Sen. Sherrod Brown: 'Where Was The Compromise From Their Side?'
By Susie Madrak Tuesday Nov 17, 2009 1:00pmSo Harry Reid's holding firm - for now. And you just can't argue with Sherrod Brown: What concessions have the ConservaDems made?
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, met on Monday night with a group of liberal Senate Democrats who urged Mr. Reid not to back down from his decision to put a government-run insurance plan, or public option, in the major health care legislation that he is working to finalize.
[...] “I don’t think in the end, anybody here in our caucus wants to be on the wrong side of history, wants to kill on a procedural motion, something as important as this,” Mr. Brown said. “It’s the most important thing they ever will have voted on except perhaps the Iraq war.”
Mr. Brown, who is a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which included a public plan in its version of the health care legislation, said that liberals had already given a lot of ground, starting with their willingness to give up a fully government-run single-payer system, which many favor.
“A large number of people in this country including many, many doctors wanted Medicare for all,” he said. “That didn’t happen. Then we wanted a strong public option tied to Medicare rates. Then we wanted a public option building the Medicare network. That didn’t happen. Now we are saying public option coming out of the HELP Committee. And now we’re saying public option with the state opt-out. Where was the compromise coming from their side?”
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The Dems gave away the Farm to get (1) Rep vote, are they going to give away the Sun and the Moon to get BlueDog votes now?!?!
until we get a strong and robust public option
to compete with all the insurance and pharm
corporations, i consider harry reid and the
conservadems all are sucking each others balls.
That the Democratic Party does not know how to haggle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n3LL338aGA
If you don't like Monty Python, do not click that link!
Just propose that the Blue Dogs add an amendment to the bill that says that their States will PERMANENTLY opt out of the program.
It's about "choice" isn't it? Give them the choice to post that amendment and vote yes on the bill....or get the fuck out of the way.
And they can also add amendments not allowing public funds for abortions in their states, limit the use of private funds for abortions in their states...oh...and while their at it...they can also opt out of Medicare, Social Security, federal unemployment insurance and every other socialist program.
It's all about State's rights isn't it?
Buncha fuckin' halfassed backwoodsmen fucking up the country for the rest of us.
and when their States are over run with budget deficits...no Federal support.
We must keep the government out of the way of those God fearin' independent States.
..Well said!
Don't stop now!
Amen Liberal and Proud.
Let the idiots who vote for these psychotic conservatards, live off of the charity of these same conservative corporate fascists' - and their "free market no taxes on the rich trickle down" ideology.
They would starve to death in about 3 weeks.
LANDP proposed dropping trou and leaving steaming piles on the Capitol steps way back on the last thread.
Turds for the needy.
from what we have seen the blue dogs/GOP have effectively controled the govt, why would they compromise now?
the admin folded like a cheap suit and immediately discarded the fight for a single-payer system. and that set the stage for the constant folding to corporate/conservative pressure.
single payer system so they could discard it when they folded like a cheap suit?
OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.
Obama speaking to the Illinois AFL-CIO, June 30, 2003
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/june/barack_oba...
During the Presidential campaign Obama never talked about single payer. He didn't run on that promise or mention it.
shield criticism based on Obama not promissing a specific item in his electoral platform, and then look the other way when he breaks a specific campaign promise as if somehow it was justified given the changing nature of politics/reality.
somehow it seems the fault here resides on those who have the "gall" of specting our president to do the right thing.
He seemed to have no problem "compromising" that promise away.
Thanks for answering my question. Over the course of five years
he changed what he would advocate in health reform. Sounds like
he folded his cheap suit long ago. In fact, it was before he sought the Democratic nomination for President in which the views of the candidates on health care were debated at length.
Lay down the pompoms, back away and no one gets hurt. We won't even wrinkle the cheap folded suit.
and i didn't mean it to sound like (although it is how i wrote it) that the admin dangled single payer in front of us only to pull it back. just that they started the health care negotiations after already discarding single payer...
got intimidated about proposing bold domestic solutions and voicing sensible opposition to foolish foreign policy.
It is a shame the party grassroots has not been using
"Medicare for all" as a rallying cry ever since the Clinton plan went down in the nineties.
unless those bold domestic solutions had anything to do with freeing up the financial industry from pesky regulations, or 'reforming' welfare, or giving away the public airwaves...
then the dems were bold as love
tend to point out.
