Can they use reconciliation to get me a flying car while they’re at it too?

I’m sick and tired of career politicians who are more worried about getting reelected rather then doing the right thing. To be quite frank, the Blue Hogs are pissing me off. The American people do not care if they get reelected, what they care about is real health care reform.

So instead of providing “cover” for these Blue Frogs, and letting them vote ‘no’ to protect their own asses, Reid needs to start giving out some ultimatums, behind closed doors. At least give them a good incentive for voting for cloture.

Personally, I don’t care if any of them get reelected. There is no point in having the majority (super majority), without actually using it. Passing vital once-in-a-generation legislation now, is more important then retaining the majority tomorrow. But I digress…

We all know that the Dems don’t have the guts to use reconciliation anyways. <_<

This is Evan Bayh (D-Wellpoint) right?

Correct

Progressives listening to Evan Bayh’s views on HCR legislative strategy is
like Richard Dawkins listening to Sarah Palin’s views on evolution.

The question may come down to whether a bill that would be watered down by the strange Byrd rule would still end up a better bill than one watered down to fulfill the whims of Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, or Ben Nelson.

That’s certainly rolling the dice, alright. But if that’s what ends up happening, can I get a pony out of the deal?

Yes. It’s a budget item. Now all you have to do is get 218 House members to vote for it as an amendment, someone in conference to make sure it is in the final bill, and 50 Senators plus Joe Biden to pass it in the Senate.

Good luck.

What do you mean? “The Flintstones” isn’t a documentary?

right, and if we apply enopugh pressure to individual politicians, there isnt any important legislation which cant be passed in reconcilliation (according to evan bayh) ! parties dont matter any more!hooray.at this point im all for a purge in senate. we wont ever get anything useful to the people from these pigs, on the contrary they will only continue to turn the govenment into a mcdonalds drive thru for the corporate world. i think the ultimate mission should be ruining blue dog dick careers.

The question may come down to whether a bill that would be watered down by the strange Byrd rule would still end up a better bill than one watered down to fulfill the whims of Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, or Ben Nelson.

Dems put the ‘d’ in diluted.

Unfortunately, meaningful change will only occur once money is removed from politics. The insurance companies shouldn’t even have a seat at the table, much less manipulating our representatives and senators like puppets…dangling the old mighty dollar out in front of their noses.

“Government of and for the people” is how it starts, but to get elected it quickly becomes “Government of and for Corporations”.

… and the one to institute this awesome display of political strength and acumen would be… Harry Reid.

Ponies? Hell, that’s tooth fairy territory.

DFA is asking the following:

If you live in a state with a Senator who is part of the Democratic Caucus, please call your Senator right now and demand the vote to remove the chairmanship of any Senator who joins a Republcian filibuster against a public option:

Senate Swithcboard: (202) 224-3121

I would add the following:

Any Senator who joins a Republcian filibuster against a public option should lose their committee appointments.

Hmmmm. If the Senator from Wellpoint is begging for reconciliation, that makes me think he’s getting some significant pressure on the cloture vote. Most likely from constituent calls, but is it possible that Harry is also saying “pretty please”?

Are we really gong to have to listen to weeks and weeks of these Conservadem taunts? Let them kill the bill for all I care. It will be Reid, Lincoln, and the Blue Dogs who are gone in 2010.

Yesterday it was Joe, today it is Evan, and is Ben coming out tomorrow? These politicians want to take care of each other first it makes me raving mad…

Jane dared Blanch Lincoln yesterday in RMS, we need Jane to dare a few more like that.

Excellent analogy !*G*; keep them coming !

People, forget reconciliation; Obama won’t stand for it.

Solerso, George Washington said in his farewell address “They [political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.”

As David Sirota wrote “The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda. Movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it. This is one of the few enduring political axioms, and it explains why the organizations purporting to lead an American progressive “movement” have yet to build a real movement, much less a successful one.”

Any senator who votes for a Republican filibuster should lose access to DSCC funds in addition to losing committee assignments.

Can they do it in two parts?

1. Denial of coverage, preexisting conditions, junk policies

2. Public Option

Rachel’s first DARE!

The American people will not stand for arcane Senate rules thwarting our desire for health care choice. These fossilized oligarchs must realize that we KNOW there’s no constitutional hurdle to a 50-vote majority; it’s just a stupid rule the Senate made for itself.

Harry & Co would be smart to move swiftly, before even more Americans catch on to their circus-like rules and regulations, put in place to thwart majority rule and the will of the people. The Senate could seriously endanger its privilege and prerogatives if more of us catch on to their peculiarities.

Let’s go. Fifty (plus one) wins in a group of 100. Everybody knows this.

The Bush taxcuts and the Medicare Part D corporate welfare bill were all passed using reconciliation, iirc, but you won’t hear Villagers mention that from their fainting couches when reconciliation is discussed.

how about they pass everything but the mandate? or at least vote on that separately. i wouldn’t mind seeing that go down in flames.

