MANDATORY health insurance, part 2

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Well that's a hoot considering the "many other countries" that provide health care do so out of the "charity" of United States citizens which pay for the security of the free world.
And you're welcome by the way.

Yes, we should all contribute equally; we all have the exact same threat levels against us.

Because we Canadians have a history of meddling in other people's business, overthrowing LEGITIMATE AND ELECTED leaders overseas in coup after coup, supporting oppressive dictatorships out of our own interests, invading countries pre-emptively on false premises, and on and on. What a joke.

Anitram :up:

And because universal health care "works" for a country of 35,000,000 does not mean it will function as smoothly in a country of 300,000,000.

Finally, if health care is a right then surely food and shelter are a right. So I take it Canada has no homeless shelters, missions, food banks, clothing drives, soup kitchens or other such degrading "hoops" as we here in the States cruelly subject our needy to?

Rationalize all you want, but what I said is true.
 
Looks like the big vote may be Sunday.

mrz031210dAPR20100315024138.jpg
 
So do you feel better about the process?
that politicians will step up and and vote the 'up or down' way.
and perhaps even pay a consequence in November?
 
Lovely.

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn told the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."

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not a done deal at all

if wishes were horses ......

Saturday, March 20, 2010



They Still Don’t Have the Votes [Jeffrey H. Anderson]


The most likely explanation for the breakdown of talks between Rep. Bart Stupak and Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not that Pelosi decided she didn’t need Stupak and his crew in order to have enough votes to pass Obamacare. Rather, it is that Stupak — who is increasingly emerging as this drama’s Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart’s heroic character in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) — held firm in insisting on language that would truly prevent taxpayer-funded abortions, and in insisting that such language be passed by the Senate before the bill could become law.

In turn, Pelosi either decided that by accepting the language, she would lose more votes in the House than she would gain, or else knew that Democratic senators, with their strong preference for taxpayer-funded abortion, would never go along with this concession to the views of the vast majority of Americans.

In any event, by all accounts, Pelosi is now trying to pass the bill without the pro-life Democratic vote — or at least without Stupak. As of now, it doesn’t appear that she has the votes. I currently count

208 leaning in favor of Obamacare and 214 leaning against, with 9 undecided.

Here they are — with the margin by which the presidential vote was won (by one party or the other) in their districts over the last three elections:

• Marion Berry (D., Ark.) (GOP +8) — pro-Stupak Amendment

• Henry Cuellar (D., Tex.) (Dem +1) — pro-Stupak Amendment

• Bill Foster (D., Ill.) (GOP +4)

• Jim Matheson (D., Utah) (GOP +30) — with nearly two-thirds of his constituents having supported GOP presidential candidates over the last three elections, a “yes” vote on Stupak, and an earlier “no” vote on Obamacare, a “yes” vote would mean that, for the rest of his days, he would be remembered as the guy who sold his vote for the price of Obama’s having just nominated his brother to a federal judgeship

• Michael Michaud (D., Me.) (Dem +7) — pro-Stupak Amendment

• Solomon Ortiz (D., Tex.) (GOP +1) — pro-Stupak Amendment

• Earl Pomeroy (D., N.D.) (GOP +21) — pro-Stupak Amendment — yes, that’s GOP +21

• Nick Rahall (D., W.V.) (GOP +6) — pro-Stupak Amendment

• Zach Space (D., Ohio) (GOP +12) — pro-Stupak Amendment

Also, here is a partial list of some particularly key members who are leaning “no”:

• Christopher Carney (D., Pa.) (GOP +15) — pro-Stupak Amendment

• Dan Lipinski (D., Ill.) (Dem +22) — pro-Stupak Amendment

• Kathleen Dahlkemper (D., Pa.) (GOP +3) — pro-Stupak Amendment

• Glenn Nye (D., Va.) (GOP +9) — “no” last time
 
Politico says Stupak now on board,
Whitehouse will issue Executive Order - no fed funds for abortion.
Stupak votes 95% with Dems, it would have been really odd having him vote against Health Care.

If this is true, it could push it close to 220 votes?
Wow, a landside for President Obama. :up:



Bill Clinton chimed in last night, too.

"It may not happen in my lifetime, or Dick Cheney's, but hopefully by Easter," Clinton said referring to his and the former to vice president's heart ailments.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032104521.html
 
BREAKING: In a statement referring confidently to the bill’s passage, White House Communications Director Dan Peiffer announced today that President Obama “will be issuing an executive order after the passage of the health insurance reform law that will reaffirm its consistency with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion.”

In a press conference moments after the executive order was released, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) announced “an agreement with the speaker to protect the sanctity of life in the health care reform,” and that he and other anti-abortion Democrats would support the health care bill, giving party leaders the votes they need to pass it.

That should do it.

I do have C-Span on, this is really huge.

This is one of those dates and days that will have a significant place in American History.
 
It's a little bittersweet, because this bill will do good things, and it will save lives, but at the same time, it doesn't do enough. I, among many millions of others, wanted, at the very least, a public option and, from what I understand, that's just not part of this bill.

May this bill be just the start of a bigger era of healthcare reform.
 
It's a little bittersweet, because this bill will do good things, and it will save lives, but at the same time, it doesn't do enough. I, among many millions of others, wanted, at the very least, a public option and, from what I understand, that's just not part of this bill.

May this bill be just the start of a bigger era of healthcare reform.

It's a step in the right direction which is huge. Hopefully we will see a public option in my lifetime.
 
It's a step in the right direction which is huge. Hopefully we will see a public option in my lifetime.

Medicare passed in 1967

and there have been dozens and dozens of fixes and amendments to it since then.

So lets see what happens, the GOP may be able to present some good suggestions on corrections and fixes in the future.


edit to add:

I just watched Stupak on the news, he probably did more good than harm, seems like a sincere person.

Health Care is more important than trying to protect the 'right to abortion' at every turn.

The Hyde Amendment has been around for years, so let the darn thing live for those that can't live without it.
 
Also, btw, why are so sure this is the final victory? The bill will still have to go back to the Senate, and if they change a single word - and senate Republicans are saying they will - it will have to go back to the House for another vote.
 
David Frum talks sense, or at least sensibly:


Waterloo

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
 
somebody posted a Frum in here a couple days back

I don't know if it was the same one.


The Dems do face some perils here. No doubt insurance costs will continue to go up.


Now, the GOP can blame it on this bill. And pretend like everything was great in the 'good old days' before Obama care.

They will find people to stand up and tell horrors stories.
 
they held congress in session both Saturday and Sunday
so the Congressmen could not go back to their districts and raise hell and / or get bombarded by protesters
 
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