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Today, during his remarks on the way forward for health care reform, President Obama indirectly but strongly called for using reconciliation. From his speech:
Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of sixty votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up-or-down vote that was cast on welfare reform, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and both Bush tax cuts – all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.
These bills did not just pass with a simple majority in the Senate, they all–importantly–passed using budget reconciliation. For members of Congress waiting for direction from Obama, this is about as close as he will probably ever come to calling for the use of reconciliation.
What was left out of the speech was whether Obama expected the House to pass the Senate bill first before passing a reconciliation “sidecar,” which the Senate would then need to also pass. Several sources, however, report that this seems to be the most expected path on the hill right now.
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OT but infuriating: The Post’s Michael Gerson dares to write a column today about suicide… http://tinyurl.com/y9xugt8, the same Michael Gerson who as part of the White House Iraq Group helped commit our troops to fight in Iraq, resulting in a spike in suicides among American servicepeople… http://tinyurl.com/yupp7.
Shit or get off the pot, in other words.
???????????????
Hello and how are ya now?
Good-bye for now.
So what if Obama after one year weighs in with a HCR plan which he explicitly says will be financed exclusively by profiteering private insurers. BFD. That is what we have now.
At the same time with disdain he dismisses the inclusion any sort of public plan which would offer meaningful reform as being impractical.
We have heard enough from Obama. He has made his positions favoring private profiteer gouging abundantly clear. He has placed himself squarely in the position of an abstructionist to reform.
Where has this clown been for the last 14 moths???
I think they should all go smoke pot… while burning the current bills.
I took it as a firm maybe, maybe.
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Jon Walker and the firepup Freedom Fighters:
Another great post, thanx again, Citizen Walker. To your knowledge has there been any negotiation between leaders on the hill and the administration to get Obama publically committed to supporting the congress in this process by holding off signature on the underlying bill until the “fixes” hit the floor of the House. It seems to me that with the ghost of 1994 still haunting a lot of Democrats, any White House that includes Rahm Emmanuel would have a credibility problem. I think it’s clear to Pelosi that Rahm wouldn’t mind a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and I think Obama is gettin to feel a lot more comfortable talkin’ to fascist Republicans than his own congressional leadership.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THIS THING IS A LONG WAY FROM OVER!!
jeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzz. one term noises for sure. without the greatness.
Why are current government health care plans being utilized in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Australia and New Zealand unsuitable for America and the American people? Aren’t the American people deserving enough to enjoy a civilized government that supports its people with comprehensive health care that doesn’t accrue a huge profit for big private insurance moguls? Can’t we just piss off this Reaganomic yoke and propaganda of government being the problem rather than the solution….can’t we piss of the Reaganomic rhetoric that was scripted by Merrill Lynch et.al.
If Obama’s bill (Rahm’s bill, too, but supported by Obama to be sure) remains the same POS that we saw in 11-page summary last week, then it must DIE! Individual mandates must go, even if there’s a “public option,” because any public option that would ever pass the Congress in the foreseeable future will simply not be an adequate counterbalance to the mandate. Further, Gov. Howard Dean, MD, has said that they have universal or near-universal care in Vermont without a mandate. (Someone really needs to follow up on this.)
In fact, I do hope that, in the process of trying to pass this POS bill, the Senate pulls a Lucy on Charlie the House of Representatives Brown.
Congress might as well make the process, as well as the substance, as obscene as possible while they’re at it. The public and the rest of us serfs need to see the corporate Congress exercising its power in its evil worst. Maybe the public will then “get it,” as we here at FDL got it long ago.
Anybody else see this shocker…?
why yes, yes we did. ;)
I beleive a two pronged effort to achieve true self governance and general welfare may hold promise and I heard echos of this approach from Kucinich this AM on Washington Journal.