It still means we have to push for the bill we want in the House and the best bill we can get in the Senate. If neither bill is acceptable, then we won’t end up with an acceptable measure in reconciliation.

ive thought about that problem quite a bit. im skeptical that putting a limit on campaign spending will fix it. They have to determine what “campaign spending” is, a list they could (and do) game easily, and it only applies to campaigns. What about PACs? other than that i dont know how you get money “out of politics” any more than you get money out of anywhere else. go communist maybe, i dont know. No i think our system has reached its limits in many ways and lobbyists found have out how to buy the govt.

If they go the reconcilation way, can the “states can opt out” provision be dropped and forgotten?

Wildly OT, my bad: South Carolina Republican family values, part 7.

So that Senator who got voted in by their state supposedly based on their views which should then align with the majority of the state then lose representation because he or she voted against a bill they they “in theory” thought was not best for their constituency based on them being elected??

Amen!

Though I lack faith in the Democrats willingness to have the courage to do so. I think they would rather submit to the demands of a few blue dogs and or single Republican, which would essentially water-down the bill, then do what is right.

They are all too worried about getting reelected, and therefore need the cover of others to justify and legitimize their own vote. Simply put, they doubt their own convictions.

At this rate, we will be lucky to get the trigger. And what is worse, it’s members of their own party that are going to ruin true reform. And they will do so without any consequences.

Since the election of Obama, it’s been inspiring to see the empowerment of liberals and progressives. I would hope that this would embolden Democrats to do what is right, but how can they do what is right without a backbone?

The only hope is to remove the almighty dollar from our government system. Alternatively, we can put pressure on our representatives like never before, like we have had to do just to keep the public option alive.

The moment we relax, is the moment that we lose more ground.

DoSiDo@3; right you are. And HOW many shares of healthcare insurance stock does Bay’s wife own?

Allan@28; as a resident of Myrtle Beach, S.C., where the local ChamberPot of Commerce is kinda like the Vatican in Rome, my 2c, I forgive you your off-topicness. :o)

And that deputy A.G. had, I betcha, a plastic statue of Jaysus mounted on his dashboard…which he turned the other way, when the sitch with the stripper started getting steamy. :o)

No. I’m not talking about limiting contributions, I’m talking about removing them altogether. Otherwise, if you have enough money, you can always buy a vote.

I believe that somethings, like health care and funding for campaigns, are too important to be left up to the devices of capitalism. Both should be socialized.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not advocating for the complete socialization of the United States. I believe that Capitalism all by itself is bad, and Socialism all by itself is bad. What we need is a hybrid, like we have. Though a few more things need to be removed from our Capitalistic system….that would include where campaigns funds are coming from.

Sorry for the double post, if in fact somebody doesn’t post first.

I wish our government was smart and uncorrupted enough to take the commonsense approach to all issues just like everyday people do. You do things one step at a time. If you car is running bad or doesn’t start you don’t redesign the whole thing and take it to the shop and have them put in a new engine, bigger gas tank, new starter, transmission, brakes, tires, ect. ect. No you take it one step at a time usually the cheapest thing first like checking to see if you have gas in the tank and all the fluids. Then you find a person knowledgeable on your vehicle and if something needs to be replaced you try that. Then by all means if it is smart for you to get a new engine because it will be more efficient go right a head but fix what can be fixed for free first then the next smartest investment when the time and money is there for it to be done right. All this fraud in Medicare and Medicade that Obama talks about is still going on and they are using it as leverage to get something else passed. Why not get that done right now. It is a huge problem draining billions of dollars right!?! Then open up competition between states for health insurance, this increases competition which both sides agree on just have different views on how best to do it but both can be done at the same time even. Then pass tort reform. These 3 things have increased efficiencies, competition, and limited fraud and wasted money, all while not costing anyone but lawyers money and actually saving money in many other areas including the federal budget. Then they can pass rules regarding pre-existing conditions and lifetime and yearly minimums and dropping or non-coverage issues. All these things should be in a final bill anyway and are wanted by many Americans, so why does it have to be all at once and complicated if the motivator isn’t political leverage.

Why are you on this site? If you’re going to troll, you might as well make some kind of intelligent point instead of Pug talking points. Do you know why we don’t allow competition across state lines? Because it’s stupid, that’s why. We’re not going to replicate the fiasco we have with credit cards with our healthcare. Every health care firm would move to some God awful pug state like South Dakota or Mississippi, come up with the crappiest terms those states will allow, and then force all of the rest of us to accept them. And your tort reform is BS. If tort reform was such a panacea, then why does Texas have the highest rate of uninsured while having the most anti-consumer tort laws? Like I asked before, “Why are you on this site?” This isn’t DailyKos or even Huffington. Pugs are not welcome here so do your trolling elsewhere.

A Reconciliation Vote for A Public Option for all in Health Care Insurance – to be followed immediately by a reconciliation vote to give GI JOE the boot from the Democratic Caucus!!!

