insurance company and then give yourself an awesome health plan, problem solved. Who says the American Dream is dead?! USA! USA! USA!
"I will have a moment of bipartisan agreement. We should have fixed this under our watch and I’m frustrated we didn’t".
First of all, why just a moment on something as universal as health care? More importantly, why is his moment wasted on what should have been done and not doing something right NOW? Should have beens just lay on the floor til we sweep them away. Isn't there a Democrat running against him next year? One who will do something now instead of lamenting the good ole days.
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