President Barack Obama hosting a bipartisan meeting on healthcare legislation at Blair House, across the street from the White House, with a few dozen members of Congress. {Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images)
Posted at 7 am EST, updated at 5:30 pm
President Barack Obama closed a bipartisan summit on healthcare today the way he opened it, with a speech about how much the Democrats and Republicans actually agree upon -- or should be able to agree on.
(Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)
It was an optimistic reading of a conference that was dramatic for its civility today, and equally dramatic for its divisions -- with the Democrats insisting upon the urgency of a comprehensive solution to the lack of health care for millions of Americans and rising costs for millions more and Republicans pleading to wipe the slate clean -- an Etch A Sketch, Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois called it -- and start from scratch.
"Baby steps don't get you to the place where people need to go,'' Obama said in his closing remarks at a conference ending now. "A step-by-step approach sounds good in theory,''' he said, but it will not address the many problems that conspire to drive up medical costs and prevent people from getting healthcare.
"I suspect that, if the Democrats and the administration were willing to start over and then adopt (House Republican Leader) John Boehner's bill, we'd get a whole bunch of Republican votes,'' Obama said. "I don't how many Democratic votes we'd get... The concern, I think, that a lot of colleagues in the House and Senate on the Democratic side have, is that after a year and half... (actually five decades, he said)... of dealing with this issue, starting over, they suspect, means not doing much.''
"If we can't close that gap,'' the president said, then there will be "a lot of arguments about procedures in Congress in moving forward... (Read: budget reconciliation, 51 Senate votes for passage of a final plan.)
"When I talk to the parents of children who don't have healthcare because they've got diabetes or they've got chronic heart disease or when I talk to small businesses that are laying off people because they can't afford health insurance, they don't want us to stop,'' Obama told the lawmakers. "They don't want to wait five decades....
"We cannot have another yearlong debate over this,'' the president said, asking all to search their souls and see if.there is something they can agree to in the next several weeks. "If we can't, then we've got to make some honest decisions,'' the president said, with an implicit promise to proceed with passage of a healthcare bill over the objections of Republicans, "and that's what elections are for.''
And the bipartisan summit is finished.
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
Seldom have so many lawmakers "behaved themselves'' for so long in front of television cameras, one lawmaker said near the close of a close-to-seven-overtime-hours-minus-the-lunch-break bipartisan session on healthcare at Blair House.
Seldom has so much dialog gone into changing so few minds.
When the day was done, President Barack Obama and a few dozen members of Congress of both parties, had drawn a neat little circle, concluding where they began.
Republicans are asking the president to turn over that Etch A Sketch which we all remember so well from our childhoods -- the dial-a-drawing machine that scrapes the magnetic dust from the inside of the screen. Shake it upside down and the screen goes gray again. But scrape it all the way, and the screen goes clear.
The GOP wants to shake the Etch A Sketch on healthcare reform and start from scratch, with the president suggesting that the Republican plan for solving the essential problem of health care, a lack of coverage for millions of Americans spiraling, government-sponsored costs for those who are covered, is a blank slate.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) broke out the opinion polls near the end of the meeting -- it's not even close, he said. "The solution is to put it on the shelf and to start over with a blank piece of paper to see what we can agree on.''
"I hear from constituents in every one of your districts, and every one of your states,'' Obama said -- suggesting that issue by issue, the proposals in the healthcare package actually poll well. "Your polls... are important in taking the temperature of the public... My hope had been, and continues to be, that based on this conversation, there might be enough areas of overlap that we could think about moving forward... without everybody just going to their corners and this ends up being a political fight.''
(Photo of President Barack Obama outside the bipartisan healthcare summit at Blair House today by J. Scott Applewhite / AP)
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, had an explanation of the GOP's position.
"Let's start over in the sense that we change the vision..." Barton said, "If we do that, we can make a deal."
"Start over," is the mantra of the day for the Republicans, most commonly articulated as a call that Congress return to a "blank piece of paper."
Blank sheets haven't just been waved at the summit -- they also were faxed last night to the offices of members of Congress, as part of a campaign organized by the Doctor Patient Medical Association, a group that opposes the heatlhcare bill.
-- Kim Geiger
* * * *
We're in the home stretch now, not far from the scheduled ending of the summit, which, incidentally, keeps getting pushed back because -- in classic Washington fashion -- not everyone has had a chance to speak.
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) has a fairly simple message for the group: the summit was a train to nowhere and the Democrats' bill is a dog.
Wait. Those are our metaphors. Roskam had plenty of his own.
He compared the bill to something thrown in "the microwave." Later he compared to something drawn on an Etch A Sketch. He said the problem with the bill was "the message," not the "messenger."
Roskam, who worked with Obama in the Illinois state Senate, suggested that the president had not come to Blair House to work out a compromise with the GOP. Instead, Roskam said, the president wanted to know, "what is it going to take for you Republicans to vote for my bill?"
The president's bill, he said, was like a microwaved dish with "a little salt, a little pepper, with some Republican bread crumbs on top."
But, he said, the bill's unpopularity with the GOP and the public wasn't Obama's fault, that Obama had sold the bill the best he could. "This is a problem with the message," he said, "not a problem with the messenger."
His constituents, he said, had turned against the bill theymore they heard about it. "They listened and they listened and they listened," Roskam said. "In my district, they've become increasingly disappointed with what they've seen come out of this process."
-- James Oliphant
* * * *
Abortion has made its way into the discussion.
House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio says the healthcare legislation, "for the first time in 30 years, allows for the taxpayer funding of abortions."
So, does it?
President Barack Obama's proposal is mum on the issue.
The Senate bill, on which the Obama plan is modeled, would require insurers to segregate funds that are used to pay for abortion coverage from those that are used to buy the policy itself. Under this system, consumers who receive federal subsidies for insurance would probably have to make a separate payment for the abortion portion of the policy. That payment would have to come from private funds -- some have suggested it would be as small as $1 a month.
Abortion was a hot topic in the House, which adopted what's now known as the 'Stupak Amendment.' Named for Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who proposed it, that provision prohibits consumers from purchasing a plan that covers abortion using federal subsidy dollars. Consumers can instead buy supplemental abortion coverage with their own funds.
Some could argue that because a low-income consumer gets a subsidy to help buy insurance, they are able to afford the cost of abortion coverage.
Rep. Jan Schakovsky (D-Ill.) and a group of pro-choice Democrats maintain that they won't vote for the final bill if it contains the Stupak amendment.
-- Kim Geiger
* * * *
For a bunch of elected politicians, President Barack Obama said today, they've done a pretty good job at the healthcare summit of keeping their remarks within check in front of television cameras and the meeting on time -- though the cable networks were starting to tune out this afternoon. Yet Obama has allowed two extensions now -- pushing the closing time of the Blair House meeting to 4:30 pm EST.
* * * *
The deeply-tanned Republican leader of the House, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, must have been biding his time, because he finally unleashed a broadside against the healthcare bill this afternoon. And if there was ever any question before whether there was an unbridgeable divide here between the two sides, Boehner put any lingering doubts to rest.
"This 2,700-page bill will bankrupt the country," Boehner declared. "This is a dangerous experiment."
He assailed the requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance as "unconstitutional." He warned the bill would result employers dumping health coverage, forcing employees to go to the new insurance exchanges.
"I could go and on and on," Boehner said. "Let's start with a clean sheet of paper." (We're five and a half-hours in, and we're pretty much where we were this morning, which is, basically: GOP: Start over. Democrats: No.)
Obama was clearly nonplussed with Boehner. "There are so many things you just said that people on this side would profoundly disagree with and based on my analysis is just not true," Obama said in the same sort of moderating tone he's tried to use all day.
Both in Baltimore last month and in the summit here, Obama has shown a willingness to critique Republican arguments in a way that drives many of his detractors crazy.
As our colleague Kim Geiger wrote earlier: He's the teacher, they're the unruly students. He'll judge whether an argument is legitimate rather than get into a scorched-earth exchange, sounding like he's above the fray.
Republicans call it lecturing. Democrats appreciate his restraint.
Call it what you will.
-- Jim Oliphant
* * * *
"Our job... is to listen,'' Rep. John Boehner said at the healthcare summit this afternoon. "The thing I've heard is... the American people want us to scrap this bill.''
Which meant that, less than an hour from the scheduled end of this daylong event, Republican leaders were saying pretty much the same thing that they were saying at the start of the conversation -- as was the host, President Barack Obama.
"Having the government take over healthcare, which I think this is, is a dangerous experiment,'' Boehner told the president. Obama maintains that it is not a government takeover -- so it's good that's all straightened out now.
(Photo of House Minority Leader John Boehner and Sen. John McCain -- told by the president today that "the election's over'' --' by Shawn Thew / Pool via Bloomberg)
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
Vice President Joe Biden knows what he thinks.
He thinks he knows what the American people think.
But he doesn't know, for sure, what people think -- Biden said so this afternoon at the healthcare summit. It takes a lot of "humility'' for anyone to suggest they do, he said.
Republicans think they know what Americans think -- and they've pointed to polls today showing that most people don't want what the Democrats are selling.
"The American people are engaged,'' said Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican arguing that the true costs of the president's healthcare bill go well beyond what even the Congressional Budget Office has found in its analysis of the congressional versions. "f you think they're calling for a government takeover of healthcare,'' the congressman told the president and vice president, "you're not listening.''
"I think I have a good feelng for what's out there in the grass roots,'' said Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who said he has held 32 town hall meetings and is fairly certain that people don't like the fact that, for the first time ever, the government is about to tell people there is something they have to buy -- health insurance.
(House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden are pictured in a photo by Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images)
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
The Republicans were slamming Democrats for fuzzy accounting.
Despite starting his soliloquy with agreeable words, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., then moved on to accuse Democrats of double-dipping by making cuts in Medicare to pay for their bill. (Ryan has a point -- in budgetary terms, cutting Medicare spending is not the same as, say, raising taxes to bring in revenue.)
And, he says they've disingenuously excluded a $371 billion (or $210 billion, depending on whose numbers are used) item to prevent looming cuts in doctors' payments. Congress legislatively ignores those cuts each year.
Another point of disagreement: Medicare Advantave, a private alternative to traditional Medicare that offers enrollees enhanced benefits. Democrats have targeted the program as bloated. Republicans say those cuts would come on the backs of seniors.
They'll continue to debate these points, but a resolution is unlikely and, frankly, moot.
"There really is a difference between us," Ryan said. "And it's basically this: We don't think the government should be in control of all this."
To be fair, both Medicare programs in question here -- Medicare Advantage, where Democrats want to make cuts, and Medicare Part D, where they propose to increase spending -- are programs that were created by a Republican Congress and president.
The problem with Part D, the prescription benefit, is they didn't pay for it, as Obama reminded some Republicans quick to say that they didn't vote for it.
-- Kim Geiger and James Oliphant
* * * *
Now came Vice President Joe Biden's turn -- to talk about the federal deficit, and how much money is wasted on healthcare.
The deficit is probably the area of greatest disagreement between the parties.
Earlier this morning, President Barack Obama said: "Almost all of the long-term deficit and debt that we face relates to the exploding cost of Medicare and Medicaid."
That's true, if you consider deficit projections over time. Medicare enrollment is expected to grow rapidly as more baby boomers reach the eligibility age of 65. Plus, people are living longer, and new, life-saving technologies are expensive.
Obama says his healthcare proposal would cost $950 billion, yet reduce the deficit by $100 billion over 10 years. That's partially because the plan would cut some spending in Medicare. Republicans want those savings to go back into the Medicare program, not to be used to pay for other elements of the bill. Biden said that, in addition to cutting waste, the plan does steer some of the savings back into Medicare, including the closure of that "doughnut hole'' in benefits for prescription drugs.
Then, Republicans don't want 'the bill' at all.
-- Kim Geiger
* * * *
"The Blair House Project'' -- not only Chris Matthews, of Hardball renown, was calling the bipartisan healthcare summit that today.
Like many on the sidelines of the summit, media observers such as Matthews were writing off the meeting as a theatrical event.
And by the time the summit resumed after a lunch break this afternoon, the main cable news networks also were starting to tune it out. Through the morning, FOX News Channel was paying closer attention to live coverage of the summit than CNN was, with CNN breaking away for commentary. But by the early afternoon, neither FOX nor CNN was providing gavel to gavel coverage anymore -- deferring instead to their own commentators. MSNBC was showing the winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. (Yet, we're showing MSNBC's live stream below.)
Back at Blair House, the summit went on.
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
As the second half of the healthcare summit got underway (we enjoyed that halftime performance by The Who, didn't you?), let's revisit what we said a few hours ago about winners and losers today. We wrote: "It's possible both sides can walk away with what they're looking for -- which isn't always the same as winning, of course."
Four hours in, it appears both sides are going to get what they wanted.
Democrats will argue that Republicans are obstructionists who aren't willing to engage on healthcare reform even, as the president has painstakingly outlined, when there is common ground. And if they don't want to work with us, they'll say, we don't have to work with them.
Hence: the stage will be set for reconciliation in the Senate, where Democrats can pass a healthcare bill with 51 votes. (It won't be a sweeping bill; That already has been passed by the Senate in December. It's more likely it will revise the Senate bill that will soon be passed by the House.)
(Senate Majoirty Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) turning to the left, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) turning to the right, in a photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)
Republicans will argue (indeed, they already are), that Democrats and the White House never acted in good faith in setting up this summit. That Obama ruined any chance for a new day on healthcare when he released his own blueprint this week that mirrored the existing Democratic bills. And that by not willing to junk those bills and start over, Obama was never serious about engaging Republicans.
So that's where things stand.
But even if Democrats make a case for moving forward with reconciliation, that won't be the same as convincing a skeptical public that this particular bill is desired. Consider the recent CNN poll which found that 25 percent of those surveyed say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chamberswith 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and one quarter saying Congress should stop all work on healthcare reform.
Such is the box that Democrats are in: A majority of Americans want reform, but not this reform necessarily. Will those feelings change after this summit? Recent history suggests they won't.
So indeed Obama could emerge from the summit having, in a sense, owned the room on healthcare, rebutting every Republican argument with some solid facts. But that may not make what may lie ahead any more popular with the American public. We may not truly be able to judge the winners and losers from today until 2010, 2012, or beyond.
