Kill the bill… kill it dead.

Baucus acts as if he has been crowned king. He is a detestable man who is not only stupid but a fool as well. I think he has had his 15 minutes of fame and he should exit soon.

Agreed. Has there been a push here at FDL to get the Democratic Senators on the Finance Committee to vote against this bill? I haven’t seen one, and it seems to me to be a logical action, given the current state of the bill.

If the dems can somehow fuck baucus over they need to get it done, right after this health crapola is finished.

Dude a real fixer talks down the heat ( we are the heat) idiot Thor want to be threw my bro across a bar 5 of us brought him down did we go to jail No Johnny from Chicago talked down the heat.
How well he had no cash I assume it was something he said Rahm is talking down nobody!

Agreed next step I hope?

I’ve certainly made a few choice calls and sent a few very short direct emails.

Open Left has the CBO numbers… at best we are looking at 17 million who remain without care.

Unacceptable.

We need local intel on the ground to do that Montana lakers any ideas?

He probably did exactly what the White House asked of him.

“[G]iving him space to let the president’s words sink in”

has the same depth as that middle school semi-formal. It doesn’t capture the context or drama of Rockefeller’s situation. The president’s words will sink in, but with a panoply of implicit and explicit threats and maybe one or two carrots.

Something else it misses is exactly what provisions Rahma & Obahma want in the Baucus bill as it leaves the SFC and proceeds to the Senate floor.

He probably did but it was wrong and will come back to bite him. IMO

I heard on the Ed Schultz radio show today that the designated Senate Conferees to negotiate the health reform legislation with the House will be Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and Max Baucus.

I don’t know how they pick who gets to be involved, but we certainly could do better than Baucus.

- Tom

EPU: Too many mergers
http://www.emaxhealth.com/72/5561.html#

Looks like the committee chairs. But expect Dodd to be replaced by Harkin. Then on the House side, you have Pelosi, George Miller, Charlie Rangel, and Henry Waxman. Just guessing. But we are a long way from that negotiation.

Rockefeller has been very public with the fact that he is both unhappy with both the shape of the Baucus bill and the secretive way it was written. Baucus now needs Rockefeller to help vote the bill out of committee,

but Baucus’s slight of Rockefeller was longer and maybe more serious.

My bold Never screw over people you might need later and never screw over people you need now until you make it up for them.
This is not Chicago politics people this is Amateur hour!
(Chicago holds its head in disgrace) (sob)
I expected at least the least from my peeps) Da mayor is rollin in his Grave!

Well, a little more strongly stated than I prefer, but I heartily concur with your conclusion. Baucus must go. This is nonsense. Put this Dixiecrat out of business and immediately. I cannot believe the President has any confidence in this twit.

If it is true that there are 60 votes in the Senate for cloture as this suggests:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/c…..mainpromo1

…then I agree. Kill the bill.

The fact that Baucus has not personally asked Rockefeller for his vote just seems like bad politics–and like an incredibly dick move. This is behavior you would expect at a middle school semi-formal, not from the “world’s most deliberative body.”

Stop being nice Baucus and Rahm backing me would have meant another Felony Conviction on my record!

It should never pass final committee vote.

Rockefeller said Tuesday that “nobody” has approached him. “Has Baucus talked directly to me? No.”

It’s a little early for Valentine’s Day, but perhaps we should be sending him love notes.

This is not Chicago politics people

Oh, but according to Rahm it is!! And look at how swell he is at it!

If there are 60 votes for cloture in the Senate on a bill that has a robust PO, then the Baucus POS should die. But if there are not enough votes for cloture on such a bill, then let the POS Baucus bill out of committee and try to add the PO in reconciliation and be approved by 51 in the Senate. If the POS Baucus bill doesn’t get a robust PO added to it in reconciliation, then it should be killed.

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Jon Walker and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

Has anyone heard the latest from the travelin’ circus that is the Senate Democratic leadership? Ed Schultz went airborn over this since he thinks it’s a “compromise” but what’s been offered is a public option with a state opt-out for those states that don’t wanna play with the rest of us…this is offered in order to get a bill off the floor of the Senate with 60 votes and then fix it in conference with the House so that the reconciled bill WITH a medicare public option will only need 50+1 votes in the Senate for passage.

This makes sense if the House actually holds together and passes the medicare plus option and One Hung Harry Reid gets instructions to the Senate conferees to back the house bill.

What does that sound like to the legislative wonks out there in the FiredogLake boiler room?

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER!!

Please let me choke in my shame at these pretenders! Will nobody else from Chi town disown these pretenders?

What robust PO elsewhere in the senate?

BAD GAMBLE

White House gambled that the base would stay loyal and try to appeal to the middle. Unfortunately for them, the Left is made up of individuals who are critical thinkers that know when they’re getting screwed.

