Obama Downplays Differences Between Senate, House Health Care Bills

Oh, it’s historic alright…but not for any good reasons…it will go down as the night Americans turned on the democratic liars.

There is still a slim possibility to fix this train wreck during reconciliation. The current Senate bill is the absolute worst possible ‘reform’ imaginable. If the final bill (after reconciliation)does not have a legitimate public option, available to all Americans, the Democrats will all be looking for new jobs after their next election.

Too bad that National Health care Plans already account for 60% of our health care (Medicare, Medicaid, VA). No wonder Health Care Costs have skyrocketed and is FAILING …… Basically a BAILOUT for the Bright Social Engineers of the 60′s…!!!

“Except it will not be an option.”
And it will cost you more.

Does anyone know the exact profile of this 30 million Americans currently without health insurance? For now I assume that this “high profile” group represent those with a low income or unemployed. What would some or most of them do in terms of getting a higher-paid job or just to be employed if they were now insured? Also, would they seek more medical care if they had health insurance? Would the size of this group (now insured) jack up, which I presume CBO already took into account in making their cost projection? Or the size of this group would remain around 30 millions for the next 10 years? The point of all this is: Is it possible that under the so-called reform system, fewer people would find the need or motive to get a higher-paid job or better education, since the government now takes care of most of their needs? This is what happens to those criminals who don’t seem to mind going back to prison.

A study in the late 90s estimated that almost half of the uninsured were gainfully employed as sole proprietors, small business groups, start ups, etc.
I know dozens of sponsored athletes without insurance, a few mechanics, tons of artists…
Regardless, health care is a human right, being a profitable insurance company is not. One should not be left to suffer and die because they don’t exploit their fellow man for massive profit, like all the really “successful” business people we are supposed to look up to.

This is going to be the demise …
___
According to Gallup weekly tracking, over 75% of liberals still approve of President Obama’s job performance. Over the past week, his approval among liberals actually went up 1%, despite the big left-wing revolt.
And it looks better when you dig into a recent CNN poll. Approval of Obama has increased among liberals, and is strong among Democrats. Plus, approval of the Senate bill has jumped 6 points overall, and 10 points among liberals and young voters.
Health care reform is going to be popular once its understood better and the reforms take effect.

Amazing how many Republicans are saying this is the end of the Democrats. If this bill was so bad for the Democrats, the Republicans would be doing everything they could to make it pass, instead of once again being in lock step solidarity against a measure which benefits regular people.

Every senator wants his/her own goodie. A new hospital here, a renovated school or renewed road surface there,
it’s like a big ‘Santa Claus’-list or should I politically correct say ‘Mummy/Daddy Frost’-list?
The health insurance annex is like a shopping list for a supermarket, every kid wants to have his/her say on it.
Or, shall I say arranged bazaar? ‘I give you my vote, but I want to have sth. for it. I’ll cost you just $100m!
I need your help, ‘cos next year I wanna be re-elected.’ – would say some needy senators.
Lieberman’s delicatessen taste good for some ‘politicians’.
Next year they’ll get their voter’s receipt on it!
Not because a flawed law will be enacted, but due to the way they arranged the stuff.
No clear leadership – ‘yes, we can’ was wrecked to ‘yes, we could if you gave me sth.’
Give Sen. Todd his $100m goodie, it seems to be better as if you give foreign dictators, autocrats and war criminals
a U.S. subsidy for a ‘greener future’.

If you are one of those Repubs feigning outrage to drive a wedge among Dems, you are on the wrong track because we shall unmask all the hypocrites.
Posted by: Steve_NJ | Dec 21, 2009 9:28:57 PM
**********
Thanks for this new saul alinsky tactic that obama bloggers have used since the primaries. I, as an Independent, might use it on other blogs.
November can’t come soon enough. But 2010 will be fun seeing the poll numbers continue to slide for the Dems and obama!

