Sen. Cardin was on Bill Press’ show this morning spouting the “have to change the public option to bring others onboard” b.s. He brought up taking another look at co-ops.

*sigh*

Menendez is my Senator and he’s going to get an earful. I’m sick of them thinking they can screw us once again! I’m going to inform him that if there is no public option that he and the Dems are finished. I’m going to let him know that I will work to make sure that everyone knows he’s helpoing to sell us out. He’ll need to explain to me why 4 Senators with states smaller than Brooklyn are being allowed to act as the majority. If the rest of the Dems aren’t willing to stand up to them, then we’ll either find replacements or stay home and help them hand back power to Republicans.

And what about Wyden’s idea? I hear almost nothing lately, but I think he’s still pushing an amendment to allow anyone to get access to the PO.

post your .02 on his Facebook page

The corporations own both houses of congress.
Only the very wealthy and the corporations have any say over policy.

This little game that the politicians are playing on us is getting old.

Tuning out…

Here’s the problem with the whole meme regarding triggers.

The industry has had 50 years to reform itself, the trigger is that we’re even having this debate today, and it’s already been pulled.

there was a development late last week – that would add an additional million people

This is silly. If they cared about it (and noone does except maybe Brown and Sanders) they’d strip it from the bill, beef it up by making it available to everyone, able to team up with Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate reimbursement rates, and pass it using reconciliation. What we’re in right now is a pissing contest. It isn’t about substance any more.

Obama just wants a bill that says ‘Health care reform’ on the cover, that doesn’t ruffle too many feathers, and most Democrats just want a page in there that says ‘Public option’ on it. I guarantee this legislation is going to be historic. snark/

First of all there is absolutely no reason to subject the well being of the vast majority in this country to the whims of the demonstrably most ignorant and backwards rednecks in the Senate. To even be in this position is a measure of the worthlessness of the Senate.

At this point if the PO is further watered down not at the behest of the public at large but at the behest of these 4 compromised morons, then we will need to take matters more directly into our own hands. Collective action is our only option, be it to remove by our effort Lincoln and Reid in ’10, in addition to whatever other means we can collectively employ.

In part I think that not exerting our influence to the fullest has come back to bite us as a nation. A show of strength is the only language these would be tin pot despots in Congress understand. Behaving meekly will be our downfall and partly our own fault.

Oh crap! My beloved home state’s politicians are becoming as rotten as the Jersey Shore! Wait . . . then again to think about it, they have always been rotten. nevermind

I’m cheering for this healthcare bill to fail. I think the whole thing has to crash and burn and leave Reid and Emmanuel and Obama standing there looking like idiots in front of a fuming and enraged electorate. Then let them go back to the drawing board and pass a real healthcare bill once they get it into their thick fucking skulls that Democrats are going to get pounded at the polls in 2010 and again in 2012 if we can’t do better than this, and we’re going to be looking at a Lou Dobbs/Sarah Palin ticket, for chrissakes.

Yep. (Although I give them some benefit of the doubt and use just the last 16 years since Clinton tried to do this as the “trigger” period)

The trigger’s already been pulled, fuckwad.

broadening the PO has to be the absolute priority now, to salvage this mess of a bill. That was the original definition of a “robust” PO – access. Wyden’s first amendment helped, but I have to hope there is more. Including recent college grads would be a good idea. Including people between 55 and 65 would be another. Including anyone employed by companies with less than 100 employees would be yet another one. I can think about 10 more reasonable ones. The only way the PO is going to work to facilitate affordability is to ensure that it has a critical mass of members. This is far more important to me than Medicare-rate-linked-reimbursement.

oh that quote you linked is hilarious:

“Critics contend that the proposal will cause a flood of young, healthy workers to flee employer-sponsored plans, hiking rates for the older, sicker folks who remained. ”

So.. now the conservadems have gone from worrying that the PO would become an expensive sump of the otherwise uninsurable to: the PO will transform private insurers into an expensive sump of the otherwise uninsurable.. oh. but.. wait. Um… HUH?

Is there anyone in Congress who is at least capable of basic logic and consistency in their thought processes? anybody? within a couple of years, senators will be bringing horses to fill their seats for them, Nero style… just wait.

Universal coverage and all worries bout fairness begone.

Is there anyone in Congress who is at least capable of basic logic in their thought processes?

No.

This has been another example of simple answers…

They need to broaden the PO to anyone who doesn’t have insurance. If you lose your job and your coverage, you’re eligible. If you have some pre-existing condition that the health profiteers don’t want to touch, you’re eligible. If you just plain don’t have insurance because you never wanted it and you have to thanks to the mandate, you’re eligible.

To me that’s really the only acceptable PO.

