What Are Democrats Planning for Health Care Reform if They Lose the Massachusetts Senate Race?

Here is a novel idea. Simply say the whole process has been “mutated”, and upon reflection the final product lacks credibility. Start over, add transparency, and bi-partisanship. Naive and unlikely? Yes. However, I was called naive for one month ago saying Scott Brown had a shot in Massachusetts.

Start over, add transparency, and bi-partisanship.
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The health insurance reform process has been the most open of any bill in the history of the country and has received the most coverage of any bill in the history of the country.
The Republicans are not interested in bi-partisanship. That is why there has been none.
They know – given they have no policies, no ideas and no leader – the ONLY tactic they have is to be negative, attack and smear. They have nothing else going for them.

Start over, add transparency, and bi-partisanship.
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The health insurance reform process has been the most open of any bill in the history of the country and has received the most coverage of any bill in the history of the country.
The Republicans are not interested in bi-partisanship. That is why there has been none.
They know – given they have no policies, no ideas and no leader – the ONLY tactic they have is to be negative, attack and smear. They have nothing else going for them. ………
Tierra, Transparency? Much the same as a replay of last years Kentucky Derby. You find out the result, but the race already took place!The image of a smiling Richard Trumpka and Andy Stern walking away from the private negotiating meeting,with the White House backdrop said it all.In fact, that scene would make a powerful RNC political commercial in November.This process stinks to high heaven, the country knows it, and even Massachusettes voters smell the stench.

Bi-partisanship on health care reform, is that a joke? If Scott Brown wins there will be no health care reform. No Republican wants this to pass. Anybody who doesn’t want this bill to pass has no idea what is going on. They think because the hmo’s pay for their sniffles or stitches they are covered. If they ever got cancer or even worse one of their kids did they would see how much they really are covered. Scott Brown is a complete phony. His wife is reporter Gail Huff. He is not an average guy like he is trying to portray himself. He is not the Independent voice we all need, he is a Republican. If anybody takes the time to research his voting record he is Bush/Cheney all over again. I don’t care if he drives around in a truck with 200,000 miles on it that he most likely bought after he decided to run. Hopefully the voters of Massachusetts are smart enough to realize he is basically Mitt Romney all over again. How many times can you be fooled into believing the average guy routine? I also hope Massachusetts voters are smart enough to remember things were a mess before Obama got into office.

pauldia – Open discussion re. health care bill? What planet do you live on? Republicans know that this bill will be a disaster as is medicare and social security. It will destroy the greatest medical system in the world – how many Americans travel to Canada or other countries to get medical care? As we speak doctors are in mass abandoning medicare patients – and this is happening BEFORE the passage of the bill before congress. Mayo clinic has already stopped taking medicare patients in several of their facilities with more to follow. This is not about improving the medical system – is is about Obama pie in the sky “feel good” ideas which have proved disasters elsewhere. No. I am not a hateful fat cat – just a local auto parts driver.

Healthcare insurance reform is needed, not universal healthcare. Leftists like to say that there are no alternatives, but there are. We could start by limiting frivilous malpractice suits. If it’s good enough for France, it should be good enough for us. Repeal the TARP bailout to fund healthcare vouchers so that people can have their own insurance. Have a national market for healthcare and let individuals seek the insurance that best suits them from whatever source (and state)they choose. It’s only a start but we have to start somewhere. Giving us Canadian style healthcare is not the answer. Funny how Canada is slowly moving away from socialized healthcare as this administration attempts to mire us in it.

The Canadian health care system is so great that in some areas of Canada there are even lotteries where the winners get to move up the wait list ladder. This will indeed happen here as more US doctors leave the system, creating RATIONING – resulting in WORSE care for Americans AND THAT WILL INCLUDE “THE POOR.”

The health insurance system is broken beyond repair. Its time to move to universal health care. At this point it is the only thing that will work.

The republicans would have to do something probably even more politically unpopular and suicidal — something along the lines of privatizing medicare if their free market approach is to work. That’s probably whey they’re not really talking a whole lot about it.
The Senate bill, as it stands, will also probably affect Medicare in a negative way. There’s just no way around it, you can’t get something for nothing.
And if we do nothing, that won’t work either. Either way, either this passes or it doesn’t, but even if it doesn’t, it will be revisited soon. If these folks really care about health care reform, they’re not going to allow a lost battle discourage them from winning the war (so to speak).