“According to Gallup weekly tracking, over 75% of liberals still approve of President Obama’s job performance. Over the past week, his approval among liberals actually went up 1%, despite the big left-wing revolt.”
No surprise here. Liberals always think they’ll get something for nothing. Most are clueless about how our economy and tax system operate.
“Approval of the Senate bill has jumped 6 points overall, and 10 points among liberals and young voters.”
Uh huh.
Imagine how pleased these uninformed, fiscally-illiterate young voters will be when they get fined or jailed for not participating in the healthcare system.
A lot of young liberals got a surprise in November when UCLA informed them that their tuition is going up 32%. There was a near riot. Liberals love lavish spending, until they’re stuck with the bill. And they WILL be stuck with the bill when it comes to healthcare.

“Liberals always think they’ll get something for nothing.”
Another self-absorbed right-winger is going to volunteer us all abominated philosophy on what “liberals always think…” -Younger voters may be just smart enough to weight the costs and realize social programs benefit the public much more than lame primitive dog eat dog dogmas that end up costing us all more by funneling money to the wealthy, and realize how two-faced right-wingers are. Conservatives are perfectly happy to take your money any way they can get it regardless of their philosophies. Don’t believe me? Ask any Republican on Medicare.

Posted by: Skip | Dec 22, 2009 9:30:07 AM
I agree. I evaluate what they do rather than what they think – or say.

“Despite all the exaggerated Republican rhetoric that the bill will lead to fiscal disaster, it has been carefully and responsibly drafted so that it is fully paid for without busting future budgets… Important elements of the bill have been strengthened during the struggle. An independent board and other new entities would be given greater powers than previously planned to test and implement cost-saving measures free of political lobbying. Tax credits to help small businesses buy coverage have been expanded. ” (NYT)

“Despite all the exaggerated rhetoric that the bill will lead to fiscal disaster, it has been carefully and responsibly drafted so that it is fully paid for without busting future budgets…”
Oh, this should have come with a warning. I laughed so hard my coffee almost ended up on my keyboard.

Worth a read, Jonathan Chait’s TNR piece called The Rise of Republican Nihilism. I mention it because while I realize we all have our perspectives, several good points are made. For example,to most of us, it appears that Republicans are exploiting populist anger for political purposes. Okay, fine. The deeper problem really lies in the rigidity of conservative ideology. I know its that rigidity and failure to pay attention to the real world that bothers me.
Because a business must be allowed to fail in order for pure capitalism to function, for conservatives, we’re all the road to serfdom once the government begins propping up failed firms. Chait points out:
The problem with the ideology is not that it doesn’t make sense in general terms, the problem is when you apply it to the real world where you have a financial industry that can bring the rest of the economy down with it– the global economy.
Chait provides an example via David Frum. “[He]recently recounted his attempt to persuade a group of young conservatives that they had to bend their principles in the face of economic calamity. As Frum recalls it, one of the conservative interlocutors replied, “Maybe it was a good thing we weren’t in power then–because our principles don’t allow us to respond to a crisis like this.”
That’s a problem.

“Don’t believe me? Ask any Republican on Medicare.”
So because you Liberals FORCED us to PAY INTO Medicare for 40-50 years, you’re bothered that we actually use it? And now you want the wealthy to have to pay for healthcare reform for everyone else. Are you going to be bothered if they decide to use it themselves when the time comes?
In 2007, the top 5% of the nation’s wage earners accounted for 60.63% of the total federal income tax revenue. The bottom 40% of the nation’s wage earners accounted for ZERO! And it has been reported that in 2009 the bottom 47% of the nation’s wage earners will have no tax liability or even a negative tax liability (where tax credits exceed tax liability).

And don’t presume that young people are bright about finances.
___
I’m not the one who presumed to make a blanket statement about young people. In my world,accusations carry more weight when they don’t start out with a heavy twinge of hypocrisy.

In 1966 Medicare cost about $3 billion. And in 1966, The House Ways and Means Committed projected that the cost in 1990 would be about $12 billion. But in 1990 the actual cost was $107 billion. In 2008, Medicare cost $386 billion. And forecasts are for Medicare to cost $452 billion in 2010.
So we can expect the projections of the cost of healthcare reform to be just as far off as the original Medicare projections.