The Dem's spina bifida is very selective on its calcification processes, to say the least.
And while we're on the subject....where is that rat fuck Lieberman hiding?
Haven't seen his boney ass on tv in a bit. I guess he's finding out that there are political repercussions to being a two bit back biting turncoat prick.
he might lose the next primary.
... in order to make the bill they've been paid to make.
Compromise was never the point. Large majorities of Americans are opposed by nothing more than billions in bribe money. And the Dems want that money - but they don't want to get blamed for the results. So they're "forced" to
compromisecapitulate to the bribes all the while claiming the best of intentions.Nancy Pelosi told us single payer couldn't be discussed because it hadn't been scored. She told us this shortly after she had claimed to have been a single payer advocate for 30 years. That sounds like enough time to get a bill scored, huh?
What's compromise mean when many things start out "off the table"?
Puleeeease...Nancy Pelosi. Even in the world of empty suit politicians she's a complete waste of space.
she is Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
heh...analog or digital? Single Channel...the Tokyo Rose of Corporate America.
Really! Why isn't she over in the Senate kicking some butt right now? Just because she is Speaker of the House doesn't mean she has to be a housewife.
Naah, POP. She's leaving it in the hands of bone bag Harry Reid.
You can always tell when Harry Reid is coming down the hall, you can hear the casino chips jingling in his pockets.
"she hadn't scored"....enough cash from the Insurance lobbyists - but then she did, apparently, so the SPO was off the table....the same one the money is passed under, no doubt!
It's in their nature. But in their defense, they talk real tough before they fold.
is dump all the concessions and amendments, tell the Repugnants and Dinos that it is Medicare for all or nothing, and remind them that their constituents will know exactly who voted AGAINST REFORM. Fuck'em.
...President Obama is going to make good use of another Bushtardization of government; the signing statement. He may interpret any law that he signs as implementing a single payer system! I get it now! That's why he want's anything to get through that he can sign!
If he did that Beck and his club of idiots would have exploding heads and need serious health care.
vileness into the bill in exchange for a (weak, listless, useless, empty) so-called "public option." Obama & the Dims are trading women's reproductive freedom for the putative "public option."
Sadly...you could be all too correct.
“It’s the most important thing they ever will have voted on except perhaps the Iraq war.”
They voted on the Iraq War?
Well, certainly not to do the constitutional thing and actually declare war. If they voted on anything to do with the Iraq War, it was to invalidate the Constitution by giving up their power to declare war and just let the President do whatever the hell he feels like doing.
History will record that the Congresses of the first ten years of the new millennium were amnong the most corrupt in the history of the nation.
As long as you have a "right" wing that everyone calls "right", even those on the left, you'll have have a one sided system. The only way to balance things is to end the economic hierarchy and move to a horizontal playing field for progressives and regressives.
We want single payer. We don't want this bill.
If the Senate doesn't kill this bill we'll find out just how bad it really is, because Obama will sign it.
HR 676
And that's when I felt the heath care bill was a failure anything less then the above is not real reform. We went from plan A and Plan B the only real way at getting reform all the way to plan E a 2% covered illusion of reform .
Even if this current plan passes unchanged it will still be a failure, too much reform has been given away and too much corporate welfare has been added.
Given that the dems started out from a compromised position (no single payer) and have been eagerly willing to bend over backwards to get votes they don't need in order to have a cravenly and pathetically transparent cover of "bi-partisanship" why would anyone dealing with them ever treat them as if they were a competent adversary?
do-over time
Look time is not going to make this bill right. They been telling us it isn't done it's a work in progress it will get better and all this for months now and it's only gotten worse.
This is not reform it a Health insurence Bailout with side of Abortion restrictions.
Why don't we do the following, as the repukulans and their base have for years distorting the Facts and Twisting the Truth they are always first out of the gate to Tag and Label
Now the Dem's no matter how they try and what they represent are always called Liberals , No reason given just hang the tag and let the Morons in the Media and he Anti American Noise net work run with it.
So Now we call the Republicans and the Tea Baggers and the right Wing Christian Base What they are , Nazis Anti American Hate Base and this should be included in every discussion they way they include Liberal in their discussions.
Remember the American Nazi party is against Health reform under phony disguise of Profit loss Duh!
The Blue dog Dem's are wanted be Nazis that haven't grown the Backbone to stand for the Nazi Party that they want to belong to.
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