Facing Blue Dog Rebellion, House Energy and Commerce Committee Cancels Markup for 2nd Day in a Row

Do Blue Dogs really get any of the changes they want, or will the House leadership simply stiff the president and ignore today’s WH negotiations?

The American People are seeing through this charletan. His poll numbers are dropping faster than a prom gown.

Without taxing benefits or imposing a gigantic income surtax, there isn’t enough money to pay for this beast.

Obama and crew have practically put a “horsehead” in the bed of those who dare not to follow blindly on health care.The people don’t want this type of health reform. Obama said today he doesn’t even know what all is
in it. Yet, it must be passed before August. Unbelievable. The American public, any party, is too smart to fall for that !

Well thank God some democrats are real people, who live in the real world, and who believe in truth, justice and the American way. I was beginning to give up hope.

One of mine is a blue dog. I encourage the whole pack to bark loud and long.
–The UnPatriot
Howl at the O!

It’s good to see that BO has finally kept a promise and brought Congress and the people into a truly bipartisan consensus on an issue.
It’s great to see that the consensus is that he’s a blowhard with no ideas beyond “give me your wallet so I can give it to my friend, from whom you probably stole it in the first place.”

Ok, lemme get the straight:
The POTUS who has quadrupled our National Deficit said that Health Care must pass IMMEDIATELY because it is “bankrupting our nation”?
Isn’t that like an arsonist saying that we need to hire more firemen because the risk of fire is high?
Let’s be honest Mr Obama. You want this steaming pile of socialism to pass “quickly” because you know that the closer we get to the 2010 mid-terms, this has NO chance.
Even Mr Obama himself has recently admitted that he doesn’t understand major portions of this bill himself. I can’t tell whether that is funny or just downright scary.
This presidency has degenerated into a cruel joke. This is what happens when you put a 3rd string farm league pitcher in to save the 9th inning of the 7th game of the World Series just because he gave a rousing clubhouse speech and looked good in the uniform.
The Emperor has no clothes and it’s gonna be a long 4 years.

Take the pledge!
“Any Congressman or woman that votes for this health care bill will not get my vote next election and I will campaign against them and for their opponent.”

“People also said that they thought government would do a better job than private insurers of holding down health-care costs and providing coverage.”
This is laughable. Who are these “people”? Danita – Can you name ANY service federal and state governments provide that could not be done more cost effectively by private industry? Education? Nope. Post Office? Loses billions each year. Outside of civil protection (e.g., military, police, firefighters, etc.) government cannot compete vs. private industry. How could it? Government is not incentivized to make a profit or provide acceptable customer service to remain in business.

Ultimately there’s no place for conservatives in the Democrat Party. Tow the line or face opposition from fellow Leftists. If these ‘b-dogs’ end up destroying Obamanian fantasies, there will be no place they can hide from his payback (except perhaps the Republican Party….and they’re all invited).

Ultimately there’s no place for conservatives in the Democrat Party. Tow the line or face opposition from fellow Leftists. If these ‘b-dogs’ end up destroying Obamanian fantasies, there will be no place they can hide from his payback (except perhaps the Republican Party….and they’re all invited).
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bluecollarbytes,
A great number of them are not willing to commit political suicide over this. They would rather stay in office and face the so-called “wrath”!

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By 72 to 20 percent, Americans favor the creation of a public plan, the June survey by the New York Times and CBS News found.
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danita,
Care to explain to everyone here why you NEVER add this little detail from that exact same poll?
“However, when a specific dollar amount is included in the question, support drops. Just 43 percent of Americans would be willing to pay $500 a year more in taxes to pay for universal health care.”
That is where the REAL story is. As we talk more about specifics & details, instead of grand pie-in-the-sky plans & promises, the numbers tell a much different story than you and liberals are trying to paint!
As ALWAYS, Liberal don’t lie, They just forget the TRUTH!
By the way, its July now (if you dont believe it, just go to( gallup), and the American people are beginng to understand exactly what a mess HR3200 is!

===The POTUS who has quadrupled our National Deficit said that Health Care must pass IMMEDIATELY because it is “bankrupting our nation”?===
Yes, pass it immediately so that it can kick in in 2012. Gotta keep us from going bankrupt, ya know.

Everyone should be asking their reps and senators if they are going to continue to have the health care plan they now enjoy or will they sign up for the one they are attempting to foist on us? Why should they continue to enjoy a gold-plated health care plan?

Change.

“This is laughable. Who are these “people”? Danita – Can you name ANY service federal and state governments provide that could not be done more cost effectively by private industry? Education? Nope. Post Office? Loses billions each year. Outside of civil protection (e.g., military, police, firefighters, etc.) government cannot compete vs. private industry. How could it? Government is not incentivized to make a profit or provide acceptable customer service to remain in business.”
Are you kidding. Almost every government agency runs more cost effectively than private entity’s…Um, you can mail a letter and have it get cross country in 2-3 days tops for 44 cents…Education, the average private elementary schools through high school requires tuitions that rival private college tuition, they are constantly requiring parents of kids to raise money and be at these schools…people who have no clue what the heck they are talking about are just plain stupid. It always costs the consumer more when dealing with private enterprise, which is fine in some cases, I guess, but stop lying,

Anyone want to bet that Obama blames Republicans and “those who say….”?

