That means the losers were the congressional Democrats.
Among the Republicans, it seems that Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan was especially good:
If that's characteristic of the Republican's vigorous, incisive style — and that's the way it looked to us as we streamed the video — the Democrats came across looking frenzied and not well-grounded in sound policy. There were these random hard-luck stories. This is typical:
One feels sorry for the woman who wore her dead sister's dentures, but it doesn't establish that one policy is better than another. It's just a nervous cry to hurry up and do something. Do something... anything! That's not the way I think.
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Denture story-- code for wanting to create indentured payers of Obamacare.
Does anyone think the Republicans tricked the President into holding this summit? Maybe they did especially poorly in that earlier debate, so he'd throw another, larger one, where they'd look good.
Of course, it could be even worse for the Democrats than that; perhaps the Republicans are learning from their mistakes. The horror!
The dems don't look good when people can actually see them...and they sound worse when they are actually heard.
There were these random hard-luck stories. This is typical:
One feels sorry for the woman who wore her dead sister's dentures, but it doesn't establish that one policy is better than another. It's just a nervous cry to hurry up and do something. Do something... anything! That's not the way I think.
US law is largely composed of the outcomes of random hard luck stories, so the professor's dismissal of such is a bit surprising.
The current system is flawed. Will the changed system be better? Who can say for sure? "Do something" is a more appealing strategy than "do nothing." At worst, health care reform will be Obama's Iraq invasion -- do something whether it helps or not, using whatever scary arguments you can muster to justify it.
Barry's droit-de-seigneur complex came through loud and clear today. If David Gurgling missed that, he needs new glasses and a better hearing aid. When McConnell complained that The Zero took as much time as all the other Demos combined in what to be a fair session, Barry's answer of, "I'm the President", and the tone in which it was delivered, is probably going to be floating around the web for a long time. "I won", I don't believe, was recorded; this was and it's a window on the man.
Also, the Demos and the West Wing crowd must have assumed the Repubs would be chastened by the Joe Wilson, "You lie", business and would arrive obsequious and subservient (Yes, Mr President; Of course, Mr President). The one thing they don't seem to have contemplated was the possibility the Repubs would come to play. They gave Barry his "get in their faces, punch back twice as hard" from the campaign and he didn't see it coming. If this was a gamble by the Demos, it blew up in their faces.
fls says: "Do something" is a more appealing strategy than "do nothing."
"First, do no harm" is one of the cornerstones of medical ethics. Rushing into a poorly thought out and poorly crafted HCR bill is more likely to do harm for all the reasons that have been pointed out by the folks against it.
What we have isn't perfect, but is it worth the gamble of breaking it for tens of millions of Americans?
I dunno, maybe she shoulda saved that story for-
OBAMA DENTAL 2.0
Coming to a theater near you.
The real joke of the denture story is that there is no coverage of any type for any dental treatment whatsoever under current medicare or any part of the plan the congress and or the president has put out. Under any of these plans, the lady is still wearing the inherited dentures. Dental disease is so damaging to overall health yet has been summarily ignored.
Paul Ryan broke it down for Obama.
That kid is going places.
here I was thinking that using her dead sister's dentures was just the kind of utilitarian thrift that got us through the great depression.
fls -
1) When you've been reducing to argumentation by anecdote, then you're admitting defeat on the substance of the debate. Telling a hard luck story isn't a justification for favoring one approach to solving the problem over another. It's just playing the drama queen.
2) You keep repeating that "it's better than doing nothing" as if that were the alternative when you know for a fact that not's the case. Republicans proved today that they have been putting forward multiple alternatives throughout the last year no matter how many lies Obama, Pelosi and Reid have told to the contrary.
THAT is what made Democrats the big losers today: they have been telling the American public that Republicans have no ideas, and today the Republicans finally got the media platform that the MSM has denied them while pushing for ObamaCare.
Over and over again Obama was forced to admit that he had seen this or that Republican proposal before. And yet he's been telling the public that they didn't have any.
Talk to a non-partisan and ask them how that comes off. It destroys Obama's credibility - not just on health care, but on everything.
Don't even get me started on how badly Reid, Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic congressional delegation did.
Did anyone here see Frank Luntz' focus group on Fox tonight? All the Obama people were quite convinced their side was devistated in the show, Only 3 of 11 Obama supporters want the Dem plan, and the other eight believe the Repubs have a better idea. Several questions received unanimous agreement against the Dems, a first for any of his groups. The stars of teh show according to the audience were McCain and cantor.
If Slaughter feels so badly she should open her pocketbook and buy the lady some teeth.
ElliottA -
My wife's been yelling about that ever since she heard Slaughter repeat that story. She's applauding your post wholeheartedly.
If Ryan keeps this up, he's going to have a big target on his back. You know how the media hates it when someone upstages their hero.
Why is it bad to use her sister's dentures? That should fit well with the environmental crowd.
Obama is as toothless as the woman in the anecdote.
Paul Ryan for president.
"Random" or cherry-picked anecdotal stories as proof of The Big Truth are cheap ploy, annoying and insulting, so 6 o'clock news and NYT. One can only imagine the anecdotal horror stories of forced premium payments, higher taxes and worst care if the Dems get their way.
WTF? The world is all screwed up, and it's not even Wacky Wednesday...
Here we have a Republican speaking thoughtfully about finance. I thought all that Republicans spoke about was how God loved them, how God hates gays, and how they want to crush the testicles of the children of terrorist suspects.
And we have a Democrat Rep named Slaughter – from New York no less – telling her folksy tale with a hick accent. Would she be happy if Congress made a special appropriation specifically for her constituent's dental work? Probably so. It seems that thinking about principles and what is best for the country is beyond her.
When I wake up tomorrow morning, the first thing I'm going to do is look and see if there is a shoe that has mysteriously appeared on the wall.
"Do something... anything!"
Because we are in a crises is the rest of the refrain. To show the immediacy of the threat, the bills institute taxes immediately and offer changes in coverage several years later.
What liars.
They are a scourge from God, like locusts or gnats. No, they are more like the angel of death.
America needs to repent to free ourselves from this horrible judgment.
Trey
..One feels sorry for the woman who wore her dead sister's dentures..
I have four words for that woman.
The tooth-fairy isn't real.
