All Hail the Nobel Prize winner: Obama claims bipartisan support for Baucus bill

Obama has the power, he just doesn’t know how to play the game.

Nice photo. We’re supposed to kiss the ring, right?

This is just so depressing: we are so f’d. Triggers, anyone? National plans? No state regs?

I’m feeling angry and frustrated; even more, maybe, than last year. We worked so hard to get these folks elected, and they’re screwing us anyway. And I’ll never forgive Rahm for giving so much support to the reactionary (there’s a good old word) Blue Dogs. Never.

Maybe – I now believe he simply doesn’t care about the goal. Just get a bill passed that he can “slap the label of reform on”, never mind if it does average citizen any good or makes their lives worse.
Why, for instance, is he meeting with Bayh, instead of Dodd or Harkin?

meanwhile, tax dodging corporations don’t have to pay up $200 bn in overdue taxes for operating from offshore havens.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125539099758581443.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

empress snowe has no problems with that.

We’ll see. Let’s just hope he doesn’t screw it up.

Why, for instance, is he meeting with Bayh, instead of Dodd or Harkin?

Hopefully to kick them in the fork and say “I got two words for you, PUBLIC OPTION”

she’s an asshole. they’re all assholes

Okay. Now let’s cut to the chase. Can the progressive bloc in the House derail a HealthCare bill that doesn’t have a public option? More accurately; WILL they?

it depends on how much their buyers are willing to shell out.

Let’s wait to see how this plays out. She may be getting conned just like the rest of us.

As Helen Thomas is reported to have said, there’s no such thing as “bipartisanship”. One Gooper’s vote does not bipartisanship make. It won’t tar the GOP with the Obama Brush on this legislation – its all Democratic, all the way – and it won’t stop the now extremist GOP from ramming Mr. O with every real and imaginary fault the Karl Rove Foundation can think up.

Ms. Snowe’s vote at this interim stage is the thinnest of possible fig leaves. This is an exclusively Democratic piece of legislation, and its faults – its submission to the will of insuresters and Fortune 500 drug lords – will be theirs.

Voters are likely to remember that come November 2010 and 2012. Especially the growing number that will be out of work and living on park benches, under highway overpasses, and in tent cities outside the population centers that haven’t driven them away with sonic cannons and Taesers [sic].

If this bipartisan kabuki is what Obama needs to avoid facing the gulf between what he is and what he claims to be, we don’t need his ego. If it’s to keep the Dems’ coffers filled by corporatists, we don’t need them and they don’t want us. If it’s “the best they can do”, why did they all work so hard to make reform as small and the costs as large as possible?

I have absolutely no confidence that our leaders will do the right thing. I’m sorry. That’s just the way I feel.

Who’s going to fight the good fight? Obama? Rahm? Reid? Durbin? Pelosi? Hoyer?

Any ray of hope out there?

Yeah; he’s no leader for sure. I think things have always come easy to the golden boy.

Sadly, I seriously doubt that. As I posted on another thread, it is much more likely to say, “what do we need to drop from the bill to get your support?”
Tell me any one time we know Obama called someone to the WH to twist his arm for the P.O., or anything else progressives want?

What makes you even think Obama actually wants a P.O.?

You still have Susan Collins, who wasn’t on that committee but will help in the final negotiations.

As Durbin said: “we need something we can call a public option”.

nuff said, right there.

you don’t need to “negotiate” with any republican, ‘cos as she proved with key clauses that had to be removed from the stimulus bill, she will only operate in bad faith.

OT

First potential Grayson challenger bites the dust.

I feel like throwing up. I am so sick of being sold out. All we really have is our vote and I am finished giving it away just because the other guy is worse. If the Democrats are going to behave just as bad as the GOP, then why give your vote to either one. The GOP may be overty bad, but when the DEMs cave and compromise, the result is equally as bad. So, what’s the difference?

And, just to prove that I will still give Obama/admin credit where it is due, despite my deep distrust on this major issue:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive? month=10&year=2009&base_name=change_we_can_taste_and_smell#116991
(Obama’s new FDA people actually enforcing the law!)

We need a Constitutional Convention. The Senate is worthless, more than worthless, actually. Kill it (or, to salve the upper crust, rename it the House of Lords and let them smoke cigars and sip brandy whenever they get together). One house — a House of COMMONS (we the people),corporate financing disallowed, chartered to do the PEOPLE’S business only. Screw the rich guys, the fat cats, the power mongers.

Or, I suppose we can just proclaim America dead, bury it, and start over again. Maybe take a fresh look at the Gayanashagowa in search of a hint or two. Any port in a storm, and what could possibly be worse than what we have?