I actually think to work it needs to go beyond that. It needs to cross over into the lower and presently insured risk pools – in other words, it has to be competitive, especially for small business owners. I think Wyden’s moves are doing the right thing.

The Public option would be an option for anyone without insurance or an individual plan.

One immediate item that we can advocate strongly for is the nullification of the filibuster rule. Whatever the procedure is to begin to dismatle this idiotic procedure it needs to be explored and pushed for.

The present loggerheads in which the Senate finds itself in over HCR, approval of appointees and passing of other meaningful reform measures is sufficient evidence to rid ourselves of this recipe for impasse.

Unless Reid goes to reconciliation and Obama backs him — very unlikely — I think we’re seeing the death throes and need to look toward the future.

Congressmen have to figure out how to speak out of both sides of their mouth at the same time. They aren’t necessarily as dumb as they look.

Right on brother not only am I going to work against them but I will also vote against them and that goes for Obama who has shown no leadership on Health care in 2012 Where is the Change we were promised. Look Bush got everything he wanted with 51 senators and Harry and the Dems can’t do it with 60,bye bye guys in 2010 might as well have the Repuks in control at least we know what to expect from them NOTHING>

Bing bing bing!

Not to mention that we’ll all have to wait until 2013 or 2014 for a public option to kick in anyway!

grrrr.

FunnyWheelieDiva

Just remember it wasn’t very long ago that progressives were up-in-arms that Republicans threatened to do away with the filibuster.

If Republicans regain the majority, we may be thankful for the filibuster – assuming Democrats aren’t too cowardly to use it.

That would be a large assumption. Spineless.

Rewind the clock to March 1,2009. Barack Obama decides to let comprehensive healthcare reform wait until early 2010.

Spring,Summer,Autumn and Winter of 2009 devoted by Obama WH in breaking down American Medicare For All Plan and selecting 10 outstanding speakers as point persons for AMFA advocacy,education and persuasion/presentation.

Clean out the Ds who do not get it and sideline the Rs for being throwbacks to 19th century politics.

By March 1,2010 Obama WH and a replaced/refreshed D Congressional Leadership launch AMFA to legislation process. By September 2010 by overwhelming majority D Party votes yes in both houses of Congress AMFA is passed.

By March 1,2011 AMFA is set to start with pilot program for current 50 million Americans with no healthcare plan or poor mediocre healthcare plans. By October 1,2011 another 50 million Americans are moved into AMFA.

By June 1,2012 another 100 million Americans are now under AMFA healthcare plan. At this point all for profit health insurers are shut down and then restarted as one combined nationalized second component of AMFA.

Barack Obama goes on to win second term in WH and the D Party wins lasting majorities in Congress.

The above is the what the a profile in political courage would or could have been. Instead Americans got a years worth of death panels and diluted PO positions which now seem very likely to get the trigger treatment due to the rampant money politics WashingtonDC is infested with. The Ds could have went after the money politics as well but Barack Obamas WH did not.

There should be a real consequence for that failure in leadership. Clearly tens of millions of Americans are going to suffer a consequence over next five years because of Obama WH failure and D Party failure on AMFA.

The ignorance of Barack Obama declaring Single Payer was not an option ought to doom him to being a one term American President. As for the D Party if they really are going to try to sell this POS as being a great thing they and those who support that bankruptcy ought to go down in defeat.

It is so richly deserved.

I remember writing letters to senators exhorting the use of the filibuster based on the fact that the 44 democratic senators (before the ’06 election) still represented more voters than the republican majority represented, and argued therefore that exercizing the filibuster actually mitigated the undemocratic nature of the senate.

How about a trigger that would actually work! A trigger that allows you to but into medicare.

Any person who who pays more than 8% of their gross income or family who pays more than 12% including co-pays for full coverage health insurance with a deductible of say $200.00 is entitled to buy into medicare.

The percentages of income could be adjusted to reflect true affordability, so if you are making the minimum wage it would be less than the percentage stated above.

You medicare premiums would then be a little lower.

It is all about creating a new path of least resistance over the conservative Democratic senates. If you can get house or senate progressives to hold the line you can leave them with no other choice.

Ive always supported the elimination of the filibuster. Look at California. Our nation is doomed if we do not restore majority rule.

Yeah, as a Californian I can confirm our state is ungovernable.

This is a bad sign about Menendez, he’s one of the most liberal Senators I’ve heard make positive comments about the trigger recently. If we start hearing stuff like this from people like Durbin or Schumer, we could be doomed.

scum

I never was up in arms. The filibuster has been used far more times to thwart Prog initiatives than it has to hamper Repub ones.
It needs to be seriously changed or jettisoned.