"President Obama won. So did congressional Republicans"
Whose quote is this?
former law student: The current system is flawed. Will the changed system be better? Who can say for sure?
I think you've done a great job of boiling down the Democrat's stated position. I also think that position is what freaks everybody out. Making a lot of big changes, not knowing what's gong to happen for sure; who in their right mind would go along with something like that?
Does Steve King ever get to the point, by the way? I guess he's a Sioux City Rambler.
King's light-skinned yet inarticulate. Somebody buy him a teleprompter, stat!
I've said it here before, doing something bad is not better than doing nothing.
When you start off with Speaker Pelosi you're putting status over substance.
It must be Festivus in Iowa, because King has moved on to The Airing of the Grievances.
former law student wrote: The current system is flawed. Will the changed system be better? Who can say for sure?
Yeah, I agree. Let's introduce an entirely new set of systemic flaws. Maybe they'll cancel out the old flaws.
wv: outdach --command the badger dog to leave the house.
There was a good article in the San Jose Mercury News recently...
http://www.mercurynews.co/opinion/ci_14456087
It makes a good case that the real problem (which everyone is either ignoring and considering as a "side" issue, mostly for political mileage) is that getting your health care through you employer (which is going to be expanded under more "employer mandates") is part of the problem.
The problem is that we have a private system without the benefits of choice and competition. Rather than debate whether some government or some corporation manages our costs and makes out health care decisions, we should go to a system where we make our own decisions. The restrictions on competition should be removed, we should drop employers from choosing our insurance (and setting up "pools" of people to get insurance for) and we should let everyone be able to buy any policy that exists.
Obama picks his nose.
$5 he eats it.
About a week or two ago, the President complimented Ryan and said he was someone he could work with. The next day the Party came down hard and the President backtracked(story of his life). Ryan is a budget expert.
I watched his presentation today. The Republicans should get this guy in the running right now for President. They should tell everyone else to butt out.
Hey, FLS,
I know you are a bleeding heart and all that, but- if the people- for what ever reasons are against this plan, why are their so called representatives pushing it so hard?
Who do they truly represent? Think about it? What will they try to dictate to us next?
It is probably good that Ann linked to as biased a source as Slate here. That is sure to get the juices going again tonight, as if we didn't on the previous thread (388 comments so far, slowing down though I think for this one).
And their bias in favor of President Obama is why I think that they missed the point. His looking deliberative listening to the Republicans, but never really hearing what they said, or at least seriously considering it, isn't going to feed into the Democrats narrative that the Republicans are just obstructionists (though my view is that it would be good if they were just that).
So, I don't see how he wins today. Maybe the Congressional Democrats lost worse, but we already knew that. Many of them will be up for reelection in a bit over 8 months now, and I think they are starting to discover that their Congressional leadership has sacrificed their reelection for the sake of a program that the constituents of the Democrats soon to lose their seats despise, but the constituents of the Democrats in safe seats love.
The amazing thing though about reading Slate this evening is that a bunch of their commenters truly seem to believe that the reason that the Democrats cratered in the 1994 election was that they dropped HillaryCare. And that the only way for the Democrats to survive in November is to double down and pass this increasingly disliked legislation.
First, who wears dentures anymore? Dentists don't pull all of one's teeth if one or two go bad anymore. People born at the turn of the century typically had no teeth when they aged, but they've mostly died out now. You don't see many denture cream commercials anymore because there aren't that many people needing it.
Second, this is for former law student: Doing nothing is very much preferred. The less government does, the better off the country. Even if our system were so bad, which it's not, changes of the magnitude that are being contemplated now are guaranteed to be a disaster. Our nation is much too big and complicated to absorb massive changes without a devastating and negative impact.
But that's why B. Hussein wants it. His goal is not medical coverage, his goal is the destruction of our society so that the marxist ideal can be instituted.
And for anyone thinking this is over the top to make this claim, I say what would be the behavior of someone who would want such a goal? Wouldn't he claim that his strongest philosophical mentors were marxists? Wouldn't he have marxist terrorist associates? Wouldn't he do his utmost to bankrupt the nation by borrowing and spending ten times more than we've ever done before? Wouldn't he nationalize major industries? Wouldn't he promote violent slogans like "punch back twice as hard" in a representative democracy? Q.E.D.
If the Republicans win a majority in the next election or two, will they have the political will to repeal this atrocity in its entirety?
Can His Story be erased?
Ah, so... It was John Dickerson who proclaimed Obama and the Republicans co-winners. That figures.
"President Obama won. So did congressional Republicans" sounds like one of those limp as a dishrag equivocations a kindergarten teacher uses to settle sandbox tantrums – you’re both right; you both won – what utter bilge.
We all knew who got the roses. It wasn't BHO or anybody in his party.
I found this humorous: Obama listens at health summit, but mostly hears himself:
President Obama pledged to "listen" at the outset of his much-ballyhooed bipartisan health care summit on Thursday. Turns out he meant he'd be listening to his own voice.
By the end of the televised event, Mr. Obama had spoken for 119 minutes - nine minutes more than the 110 minutes consumed by 17 Republicans. The 21 Democratic lawmakers used 114 minutes, giving the president and his supporters a whopping 233 minutes, according to a "talk clock" kept by GOP aides.
And when accused of dominating the discussion (where he was supposed to be listening):
But then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added: "You're right, there was an imbalance on the opening statements because - I'm the president." Half the room laughed. "I didn't count my time in terms of dividing it evenly."
As a former constituent of Ms. Slaughter - she won her seat when I was in 7th grade, I remember well my 7th grade English teacher openly telling the class why this woman HAD to win - I have to say - so the eff what? I have many family members that, due to their solid spendthrift backgrounds, regularly use the things of their relatives that have passed. My grandfather must have tried on 4-5 hearing aids left over after someone died. Those things are expensive! Why just throw them away?
If Obama wanted to pass a health-care bill he would have opened that meeting by saying I want the republicans today to agree on tree things that we can agree on to include in this bill and tree things they want taken out.
The fact that he didn't leads me to believe Obama is going nuclear... its reconciliation... They are going to Rahmit thru.
Dentures! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNpQgoO-Ea8
That's it. Ryan is now targeted for destruction. Believe me, they'll plant drugs/hookers on him. Whatever.
