Holy fucked up healthcare reform Batman!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Deckard

The Dems' biggest weakness is they don't drive a BIG MANLY TRUCK.

then they should be stocking up on RPG's

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Deckard

The Dems' biggest weakness is they don't drive a BIG MANLY TRUCK.

Yeah...what the hell was that?

"I'm Scott Brown. I'm from Wrentham. I drive a truck." Okay. So what? Now I know that you drive a truck, do semi-nude pictorials, and are anti-health reform, anti-gay rights, pro-waterboarding, and advertising the availability of your daughters to all the men in the country. Yippee.

The Republicans didn't win this one. Democrats lost by putting up Coakley as their lame, ineffectual candidate.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Sweet dreams are made of these...


OH, AND THIS: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35917590...me_and_courts/

This has been boing on for a looooooong time already.

[Sean]

Some interesting thoughts from former Congressional Budget Office director Robert Reischauer on Obama's latest health care proposal here: part 1, part 2. They talk about stimulus packages and such too, but his basic take on health care is that it's crucial that it pass as a foundation for ongoing reform. Not passing it, in his opinion, will be far more costly and damaging. Both parts aren't too long of a read overall, but here are the Q&A bits about health care specifically:

QUESTION: Let's talk about health care reform. Even though you expressed doubts about the cost-saving of Clinton's health care reform when you were at the CBO, you told the Washington Post's Ezra Klein that you would cast a yes vote on this bill. I want you to tell me why, but I also suspect, given the fact that nobody seems to consider this an ideal bill, that you have concerns. So why do you support the bill, and what are you concerns?

ANSWER: I support the bill because I think we have to address the cost problem. We have to quote -- bend the curve -- end quote. While this particular peice of legislation doesn't do much on that front, and I could make a good case for why it may bend the curve in the wrong direction, it creates a platform off of which further measures to reduce cost growth can be built. We turn this down, and we have nothing.

There's a lot of pilot programs and emphasis on the infrastructure that we will eventually need to begin cutting back the growth of health care spending. That, together with the fact that you're going to cover 30 odd million uninsured people and raise the richness of the insurance packages that people get, will create a floor on which something more substantial can be built. We'll have the clear locus of responsibility for cost containment.

If we do nothing more, then will these pilots bear fruit in the next five years? The answer is probably no. Cost growth might even accelerate. But we can have another push for health care and we'll have this foundation. We have no foundation right now. We have an inequitable landscape, and you have to bulldoze it before constructing a building.

QUESTION: Granted that health care inflation is a monster without a silver bullet, what's the most important step -- either in this bill or outside this bill?

ANSWER: My view is it's going to take many many things, some of which are in the bill some of which we don't even know about yet. I am an unabashed supporter of changing the tax treatment of employer sponsored health insurance. We're doing it in a clumsy way with the excise tax in the legislation. But in a sense it starts a conversation that this is an appropriate new policy.

QUESTION: Let's look under the hood of the debt. It's no secret that the main driver is entitlements: Medicare and Medicaid and, to a less extent, Social Security. On one end of the spectrum, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan has called to transform Medicare into a tightly budgeted voucher program. On the other end, you've got calls to expand Medicare and Medicaid to cover millions more. Where do you stand?

ANSWER: There's no way to save significant amounts in Medicare and Medicaid without transforming the health sector at large. We don't have a Veterans Administration or Indian Health Services analogue that treats the elderly, disabled and low income people in a different system. They get their services from the same providers that we get our services from. We have to bring down the growth of costs across the entire spectrum.

If we lower the amounts that we pay providers in Medicare then providers won't perform services for these individuals and there will be an access problem. If we begin raising the cost on beneficiaries, you'll quickly find that minority of Medicare beneficiaries have the wherewithal to pay. I'm for raising the burden for those with means. We do some of that in Medicare Part B already. But Medicare is a less generous policy than the average worker has from a large employer in America. So I don't think there's a lot to be gained there, even though this administration has suggested that we should start doing more to means test Part D as well.

QUESTION: Raising the burden on, or cutting benefits for, older Americans with means -- ie means testing -- could be one approach?

ANSWER: Some of Medicare, like Part B, is already means-tested. I'm for that. But again the solution has to come from within system to lower the rate of growth of spending. By some rough estimates 30 percent of the services provided to everybody are of little, no, or negative value. The problem is identifying that wasted care ahead of time, and it's hard if not impossible to do if we remain on a fee for service basis. In the long run, moving toward capitation is the only way to align the incentives of patients, providers and payers in the direction of providing high quality and affordable care.

QUESTION: You're talking about moving away from fee-for-service toward a broader definition of medicine, something like fee for care. When you told me you supported health care reform, you said it bulldozed the landscape to prepare us for something bigger. So is fee-for-care the proverbial building we want to build over the bulldozed health care landscape?

ANSWER: I think that could be right.

[the mongoose]

Originally Posted by Sean

I support the bill because I think we have to address the cost problem. We have to quote -- bend the curve -- end quote. While this particular peice of legislation doesn't do much on that front, and I could make a good case for why it may bend the curve in the wrong direction, it creates a platform off of which further measures to reduce cost growth can be built. .

