60% of Americans support a public option. Hope they do their jobs and work for the majority of Americans. Hope they are getting the message

“the popular public option/Medicare buy-in instead of a deal with labor unions.”

Taxing the existing health benefits, as refered to stupidly as “Cadillac plans”, which barely approach anything the congress enjoys, is similar to taxing our tax returns, or our unemployment stippends. I want to call it… “regressive.” It shows something is wrong with the intentions that it is contemplated at all.
That sensing the disapproval from the unions on this, then cut a special deal to except those plans that were negotiated in collective bargaining, is the same trick as making a sweet deal with B N nebraska. It makes everybody else mad. They are not doing unions a favor in this process. Crass cynicism, is how it looks to me.
Unions have lost clout but retain name value, and use as a concept to utilise, but the real purposes are of an incremental tamping down of the working, and middle income level… “peasantry.”

This is good news…for John McCain! Seriously though, if the dems do this I will go to war against them, as I am already at war with the Republicans. This doesn’t leave many ways to affect an election. I remain a registered Republican, but only so I can vote against their establishment candidates every primary cycle, and of course in the general as well. Now I must clearly make finer distinctions regarding which dems are worth supporting. I’ve already abandoned my local wanna-be Blue Dog congressman, but of course a primary challenge is unlikely and incumbent reelection prospects are still likely to be at Soviet-style election levels, per the norm.

I will thus be forced in the future to vote more for third-party candidates and to donate campaign funds nationwide to those progressives brave enough to challenge incumbent conservadems. Unfortunately, most of those I would like to see primaried are not likely to be but I’m keeping a list and checking it twice, every election cycle, and I always vote. I’ll vote even if I have to turn in an empty ballot, at least then it will help reduce the winning percentage of these a-holes.

You misunderstand the purpose of the HCR bill.

Any benefit for voters is a scam, a figment, an illusion, to sell the bill (of goods) to the voters. Under the bill the insurance companies would get money from everyone. The insurance companies have every power to not pay claims, and the power raise premiums to an unaffordable levels.

This bill is designed to protect the Health Insurance companies from their failing business model. Ever increasing medical provider costs force insurance companies into ever increasing policy premiums, which then forces consumers to drop the medical insurance. The medical insurance companies currently live in death spiral, ever dropping numbers of policy holders, ever increasing policy prices. The bill delays this death spiral for some years.

Pharma protects its very profitable biologics (the future), and its current US pricing. The bill protects pharma’s profits.

There is a provision in the bill where medical insurance companies cannot force to medical providers to cut costs. The Insurance Companies are barred from setting procedure payments. This protects the medical provider’s fees and profits.

The bill is good for the medical industry. For voters? Meager benefits, if any.

This is no Pelosi/Reid suicide pact. This is payback for favors received.

right, lets not waste any time with any expectations from these losers.kill the bill

I said it all along: reconciliation would ultimately be used, but only to pass a bad bill, the one negotiated in secret, the one Obama wanted from the start. Reconciliation will include no public option, no Medicare buy-in, no drug reimportation.

However, the whole thing can be avoided if Obama can get a few Republicans on board in the House. Notice, even after Massachusetts, he’s still talking “bipartisanship”. A few Republicans vote for the bill, get paid off with insurance company jobs when they’re voted out of office, and Obama says “I told you so” about how both parties (puke) can work together.

right, we should be working to take this thing off the table. “do no harm” and move on.

Nothing wrong with this post but the title John.

The term “suicide pact” is the poison pill. Do you mean a pact only to do with the HC bill or of the Dem Party?
With recent behavior, include a decade… (Include the rediculous sign offs by Gore and Kerry on the previous two elections,)—- (Stupreme court-decided in one,) and you have an “Undead party of Zombies.” Perfect. For a population of same. They need to get reenergized.

Absolutely correct.

It’s fascinating to watch, like a train wreck in slow motion.

“This bill is designed to protect the Health Insurance companies from their failing business model.” ; yup.

they just don’t get it and ‘pass a bill,any bill’ is still the ‘menu du jour’.

Jon, thanks for all you’ve done and do; please don’t you commit suicide because of the Dems obdurateness.

This is not rocket science. If Democrats try to use reconciliation to only pass a deal for labor unions paid for with another tax increase, it will be the death of the party in 2010.

Amen. Like it or not but unions aren’t always the most popular of institutions outside of the Democratic party, and this is one terrible hosing that will be done in the eyes of independents. If you want to do something for labor, pass EFCA, not a bribe.

They are ready for the final push to sell out America. I hope they like losing 50+ seats in 2010 and the Senate. It makes me wonder why do it at all? I mean you can say the fix is in, but this is epic stupid. It’s like when you have that friend, who is dating a total jerk, just when you think they break up, they go right back. Everyone sees the mistake except the person making it.

I’m all pro Labor because it represents wage earners everywhere. But if Labor cannot stand in solidarity with the rest of progressives against Fascism, if they invite Fascism into the house because they’ve bought some protections for themselves, then they are themselves thoroughly corrupt and worthless to any broad based democratic solutions for America.

Since when have Pelosi and/or Reid demonstrated any propensity for doing what the People want?

Reid is going to be gone soon and, hopefully, Pelosi will follow him, or at least, be stripped of her position as Speaker. Frankly, she’s not qualified to be Speaker of anything larger or more important than a school board, if that.

Registered Democrats should resign and re-register as Independents. They should also send letters to the Democratic organizations at the local, state, and federal level explaining why they are no longer Democrats and let those organizations know that they will not receive campaign donations until they show that they will represent us, and not the special interests.

This isn’t rocket science, folks.

Democrats vs. Republican: where stupid meets mendacious.

“When driving off a cliff, the best strategy is to accelerate and hope the car will suddenly sprout wings.”
-Democratic Party proverb

They don’t care about the people, nor if they lose. If they pass this mandate though, they can all get millions of dollars from their insurance and pharma industry stocks and retire or get jobs with the industries.

When you look at Reids numbers and read how he is supporting Bernake, you know he does not care if he loses, so they may as well get as much as they can for their corporate cronies and themselves on their way out.

A decent health-care coverage bill is about the only thing that’s kept me from bolting in the last year, and I’ve been registered as a D for nearly 40 years.
They really are that fucking clueless.

I’d like to suggest registering Green and taking that party over from the inside ….

I have had it with stories from un-disclosed sources. How many times have we spent days commenting on this kind of stuff to find out it was nonsense. If anything we should treat these stories as gossip or just plain propaganda.

Pelosi is very qualified. Look at how brilliantly she is at supporting her corporate cronies. WE keep looking at Reid, Obama, pelosi and other democrats as if they were incompetent, spineless, etc. But they are getting exactly what their pay masters want.

Suicide is mostly apt, although as has been noted there is also the important industry-stroking sellout factor. There is after all no such thing as long-term, beyond the next election’s fund raising of course.

Progressives stand confused by the rejection of a Single Payer, public option or other strong national health care benefit because it would so obviously be a massive and unassailable boon to Democratic success.
At this point it’s hard to avoid a trip deep into the well of cynicism, since the bulk of our Congress is behaving as if they are totally corrupt or profoundly stupid.

And I just came across this; note that Dean Baker is one of the signatories.

And this. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/tally-sheet-where-house-dems-stand-on-how-to-move-health-care-reform-forward.php?ref=fpb

Hoyer is running the House, as the majority whip or whatever they call the leader of the majority party.
Pelosi has been allowing it, or at least not stopping him, for whatever reason, including possibly not having a clue herself.

Just acting on the president’s orders.

I am with you. If john Marty does not get the DFL endorsement in Mn for governor, I refuse to support any of the other candidates who are taking corporate money and I plan to help whoever the 3rd party is.

I don’t want them to do anything but just pass the bill in the house. We can fix it over the next year or two or three. To get nothing now is really suicide. Let’s get one win in our column for once. I am sick to death of all the genius strategy that never works because we simply do NOT have the votes either in the house or the senate and quite posssibly even under the senate reconciliation rules. Let people complain but show them a winner then we can use that to come back another day and amend it. Or do you want to be a whining loser – - again!!!