Re Obama won: Excessive glib looks like bilge in the mirror.
Oh, Quaestor already used the B word.
If the Republicans win a majority in the next election or two, will they have the political will to repeal this atrocity in its entirety?
If it passes this year, and becomes law, it will survive for the next almost three years, until after the 2012 elections. There, the Republicans are liable to pick up the Senate seats they need for control of the Senate, and there maybe won't be a Democrat able to veto the repeal.
The Republicans are currently unlikely to actually win the Senate in the coming elections. They would need 10 seats (since Biden breaks ties), and only 8 seem reasonably plausible. Based on Senate seats at stake, this election is slanted towards the Democrats. The next two are the opposite, with more Democrat than Republican seats up for grabs.
But what will be extremely interesting to see is what happens if the legislation becomes law through reconciliation. But then, in 3 years, with majorities in both Houses and the Presidency, the Republicans try to repeal the legislation. Do you think that the Democrats are going to forbear using a filibuster to stop them (after preventing the Republicans from using such to prevent enactment)?
Reporter: Why are you here?
Woman: To get some money.
Reporter: What kind of money?
Woman: Obama money.
Reporter: Where's it coming from?
Woman: Obama.
Reporter: And where did Obama get it?
Woman: I don't know, his stash. I don't know. I don't know where he got it from, but he's givin' it to us and we love him. That's why we voted for him. O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma.
There's your problem. Strip away all the rhetoric and there's your problem. And the only thing that makes it an intractable problem is cowardice. Us or them. Surrender to "compassion" and America dies.
Nothing succeeds like excess.
"I didn't count my time in terms of dividing it evenly."
And there you have his take on "fiscal responsibility." He doesn't count his spending, either.
Because He is The President.
============================
Deliver us from evil.
I don't think there has ever been an entitlement that has been repealed. Ever.
Welfare was changed/revised to Welfare to Work but it was not repealed.
The Dems know if they pass something its enshrined for life.
I don't know, his stash. I don't know. I don't know where he got it from, but he's givin' it to us and we love him. That's why we voted for him. O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma.
De Tocqueville weeps
wv: dringr -- Old Norse for a score in horseshoes
My cable company called today. They notified me that they are raising my monthly bill for cable by 10-15% because they are introducing a new upgrade to become effective in 2013. Or, maybe 2014. I said I was happy with my current package, and didn't want the upgrade. They assured me that didn't really matter. "So," I said, "let me see if I understand. I start paying more now for an upgrade that i won't see for 4 years?"
"Correct!"
"What's in the upgrade?", I asked, "more channels?"
"No, fewer actually!"
"Better quality?"
"No, not really."
"Sooo," I asked, puzzled, "What am I getting for the increase in rates?"
"Cable, silly! You'll love it."
"But, I LIKE my current package," I argued.
"You'll like the new package better once you see it! We're calling it Obamacable! It has a nice ring to it. We think it will resonate with customers, calling to mind words like abominable, debacle, inevitable, and cable company monopoly. We'll let you know when the price goes up again. We know you'll be excitedly looking forward to that upgrade.!"
WV: tizer: rhymes with Kaiser, a leader who consistently exhorts his followers to go for the tie.
Senate panel finds Rangel took trips to DR payed for by lobbyist.
Bet you nothing happens.
Obama appeared to be listening intently to what Ryan was saying, but I don't think he understood either the words Ryan was saying or the concepts behind them. Obama had that practiced expression of someone trying to look smart.
Hey ElliottA and JimB ... that was the first thing I said when I heard the story.
My dad paid for his dentures himself. Not Medicare. And my mom too. And their hearing aids.
(She would have like to have his hearing aid refitted for her, but didn't know anyone who could do that. So much for recycling....)
Yes, dental disease is damaging to overall health. As for it being ignored, there has been tremendous progress made through flouride toothpastes and public water flouridation and just better public understanding of dental hygiene.
None of my kids had a single cavity until they were teenagers (and that one kid was the daughter who was a diligent tooth brusher. Irony in action.)
I had something like 43 cavities growing up. Just about every surface of every tooth in the back of my mouth.
So in one generation there have been significant changes.
I thought the story was a bit childish. ("You won't believe this!!1!!1!!")
We're going to redo 1/6th of the economy because her consituent is wearing her dead sister's teeth?
Lem - correct. Entitlements are forever. or at least until they've bankrupted America.
Owning an iPad is a human right too.
But it will create 400,000 jobs! Just like that!!
(Public payroll jobs paid from money other people have produced?)
Hey Ms. Pelosi. How about jobs which produce something? Now that's a new thought!
Our family has a great health plan, but no health plan I've ever had paid for special dental work or false teeth.
Besides, why are there always jokes about British teeth? They've had nationalized medicine forever.
Democrats better not even THINK about passing this bill by having more votes than Republicans.
"Do something... anything!"
Sacrifice a virgin? It's probably as effective as anything Congress is considering doing.
Entitlements are forever.
Once you enter this family.. there is no getting out.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden used the Health Care Summit as an opportunity to reflect on how seriously he takes his work as Vice President.
Sacrifice a virgin? It's probably as effective as anything Congress is considering doing.
Good luck finding a virgin in Washington.
Dead Sister's Dentures would be a fabulous name for a band.
What did he win??
Obama was a massive crash and burn. It is hardly a win when you once again totally alienate at least half of the people and remind them why they will never want to work with you on anything.
Being a condescending jerk is never a win.
Good luck finding a virgin in Washington.
The Last American Virgin.
wv - mozed
Democrats better not even THINK about passing this bill by having more votes than Republicans.
What they're worried about is having more voters than the Republicans do come November.
Even the dumbest Congressman knows this is no longer about what happened in 2008. The "brave" that Pelosi talks about may honestly think they would be doing a long-term good for the country by rahming this through. But my guess is that venality will win out (and in this case, I'm rooting for the venal Democrats heart and soul.)
Who won is not yet determined.
Obama and Pelosi threw down the gauntlet at the end. They fully intend to go through a further charade and then ram it home by "Reconciliation." That was very clear, even to thickskull David Gergen.
Will they pull it off? I believe they likely will, but it's not a sure thing.
Remember. This was not the war. Obama and the Dems were just preparing the battlefield.