That's like saying that our new bus driver is not even going to be taking us in the right direction, but it will take us to an intersection where it could turn and we COULD go to where we need to get to.

This all trusting mentality sure didnt' turn out too well for these guys.........>>>Click<<<

Originally Posted by Sean

you're going to cover 30 odd million uninsured people and raise the richness of the insurance packages that people get, will create a floor on which something more substantial can be built. We'll have the clear locus of responsibility for cost containment.

No the fuck it won't create a stable floor or raise the "richness" of anything..........If instead of waiting in line for 11 people at a Subway restaurant there's now an estimated 46 odd people in front of you, you'd actually consider that a good thing? I'm sure that the newly overworked, under supplied, and understaffed store would be so much better off too.

Originally Posted by Sean[I

]QUESTION: You're talking about moving away from fee-for-service toward a broader definition of medicine, something like fee for care. . So is fee-for-care the proverbial building we want to build over the bulldozed health care landscape?

ANSWER: I think that could be right.[/i]

Well that's all fine and dandy unless you bring reality into the mix. You cannot ration health care like it's the buffet option at a sit down restaurant. Lobster (heart surgery) will not be on the buffet for sure. Especially since there's now a mother fucking line out the door consisting of 30 million hungry illegal immigrants ready to lap up anything that we would consider slop and object to. This completely changes the "restaurant". Evil Sam Walton would be proud though.

[the mongoose]

In a surprising and fascinating look at the behind-the-scenes negotiations of proposed health care legislation on Capitol Hill, a prominent Democrat says the actions of his party's leaders in recent days represents a "pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party."
If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding out hope that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) will replicate his "yes" vote on health care reform she can probably forget it. In a wide-ranging swipe at his party's leaders, Stupak told an interviewer that he is a definite "no" vote on a health care bill that is expected to reach the House floor next week.
A single vote could make the difference in the fate of the legislation but Stupak says other pro-life Democrats who had been part of his coalition fighting for specific language on abortion funding have given up the fight. "It's almost like some right-to-life members don't want to be bothered. They just want this over," Stupak told National Review's Robert Costa in an article published on-line Friday. If that's the case, Democratic leaders may be able to prevail without Stupak's support.
The Michigan Democrat's vitriol for House leaders shines a bright light on the normally secret negotiations. "They're ignoring me," Stupak asserts while concluding that the final bill will not have the stronger abortion-related language that he's long supported and was able to force in the first bill the House passed late last year.
"[E]ven if they don't have the votes, it's been made clear to us that they won't insert our language on the abortion issue," Stupak says. "I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance. Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered."
Stupak offers an interesting take on why party leaders don't want his effort to succeed. "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing," Stupak says. "Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue - come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we're talking about."
Stupak believes that if a final health care bill passes without strong language on abortion funding, it will effectively freeze out pro-life Democrats in the future. He says he will remain a Democrat but predicts that any effort to change the abortion language would have to wait "until the Republicans take back the majority to fix this." You read that right, a Democrat looking forward to a Republican take-over of Congress!
Stupak's prominence and apparent resolve on this issue has increased the political heat on the nine-term Democrat. "This has really reached an unhealthy stage," Stupak says. "People are threatening ethics complaints on me. On the left, they're really stepping it up. Every day, from Rachel Maddow to the Daily Kos, it keeps coming. Does it bother me? Sure. Does it change my position? No."
A Friday posting on Daily Kos has this headline: "Women ROAR BACK against Stupak/Pitts!" It targets Stupak and Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) and is a fundraising appeal for Stupak's primary challenger. "If you were pissed when Joe Wilson shouted YOU LIE at President Obama I want you to channel that same sort of anger and aim it in support of Connie Saltonstall..."
Earlier this week, MSNBC's Maddow took direct aim at Stupak saying his efforts were designed to do nothing more than get him on television. "Abortion rights only for rich ladies. That's Bart Stupak's principled crusade," Maddow said.
Stupak does not name names in his attack on party leaders but in a radio interview Thursday, Stupak recounted a conversation he had with House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), a central figure in the health care debate. Stupak said Waxman told him that Democratic leaders "want to pay for abortions." In a statement to Fox News, Waxman said “My position has been clear and consistent. I do not believe health reform should be used to change current law, which prohibits federal funds from paying for abortion.”

[the mongoose]

link

The health care overhaul facing the House this week is being called the biggest faith-based vote ever considered by Congress.

That's because the White House and Democratic leaders, who express certainty that the House will approve a Senate-passed health care bill, insist the widely-reviled bill won't become law even though President Obama must sign it into law before changes demanded by House lawmakers can be made.

Get it?

"Here's what the House Democrats are being asked to do. They're being asked by the president to hold hands, jump off a cliff and hope (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid catches them in the Senate after the bill is law," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

"Trust the untrustworthy Senate," is the message Rep. Anthony Weiner says Democrats are being asked to do this week. Weiner, D-N.Y., who supports a so-called public option that is not in the Senate bill, suggested in a statement Sunday that trust is a big leap for lawmakers who've seen 290 bills passed by the House ignored by the Senate in the last 14 months.

