Democrats begin discussing smaller health bill

How much you wanna bet they will get near 0 pub votes?

It isn't even about the bill, the repubs wanted Obama to fail. In the e-mail they said it will be his waterloo so they need to do whatever to stop this bill. They could give a shit less about the bill, they don't want the dems passing anything that will be seen as a "victory" for the left.

Its pure politics. The American people don't matter at all.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/obama-backers-more-commit_n_429673.html

Massachusetts voters who backed Barack Obama in the presidential election a year ago and either switched support to Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown or simply stayed home, said in a poll conducted after the election Tuesday night that if Democrats enact tougher policies on Wall Street, they'll be more likely to come back to the party in the next election.

A majority of Obama voters who switched to Brown said that "Democratic policies were doing more to help Wall Street than Main Street." A full 95 percent said the economy was important or very important when it came to deciding their vote.

In a somewhat paradoxical finding, a plurality of voters who switched to the Republican -- 37 percent -- said that Democrats were not being "hard enough" in challenging Republican policies.

It would be hard to find a clearer indication, it seems, that Tuesday's vote was cast in protest.

The poll also upends the conventional understanding of health care's role in the election. A plurality of people who switched -- 48 -- or didn't vote -- 43 -- said that they opposed the Senate health care bill. But the poll dug deeper and asked people why they opposed it. Among those Brown voters, 23 percent thought it went "too far" -- but 36 percent thought it didn't go far enough and 41 percent said they weren't sure why they opposed it.

Among voters who stayed home and opposed health care, a full 53 percent said they opposed the Senate bill because it didn't go far enough; 39 percent weren't sure and only eight percent thought it went too far.

The firm Research 2000 conducted the post-election survey Tuesday night on behalf of three progressive organizations -- the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and MoveOn.org.

Taken from interviews of 500 Obama backers who voted in the Senate election and 500 Obama backers who sat out the election, the firm discovered that 18 percent of Obama backers who voted in the Senate race ended up casting ballots for Brown.

Of that group, 82 percent said they favored a public option for insurance coverage, with 14 percent opposed. Of those who sat out the election, 86 percent favored the public option, while only seven percent opposed it. The findings suggests that progressive arguments that disappointed Obama supporters deserted have serious merit.

UPDATE: With little, if any, historical precedent for the current situation in Congress, anything is possible on Capitol Hill over the next few weeks. Progressives have seized on the chaos and the polling numbers above to argue that the message voters sent was that Democrats haven't been bold enough. So far, more than 100,000 people have signed a petition calling for the Senate to put the public option back into the health care bill and pass it using the parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation, which only requires 50 votes plus the vice president. Meanwhile, top Democrats are taking the idea seriously.

"Congressional Democrats have now been given fair warning by voters about what they expect in 2010: faster change, bolder change, and a willingness to fight big corporations on behalf of the little guy," said Adam Green, whose organization is leading the petition effort. "The Lieberman-Nelson strategy lost Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. Now it's time to push the public option through reconciliation -- and then, on to strong Wall Street accountability."

 

A part of me agrees. We've been seeing both dems and pubs doing this since Bush, Sr was Prez. Often it's not about the bill but sticking it to the opponent.

And that's where leadership comes in. Leadership at the White House and in Congress. Clinton & Bush, Jr were poor presidents and poor leaders. Obama had all the earmarks of being a good leader, but has been just a far left socialist with no real desire to bring both sides together. Pelosi & Reid are bigots and liars who have an honest disdain for people they supposedly 'serve'. NOT because they're dems, the pubs also had horrible leadership when they controlled Congress recently.

If we had good leadership in DC, maybe we'd see some real change and see things get better rather than worse.

 

So out of curiosity, Denny, how do you see getting a public option w/o taxation?

 

What in the previous bill do you believe contained ideas and policies Republicans could support? Do you really believe they were being obstructionist just for the sake of obstruction? Is it at all conceivable that the idea of a first step to a single-payer system might be against Republican philosophy?

 

So you think the president has a direct effect on the economy of teh US?

 

If I read Denny's post correctly, he didn't claim that we could get a public option w/o taxation.

He said the Dems were taxing and spending $1T in this bill, which didn't have a public option.

 

The problem with that mindset is that it defeats all compromise. Compromise involves giving up something. If you're always thinking by giving up something you're going to end up ten steps down the line, you never give up anything.

And yes, I definitely think the GOP is being obstructionist. I think they are playing politics rather than looking at policy and I think the Dems have done it before. I don't think either side is right for doing it.

 

We'll agree to disagree, then. And the idea of compromise on the Democratic side regarding this health care legislation has been a joke. You shouldn't pretend otherwise. This isn't just some usual bill. They tried to freeze out an entire party to transform 1/6 of the Nation's economy. It's indefensible.

 

you really think all those republicans voting no were because of the government spending?

But yes, this is good to break it up into small chunks. Hopefully some of this gets passed atleast

 

oh you

 

Like which parts? Which parts of the current bills do you like?

 

so you don't think removing the public option was a huge fucking compromise?

 

I like the idea of health care providers not being allowed to have "pre-existing conditions" as a loophole. I don't like how our pharmaceuticals cost so much more than the rest of the world. I would like a public option.

 

Then you have to mandate purchasing insurance. That may be fine with you, but to me it isn't ok for the government to tell me I am required to purchase a product.

Drug development costs a lot of money. Where do you think 95% of new medical products are introduced?

Then you should be glad if these bills get killed.


So you are upset that the current bills will get killed, even though only 1 of 3 things you wanted were addressed?

 

Okay, but only on one condition. If you ever get sick you are unable to use any public or private facility that is supported by money from other people. Is that fair? Otherwise you're tapping our resource. And if you get anybody else sick you have to pay for their health costs as well. And you can't be buried on our dime either. Also, let's get rid of car insurance, that seems worthless as well.

Well, to be honest, probably Europe as things around here get approved 10 years after they've already been in Europe. And what kind of line is that? So we as Americans should fund all drug research and be happy the rest of the world gets it for uber cheap? Talk about pro-pharma. Nevermind the fact that NIH (taxpayer supported) pays for a ton of health research.

 

Really? Then, do I also get to stop paying taxes?

Do you want to start appropriating how much of the public resources I get to use based on how much in taxes I pay? I would gladly make that trade. I don't think you would.

You didn't honestly try to bring up the "health insurance mandate is similar to auto insurance mandate", did you?

I thought we were past that beyond idiotic comparison.

95% of new medical industry releases are in the US. Europe isn't going to magically just improve and increase their research because the US decreases theirs.

You seem to be in favor of shrinking the "pie".

It's called an economy. One that the US is fortunate to have.