As a surgeon who treats trauma patients I can assure you that dentures are still quite common and that the lack of good dental care is a very large problem. Besides the pain it causes, it is a huge source of infection for pneumonia, endocarditis etc.
Democrats better not even THINK about passing this bill by having more votes than Republicans.
A minority by any other name still..
According to Rush reconciliation is not as easy as it sounds..
Republicans can still "gama-up the works" whatever that means.
BTW Obama said if you are a real American you are not supposed to be interested in the the senate rules.
It's too bad there are so few alive today who remember how inexpensive American medical care was before the government got into it so as to make it "better". This whole HC thing is a vain attempt to shore up a thoroughly bad idea. It is to weep.
"That's not the way I think."
Because you already have health care, you stupid wench.
You hip grandmother look is ridiculous by the way.
Remember. This was not the war. Obama and the Dems were just preparing the battlefield.
I would say maybe that they were trying to do so. And, I think that they failed. I think that the fact that the Democrats talked twice as much as the Republicans indicates that they didn't come to discuss alternatives, but rather, were there to go through the exercise to look like they were willing to discuss alternatives. But it is obvious now that they were just going through the motions. The Republicans do have alternatives, it is just that the Democrats have no interest in listening to them. Never did. They won in 2008, and that is all that matters here.
So, I think that this was a strategic mistake for the Democrats. They gave away their claim that the Republicans were merely obstructionist and had nothing to offer as alternatives. And they may have lost this tactically by talking too much (2-1) as compared to their listening.
Democrats can either have endless stories written about them not passing a bill, or passing a bill. Republicans will still howl regardless if Obama gets the bill passed or not.
Do something... anything! That's not the way I think.
Look both ways b4 xing the street... that's the way I think.
cushing -- I didn't mean that dental health is no longer a problem ... just an improving one.
Isn't one of the recent thoughts that some bacteria that causes gingivitis is thought to be connected with heart disease?
(And when I worked as a CV nurse a couple decades ago we had a couple patients who had to have all their teeth [lots of bad teeth] pulled before surgery because of the risk.)
But again -- wearing someone's used dentures does not mean we are a third world country.
And in Obamacare an awful lot of people who are responsible adults are going to be "compelled" to do things they shouldn't have to be for the sake of a smaller number of irresponsibles, by an even small number of irresponsibles.
And are they planning on leaving in the part of the bill which says it CANNOT BE REPEALED except by some incredible super super majority?
THAT has got to be unconstitutional.
wv lating
What I do when I am writing after midnight. Again.
Democrats can either have endless stories written about them not passing a bill, or passing a bill. Republicans will still howl regardless if Obama gets the bill passed or not.
Thats the price of winning Garage.
"We are the ones we've been waiting for"
Washington's dentures were made from gold, ivory, lead, human and animal teeth, were held together with bolts, and operated with springs to help them open.
It'd be cool were there some Constitutional right for us to receive such non-PC dead elephant/ people parts and blood metals toxic apparatuses like George's.
It's our heritage right!
"We want to trade more ponies for votes."
"We don't have any ponies to trade."
"So?"
"Shouldn't we make sure that we have the ponies first?"
"No. Why?"
"Because if we don't have them, we can't trade them."
"Ha ha ha, you must be thinking of the private sector."
"Even if we did have the ponies, the people don't seem to want any more ponies."
"Not want ponies?!"
"The people seem to think that any ponies we might have will be fit for nothing but the glue factory."
"Why would they think that?"
"Because that's what European ponies are like these days."
"Not want ponies, ha. The people must not know what ponies are. Time to form a Pony Education Task Force."
"Okay."
"We'll need about 4000 new government employees to run it."
Democrats can either have endless stories written about them not passing a bill, or passing a bill. Republicans will still howl regardless if Obama gets the bill passed or not.
But if a sufficient number of Democrats vote against the bills to defeat them, then those Democrats may be able to go back to their districts and tell their voters that they did what their constituents wanted and defeated the bills. And those voters may ignore their votes in favor of huge spending bills. And that may save their seats.
Why in the world would a fairly new Democrat in Congress in a swing or even Republican leaning seat vote for this legislation? When they are turned out of office in November, they may have to stay in D.C. in fear of their lives if they moved back to their districts.
"First, do no harm" is one of the cornerstones of medical ethics.
My concern is that, like his stimulus plan, Obama's health care reform will not go nearly far enough.
We could have modeled universal health care after the systems successfully working in other countries. Austria currently spends half what we do on health care annually, as a percentage of GDP.
http://www.euro.who.int/Document/E89021.pdf
Instead, we are trying to patch our current failing system. We have no idea if incremental change will produce the results we desire.
Using the medical analogy -- your neighbor has cut his hand off in the band saw. "Do nothing" is not an option. Dousing the wound in peroxide is not going to do a whole hell of a lot. Major surgery alone can fix it.
Obama got schooled by a guy that is no less articulate, but clearly more informed and intellectually coherent.
Paul Ryan for president.
I'm down with it. Damn, I wish I could speak like that. I am a smart guy but I get very tongue tied in front of an audience.
Ryan complains that this bill "adds a new health care entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have."
Funny how this line of reasoning didn't stop him from voting for Medicare, Part D.
On the other hand, I'd rather listen to Ryan than Boehner.
Will they pull it off? I believe they likely will, but it's not a sure thing.
Actually it's highly unlikely.
Aside from the obvious difficulties of even getting together a package on which majorities in both houses could agree, there's the reconciliation process itself:
1) Only items which directly affect the federal budget could be included, which means that unless Stupak completely folds on the abortion language that can't be reconciled. The way the Senate bill is worded, the abortion coverage is subsidized by the premiums by those who don't have abortion policies rather than out of the federal budget. So there's no impact on the federal budget and is therefore ineligible.
2) Each and every item in the reconciliation bill would be subject to challenge with the Parliamentarian in whose sole discretion it would lie to determine what stayed in and what got kicked out. The likely result would that whatever originally got sent to him would wind up looking like Swiss Cheese afterwards and that would be ultimately unacceptable to either or both houses.
3) The Republicans have the right under the rules of reconciliation to literally offer unlimited amendments to the bill, and they've already said that they plan to do just that. No doubt that many of those amendments will require Democrats to make votes which could be used against them either this year or when they are up for election in 2012 (or even 2014).