-- James Oliphant
* * * *
After a break for lunch, President Barack Obama promised the members of Congress assembled for his healthcare summit that they would finish up by 4:15 pm today.
But that's only the beginnng of the battle: For all the suggestions by some, such as Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa at the start of the afternoon session, that the two parties may be a lot closer than they appear to be on healthcare, today's forum has served largely to showcase the divide between the parties.
It was good that they came together like this today, said Rep. Mke Enzi, an Arizona Republican. It should have happened about nine months ago, he suggested.
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
Almost three hours into the healthcare summit, Vice President Joe Biden could not hold his tongue any longer.
He blasted House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who has been using the 2,000-plus-page healthcare bill as a baseball bat to bludgeon President Barack Obama and the other Democrats.
Biden argued that there was no fundamental disagreement between Democrats and Republicans about insurance reform -- that the only question was the role of government in regulating the marketplace.
And, if Cantor was playing Al Capone in the bat-waving scene from "The Untouchables," the vice president found his inner Danny Ocean, hectoring Cantor and the GOP, saying: "You're either in or you're out!"
-- James Oliphant
* * * *
"The election's over,'' the president said -- to his election rival:
"Eight times (during the campaign) you said the healthcare negotiations would be conducted on C-SPAN,'' Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) today told his erstwhile adversary, President Barack Obama.
(Photo by President Obama by Pablo Martinez Monsivais (AP)
That time finally has come, McCain said at the televised heatlhcare summit today -- but unfortunately the legislation before them now is the product of months of backroom deals. That included an agreement reached early on at the White House with the pharmaceutical industry, McCain said in a highly pointed series of accusations.
"John....'' Obama said.
"May I just finish?'' McCain said. "When my constituents and Americans who now object to this proposal say they want us to go back to the beginning, they want us to go back to the beginning.''
That means going through the 2,400-page document and removing all the special provisions for special interests, McCain said.
"We're not campaigning anymore -- the election's over,'' Obama finally said.
"I'm reminded of that every day,'' McCain said with a laugh.
"We can have a debate about process, or we can have a debate about how we're going to help the American people,'' Obama told McCain. "The latter debate is the one they care about more.''
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
The president repeatedly is attempting to describe where Democrats and Republicans agree, even as Republicans argue, as Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona just has, that there are fundamental disagreements between them.
(Health care is complicated, the president said to repeated Republican references to the size of the legislation today. Photo by Shawn Thew / Pool /Getty Images)
Undeterred, Obama ticked off four areas of agreement:
- prohibiting insurers from dropping customers when they get sick
- extending dependent coverage for young people, allowing them to stay on family member's insurance plan
- no limits on the amount of health benefits people can consume under a plan in a year or in their lifetimes
- prohibiting insurers from discriminating against customers with preexisting medical conditions
Even if this is true, it's almost beside the point, as Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) is explaining. The underlying issue is the mechanism that is created to bring about these reforms. For example, Democrats argue that if insurers are forced to accept sick people, then the only way to keep insurance affordable for them and everybody else is by forcing young, healthy people to buy insurance through the individual mandate. The way to help those individuals buy insurance, he said, is through regulated exchanges.
Republicans appear to have no interest in setting up insurance exchanges, which is the centerpiece of the Democratic bill, or in expanding Medicaid for low-income people.
No doubt, some of the above could be done in a small-scale bill, but that arguably would do little to extend coverage to the tens of millions of Americans who currently don't have it.
The question is why Obama is so interested in telling the room (and America) where Democrats and Republicans agree -- even if they don't necessarily agree that they agree. Is it to paint Republicans as unreasonable? Is it to show the country that more of a consensus actually exists on reform than they believe?
-- James Oliphant
* * * *
Finally, in Washington: Agreement.
Rep. Charles Boustany, a Louisiana Republican and physician, told his Republican and Democratic colleagues at the healthcare summit today that the one thing everyone can agree on is that insurance companies shouldn't be able to simply drop people.
"That's a no-brainer,'' Boustany said.
Thirteen million people last year were denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) "This is a very important part of this discussion,'' he said. "I hear about this from the people I represent...''
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich) has been charged with addressing some cost containment issues, but he has, in some swift strokes, basically covered most of the vitriolic GOP attacks on the Democratic healthcare legislation.
(With President Barack Obama asking all to focus on their areas of agreement today, Republican leaders, from left, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.., arrived at Blair House carrying papers -- the one talking point that Rep. Dave Camp got inidsputably was the thickness of the Democrats' healthcare bill. (Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais) /AP)
In a few minutes, Camp, the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee:
1) said the bill costs "A trillion dollars." (Democrats argue that the bill pays for itself and cuts the deficit).
2) would be paid for by cutting Medicare benefits for seniors (Democrats say the bill cuts waste in Medicare).
3) is more than 1,500 pages long (granted).
4) would result in government-run healthcare via the insurance exchanges that forces Americans to carry insurance (Democrats counter that it sets up more competitive marketplaces).
Obama grew so weary of this that he cut Camp off, saying, "If every speaker on one side is going through saying what they don't like, it's going to be hard for us to reach agreements."
The latter isn't looking too promising at the moment.
By the way, Camp mentioned that tort reform, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would save $54 billion. Both sides are guilty of fuzzy math when it comes to healthcare, but when you hear numbers such as that, take it with a grain of salt.
Like most numbers bandied about, they cover a period of 10 years. That's how the CBO scores bills. So Camp is correct, except that aggressive tort reform would save $5.4 billion per year over 10 years. Whether that is significant or a drop in the bucket, obviously, depends on your point of view.
-- James Oliphant
* * * *
"You're right, there was an imbalance (of time) on the opening statements -- because I'm the president,'' President Barack Obama told Republicans counting the time for talk at the bipartisan healthcare summit today.
He hadn't counted himself in the Democratic and Republican back and forth -- but he also resisted attempts today to clock this session like a congressional hearing.
--- Mark Silva
* * * *
Square table. Round "doughnut hole.''
At the healthcare summit today, talking points continued to dominate the discussion -- so we'll take this time to explain one of them: the Medicare "doughnut hole."
(Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama sat at one side of the square table arrangement today. Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images.)
Under the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, seniors pay just 25 percent of the cost of their drugs, but only until they reach a threshold of $2,830. For drugs purchased beyond that level, seniors are on the hook for 100 percent of the cost. Medicare will again pick up a portion of the tab -- 95 percent -- once the beneficiary's costs have reached $4,550.
The "doughnut hole," or coverage gap betwen $2,830 and $4,550, is of great concern to seniors, who often skip pills or stop filling prescriptions once they're responsible for the entire cost.
The House healthcare bill would close that gap, as would President Barack Obama's proposal.
Democrats and Republicans alike have complained about the doughnut hole, so there really isn't much disagreement about closing it. That said, it's a popular topic, so prepare to hear more about it throughout the day.
-- Kim Geiger
* * * *
It's time to walk into the weeds a bit. We've hit the first discussion topic: Cost containment.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a physician, is making a case for cost containment focused on preventative care and medical malpractice reform. He is suggesting that healthcare costs could be shaved by a third if more attention is paid to creating incentives for doctors to treat patients in a more proactive way, limiting lawsuits, and eliminating waste in Medicare.
(President Barack Obama, challenged by Republicans today asking him to start from scratch on healthcare reform, listened and countered. Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais /AP)
He referred to the bank robber Willie Sutton, saying "Let's go where the money is."
He also is advocating better nutrition for children, which is something than everyone in the room would be happy to agree with.
The tort reform gambit was long expected. But the Democratic version of lawsuit reform in the current bills is nothing nearly as sweeping as what the Republicans desire. While many observers have suggested that Democrats could reach a compromise with Republicans on this issue, it would be unlikely to be as far-reaching as senators such as Coburn would like. And it's unlikely that such a deal, even if reached, would be sufficient to spur Republicans to support the overall legislation.
Obama countered by saying the Democratic bill is out to eliminate fraud and abuse in Medicare--in fact, the bill relies on those savings to help finance an expansion of coverage.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) agreed with Coburn that a third of healthcare dollars spent aren't being used "efficiently." And he agreed with Coburn saying that the bill needs to focus on "wellness" not "sickness."
But now he has shifted the discussion from talking about costs to the healthcare system to costs to the individual, focusing on establishing larger insurance-purchasing pools, capping out-of-pocket expenses, eliminating discrimination for preexisting conditions, and closing the Medicare "donut" hole. So, in a sense, Coburn and Hoyer are talking past each other.
And we've had our first "public option" sighting--a phrase we thought was on the list of verboten topics today.
-- James Oliphant
* * * *
Pay attention to the message behind the president's remarks.
Several times, he has signaled the duality at work in the room. He has been careful to advocate reaching a compromise, but has (realistically) also suggested that "the gulf" will be too large to bridge. In other words, he's giving everyone, Democrats and Republicans, an out. And right now, that gulf looks as broad as ever.
Remember too, that this summit is as much about transparency as it is about policy. Democrats have been stung by criticism that the healthcare bill in the Senate was the product of too many closed-door deals.
Six hours on cable TV is an attempt to remedy that.
After that, President Barack Obama and Democrats will be able to maintain that 1) they tried to reach a deal and 2) it took place in an open forum, in front of the American public. And that gets us back to "reconciliation'' -- the Senate Democratic strategy for passing a bill without the support of Republicans.
-- James Oliphant
* * * *
President Barack Obama asked for no "talking points'' today -- but rather an open discussion at the bipartisan healthcare summit at Blair House.
(President Obama with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner. Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images.)
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) faces a tough reelection race ahead. So it's no surprise that the Nevada senator jumped at the chance to talk about his home state -- and plainly said that he didn't want to talk about Washington.
Reid hit on the popular Democratic talking point -- the Medicare "donut hole," which affects senior citizens, a prominent voting bloc in his state. And he used constituent stories to illustrate his points, at one point referring to someone in Reno, Nev. getting, "jerked around by an insurance company."
But Reid couldn't help himself, and his comments eventually wound their way back to Washington. Reid took the opportunity to justify the use of reconciliation, a parliamentary sidestepping of the need for a supermajority to bring a bill to vote in the Senate. If Democrats are to pass a healthcare bill without Republican support, it's Reid who will be responsible for employing the controversial tactic.
So much for Obama's goal that the summit avert talking points.
-- Kim Geiger
* * * *
As the healthcare summit neared, Republicans worried that the event would be shaped to provide the kind of platform that President Barack Obama had a few weeks ago in Baltimore, where he stood on a stage in a hotel ballroom and fielded questions from GOP members of the House.
From a Republican perspective, the optics weren't great. Obama, literally, towered over the members, microphone in hand, standing throughout as the members were seated, conducting the session as if he were hosting his own version of Oprah, dominating the conversation. Now, at the summit, the president has signaled that he is reserving the right to counter Republican arguments as he sees fit, meaning that if he chooses so, he could again serve as a one-man counter-offensive.
(President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden walked from the White House to the nearby Blair House for the summit. Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA)
This time, of course, he's sitting down. But he knows no one is about to interrupt him. We'll watch how this dynamic plays out.
-- James Oliphant
(President Barack Obama is joined by (L-R): Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner. Photo by (Saul LOEB / AFP / Getty Images)
* * * *
The Republicans have tapped Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee to make the opening case for the GOP approach to healthcare reform.
It's a smart move on several levels. Alexander, a former presidential candidate, has been a governor and a former Cabinet secretary. Alexander has a homespun speaking style, someone who sounds less officious than Republican leaders Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Rep. John Boehner (Ohio).
Perhaps more importantly, Alexander is a fresh face in the debate, someone who hasn't dominated the airwaves over the past eight months.
To the extent that Americans have health-care overhaul fatigue syndrome (HCOFS), he may be someone they don't reflexively tune out. He has a reputation of being a senator who works across the aisle. His votes to confirm controversial nominees State Department adviser Harold Koh and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor are examples. But he has opposed the Democratic healthcare bill from the start and, to no one's surprise, he already has thrown down a marker on reconciliation. He's arguing that the Senate isn't meant to be governed by simple majority rule
. "We'll have to renounce jamming [the bill] through in a partisan way," Alexander said in the GOP's opening comments at the bipartisan healthcare summit. "The only thing bipartisan will be the opposition to the bill." He also, as expected, called upon Congress to start the process over "to earn the trust of the American people."
Obama smiled, his face in his hand, as Alexander spoke of starting from scratch. Alexander also is a classical and concert pianist, which could be helpful if things get slow.
People "don't have time for us to start over,'' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in the House's opening comments this morning.
-- James Oliphant and Mark Silva
* * * *
"You're entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts,'' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) bluntly told Alexander in his opening remarks.
The facts, Reid said, are that too many Americans are going without medical care. Elderly Americans are cutting their prescriptions to make them last longer, he said, again turning to his Republican colleague and saying, "Lamar, you're entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts.''
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
"I right now have as good health care as anyone could have -- I've got a doctor right downstairs,'' President Barack Obama told a roomful of congressional leaders this morning. But there are millions of Americans who do not have that care.
The president, wearing a blue tie, sat adjacent to the vice president, also wearing a blue tie, in a Blair House assembly of red and blue lawmakers asked to find as much of a bipartisan agreement as possible on healthcare in a daylong summit.
Obama read a roll call of Republican lawmakers and the concerns that they have expressed about the need for better health care -- "Mitch, you've said the need for reform is not in question,'' the president told Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell ( R-Ky.) "Here's the bottom line. We all know this is urgent.... But this became an ideological battle,'' Obama said, and "politics trumped common sense.''
The goal today, he said, is to "focus on where we agree.''
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
En route to Blair House, Obama greeted the press: "Hi, guys."
"Comment to make?'' one asked.
"Looking forward to listening,'' Obama said.
"Do you have a Plan B?'' a reporter asked.
"I've always got plans,'' Obama said.
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
Read more from the start of our day of live-blogging below.
The summit also is viewable here, in a live-stream from MSNBC:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The Garden Room of Blair House, the ceremonial White House guest-house across the street, is filling with a few dozen Democratic and Republican members of Congress awaiting President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for a televised healthcare summit running through 4 pm EST today.