Posted by: James Danley | Dec 22, 2009 10:34:51 AM
Can you apply the same type of determined preconceived analogizing to the cost of doing nothing? Because therein lies the actual problem, which is being ignored by the Right.

Another interesting tidbit from Jonathan Chait (last one as you all should really just go read the piece!):
“The quintessential moment in the health care debate came when Senator Lamar Alexander objected to Democratic attempts to weed out Medicare waste: “If you’re going to find some savings in waste, fraud, and abuse in Grandma’s Medicare,” he proclaimed, “spend it on Grandma.” Consider this as an ethical proposition: Alexander is saying that every dollar of Medicare is sacrosanct, that even those dollars he concedes provide zero public benefit must stay in the program. We live in a country where the occasional appearance of a roving charitable medical clinic will prompt thousands of desperate people to line up in parking lots for hours on end, to help mitigate their suffering. And yet, Republicans will not countenance the shift of even indisputably wasted resources to help them.”

some here seem to think that the ‘blame Bush’ sentiments are not deserved, this is curious as it implies that the ‘Bush years’ were somehow a great success, and at the same time denying the obvious domestic, foreign and global strategic blunders.
As has been stated, most Republicans bowed to Bush and Cheney’s policies, without any thought of the eventual consequences. Republicans thought that talking tough without results would somehow endear them to the American electorate. They also assumed that because they were republicans, no one would question the age old mythology of them being the party of economic well being, and fiscal responsibility.
As with the resolution to the terrorists attacks, the waging of 2 wars, and the economy, Republicans were wrong on all counts.
Bush, ‘the decider’ was THE policy maker, although there are many who will insist he was a puppet with Cheney who might have actually been running much of the first term.
Most Republicans blindly supported Bush, some Dems went along for the ride as no one wanted to seem un-american after 9/11.
What was demonstrated during the Bush years, unequivocally, was that Republicans, despite their collective bravura and posturing with flag lapel pins and ‘freedom fries’, on every issue, had no clue about what they were doing. To put it simply, they got it all wrong.
Now, does this mean the Dems are somehow saviors, that all will be well.. certainly not, it’s doubtful that even if he should have 2 terms Obama will only be able to begin to put a dent into the damaged country we all live in.
But make no mistake, while there may be many reasons for bad policy decisions by the Republicans, they were Republican policy positions.
There is a reason that many have said this is the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Republicans were in charge then too, same for the Savings & Loans scandals of the late 80′s.
Think about that, the worst financial disasters in American history all had Republican administrations.
Does anyone really doubt that the same republicans who marched lock step with Bush would not have continued the same ruinous policy and ideology had they won in 2008.
Will Obama’s policies work, reality check? who really knows, but to revisit the same policies and people who led America into catastrophic demise would be foolhardy.
America needs to try radically different approaches to heal. There is no greater force for good and stability for the world than a stable and prosperous America that includes all of it’s citizens. It is that ‘american dream’ which made us they envy of the world.
Time for serious men and women to do serious things.

When Washington reinstates Glass-Steagall then it will prove that they “get it” once again. Sadly, there seems to be little momentum for it because, after all, Washington is bought and paid for by these very same institutions.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Dec 22, 2009 10:41:56 AM
Yes. I read some lame quote from a Treasury official that going back to Glass Steagall would be like going from your iPod back to a walkman– and I my favorite comment to that was, well if your iPod keeps blowing everything up, maybe that’s not such a bad idea! (Can’t remember the source– it was a week I ago, I think, in regards to McCain and Cantwell teaming up to renew Glass Steagall.
Anyway, I agree with you (although I’m not an expert on Glass Steagall by any measure, not a strong point, so I’m not sure if it would need to be modified at all)– and I don’t think we can paint conservatism as the main problem by any measure– on another thread I was explaining why I believe all Americans are both liberal and conservative to some extent and that while we seem to blow up things into huge differences here, when you’re in Hong Kong or Turkey, another American feels like another American; i.e. we have many beliefs that unite us– but I do think everybody needs to step out of rigid ideology and focus on the actual crises and problems.