4) The unlimited amendments can, and would, delay the passage of the bill for a significant period of time. Democrats need this off the table ASAP, and the reconciliation process would be on the evening news and in the headlines every day that it was being held up. Every day working on an unpopular bill is a day not spent on jobs and the economy.
5) Given the current state of the polls on both the bills themselves, the undesirability of going the reconciliation process in the first place, and the general perception that Republicans won the day at the summit; just who do you think the public is going to hold most responsible if this thing goes nuclear?
I know this dance about reconciliation sounds good to the hardcore base, but I just don't think the political realities will allow it. I think this is more Kabuki to convince their base not to dump them in the fall. "See, we tried as hard we could!!!"
I think the reality is that they're going to wind up dumping both the House and Senate bills (on which the clock will run out around April anyway). They're going to go to Plan C (It's not Plan B - Plan B was reconciliation.), and try to pass a vastly scaled-down version. (And I wouldn't bet on the success of that either - they're going to attempt the same government controls with a slighter lower price tag, so they're not going to get conservatives on board and it will never pass muster with liberals.)
peter hoh -
Funny how this line of reasoning didn't stop him from voting for Medicare, Part D.
Funny how Democrats hadn't just spent $1 trillion on political payback pork the year before it passed and didn't still have on the table an attempt to pass the biggest tax increase in American history with Cap'N'Trade.
So yeah...Maybe he sees things a little differently now.
Using the medical analogy -- your neighbor has cut his hand off in the band saw. "Do nothing" is not an option. Dousing the wound in peroxide is not going to do a whole hell of a lot. Major surgery alone can fix it.
Lets use the Dems favorite analogy..
There is a tornado.. the local authorities.. the people in the front lines choose not to evacuate the people using good working order school buses.. Instead they suffered waiting for the feds Cadillac helicopters for rescue.
Obamacare is just a scheme by which people can have something "better" where as what they have would do the job.
Even if that "better" plan will bankrupt us.
Funny how Democrats hadn't just spent $1 trillion on political payback pork the year before it passed and didn't still have on the table an attempt to pass the biggest tax increase in American history with Cap'N'Trade.
FLS apparently doesn't believe that $1 trillion was enough political payback pork to have spent. He, along with former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, apparently believes that a lot more pork should have been ladled out.
There is a tornado.. the local authorities.. the people in the front lines choose not to evacuate the people using good working order school buses.. Instead they suffered waiting for the feds Cadillac helicopters for rescue.
Actually, I think that the bus drivers were evacuated early on, being government employees. This was because there was no local plan to use those school buses for evacuation. By the time anyone figured out that there were buses available, they were pretty much under water. But apparently either FEMA, or maybe even George W. Bush should have known about those buses and bus drivers before the hurricane hit.
Bruce, the GOP record on pork ladling while in power does not exactly inspire.
I thought the Republicans came across as knowing a lot more about the bill than Obama and the Democrats did.
Obama kept making mistake after mistake. He slid many notches today.
But apparently either FEMA, or maybe even George W. Bush should have known about those buses and bus drivers before the hurricane hit.
My point still stands Bruce.. My point being we have a system in working order.. Obama is rushing to scrap it.. and it seems that no one other than maybe Paul Ryan knows what its going to replace it.
BTW - Paul Ryan and Lamar b4 Obama shut him down were the only one willing to stare down Obama on the cost of his plan.
As soon as Paul Ryan lit a spark in the room and Obama try to snuff it out with paragraphs of his own droning boredom-
a thousand Democrats and their media friends set out to search his garbage cans and check his underwear drawer.
Hopefully Ryan is as pure as the driven snow in Wisconsin.
The Ryan in Illinois-wasn't as lucky.
Remember the Republican that was Obama's competition for the Illinois senate seat. Obama had all the "luck".
Both Ryan and his wife agreed to make their divorce records public, but not make the custody records public, claiming that the custody records could be harmful to their son if released. On March 16, 2004, Ryan won the GOP primary [...]
On March 29, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled that several of the Ryans' divorce records should be opened to the public and ruled that a court-appointed referee would later decide which custody files should remain sealed to protect the interests of Ryan's young child.
Subsequent to his withdrawal from the U.S. Senate race in Illinois, Jack Ryan has characterized what happened to him as a "new low for politics in America".[14] According to Ryan, it was unprecedented in American politics for a newspaper to sue for access to sealed custody documents.
Madawaskan, don't forget how Obama took care of the threat posed by Mark Sanford.
Bruce, the GOP record on pork ladling while in power does not exactly inspire.
I would agree. However, they are amateurs as compared to the Democrats running Congress right now. There is no way that the Republicans could have ever gotten almost $800 billion of pork passed in a bill like the "stimulus" bill passed a year ago, or, indeed, the 8,000+ earmarks in the omnibus spending bill passed soon after that.
There have always been Republican pork champions, like Ted Stevens. And power players like Tom DeLay and Trent Lott, who are happy to deal with all those lobbyists.
But I would suggest that the level of graft and corruption is far less in a Republican Congress, and there are more Republicans than Democrats in Congress who oppose this sort of legislating.
Of course, I will also admit by biases here. The level of rent seeking we are now seeing (and indeed have seen for the last couple of decades) is extremely depressing and worrisome.
Now are we going to hear lurid tales of money hungry dentists tearing out their patient's teeth so they can bill insurance companies? Don't tell me they're going after dental coverage next!
My point still stands Bruce.. My point being we have a system in working order.. Obama is rushing to scrap it.. and it seems that no one other than maybe Paul Ryan knows what its going to replace it.
Not denying your point. My point was supposed to be a humorous aside about Democratic mismanagement in NOLA in the evacuation before Katrina, and the larger point that governments by their very nature screw up.
PatCA -
Don't tell me they're going after dental coverage next!
At which point, another Democratic congressperson will have a story about an entire family which was forced to share a single tooth from a dead relative.
peter-
So you are cool with The Chicago Tribune suing to open custody files?
The Chicago Tribune-they're a Conservative rag, right?
And, in Chicago everything is done on the up, and up.
Clean as a whistle......
100 :p
No, Madawaskan, I don't think the Ryan divorce records should have been unsealed.
Bruce, it all comes down to which shit stinks the most, but it all stinks.