Finally, the healthcare talks have gone to C-SPAN.
(The president walked to Blair House on a sunny morning with high winds predicted later today. Photo by Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images.)
Although this is the largest room in the Blair House complex, the assembled guests are seated tightly elbow to elbow around a square of tables approximately 25 by 25 feet.
A distinctive chandelier is suspended in the middle of the room. The president will be seated in front of a fireplace. The wall is decorated with a fresco painting in muted colors of an outdoor scene. The windows are shuttered.
-- Mark Silva
* * * *.
(Can you feel the rotation of the earth slowing?) The parties, the president, Democratic and Republican members of Congress, their staffs, are taking their places in a room that suspiciously resembles a conference room at an airport hotel.
We have six hours to go--a break for lunch notwithstanding. (The lunch is buffet-style, which allows for individual choice. No big-government mandates here.) But what should viewers expect? And what should they be looking for? Here are some questions that demand answers. And as they say in D.C., this is for guidance purposes only:
1. Will these be real negotiations or is this Kabuki theater?
Here's the most important point: None of this is new. Despite the assertion by the White House and Democrats that this summit marks a new phase of the healthcare debate, the bulk of the ideas have been around since last year. The players have been talking (or not talking as the case may be) for as long as a year. Even the plan set forth by President Obama earlier this week is largely a rehash of the bills that have already passed the House and Senate (insurance exchanges, expanded Medicaid, protecting consumers with preexisting conditions)--and the Republican concepts (tort reform, selling insurance across state lines) aren't fresh either.
2. What kind of deal could be struck?
Remember, none of this binding. Even if both sides were to make concessions--which is highly unlikely--there would be no formal commitment to act on them. In fact, multiple stories in the media today suggest that Democrats are already looking past this summit to final negotiations on the Hill as to what the ultimate package will entail. Moreover, the members in the room, especially the Republicans, aren't moderate deal-makers. Olympia Snowe was not invited. Instead, they're the ones who can make the GOP case to the American people that Congress needs to start over on healthcare. Hard to strike a deal, by the way, if that's the starting point.
3. Is this about winning?
Isn't everything in Washington? Here's the thing: it's possible both sides can walk away with what they're looking for--which isn't always the same as winning of course. President Obama and the Democrats are hoping to make a better case for reform than they have in the past eight months and paint the Republicans as lacking concrete ideas. Republicans are hoping that the continued focus on healthcare as the economy struggles will further the Democrats' downward slide in popularity among voters.
4. Who has more to lose?
You could argue the Democrats, because the GOP doesn't have that much at stake. If a bill ends up passing, the Republicans hope to use it as a millstone around the necks of Democratic candidates in this year's congressional elections. Democrats, on the other hand, have invested so much in this bill, and in this process, that failure doesn't seem to be a desirable option. Indeed, the White House has convinced Democrats on the Hill that, politically, not passing a bill at this point would be worse than passing one.
5. What's the endgame?
For Republicans, it's simple. Paint the president's plan as a big-government takeover that will bankrupt the country. (Expect the 2,000-word bill to be dropped with a thud on the table early on.) Democrats and the president need to convince a skeptical public that not only is an overhaul bill necessary--and that it won't explode the deficit---but that they should be entitled to ram part of the bill through the Senate using the reconciliation process, which requires a simple majority vote, rather than with 60 votes.
-- James Oliphan.
* * * *
As the healthcare summit gets underway, one of the House's leading Democrats insists that a package of some kind will pass -- and if a comprehensive plan cannot win the votes necessary, some limited plan still will be approved.
"Honestly, yes. That obviously is an option,'' House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said of a scaled-down bill in an interview this morning on FOX News' FOX & Friends.
"Hopefully we are going to move forward on a comprehensive package,'' Hoyer said, "but, honestly, I think the honest answer is that: if you can't do that, you don't simply want to give up."
The White House has maintained that the House and Senate have agreed on 95 percent of what's needed for the health-care reform that President Barack Obama is seeking -- and insists that a compromise on the rest still is possible.
"We passed a bill in the House and we passed a bill in the Senate,'' Hoyer said today. "We have gotten further than any point in time in history...the fact is we have gotten pretty far."
-- Mark Silva
* * * *
President Barack Obama takes a short walk across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Blair House today to host a bipartisan meeting on the "health reform legislation'' that he vows to win on Capitol Hill.
But it's a long way still to passage of that bill.
There will be a lot of talk around a square arrangement of tables about covering the many millions of Americans who lack healthcare insurance and improving coverage for those who have it - with the president, vice president and secretary of health and human services seated on one side of a hollow square and Republican and Democratic members of Congress seated around the other sides.
But there is unlikely to be much bipartisan agreement on a plan that the president is presenting today - and public expectations for an agreement are not running very high.
The Gallup Poll today shows marginal opposition to the plan the White House proposed this week, if there is not an agreement reached today - with 49 percent opposing passage and 42 percent opposing it. That poll also shows greater opposition - 52-39 percent - to the idea of the Democrats sidestepping a Republican filibuster of the bill with a budgetary maneuver, reconciliation.
Yet the president's allies in the Senate - as Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) explained in a National Public Radio interview this morning - are intent on passing the bill, with or without Republican support.
The proceedings will be televised - with cable networks providing full coverage and the White House streaming the daylong meeting at its Web-site. The meeting starts at 10 am EST and ends at 4 pm, with a walk back to the White House.
Our colleagues in the Tribune Washington Bureau will be reporting for The Swamp , providing us with live-blog coverage all day at this site.
The president will open with some comments, followed by Democratic and Republican opening statements. The discussion will center around four themes framed by the White House -- Controlling the cost of health care, with the president taking the lead, insurance reform, with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius leading the talk, reducing the deficit, led by Vice President Joe Biden, and expanding health care coverage, again led by the president.
There should be a full house at Blair House today. At the bipartisan table, the White House expects:
Sens. Harry Reid, D-NV, Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell R-KY, Republican Leader, Dick Durbin, D-IL, Majority Whip, Jon Kyl, R-AZ, Republican Whip, Max Baucus, D-MT, chairman of the Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley, R-IA, ranking member of the Finance Committee, Tom Harkin, D-IA, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Mike Enzi, R-WY, ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Chris Dodd, D-CT, member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Chuck Schumer, D-NY, Patty Murray, D-WA, Kent Conrad, D-ND, Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, Ron Wyden, D-OR, Lamar Alexander, R-TN, John Barrasso, R-WY, Tom Coburn, R-OK, and John McCain, R-AZ.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-MD, Majority Leader, John Boehner, R-OH, Republican Leader, James Clyburn, D-SC, Majority Whip, Eric Cantor, R-VA, Republican Whip, Charles Rangel, D-NY, chairman of the Ways and Committee, Dave Camp, R-MI, ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Henry Waxman, D-CA, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Joe Barton, R-TX, Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, George Miller, D-CA, Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, John Kline, R-MN, ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee, John Dingell, D-MI, chair emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Xavier Becerra, D-CA, Louise Slaughter, D-NY, Robert Andrews, D-NJ, Jim Cooper, D-TN, Paul Ryan, R-WI, Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, Charles Boustany, R-LA, and Peter Roskam, R-IL.
-- Mark Silva
Comments
Lets hope Neocon RINO marsha blackburn doesn't vote for this again:
Prescription Drug Benefit.
The final version (conference report) of H.R. 1 would create a prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. Beginning in 2006, prescription coverage would be available to seniors through private insurers for a monthly premium estimated at $35. There would be a $250 annual deductible, then 75 percent of drug costs up to $2,250 would be reimbursed. Drug costs greater than $2,250 would not be covered until out-ofpocket expenses exceeded $3,600, after which 95 percent of drug costs would be reimbursed. Low-income recipients would receive more subsidies than other seniors by paying lower premiums, having smaller deductibles, and making lower co-payments for each prescription. The total cost of the new prescription drug benefit would be limited to the $400 billion that Congress had budgeted earlier this year for the first 10 years of this new entitlement program. The House adopted the conference report on H.R. 1 on November 22, 2003 by a vote of 220 to 215 (Roll Call 669).
Marsha Blackburn Voted FOR this bill.
Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
See her unconstitutional votes at :
http://tinyurl.com/qhayna
Mickey
Posted by: mickey white | February 25, 2010 7:52 AM
I amazes me that these Democrats don't understand what "NO" means. They keep trying to push through this horrible healthcare bill that the majority of americans don't want. Never in my life have i seen a more arrogant bunch of politicians trying to push something we don't want because they think THEY know whats best for us. No more speeches, no more dog&pony "summits", no more trying to ram this through, we said NO!
Posted by: Dave | February 25, 2010 8:17 AM
First this will silence The Opposition on their short-sighted charge of transparency. Here is a case where President Obama does have the powers to establish the rules of engagement and there is transparency.
Secondly, let the nation see and hear those who, for the sake of President Obama's " Waterloo ", will continue to Obstruct under the guise of their having run out of tissue paper, or whatever excuse they will tout, today !!
My wish is that they, all of the elected officials, will accomplished something today, but I think we know, after 100 years of obfuscation and obstruction, the Healthcare Corporations have their ducks lined up.
If nothing else, it will show America, without an iota of doubt, that President Obama and Vice-President Biden have tried everything, short of abandoning their Democratic principles, which is what the Republican-Libertarian-T.Baggers are demanding, that all of their work with the Opposition, went for naught !! The Baggers went into the " summit " only to mask their desire to see President Obama and Vice-President Biden fail, despite their deafening cries, to the contrary !!
I hope I am completely wrong about the outcome of this " summit ", which wouldn't be the first, nor the last time, that would occur. I would be very happy to be wrong, but I am a realist and the Republicans are fighting for their Party's viability, which is predicated on President Obama's " Waterloo " !! I know, a very sorry state of affairs, for a once, great national Party.
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | February 25, 2010 8:53 AM
Although I, like a majority of my fellow Americans, would like to see some constructive bi-partisan progress on Health Reform, I am not very optimistic that anything will get done. The two major things most Americans want in Health Reform is doing away with the pre-existing conditions rule and control of costs which are hitting everybody big time in the pocketbook in insurance premiums. President Obama, and the Democratic Leadership and Republican Leadership, should center on those pressing issues that a majority of Americans want fixed. And they should forget about trying to cram a huge multi-trillion dollar Health Bill (most Americans are against-see today's CNN Poll) down the throats of the country. I believe a scaled back Health Bill that addresses controlling high costs of Health Care and Pre-existing conditions can get bi-partisan support. It is interesting that the major tax increases to pay for the current Obama Health Bill if passed will not kick in until 2018, two years after Obama's second term, assuming that he is reelected in 2012. That means that whoever gets elected President in 2018 will inherit huge budget deficits and major tax increases.
Posted by: Depot- Jim | February 25, 2010 9:37 AM
Way too many people there, should have been limited to six each
Posted by: Steve | February 25, 2010 10:11 AM
Is that Swamp "Live-blogging", or Swamp "Lib-blogging"?
Anyhow, here's some information the DNC Swamp and White House don't want you to know:
"The support/opposition split on the [Democrat] health care bill, according to various pollsters:
Rasmussen: 41/56
Newsweek: 40/49
Public Policy Polling: 39/50
Pew: 38/50
Quinnipiac: 35/54
Ipsos/McClatchy: 37/51
NBC/WSJ: 31/46
CNN: 38/58
NPR: 39/55
...President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid are sending a very important message to the American people: Shut up." [NRO]
Posted by: Equal time | February 25, 2010 10:17 AM
"I amazes me that these Democrats don't understand what "NO" means. They keep trying to push through this horrible healthcare bill that the majority of americans don't want. Never in my life have i seen a more arrogant bunch of politicians trying to push something we don't want because they think THEY know whats best for us. No more speeches, no more dog&pony "summits", no more trying to ram this through, we said NO! "
Posted by: Dave | February 25, 2010 8:17 AM
Fact is, most people want healthcare reform. People don't want to go bankrupt anymore if they get sick. Support for this would be much higher if there was a public option. Check the polls. Most Americans do want it.
Posted by: Chord | February 25, 2010 10:19 AM
EVEN FORMER KKK RACIST SAYS KEEP THE FILIBUSTER!!!!
Byrd: Keep the filibuster, but make 'em talk ... and talk ... and talk
.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2010/02/byrd-keep-the-filibuster-but-make-em-talk----and-talk----and-talk/1
Posted by: Mike Gramm | February 25, 2010 10:36 AM
Let's see if I got this right the loony liberals are going to try to pass their healthcare tax-and-spend bill would just 51 votes. Using a procedure that just a few years ago Obama called (his words )"an abomination" and Hillary said "unconstitutional". Back then the loony liberals were calling it the nuclear option. Go ahead and push the button because before this bill even makes it out of the court systems the Democrats will be swept out of office in November. You do not go against over 60% of the voting population and not pay a high price for your arrogance. And before you loony liberals post that the majority of the people want healthcare reform I will state that is true. But, they also do not want the current bill that the Liberals are trying to ram down our throats. Just a tidbit did you know that Government Motors is paying one executive $3000 an hour.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 25, 2010 10:37 AM
"Is that Swamp "Live-blogging", or Swamp "Lib-blogging"?
Anyhow, here's some information the DNC Swamp and White House don't want you to know:
"The support/opposition split on the [Democrat] health care bill, according to various pollsters:
Rasmussen: 41/56
Newsweek: 40/49
Public Policy Polling: 39/50
Pew: 38/50
Quinnipiac: 35/54
Ipsos/McClatchy: 37/51
NBC/WSJ: 31/46
CNN: 38/58
NPR: 39/55
...President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid are sending a very important message to the American people: Shut up." [NRO]"
Posted by: Equal time | February 25, 2010 10:17 AM
Nice try. But if they offered the public option, support for this bill would skyrocket. Check the polls on this.
The bill, as it stands now, is a start, but it's nowhere near what it should be. And that's what people who don't go to teabagging parties, are saying, in their support or disapproval of the current bill.