“Liberals tell us that they want to help the poor and disadvantaged yet what they are really doing is building their voter base at the expense of others.”
Exactly. Beginning with FDR, Liberals have been building an indentured class of Americans who are dependent on the government for their needs. The march has gained momentum with Obama. Democrats, as the party of Big Government, position themselves as the “protector” of entitlements.
There will be a point in time where the “takers” exceed the capacity of the “productive”. Government intervention will be required to “best” allocate resources and voila! we become a true socialist country. The liberal elite (positioned at the helm of govt.) will prosper as their dream is realized. Equality of outcome assured, equality of opportunity extinguished.

but I do think everybody needs to step out of rigid ideology and focus on the actual crises and problems.
Posted by: progressive mama | Dec 22, 2009 10:53:11 AM
Ever hear of the Civil War? State’s rights and perceived Federal intervention concerning the slavery issue? People dug in their heels and secession resulted.
re: “everybody needs to step out of rigid ideology” – OK, you go first.

We’re reaching the tipping point where foreign nations will no longer buy our debt and we won’t be able to service our skyrocketing spending. Then what do you think will happen? Hint: It’s not roses and sunshine.
Posted by: Mary |
I’ll take America becomes Detroit for $20, Mary.

Why rip the system apart just to satisfy the remaining 15%?
The system isn’t ripped apart. For millions of people insured by their employer, they will keep the same coverage and providers, while pilot programs investigate the most efficient ways to bend the cost curve and really tackle medical inflation in an innovative way. So, that’s the first problem with your post, and it pretty much validates Chait’s nihilism point.
On the upside, Medicaid will be expanded, millions more people will be covered, saving lives. AND small business owners, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, freelancers, the self-employed– and others on the small group and individual market– will have access to insurance exchanges, giving them the opportunity to pool risk.
Right away, insurance companies will be banned from denying children with pre-existing conditions coverage.
Human decency.

“On the upside, Medicaid will be expanded, millions more people will be covered, saving lives.”
How is that possible when the Democrats are CUTTING more than $500 billion from Medicare. Even before more people are added to the Medicare rolls, that will mean less care and more lives lost. So adding millions more to the rolls will only make that worse! The “death-panels” will become a reality!

How is that possible when the Democrats are CUTTING more than $500 billion from Medicare. Even before more people are added to the Medicare rolls, that will mean less care and more lives lost. So adding millions more to the rolls will only make that worse! The “death-panels” will become a reality!
Posted by: James Danley |
The Senate bill depends on cutting Medicare to pay for its $1.2 trillion coverage expansion. Concerning the impact on Medicare enrollees, as CBO Director Doug Elemendorf explained, the bill would require a substantial reduction in the future growth of per capita beneficiary spending over the next 20 years compared to the previous 20 years.

“Liberals tell us that they want to help the poor and disadvantaged yet what they are really doing is building their voter base at the expense of others.”
Because if there is something better than just creating justification not to help the poor and disadvantaged it’s limiting their ability to vote too.

Skip, should the wealthy leave–and take their 60% of the U. S. federal income tax revenue with them–who do you think will have to step up and replace that 60% of the tax revenue? The current middle class will become the new “wealthy.” And then watch as they scream and hollar at having their taxes raised!
Sweden might be a great place! At least there EVERYONE pays their “fair” share in taxes.