Sometimes “Doing Nothing” CAN be much better than planning a total disaster of a program as is proposed in congress. Fines for NOT partipating in the system? I am VERY, VERY, VERY concernd that this prposal along with other spending measures will cause this natin to go belly up causing a worthless dollar AND result in cents on the social security dollar – WHICH COULD DIRECTLY AFFECT ME!!

Time for another “shot heard around the world” in MA.
I think Coakley is trying to lose.
Who in their right mind wants to team up with Obama, Pelosi and Reid?
Obama is a career ender.
He could care less as long as ANY health care bill is passed.

Not really sure why the Democrats would be planning at this point. The election is Tuesday, isn’t it? Put in the campaign footwork and deal with how it comes out then. There is nothing to be gained from planning ahead on this one.

Jake and Jonathon wrote: “If they manage to lose Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat…”
In case you haven’t heard, it’s the people’s seat.

Obama is a career ender.
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Not at all. For a comparison, look at George Bush – Bush was a ‘career ender’ as you put it. The Democrat’s took almost complete control of the Congress under Bush. Republicans were booted out in big numbers.
Bush’s approval rating sank to 22%; Obama’s is at about 50%.
One is a ‘career ender’ to be associated with – the other is not.

In case you’re a recent immigrant, for the last couple centuries open Senate seats have been referred to by their last occupant. This common tradition is an intuitive and useful nomenclature – far quicker than saying “the Senate seat opened by the death/retirement of x”. English is a wonderful language and learning it well is quite rewarding.
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Exactly, which is why Brown’s comment was such a vacuous cheap shot.

Maybe they’ll just use Obama’s “civil military force” to make us make us swallow the government castor oil . . . ‘or else’.

Maybe they’ll just use Obama’s “civil military force” to make us make us swallow the government castor oil . . . ‘or else’.
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EPU you ought to research this bogus, right wing, out-of-context ‘quote’ sometime. Obama was talking about increasing the foreign diplomatic service to go along with our military – and he call them our ‘civil military force’.
Unethical right wingers pulled this quote out of context and pretended it referred to some homeland civil military – to discredit Obama, naturally.
And since then right wing blogs and right wingers have mindlessly parroted the same rubbish.

jhw539 and tierra, you may not like the line, “It’s not the Kennedys’ seat. It’s not the Democrats’ seat. It’s the people’s seat.”
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It’s just another Republican cheap shot – seats are commonly referred to by the person who previously held that seat.
It’s the Republicans trying to frame the Democrats as some how ‘undemocratic’.
Same sleazy tactics as always from the Republicans.

but it is resonating and gets right at the Dem Machine’s presumptuousness.
Concerned | Jan 16, 2010 11:04:00 PM
It is resonating with the Republican base, who also think calling someone an over educated elite intellectual (what the Founding Fathers were) is an insult.

The world is full of improbable heroes. Mark McGwire cheated on baseball by using steroids. Tiger Woods cheated on his wife while playing golf. Mr. Obama cheated on the American people by playing politics.

Posted by: Becker | Jan 16, 2010 11:17:38 PM
And the Republican attack and smear campaign against the Democrats continues . . .
Seriously, the Republicans have had nothing but attack and smear campaigns for years.
The Republican party is ethically bankrupt.

Tierra wrote: “Same sleazy tactics as always from the Republicans”
You’ve got to be kidding. The only sleazy tactic is Coakley’s ad saying that Brown wants to keep rape victims out of hospitals. That’s a lie that’s way beyond sleazy.

Obama hosted nearly 200 parties and social events in 2009.
This equates to staging one gala White House event every two days, which is a White House record.
Think about the tens of millions of dollars of our tax dollars he has blown through so he and pals can party.
Meantime in 2009, four million Americans lost their jobs as unemployment broke 10 percent, which doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of Americans that have simply given up looking for work.
Meantime in 2009, the number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan doubled compared to 2008.
Meantime in 2009, Obama parties. And he golfs. And he hangs out at the beach in Hawaii. And he takes surfing lessons. But most of all, he laughs at the American people because his con game actually worked to get him elected.
Obama is a disgrace. He is a disgusting, freeloading fraud.
2012 can’t come soon enough.