Posted by: Chord | February 25, 2010 10:38 AM
Who exactly is the "we" who have said no to healthcare reform? Last time I checked, only 56% of Americans have confidence in the US healthcare system. A majority, yes, but not a sweeping majority by any means. The World Health Organization ranked the US 37th in health care. We have the highest per-capita total health expenditures of most of those countries yet Americans report only average levels of health. Except for the US, the more money spent on health care in a country means better health for their citizens. Speaking from my own experience, my son was without healthcare insurance after college and before full-time employment. The policies available to him during that time were a joke with no incentive to seek care unless the situation was most dire, in which case he would have been bankrupted by a major health issue. A third of all young adults like him are without adequate health insurance. If they are the future of America, why aren't we taking care of them? You'll find other data if you do some research. I support the President and his efforts to improve this country's healthcare system.
Posted by: Joe | February 25, 2010 10:44 AM
Now 49 percent approve and 46 percent disapprove--a good trend and a good hallmark as Democrats try to push to finish the legislation
Posted by: TheSwampthing | February 25, 2010 10:45 AM
Bottom line at health summit: lots of smoke
.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Cue the cameras. President Barack Obama and his Republican arch foes will argue their case on health care overhaul at a bipartisan summit expected to stretch out for a solid six hours on live, daytime television Thursday for millions of Americans.
Expect them to collide, not come together. Without a no-nonsense referee to slam the gavel on mind-fogging jargon, not to mention apocalyptic rhetoric, some viewers might wish Judge Judy was presiding
Posted by: Mike Gramm | February 25, 2010 11:08 AM
A couple observations:
1) In the first Obama/GOP meeting "optics" was the least of the GOPs problems. Their arguments are bankrupt and the president methodically dissected and exposed GOP obstructionism for the political gamesmanship that it is. Sitting, standing or levitating in the air wouldn't have made a difference.
2) "Kabuki Theater" is an obvious talking point from the GOP brain-trust. It's not something that one normally hears, but suddenly every right-wing blowhard is repeating it like they came up with the clever use of the term all by themselves. Watch for it. It's everywhere.
Posted by: Quippy | February 25, 2010 11:10 AM
Yes, let the government control health care. They've done such a good job controlling the public schools and mass transit here in Chicago. I look forward to giving the govt my paycheck because I clearly don't know how to spend my own money.
Posted by: Gregory Meeks | February 25, 2010 11:11 AM
SO YOU REALLY WANT THE GOV'T TO RUN 1/6 OF THE ECONOMY? LOOK HOW WELL THEY DO IN HOUSING AND LOANS!
*
Government-Backed Freddie Mac Lost Nearly $26 Billion Last Year
ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports:
Government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac today reported a loss of $7.8 billion for the final three months of last year, with a total loss of $25.7 billion for the year overall.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/governmentbacked-freddie-mac-lost-nearly-26-billion-last-year.html
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | February 25, 2010 11:14 AM
Have the wingnuts ever stopped to think for a minute that the rest of the industrialized world is pullng farther, and faster ahead of the US? In combination with that thought, most of the industrialized world has single-payer systems for healthcare. Stop the BS that healthcare is socialism....the US is the black sheep right now. The US will get to sit on the sidelines as the rest of the industrialized nations dance in this new economy. BTW, Canada has a single-payer system; has insurance for all; has 1/3 the national debt/ person than the US; and typically balances their national budget every year. Oh, I forgot to mention, Canada is also very liberal. I hope the dems go to reconciliation and get onto the next pug disaster to fix.
Posted by: Xcellentform | February 25, 2010 11:21 AM
This is yet another Obama scam. Politico is reporting this morning that Dems intended all along to ram their massive healthcare takeover bill through Congress beginning Monday. Obama is a disaster.
Posted by: Jules | February 25, 2010 11:25 AM
I like how the good pug doctor gets on there and tells us that the "cure" is to eliminate the 1/3 waste in spending. Well, good doctor, let's do your math....1/3= 33%, and I have been hearing reports all week long of insurance companies jacking up their rates 100%, 200%, and 300%. How in the hell does the good doctor's advice save us money.....when you do the MATH.
Posted by: Xcellentform | February 25, 2010 11:29 AM
BM,
1. 1/6 of the economy is way TOO much for healthcare. With a sane system it would be lower.
2. Yes, I trust the gubbmint to run HC more than the privateers in the insurance syndicate. They are screwing us royally.
3. Without reform that 1/6 number is going to go much higher. (see 36% annual premium increases under your system)
4. Now, BM, here's some TP; Clean yourself up.
Posted by: Mr. Hankey | February 25, 2010 11:39 AM
New CNN poll out yesterday shows that only 25 percent of Americans want Democrats to pass their health bills. It is disgusting that Obama has spent the last year trying to ram this garbage down our throats. Obama is completely blinded by his ideology on his mission to creating his nanny state utopia -- with our money and freedoms -- where he will be the boy king. Obama is a disgrace.
Posted by: Derrick | February 25, 2010 11:56 AM
Mr. Oliphant, after a visit with my regular doctor (who is just a family practitioner) he told me he pays $40,000 a year in malpractice insurance here in Illinois. And he does nothing invasive. Obgyns have left Illinois for Wisconsin and their patients travel from Illinois to Wisconsin to see them because of the high cost of malpractice insurance. If someone in central and southern Illinois has head trauma, they have to be flown to Missouri or Kentucky because there are no doctors to treat them because of the high cost of malpractice insurance in Illinois.
Texas, on the other hand, has enacted Tort reform and hence, malpractice insurance has gone down and medical expenses have gone down.
But thanks for another example of "objective reporting" by the farces that claim to be journalists at the Chicago LIBune.
Posted by: John D | February 25, 2010 12:04 PM
actually, it's a word:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/preventative
Posted by: Mark Silva | February 25, 2010 12:19 PM
Looks like Mr. Silva must have obtained his journalism degree from somewhere other than LSU.
180 lbs. Oh that's rich.
hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
Posted by: PauloDTerriBobby | February 25, 2010 12:26 PM
For Eric Cantor to stand up and say the Republicans have always wanted Health Care Reform and want all Americans access to quality, low cost health care, is absolutely unbelievable.
Posted by: rick | February 25, 2010 12:43 PM
John, as usual, you are not only factually wrong, but you are guilty of trying to lead the flock of sheeple over the cliff. I am SURE IL has OBGYN's, and I am SURE the universities in central IL have a doctor that treats head trauma. I don't even have to attempt to fact-check your bullshit, as anyone with grey matter between the ears knows your wrong.
Posted by: Xcellentform | February 25, 2010 12:54 PM
The Exemplars of Obamacare
When plotting radical changes, government should always have a model, a fallback positioning to which it can point and say, “See! That’s what we’re doing or trying to do.”
As the president sits down with friend and foe for his scheduled six hour tête-à-tête, his nationally-televised pitch for his version of Obamacare, some related news on those exemplars has been gurgling to the surface.
First came Canadian Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams who effectively said to Health Canada, that country’s socialized health care system, fuggedaboudit. I want some real health care, down south in that barbaric nation, the United States.
Williams’ heart condition health issue doesn’t even seem to be life-threatening. However, he flew to Miami for treatment because, as he confessed, “This was my heart, my choice and my health. I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics:” http://bit.ly/bZkqTK
Put less diplomatically, Danny was saying that Canada’s health care system was fine for the peons but as for him, he preferred good health care.
If Premier Williams had any class . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1524)
Posted by: Berlet98 | February 25, 2010 1:08 PM
Preventative, as in preventative maintenance.
Like exercising and eating right so you don't end up looking like Rush Limpbag.
180 lbs
Oh, I can't stop laughing.
Posted by: LSU wants to know. | February 25, 2010 1:25 PM
rick
All you have to do is go to the website Open Congress and you will find quite a few bills introduced by Republicans relating to health care reform. And you also see that Republicans were first to introduce a reform bill. Plus you will see how the lunatic fringe would not allow any of these bills to leave committee and be put forth for debate. You keep eating up that loony liberal propaganda.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 25, 2010 1:25 PM
Obama is showing an impressive knowledge of all the details surrounding the issues and he's doing a good job talking through them. The Republicans for the most part are behaving well. They sound a little whiny, but they haven't been disrespectful yet. It would be a nice gesture for both sides to compromise on one little thing before the show is done.
Posted by: Mike_from_Chicago | February 25, 2010 1:30 PM
I didn't have to get too far into this "article" to know that I wasn't reading real news. By refuting Republican's points in parentheses with Dem's financial numbers, then claiming that all numbers listed by the Republicans should be "taken with a grain of salt", the authors have exposed their bias once again.
I will be seeking out other, more objective, reporting.
Posted by: independent thinker | February 25, 2010 1:33 PM
Too Little, Too Late, Too Cynical
.
What’s behind Obama sudden embrace of statesmanship?
The United States may very well owe a crushing $20 trillion by 2020. And thus President Obama last week named a bipartisan commission to find ways to address our national debt.
Such a Periclean response might sound sincere and worthwhile. But it comes 13 months into this administration — and only after Obama added nearly $1.5 trillion in new borrowing in 2009. And by the time the new deficit commission submits its recommendations at the end of this year, the current 2010 budget will have put us out another $1.5 trillion.
The president not that long ago ran on the theme of fiscal sobriety. During the 2008 campaign, he took advantage of the public anger over the Bush deficits that had climbed to an aggregate of $2.5 trillion over eight years. Now, though, he looks to trump Bush’s eight-year record of red ink in his first two years.
.
http://article.nationalreview.com/426058/too-little-too-late-too-cynical/victor-davis-hanson
Posted by: Mike Gramm | February 25, 2010 1:36 PM
Will Little Johnny D man-up admit that he was 100% wrong to make the statement that there is "no such word" as preventative? I doubt it, he seems retarded when it comes to his education level and ability to understand simple concepts such as fact and fiction.
Posted by: janet | February 25, 2010 1:37 PM
This question has been asked before, but I have not sen a satisfactory response: what is the constitutional authority for the fedral gov't to attempt to pass any laws controlling health care?
Posted by: dlk | February 25, 2010 1:37 PM
WOW LOONY LIB POTTY JOKES TO GO WITH THEIR POTTY MOUTH (AS IN RAHM THIS &*%%% THROUGH). HOW BORING AND PREDICTABLE . . .
*
The big bipartisan lie
*
If President Barack Obama really wanted to show he’s serious about winning over Republicans on health care reform, he could offer up some key concessions at Thursday’s summit, like caps on malpractice awards or allowing insurers to sell across state lines.
*
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33486.html
Posted by: Mike Gramm | February 25, 2010 1:38 PM
Why Dems' Health Care Bill is Stalled
By George Will
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/25/why_dems_health_care_bill_is_stalled.html
Posted by: I WANT LESS GOV'T!!!! | February 25, 2010 1:39 PM
GOPer's lie as a matter of routine....
For example, they get themselves booked on every Sunday talk show every single week and say they are fighting against HCR because they are representing the people. They claim HCR is wildly unpopular and they are only following the people's will.
It's a lie. Go to www.pollingreport.com and check out the healthcare section. Each component of HCR is wildly POPULAR. Both the recent Newsweek and Kaiser polls show that overwhelming majorities want an exchange to provide competition, and majorities also favor a public option.
Oh, but HCR legislation has been rejected by the people. So say the GOPers liars....
.
http://www.pollingreport.com/health.htm#C
.
GOPer's are scum, evil, and subhuman
Posted by: Patrick Jacoby | February 25, 2010 1:41 PM
wow....Captain B+ sure is awesome at setting up strawman arguments.
Aren't you, champ.
Posted by: Chris | February 25, 2010 1:42 PM
REPUBLICAN TIM PAWLENTY'S SOLUTION TO HEALTH CARE REFORM COSTS: "JUST LET EMERGENCY ROOM'S REFUSE PATIENTS"!!!
Yeah, policy-making is easy if you're a Republican. You just ignore reality.
Appearing on Fox News's "On the Record with Greta Van Sustren" last night, Republican Tim Pawlenty said the federal law that mandates Emerceny Room treatment should be repealed.
"Well, for one thing you could do is change the federal law so that not every Emergency Room is required to treat everybody who comes in the door, even if they have a minor condition," Pawlenty said. "They should be -- if you have a minor condition, instead of being at the really expensive Emergency Room, you should be at the primary care clinic."
*
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/83113-pawlenty-let-ers-turn-away-patients-to-cut-costs
*
For the record, federal law actually only requires Emergency Room's to provide treatment except for in real medical emergencies. They already can turn you away for minor conditions. So not only does Pawlenty not understand the real healthcare system crisis, he doesn't even understand current law.
*
http://www.insure.com/articles/healthinsurance/emergency-rights.html
*
Yeah, Pawlenty's pretty much right up there with Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney as 2012 Republican presidential nominee material, they're all a joke.
Posted by: Maxzine Halverson | February 25, 2010 1:43 PM
Social security-medicare-police & fire protection-municipal waste treatment and water-libraries-public schools-FDA-special assessments-road taxes So which one of these "evil" socialistic programs do Rethuglicans hate the most?
If America can $pend 3 trillion on wars, America can help it's own with health care.
*
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-22-2010/rage-within-the-machine---progressivism
*
Posted by: GrantR | February 25, 2010 1:46 PM
Republican Congressman who oppose universal health insurance should immediately relinquish their federal health insurance. After all, these members of Congress have long enjoyed taxpayer-funded health insurance, a privilege that they apparently believe tens of millions of working, uninsured Americans and their families don't deserve.
If Republicans don't think being uninsured is a big deal, then they should go right ahead and try it out. And if they really believe a public plan is such a bad option, maybe they can persuade their parents to give up Medicare too.
Posted by: Kenneth Ronson | February 25, 2010 1:48 PM
A USA Today/Gallup survey released Thursday found Americans tilt 49-42 against Democrats forging ahead by themselves without any GOP support. Opposition was even stronger to the idea of Senate Democrats using the special budget rules, with 52 percent opposed and 39 percent in favor.
Posted by: I WANT LESS GOV'T!!!! | February 25, 2010 1:49 PM
WAPO POLL: TWO THIRDS OF VOTERS SAY SCREW REPUBLICANS AND PASS COMPREHENSIVE HEATH CARE REFORM!!!
Obama and Congressional leaders will head into the healthcare summit (which Eric Cantor has agreed to) with some good polling backing them up for finishing the job, even without Republicans.