One element of the approach is to promote ballot initiatives such as single payer health schemes at the state level, such schemes as have been proposed in PA, MD, CA and other states. Of course this is a remedy of necessity given the corrupt and misdirected nature of the current federal government collusion with corrupt bastardized corporate capitalism.
Such initiatives could also be extended to establisihing laws governing the workings of banks and corporations within the various states. The gist of this approach is to divest power from the central government, especially one such as ours which works directly to harm the public.
The other element of course is to continue to reform the Congress which by the day becomes a harder task, as evidenced by the recent SCOTUS decision which in essence bends over for corporate financing of elections.
Shove it, Obama.
No public option, then no mandate.
November.
*heh* I knew I shoulda scrolled down even further…! ;-)
Ballot initiatives in California are just as corrupt, if not more so, than the regular legislative process.
Obama doesn’t know his history.
Each of the things he mentioned that the GOP passed with reconciliation, welfare reform, etc.; passed with more than 70 votes in the Senate. They didn’t need the up or down vote. In one case, the bill passed with 80 votes in the Senate. Reconciliation was used, but the bills had broad support anyway.
Said elsewhere; strong arming something that is popular with the public through the rules maze would be courageous. Strong arming something which is unpopular through the rules maze would be stupid and suicidal.
While parts or certain specific provisions of the bill might have popular support, THIS bill is NOT popular by any measure. It is widely unpopular.
Dems thought that once they passed a bill, it would become popular. Well, a bill passed the House, and another passed the Senate and they became MORE unpopular. So, passing this turkey (and a turkey to both sides I might note) will not make it popular. Likely, even less popular.
Democrats have not seen anything yet in public anger compared with what will happen if they do this.
I had some conservative that I had the misfortune to sit next to on an airplane go on & on & on & on & on ad nauseum about the horrible terribleness of these dreadful awful socialized health care systems & how old people are put on death panels and all the usual hyperventilating conservative b.s.
People really, really believe that if we have socialized medicine (so-called) it will be the end of LIFE as we know it. In that the rightwing media spin machine, in collusion with ObamaRahma & the blue dogs, has worked overtime and done it’s work well.
Citizens really believe that those poor, poor people in the countries you name are literally dying bc they have inadequate health care. I’m serious.
It’s disgusting. And airplane guy was not dumb; he was clearly smart enough, and he actually had some idea of what he was talking about. That was the really scary part. Brainwashed.
I hear you, but I don’t think BHO & the Dems really care, do you?
Obama appears to be trying a comedy act. After about a year of saying he needed 60 votes and that’s why a whole bunch of good reforms had to be tossed into the junk pile, Obama now comes out whinging about a simple majority of votes while still sticking with the 60 vote bill turd bill.
The Health Ins. Mafia in the mean time hasn’t said a word has it? Why? Because it’s so close to its goal it doesn’t want anyone to see it cheering BHO on here. They even have the Gopers playing their assigned role in this. They win all the way around on this one. They get the awful mandate the IRS fines and best of all NO cost controls and NO competition! Oh and if you really think all this is worth getting rid of the so called pre-existing conds. clause, forget it. The work around for that is so easy. NOTHING stops the companies from just jacking your premiums into the sky! They can’t say No true, they just make it so expensive its same thing as a NO. That the public is buying this BS is a testament at how desperate some folks are to believe anything.
Pressure and discussion should not be about the number of Representatives in the House that would need to drop their demand for a public option. Discussion should be that only 17 (34+17=51) more Senators need to join in the demand to add the public option to the bill before it goes back to the House.