Hopefully the Bogus Baucus Bill will be defeated in commitee…teaching the White House and the fucks who sell out their base that we’re not a gullible as the base of the Right.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER!!

And please not let us fall for Rahm’s Obvious lies he disgraces Real Villains!
Amateur hour Chumps can see right through this! Being a Crook From Chi town used to mean something!

Forget the Left regular people can see through this!

Citizen Eureka Springs:

Seems that now that it appears that the House is ready to pass a bill with a medicare public option, the strategy in the Senate is to pass this”state option” so that it can get to conference and get reconciled into the House bill.

Precisely ! This Bill should not get out of Committee … more calls tomorrow.

Baucus now has ZERO STREET CRED with the base and it’s leaders in the Senate. If the Bogus Baucus Bill sinks in committee (which it will and should), Baucus’ career as a senate leader is over. Which he probably doesn’t give a shit because he’s probably got a cushy job waiting a Wellpoint for him as soon he retires after this term is up, or sooner.

Rockefeller should tell both Baucus and the whitehouse to kiss his ass! Tell them that he’ll vote for the Baucus bill if they add the Kennedy bill to it as an amendment. Addd the Kennedy bill, have the CBO score it, and then he’ll vote for it. Other wise KISS MY ASS! We’ve got your back Senator Rockefeller!

regular people can see through this!

I really fuckin’ hope so… I think they too busy watching “Dancing with The Stars” though.

The way I heard it was, if it isn’t in the Senate Bill, it will take 60 votes to insert it into the final Bill. However if a robust PO is in the Senate Bill, it will take 60 votes to remove it, which guarantees that the final Bill out of Committee will retain a PO.

If Jon or anyone else can confirm that, I’d really appreciate it.

God this is getting to be too much. Reid needs to tell Baucus to get with the program or see how he likes working out of a broom closet in the basement.

Citizen Petrocelli:

I understand that but what has been offered (apparently) is a public option with a state opt-out that could pass the senate with 60 votes and go to conference with the House where the opt-out would be removed and passed back to the Senate where the reconciled bill would only require 50+1.

Jon Walker or someone out there who can make sense of this 200 year old system please clear this up…PLEASE!!

Wait, why would Chris Dodd be a conferee? He didn’t take the HELP Committee Chairmanship, he kept Banking. So the HELP conferee should be Chairman Tom Harkin.

Great Question to ask him if he believes so strongly then for 10 years on camera he should promise not to take a healthcare or lobbying job! We should ask the GOPers this too!

I saw Sam Stein on the Ed Shultz show and he mentioned that some Dems are considering adding the public option with an opt out clause for the states. They would all have to have the public option and then down the line the states could look at it and determine if they want to keep it. This could work because the blue dogs might just go for this. Now, once the states have it, if it’s working they’d have a hard time getting rid of it. They might also find that if they get rid of it, they may get a primary challenger who will vow to restore it, helping to kick their asses out of office.

It’s hard to believe that Baucus is so openly smacking the Dems around. He has to work with them later and will probably be the most unpopular person in the Senate.

Fine.. now do it with Help… and reject Baucus.. cut Baucus off at the committee pass now.

Ain’t no way Harry Reid and the WH are going to do the right things with a passed Baucus bill in their hands behind the scenes.

If Baucus does not pass, wouldn’t that remove Max from final negotiations? If so, that in itself seems like reason enough to kill it in committee.

Ain’t no way Harry Reid and the WH are going to do the right things with a passed Baucus bill in their hands behind the scenes.

So we will have to turn up the heat! At the very least when the Dems lose the elections we pin this defeat on Healthcare and Rahm!
Then we try again!

Citizen TomR:

One Hung Harry Reid picks his folks so he doesn’t hafta pick Baucus and I don’t think he’ll duck Harkin…he will pick whoever the strongest Democrats tell ‘im to if he wants to save his leadership. Even ObamaRhama can’t protect Reid’s leadership, it’s gettin ta look like the seniors in the Senate have Harry by the short hairs.

Rahm represents the WH

This is something to worry about.

Citizen roxsteady:

There’s an echo in here see #23.

Chris is a stoodge?

remember what scarecrow wrote the day after the help bill was released?

Health Care Reform that Doesn’t Fix the Problems

By “Kennedy Bill”, you mean this year’s HELP Committee bill, or do you mean Kennedy’s Medicare For All Bill that he and Dingell introduced last Congress (it wasn’t re-introduced by either this session).

