Obama to Push Harder On Health-Care Reform: Mr. President, Have Pity on the Working Man!
I hope this means Obama's going to push for a "real" public plan, and not the fake one Olympia Snow is selling:
WASHINGTON — After months of insisting he would leave the details to Congress, President Obama has concluded that he must exert greater control over the health care debate and is preparing an intense push for legislation that will include speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers, senior White House officials say.
[...] But Mr. Obama has grown concerned that he is losing the debate over certain policy prescriptions he favors, like a government-run insurance plan to compete with the private sector, said one Democrat familiar with his thinking. With Congress beginning a burst of work on the measure, top advisers say, the president is determined to make certain the final bill bears his stamp.
“Ultimately, as happened with the recovery act, it will become President Obama’s plan,” the White House budget director, Peter R. Orszag, said in an interview. “I think you will see that evolution occurring over the next few weeks. We will be weighing in more definitively, and you will see him out there.”
However, there's this:
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, recalled how Mr. Obama made a personal pledge of bipartisanship when he and Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the committee’s Democratic chairman, joined the president for a private lunch at the White House last month.
“I said, ‘Yeah, it’s a problem,’ ” Mr. Grassley said of the public plan, “and he said something along the lines of, ‘If I get 85 percent of what I want with a bipartisan vote, or 100 percent with 51 votes, all Democrat, I’d rather have it be bipartisan.’ ”
now.
These conservatives sound like a bunch of whiners over everything. Now Grassley is Twittering some pretty big insults if you can understand them. If he's going to be down with the cool kids he needs to learn how to abbreviate on Twitter right.
is intended to be a factual statement
.
I say get rid of all Congressional pensions and medical plans.
It'll be a drop in the bucket to pay for health reform.
But if they have to use the same system as we do...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
If it too good for all of us, it's way to good for them.
me-oww!
the health insurance corporations and pharmacies conglomerates
are scared to death that the public will want the single payer
plan. they have over priced, mismanaged and refused health
care for so long, they don't want their ENORMOUS PROFITS harmed.
there is plenty of money to cover and pay for a single payer plan.
the abuse and overcharging from both the insurance comp and
pharmacies will more than cover it.
they are trying everything to block this.
State residents without health insurance approaching 1 million
---snip---
"...This year 150,000 Washington residents are expected to lose their insurance, most of them workers who have lost or will lose their jobs, as well as their dependents.
That figure includes an additional 40,000 people who had been scheduled to be cut from the state's Basic Health plan this year, but it's not certain that many people will be removed from the health plan for the working poor.
The state said Monday that it will raise rates rather than force anyone off the program. Average monthly rates will increase by about $25. The yearly deductible will also increase, from $150 to $250..."
Population of Washington State: 6,549,224
What is that? 15% of my states population don't have medical. Poor people on the state default plan will pay more for deductibles and premiums.
Thanks elected officials for fucking over those of us who make up the hoi polloi. Thanks for keeping a for-profit system in place and thanks for enjoying the best healthcare plan in the nation -- which you deem too good for the rest of us.
me-oww!
Unless I'm reading wrong, they aren't presently taking applications for the program either. And what is Aetna doing in the mix? Could that be a reason why the plan is foundering?
Remember John Kerry's healthcare plan, allowing the rest of us to get the same insurance as the Congress enjoys? Instead we got four more years of Bush's Bandits and more Americans on the Wing-and-a-Prayer health plan.
and raising rates. In raising rates, they'll probably get rid of AT LEAST 40,000 through attrition, due to high costs.
me-oww!
Imagine a world where Murdoch isn't feeding the US slime every day.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
We have to find a way to pressure those who are trying to protect and maintain the status quo for the Health Insurance industry.
Americans are dying. We're losing our homes.
And Congress thinks this is Okay?
I want the same health care program they have. If socialized medicine is good enough for them, it's good enough for us.
*
Baucus and Grassley should have been removed from this process long ago, if for nothing else, for the shameful way the Single-payer advocates were treated during the Finance Commitee hearings. Where's Harry Reid's leadership? These two bastards are poster children for conflict of interest.
Thats all you're going to get is just words
God hates America but loves it's publicans
When it come to health care, bipartisanship means choosing the side of the American people over the health insurance lobby.
In that, you are with the people...or against them.
So, Senator Grassley, do you have a problem siding with the people? If so, I'd say you are going to have a big problem with the people.