Why was the LA superior court ruling on something related to an Illinois political campaign?
That just doesn't seem right.
That seems, by itself, to destroy any possibility of innocent intent by whomever sued.
This seems a lot like one of those cases where "but it's legal" is a public declaration that one has no moral compass whatsoever.
Whoops I delete my last remark-Lem probably knows why.
I thought Bruce was responding to the usual troll reflex-my bad.
*********
Peter-
sealed custody records that's different from divorce records.
Custody, divorce. Whatever. Those records were sealed. They should have stayed sealed.
Synova-
And it was The Chicago Tribune suing to open the custody files.
But ya...the mass media is fair or even conservative leaning according to some Liberals.
Ugh.
Synova, if I recall correctly, the Ryan divorce took place in LA. Therefore, the Chicago paper had to appeal to an LA judge for access to those records, as part of what they considered due diligence in investigating the candidate's past.
The above is not intended to justify the paper's request.
peter-
There actually is an important difference...perhaps several.
Say California is a "no fault" divorce state-which I think it might be.
Now a custody battle-think that might get a little uglier?
peter-
the Chicago paper had to
had to....oy.
I always thought Democrats cared about-
the children.
madawaskan, do I need to make it more clear that I think the request to unseal those records was inappropriate?
Once I've said that, does it really matter whether they were divorce or custody records?
I'm sorry I'm not the Chicago Tribune apologist you want me to be.
And for what it's worth, of course California is a no-fault state. St. Ronnie made it that way, starting a wave of no-fault legislation that swept the nation.
Whoops I delete my last remark-Lem probably knows why.
If you are going to compliment me I wish you told us who (more like waht) was accidentally/incidentally there with you ;)
One of our local Congresswomen was criticized during one of her last campaigns here for illegally (?) having some legal records pertaining to her son moved to a secure location (she did not view them and was not accused of viewing them) during one of her first campaigns.
The job she had was related in some way and she was able to have this done. All she did was make sure they were secure.
And that's the worst thing that the opposition could come up with to try to suggest any sort of ethics issue with her.
Thing is, was her belief that her opponents would violate privacy and obtain the records relating to her minor child reasonable? Most likely it was absolutely reasonable.
But that doesn't matter if a person can be destroyed coming or going. It's all, "We can get her one way, we can get her if she does anything at all to stop us... win - win."
Only a few years ago we had a politically related murder here. Classic set up and obvious as anything... but no proof you know. Can't account for a thug with a tire-iron.
(On second thought... the lady might not have died... just had her brain totally smashed in.)
And no... I really don't think that the Republicans do that crap. I really do think it's the Democrats. It's not shit stinking and who's stinks the most... and I've heard stories and more hear-say... and ballots go missing for hours.
And what the *Republicans* get in trouble for here are things like calling a political appointee and telling him to get off his butt and do his job investigating. Yup... that's the real scandal. Sure it is.
And yet... it sticks.
Lem-
Has great taste in music!
I absolutely loved the Blue Bossa by Dexter Gordon you picked out one evening.
Never heard it before, but now it's a fav.
Thanks Lem!
Synova-
Ya-the term "Chicago Style" in politics didn't come about because that city has been a Republican held cess pool for decades...
I absolutely loved the Blue Bossa by Dexter Gordon you picked out one evening.
This is so weird.. I was just listening to Dexter Gordon - Tangerine.
I have no reason to make this up.
We recorded Olympics stuff on MSNBC during the day, so this evening when I turned the tv on, the tuner was still there. It was Hardball with Chris Matthews and two people I didn't recognize, although the woman is apparently an NBC White House correspondent.
All three of them talked about what a great job Obama did and how lame the Republicans were with their "talking points". Matthews played clips of the Dems saying how close together the two sides were, and then of the Repubs saying "start over." The Repubs were definitely on-message, but Mathews & co mocked them for it.
Of course they scored Obama & the Dems as the big winners -- completely ignoring how Paul Ryan eviscerated Obama on the budget, and all Obama could do was throw out the dodge about Medicare Advantage. To my knowledge, no Democrat ever responded to Ryan's points about the double-counting in the bill, and the "doc fix", and the other gaping holes in the funding. They've all got their fingers in their ears and they're chanting "lalala I can't hear you" over and over.
So I watched my recorded show and when it was over -- Hardball was being re-run, only it was a different segment. This time I was surprised to hear the male analyst comment that "They really do have a philosophical difference here." I was shocked! But then this is what he said: "Democrats think that health insurance is a right, and Republicans think it is a privilege."
Not health care, health insurance. (!!!!!)
The philosophical difference, explained so clearly by Ryan and others, was that Democrats want the government to control the health care (and insurance) industries, and Republicans want the people to control them -- because, as has been demonstrated throughout history, governments are incapable of running anything competently other than the military, and that only works because of the special circumstances involved.
I'm praying that this summit doesn't give the Democrats in public opinion they're looking for. "Health care" reform needs to die.
Ryan is right that this bill spells fiscal doom. Slaughter, on the other hand. doesn't even understand that most health insurance does not cover dentures for adults, and I doubt that the topic comes up anywhere in the 2400 pages on Ryan's desk.
Unfortunately, the visuals will go the Democrats way. There you have a young guy wearing a suit, who might as well have topped it off with a green eye shade, talking dollars and cents against a befuddled elderly woman talking about her sister's dentures or lack thereof. The voters are as stupid as Reid and Pelosi and Slaughter. Both Obama and Ryan are smarter than that, but Obama is smarter in this case because he knows that more Louise Slaughters than Paul Ryans will enter the voting booth in November 2012.
How do these people get elected? Here's Louise Slaughter in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=GXJslrykdg4&v=r0pR1OxQkIs
Tom Harkin: "I got a letter yesterday from a farmer in Iowa."
Later, he said the letter was from Raymond Smith of Buffalo Center, Iowa. It appears Mr. Smith received $19,139 in 1995 for corn subsidies. No other payments were made to Mr. Smith after that. I wonder, is he still farming? My bullshit detecter is going off.
Was anyone else struck by how bad John McCain looked? I read comments somewhere, might have been NRO, saying he looked great. They must have been watching something that wasn't being broadcast in my area.
I thought he was a weak candidate, but I also thought there was no way any Republican could win the last election. But man. Listening to him yesterday was like listening to your 80 year old granddad talking about his buddies in WWII.