I trust you mean Medicare for All, its a great bill, but it has two glaring weaknesses– 1. it slowly adds population groups (by age) over 5 years, 2. it increases payroll taxes by 8.7 percentage points (7 on employer, 1.7 on worker),

I think Pete Stark’s Americare Bill handles both issues better– 1. It kicks in on the 2nd New Year’s Day after signing for everybody (so Jan. 1, 2011) and yes even that date should be pulled in, 2. it doesn’t raise payroll taxes, instead it encourages employers to move the $800 billion they pay in premiums from private insurance to the public option Americare plan (Stark should have named it “Medicare for Everyone” or “Medicare Part E”). That’s a river of cash that allows you subsidize premiums for everyone, without raising payroll taxes.

will the opt out clause you heard about make it easy for states to drop the whole mandate thing and and go single payer if they want?

Citizen ThingsComeUndone:

I think that if a good bill doesn’t pass then the Democrats are gunna have new leadership right on up into the White House…and they may lose some of their majority in the House but most of those will be Blue Dogs so what comes up in 2011 is a leaner and meaner Democratic majority in the Congress that won’t take any shit from the White House…if nuthin’ passes, Rham is done and so is Harry Reid.

yes, I remember, thank you… Just so triangulated here.. seems like trading rejection of baucus for anything would at least be some nudge in the correct direction.

Unless there are 60 votes in the Senate for cloture on a bill that contains a robust PO, the only hope of getting anything decent will be through getting the POS Baucus bill out of committee and amended to include the PO during reconciliation. IMO.

I’d love to see Baucus fail. It would be delicious. But I want real reform more.

Just so triangulated here

no kidding. you’ve captured my feeling perfectly.

Good luck with that.

Yeah, I know. But I sure don’t see the 60 votes for cloture in the Senate on anything decent.

there isn’t a robust po in any of the bills the various committees are working on. nothing like hacker’s original proposal which i understand from david swanson was something like how the dem leadership was able to sell their po to progressive groups, unions, etc. — that it would lead to single payer.

now i just think if there is a po, it might be something like a refuge for sick people who get screwed by private insurance. that has appeal from a human rights perspective, but it has practical problems in the real world. see the discussion in the comments thread of jason’s diary, This is why we need a public health insurance option, for more on that.

I’ll admit there’s lots of TALK and writings and speculations about your point, but I’ve not hear a SINGLE politician confirm this, much less endorse it, or promise it.

I’d keep that powder dry, and leave the cork in the jug a bit longer.

It’s WAY too soon to hope for the reality you’ve laid out. I just don’t see our elected’s taking it to the corps, not in any sense.

Well, tort reform, for SURE! To cap what the insurers/corp practitioners can be sued for, the fucking fucks.

Meh. I hope on, bitterly.

And let me say, THANK YOU Norske, for your unbridled enthusiasm and support and insights thru all of this, I ALWAYS enjoy reading your comments.

*bows*

Citizen Norske your heart is in the right place I often chop you down to see how strong your ideas are because I want to believe.
And the Oropeza way way is to challenge to challenge any thing .
Your passion for the cause.
Well I hope your kids read this!
The Family respects you.

Any Democrat who tries to force the American people to buy private insurance or face a tax is done. It was a bad idea and anyone who runs against them won’t have to do anything but say it over and over and they will lose. And no locked-in price controls? No locked-in quality controls? No public health insurance with a Medicare-like tiny overhead available for anyone who wants it? Then how exactly is the budget they have for it worth the paper it’s written on? It’s extortion, period.

Fuck Baucus. The public is paying attention. Everybody knows the only reason public health insurance isn’t a done deal is Max Baucus and his dogs among the Democrats are literally holding up the country so they can get as much welfare for their private insurance pimps as possible. Let the “blue dogs” eat it.

Let Baucus explain why he didn’t want to hold private insurers responsible but did want to force Americans to buy their “protection”. Let him go back to his “conservative” constituents and explain that the mean old liberals wouldn’t let him take the American people by the neck and make them bow down the very same private insurance companies who literally kill US by refusing to cover treatment, cheat US by refusing to pay and dump US like trash.

Protect the American people. Kill the bill.

Last I read was that Baucas might have pissed Snowe, just recently.
And the ads running in Maine ENDORSING Baucas Bill are a slap at her, too.
Given that Wyden is still pissed, and Jay Rock too, that’s three.

And Baucas needs at LEAST two of those three, to pass his bill in SFCommittee.

I don’t wanna hope too much, but, there’s a GOOD chance Baucas Bill WILL fail.

And I hope he rots in the hell of his own making, too, and Wellpoint/Anthem pull their post senate job offer from him due to FAIL! Serve the bastid right.

Thanks for your post, fingers crossed and toes too.

Hoss, what makes us think the conference with House will GET the state opt out OUT, and a PO IN?

What leverage does the House have over the Senate in conference?

And I concur, Jon Walker, can you help us all out on this?

I’m pessimistic, but I wanna find hope SOME phookin where.
It’s human nature, to want to find hope.
Sigh.

“Ain’t no way Harry Reid and the WH are going to do the right things with a passed Baucus bill in their hands behind the scenes.”