I think that if the Dems pass HCR by either the 51-vote option, or by stalling the seating of Brown (should he win) they will lose both houses in 2010. I know I will do what I can to ensure that outcome.

budget reconciliation is not an option- the bill would have to be sent back to committee in both houses of congress- and under the byrd rule 3/4 of the bill would be eliminated through thousands of motions on the Senate floor
Also the talk that Reid could peel off Olympia Snowe if Scott Brown wins is ludacris- if Brown, Snowe and Collins will grow a backbone

At this point, however the Dems are acting like suicide bombers, ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause. Look at what this party has become; only the crazies need apply.
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More paranoid fear mongering from the Republican right just as outlined in the recent Anti-Defamation League report.
The right has no ethics and no shame with their hysterical nonsense.
The Creeps of Rove bring their ethics to the table.

I contributed $50 to Scott Brown’s campaign!

During his campaign for Presdident, Obama had some advice for President Bush. Obama and the Democaratic Congress should “take” his own advice.
Obama: “The fact of the matter is the President has been on his 60 day tour and everywhere he goes his just numbers get worse, the American people have essentially voted on this proposal…What you have is a situation now where I think that the that the President and the Republican congress are gonna need to save face and step back a little bit”

Should make the insurance companies happy!

There is a lot of smearing going on from both sides of the aisle. The Republicans are no more viscous , no more organized than the Democrats. Both have good days, both have bad – some days, some weeks they push it to the extreme, others that take a more moderate route. The list of their ‘hooks and jabs’ are well documented and discussed here and elsewhere on a daily basis.
Two things: the 60 vote advantage in the Senate has given rise to the kind of arrogance and one-party-one-way mentality that has caused (in my opinion) the negative reaction from the heartland including Blue state strongholds like New Jersey and Massachusetts. This President promised transparency and bi partisanship in the process of the health debate in particular and the legislative process in general and has done anything but delivered on these promises. If Brown is elected this will force this President and the Democratic leadership to get off their high horse and stop force feeding their legislative agenda without what appears to us real representation. Maybe this President will get out and start selling, dealing and delivering on his promise to deliver on change we can believe in – change, that is inclusive, bi partisan and fully disclosed in a way that we can both access it and understand it.
Second: if Brown is elected and stops the current version of the Health Care bill (which, in my view is a good thing) I sincerely hope that it does not stop health care reform. We need it – we need to prioritize it relative to other things but we need to get through this and, at minimum, start to initiate real reform in the current state of the art.There are a lot of good ideas out there from the left and the right – let’s scratch what we have, sort through it to find areas of common ground, add things or take out things that we cannot agree with and start to build a genuine bill that is inclusive, affordable and not perfect but a real start in a new direction.

Poor Kennedy, lost his life and not to see the cause he’s championed for 40 years. Now, he is to lose his seat after the Smartest Clueless Leader makes an appearance.

Seriously, you delusional leftists, take a chill pill. We’ve learned the lessons of Alinsky and turned them back atcha. If the Obama administration could show any positives from its first year, not only would Scott Brown NOT be an issue, but a SOTU address would have been scheduled. Poor guy’s got nothing to brag about except his Nobel Peace Prize.

Massachusetts will have ACORN do a vote recount and Paul Kirk will stay in office for the next four years.
Massachusetts politicians, spitting in the face of the people, will change the rules as many times as they need to make this election come out as they desire.

Massachusetts politicians, spitting in the face of the people, will change the rules as many times as they need to make this election come out as they desire.
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Somebody’s losing their grasp on reality. Brown is Bush and Cheney revisited – nobody wants that again.

Maybe this President will get out and start selling, dealing and delivering on his promise to deliver on change we can believe in – change, that is inclusive, bi partisan and fully disclosed in a way that we can both access it and understand it.
Posted by: Lone Star Rules |
That ship has sailed. Dragged kicking and screaming to the center is the best case for this Presidency.