And this

The problem is finding someone who isn’t like that. I certainly don’t want Steny and who can we depend on to be an advocate for us?

And the unions are selling us out also. That drive they did in calling the congress, they only focused on issues for them, nothing about the mandate or no public option.

TPM and people at the Great Orange Satan have both been pushing the Senate bill very hard, as if hospitals and doctors and all other health care will disappear if no bill is passed. Someone should start asking, on all those posts, what they expect to happen between now and 2014, when the bill is supposed to take effect:
Will people not get sick?
Will they only get colds and other relatively inexpensive illnesses?
Will they not die?
Will hospitals and doctors suddenly materialize in under-served places?
Will the insurance companies lower their premiums and their executive paychecks?

“We can fix it over the next year or two or three.”
___

It’s probably at least equally likely that it’ll be eviscerated in the coming few years.

I guess my question is this……. what guarantee do we have that if the House passes this piece of shit bill that there WILL be an effort to fix it via reconcilation? Once the House votes, that’s it and the bill can be signed into law. Then there is absolutely no real reason for Obama, Rahm, Reid or any other Democrat to re-open anything to do with health care.

That’s why I was never comfortable with the argument that the Senate should just pass their version and then things will be fixed in conference. I don’t trust those idiots, and it appears I was right not to trust them. Circumstances changed and now all options to fix the Sentate bill via committee or even that ‘ping pong’ option are tossed out the window.

So make no mistake. If the House passes the Senate bill as is, that will be the end of what we get.

I’ve noticed that the commenters at TPM are not as universally supportive as the staff. I’ve just about stopped going there though, because Josh Marshall’s unfettered support for all things Obama, especially the Senate bill makes me gag.

We can fix it over the next year or two or three.

As I have asked others, what crappy legislation have you seen “fixed” by Congress in the last 25 – 30 years?

It does not happen anymore, if it ever happened.

Think of things like the “credit card reform” or “bankruptcy reform.” Congress knows there are large problems with both of these pieces of legislation but they never quite seem to be able to fix the problems that are fairly well documented.

The final bitter irony–for a year a good bill was impossible because reconciliation was said to be impossible. Now that the corrupt senate bill is on the line, suddenly anything is possible. Why not personally go door to door to spit on each progressive? It would be more subtle.

They want the win and they want to get the issue over with so they can move onto something less divisive within the left. They also believe that the Senate and the House will actually revisit the issue and magically fix the bill. At this point the “reality based community” it going it on faith, because I see no proof that there will be any “fix” later on down the road.

This means one of three things:

1.) The Dems are so wedded to their healthcare special interests that they presume they will be taken care of when their political careers end in November.

2.) The Dems have given up polling to understand how the country is reacting to this abomination coming out of the Senate and are completely tone-deaf and not understanding what is happening.

3.) Democratic leadership is really, really stupid.

For Reid personally it probably doesn’t matter. He’s looking to be out in November. For Pelosi, she’s probably always going to be safe. (Gavin Newsom would have a chance in the primary but probably wouldn’t go against the party hierarchy. I still think that Matt Gonzalez, formerly of the SF Board of Supervisors, could actually take her on and win running as a Green.)

People want healthcare reform but don’t want THIS healthcare reform. And they need jobs more. It amazes me that Democrats haven’t figured out that their constituents are hurting.

Actually, the healthcare industry wants this kind of “reform” because they are actually heading into a crisis. They may have overplayed their hand, though, because their best solution would be a government plan that obligates everybody to buy their overpriced, underserving products.

Any fix made is one that is temporary at best. Case in point, minimum wage, why is it that the Congress has to go in every few decades to “fix” something we know will break again? Why not just tie increases to tick off every five years based on projections of inflation? An actual fix to the problem… They just want the issue to run on again in the next election. Its the same reason why the “death tax” ends for one year and they goes right back to where it was.

Democratic Leaders: A Brief parable

bluedot, if you pass a bad bill why do you think that the healthcare can be “fixed”? Do you think that voters in November are going to think, “Yeah, the Dems passed a really crappy healthcare bill and now I’m being taxed to pay for someone else’s insurance while insurance execs are making millions, and my rates just went up again, but if I keep voting in Dems, maybe they’ll get around to fixing it in a few years”? I’m guessing that after the November elections there will be a lot more Republicans in Congress, making it impossible to change anything the Repubs and the industry don’t want.

In short, if you pass a bad healthcare bill you are stuck with it. And the Republican Party will happily let it stand and keep on blaming the Dems for it. Thanks, Harry and Nancy.

But maybe in a few years we’ll all be flying around with solar-powered jetpacks.

I’ll take door number 3

Think of Lieberman’s role is all this. He should just be dropped from any leadership position or perk because of his stand on a public option and let him quit the party.

Jon:

Is there anyway you can get edit your post and get this information into table form? It’s really good information and I think it would have a higher impact in “picture” form.

Just a thought…

What Costs the Government Money?

1. Fixing the excise tax (as per agreement with labor unions)–cost $60 billion.
2. Extending extra Nebraska Medicaid money to all states–cost $35 billion.
3. Increased affordability tax credits and lower annual out-of-pocket limits (there is no one “right” amount, but for the sake of argument I will set a number)–cost $150 billion.
4. Increased funding for community health care centers–$10 billion.
5. Creating a national exchange (no official CBO score, but cost should not be more than $1 billion).

Total cost: roughly $255 billion.

What Saves Money or Increases Revenue for the Government?

1. A strong public option–saves $110 billion (only $25 billion if it is the “level playing field” public option).
2. Replacing Senate “free rider” provision with employer mandate–generates an additional $107 billion.
3. Medicaid expansion from 133% to 150% FPL–saves $25 billion (in truth, Medicaid should be extended to 200% FPL, or whatever percentage it stops being more cost effective for the government).
4. Allowing drug re-importation–saves $19 billion.
5. Direct Medicare drug price negotiation (no official CBO score, but should save several billion dollars).
6. Early Medicare buy-in for 50-65, after the exchange starts (no official CBO score, but should save several billion dollars).

Total savings/revenue generated: roughly $260 billion (with additional but yet-un-scored savings from Medicare/Medicaid buy-in, and Medicare direct drug price negotiations).

There you go. Copy that. That would be my take.

Heres a great story on a seemingly unrelated story

http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog/?p=1474

scummy private war contractors in afghanistan – and its not seeming so unrelated to me right now. corrupt politicians have been selling off functions and responsibilities of the governemnt for 30 years. the war contractors have been the worst, most horrific, costly and over priced incarnation that has caught the public attention recently, but the senates god awful extortion attempt called “HCR” as a euphemism might be the worst. combine that with the hi courts unexplainable ruling that corporate cash = speech. its like the corporation are pulling off the final coup. end this shit now. i hope everyone and their brother is calling house members to get them to kill that monstrosity. we have to start fighting back somehwerehttp://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog/?p=1474

Americans do not trust gov’t. To me, it looks like the progressives are trying to force all Americans into being dependent on The fed gov’t. The same gov’t that repealed Glass-Spiegel which led to some banks being to big to fail. How many billions have we thrown away on Freddie and Fannie. The list of progressive gov’t failures is to long to list. Gov’t is not the solution gov’t is the problem. The gov’ts of Germany, USSR, and China took the progressive ideals to the limit and killed 100,000,000 of their own citizens. Americans are right to be afraid of you big gov’t progressives. It’s not just our money, property and guns you are after it’s our very lives.

The emblematic photo for me several years ago was the Burger King stand on the military base in Iraq, with troops lined up to buy chow.

I’m just thankful that I’ve yet to have government-run military defense, police and fire protection, disaster relief, and food and Rx safety etc rammed down my throat. Whew…

Passing this Bill and considering it a “win” would be the very definition of a “Pyrrhic Victory” i.e. “A victory with devastating cost to the victor.”