Interesting piece, Jon. Too bad the words “public option” did not appear in anything either Obama or you, said. :o(
What Fantasy World Barack Obama said today:
> End of private/for profit AHIP regime
> Nationalized AHIP regime will be put in place and current AHIP for profits can submit bids to manage regional or major urban NAHIP pools but there will be no skims/profits being moved to the bottom line in any case
> One Card System put in place similar to SS card/number for each American
> Bottom one third of Americans ranked by income/employment status/medical urgency requirements will be inducted into new NAHIP to begin July 4,2010
> All Americans have equal access/delivery in/from NAHIP by July 4,2012
> Private/for profit health insurance will remain available as supplements
> Each American will have full access to dental,vision and pharma payplans
> All income whether from labor or capital will be taxable on sliding scale to support American NAHIP with no exceptions,exclusions or loopholes
> As of Jan.1,2013 NAHIP will formally be called Usonian Medicare
In Real World Barack Obama said today:
> For profit health insurance is King of the World in America
> All Americans will be given confusion and mandatory healthcare anxiety
> More concerned about CrazyTown R Party than poor,disadvantaged Americans
> Americans will not have one universal healthplan similar in layout to SS
> Americans will have to still game employer based access/delivery and run the gamut of AHIP for profit health insurance gamings and plays
> Thanks Barack Obama — you could have been great — instead you have worked very hard to do little other than make current AHIP more profitable and please the centrists of your D Party and the CrazyTown R Party.
If the bill is passed via reconciliation, with the “fairness” “Simple majority” “50+1″ logic being bandied about by Obama and the MSM you will have handed a tool to the right that will punish progressives for years…no more filibuster, no more health care, hello conservative judge onslaught. I do not believe that people who are promoting this strategy have thought it all the way through
Just in time for all those new Republicans that Obama is looking forward to collaborating, uh, I mean, working with this November.
Half these comments don’t make any sense. There’s only one thing that would make this bill unpopular, and that’s a mandate to buy. Instead of providing healthcare to the uninsured, it simply makes it a law that you have to buy it. Problem solved! I understand that they want the mandate to drive up the number of insured so it doesn’t lose money- but you need a public option to make this even remotely ethical to do- and obviously there isn’t one. This is basically the same thing as Medicare D… and no people, it didn’t result in Bush being a one term president after it was passed, remember? And I bet most of you hypocritical raging lefties went right out and voted for him the second time ’round to. THANKS by the way.
Your comment has stayed with me, left me thinking that yes, of course Obama would not have much of a problem with signing the Senate bill if passed by the House. After all, he probably wrote it with Baucus, and Baucus’s former chief of staff was sent to the WH to be one of Obama’s ass’t chiefs of staff. And Messina was Baucus’s point man for dealing with health insurance companies and the health industry players. For sure, Senate bill clearly was what Obama wanted.
Indeed, having a sidecar bill with “improvements” might be a tad risky. What if the House amended it to substitute HR 676 (hey, a commenter can dream)??
But what would be more likely is that Obama, Rahm, et al, might decide it was too iffy to wait to see if the sidecar would be passed in both chambers, and they could justify signing the Senate bill as insurance against time running out on signing it. Might be seen as requiring too much political capital. And hard work.
Signing the first bill over the finish line would secure Obama’s health insurance reform achievement. And reassure his deal partners, PhRMA and BHIP (Big Health Industry Players).
Oh my. Not beyond them. Be careful, House Dems!
Great comment, shootthatarrow! Hope you don’t mind if I put it over at Correntwire.
I must commend your patience. I don’t think I could have put up with it. I have resided outside the US for more than half my life now and it seems to me that conservative Americans are the most brainwashed people on this planet. I was raised under the specter of the Iron Curtain and the threat of Communist Propaganda. We were taught to recognize it in school. What we weren’t taught was to recognize our own propaganda. I cringe at the Rhetoric, “Government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem. Fighting for Peace. The War on Terror. Death Panels.” It’s always the same. Compassion equals socialism. Many of them fail to reason that we can no longer govern from horseback. That Davy Crockett was by and large created by Walt Disney Studios and the answers to problems now go beyond a musket and a coonskin cap. We have more than a 100 times the population now. We are an industrialized nation. We are no longer a boondocks frontier. We are beyond simple solutions from simpletons who hold education, worldliness, science and reason in contempt because it’s beyond their ken.