To make matters more complicated, Democratic leaders are considering an option -- never tried before -- to avoid getting stuck with a recorded "yes" vote on a Senate bill they oppose by using a maneuver that some authorities say is unconstitutional.

The procedural move -- proposed by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, would allow Democrats to usher through the Senate bill (which, by the way, still has a House numerical designation) without actually having a vote "on passage" of the legislation.

"The alarming thing that I'm hearing now is that (House) Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi is thinking about bending the rules and, frankly, making it so there's not a direct vote on the Senate health care bill," Rep. Eric Cantor, D-Va., told "Fox News Sunday."

"I've got the Constitution right here. It's section one -- or Article One, Section 7 that says in all cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays. And right here, we're seeing a perversion of the rules to go ahead and ram through this ... trillion-dollar health care bill," Cantor said.

"We're going to have an up-or-down vote," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who appeared with Cantor, "whether it's up or down on the Senate bill or up or down on a procedure that would include passage of the Senate bill, recognizing that we're amending the Senate bill."

Even by bending the procedural maneuvers to get the Senate bill through the House, no one can guarantee the Senate will come back and pass "fixes" House Democrats insist be made to win majority support for the Senate bill.

Those fixes include a rescission of amendments like "the cornhusker kickback" or "Louisiana Purchase" -- sweeteners that were placed in the Senate legislation to win recalcitrant Democratic senators.

"I need to see the provisions that affect my home state. I want to see my state treated fairly," said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who added that if things go right the House could vote by the end of the week.

"Every member of the House who wants this bill to go forward has to vote for the cornhusker kickback, has to vote for the Louisiana Purchase," said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., warning that those who vote for it "will hear from their constituents loudly and clearly."

"That's what has to pass the House first," he said.

Van Hollen acknowledged that the Congressional Budget Office hasn't yet offered an analysis of the cost of the "fix-it" bill, so even if House Democrats insist on changes to the Senate bill, they can't yet negotiate based on the supposed deficit reduction to be found.

"Of course, we want to see what the Congressional Budget Office says. That's the reason we haven't begun the debate process," he said.

President Obama's senior aide, David Axelrod, on Sunday said the time has come for a vote, regardless of the procedural maneuver used to get the Senate bill through the House.

"We have had a year. Enough game playing, enough maneuvering. Let's have the up or down vote and give the American people the future they deserve," he told ABC's "This Week."

Even while pushing passage, Axelrod admitted the Senate bill is not the president's bill.

"The president's proposal is not the Senate proposal. With the corrections that have been made, with the improvements that have been made, some including Republican ideas, some including Democratic ideas, this is -- this is a different proposal, and I think it addresses some of the concerns that people have had," he said.

Ultimately, it will be the Senate's decision on whether to make any changes to the bill that passed that chamber on Christmas eve, one month before Democrats lost their 60-vote supermajority.

Van Hollen said regardless of how it takes form, House Democrats "need some absolute guarantees from the Senate" that at least 51 senators will support changes

"Whether that takes the form of a letter, whether that takes the president of the United States saying that he has conferred with 51 senators and they're all on board -- whatever form it takes, it has provide assurances to enough House members that they will follow through," he said.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he believes the Senate and the House will take up corrections that will become law, but he couldn't guarantee it.

"I think (the president) can give assurances to the House that he's working just as hard to make sure that the Senate passes those corrections as he is in trying to get the House to pass the underlying bill," Gibbs said.

Alexander told CBS' "Face the Nation" that all 41 Republican senators agree to enforce Senate rules, which means for changes to be made through reconciliation, Democrats have to deal strictly with taxing and budget matters. That means issues like taxpayer-funded abortion, which a few House Democrats insist is not adequately covered in the Senate legislation, will not be addressed.

Van Hollen said most Democrats are fine accepting that part of the bill.

"I don't believe we're going to go beyond the Senate language, but I know there are ongoing discussions that have been taking place," he said.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by the mongoose

This trusting, sheeple mentality...

Until you manage a reply that omits all the arrogant "sheeple" business and the like, I really just can't bring myself to care what you say.

[the mongoose]

There.....all omitted so it is quite safe for you to go baaaack and read it now.

[the mongoose]

The vote tally on health care reform is starting to look like the Dow.
Just when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed to be one vote shy of the 216 she needs for health care reform to pass, a Democrat who voted for the bill last year says he's switching his vote to no.
The opposition from Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., dials back the number of House members leaning toward voting yes to 214, and the number leaning toward voting no to 217.
DeFazio announced his opposition shortly after Ohio Rep. John Boccieri, also a Democrat, announced that he will switch his vote to yes, temporarily putting Pelosi within one vote of what she needs.
Boccieri, a freshman lawmaker who opposed the House version of the bill last November, announced his decision at a Capitol Hill news conference on Friday. He was one of four Democrats to switch from no to yes in the past few days as Obama and Democratic leaders try to corral enough votes for the legislation. A vote is expected on Sunday.
DeFazio, who voted for the bill last year, complicated things for Democratic leaders. But he indicated he could still change his mind again.
"I'm a no unless they fix this," he said, referring to what he sees as insufficient Medicare spending in rural areas.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.