The losers among the puported “victors” would be Organized Labor, which betrayed the non-unionized majority of the working class by accepting concessions for themselves on the excise tax rather than insisting on its abandonment, the Democratic Party, which will be correctly perceived as being more concerned with marketing a legislative victory than with improving living conditions for the vast majority of Americans, and liberals/progressives who supported the Bill, since those “isms” will now be inextricably intertwined in the minds of most Independents with a Bill that will impose an economic burden on them (both through the mandate and the “Ford Taurus” Tax) that makes them considerably worse off than they would be if no Bill was passed at all. You can probably find more losers among the “winners” if you think about it.

With solutions like this, who needs problems. Kill the Bill. As for myself, I’m starting drinking early today. Later.

As a former GI (USAF) I can state unequivocally that even when the chow hall was staffed by other GIs and I had a meal card, there were times, especially on pay day and the day after, when I ate somewhere other than the chow hall just to have something slightly different. It might have been a steak downtown, a burger at Tony Macs, a Burger King burger or the buffet at the NCO club but it was somewhere different.

And most stateside bases have all your standard fast food places, either on base (often next to the Exchange) or right off base/post.

Point taken. And, I salute you for your service.

I’m a little confused.

On Thurs, Jon presented a great argument for fixing problems by means of “sidecare reconciliation” in Fixing Health Reform Through the Reconciliation Sidecar: 13 Improvements, 6 Ways to Save Money, 4 Important Benefits.

Then, yesterday, he wrote that “Senate Democrats are too collectively ego-driven to support a reconciliation sidecar,” i.e. that “sidecare reconciliation” was dead. He shifted to the idea of “reconciliation only” in The “Reconciliation Only” Option: Just Give Medicaid to Those Who Can’t Afford Insurance.

So, is he now saying today that “sidecare reconciliation” has been put back on the table, but that it has been put back on the table by means of Pelosi and Reid actually making the legislation worse?

And who was it controlled Congress when Glass-Steagall was repealed and the billions were thrown at Fannie/Freddie to help President Bush and his “Homeonwer’s Society” initiative?

Methinks it was NOT the “liberals” you are so intent on blaming for all the ills of the owrld.

but thank you for playing.

Next!

Remember huricane Katrina. It’s not the local police and fire I fear. They are great. Remember the patriot bill.

And again, who controlled the Congress and the WH when the Patriot Act was passed? (I do agree that it is another fine example of crappy legislation)

The Democratic Party is too close to Wall Street to be a vehicle for the change we need.

If it dies, it dies.

Move on.

Book Salon Up at the Mothership

Glass-Steagall was repealed by rep. congress and dem. pres. The billions have been flushed on fannie and freddie by rep. and dem. pres. and dem. congress.
What they all have in common is huge progressive gov’t.

Actually the loosening of the rules for Fannie and Freddie were under a R WH and R COngress.

Or are you one of those who believes Barney Frank had magic powers that forced Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay to do his evil bidding?

Exactly and how long has Barney Frank and Chris Dodd had to clean up Fred and Fan? about 4 years. Another example of gov’t to big to succeed.

more madness…thanks for the good post.

I seem to recall that we told them he wasn’t a reliable vote, a year ago, and were laughed at because ‘he’s with us on everything but the war’.

Well, it seems, as has been noted previously, there are large amounts of legislation, especially that which was passed under Republican control, that has yet to be fixed by either side.

Maybe, if the Republicans could actually do something other than say no all the time, it is something you could bring up to them, since you seem to be wired to their belief system.

Social Security – 1930s.
Medicare – 1960s.
We’ve always been expected to not really trust government; it was only in the 50s and 60s that ‘trust the government’ became a big thing, with (as you probably don’t recall) the Cold War.

Germany, the USSR, and China weren’t ‘progressive’, either, unless you have some definition none of the rest of us have ever met.

Wasn’t it a combination of (amongst other things) having the youth vote not show up combined with the senior vote showing up pissed that resulted in Coakley losing? I would think going full speed ahead with the individual mandate (pissing everyone off, but specifically targeted to hit the young voters) and cutting Medicare (again pissing everyone off, but specifically targeting the senior vote) is just asking for Democrats to take over the position of most despised political party. If you’re going to use reconciliation, use it to pass good bills or else you are going to reap the whirldwind. If Pelosi and Reid go through with this party line reconciliation vote, the Democratic Party will rightfully own this and everything bad that comes out of it. Gouging the middle class because you’ve buddied up with the corporate lobbyists is going to result in electoral payback.

Katrina wasn’t helped by the local police, who were shooting at people trying to evacuate, or the local government, which got out of town before evacuating [people who couldn’t leave on their own. Or by the feds, who showed up late, held up aid from outside, and didn’t do much when they did arrive.
It wasn’t government who hired mercenaries to ‘protect’ the wealthy neighborhoods, either.

Taxing everyone except the unions is a bad move for both the unions and the dems but what can you do? You can write and call Pelosi’s office until your blue in the face she is going to do what she wants to do regardless of how the voters feel. I am sure the health insurance and rx companies are pushing her and Reid to make this deal asap, their stocks were not going up for nothing. All we progressives can do is watch the carnage with the knowledge that the bright side of this is that there are a lot of dems seats that will be available in the next couple of years. It is going to be easier to beat republicans than fight against entrenched and incumbent democrats. This current crop of dems are too corrupt to be useful to the citizens of this country ,a purging of the party is just what the country needs.

Here are the options, Jon:

1. Do nothing and move on quickly to other bills so Dems can stop talking about health care reform.
2. The Senate bill, with some things in reconciliation to get the House on board.

No other strategy is possible right now. Now I know the Senate bill sucks, but as a Democrat, I want to be able to do more good in the next year or so. If health care goes down, Democrats will be paralyzed for the next year, lose seats in 2010 because activists will stay home, and then be unable to do anything in 2010.

Besides the politics though, the pass of least resistance covers 30 million people. I could be one of those people when I graduate in 5 months. I beg of you, give up this crazy crusade to kill a B- bill, in hopes of a A+ bill. The Dems are resistant to act in this environment — there is so effing way they will do reconciliation. We need FDL’s energy to push for reconciliation AFTER we have an accomplishment under our belt — no matter how unsatisfactory that accomplishment is.

And how long had the Democrats actually been in control of Congress when all this happened?

Answer: not nearly as long as you think.
Because they only got a small majority in 2006 – and couldn’t get bills signed by Shrub, who was exercising his veto on everything that didn’t fund the war or reduce taxes on the rich.

The bill in the Senate is a grade-D bill: it’s set up so the primary beneficiaries are the insurance and drug companies.
The House bill is the B- bill, and it’s going nowhere because it doesn’t benefit Big Bidness.

Relieing on the gov’t to save them is what hurt the people in New Orleans. 30, 40 years of progressive gov’t taking care of them left them helpless. I don’t blame the citizens, police or the feds for doing what they did. Teach a man to fish or give a man a fish and you will have dem vote for life.

What is the dif between progressive and socialist? Doesn’t one lead to the other and both end in genocide.

I’ll admit to being confused, as this post seems to suggest that Reid and Pelosi have somehow come together to use “sidecar reconciliation” in order to make the Senate bill worse. What makes no sense is how Pelosi will find the votes in the House to use “sidecar reconciliation” to make the Senate bill worse, given everything else we know about what the House Dems would and would not accept.

Clearly, I’m missing something.

But what I am sure of is that A) there are more than the two options you present, and B) those two options both suck, and neither is likely to happen.

Yes, it appears some at FDL are consistent in their ideology: being to the far left of whatever plan is on the table, no matter what the plan.

What would be MORE productive is realizing that ideology is not a relative idea, but an absolute one. Are there some progressive ideas in the Senate bill? Yes. Can FDL and its fiery activists do extraordinary good once the Dem brand is rehabilitated following Senate passage? Yes.

Instead, it’s always focusing on hijacking things for bills with 100% pure liberal awesomeness. Sometimes that just is not possible, and passing something that is flawed ensures that Dems can win more battles down the line. The lack of any coherence in always placing FDL to the left of whatever is going on merely to oppose it will severely damage the Dems if this thing goes down.