"Americans spread the blame when it comes to the lack of cooperation in Washington, and, in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, most want the two sides to keep working to pass comprehensive health-care reform. Nearly six in 10 in the new poll say the Republicans aren't doing enough to forge compromise with President Obama on important issues; more than four in 10 see Obama as doing too little to get GOP support. Among independents, 56 percent see the Republicans in Congress as too unbending and 50 percent say so of the president; 28 percent of independents say both sides are doing too little to find agreement."
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2010/02/americans_spread_the_blame_whe.html
*
WaPo can call that "spreading the blame," but with 58 percent saying the Republicans are resisting compromise, the summit can provide much needed clarity on where the hold up remains. At the same time, healthcare reform can't fail--this summit can't be used as an attempt to shift the blame to the Republicans and set up a failure. Too many people are counting on reform.
Posted by: RickyBobbie Mobbie | February 25, 2010 1:51 PM
Health insurance is a racket, run by racketeers! They should all be put behind bars like Madoff! Company's should not be allowed these exhorbitant profits off of peoples health problems. The insurance company dictates whether you will recieve the proceedure, will get insurance, or how much treatment you will be intitled to. This country is screwed, until the health insurance company's are put out of business. Sell me accident, auto, life or property insurance not health insurance. Republicans and their idiot Teabagger shills can all go and get f@#$ed. They all are creating a monsterous windfall for the health insurance industry!
Posted by: Annie | February 25, 2010 1:54 PM
berlet98.....if you lived in Canada, you would be reading a different story. The provinences of Newfoundland and Labradore COMBINED, have a population of half of Rhode Island, not to mention being well isolated from any of Canada's larger cities. Their second largest city ihas a population of 24,000. You are refering to a rare heart procedure, that he would have to be traveling for anyways. The heart procedure, is also provided by many doctors in Canada, but is rarely done because it's only benefit is for a slight decrease in recovery time. Way to take a mole hill and (along with the pug propogandists) make a mountain of cards out of it. When will you guys start thinking independently for a change?
Posted by: xcellentform | February 25, 2010 1:55 PM
101,000 Americans die UNNECESSARILY each year because of lack of access to basic medical care that they would get in most other industrialized nations.
.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/In-the-Literature/2008/Jan/Measuring-the-Health-of-Nations--Updating-an-Earlier-Analysis.aspx
And believe me, if there were any polls favorable to the Republican cause of denying healthcare to everyone, the Republican minions would be linking to them all day long. Instead, all they have is a handfull of anecdotes that they get from Druggy Rush and that clown Glenn Beck etc.
Posted by: Sergio R | February 25, 2010 1:56 PM
The boy president has overreached again. He must go.
Posted by: roundlaketom | February 25, 2010 1:59 PM
Obama should just wear a championship belt to remind everyone that he won the election. He put McCain in the Figure Four and won the election with 100% of the vote. Health care is overrated. If everyone just wrestled everyday, we'd be fine. I can't wait for the day when I receive an email from the govt telling me what to do that day. Until then Woo!
Posted by: Ric Flair | February 25, 2010 2:13 PM
Mark, preventative is a bastardized version of preventive, considered the corrupt form of the word:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pre3.htm
Regarding health care in Illinois:
Loons, nowhere did I say that OBGYNs were no longer in the state. I just noted that many have left.
Regarding neurosurgeons:
http://www.illinoisneurosurgicalsociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17
http://thesouthern.com/news/article_140028bd-aa8e-5a3b-a3be-f9bf29f15358.html
And from this article, comes this:
Normally, attracting one brain surgeon to a city ready and willing to host as many as three isn't difficult. But, Maroney said, the prospective doctor made it clear why he chose South Dakota over Southern Illinois as his next place to practice.
"He basically said everything is wonderful, except for one thing, and that is medical malpractice," Maroney said.
Since the mid 2000s, ONE has been hired:
http://thesouthern.com/news/article_db619617-f83c-5602-a5d5-d805b1ea0aa7.html
And from this article:
Memorial Hospital had been without a neurosurgeon for two years. Since the last neurosurgeon left, most patients have had to go to St. Louis, Paducah or Cape Girardeau to receive treatment, Jones said.
As usual, John D = 3
Mark Silva = .5 (preventative is acceptable, most word people consider preventive the proper use of the word)
Worthless Loons = 0
By the way, NonXcellentform, my "bulls---" is fine. Yours, on the other hand, is not.
It is so nice to see that the hypocritical standards of the Swamp continue.
Posted by: John D | February 25, 2010 2:14 PM
BOEHNER LOOKS LIKE HE GOT FRESHLY SPRAY-TANNED THIS MORNING!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCqQRflUWd4
*
Posted by: betterthanbefore | February 25, 2010 2:15 PM
UP OR DOWN VOTE!
Posted by: health care reform | February 25, 2010 2:16 PM
The GOP's base is too-- how do I put this kindly? oh screw it-- IGNORANT to hear complex arguments against regulating the insurance industry. So they just say "socialism!" Then the tiny light bulbs come on.
But President Obama sees what they are really arguing-- and this is what makes him different. He can see an argument with which he disagrees and articulate it in non-demonizing terms. Understand-- describe-- reject.
Posted by: Larry Woods | February 25, 2010 2:19 PM
"Ramming this bill through"? What is the crazy Republican party talking about this time? We have been debating this thing almost literally to death for a year, now. The American people are sick and tired of the usual Republican lying and fear-mongering and want us to pass a bill, already.
And by the way, Old Man McCain is acting like a pathetic loser today.....again.
Posted by: Thank god I'm NOT a Conservative | February 25, 2010 2:24 PM
The Republican Party Just Lost The Teabagger Cretins.
Where's the screaming about Socialism, Aushwitz, and revolution?
The Repugs don't have the balls to say any of that crap to President Obama himself.
Posted by: Laura Shawl | February 25, 2010 2:31 PM
The Republicans have become full fledged Fascists. They'll do and say anything to keep Dems from governing this country.
Cantor thinks that people suffering from the health care status quo is just "alleged" anyway, so the GOP simply doesn't care about anything but taking partisan slaps at President Obama, even as he has his hands extended to work with anyone.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnBx1B2Hz_w
.
Posted by: over do it and have a fit | February 25, 2010 2:42 PM
INSANE QUOTE OF THE YEAR: "...PEOPLE WHO ARE ALLEGEDLY WRONGED BY OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM..." - ERIC CANTOR
These right wing mouth-breathers are insane. If anything proves that they're not coming to this summit in good faith, it's what Eric Cantor (R-Oblivious) just said. He claims that we can all "read letters by constituents who are allegedly wronged by our health care system."
I can't even tell you how much arrogance it must have taken to say that. If there's any justice in this world, that quote will be used in ads to take down these people in 2010 and 2012.
It's as if Cantor doesn't even believe his constituents who tell him they're wronged by their health insurance companies. Not only that, but it's bafflingly fucking strange that he would say that they can all point to constituents complaints to justify government action. That is their JOB. They're SUPPOSED to do what their constituents want!
This one quote tells everyone that they are not being listened to. Their complaints are merely alleged and their real life troubles are nothing more than props. The real suffering they deal with every day, the pain, the bankruptcy, the loss of money, sometimes even the onset of health problems due to inability to afford insurance in the first place, those are merely alleged.
They MIGHT be true.
Screwing over everyone with pre-existing conditions, everyone who has had acne, people who have been raped. All pre-existing conditions. You can be denied insurance for this.
"Allegedly."
Then there's the billion dollars of "alleged" profits the health insurance industry rakes in. Along with the millions of dollars of "alleged" lobbying that insurance does in Congress to make sure the American people are "allegedly" screwed over. There's the "alleged" eight health insurance lobbyists for every member of Congress.
Then I guess you have the "alleged" poor people who are currently unable to afford insurance. And you have the "alleged" employers who refuse to pay it.
These constituents with their "alleged" debt-inducing medical bills they'll never pay off before they die, they're just not that important.
Apparently though, Cantor and the Republicans take the alleged hurt to the health insurance industry a lot more seriously. They don't use words like "alleged" when referring to possible loss of profits. They didn't use words like "alleged" back when they were discussing a public option and how it would kill private industry. They didn't say "alleged" death panels.
.
http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002583/
No, those are all real.
The only "alleged" complaints are those of real Americans.
Posted by: former Republican | February 25, 2010 2:54 PM
It's days like today that make me happy I'm not a Democrat. Biden speaking in absolutes is terrifying. May as well call him Lord Vader soon enough. And the author turned President acting like he's better than everyone. I'm sure he looks in the mirror everyday and the first words in his mouth are "I won." Guess what pal, in 2012 you'll be looking for a new job, and this time you won't have cronies knocking people of the ballot for you because you can't win a fair election. Remember when your boy Axelrod opened up Jack Ryan's sealed court documents. That was a day that America died a little.
Posted by: Ax N Smach | February 25, 2010 2:57 PM
I'm the pre-existing condition in Democrats that cause them not to have health insurance.
Posted by: Brain Damage | February 25, 2010 3:02 PM
The Repubs sound like whiny children and Pres Obama and the Dems sound patient and informed. The Repubs complain about "lecturing"..if one of them ever bothered to read the damn thing they just might know what they're talking about. Failing that, they have no option but to sound stupid and petulant.
This is yet another public exposure of the GOP - in a POLICY debate - doing nothing but what they do all the time - Propangandized Talking Points and Frank Luntz phrases. They haven't presented a single idea from what I've seen - and the Dems listening to them and gently countering them when they get the facts wrong is making them come out on top, as expected.
Posted by: Dino Verino | February 25, 2010 3:03 PM
Johnny dishrag, here is a link of IL neurosurgions for your enlightenment....I'll let you count how many are in central and southern IL. http://www.healthgrades.com/local-doctors-directory/by-specialty/neurosurgery/illinois-il
If you re-read your original comment, you did indeed state that all OBGYN's had left the state. For your english lesson of the day, maybe you meant to say many are "leaving" the state, but of course, that is not what you haphazardly typed in your rant to try and make your point. In your self-appointed scoring system, does a 3 get you a twinky?
Posted by: Xcellentform | February 25, 2010 3:14 PM
Teabaggers: White Dudes In Midlife Crisis Mode
"The tea party is a harbinger of midlife crisis, not political crisis. For men of a certain age, it offers a counterculture experience familiar from adolescence -- underground radio, esoteric tracts, consciousness-raising teach-ins and rallies replete with extroverted behavior to shock the squares -- all paid for with ample cash."
"They are essentially replaying the '60s protest paradigm. (We're aging boomers ourselves, so we know it when we see it.) They fancy themselves the vanguard of a revolution, when in fact they are typical self-absorbed, privileged children used to having their way -- now -- and uninhibited about complaining loudly when they don't. It's the same demographic Spiro Agnew called "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ellis25-2010feb25,0,3374643.story
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Posted by: Crazy Teabaggers = Ordinary Average Republican Voters | February 25, 2010 3:23 PM
If the arrogant liar in chief really wanted repub input, he wouldn't have brought out his plan just prior to this staged event. 75% of Americans either don't want this bill or don't want any reform at all (CNN and other polls).
After getting slapped down by Cantor it was good theater to watch the inexperienced man child stammer around his responses. Of course all of this will be as successful as all the other "summits" this elitist arrogant lib has held. Hey, how are the cost cutting measures coming along? Curious that no one came up with cutting $500B in fraud. Its been a year now and suddenly the government is going to cut fraud? How about you prove that you've reduced the fraud by $500B then we discuss whether to return it to the people or use it for a government takeover of healthcare.
You might like to hear yourself lie to the American people but except for the braindead that keep posting the same crap regardless of the lib topic of the day, the people aren't buying what you are selling.
Posted by: Hans | February 25, 2010 3:24 PM
Can anyone imagine W. presiding over this thing? Good grief.
And Boehner, Cantor and McConnell are showing they are good for nothing more than a partisan right wing sound bites for the evening news. That's the extent of their role. Just so happens they are the "leaders" of the (R) party in their respective body of Congress....sheesh.
Posted by: Zeke Carlson | February 25, 2010 3:32 PM
DAILY KOS THAT'S RICH!!!!
WELCOME TO NATIONAL POLITICS, CHICAGO-STYLE
WH Offered Martinez Stimulus Deal, Bribe
Martinez (R-FL) could have named his price for his vote on last year's stimulus bill, but he told the Obama admin there was nothing he wanted.
In an interview as he waited to catch a flight, Martinez said he could have had his own Cornhusker kickback, the derisive name GOPers have given to a deal cut with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) in exchange for Nelson's vote on health reform legislation.
During negotiations over the stimulus bill, Martinez said the WH asked him, "What do you have to have?"
"But I didn't have to have anything," he said he responded. "I didn't want anything. I wanted a better bill." Martinez said the talks were disillusioning when it came down to "how can we bribe you" for a vote. "So I walked away from the table," he said, and added that it made him wonder, "What difference do I make?"
A spokesman for the WH acknowledged an inquiry but did not comment, as did a spokesman for Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid.
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/02/wh_offered_mart.php
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | February 25, 2010 3:33 PM
Dems moving through 5 stages of grief over rise of the tea parties
.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/02/dems_moving_through_5_stages_o.html
Posted by: I WANT LESS GOV'T!!!! | February 25, 2010 3:35 PM
Today's GOP would willing JOIN Hitler's Axis.
The GOPer's like torture and killing suspects and secret prisons and show trials and demonizing everyone they disagree with, including every minority but the ones THEY belong to...
And everybody's a terrorist. Everybody!....that they don't like,
It's true. Today's GOP lies even more than Goebbels, who knew that you HAVE to tell the truth MOST OF THE TIME to get them to believe the lies. Today's GOP doesn't even bother.
And they don't have to. Talk about the easiest job in the world...
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCLz7XQOIOQ
.
Posted by: What's the Frequency, GOPer's? | February 25, 2010 3:40 PM
I think Boner is the second most polarizing person in the US behind Palin. Everytime he talks I want to vomit. That man is the perfect pug to put up on a stand.