Of course every time he said anything Obama felt the need to pwn him and did so. I don't think that made Obama look any better though. He could looked like the better man by simply thanking McCain and ignoring him.
Good grief how did McCain ever get nominated? He's awful. This is what worries me about 2012.
I wonder how the Democrats are going to stop the doctors across the US from unionizing?
In Illinois and California, Democratic strongholds for decades, there are firemen who make $2-300,000 a year and can retire at 50 or so on a full pension.
Just imagine expanding (and increasing) that to the nearly 800,00 doctors in the US.
How can Democrats obstruct unionization (and strikes for more pay) which have taken place in England, France, and Canada, and everywhere there has been government-run health care?
Part of the cost savings, a huge part, was going to be fee reductions to doctors. Not when they unionize, bub. it's the Chicago way.
One feels sorry for the woman who wore her dead sister's dentures,
One might but I think rational thinking poeple were laughing their ass off at the absurdity of it.
In addition to selective strikes, "work-to-rule" methods are considerably effective at grinding everything to a halt.
Medicare demands documentation?
Yer gonna get documentation, good and hard, America!
You may not get any decent medical advice, but the visit will be well-documented!
It's the Chicago way.
I spoke too soon about Mr. Smith.
1995-2006
Commodity Subsidies $19,139
Deficiency Payments $15,812
Misc. Farm - Subsidies $3,327
Farm Storage - Corn $3,327
@AllenS:
"Tom Harkin: "I got a letter yesterday from a farmer in Iowa."
Later, he said the letter was from Raymond Smith of Buffalo Center, Iowa. It appears Mr. Smith received $19,139 in 1995 for corn subsidies. No other payments were made to Mr. Smith after that. I wonder, is he still farming? My bullshit detecter is going off."
It was later found out that the 'farmer' is the brother of one of Harkin's staffers.
Your BS detector is very finely calibrated instrument.
Skyler @9:49PM : "But that's why B. Hussein wants it. His goal is not medical coverage, his goal is the destruction of our society so that the marxist ideal can be instituted."
Amen and Amen and to the rest of your post as well! People are catching on. The country might have a chance.
In this light, both parties are simply tools, though the Repubs show some signs of awakening. The only true opposition The One has is the Tea Partiers.
It gets better. Raymond Smith is only a 50% owner of J & R Farms Inc. Jody L. Smith owns the other 50%.
Crop Payments
1995-2006
Corn Subsidies $431,765
Soybean Subsidies $93,706
Oat Subsidies $108
A person could buy a lot of health insurance with that kind of money.
Get ready for it, America:
France hit by mass health strike.
January, 2002
"Thousands of French family doctors have gone on strike in a dispute over pay and conditions.
Some regions have reported up to 90% participation in the strike.
Many specialists, surgeons and dentists and some emergency workers are also staying at home. Hospital doctors are not involved.
The strike follows a demonstration by French nurses who took to the streets in their thousands on Tuesday."
German doctors strike
2006
"...between 15,000 and 70,000 local hospital doctors in 10 German states and 118 cities are participating in the biggest physicians’ strike for many decades."
Rome: Hospitals in chaos as doctors strike.
2007
"Five million appointments and 45,000 surgical procedures were postponed yesterday when Italian doctors staged a 24-hour strike over short-term employment contracts."
Enjoy socialism, America!
Buffalo Center, Iowa is sucking the life out of this country. There are 366 people or corporations receiving subsidies from 1995-2006. The top two:
D & J Winkleman Farms Inc Buffalo Center, IA 50424 $1,121,829.70
Howard Earl Julius Buffalo Center, IA 50424 $1,036,335.01
Remember, there are 364 others, including Raymond Smith. Thanks a lot, Mr. Harkin.
Joan, I even doubt the federal government is the best way to run a military. It is, however, the only viable option, since having a whole bunch of smaller militias run by, what, either smaller governments or private entities would put the lie to our being a republican nation-state at all. (And having the military answer to no higher authority - well. We, including the American military, know that's pretty darn bad.)
Polly, I was thinking of Patrick McManus, the outdoor humor writer. He claimed (tongue-in-cheek, one assumes) in one of his books to have made a professorial career out of pipe-smoking and two facial expressions: "thoughtful," and "bemused."
fls, that "'Do something' is a more appealing strategy than 'do nothing'" to you is revealing, but also probably perfectly natural given your law background. It doesn't actually hold water in many areas of life, though. In my garden, for instance: my soil isn't perfect, but adding lime to it would be terrible. My plants look good year after year with no amendments at all, and any amendments have to pass muster with our household budget. So why should I act just for the sake of action? (Imperfect analogy. Of course. But my point is that what you said is an aphorism, not a Higher Truth.)
Polish medics strike for pay rise.
May 2007
"About a third of Poland's public hospitals are taking part in the strike, seeking a 100% pay increase.
In those hospitals, only emergency services are being provided."
Work stoppages in Canada.
"Nationalization of the health industry also has led to increased centralization and politicization. Work stoppages by nurses and hospital workers have occurred half a dozen times over the last 20 years, and this does not include a few one-day strikes by doctors."
The Doctor is Out: Physician Participation in the Rationed Access Day Work Stoppage in British Columbia.
"In 1998/99, the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA) asked physicians to withdraw elective services on a series of 20 Rationed Access Days (RADs). This work stoppage was called to protest continued fee proration triggered by total physician billings exceeding a fixed budget cap."
I'm gonna start working on placards now. Maybe the SEIU has some extra ones we can use.
And what everyone should realize is that the "special circumstances" of the military are is that persons joining (or being drafted in the past) do is give up a number of their freedoms and constitutional rights for the duration.
I'm very pro-military and am not saying that this should be different... I'm just saying what is.
And while that might be appropriate for the military in order for the government and the services to run it halfway effectively that is not not not what we want for anything else.
We really don't.
I'm in one of those "swift kick in the pants" moods this morning.
The summit was political kabuki IMO.
As for me, I do hope the dems pass this monstrosity by hook or by crook (mostly by crook I suspect)
The fallout will come in November but I am also cynical enough to think the American people wont know or care.
Interesting times ahead.
Aside to Lem: tangerine is one of the great ones!