More generally, it’s always easy to oppose something and get people riled up — it’s infinitely more difficult to say what you stand for. Not just specific bills or provisions, but principles. Ends, not means. While the Senate bill is not something to be overly proud of, it does address progressive concerns. Moreover, its passage ensures that Dems are around to fight another day.

Some here are obsessed with insurance companies and the mandate. Yeah, it throws people into a private market. Yeah, that is really not politically popular without a mandate. But, getting everyone into the system ensures that everyone will be invested to improve it. Without a bill, there will be nothing and we’ll continue down this road for a long, long time.

That’s unfair. It is a massive giveaway. But, it’s a massive giveaway to consumers of that insurance, too. And it improves regulations, etc. It’s bad, but worth doing — especially considering the consequences.

“30, 40 years of progressive gov’t taking care of them left them helpless.”

are you fucking kidding me? Progressive Government ended 30, 40 years ago!
St. Ronnie was a great president because he was progressive, Bush I, Bush II – all progressives? because right there you’ve got 20 years of Neanderthalism, and Clinton – ask any real progressive what he thinks of Clinton the sick, self aggrandizing fucker!

You’re bullshitting bub.

This was actually directed @ rossinsr #70

Sorry PJE.

Instead of e-mailing, blogging, e-petitioning and commenting, we should be making our plan to march on Washington, D.C. Enough warm bodies in D.C. would get media attention outside the FDL small circle of friends.

PJ what are you talking about? Reagan was a conservative. Regan told people learn to fend for themselves not be a slave for a gov’t handout. 30, 40 yrs of local and state progressive leadership left New Orleans and Detroit utter crap holes. Cali is not far behind.

Your comment @ 73 is complete nonsense, and it is a testament to FDL that you can come here and spout bullshit that is obviously untrue. If you had actually been reading what Jane, Jon, David, Marcy and so many others here have been saying, you’d know the following…

Yes, it appears some at FDL are consistent in their ideology: being to the far left of whatever plan is on the table, no matter what the plan.

…is nonsense.

Jane and others have been fighting for a public option since June 2009. The public option was supposed to be the progressives’ compromise to the lovers of for-profit health care. Jane stuck with her acceptance of what Democrats had done to the public option well beyond the House passing H R 3962, though she quickly opposed the Stupak Amendment.

It was when Reid weakened the public option with the state opt-out proposal that Jane started seriously opposing anything. By the time the Senate had taken away even a Medicare buy-in for some Americans ages 55-64, what was being proposed wasn’t worth supporting.

She hasn’t been to the left of whatever plan is on the table, no matter what the plan. The plan went from acceptable compromise to unacceptable garbage, full of gifts and giveaways to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.

Ideology? What a joke. The Senate bill sucks.

Honestly, I think passing this bill would be suicide. The excise tax alone will cost the Democrats dearly–can’t you just hear the Republican ads coming into the elections?

“Yes, it appears some at FDL are consistent in their ideology: being to the far left of whatever plan is on the table, no matter what the plan. ”

No, it appears that some at FDL are consistent in what they expect from this health insurance reform. They will not support a bad bill that fucks people over for the insurance industry, and that will lose dem seats in November simply so Reid, Pelosi, and Obama can call it a win for their corporate handlers.

It’s bullshit, and everyone knows it. Kill the bill.

“once the Dem brand is rehabilitated”; besides agreeing with Knoxville, what the hell are you talking about when you use the word “rehabilitated”; one doesn’t ‘rehabilitate’ corporate whores, one gets rid of them.

I was unclear: I don’t mean the overall “plan” (ie bill), I mean whatever strategy to pass something worthwhile. Yes, FDL is very consistent in regards to specific bills. However, the strategy is all over the map.

For instance, right after the Medicare proposal, FDL didn’t have an opinion on what was going on initially. It’s like the thing crashed their brain: continue to fight for a public option, or try to fight for the Medicare buy-in instead? When it comes to political realities, FDL does a poor job of pushing realistic options to change things — instead, it holds out support on a case-by-case basis. There’s no consistency in each compromise, or plan, to get this done done — it’s just pure ideology.

Back in the real world, some folks are operating in good faith, and see that passing the House bill means real help for people. So, yeah it helps the insurance industry by giving them customers. But, it also gets people coverage, too. By getting people into the system, it enables people to have more skin in the game in how these companies will be regulated. It gives us a structure to improve upon. And, it gives Dems the strength to do other good work apart from health care.

This “kill the bill” stuff is perfect for the GOP. The GOP can sit back and eat this stuff up: they don’t have to lift a finger. The Dems once again shoot themselves in the foot, everyone says “I told you Dems couldn’t do anything,” and GOP runs the country into the ground from 2010 through 2016. This is where that begins. Have at it, Naderites.

Realistic my ass. A mandate without a public option is going to keep seats in November? What planet do you currently inhabit?

‘At’s right there, fuckno. Same holds with stay-home nonvoting apolitical hi-tech weenies, fear-wracked soccer mom cyborgs, opportunistic politico scumbags, and authoritarian torture-lovers across the USA.

Anybody else noticing American fascism’s resurgence since the last generation to fight the bastards off began dropping from the twig?

No consistent strategy? Yes, there most definitely has been a consistent strategy. Btw, how many votes from members of Congress did you whip for, and for what?

Not sure what you’re referring to here:

Continue to fight for a public option, or try to fight for the Medicare buy-in instead?

You’ll need to provide some links.

And then there’s this:

Back in the real world, some folks are operating in good faith, and see that passing the House bill means real help for people.

Other than the strongly opposing Stupak, who here organized any opposition to H R 3962?

You are simply wrong about what FDL has been doing.

The Dem party used to stand for wage earners. When Clinton decided to embrace the Corporations whose hatred FDR welcomed, the natural base of the Democratic party began to feel compromised in their principles and was in effect told to STFU and get with the program of transferring wealth upwards.

You may have no problems with the DLC, – most at FDL do.

These fools are bound and determined to get a signing ceremony, no matter what long-term damage they do to the Democratic Party and the progressive movement. To hell with the whole lot of them.

The Senate bill does indeed, suck.

Like I said in my response to transparait, I was unclear with the “plans” comment. I meant it seemed like FDL was not coherent in approaching each new compromise, not that it wasn’t clear about specific policy proposals. With each new “bundle” of policy, it just feels like FDL doesn’t make any sense. I mean, the Senate bill is bad — but why not pass it and then do some reconciliation? That is a no-brainer. If the Senate bill was so bad from the get-go, why wait until the last yardline to oppose the whole thing? The House bill is not so different to warrant the degree of opposition shown by folks here.

A hypothetical: Say the Senate bill was *only* the mandate. That would suck. Is there no compromise from that to the public option that would make the bill worth it, considering the huge losses incurred to Dems? If instead, you are you “showing the Dems a lesson” by such a loss, are you secretly fond of GOP-run government? If the choice is between Dems losing big because of pressure from the left/House members and Dems not losing big because the Senate bill passes, with activists pushing for future reforms, then it makes sense to go w/ the latter, both because the GOP doesn’t screw up everything again and because there is a Dem party strong enough to do good.

That’s a shot at me saying kill the bill, what he neglects is that the house bill will not be allowed to pass, it’s a kabuki cover up for the Senate bill and always was intended to be. There is no ‘good faith’ involved. Kill the bill.

Speaking of DLC bullshit, you might be interested in my Harold Ford, Jr: An Outsider Who Will Fight the Professional Politicians in DC?.

Yes.

Commercial One, playing in a world where the Senate bill passes:
“They mandated government run insurance.” Viewer thinks this over and responds based on whether they’re some tea party crazy, or whether they notice nothing much changed because they had insurance.

versus Commercial Two, playing in a world where the Senate bill fails:
“The tried to take over health care before losing big.” Viewer thinks this over and responds based on whether they’re some tea party crazy, or whether they just saw the Dems implode over the last year.

The mandate, as shown in Mass (election not about opposition to their state run, mandate-based system), is not as big of deal as everyone believes in terms of the politics. Losers, however, are a big deal.