Somebody’s losing their grasp on reality. Brown is Bush and Cheney revisited – nobody wants that again.
Posted by: tierra |
Somebody wouldn’t recognize reality even if a Republican won “Teddy’s seat” in the bluest state in the country.

ACORN/SEIU only has one day left to sober up the drunks they’ll pick up off the streets.
Prop them up long enough to vote.

In response to David, Jan 17, 2010 8:29 am
Well said. I applaud your sensibilities and sense of fairness. Neither party has ever been flawless in their political objectives or political rhetoric.
When we the citizens of this country took president-elect Obama at his word that he would end the “same old politics of Washington”, we trusted him with our votes, and he won the election by a large mandate. The majority won.
Now, this same majority that elected Obama, (and who are now no longer supporting his agendas) have a right to show their dissent by voting for Scott Brown and for those outside of Mass. to show their support of political platform.
This special Mass. election is a referendum on the mood of the country….should Scott Brown win, every politician should understand and hear what their electorates are saying.

How quickly people forgot the role in the banking and housing crisis community organizers, as well as Mr.Barney Frank had in it! It is this philosophy that currently governs this country! Healthcare will be no different and the results will be disastrous!

The democratic appointee to the seat held by Kennedy cannot vote after the special election. That senate rule has already been established and tested, so a “quick vote” won’t help them.
Try again, you crooked ######### (what a fitting mascot to the Democratic Party!!) to shove this crap sandwich down the throats of Americans who DO NOT want it.

“At this point, however the Dems are acting like suicide bombers, ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause. Look at what this party has become; only the crazies need apply.”
What a great quote! That is exactly what the Democrats have become: mindless drones who cannot even see the complete failure of their policies but are still willing to destroy themselves–and the rest of us–to ram those policies down our collective throats.

“People seem to forget the role President Bush and the Republicans played in the banking and housing crisis . . ”
While the Republicans did not fight enough against idiocies such as Community Investment Act (CRA), nor did they clean house in 2005 as they should have, at least they were relatively clean with regard to how the Democrat crooks at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac knowingly categorized poor quality loans as high quality loans–thus shoving $1 trillion of bad paper into the world financial system and setting up for the disaster in 2008.
The Democrat party is a criminal conspiracy enabled by the dog-like devotion of their weak-minded supporters.

“Isn’t it strange – that sounds just like the Bush and Cheney Republicans, Halliburton, the big oil, big banking Bush family, Blackwater and that whole mess.”
Just let me and everyone else use the Wrangel Rule for my taxes and I might decide the Democrats are ok. Or maybe if they jailed Franklin Raines, Barney Frank, James Johnson, Timmy Geithner, Jaime Gurlick, Charlie Wrangel, Murtha, Andrew Stern, and Eric Holder it might convince me that Democrats are anything more than a corrupt collection of power-hungry mobsters.
In the meantime, we will keep an eye out for the purple people beaters (SEIU) and the underage prostitute procurers (Acorn). It is time for the “organizing” arms of the Democrat party to be dissolved and the subpoenas delivered.

Posted by: MikeT | Jan 17, 2010 4:56:48 PM
You also seem to forget it was Bush, Cheney and Halliburton who somehow ‘lost’ $9 BILLION dollars in Iraq. Incompetence or criminality?

“The Republicans knew that only idiots fight against legislation like the CRA, designed to end clear discrimination in lending practices. ”
No, it was designed to provide people who could not afford housing loans money by forcing banks and others to provide that money regardless of their ability to pay. Pure payoff. Like 99.9% of all accusations of “racism” in the last 20+ years, the allegation of racism in loans were just a cover to provide payola to a Democrat constituency.

“by forcing banks and others to provide that money regardless of their ability to pay.”
That’s baloney. The mortgages were specified to be written so lower income people COULD afford to pay them and in most cases would have qualified for these loans anyway if they were not being discriminated against.