Oh yeah, and about using Austria's health care system as a model... are we sure it's scalable? Chicago's metro area has more people than the entire country. (And is more diverse.) Also, loath as I am to quote from Wikipedia: "In 2004, the [American] nonindustrial sector spent three times as much as Europe per capita on biomedical research." What happens globally when that spending goes away - even diminishes? Or do we plan to hold figurative guns to the heads of private biomed research organizations to get them to keep on producing? Or shall we just accept that the pace of biomed innovation will slow to a crawl?
I love the smell of doctor's union strikes in the morning.
You're on a roll this morning, Pogo. Good for you.
My guess is that this pas a deux was to guage public opinion in theh cold light on Monday mornings polling data. The vulnerable dems will be looking hard at that data.
JimB's comments re reconciliation are worth rereading for those who do not keep up with arcane congressional rules--Well done JimB
I'm with you Pogo. Monday morning I make a call to a concierge physician service to see if my practice will be suitable to convert into their model.
I agree that JimB's comment on reconciliation was very good.
I am unclear on a couple points though. Who appoints the senate parliamentarian? I assume this is a Dem staffer appointed by Reid. Why are we to trust an honest appraisal from such a source?
And isn't it true that the vice president can overrule the parliamentarian in his role as president of the senate? If that is true, why would we think that wouldn't happen here?
AllenS:
I am a data junkie. You found a ton of substantive data in less than 24 hours. Why? I guess it's because you ask questions, question authority, think for yourself and don't accept crap from anyone. Lying scoundrels like Sen. Harkin fear Americans like you.
Thanks.
DaveW: re parliamentarian, my (perhaps erroneous) understanding is there is in reality a parliamentarian staff and the lead parliamentarian will reflect the political affiliation of the majority. And I also understand the parliamentarian can be overriden by the presiding offcer, but the rules of "future payback" act as a check on either Dick Cheney or Joe Biden.
More specifically, AllenS how did you get that data?!
I want to do the same locally!
Here's the site:
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/index.php?key=nosign
Then you'll have to navigate to your state, then county...
I found this trying to find out how much my farmer neighbor was getting. Then, looking around, I started to notice that people that I knew, that had nothing more than a large lot, were also getting subsidies. It's a racket that is sucking the life out of this country.
The upside to doctors' unions, to the Dems, is that they will collect mandatory "fair share" fees from all of them and then funnel the dough back to the Dems' campaign coffers.
It's a brilliant campaign financing scheme, actually--the government pays you for a job with taxpayer money, the union skims off their percentage, then the pols skim off theirs. Bad for patient care--but good, very good, for Democrats.
5:25 of the Ryan video. As I thought yesterday, Obama's fippimg Ryan off.
The Repubs were definitely on-message, but Mathews & co mocked them for it.
Staying "on message" = recalcitrant. "Did you resolve your differences? No, we stayed on-message, damnit!"
If Austrian health care doesn't scale, if only countries of comparable size and population can be our models, I guess we'll have to settle for Red Chinese health care.
Very likely the cost of new drug development will have to be shared with everyone around the world who will benefit. But keeping drug companies doing R&D iswhy Obama cut the $80 billion deal with Big Pharma instead of trying to dicker them down to their Canadian (e.g.) pricing.
I wouldn't be too hard on Rep. Slaughter. First, "wearing your dead sister's dentures" indicates one's lack of disposable income, like "eating dog food for dinner."
But second, many people have come to believe that the mouth is actually part of the body.
Doctors in America don't unionize: they stop taking health insurance.
The first set of doctors that come together and say they will stop taking Medicare/Medicaid and LOWER their prices to ALL patients as they can get rid of the paperwork, overhead and low payment schedule of M/M will get noticed. One of the best doctors I know of locally stopped taking ALL insurance so he could reduce his staff as there were two doctors, two nurses and four secretaries handling insurance paperwork...and this was in 2006. As a specialist his prices are high, and he is recognized as one of the best in the area for his specialty. By getting rid of insurance paperwork he got rid of its overhead and could streamline his practice so he had time TO practice and NOT be on the phone constantly to insurance companies. When 1/3 of your day is taken up in non-productive talks with insurance companies, and 3/8 of your staff is dedicated to doing paperwork, the idea of chucking insurance and lowering your costs becomes very, very appealing. And I do not blame him one little bit and I'm glad he did the right thing so that he can now see more patients and help more people at a lower cost.
Really, fls? I'll bet that if Slaughter produced the woman her story was about, she'll turn out to be someone who has never worked a day in her life.
BTW, a significant amount of health care for the military and their dependents is done by civilian doctors via Tricare.
former law student said...
"US law is largely composed of the outcomes of random hard luck stories, so the professor's dismissal of such is a bit surprising."
If we want random hard luck stories from outside the US, we can look to Europe and people's treatment under public healthcare. :) There seems to be new ones every day... that or some class traitor comes to the US for care.
exhelodrvr1 said...
"BTW, a significant amount of health care for the military and their dependents is done by civilian doctors via Tricare."
A lot of people confuse the VA with active duty care. That and I'm not sure all the services handle active duty care the same. My brother was in the Army and they trained some people internally while a friend in the Navy said they sent people to public universities for medical training....
A Jacksonian said...
"One of the best doctors I know of locally stopped taking ALL insurance so he could reduce his staff as there were two doctors"
One of the best doctors I was a client of did that. He said you pay me in full and then you can file the claim with your insurance company / deal with the paperwork. It actually worked out fine.
When 1/3 of your day is taken up in non-productive talks with insurance companies, and 3/8 of your staff is dedicated to doing paperwork, the idea of chucking insurance and lowering your costs becomes very, very appealing.
And what precisely in the Republican health care proposal would fix this problem with the current health care system?
Changing to single-payer would minimize it, by having only one set of standards, and one approval/review body, and only one place to bill.
FLS - how about you and your socialist buddies stay the FUCK out of my business? If I want to deal with insurance companies that is none of YOUR fucking business!
Single-payer works so well for agribusiness.
You know what bothers me about this whole bullshit show that is called the health-care summit? Nobody, except me checked the validity of Harkin's statement. Nobody. I wish the Althouse Woman would give a h/t to Instapundit for further review. This needs some air. If I'm wrong, fine, bring the correction.
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