Posted by: Xcellentform | February 25, 2010 3:45 PM
Danny Williams, the premier of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, traveled to the United States earlier this month to undergo heart valve surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. With his trip, Williams joined a long list of Canadians who have decided that they prefer American medicine to their own country's government-run health system when their lives are on the line.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/25/EDVV1C6HTS.DTL#ixzz0gaB5rXde
Posted by: Steve Lobber | February 25, 2010 3:52 PM
Republicans are spending every ounce of their breath saying some combination of the following bs:
1) Start over
2) Your plan isn't popular
3) We've got a plan too
Here's the thing about #2 and #3: to the extent that they're true, their plan is less popular than the Democratic plan. Much less popular. People may not like the bills passed by the House and Senate (Congress is never popular), but even now, they still trust President Obama over Republicans on health care -- and by a wide margin.
.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/11/disaffected-public-still-sides-with-obama-more-than-the-republic/
Nothing Republicans can say today will change that. Odds are, they'll just be making things worse for themselves.
Posted by: Planet Wingnuttia | February 25, 2010 3:58 PM
In the meeting, the Reps are cleaning the clock of Obama and the Dems on substance. The Dem strategy is to try to show that there is so much Rep agreement on basics that there is no basis to vote against the bill. The Reps came with specifics proving that the bill will raise our costs without helping and gave specific alternatives. The emerging philosophical difference is between Washington controlling everything in health care with one size fits all heavy handed mandates, throwing huge funds at every goodie, and small effective changes involving patient choice. The Dems came shovel ready with heart rending stories, and the Reps came with solutions, specifics, and facts. On a personal note, I find it disheartening that there were so much heart rending stories, yet the funding of baby killing through abortion was not denounced.
Posted by: Edward Carl Grund | February 25, 2010 4:06 PM
I think Waxman is the second most polarizing person in the US behind Polosi. Everytime he talks I want to vomit. That man is the perfect rat to put up on a stand.
Posted by: Chris | February 25, 2010 4:06 PM
If we want to rationally and reasonably discuss the issues, could posters at least refrain from posting news articles that are more than 5 years old? It would seem logical that the situations regarding how many ob/gyn's or neurosurgeons has changed dramatically since Jan, 2005.
Posted by: dlk | February 25, 2010 4:17 PM
Bait and Switch, Bait and Switch. The GOP are a bunch of psycho used car salesman. They are hucksters who are wholly owned by the corporate insurance companies.
The Repugs want SO BADLY to make this a controlled, formal, BS politically controlled debate so they can just huff and puff and throw out their already debunked talking points.
And Pres Obama and the Dems want it to be .... you know .... people talking.
It only works for the Repugs if they can have certain Rules of Order to protect them from looking like clowns.
Posted by: MattinOHIO | February 25, 2010 4:24 PM
dlk, John is now crying in the corner again, but if he posted again, I was going to point out the obvious hypocracy of a guy that denounces the media, and then using a media source to make a point....which was easily dispoven by doing a doctor search of IL.
Posted by: xcellentform | February 25, 2010 4:28 PM
Give them enough rope.....
I knew that if the Dems gave Republicans enough time to spew their venom, it would come back and bite them. Boehner gets smacked down with each of his talking points highlighted by Pres Obama. John Barrasso [R-WY] gets jacked for thinking that all Americans are Canadian premiers or members of parliament.
This is the problem with Republicans (one of the many): they don't see middle class people at all -- they just use that term like a throwaway term, just like everything else like freedom and reform and "listening to our constituents."
Posted by: Giles Giesking | February 25, 2010 4:36 PM
Did the Dems have a bet going on who was going to tell the saddest story or something?
It just goes to show that it's just an emotional issue for them. They cannot present logical arguments for HC savings or cost reductions, but they sure know how to tug at a liberal's heart-strings.
Posted by: Chris | February 25, 2010 4:51 PM
The entire Republican party is comprised of ideological tools who want to sacrifice everything in the name of their Frank Luntz created "talking points" (and they're not even creative ones at that).
The Rethugs just dealt themselves out of this, so screw'em. Time to shove everything we can down their lying right wing throats with the 50 votes we have (+ Biden=51) using reconciliation. Like a not-for-profit option run by the government just like Medicare, so nobody is forced into becoming the customer of a corporate predator.
The GOP Has A Convenient Memory Loss In Regards To Reconciliation Usage
Despite Their Current Rhetoric, GOP Summit/Health Care Reform Attendees Have Supported Reconciliation Many Times In The Past Few Years
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http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/201002250003
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Posted by: Repugs are liars | February 25, 2010 5:05 PM
So, it appears there are now a handful of neurosurgeons in central and southern Illinois. Does not alter tha fact, loons, that there is malpractice insurance problem in the medical field and in Illinois. And until 2008 there were NO neurosurgeons south of Interstate 64. Everything I said was factual as the links attested to.
In regard to the OBGYNs, I did say they have left the state,which is true. "Obgyn's have left the state," is what I wrote. Obgyns have left the state. That does not say ALL have left the state.
Anyway, here are some more facts for the worthless loons to chew on:
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/malprDact.htm
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/health/2561.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/us/05doctors.html
http://www.ihatoday.org/issues/liability/toolkit/facts.html
And from that piece comes this:
•Illinois is one of the top three states in the nation with the highest medical liability insurance premiums for physicians practicing internal medicine, OB/GYN, and general surgery.
•Illinois OB/GYNs pay as much as $230,428 annually for liability coverage. Equivalent coverage is available for less than $60,000 in Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Hmmmm, seems the Loons from the Left lose again. What new??
Posted by: John D | February 25, 2010 5:16 PM
The GOP did VERY well today. Obama looked like a peeved, cranky child who ate too many prunes -- plus, my God is he churlish. GOP was not the party of no -- they cameprepared, had good points, had plans -- and the Dems? Well, they had sad stories. Sad stories do not a plan make.
Posted by: Beth | February 25, 2010 5:21 PM
As our elected Democratic and Republican leaders, including the President, in Washington point their fingers at each other and play the blame game, this also includes the Left Wing Crazies and Right Wing Fanatics with their sometimes hateful posts on this blog, nothing gets accomplished. Most Americans, including myself, want Health Reform. But we do not want a huge multi-trillion dollar Heath Bill enacted in these bad economic times. A majority of Americans want the issues of pre-exisitng conditions, streamlining claims and controlling the ever rising Health Costs and Insurance Premiums addressed. I wish our President and the Democratic and Republican Leaders would put their Huge Egos aside and pass a real Health reform Bill that will control costs and premiums and pre-existing conditions. Unfortunately our elected leaders seem Not to be listening to what the country wants.
Posted by: Depot- Jim | February 25, 2010 5:26 PM
President Obama has been charitable thus far in claiming that there are "philosophical" differences between the parties. From out here, it looks more like a visceral hatred for government on the part of Republicans rather than a real intellectual argument. That's a divide that can't be bridged. Because Republicans continue to just lie, whether it's about process (see reconciliation) or the CBO reports on the existing plan.
Posted by: Janeen Vogeler | February 25, 2010 5:30 PM
I believe everyone in this country realizes we need some sort of "reform," however, majority of Americans do NOT approve of the current bill. Furthermore, I believe to achieve reform, we should take small steps to achieve our goals, instead of a $1 trillion bill.
For example, why are we not enacting Tort Reform. Check out this article:
http://thomsonreuters.com/content/press_room/tsh/waste_US_healthcare_system
Healthcare waste is $700 billion/year and tort reform would take care of 40% of that.
Here are some of the study's key findings:
* Unnecessary Care (40% of healthcare waste): Unwarranted treatment, such as the over-use of antibiotics and the use of diagnostic lab tests to protect against malpractice exposure, accounts for $250 billion to $325 billion in annual healthcare spending.
* Fraud (19% of healthcare waste): Healthcare fraud costs $125 billion to $175 billion each year, manifesting itself in everything from fraudulent Medicare claims to kickbacks for referrals for unnecessary services.
* Administrative Inefficiency (17% of healthcare waste): The large volume of redundant paperwork in the U.S healthcare system accounts for $100 billion to $150 billion in spending annually.
-----
If you look at the 2nd point, fraud accounts for a lot of wasteful spending through medicare. Just imagine the fraud with a government run system without first addressing this issue.
In summary, two ways to start healthcare reform with no tax payer money:
1. Tort Reform (save 40% of $700 billion waste)
2. Insurance Across State lines (promote true competition - like auto insurance)
Posted by: Chad | February 25, 2010 5:31 PM
If we're going to note that Boehner is "deeply-tanned", why not mention Obama's dye job, Pelosi's plastic surgery or Biden's hair plugs?
Posted by: CWM | February 25, 2010 5:31 PM
Obama Speaks! The Fundamentals! The Fundamentals! Can we learn a new world GOP! What's the game plan! John! John! The campaign is over and so is the election! The Fundamentals! The Fundamentals! Back to 30 million people without YO CARE! GOP CARE! John! John! In your state you have 10% unemployed and 200,000 without healthcare! So the "fundamentals of no health care in Arizona is what?" John! John! Well to the entire Post Bush "reconciliated" Theft by Deception Axis of Evil! The "campaign is over" and so is the "election." John! John! Baby steps! Baby steps! 3 million covered in your Theft by Deception No Healthcare for you! Just the Rich! Just you! Baby steps! Babys steps! Start over! Start over! Boehner! Boehner! Starting over is weak! Obstructionist! John! John! Mitch! We agree not to disagree! Starting over is not an option! The campaign is over, and so is the election! Mitch! Boehner! John/Jon!
Long Live Nancy Pelosi!
Long Live Barack Obama!
Long Live the Democratic Party! Starting over is not an option! See ya in November!
Posted by: Roger Morris | February 25, 2010 5:50 PM
The Bottom line problem with negotiating with Republicans:
They make claims that aren't true, and after being corrected, they repeat those claims again anyway.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_02/022587.php
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Posted by: Ted | February 25, 2010 5:53 PM
Obama is showing an impressive knowledge of all the details surrounding the issues and he's doing a good job talking through them. The Republicans for the most part are behaving well. They sound a little whiny, but they haven't been disrespectful yet. It would be a nice gesture for both sides to compromise on one little thing before the show is done.
Posted by: Mike_from_Chicago | February 25, 2010 5:56 PM
The Republicans made clear that they were not showing up to negotiate or discuss policy in good faith - they only want to pose for the TV cameras and make a public case that the Democrats' bill is satanic/deadly/kills granny/will raise your taxes/ etc, and should be scrapped.
The right (as usual) is catapulting propagranda. They are all about doing damage, not talking. Small wonder that they simply repeat the same discredited talking points over and over again.
Today's Republican talking point (as per Right wing leaders) in front of the TV cameras is "The Senate plan will raise premiums'. It doesn't matter what Pres Obama says, Republicans repeat lies until people (Teabaggers) think of those lies as "truths" (see Rove, Karl). Hopefully Pres Obama repeats himself as well. You can Bet the Republican propaganda channel i.e. Fox, will not report Pres Obama's response. You can also bet Pill Popper Limbaugh and Crazy Glenn Beck will say the same thing
Republicans are there to send fear through Americans to not want the Health Reform.
Posted by: Roddy McCorely | February 25, 2010 6:09 PM
"75% of Americans either don't want this bill or don't want any reform at all (CNN and other polls)."
Hans,
You're going to have to prove that lie.
Posted by: They Might Be Mimes! | February 25, 2010 6:19 PM
All I can do is shake my head. Elected officials... our Leaders? Where are they leading us... back to a 6th grade playground and juvenile dialect? Are there any adults left at all in our Congress?
Posted by: irene | February 25, 2010 6:49 PM
Guess the question is now will Pelosi get the votes in the House and if those Dems will walk that last plank for the President? We'll see.
Posted by: vla | February 25, 2010 7:09 PM
The "Grand Obstructionist Oppressive Party" Made The Case For A Simple Dem Majority Health Care Vote Today!
"During the lunch break of today's health care summit, C-Span 3 took two calls from Republican voters appalled at what they saw from their own party's congressional leaders."
"One praised President Obama for trying to tackle a serious problem, while lamenting the congresspeople in his own party who clearly would not "meet the President halfway."
"The second was even angrier, saying he was "ashamed" of his party's congresspeople and that the Republican Party acronym of G.O.P. should no longer mean "Grand Old Party" but "Grand Obstructionist Oppressive Party." (G.O.O.P is kinda catchy.)"
"Literally no Republican attending the summit made the slightest attempt to seek common ground, despite repeated openings from the President."
>>>>>
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020825/grand-obstructionist-oppressive-party-makes-case-simple-majority-health-care-v
>>>>>
Posted by: Paul Volker | February 25, 2010 7:10 PM
This was great....for the Dems. They had to show the public the uselessness of trying to be bipartisan with the Rethuglicans first though. That message has been loud and clear to us but not to the general public. The Teabbager goons were selling the "Republicans have been shut out" meme. This was a perfect opportunity to show Rethuglican intransigence in action and to lay out what is actually being proposed in comparison to what they were told was being proposed by the Rethuglicans and their Teabagger tools.
Whether it's healthcare or economics the Rethugs' only solution to everything is a race to the bottom.
Posted by: Andrea Anderson | February 25, 2010 7:20 PM
Hans,
You're going to have to prove that lie.
Posted by: They Might Be Mimes! | February 25, 2010 6:19 PM
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey also indicates that nearly half the public, 48 percent, would like federal lawmakers to start work on an entirely new bill, and 21 percent feel Congress should stop working an any bills that would change the country's health care system.
I know libs have a difficult time with information that hasn't been sent by the twits in the WH. However, I would have thought the Communist News Network still appeals to the dwindling number of people that want government to do everything for them. Those of us that have grown up and can take care of ourselves oppose this government takeover, price controls and nanny obama telling us what is good for us.
So it appears that the dems that couldn't get their supermajority together, even by bribing senators, have a choice. Vote for their last major piece of legislation or find a way to avoid the union and WH thugs. I wonder how it will turn out? Anyway I'm sure the layabouts, welfare queens and other losers this summit was pandering to enjoyed the show. Its just another game show. Who gets the ObamaDollars?
From each based on their effort, to each based on their ignorance and laziness.