Let him go over to the “Party In Exile” and enjoy his new life of not being able to be a pain in the ass to the Democrats anymore – - and having no more power to stop things dead in their tracks!!

If they allowed insurance companies to compete across state lines, they’d be obliged to regulate them nationally. At least I assume that’s what Ron Wyden’s getting at. Also, the PO, if there is one, should be national, too.

I wish the CBO could score HR 676, Weiner’s Medicare for all plan, show how much money we’d save under such a system. How do bills get scored? Who has the right to ask it? How does it happen? Fiscal conservatives come in all shapes and sizes…Cheap health insurance and no hassles…based on a program (Medicare) everyone loves. Sounds like a winner. Enact it quickly, using reconciliation, make sure it kicks in before 2012, you win some elections, too.

What’s Bayh playing at?

Evan has big problems with this public option, i.e. ”

Wellpoint’s board of directors includes Susan Bayh, a former attorney with the giant Indianapolis-based drug company Eli Lilly & Company. She is also a director of Curis (a drug company); Dendreon (a biotechnology company), Dyax (a biopharmaceutical company), and Emmis (a media corporation that owns radio stations and magazines). In the last two years, she has earned over $2 million serving on the boards of these health care corporations. She also happens to be the wife of Evan Bayh, the Democratic Senator from Indiana. Sen. Bayh recently told an Indiana newspaper that he is an “agnostic” regarding the public option. That means he’s sitting on the fence, trying to decide which side he’s on — the insurance industry or the majority of people of Indiana.

See the lengthy discussion on that very point here, Teddy.

Making money? Betraying his mother’s memory?

Hi selise, They can do it in three steps outlined here.

Hi Jon, You asked:

“The question may come down to whether a bill that would be watered down by the strange Byrd rule would still end up a better bill than one watered down to fulfill the whims of Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, or Ben Nelson.”

It doesn’t have to be watered down. In fact, it can be optional Medicare for All. See the three-step strategy.

good call. that would require thinking ahead and a political strategy informed by policy analysis, not talking points, and not strictly focused on the next vote.

The much-maligned “public option” would save every American taxpayer money (since we spend much more per capita than the dreaded socialized-medicine countries) and give the poor, or the recently-laid-off, a feasible, workable alternative to paying for everything out-of-pocket (which can put you among the reviled, credit-card-debt-ridden sector of the American public right quick.) That lobbyists have the influence to make a mockery of the very idea of government-funded healthcare (when by most accounts it is the LEAST expensive – unless your accounting is skewed by political expediency) is an obscenity. For-profit health insurance companies, which barely existed 40 years ago, insist that government-funded healthcare cannot even be permitted as an option, because simply by virtue of not existing to turn a profit, it would obviously out-compete them. To them I say – suck it up, you bastards. You’ve profiteered long enough by bilking the still-solvent and abandoning the desperate. Maintaining the profitability of the vast for-profit insurance sector is not your job, Congress – and certainly not sufficient reason to screw over millions of hard-working Americans yet again.

The much-maligned “public option” would save every American taxpayer money (since we spend much more per capita than the dreaded socialized-medicine countries) and give the poor, or the recently-laid-off, a feasible, workable alternative to paying for everything out-of-pocket (which can put you among the reviled, credit-card-debt-ridden sector of the American public right quick.)

public option in hr 3200 might save as much as $110 billion over ten years. that’s less than 0.5% of our nation’s total healthcare expenditures.

it is not the public option, but the subsidies (that apply to both private insurance public option in the exchange) that provide the alternative for the poor to paying everything out of pocket.

there are reasons to support some kind of a public option, but they are not the ones you give.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8870
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/9592

robust does not mean what it used to mean.

Lets pass this baby by reconcilliation….

and then lets put the fucking foot up the fucking ass of Lieberdouche.

Send that little beyotch into the fucking mines for the rest of his pathetic little career until he is gone in 2012.

Thanks. Where’s Jon’s reply, I wonder.

Finally, Bayh gets something right!

This is obviously going to reconciliation, unless someone can get Joe Lieberman and Roland Burris to hug it out.

The eminently straight-reporting and sober Susan Page said a few months ago that reconciliation was likely to get this done – I’ve never doubted her.

I like that the “Senator Wellpoint” crack is starting to take hold. :)

I *think* that we might see further reform *next year* through reconciliation. As much as we would like to get everything this year, if we get some of the foundational items down that need the 60 votes, next year we can make “adjustments” to them via reconciliation.

I’m not sure how much of a stomach there is Leadership or the White House to fight some of these smaller wars. But I don’t think this:

Level Playing Field –> Medicare + 5% + Rural Adjustments

Is something that would run into Byrd Rule issues. It saves around $80B, and simply sets rates rather than creates the PO structure.

The worry then becomes the Blue Dogs.

Well, get some primary folks out there.

John