I meant it seemed like FDL was not coherent in approaching each new compromise, not that it wasn’t clear about specific policy proposals. With each new “bundle” of policy, it just feels like FDL doesn’t make any sense.

What may have looked like an incoherent response may have been due to Jane ID’ing months ago that the process would play out pretty much exactly as it has.

She has noted this in her various posts as time has gone on, so there really has been a consistent pattern if you have been reading and following intently. The Senate Bill is the one that Obama and Company apparently wanted from the beginning. They just had to do a little dance to make a lot of folks believe that he really really really wanted a public option but gosh darn it those pesky senators, what can ya do?

“It seemed like FDL was not coherent in approaching willing to bend over for each new compromise.”

Had to fix that. Now I’ll read the rest of your comment.

I’ll tell you something, chris, we would already be living under the Senate atrocity if FDL had not been so consistent in fighting for a good bill, regardless of ‘how it feels’ to you.

I’m not denying the badness involved. I constantly fought the backroom deals and for the PO over @ MY’s blog and elsewhere.

Now, however, there’s not time for this hammering out of what bill is better. These things are all old news, unfortunately. It is the Senate bill which is up for a vote, with the promise of improving it.

“The mandate, as shown in Mass (election not about opposition to their state run, mandate-based system), is not as big of deal as everyone believes in terms of the politics.”

Laughable. Read the polls, even easier think about ‘how it feels’ to you to have such a thing.

You talk about the ideology at FDL? – WTF do you think drives Obama, Rham, Summers, Geithner, Bernanke, Sunstein and the lot – if not ideology? Problem here is that that ideology is far more closely aligned with Reagan’s than FDR’s – you have no problems with that, we do.

Not denying any of that. I’ve constantly slammed the CAP folks and others for their “omg it’s the Senate veto points which are preventing good policy!” crap. Obama and Messina and Rahm and Baucus all knew what was going to happen from the get-go. I’m not forgiving him for that, nor do I think the Senate bill is awesome.

However, what’s not awesome is huge losses in 2010. Making the Dems losers is a sure-fire way to make that possible. And while the Senate bill is crap, and makes me unhappy I have to defend it, it does some good in the short-term, and has the possibility — with effective liberal activism — of doing even more good in the long term.

Not laughable. Even Scott Brown loves him some state mandated universal health care. The state health care wasn’t the issue.

“Now, however, there’s not time for this hammering out of what bill is better. ”

Yes, I’ve noticed this strategy of urgency is often used by those trying to pull a scam on the Ameican people. I would rather have a good bill now, then the current horseshit they’re trying to shovel, and I have zero belief that it wiull be ‘fixed later’, lol. Kill the bill.

Say the Senate bill was *only* the mandate. That would suck. Is there no compromise from that to the public option that would make the bill worth it, considering the huge losses incurred to Dems?

In exchange for a mandate, there would have to be a public option or a Medicare buy-in. Not obvious? What is it without a public option or a Medicare buy-in?

If the Dems want to avoid huge electoral losses, they should stop crafting policies designed to profit pharmaceutical and insurance industries at taxpayers’ and customers’ expense.

If instead, you are you “showing the Dems a lesson” by such a loss, are you secretly fond of GOP-run government?

Bullshit. Brown’s victory over Coakley wasn’t Democrat/Republican or left/right. It was the victory of a candidate who ran as an outsider, who convinced voters that he would work for the people against DC/K Street insiders. Had the Democrats been working work for the people against DC/K Street/Wall Street bank insiders since Jan 2009, Coakley would have coasted to victory.

The rest of your comment is complete nonsense that isn’t worth responding to.

Watch those elbows. If you can’t converse civilly, take it outside.

Sorry, I’m late to the discussion so this has probably been commented on. I, same as the commenter I’ve quoted, also put no confidence in this article which is based on undisclosed sources. Especially since it is from the bottom of the puke pile of articles with undisclosed sources, Politico. Politico is THE insider propaganda organization. None are worse with this sort of ‘catapulting the propaganda’ than Politico is.

Yes, and that activism has been good. I mean, again, I was part of that PO crew for a long while. That was before the political mood changed, and I became convinced that *some* good could be done w/ the subsidies and insurance reforms, and that more badness would be done if the GOP were elected.

Unresponsive. We’re talking about the polling of a mandate w/o a public option IN MASSACHUSETTS. What Brown thinks is irrelevent, people voted for him simply because he was ‘not Obamacare”, there’s a lesson in that for you.

Ideology is great. But opposing everything in an attempt to shape outcomes does sometime backfire.

Right now the Dems are still absorbing the real meaning of the loss in MA. We need to keep the pressure up so that they understand that if they pull bullshit like this the will be a minority party in both houses come 01/2011.

Harold Ford, when you slow mo any video of him talking ‘honestly’ to the plebs, you can see that little forked tongue darting forth ever so faintly, but I swear I saw it!
He’s got no chance in NY, he’s an insider, a Hamilton Project stooge.

good diary, thanks Knox!

More electoral badness will happen if it passes, and we’ll still have a shitty bill that won’t be fixed. Why would you want that?

The ideology of Obama, Rham, Summers, Geithner, Bernanke, Sunstein and the lot “is far more closely aligned with Reagan’s than FDR’s – you have no problems with that, we do.”

Well said. Kind of sums it up.

Not unresponsive. People are scared of what they don’t know (ie the dreaded Obamacare). The people of Mass know they love their mandated health insurance, and it seems to work.

How long do you suggest we wait for a good bill?

Well, there is the House bill, which, while not great, is far superior to the Senate bill. Or do you consider the House as something to be ignored and run rough shod over to pass a Senate bill to say something was passed even if it doesn’t take full affect for four or five years or more?

Yeah, we really have to rush this through like this don’t we?

Long as it takes.

Civility is the tender underbelly of the Democrats, keep on telling us to continue being losers mod.

Agreed. I voted for candidate Obama, not this guy. However, his movement is more based in power than ideology. I just had this argument with a conservative pal of mine who thinks Geithner, Bernanke and the rest are all liberals, intent on growing government forever. So what is it: are these guys Reaganites or socialists? –> It’s that they’re obsessed with power and money. Bernanke couldn’t care less whether you’re a liberal or conservative if his and his buddies’ pocket’s are getting lined.

However, I have several friends graduating in the next couple months. They do care about ideology because they’ll have better insurance. That is definite good done for people.

To achieve their ideological goal re hcr, they hold Americans’ hands and try to lead them, from one “compromise” to the next, until they get to the neoliberal corporatist bullshit they want.

Sorry, but we’re just not buying it.

In fact, MA voters proved last Tues that voters who identify themselves as Democrats and Independents aren’t buying it either.

People do know exacly what is going on here, why would you dismiss them? I know what the Senate bill is just like they do and I hate it, and so do you. Are we all mistaken, now?

furnish a linky in support of your claim, please.

Pardon me, but did I just see you tell the moderator to piss off?
Oh, this will end well.

I think the House bill is far, far, far, far superior. It’s just that the Senate is full of Max Baucuses and won’t pass their bill. Knowing that, the choice is Senate bill + reconciliation or nothing….

The Senate bill does more harm then good and people see that. They saw it in MA and it was a big part of the loss in MA and if they think otherwise 11/2010 will indeed be the bloodbath you hope to avoid.

I cannot tell that to the people who don’t have health insurance though. There’s been far too many people that have heard that in the past 50 years, and the HCR plans aren’t getting any better.

“To achieve their ideological goal re hcr, they hold Americans’ hands and try to lead them, from one “compromise” to the next, until they get to the neoliberal corporatist bullshit they want.”

Very precisely and well said. This is what you’re arguing for, chris, and you surely can see it.

The Brown critique was persuasive to voters: that they shouldn’t fund other state’s health care. I’d rather grab the rug from underneath him, than go state-to-state and get HCR bills passed (which seems like the next best option)

“I just had this argument with a conservative pal of mine who thinks Geithner, Bernanke and the rest are all liberals, intent on growing government forever. So what is it: are these guys Reaganites or socialists?”

well, what case did you make?