I’ll take America becomes Detroit for $20, Mary.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn
I’ll take ENRON, oil speculators, corporate welfare
for a thousand……
re: ‘What about my current Right
Posted by: James Danley
you should consult the ‘americans’ with religious zeal about your rights, why should you have choice about med decision when women’s rights are being narrowed

“Liberals tell us that they want to help the poor and disadvantaged yet what they are really doing is building their voter base at the expense of others.”
if so, then the Republicans do the opposite, to hell with all who are not republican, pay as little wages as possible, suffering for all, bring back sweatshops and indentured servitude, if you don’t have money or are laid off.. too bad, we can resell your property

It is not that it was such a great success. Liberals seem unable or unwilling to admit any culpability in the problem.
Posted by: Live! From DC! It’s Sat Night! |
‘It is not that it was such a great success’,..
unable to say that Bush was unsucessful, I understand it’s difficult, but to associate the Dems with republican wrong doing you first must admit that there was republican failure

Because if there is something better than just creating justification not to help the poor and disadvantaged it’s limiting their ability to vote too.
Posted by: Skip | Dec 22, 2009 12:10:36 PM
Well, let’s stay focused on the left for a minute. What the right does is inconsequential to what the liberal ideology consists of. It is what it is – no matter what the opposing party ideology is.
Liberals have no real intention of helping in any permanent way as they would quickly be of business (as they see it). They need this base and need it to keep growing to assure they stay in power because for any political party it is about staying in power. How else would they accomplish their goals?
The liberal platform is based largely on solving social injustices. In order to stay in power, they must always have victims. As entitlements grow, they have to keep finding more victims so they have to keep expanding the entitlements. The zero tax base is a direct result of this.
Now health care has been added as a “human right” to add to the injustices that must be solved. And as usual, the liberal solution is for govt to take it over.
Republicans should have solved this problem years ago when they were in the majority knowing full well how Democrats would solve it but they did not. And we will all suffer for it, IMO.
Personally, I would like to see “independents” form their own party (as opposed to conservatives splitting from the GOP). That would make it very interesting. But independents seem unwilling to do this. Perhaps they don’t like the Party system at all. Or perhaps they prefer to pick and choose what they like rather than take the bold step of forming their own party.

Republicans should have solved this problem years ago when they were in the majority
Posted by: Live! From DC! It’s Sat Night!
but they never do, they never intended to solve it as they really don’t want to,
the fun of being a republican is to make
yourself feel ‘superior’ by trampling other people, and watching them suffer, while claiming to b e a ‘real’ american

if so, then the Republicans do the opposite, to hell with all who are not republican, pay as little wages as possible, suffering for all, bring back sweatshops and indentured servitude, if you don’t have money or are laid off.. too bad, we can resell your property
Posted by: XX | Dec 22, 2009 12:53:32 PM
I think you are confusing political affiliation with wealth and business ownership. Note to progressive mama: see this is some of the reasoned responses the “Republican nihilists” have to read.
I’m sure there are plenty of liberals who are rich and pay little or no taxes. I doubt that all insurance, pharma and banking execs are registered republicans. Trial lawyers – many of whom are democrats (and in Congress) – suck their clients dry and more. O.J.’s lawyers charged him for sitting in traffic thinking about the case. Celebrities make millions, taking “business deductions” for all kinds of activities that have little or nothing to do with business. Going back to sweatshops, etc. who knows what the political affiliations of the owners were. They probably did the same thing execs do now. Contribute to both sides and just switch affiliations when the timing is right. (Citigroup & Goldman Sachs, for example).

Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, etc. are all disappointed in the GOP – but they only get vilified as extermists for their position. It’s the Republicans themselves who are having trouble looking in the mirror and not necessarily the citizenry.
Posted by: Live! From DC! It’s Sat Night!
true, but implicit in your statement is that remarks from ‘conservative media’ do not add to the problem, merely stating policy disagreements or solutions never seems to be enough for them.. and, that is their business model…
the characterizations of the ‘liberals’ and Obama as nazi’s, thugs, communists is certainly a hindrance to any discourse designed to find a better way for all americans.
It is the age old demonizing of your opposition, and to be sure, both sides play that game..
but one may have to admit at some point that new highs/lows have been attained by those who are anti-Obama, it’s one thing to be fervently against his policies, that is normal for the opposition, they need to offer policies to contrast their ideas instead of the hateful characterizations we find in the conservative/republican/fringe right.
Simply repeating the same polices as Bush and declaring Obama as un-american is not a template for success.
I remember reading here in a post that when Eisenhower’s polices rubbed the right the wrong way, he was declared a communist by the J.Birch Society, this the same Gen. Eisenhower who was the supreme allied commander in WW2., as the younger generation might put it: ‘what’s up with that’
the solution to all of this, is planning, solutions intensely debated in reasonable amounts of time… if a policy doesn’t work it should never be treated as doctrine that can’t be changed..rather, ongoing analysis and adaption to benefit the greatest number of citizens. The problems are indeed complex and not subject to easy solutions and both sides play both sides of the fence.
we can only hope that wisdom prevails, and vote better men and women into office who really seek to do the public good