Axey – You said “Everyone should be asking their reps and senators if they are going to continue to have the health care plan they now enjoy or will they sign up for the one they are attempting to foist on us? Why should they continue to enjoy a gold-plated health care plan?”
Congressmen do not have a “gold-plated” health care plan. Their employer is the federal government and like many employers, it provides them with an insurance plan from a private insurance company (Aetna, Blue Cross, Health Net, Kaiser, etc.). Congressmen have been required to get their health insurance in this manner since passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1983. In this case the federal government utilizes the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) plan to provide a choice of different private insurance plans to choose from, the federal government as the employer pays a portion of the monthly premium and the Congressman as the employee pays the remainder. The Congressman is responsible for any co-pays or deductable payments when service is provided by a healthcare provider.
The governments only other involvement with the FEHB is to negotiate rates and benefits for each plan once a year. If you want to get educated just Google FEHB and go to the site and see what the different plans are and the co-pays, deductibles, and limits for each plan. Yes they all have co-pays, deductibles, and limits and do not pay 100% of the costs. The insurance plans are the same plans which are available to every citizen, the difference is that the federal government has a large pool of employees and is able to get a group rate rather than individual rates for their employees.
If the government were to open these plans to the include all taxpayers in the group pool the monthly premiums for a family plan would roughly be between $425.00 and $1300.00, for an individual the monthly premium would roughly be between $177.00 and $550.00. If an employer chooses to fund a portion of the employee’s premium as part of a benefit package then the employee paid premium could be reduced. To mandate that all employers provide health care insurance is a negative for many small businesses or a business where most of the employees are paid minimum wage and would result in job losses in order to maintain a profit. One of the differences in the plan costs is the level of benefits provided and the amount the patient pays when receiving healthcare. To me this would be a viable option as the government would not have to make a large outlay to open these plans to the public and they already negotiate the cost and benefits each year with the plan providers. I would be calling my Congressman to open these plans to all taxpayers thus giving all taxpayers the opportunity to have the same health care insurance as members of Congress have.

joe bob – How can a government agency operate efficiently when management is rewarded on how well they meet their budget. If they spend over their budget they are marked down for overspending which is the way it should be. However if they don’t spend their entire budget they are also marked down because they didn’t spend enough, they should be rewarded for saving funding. Government will never be as efficient as private industry until this mindset changes and employees and management is given the incentive to have funding left over at the end of the fiscal year. Private industry does this and what they save is called profit, the government doesn’t have a profit because they spend whatever they have budgeted weather they needed to spend it or not.

” I’ve witnessed this first hand in multiple govt. agencies (drop by govt. agencies in late September and note the boxes of computer, monitors, office supplies, etc. lining the hallways).”
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Finally something we agree on tjp. I’ve seen the same thing myself repeatedly.
Also, I worked in a position where we were dealt out new computers and I refused (on principle) to use the new one – saying it was a waste of money and the old one worked fine.
That was good for a short while – but the technology was moving so fast my tiny little Macintosh with it’s 5-inch (?) screen and its floppy drive was in fact soon obsolete.
Oh well, I made my stand at the time; made a point and then was soon proved wrong.

“Have you seen the cost comparisons between public schools at large and charter schools? Better results for lower costs.”
Better results come at charter schools because they can exclude any candidate they wish to.
Public education is open to all.
Charter schools are are a great option but comparing results is not very illustrative.

tjp612, once again you are loose with the facts. One, the post office runs without public financing. Granted, snail mail may be a thing of the past, but that just one more argument for treating the internet as a public utility, like the post office. Two, there is no evidence that charter schools do better than public ones.
There are several reasons why many services should be publicly-run. The first and most important is that some necessary services cannot or should not be run for a profit. That is how we got the libraries, public schools, police, fire departments, and the post office.
It is becoming increasingly clear that health care both cannot and should not be run for a profit. What kind of rinky-dink two bit banana republic cant put together public health insurance?

If it takes Obama more than a year to figure out what to do with 200 prisoners (and he announced a six-month delay this week), how can he argue that the health care bill, which is much more complicated and touches all Americans, needs to be passed “right now” with less than 2 weeks of debate? Because the details will cause support to evaporate:
The healthy subsidize the old and unhealthy (a max 2:1 premium differential).
Federal control (after 5 years) of employer sponsored plans ERISA).
Only three types of plans.
You can keep your plan only as long as you don’t change plans.
Read the bill, post a comment.