Then let the Senate pass the reconciliation up front before the House goes to work on their bill.

Vague promises of “We’ll get a Roundtoit” ain’t gonna fly or hunt.

Well, I see that this does help insurance companies … at the same time it helps people. I begrudgingly supporting it because if Dems fail right here at the end, it will not be good.

I just had this argument with a conservative pal of mine who thinks Geithner, Bernanke and the rest are all liberals, intent on growing government forever.

What you’re talking about is corporatism. It’s a desire for corporate-government, Big Business-Big Government collusion. It’s working for for-profit government. It’s taking advantage of people in a bad situation and forcing them by law to become customers of the corporations that put them in a bad situation. It’s “disaster capitalism.” See Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

You want to play on people’s fears to get them to accept bad policy, go ahead.

You can label yourself whatever you like. Your arguments reveal that you’re an enabler of neoliberal bs. It would put a smile on Reagan’s face.

That’s something that should definitely be done. What shouldn’t be done: dismissing the Senate bill altogether…

I think the same person was complaining a couple of days ago about the Mods trying to force people to stay on topic during Rep Grayson’s visit. He seemed to think the guest should answer any question regardless of time available and topic because HE deemed it so.

Far from it, just noted that there is a reason why Dems are perceived as total whimps.

Health insurance is not health care. Did you know that the Senate bill has a loophole that allows insurance companies to deny care for ‘fraud’, including not stating a pre-existing condition you didn’t know you had??? The whole intent of Obama’s reform is NOT to help people who need health care (esp women) it’s to give them over to the tender mercies of the insurance companies, that is all. Kill the bill.

I hereby dismiss the Senate bill alltogether. It sucks, kill it dead and let’s move on.

Done.

If the Dems want a clear win as a party they will pass Medicare for All. This is simple to understand, it addresses the reasons D’s and I’s voted for Brown or stayed home in MA and it is the right thing to do. Everything else is bullshit and will result in more losses.

They should phase it by lowering the eligibility age for Medicare. In order not to overwhelm the system make the first year start in 2011 but only lower the age by two years. After that lower it by five years per year. in 2012 it will be down to 57 and will demonstrate success. The dems will then have a prayer of being able to continue after 2012.

Anything else will just look like a scam, like they are ignoring the middle class and will doom them for the foreseeable future.

It’s as if the Republicans hired Derren Brown to manipulate the Democrats.

So your theory is that if the threads descend into chaos and bitter back and forth, that suddenly Democrats will gain a measure of respect?

I disagree. Respectfully.

I disagree. When we exit the system, fed up with how it operates, the Big Business folks win. This libertarian urge feels good for the left and the right (for different reasons) but it’s damaging to liberalism. It’s a sort of Pascal’s Wager that believing some good can be done through government affects the outcome of what is possible. Believing that all is lost, that everyone is in the pocket of everyone else for ever and ever, allows those guys to have free reign.

The Senate bill is bad. But I refuse to let the Dems lose in 2010, especially because the left wouldn’t stop holding out for something more approximating perfection.

If Dems fail right here at the end, it will not be good.

Sellouts among the Dems are about to succeed in screwing over the American people, and you’re trying to help them.

Essentially, you want to spin garbage as a great thing, but the American people know it’s garbage.

If the Dems pass the Senate Dems’ bad joke, it will lead to massive electoral losses in Nov.

I’d say I care about the Democratic Party more than you do.

Sorry but the Senate Bill needs to die. It is a piece of corporatist give away crap. Even Ben Nelson recognized that fact after the Coakley debacle.

Or do you think that Massachusetts suddenly became a conservative state? Rather than a state that recognized that the Senate bill sucked?

(In case you missed it, the polls since the election have shown that Brown got roughly the same number of votes in MA as McCain had gotten while Coakley got 2/3s the votes that Obama got there – meaning roughly 900k voters in the state elected to stay at home)

To what? Can you convince folks like Max Baucus to do something? Or, should we wait a while longer?

I think setting up an initial reform allows people to get invested on improving it.

do you know what happened to Grayson, in the end? And as for your comment above, I do not feel that anyone is compelled to answer all questions. Were it the case, I would have supported the Mod and house rules, if any.

But that works at Kos and HuffPO so well…

There ain’t no losers here, but actually, a lack of some semblance of basic civility leads to misunderstandings that just turn threads into pissing matches, and that is something that the moderators work really hard to avoid.

Can we agree to take off the gloves on a Saturday night and have a reasonable conversation? If not, as much as they would prefer not to, the Mods can don the Kevlar.

No, if they don’t pass it, activists — except those at FDL — will stay home. That’s not a good thing.

The Senate bill is evil. Anyone supporting it is leading the Dems into the ground. If they don’t get the message from MA they are lost. That message was not: PASS THE SENATE BILL, in case you haven’t been paying attention.

theory? hardly.

I just know that the people we face know Von Clausevitz’s dictum and consider all issues fully.

My understanding is he had a limited availability and came to talk specifically about the bills he had introduced.

Why should your view override the perspective of the site operators? You (and others) were told why comments get removed on threads like the Grayson thread, Book Salons, and Blue America threads. Why do you feel that you have to fight it and not follow them?

Yes, there are flaws. Can these things be fixed? Yeah. Can Dems do good after passing a bill? Yeah. If nothing’s passed, there’s no chance at either.

…. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/poll_massachusetts_does_not_th.html (yeah I know, it’s Ezra Klein, but the poll supports my point)

It was a state that really, really did not like Martha Coakley, incumbents, and was fearful of their state insurance being damaged by a federal one.

I got into a conversation with a Tea Partier here last night.
No one swore or flamed, and everybody understood everybody else.

If that is possible, than it must be possible for Progressives of varying positions to not slam the living crap out of each other.

“Making the Dems losers is a sure-fire way to make that possible.”

They made themselves losers without my help. What do you care anyway? I thought you weren’t an ideologue.

“And while the Senate bill is crap, and makes me unhappy I have to defend it”

So just so I understand that you aren’t an ideologue like you’ve been rallying against, you would support crap bills that make you unhappy if the bills came from Republicans?

So Coakley won on Tues because MA voters are happy with the Senate bill and what Democrats have done to ruin real reform?

Dude, there’s not much point in talking to you if you’re not going to live in reality.

I feel that censorship of any kind is antithetical to concepts of civil rights embraced by liberals.

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. Public opposition to the HCR efforts involves the loss of key elements that were supposed to be for consumers, for everyday Americans. Nearly all of those have been stripped out and what’s left is insulting.

Democrats will lose because they CONTINUE to put their corporate donors ahead of the people of the nation.

I’m sorry, but you’re simply naive.

If they pass a bill in the current quality, it will be a miserable election season for Democrats.

If they DON’T pass a bill, but end up taking strong actions on other measures to benefit everyday Americans, they might get somewhere.

I’m sorry you disagree, but your way of thinking is exactly what got the Democrats here in the first place.

I don’t think you’ve seen me misbehaving today.

It must be possible for Progressives of varying positions to not slam the living crap out of each other

Chrisunderscore isn’t progressive, nor is he helping the Democratic Party much with arguments like these.

Okay, that’s for the discussion guys. I just get upset that FDL has an ad that opposing a Democratic bill, even though flawed. Why couldn’t reconciliation be done following the Senate bill (or before?) This heavy handed opposition is really damaging to morale, and potentially damaging for Dem chances in 2010. By getting people into the system, and getting them to improve it, Democrats help people and begin the long process health care reform. Stopping that process before it starts will be a disaster for Dems in 2010 and hurt lots of people in the process.

Given the history of the last 25 – 30 years, why keeping saying it can be fixed? Name me some crappy legilsation that has been fixed in the past few years? There are numerous examples of crappy legilsation that even Congress knows are crap and need fixing. The “Bankruptcy Reform,” “Credit Card Reform,” Patriot Act, FISA, DADT, DOMA and the list goes on.

When do they get fixed?