Agreed, completely. Ain’t no way.

Citizen Norske your heart is in the right place I often chop you down to see how strong your ideas are because I want to believe.

But I dare not without a fight of the best of my logic but who on the Right believes a lowly Mexican could be logical you and Raven have never dismissed me out of hand Crazy I am sometimes its the price I pay but your respect has meant as much to me maybe more than your tolerance.
Mi Familaia owes

Good call, and I offer this extraction from the post to emphasize your point:

“In short, the reform structure so far includes a set of massive transfer payments from patients, tax payers, and some providers in the federal system to insurers and providers in the private system. There’s no assurance that the underlying cost structure will be brought under control. And the current system will continue to bankrupt individuals, burden businesses, and break the federal budget until the government finally says, “enough.”

What’s to stop this?”

Poll numbers going our way despite the MSM’s slanted coverage?

1)What states would even consider single payer?
2) Call me pessimistic, but does ANYone think mandates are gonna be dropped, in ANY congiguration? It’s the golden goose deal from WH to ins/pharm/bigmed.

The State opt out’s for me, are as viable and empowering as exchanges with no regulations or barter/buy power, or co-op’s with no regulations on the insurers and no buying power to force competition. Or triggers, which are a joke unto them selves. Oh, and any final reform that don’t become effective ASAP, instead of 2013, another joke.

This stuff’s SO loaded with fraught failure it’s frightening.

Beautifully put, simple, and to the point.

*ONCHAIRAPPLAUDINGANDSHOUTING*

Citizen ThingsComeUndone:

Your words are balm for the wounds and bruises of this very tough struggle we endure every day…but I must confess that I have always taken your respect for granted because that’s what we do when we respect the other. Do not despair or misunderstand silence for rebuke or disrespect, the respect you have always shown for yourself is enough to sustain you through ages of silence.

Peace, Brother and give me a shout when ya need to break the silence.

1) maybe PA and CA? ralphbon will know better, you can ask him at his new diary on this very topic: No Public Option Opt-Out Contingency Without a Single-Payer Opt-In Contingency!

2. not me. imo insurance industry bailout is a feature, not a bug.

Thin gruel to force Congress to our bidding, in these fraught times of HC Lack Of Reform, methinks?

But hey, it’s something to hope for, ain’t it.

Guess my line of thinking is, any single state on single payer, has no real clout, even CA, to force pricing competition on the insurers. Takes a nationally based program with national bulk buying power to force change.

I don’t see that happening at this point, sadly.

Thanks for the reply . . . it’s sure looking like a sellout to the corps, and a screwing of the people.

Mandate them, tax the benefits. With REAL unemployment at 20% or more, and no jobs in sight, who the fuck is gonna buy mandated insurance if they can’t pay rent or eat?

I wanna see the government enforce that mandate fine on people broke and jobless.

A recipe for civil chaos and anarchy. STUPID!

Sigh, time to reach for some Merlot, my BP is rising . . lol

single payer means just that – one gov run health insurance program. no competition required because the only role for private insurance companies is the non medically necessary stuff — botox, boob jobs, etc.

saves money and covers EVERYONE.

I will always shout and tell Raven etc what I’ve said still I am the oldest and maybe the last of the family my debt stands! Its a Mexican thing. If there are Men amoung the rest of Mexican any of them then it stands!
Accept the gift for my ghost will if there is any power amoung heaven! We help help you and yours your actions deserve no less!

Agreed.

This opt-out thing is so new and the specifics so “unspecific” that it’s hard to parse it. 1st question is: Who in the state will make the decision to “opt out?” Presumably the state legislature. If so then the state will be subject to the same rain of healthcartel $ that has polluted the Congress (and Prez.) If it’s the insurance commissioner-probably same problem. Governor-who knows? 2nd question is: how long does the state have to try it out before they decide to keep it or chuck it? Presumably, the longer the better as people get use to the PO. And finally, WHICH PO? A weak one? More states opt out. Strong one? more stay in.
I have to disagree with whoever said that single payer would’nt work state by state even in a big state like Calif. Well, it SHOULD. Calif. has more people than Canada and far more people than many (maybe all) European countries and they have single payer or some variant.
Finally, as a male I certainly think boob jobs should be covered under any national health plan- as a “beautify America” plan if nothing else. (joke.)

Rocky and Schu should simply vote against this proposed bill. Take the Baucus/Rahm Supplicant’s Memorial Act off the table. That would leave the HELP bill, and the three House bills to go to conference. Much better.

Baucus would be seen as the laughingstock that he is, for not even getting his own bill out of committee.

2 = Win

5: Learn how to write complete sentences in English. Or go on the wagon. Or both. Also.

#5: dang,… for a guy who references William Butler Yeats in his sig, that was a shockingly incoherent string of nonsense you just threw out there. I take off my hat to you!