Posted by: Hans | February 25, 2010 7:28 PM
Hans,
You're math doesn't add up, not even close. And "Welfare Queen", you're still spreading that debunked myth--talk about ignorant!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen
Posted by: dt☢ | February 25, 2010 9:25 PM
"17,389 Million Uninsured Dead Speaks" Heardee! Heardee! Heardee! "Transparency!" Can you seeeee me now! Heardee! Heardee! It's only February! Can you seeee me now! Heardee! Heardee! Now that was a Summit! No Cable! No CSPAN A 1! A 2! A 3! No Healthcare for you! Can you seeee me now! Abrakadrabra! Bing Bada Bing! Can you seeeee me now! Now that was a Summit! Oh John! Oh John! Oh Jon! The campaign is over! The election is over! Can you seeee me now! GOP Care is "no care for you1" Just them! Just not you! Can you seeee me now! 4.9 Trillion dollars later! Now that was a summit! Drink Tea! Let's PAR-TAY! Can you seeee me now! No care is care! No care for you! The Fundamentals of the Healthcare in America is okay! The "Fundamentals of the Economy are okay." Can you seeee me now! Drink TEA! Let's PAR-TAY! Well on behalf of the 17,389 American Polled don't won't GOP NO CARE! The Fundamentals of Healthcare for the uninsured, caged, provisionalized, voter SUCKS!
Posted by: Roger Morris | February 25, 2010 10:42 PM
What social program has the gov't ever run that meets the customers' needs and has come in under budget?
Social Security tax is over 200 times higher now than when it was introduced in 1936.
Medicare tax rate has quadrupled and there is no longer a cap.
Assuming BO's numbers of a this being deficit neutral or creating a surplus (and that is as false as BO stating he would balance the budget), what makes you think the gov't can run this program any better. They have no track record as the link below shows.
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/health/2009/june/The-Dark-Side-of-Health-Care-on-Native-American-Reservations.html
All the savings that BO is generating from Medicare and all the taxes that are paying for this, wouldn't that money be better spent reducing his deficits and lowering the debt?
Posted by: Terry | February 25, 2010 10:43 PM
This was a total farce. The democrats are going to ram through socialized health care no matter what the vast majority want. The banana republic of the US is well underway!
Posted by: dave from Indy | February 25, 2010 10:44 PM
As BO creates more gov't spending and thus larger deficits, his Secretary of State says that the US Deficit is now a national security issue. Therefore, BO spending spree is putting our nation at risk.
Posted by: Terry | February 25, 2010 10:54 PM
Well that was a waste of time.
Posted by: Free to Watch Liberals Meltdown | February 25, 2010 11:09 PM
RickyBobbie Mobbie
Wow can you find a more biased newspaper and to top it off it's from a blog in the newspaper. Get real because so far you have only shown yourself to be a joke. Go to a more reliable source for your information. Not one of the liberal propaganda machines.
What's the Frequency, GOPer's?
You are why liberals only account for a fifth of the voting population. When is the next beheading going to show up on YouTube carried out by a Christian, sorry it's not Christians it's a the fanatic follower of Islam. And you sound like you're a member but then you probably think it's a religion of peace.
dt☢
Sorry there but the Welfare Queen is not a myth. I do remember the stories about one in particular in Chicago. That's when a newspaper really reported the news and save their opinions for the editorial pages. And using Wikipedia as your only source is weak. But, even Wikipedia got it right. It would seem you did not read the whole story. I do remember all the fraud that was taking place at that time. The term Welfare Queen was put on any woman who was caught cheating the system. But after the Republican controlled Congress introduce laws that reformed the welfare system that cheating has been reduced by over 80%.
So the liberals want to start a new entitlement program that will be larger than Medicare and Medicaid combined. Where in Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting the federal government and Medicaid is doing the same to the states. And they are still calling it reform. I think the real reform will come in November.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 26, 2010 12:05 AM
What was very clearly apparent is that:
- Mustapha is an Elitist
- Mustapha is a Bully
- Mustapha is a Jerk
Rumors of his alledged intelligence are greatly exaggerated.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | February 26, 2010 12:52 AM
Arrogance Personified: “I Am the President!”
An Open Letter to the President of the United States
February 26, 2010
Dear Mr. President:
I’ve always felt that when you invite someone to your home that you extend more than the basic courtesies to your guests. You offer them a drink, pre-prandials, serve dinner and try to make them comfortable.
Granted, Thursday’s bi-partisan meeting on Obamacare, your Health Care Summit, was not a social event but you were hosting an official gathering of some significance and the most basic proprieties should have been extended to your invited guests.
I beg to inform you that you didn’t do that.
I may disagree with invitees to my home on one or both of those two topics never to be broached in mixed company, politics and religion, which happen to be my favorite topics, but I would never intentionally adopt to myself the role of dominant speaker nor dodge specific questions nor employ a haughty, dismissive tone.
I beg to inform you that you did all that as well.
Most importantly, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1525)
Posted by: Berlet98 | February 26, 2010 2:06 AM
ONE QUESTION: If the Messiah is gung ho for this health care bill and the voters want the health care bill, explain why the Messiah's approval ratings are in the tank?
Posted by: Free to Watch Liberals Meltdown | February 26, 2010 4:29 AM
Posted by: dt☢ | February 25, 2010 9:25 PM
69% according to CNN oppose this bill and it is probably higher after the arrogant liar presided over this lecture.
As for welfare queens, there are plenty of people sponging off the system, with the full support and encouragement of community agitators, that always seem to have enough time to show up for ACORN sponsored events. Maybe if they used their government handouts to better themselves, they wouldn't need to show up at events begging for more handouts.
If there are any myths being floated its that dems actually care about people. Based on their donations to charities, it is obvious that they are more than happy to give away other peoples money but like your messiah, unwilling to part with your own.
Posted by: Hans | February 26, 2010 9:08 AM
I am so pleased to have watched the Healthcare " summit ", convened by President Obama. It was like watching a long running play, with Republicans-Libertarians-T.Baggers, repeating their tired, untrue lines, ad nauseum. I was so grateful, they stayed in character, for all of America to hear their double-talk and snake-oil slogans !! Well done, boys and girls of the " Waterloo " Party. I hope the voters remember your obstructionism and lies at election time !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | February 26, 2010 9:20 AM
More bad news for the Dems, though as tone-deaf as they are: RAHMING SPEED AHEAD!!!!!
.
Americans Tilt Against Democrats' Plans if Summit Fails
Most doubt an agreement will result from Thursday's summit
.
PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans are skeptical that lawmakers will agree on a new healthcare bill at Thursday's bipartisan healthcare summit in Washington, D.C. If an agreement is not reached, Americans by a 49% to 42% margin oppose rather than favor Congress passing a healthcare bill similar to the one proposed by President Obama and Democrats in the House and Senate. By a larger 52% to 39% margin, Americans also oppose the Democrats in the Senate using a reconciliation procedure to avoid a possible Republican filibuster and pass a bill by a simple majority vote.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126191/Americans-Tilt-Against-Democrats-Plans-Summit-Fails.aspx
Posted by: Jim Flannigan | February 26, 2010 9:38 AM
I will have to give the Obama administration credit for having it televised that way he could have the Republican party look bad on TV. Although they kept their restraints, Obama also showed his arrogance but cutting people off while they tried to comment. And what really made me laugh was when he stated the election was over as well as campaigning. I just don't think anyone told Obama that. I'm not a Republican or any longer a Democrat, but now Independent.
Posted by: Calvin | February 26, 2010 9:57 AM
I’m having a hard time understanding the anti-Obama crowds out there when it comes to the efforts on the economy, and healthcare. These Republicans in the senate, in the house of representative, and their fellow Tea Partiers gave Mr. Bush Jr. two terms in office and all the desired powers to destroy the economy, to spill the blood of young Americans and countless Iraqis in Iraq. According to an article by Ms. Deborah White, where she quoted different reliable sources for the facts used in her article, the Iraq war will cost tax payers as of September 2010 $900 billion, and of course more importantly it has taken 4,377 US troops lives, and about 600.000 Iraqis. What have the American people gained from it? I will tell you a big fat O, nada, rien, niente, absolutely nothing. Of course they talk of establishing democracy in Iraq, they know better, they are just fooling themselves and the innocents who blindly follow their ideology because Iraq will never be a democracy. Watch and see, Iraq will never be a democracy, and the best chance to establish order in a chaotic society like Iraq is to have a strong man like Mr. Hussein {I mean the one Cheney, Rumsfeld had helped stayed in power, then spent all that money to hang} in power. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, and it won’t take long Iraq will be back in the capable hands of a Saddam Hussein type, and the sad thing is those who took us there knew it.
Now let’s get back to Mr. Obama, he’s trying to do something for the American people; he’s trying to save American lives, trying to save American families from being destroyed by one illness, and what does he get from the same group that has given Mr. Bush Jr. all the desired power to do all the above ? All kind of names; painting the man like the Anti-Christ, wild accusations, and everything in the book. The question that I’m forced to ask myself is why is it so hard to do something that will benefit the people when it is so easy to use their tax dollars to kill and destroy their lives and the lives of others?
What’s so wrong in trying to revamp the economy? The recovery act has saved or created American jobs, not Canadian, Indian, French, but American jobs. The gentleman is not trying to enrich himself; he’s not trying to enrich his buddies, or killed others with tax payers’ dollars. He’s trying to help Americans; he’s trying to keep them in their homes, trying to save them from complete economy destruction from just an illness. What is so wrong with that?
I understand the fact that Mr. Obama’s plan to provide healthcare coverage for the American people will cost something, but it has been shown that it will lower the deficit in the long range, the people will benefit from it. While the Iraq war in the other hand cost them so much and nothing in return. Is there something wrong with the American people?
As I the president’s healthcare summit yesterday I couldn’t help, but laugh as the republican law makers kept saying over and over again how their healthcare system was the best in the world. It was as laughable as in listening to children saying silly stuff and very sad coming from the law makers of the most powerful military power in the world. Are they really that stupid or just blind and deaf to the state of their country and the rest of the world?
I would like someone with some common sense and the understanding of these matters to help me understand these things.
While I wait to be enlightened, my advice to the American people is to think a little, you guys keep using the superlative pronouns to describe yourself and I think the time has come to do some superlative thinking.
Posted by: Paul H. Ceneac | February 26, 2010 10:15 AM
What a waste of time yesterday. Obama and the Democratic Leadership had their minds mind up before the meeting. Their attitude is it's our whole bill or nothing. This looked like a typical Obama meeting except the Obama peanut gallery was not sitting in the background. And the President was very disappointing with his sometimes very arrogant attitude and responses. I sometimes believe Obama thinks he was elected King and not President. And some of his more hard core supporters, who at times act like a fanatical religious cult, seem to think that too. While Obama and the Democratic Leadership wasted a whole year on this Health Bill the economy continues to tank. Jobless claims have gone up six of the first 8 weeks of 2010. The Euro is crashing and there is talk of a double dip recession. If that happens unemployment will go through the ceiling. Somebody is going to pay for this at the polls. It is time to vote them all out before they bankrupt the country. To my Republican friends, if a huge
multi-trillion dollar Health Bill is crammed through the Congress and signed by the President, and the economy does not have any Major improvements, the GOP will make big gains in both the House and Senate. But this will not be because of anything remarkable that the Republicans have done. The major shift to the Republicans will be due to the incompetent leadership and sometimes arrogant attitudes of President Obama and the Democratic Congressional Leaders. With all the serious economic problems facing the country one would think it would unite the Democrats and Republicans in finding common ground for solutions. But it seems it has done the opposite. So everybody continue your name calling and blame game while the country continues to tank economically. My only advice to my Left Wing Crazy friends and Right Wing Fanatical friends is tighten you seat belts. If we have a double dip recession just about all of us are gong to be in for a very bad year financially. An era of higher taxes and fewer jobs is coming.
Posted by: Depot- Jim | February 26, 2010 10:37 AM
I don't really care what they do.
Much more pressing issues out there than people without insurance (get a job!)
How about kicking all the criminal illegal aliens out of this country instead of giving them benefits and healthcare?
Cut all the idiotic spending by sleazy, corrupt politicians.
Stop giving money to other countries and stop being the world police. I could really care less about afganistan or iraq, iran or the whole mideast.
Lets get rid of our nuclear weapons by dropping them all in the mideast.
Our goverment still doesn't understand that we're fighting a religious war against muslims. Until they do - they'll never be an end.
Let's round up all the muslims in the US and put them in camps - like FDR did to the Japanese Americans.
obama is a one termer - due to his complete incompetence and arrogance. Change for the better is coming in November.
Posted by: worsethanbefore | February 26, 2010 11:03 AM
President Obama, Republicans and Democrats have overlooked an obvious solution TO Health Care Reform.
For most Americans, Insurance is not free; and so far it is not mandatory. It costs between about $80. to several hundred dollars a month in premiums. It does not cover everything and most still have to pay doctor bills and treatment fees usually either in part or full usually until they have paid a certain amount. We do not know what we will need insurance for, so we insure for as much as we can afford and we pay higher insurance fees. This is how fear is an enemy to faith.
If we kept our money without insurance, $80 a month x 12 equals $960 a year that we could be spending to keep ourselves healthy instead of giving it to insurance companies.
$80 monthly: 3 years is $2880; 5 years is $4,800; 7 years is $6,720; 10 years is $9,600.
$150 mo: 1 yr = $1800; 3 yr = $5,400; 5 yr = $9,000; 7 yr = .$12,600; 10 yr. $18,000.
Most insurances bills are higher that those.
Our family has parents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins, and nephews that may be paying as we are. We could have faith; and insure ourselves by not buying insurance, and helping each other IF a need arises, knowing it will be our help IF we need it. If we had only 5 extended family members paying $80.a month to insurance, it would be $4800.a year our extended family would save and have available IF medical bills occur. $4,800 yr each 3 years is $14,400 our family saved, each 5 years is $24,000 of our families money left in their hands to help their family whatever needs arise, medical or food, etc.
If our employer is paying our insurance; we can ask him to pay us instead, even giving him a savings, giving us more spendable money to take care of our family needs.