When would the Health Insurance bailout get fixed? Who would do the fixing if it is such a deal that it has to be rushed to declare victory? Even when the prime components of it wouldn’t take affect until ‘14 or ‘15?

Did you just say the state doesn’t like incumbents?

DO YOU KNOW how long Ted Kennedy held that seat?

Good. The people said no in Massachusetts to this, ignoring them and passing this abomination will decimate the dems in November, after which they won’t be able to ‘fix it’ (is that a pony for me?) anyway. If the dems listen to the American people they can salvage what’s left of their decency in our eyes, and do better, with more seats left. This is not rocket science.

Ah but see. It isn’t censorship. You have the perfect right to establish your own blog and build a following.

You’re basing the assumption that the policy in the bills is good policy. It isn’t. The individual mandate, for one, is a death sentence for Democrats in the absence of a strong public plan available to everyone.

YOU don’t understand this very basic notion. If you compel every American to buy health insurance from a poorly regulated and poor quality marketplace, you’re going to have a lot of pissed off voters.

Passing the bill WILL NOT solve the Democrats’ problems. It’s only going to make them worse.

Not right now they don’t…

I’m sorry you disagree, but your way of thinking is exactly what got the Democrats here in the first place.

It’s like people like him are trying to shout out the reality that Obama isn’t who they thought he was. I’m sorry that Obama’s not who many of us thought he was, but the reality is that he is not. Fortunately, voters know when they’re being bullshitted.

Hopefully, Obama and the Democrats will realize where they went wrong and correct course. I’ll support them if they do.

Not only that, but it shows that Dems were voting against Coakley and a party that they see as not coming through on promises (or anything else), not for Brown.

I don’t think that the comity of the greatest deliberative body in the world is worth shit.

Gee, that is not what the polling showed. What they didn’t like was Coakley saying she was going to support the total abandonment of the promise of the 2008 elections. We understood that was what she was saying and we said “fuck no!”

“You’re basing the assumption that the policy in the bills is good policy. It isn’t. The individual mandate, for one, is a death sentence for Democrats in the absence of a strong public plan available to everyone.”

Other countries do this. They don’t have the insurance regs we would have. But, that can be changed (and will be) once people are in the system.

The Democrats screwed up.

The Democrats screwed up.

Don’t want to see that the Democrats screwed up.

Must blame FDL. Must blame the voters.

No offense, but you’re very easily emotionally manipulated if you can get that upset about an ad on a BLOG and not upset at a government that wants to buy and sell you while using your health as a hostage to do so.

We get it, you think everyone should just lockstep with whatever the Democrats suggest just because they’re Democrats. But that’s not how our side works. We don’t get behind something simply because it’s colored blue and not red. We’re not Republicans.

I really hope you educate yourself on the topic and decide how passage of this bill will affect YOU as a whole, and not just harping solely on the supposedly positive things the White House is telling you you’ll get.

define censorship, surprise yourself.

I would agree in principle, but you’ve been around along enough to know that that we all comment here at the discretion of the site owner, and the moderators she has designated to act in her stead.

Do we really have to push this question on yet another Saturday night?

You want to be able to shout ‘Fire’ anywhere, including airports and crowded theaters?

We know you think you’re smarter than that, but it’s hard to tell from what you keep saying; you undercut your own arguments by your actions.

Again, saying the state doesn’t like incumbents is nonsensical. Martha Coakley was not an incumbent, she was a newcomer to the seat, just like Brown.

Come on, honestly. It’s fine if you dissent but don’t do it with your ears closed.

WHAT COUNTRIES DO THIS?

I’m honestly not aware of any. Every other first-world country has either a single-payer health insurance system, or a strong insurance mandate with TIGHT insurance regulations.

Please, provide me with some examples.

They could have gone for Medicare buy-in and re-importation of drugs and negotiation of drug prices, if they had really wanted to fix the system.

Instead, we get the mandate to buy overpriced insurance from underregulated companies, and overpriced drugs that might not be either safe or effective.

No.
You’re failing in history and civics, because you don’t know what happened and you don’t know who did it.

Chris seems to be under the impression that if Democrats when in power engage in the same corporatist legislation that Republicans did when they were in power that the results will somehow be different both with the legislation as well as with the resulting elections. Einstein had a word for this and the MA voters are showing that Einstein was right.

I would, too, but I honestly don’t think they ever DIDN’T realize that this was the path they were taking. They’re not dumb people, and they have a lot more information on the inside than we do. Things have probably proceeded this far because their only misunderestimation was thinking that the American people weren’t paying attention any more.

The Democrats are the only ones that can save themselves, but I doubt they’ll make the choice to do so.

Reagan’s first act was his budget passed in Aug 2001 which had policy changes via Budget – such as the throwing into the street the mentally ill via killing the funding of the Carter Mental Health Funding Law, saying the money would go to “block grants” – and some – a lesser amount – went to the states via block grants which they used to lower corporate taxes and taxes on the rich. Included were massive tax cuts for the rich that destroyed the budget and the economy – throwing bad inflation but growing economy into a tailspin that took 2 years to shake. That was followed by DEFRA and Tefra – the two largest (inflation adjusted) tax increases in American history. After the disaster in the economy of the first 2 years, Reagan’s later good years were barely good enough to get a rate of growth over his administration that was 0.3% per year better than the growth Carter achieved in his administration – and Carter did it with less than 10% of the deficit that Reagan added to the National debt. Reagan did 8 years of “stimulus” that we could not afford. Reagan had GOP Senate for 6 of those years – so everything came with GOP Congressional approval.

I agree with you that the site owner can banish me.

I shall shut up, have a good Saturday RBG.

I feel for him, but placing blind faith in something rarely ends in anything but disappointment.

Democrats have the choice to change the course and the tone of their agenda, and they’re continuing to refuse. This will spell their doom and the benefit of the Republicans they claim to be so better than.

The Democrats are the only ones that can save themselves…

Absolutely.

No, that’s a right the government reserved for itself.

Freedom without responsibility equals chaos.

I support your right to free speech, but you also accepted that you were under a forum with moderation when you joined FDL.

You can say whatever you want, but with free speech comes the responsibility of earning the consequences of that speech.

Re censorship, the mods have been more present this week than I’ve ever seen them in the months since I’ve come along. I think it’s a reaction to what happened in the days leading up to the MA special election. There was a lot of anger brewing around here. I’m not saying I agree with the reaction of the mods to what happened. I think many were deliberately provoked by a handful of people who should have been told to back off. Anyway, it’ll pass.

You should also be aware of the fact that Carter released a 5 year plan for Military spending in Aug 2000 – and except for the waste thrown at Star Wars despite every scientist explaining we did not have the tech to do anything effective and would not for 50 years (we do not to this day) – the Reagan military spending followed the Carter outline all those years – right up to the point in time Gorby asked for better relations.

Ah yes the Siren song of “fix it later.” I think FDL would rather play the role of Orpheus with his lyre than end up with a shipwrecked ship of state.

As i said, I’m ready for the consequence and I shall measure my responses accordingly.

When the jerked around public will finally roll out into the streets, this site will have to take a sabbatical for lack of vocabulary to sufficiently deal with that situation.

Revolution is a no, no?

Well, as a recipient of some of that anger when I argued (quite civilly) that not supporting Coakley was the right thing to do, I would agree with you EXCEPT, the ugliest remarks came from one of the mods. I was really puzzled when I found out he was a mod…

That said, I think discourse is constructive, flaming is destructive. Let’s be constructive.

… What?

You’re advocating national revolution based on censorship on FDL?

I’m not entirely sure I understand what you’re saying here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24Rich.html?

Frank Rich, today, “After the Massachusetts Massacre”

After your guns? I wish. The insane lack of sensible gun laws in this country is another result of Congress sucking up to the NRA for everyone to profit. Screaming Republicans who shriek about the right to bear arms are spewing propaganda to benefit arms dealers and manufacturers. So go ahead, keep your guns. And let me know how many rounds you get off before you’re face to face with a dozen heavily armed government (XE) agents that snap your neck like a toothpick before you even raise your weapon.. Then again, you may want to go down in a glory blaze. To this, I say git er done.