Watch this clip of Uber-Christian Pat Robertson slip and admit that private health care could not compete with a government run system.
http://progressnotcongress.org/blog/?p=1666
he was bringing in for Jesus into some insurance companies,You know Pat he hates loseing any of Jesus's money
I voted for Obama, but I was listening when he downplayed Single Payer for health insurance company involvement. The Obama plan, as far as I can tell, will have little beneficial effect on the health care system. It is his underlying Corporatist mentality - the Conservative Democrat side of him - that is ruling the roost here.
I'd rather see NOTHING done rather than another band-aid set to blow up in our faces in 6 years or so.
I'm with you. I'm feeling more and more betrayed by this man every day.
is revealed and goes through negotiation before we start writing Obama off as a loss? If we get a plan that is clearly a total cave-in to big insurance, I'll be the first one in line to give back my Obama Club card, believe me.
But there has to be some room for pragmatism in this whole process. And that goes for Single-payer. As much as we can want it, and believe with every fiber of our being that it would make us a better country, there just is absolutely no way possible that it would ever be enacted with the current makeup of congress as it stands today. There simply is no way of attaining the votes. That has to stand for something when it comes to judging Obama on this.
"...there just is absolutely no way possible that it would ever be enacted..." you are 100% correct. With that belief, it never will happen.
me-oww!
I'd be completely okay if you wanna dispute that, that's fine. I just don't think many people would agree with you.
Might as well not try, we're defeated before we start.
They want us to think that, and most do.
me-oww!
Don't give away anything until you get something in return. "Single payer" should be our opening offer, and unless we get something from the opposition, we should not concede it. Apparently the Dems have already done this. The so-called "public option" should be a compromise, not our opening. This is Negotiating 101. We're screwed. "Our side" has caved before negotiations have even started. Now we are going to get only "lip service' and we will be backed into a position that will make us worse off than we are now. WTF?
"there just is absolutely no way possible that it would ever be enacted with the current makeup of congress as it stands today. There simply is no way of attaining the votes." And a clarification, please: Did you mean "pragmatism" or "negativity?" Please reply so I may consider your opinion knowing your reasons for harboring it? Thank you.
Technically speaking, of course it is possible that single-payer could get enacted. I was just saying that with the numbers in the Senate, and the House, it would be EXTREMELY unlikely short of 80 Repub house members waking up tomorrow with a complete reversal in belief.
Pragmatism was just meant to be a way of summing up what Obama probably is thinking when he sits down and contemplates pushing for Single Payer. Yes, it would be great. Don't have the votes. What can I do that would actually pass?
with no support in upcoming elections. Pull them off their committees and thus relegate them to "useless" status? Publicize their indiscretions with respect to representing their constituents instead of themselves and the corporations that supplement their incomes? That's for starters.
for passage of, say Conyers H.R. 676.
If Franken were there I see no reason why the Senate couldn't pull in 51 votes.
Remember, a third of these jerks are up for re-election in 2012 (or 2010?). They'd better be listening to their constituents or there will be hell to pay.
Sen. Baucus got an earful from his constituents recently on a "listening tour" of the state. If he were up for re-election tomorrow I think he'd lose. They realize they've been had.
"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
and I think he's doing a good job. He needs to start doing to the republicans what they did to Dems. Yea I'll be bi partisan you either go along with what I want or I say Bi and you can part your ass away from here. But its not just the republicans its also the Dempublicans, the big medical industrial complex have them all in their pockets and they don't give a shit about us except once a month when you mail in your premium payment and politicians want their money and they figure they can bullshit us enough to get our votes and that's really all we mean to them is one vote each.I wish we could just clean house and start all over again. I used to think term limits was just a republican catch phrase but I am warming to the idea more and more.
single payer that will put more money back in the pockets of working class Americans, it will help with the economy also. What is it they don't get?
He is making far too many concessions for the sake of a utopian dream of bi-partisianship that will never happen.
is the one where everyone capitulates to their way of 'thinking.'
The president needs to realise this and start showing these whingeing, WATBs the palm, as in "Talk to the Hand." We've done things the Thug-arsed, WATB way for far too long.
me-oww!
back of some heads to engage some brains?
can we switch this debate to one where the Republicans are being forced to deny that the real reason for their opposition to reform lies in their fear of Universal healthcare being enacted in this country and, in turn, working extremely well?
This is not about profits as much is it is about a political party that has survived for generations stoking the irrational fears of American's via straw-issues like 'Guvvermeent Healthcare', and 'Socialized Medicine!!!'