“Freddie and Frannie are the targets of alot of bogus right-wing blame based on willful ignorance, but writing most of the risky loans cannot be blamed on them; they were written in the private sector.”
Those loans were driven by CRA and purchased by Fannie & Freddie. Who then criminally altered the quality and resold them in bundles to financial institutions. The realization of the poor quality of those bundles was a major contributing factor to the recent panic.
Face it. Democrats are crooks and should all be jailed. If you see a Democrat driving a nice auto or living in a nice house you can be 90% sure they didn’t earn it by providing good value for a product or service any more than Tony Soprano provided good value for his “product”.

” The mortgages were specified to be written so lower income people COULD afford to pay them and in most cases would have qualified for these loans anyway if they were not being discriminated against. ”
total crap. Every color blind study of loan applicants found that there was no racism in lending. And the loans written so some (unqualified) people could pay were insane. That this foolishness was going to crash was obvious for years. And now Zero and the rest of the gang are at it again. As usual, leftards never learn from history.

“Every color blind study of loan applicants found that there was no racism in lending”
There aren’t enough minority homeowners in the entire country to account for all the risky mortgages. Right-wingers buying ARM and NINJA loans so they could move into a mcmansion they couldn’t afford are the real culprits.

“So the bad loans directly written by Fannie & Freddie, the mislabeled paper purchased and resold by Fannie & Freddie, and the thuggery of the US government through the imposition of CRA were key to building up the real estate bubble.”
The “key”? What kind of bogus terminology is that? Again, the value of all the mortgages you just specified cannot account for the size of the housing bubble. By far most of the risky loans were written in the private sector, not by Freddie and Frannie.

“There aren’t enough minority homeowners in the entire country to account for all the risky mortgages. Right-wingers buying ARM and NINJA loans so they could move into a mcmansion they couldn’t afford are the real culprits.”
As usual, those yelling racism are always the racists. You can see it from their remarks very quickly.
I never said that minority homeowners were the sole cause of the subprime bubble. CRA benefited everybody who didn’t qualify or even deserve (such as illegal immigrants) a loan. You stated that the incentive for CRA was to address discrimination (complete bs, but it plays well in the NYT). But everyone took advantage of the easy money. And voila! A bubble. Exacerbated by criminal corruption at Fannie and Freddie.
But no one will every take Raines’ millions away and throw him, Johnson, and Gorelick in jail. They are leftard icons and part of the gang. If you start jailing part of the gang for behaving as expected then the entire criminal enterprise falls apart. Which would mean the end of the current Democrat party.

“But everyone took advantage of the easy money. And voila! A bubble. Exacerbated by criminal corruption at Fannie and Freddie.”
You can throw around the racism thing all you want. I’m not biting. The CRA was designed to end discrimination in lending. It was based on solid statistical evidence. Anybody who cares to can read all about it. The Democrats wanted to write special loans so lower income people could afford to buy a home. Nobody has ever proven that this cannot be done profitably even though I know right-wingers would rather rent them homes instead. It was the Republicans who relaxed restrictions at the SEC and allowed the Fed to turn a blind eye so lending institutions of all types could write risky mortgages for whoever wanted one. Sub-prime loans for everybody was a Republican idea, and they’ve been trying to cover their tracks ever since.

It was the Republicans who relaxed restrictions at the SEC and allowed the Fed to turn a blind eye so lending institutions of all types could write risky mortgages for whoever wanted one.
Posted by: Skip |
Right. That’s why the Dems, as soon as they got back in power, moved to strengthen those rules and regulations including reenacting Glass-Steagall. …..oh wait.
Only the partisans try to blame the financial meltdown on one party. It was, AND STILL IS, Washington at its worst.

Scott Brown has assembled a coalition of Democrats, independents, and Republicans, women and men, young and older voters. He’s moderate on some social issues and conservative on fiscal issues. He’s an excellent fit for Massachusetts!

“That’s why the Dems, as soon as they got back in power, moved to strengthen those rules and regulations including reenacting Glass-Steagall. …..oh wait”
I know you’re a big advocate of Glass-Steagall and must admit the argument that it’s repeal was a significant cause of the financial meltdown is much stronger than trying to blame it on Barney Frank.