The Democrats are by no means Progressive, no matter how many times they say it on Fox. They are as corporatist as Republicans but con their supporters. But, I do believe the Progressive claim is wearing a little thin these days.

Hey, maybe I can get finally get an answer to something I’ll never understand about tough, macho, anti big government folks. Howcome they suddenly turn into pussies with an open checkbook so the big, strong, US government will keep them safe? I don’t get that. When it comes to “protect me mommy” big government is good? Interesting.

This is where big government is the problem and another factor for our massive debt. A big waste of money funneled to private contractors just to keep us keep in line. I don’t fear anyone but the US government. I take full personal responsibility for my own safety and security, so get out of my face!
I’d do anything to once again arrive ten minutes before a flight, walk through the airport, buy a ticket, and hop on plane again without the near cavity search. God, I miss that.

All of them are Corporatists, but they prefer the more acceptable and benign descrition of “free market capitalists”.
Any other labels are obsolete.

A Liberal Federal Reserve Chairman is like a sqaure peg in a round hole. Just doesn’t make sense. The Fed Chairman is the conduit for the Federal Reserve board of private bankers that loan the US all of our cash, with interest. Not possible to be very Liberal. And not possible for us to ever be out of debt.

Point made. And can we dial it down a notch with your next comment?

.

Nicely done.

Now I know where ‘rossinsr’ is getting this stuff. It must have watched Beck’s pseudo-documentary, which apparently claimed that all the evils of the 20th century were caused by progressives.

I have several friends graduating in the next couple months. They do care about ideology because they’ll have better insurance.

Better insurance four years from now, if they’re lucky and can afford it.

You need better quality arguments. Or a better supplier of them.

Reagan was pres 1981-1989. That 2001 budget date must be in error for 1981.
Or you’re confusing him with someone else ….

I think sometimes that disemvowelling the offending comments would be handy. (It isn’t censorship, because you can still read them – if you work at it a bit.)

Realworld, I’m sorry I came back so late. Hope you still see this response.

That was my point. Two of the people who went beyond stating their arguments to belittling diarists and commenters were mods and/or front pagers. They initiated most of what became so heated and, imo, should have been told by those above their heads to back off.

In fairness, the one you’re referring to realized that he went a bit too far and backed off. The other one kept going the day after the flipping election.

We have to remember that we all come here because we care deeply about what’s going on in our country and in the world. People with intense feelings are going to clash at times. It’s important after each period of tension to let it go and move forward.

Seconded.

Kill the Bill.

Mancur Olson’s interest-group hypothesis says that interest groups pushing narrow agendas that shift costs onto the rest of society tend to prevail over interest groups working for equanimity and the common good. Economics students take note, Congress has just provided you with the basis for a term paper, or even a doctoral thesis.

Political suicide? Are you people stupid? They just saved themselves and 30 million americans. Your route assured nothing the Democrats get nothing to show for a years work. And 30 million people get no insurance. This agreement get’s multiple members of my own family insured, it assures millions of people do not have to worry about being like my father who went bankrupt and then died because he could not get proper insurance quick enough. Once he became bankrupt and moved in with me he could then get Medicaid for being destitute but by then things had gone too far. We couldn’t afford all his treatments before he went bankrupt, insurance would have solved this. Now this doesn’t need to happen.

Get off your ideological high horses and cheer this. People get to live now. Look beyond your “my way or the highway” republican thinking and try to remember the millions of people this helps. There are reasons republicans reject and lie even about the Senate bill – it is good for the people and good for Democrats going forward. But Firedoglake gave up on seeing outside its own agenda I guess. Look at your allies right now and maybe you’ll see you lost your way. Grover Norquist and the “just say no” caucus? These are your friends now?

epu land so hopefully this won’t start any flame wars

Do we really have to push this question on yet another Saturday night?

well rbg, it was the saturday at the end of the week that MA voters have been told to “grow the fuck up,” compared to communists in germany who facilitated the rise of hitler, called “political idiots” and similar — all by front pagers. personally, i can deal with that (i’m an MA voter). but, what i have trouble dealing with is seeing the enforcement of house rules on us lowly commenters while front pagers run wild. it’s a metaphor for what we see in our political and economic elite — the rules are for little people but not for them. and it’s worse when commenters are chastised and even banned for comments that don’t actually break any rules but instead because their pov is unwelcome. that’s not just an issue of lacking civility and respect. it’s authoritarian and elitist. it’s anti-progressive.

jmo, but fairness requires that house rules should be anything the house wants them to be — other than rules the house is unwilling to follow themselves. and as a practical matter, doing otherwise will cause the kind of feed back (challenging questions, pissed off comments in return, etc) you are trying to avoid. unless, that is, you are successful in banning or driving away those who object to the bullying and double standards.

Honestly, in the hands of the D-Party, “universal healthcare” has been a trojan horse for a mandate to purchase insurance in the private market ever since Clinton–because that’s what HillaryCare was. Google “Paul Starr.” He’s written glowingly all about it.

HillaryCare, SenateCare, and the unpopular RomneyCare MA mandate with its ever rising costs, are all more or less the same failed idea.

The best “incremental” reform program was always to gradually expand the currently existing public plans at the margins. For anyone in the D-Party interested in the continuing viability of the Party–as opposed to opportunists looking to jam their vampire tentacles into it and suck out gold irregardless of the political, social and moral costs–this was always unquestionably the way to go.

On the upside, everyone is showing their true colors on this one. Paul Krugman’s next gig should be at TheStreet.com, pumping stocks for Jim Cramer, etc, while corporatists Ezra Klein and war hawk Matty Y are the spindoctors on some Very Fascist political party.

We don’t need to get into how the Fascist D-Party shills, hypocritically moaning about the medicaid expansion no one here would oppose, use the poor to attain their own corrupt political goals, because we already have the Republicans to do that for us. And, no doubt they will.

“Anybody else noticing American fascism’s resurgence since the last generation to fight the bastards off began dropping from the twig?”

Yeah, I agree with this. The college mis-educated babyboomers rebelled against their elders in order to redefine fascist to mean “blue collar white guy with pick up truck.”

Not at all surprising that today we have a backlash figured in the form of would-be blue collar white guys in pick up trucks.

The real fascists are somewhere else. Their masks are slipping.

This is a good thing.

You can’t use reconciliation to create the public option.

Get real. Things are less likely to change after the insurance companies have more people mandated into their system. The only thing they wanted from HCR was mandates so they could get new customers without having to actually provide a service people are willing to pay for voluntarily. As long as they don’t have that, you have a negotiation. Once they have what they want, there is no motivation at all for them to do anything but fight future efforts even harder. You make future reform less likely by throwing people into the system in the way that the Senate bill does it. These are not people who can walk away with their dollars if the insurance company doesn’t treat them right.

You can if it’s a Medicare expansion or buy-in.

Sorry its taken so long for me to reply, and I completely agree that EPU land is a good place to have this conversation.

I’m not going to get into the details of mod practices in a public thread, but if I said I was not happy with the way any of that occurred, regardless of the original source, would that make a difference?

rbg, what you say always makes a difference. even when i disagree with you, i always take what you have to say seriously. i’ve seen enough difficult situations and how you handled them to have formed that opinion long ago.

anyway, thanks for the reply, not that i expected you to do anything one way or the other. if i had any brilliant solutions, i’d be acting on them already. but i don’t. just sometimes i feel the need to voice my pov even if i don’t have a solution. especially if that pov is being excluded from the narrative. thanks.

You and I have always been able to find common ground, even when we might not know how slippery a slope we were trying to walk.

On a hopefully funny note, you might want to follow the links back from this comment.

yikes! unknown slippery slopes!

…. hilarious youtube. thanks.

Can we get Dexter to call the play by play!

You should take any polling Ezra cites with at least a pound of salt. This poll is probably the best at getting at why Brown won. People hate the Senate bill, they see it as a sellout and will not come out to support someone who promises to sell them out.