Absolutely. I never thought I’d say it, but since I’m not a billionaire or a giant corporation, my vote doesn’t mean shit. Why waste the damn gas to drive to the polls? The bad guys have won anyway, why bother?

In the end, Snowe will not vote for any bill that contains a strong public option.

Snowe is more concerned about high speed internet for all rather than affordable health care for all. You should of heard her recently talking about high speed internet on news radio. Seriously, I thought she was going to start sobbing! Mention the public option to her and here’s the response you get:

http://whitenoiseinsanity.com/2009/09/29/sen-olympia-snowe-gives-snide-remark-to-a-constituent-on-behalf-of-the-insurance-industry-teabagggers/

Yep! She’s ONLY listening to the right wing fringe in this country! She’s always pandered to them. Hell, she’s gotten campaign money from Dick Armey’s group….DLA Piper!

OK, so riddle me this— why is Chris Dodd in the room? He’s the Banking Committee Chairman, he was only filling in for the actual HELP Committee Chairman, Ted Kennedy. Since Kennedy has since passed away, shouldn’t the new HELP Committee Chairman, Tom Harkin, be in the room instead of the Banking Committee Chair?

Imperial Princess O-Leia-mpia Snowe

Because Dodd helped write the bill and get it through committee. Harkin took over well after the bill passed out of committee.

I keep thinking there’s got to be something in the 134-dimensional chess they’re supposedly playing. Because they cannot seriously believe that Olympia Snowe’s vote is going to mean that the Republicans will not throw complete and utter shitfits about health care reform for decades after the bill passes. Can they?

Most people should now realize that health care “reform” is ever more likely to produce a result worse than the horrific situation that we now have and I’ve reached the point where I cannot abide the sound of Obama’s voice. It makes me sick to my stomach.

This deceitful slow-motion train wreck has convinced me that our system of government is broken beyond repair, and I spend most of my free time thinking and writing about how to destroy it non-violently and what to replace it with. I believe it’s a clear and present danger to the peace and safety of the planet and all its life forms. IMO, our survival depends on destroying our government.

I know I sound crazy, but with few exceptions, nothing Obama and the government does makes sense to me and I’m really tired of the lying games being played while innocent people keep dying before their time.

So, we got some repub window dressing on the bill because (as Baucus kindly pointed out), “we don’t have the votes” and adding a snowflake won’t get the all hailed ‘60′ Baucus and Reid still tell us what is their democratic foundation.
It’s beyond pathetic. And Obama has the nerve to sell this as a big victory?

First, in the absence of effective cost control measures, and tough enforcement penalties, to be levied against the insurance corporations who exercise “segregation of risk,” a fancy term for discrimination on the basis of age, sex and genetic luck, an individual mandate, under forced coercion, tax penalty to buy insurance from a corporation is Involuntary Servitude.

The individual mandate violates basic constitutional protections reserved for individuals on several ground and must be litigated before this alleged reform can proceed. Imagine a mandate to buy insurance under tax penalty and no effective mechanism to control cost or the discriminatory practices of insurance corporations, tax exempt or not! This is what we are looking at!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_servitude

Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person’s will to benefit another, under some form of coercion. While laboring to benefit another occurs in the condition of slavery, involuntary servitude does not necessarily connote the complete lack of freedom experienced in chattel slavery; involuntary servitude may also refer to other forms of unfree labor. Involuntary servitude is not dependent upon compensation or its amount.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution makes involuntary servitude illegal under any U.S. jurisdiction whether at the hands of the U.S. government or in the private sphere, except as punishment for a crime: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_protection_clause

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that “(n)o state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.[1] The Equal Protection Clause can be seen as an attempt to secure the promise of the United States’ professed commitment to the proposition that “all men are created equal”[2] by empowering the judiciary to enforce that principle against the states.

“More concretely, the Equal Protection Clause, along with the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment, marked a great shift in American constitutionalism. Before the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights protected individual rights only from invasion by the federal government. After the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted, the Constitution also protected rights from abridgment by state leaders and governments, even including some rights that arguably were not protected from abridgment by the federal government. In the wake of the Fourteenth Amendment, the states could not, among other things, deprive people of the equal protection of the laws.”

Folks I’m not opposed to health care /Insurance reform, but this is set up to further enslave Americans. Corporations operating at the state level : http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/368/compstudy_52006.pdf, have gamed the system. The corporate insurers morph in different states as for profit or tax exempt, depending on the corporate form most advantageous to secure profit, while denying coverage and access to health care, based on discrimination just as segregationist denied Americans protection of Constitutional law at the state level. Slave owners claimed state’s right and opposed abolition because it cost them to much $. Segregationist claimed same, as do “Health insurance Corporations”

The egregious protectionism for corporate America at the expense of America’s Life and Liberties was forewarned by Jefferson, and is exactly what our forefather dealt with. As Jefferson warned:”…. usurpation of constitutional checks and balances by corporate aristocrats in the lust for endless profit…” or “financial institution and corporations being a greater threat to liberty than standing armies….” or “…corporations depriving people of all property until they wake up homeless…” I guess not a word is relevant?