Families are paying many hundreds of dollars a month more than those $80 and $150 a month figures; they could be using their money to keep their family healthy, to pay their family doctor bills or to help others in need. Generally, most things can be handled in a doctor's office. It is fear that feeds the insurance company our money.
http://www.divine-way.com
God has solutions to world problems we created by ignoring His wisdom.
Posted by: Marie Devine | February 26, 2010 11:24 AM
Berlet98 @2:06 a.m.
You and I saw the same movie. Mustapha will never be an effective leader by talking down to people. We know that he does not appreciate or understand free-market solutions, but those Republican senators and congressmen deserved far more respect than what this guy dished out yesterday.
Neither McCain or Alexander is a 17 year old in need of a public lecture from this novice. It’s fine to be the President of the United States, but the president is not a King. Maybe Mustapha’s fine background in constitutional law failed to cover that. We saw the same movie.
Calvin @9:57 a.m.
That would be all that I would suggest to anyone trying to sort through this never-ending stuff that affects all aspects of our personal life. Just observe what they say, particularly when they are saying it, AND then observe how they actually follow through.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | February 26, 2010 11:33 AM
OBAMA IS EXACTLY RIGHT. THAT'S WHAT ELECTIONS ARE FOR. SEE YOU IN NOV, DEMS!!!!
*
Why Obama defies the public on health care
*
At the end of the summit, Obama said that if he can't reach an agreement with Republicans -- and there's no chance if the existing bill stays on the table -- then "we've got to go ahead and make some decisions." That means jamming the bill through Congress against the public's wishes.
*
And if there's still dispute, Obama said, "that's what elections are for."
*
He's right. This is an issue that won't be fully settled until November.
*
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Why-Obama-defies-the-public-on-health-care-85426622.html
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | February 26, 2010 12:51 PM
I find it very deprssing that anyone believes we can steal 500Billion a year for 10 years to pay for 6 years of insurance coverage and not go further into debt.
Posted by: RJ | February 26, 2010 1:09 PM
What I find hilarious is that now the DNC has put up a website with talking points and how to talk when a loony liberal calls in to a talk radio program.
In yesterday's summit Obama acted petty for example what he said to John McCain about the campaign. The only one that really is still campaigning was was Obama has not stopped since 2000. He also had a bad habit of cutting off Republicans when they were speaking.
I said this in another post and I will say it again. Let the loony liberals pushed the button on the nuclear option and that will be the end of the Democratic Party for a very long time. I vote independently so party labels mean little to me. I just despise weak kneed pantywaist hypocritical race baiting liberals.
And how many face lifts has the House leader had, my God woman you're looking like a wax statue that is starting to melt.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 26, 2010 2:17 PM
They have been providing talking points for posters on forums, like this, and now they are going to try to do the same for talk radio...
"The Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America has quietly launched an initiative aimed at making Obama supporters' voices heard on the largely conservative airwaves.
"The fate of health reform has been a focus of debate in living rooms and offices, on TV and online — and on talk radio. And since millions of folks turn to talk radio as a trusted source of news and opinions, we need to make sure OFA supporters are calling in with a pro-reform message," says the introduction to the online tool.
The online tool presents users with a radio show discussing political topics, to which supporters can listen live, and the phone number for that station, for when health care comes up. It also offers tips for callers and talking points on the issue."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0210/Obama_campaign_arm_focuses_on_talk_radio.html?showall
Posted by: slobber | February 26, 2010 2:32 PM
slobber
I know it's pretty pathetic that liberals cannot even form their own thoughts without help from Obama's campaign office.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 26, 2010 2:56 PM
"I find it very deprssing that anyone believes we can steal 500Billion a year for 10 years to pay for 6 years of insurance coverage and not go further into debt.
Posted by: RJ | February 26, 2010 1:09 PM"
Yeah, like the Republics and BushCo even tried to pretend Medicare D was paid for. Or tax cuts going into two wars. Or 'We hit the trifecta'. Or 'Deficits don't matter, Reagan proved it." Or off budget wars. Or TARP, a Bush Paulson project that the Dems gave to them, no obstruction there.
So how are our grandchildren going to pay for BushCO excesses?
You people are a joke. You have nothing BUT talking points.
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | February 26, 2010 3:42 PM
I thought it was hilarious when Barry told McKooKoo that the campaign was over. He stuttered, stammered and drooled all over himself. What a jerk.
The Repimplicans brought nothing to the meeting but soundbites and RNC talking points. Meanwhile BHO tossed holy acid on them every time they opened the sphincters and tossed out a lie.
I think BHO should have had a little surprise ending. As they adjourned Barry should have said; "OK, I'll be back here tomorrow at 9:00 and we can then start to talk about the actual substance of the bill and your actual suggestions for improvement. Meeting adjourned." Then just leave, smiling etc. Then show up the next morning and say to the cameras; "Please note the empty room."
I think BHO and the Gang should have had a little surprise ending. As they adjourned Barry should have said; "OK, I'll be back here tomorrow at 9:00 and we can then start to talk about the actual substance of the bill and your actual suggestions for improvement. Meeting adjourned." Then just leave, smiling etc. Then show up the next morning and say to the cameras; "Please note the empty room."
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | February 26, 2010 7:12 PM
Here, read it and weep. This is what the Republican leadership brought to the table; Nothing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/opinion/26krugman.html?ref=opinion
Note to the younger Cons posting here.
Did it occur to you that you are the "children and grandchildren" that are still paying for the fiscal recklessness of the Ronald Reagan?
Yeah, his mismanagement is still on the books. He claimed his massive tax cuts would increase revenue and reduce the deficit, but gee, he ended up with the largest debt in the history of the country. It wouldn't be topped until BushCo finished with it's criminal endeavor. We'll see what BHO accomplishes in 7 more years. Get back to me then.
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | February 26, 2010 8:38 PM
If Stephan Haulking was still alive he would have been American!! Here that both Morris? I'm waiting???
Posted by: Bushman | February 26, 2010 8:48 PM
"They have been providing talking points for posters on forums, like this, and now they are going to try to do the same for talk radio..."
Good idea! Take a page from the RNC playbook! Nice. It's free speech, right my fellow prisoners?
Now here's some TP. Clean up.
Posted by: Mr. Hankey | February 26, 2010 8:59 PM
C.Morris✧
You babbling idiot it was the Democrats in Congress who spent like drunken sailors. I do fault Reagan for not doing more to stop them. Just like in this recession look who was in charge of Congress when the economy started to tank and you will find liberals. You cannot hide from the facts and history but, you being a liberal loons would not understand this because if you drink the Kool-Aid and eat the propaganda. And before you call me a right winger understand I am a conservative independent who could care less about the parties. I look at ideologies. And I am just thankful that the weak kneed, pantywaist, entitlement whining, girlie men, butch women, and moronic lunatic liberal fringe only account for 20% of the vote. And I have earned the right to say what I feel and served so you have that right. And that's another thing I despise liberals over is their lack of commitment and service to the country. Now you can go on one of your childish little liberal rants about being patriotic and all that, but of the few liberals I know in the service were weak minded worms. And none of them served aboard submarines.
So let the little liberal loons in Congress pushed the button on the nuclear option. And they will be the ones that burn. The bill in its current state will never make it through the courts fast enough to save the Democrats. And by the time it does the midterm will be over and Democrats will be out of control. It may even drag in the courts long enough that Obama's one term will be over. And even some constitutional scholars that have taken the time to look over this bill believe it will be ruled unconstitutional in part or whole. You do not go against the will of the people and not pay a high price for your idiotic ideals and arrogance.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 27, 2010 12:37 PM
" I am a conservative independent who could care less about the parties. I look at ideologies." = right winger.
Beyond that you are a braggart, a twit, a self entitled sociopath, a whiner, a wiener, a hot dog. Further, a self flatterer, a hanger on, a scoundrel seeking refuge as a patriot, arrogant, egotistical, below average, and finally, beneath contempt.
And I say good day to you Sir!
Posted by: J Buffington Foulfellow | February 27, 2010 4:49 PM
Submitted for your approval; A live blog is presented and the private thoughts of the posters are magically made public, , , , in the Twilight Zone.
(John D)
'That Cantnor is dreamy!'
(Terry)
'Lamar, keep lying! Please don't look directly at Obama! No No! Doh!!'
(Crooked)
'Boy did McCain handle BHO! Talk about mastery! The stammers!, the double takes!, the bulging eyes!, the spittle!.'
(Paulo)
'Gun em, McConnell! Show em who's in charge! Make babbling noises so you don't have to hear any logic!'
Final scene; In a corn field the Republican leaders are jack-in-the-box clowns.
Posted by: Rod Serling ♫♫ | February 27, 2010 5:00 PM
John EE, Aka Buffington / Serling
Will you be doing any flag burnings today? I am almost certain that your flag burning activities are more sociopathic in character than anything that we discerning Right Wingers would have on the calendar for the day.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | February 27, 2010 6:22 PM
Anybody care that it was the Republics under BushCo who killed PayGo in 2002?
(I think somebody spent to long under water and got nitrogen in their brain.)
♬
In the town where I was born
Lived a man who failed to see
And he told us of his life
In the land of submarines
♭
So we sailed off to the right
Till they found the sea of spleen
And they lived beneath as slaves
In their FundyCon submarine
♩
They all live in a fundy submarine
Fundy submarine, Fundy submarine
They all live in a fundy submarine
Fundy submarine, fundy submarine
And their friends are all on board
Many more of them live next door
And the band begins to play
♫
Crooked lives in a fundy submarine
Fundy submarine, Fundy submarine
Crooked lives in a fundy submarine
Fundy submarine, fundy submarine
[Full speed ahead, Mr. Beck, full speed ahead!
Full right rudder over here, Mr. Limbaugh!
Action station! Danger of Progess!
Aye, aye, sir, fire!
Heaven! Heaven!]
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | February 27, 2010 6:50 PM
Funny stuff, guys.
If this last exchange proves anything it's that the con base has no sense of humor. Hey righties! Log on to Ebay and bid on some used irony!
Posted by: OldUncleWoody | February 27, 2010 7:11 PM
J Buffington Foulfellow, C.Morris✧, and Rod Serling ♫♫
Are you upset about being in the minority? Because in the last three important elections the Democrats lost does that hurt your feelings? Are you blue because you find yourself with a child president who is lost in the wilderness? Are you down because you now know that the vast majority of the population does not agree with you or your child president? Do you feel sad because you are called out for what a liberal is, and that is a weak kneed, boob sucking mama's boy, basement mushroom, and entitlement whining little leech who has never really done anything or gave anything back to this country. But willingly take and take and take just like a good little liberal scrotum sack is taught to. See I can be childish but, I'm really going to be childish come this November. There is one thing that you cannot change and thank God for that it's that liberals have always and will continue to be the minority.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 27, 2010 8:58 PM
You seem to be the humorless one. Relax, it's the weekend, have some fun.
" boob sucking mama's boy"
. . . and at least we like girls!
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | February 28, 2010 10:37 AM
CM, JBF, the rest,
that crook troll rises to the bait so predictably. You should take it easier on him/her. It's too easy.
Posted by: Phil | February 28, 2010 6:32 PM
Phil
I was just having fun. You know trying to act like a liberal and instead of debating I try the childish act. I know the loony liberal have it down pat. So I'll just keep throwing the real world at the liberals and watch them whine and then quote the Huffington Post. Pathetic! And what I mean by the real world is. Majority of the voters do not want the current bill before Congress passed. The majority of the voters want real healthcare reform. The majority of the voters want tort reform. The majority of the voters want real immigration reform. The majority of the voters want transparency. You know the stuff that the loony liberals cannot grasp.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 28, 2010 11:40 PM
We don't need the stinking input of the Republican-Libertarian-T.Baggers, look what those mentally-challenged midgets gave us the last time.
They gave America the dumbest, draft-dodgers, as President and Vice-President, that our country has had the misfortune of experiencing such misrule. That is what incompetent, misguided, blind ideologues will offer as reasonable offerings, their stupidity, their dishonesty and of course, their hate !! No, you, Republican-Libertarian-T.Baggers can keep your poisonous input, America is to sick from the last dose you gave her, with the Bush&Cheney !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | March 1, 2010 4:59 AM
Don Fitzgerald, IL
You thank the loony liberals do not need the input from the majority of the voting population. That is a pretty ignorant way of looking at it. I guess you will get a lesson in how it works come November if the loony liberal pushed the button on the nuclear option.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | March 1, 2010 10:26 AM
I think you are a " little " confused, Sonny, about the nuclear option. Go look it up!! You're in for another lesson in civics. Another 20 of those and you may be less confused !! I would think, but there's no telling about you rabidly right, ideologues !!
Are you sure you aren't " John W ", hiding behind that phony name !!? Who cares, right !!?
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | March 1, 2010 11:29 AM
Don Fitzgerald, IL
What are you going to do use the talking points from the DNC? If they use 51 votes to get the healthcare bill passed in its current form yes I would call that the nuclear option. I know this may be hard for somebody with the liberal mind but, using 51 votes for anything can be called the nuclear option. It does not matter if it's to get a tax cut, judge nominated, or this tax-and-spend bill passed. You been in the minority really will not matter if this bill is passed. Because the majority will rise up and set it straight. Not only will the Democrats be ran on of DC over the next two election cycles but, it is uncertain if this bill will stand up in court to a constitutional challenge. I've said it before and I will say it again because I know liberals have a hard time grasping reality. If the liberal Congress is so arrogant to go against the majority of the voters they will pay a very high cost for that arrogance. And if you thank the Tea Party Movement does not matter then wait for the rallies in DC this year. They will fill the streets the Congress members who voted for the bill will be scared to leave the safety of the Hill. And they should be!
And by the way Don we have figured out the aliases that you use when posting, so who is the phony liberal scrotum sack here. That would be Don Fitzgerald, IL.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | March 1, 2010 3:29 PM
"it was the Democrats in Congress who spent like drunken sailors. "
It was the Republicans under Bush who killed PayGo in 02 to facilitate their own spree. Basically they spent like drunken sailors on buck night in a Texas brothel.
(Note on your service bragging; You have no idea who here has served or not or how or when. Put a cork in the service bragging.)
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | March 2, 2010 7:52 AM