What the Hell is going to happen to conservative politics once Universal Healthcare finally comes along and works wondefully? What happens then to their goofy, irrational, moronic political ideology?
about profit. Ed got him shook and he blurted it out.
unfair to the private insurers if there was a strong public plan.
Only difference is, those guys actually have to think about getting re-elected. Tancredo can pretty much just blast off at the mouth whenever he pleases.
tiny little black hearts. Tancredo is fronting for the ones who want to be reelected. He has nothing to lose.
We agree on one thing, at least.
What is it they fear? Having to pay their fair share of taxes? Getting caught with their hand in your pocket? I do not know where you are trying to go with this.
fair share of taxes? Because they make more they should pay more? How about a flat tax, and not in the normal sense of the term. The government needs x amount of dollars per person, each person pays that amount regardless of income. That would be paying their fair share. Although that wouldn't be quite fair either, if you figure in govt entitlement programs, such as welfare, medicaid etc the poorer people are getting more from the govt then the rich. Look at it this way. Persons A, B, and C go into a restaurant together one orders a cheeseburger, one orders sirloin and the last orders surf and turf, should all of them pay the same amount towards the bill? Or this all three order cheeseburgers but they split the bill depending on how much they make? Should person A who makes 10k a year pay 10% and B who makes 50k pay 20% and person C who make 1 mill pay 70% when they all get the same meal?
F**k bipartisanship and f**k the republican party! These bastards have been screwing us long enough!
Plus, with 60 Senators, why would he get only 51 votes? It's time to play hardball with these repuke-lite bluedogs. If they do not support health care for the American people, they should get no support from the party, and be primaried. Time to go LBJ on these SOB's.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
You've probably seen this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yge311sFhC8
A song entitled "Jump You Fuckers" about Wallstreet asspumpkins.
Robert Parry: 119 Million Americans Must Be Wrong
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Countdown-Dr. Howard Dean: chances, benefits of public health care option
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
... the Republicans fought against health-care reform in Clinton's first term. (Yeah, it's been that long!) Now they're doing it again with Obama. Cite all the possible reasons you want, the hard truth is that the Republicans do NOT want to reform health care. Period.
We're not going to get very far if you keep injecting logic into the conversation!
is great! What a pro, great song selection too Susie.
Here is a list of elected people taking payoffs to cheat the American people and the amounts of bribes being taken. This is just from health care and insurance.
It is mind boggling to think how much these people are taking from others!
Arlen Specter (R-D- PA- $4,026,933)
Max Baucus (DLC- MT- $2,833,731)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $2,758,468)
And when you just go right to Big Insurance, the non-presidential candidates who got the biggest legalized bribes were the 7 senators who have been tasked with the job of killing single-payer:
Ben Nelson (DLC-NE- $1,196,799)
Max Baucus (DLC- MT- $1,184,113)
Joe Lieberman (DLC- CT- $1,036,302)
Arlen Specter (R-D- PA- $1,035,530)
Chuck Schumer (D-NY- $981,400)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $929,207)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA- $884,724)
We need to investigate and prosecute these criminals now. Severe jail terms are in order for these criminals!
Now you know the price of getting health insurance passed. Simply give these guys more money than the insurance companies to get them to see things the other way. /snark off
Let's see how far to the right they go before they fall off of the edge of this flat world.
he will have no choice but to come out in support of HR-676 or a similar non-profit, single-payer system. Nothing else will work. Nothing else will reduce costs.
Thus far, the only thing on the table us but another plan to perpetrate a mass transfer of the nation's treasure into private corporate coffers.The People will be left holding the bag and the tab while the insurance companies, for-profit HMO's and Big Pharma wlk away with the keys to the candy shop.
Any arguments that single-payer cannot pass are so much self-serving excuse making, given that a huge majority of Americans want it. If such a measure cannot pass, it's only because the people who a wringing their hands and crying great gouts of alligator tears, who are bemoaning that it can't pass, don't want it too.
If it doesn't pass, these clowns are going to have to be kicked out of office and replaced with people who will do the People's work for them. Mr. Obama should take note that there is no kind of privatization scam/corporate welfare plan that Max Baucus and crew craft that cannot be undone, once the crooks and prostitutes have been kicked out of office.
Single payer is inevitable, because it is the only thing that is sustainable. These Bozos can do it the easy way or the hard way.
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