“Republicans should have solved this problem years ago when they were in the majority knowing full well how Democrats would solve it but they did not. And we will all suffer for it, IMO.”
Indeed. Setting aside which ideas are really better, it doesn’t impress anybody that Republicans are so confident about their alternative proposals when they never actually make any effort to implement them. Why do they expect Democrats to want to fix problems the same way they want to? The natural Democrat retort is: “if your ideas are so good then why didn’t you try them?”

the solution to all of this, is planning, solutions intensely debated in reasonable amounts of time… if a policy doesn’t work it should never be treated as doctrine that can’t be changed..rather, ongoing analysis and adaption to benefit the greatest number of citizens.
Posted by: Peas On Oith | Dec 22, 2009 1:38:15 PM
Good post. I like this last part but I do not see Democrats practising this right now. If so, they wouldn’t be doing what they’ve been doing with health care legislation. To follow what Skip said about the GOP, if the Democrats ideas are so great, why won’t they let anyone see them until just before it’s time to vote? I hold out little hope that with the track record of the Federal govt that this will be legislation everyone can be proud of.

Just a little followup on the rhetoric and lack of transparency from Obama and Democrats that drives me crazy…
“When candidate Barack Obama was criss-crossing the country in his two-year presidential campaign, a standard part of his stump speech — lines that always won him applause — had to do with his promise to negotiate health care reform in public, on C-SPAN, for all to see. As the wrangling over health overhaul legislation heads into its final stretch, it’s clear that was a promise President Obama did not keep. The dealmaking remained behind closed doors.” – Lynn Sweet, PoliticsDaily, 12/22/09
“Today at the White House briefing, Gibbs called Steele’s comments “delusional.” – Jake Tapper, 12/22/09
“They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”” – Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
I won’t go into Harry Reid… evil mongers, slavery etc.

Palin is a good example of this. I would hardly say she is out there every day calling Obama names. For the most part, I think she tries to express her opinions. But she is perhaps the most vilified of all.
Posted by: Live! From DC! It’s Sat Night!
Palin, without doubt, is a curious event in American politics, and to be honest, I am not a fan.
She reminds me of the evangelists of the depression era, and her appeal to her ‘followers’ is also similar. Her folksy american mythology, error prone diatribes and ‘policy’ combined with a ‘it’s everyone’s fault but mine’ attitude make her, her own worst enemy. It is not an advantage to constantly have to prove you are politically aware with policy substance, while consistently making statements that prove the opposite.
re: ‘And we can only imagine how reasonable the left would be if she and John McCain were in office right now.
I believe there are equal or stronger feelings on the right about her, not voiced publicly, but there, while Palin might appeal to a certain core constituency, elected Republicans are reluctant to offer public declarations as to her qualifications for president.
re: “He has done little to mend any bad feelings.’
I really would have to go back right after the election and investigate what was being said and where the animosity started, but, I’m sure you remember that during the campaign, Obama was called a secret Muslim terrorist, among other things, with cries of ‘kill him’ at some republican events. It took a while, but even McCain eventually chose to stand up and try to quell the hysteria.
but your point in one sense is very true….. it takes two to tango, the analogies made that describe politicians to kids in the schoolyard is appropriate.