I know you’re a big advocate of Glass-Steagall and must admit the argument that it’s repeal was a significant cause of the financial meltdown is much stronger than trying to blame it on Barney Frank.
Posted by: Skip |
Just wait till you see Barney’s new bill. It’s a Fat Cat Bankers dream. Builds the next bailout right into the law. No need crafting a new TARP, cuz Barney sets a 4 trillion dollar amount that can be authorized after a maximum 8 hour debate.
Codifying moral hazard. We are in deep doo.

“Builds the next bailout right into the law”
In principle don’t you think it’s more fair to have emergency funds and procedures codified than having guys like Paulson deciding in the heat of the moment which companies live and which die?

In principle don’t you think it’s more fair to have emergency funds and procedures codified than having guys like Paulson deciding in the heat of the moment which companies live and which die?
Posted by: Skip |
There’s no funds being set aside. That’s not Washington’s way. And everybody, starting with the Fat Cats, know that the US gov’t won’t let the big banks fail. Paulson, like Rubin before him and Geithner now are Goldman Sachs boys. There is no doubt who will be the last to die.
My view is that if it is too big to fail it shouldn’t exist. Washington doesn’t share that view.

There should be no surprise to find businessmen in these positions when voters–especially conservatives–demand that elected officials have business experience themselves or appoint people with business experience as top advisers.
There have been allegations made that Goldman Sachs took extra risks knowing that Paulson and the government wouldn’t let AIG fail, so their primary debtor was secure.
But it’s not just the government who doesn’t want the banks to fail. Barney Franks is responding to public demands for protection against catastrophic economic collapse. Several studies have indicated that without TARP we very well might have ended up in a full blown depression instead of just a recession. You’ve got to be a fanatical capitalist zealot to want to risk that.

Several studies have indicated that without TARP we very well might have ended up in a full blown depression instead of just a recession. You’ve got to be a fanatical capitalist zealot to want to risk that.
Posted by: Skip |
You are missing the point. Why do we allow these too-big-to-fail banks to exist? Why do we allow them to take the kinds of leveraged risks they took and continue to take? Why don’t we reinstate Glass Steagall which would have prevented the problem in the first place? Why do we put in place a system that backstopped anything these Fat Cats want to do?
Answer: because Congress is owned by the banks. Once you realize that, everything Washington does with respect to the banks makes sense.

“You are missing the point”
Well yes, I’ve been intentionally arguing somewhat tangentially since apparently only tacitly admitting I think your questions are good ones when I said I wasn’t going to put up a big argument against Glass-Steagall. My question would be: What is the difference between a few really big banks failing and a whole lot of little ones? If we try and limit the size of the banks people are going to scream government interference. [I'm aware that Bank of America really doesn't want to reenact Glass-Steagall] However I don’t like the answer: “because Congress is owned by the banks”. Along with ignoring a matter of degree possibly to blur the distinction between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue when it’s convenient, I think it can be successfully argued that everybody is owned by the banks. How are we going to elect politicians who are not swayed by the banks? Nobody does anything without a bank, unless you’re very confident in your mattress. I’m willing to bet you’re not going to advocate nationalizing the banks.

We have come so far with healthcare reform for some idiot campaigning that he will be the one to kill it. I work for Wellpoint and we have received emails on our work site for months urging us to be against healthcare reform. People are ignorant just how the insurance companies have just want they want. I am raising a grandchild that was born with a genetic disease and I want her to be able to have health insurance when she can no longer be covered on my insurance. She will be excluded from being able to get an individual policy. I was hoping something would change in this country, but we are so stuck with the same old mentality. I am sick of politics!

Gee, all of you FOR this so called Health Care Bill act like you KNOW what is in it? Do you?
I am not voting in today’s election since I am in Illinois, but I am ROOTING for Brown! I am an Independent and I HATE what I know of this Healthcare Bill, but even I will say, I don’t know even 25% of what is in it, WHY?????because the Dems and the White House are keeping it a secret. Is that a government and a President you trust? I feel sorry for you. They lie by saying that anyone who is AGAINST this bill is against healthcare reform. What a crock! I would love to see some changes. But, NOT THESE! My mother is on disability with an already broken and almost bankcrupt medicare system. So, I really scrutinized this part of this bill. It will RUIN what is left of Medicare and these poor elderly people will not have adequate care. That much I know.
Rock on Massachusetts and Scott Brown!