Yep. That’s the conclusion I came to back in ‘93 when the Clinton Health reform went down in flames. Haven’t voted since, not even last year. As I told everybody in 2008: If Obama was not already vetted, bought and paid for he would never have made it past the 2nd primary. Why do you think Kucinich NEVER gains any traction? Because he’s short? Hardly. I watched Michael Moore’s new movie and just rolled my eyes when they treated O’s election as the 2nd Coming. I was hopeful too but we all see how that’s played out. He’s from CHICAGO for cryin’ out loud! Even if he wanted to do the right thing he wouldn’t because he is a student of history and learned well the lesson of Dealey Plaza.

Yes, what’s most grating is how abjectly immoral it all is. One can put up w/ a lot of incompetence and blundering. But when good people are suffering and dying due to a calculated enrichment of the few it strikes and wounds deeply. You are pondering non violent revolt. I am trying to figure out where to move. Alas.

I have really lost faith in Maine over this. Doesn’t this whole Olympia Snowe thing seem just a little too convenient? These senators are worthless shells but NOBODY is this stupid. We don’t need 1 Republican senator. Not one. Yet EVERYTHING hinges on HER. Ridiculous. It’s a friggin’ show.

Oops! I just realized I was dissing Maine to someone named Kayin Maine! Ummmm . . . Nice coastine! Cool lobsters!

I agree for the most part with the conclusions reached by most bloggers here, such as that the government is; dysfunctional and works in the service of monied interests; that it works to the detriment of the public; that as currently configured it should be done away with and most especially that Obama is scurrilous whose very voice is sickening to listen to.

But these conclusions need arguing for on the same basis that conclusions are reached in the hard sciences. That is by testing rigorously arrived at tentative proposals (hypotheses). Conclusions arrived at in this manner are not open to endless debate. In contrast, analyzing the motives of different people as the basis of reaching conclusions although satisfying is ultimately unpersuasive

As an example, to arrive at a well founded conclusion as to which is the most efficient way to manage risk, we would put the competing proposals to a test; a single public plan vs. multiple for profit private competing plans vs. whatever the current plan is. First it is incumbent to be clear as to what elements enter into the managing of risk, such as a sufficiently large pool of low risk and high risk participants, an actuarial appraisal of the costs associated with that risk (medical expenses) incurred by participants and the most efficient way of paying out those cost. All these factor will determine the premiums to the participants and the government/taxpayer.

To a large extent conclusions from the testing of these various hypotheses have already been obtained . We know that the cost of making payments for medical expenses incurred is lower when formed by Medicare than by the myriad of private for profit insurers. Since making these payments is in essence what insurers do, then one would hypothesize that publicly managed risk plans would be cheaper than private competing for profit plans.

But this hypothesis remains to be tested and shown. It can be put to the test by allowing concurrently the managing of risk by a public plan of the 47 million currently uninsured vs. the managing of risk of everyone else by privately managed for profit plans. The tests must be comparable with the single variable tested being the cost of managing the risk.

I don’t think you are going to be much fun at the Revolution.

In any discipline you argue based on facts. Sophistry is lazy and at best a dead end. Only simpletons are swayed by sophistry and eschew facts.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZzzz . . . . Umm what were you saying? Ok smart ass you just spent 5 incredibly boring paragraphs explaining with insufferable detail how to reinvent the fu**ing wheel. It does’nt take a Manhattan Project to reveal what insurance co’s have known for about 150 years. Not to mention all the countries around the world who long ago instituted national insurance programs that effectively insure all their people at roughly half what it costs us.

” To a large extent conclusions from the testing of these various hypotheses have already been obtained . We know that the cost of making payments for medical expenses incurred is lower when formed by Medicare than by the myriad of private for profit insurers. Since making these payments is in essence what insurers do, then one would hypothesize that publicly managed risk plans would be cheaper than private competing for profit plans.”

Well now that really is an earth-shaking revelation from a finely honed analytical mind. Such laughable self-importance. I teasingly said “you are not going to be much fun at the Revolution,” and you COMPLETELY missed it. So correction: you are not going to be much fun at anything, period. And I’ll debate you anywhere, anytime and we’ll see who persuades people and WHO puts them into a coma.