Scrambling for Votes, Democrats Face Uphill Climb to Pass Healthcare Reform

reporting news is stupid?

 

kiss kiss

Jesus you are one hateful dude! Have you tried therapy?

 

I disagree. As much as the left hates big private greedy businesses, they are more than willing to let the private insurance companies become bigger than ever. The insurance companies are now becoming further entrenched into the health care industry that they will become "too big to fail". Once insurance companies are mandated to cover pre-existing conditions and people will be required to purchase insurance, they will no longer be insurance companies. What they will become is a privatized single-payer like system, which will be disastrous in the long term, if not the short.

I'll use myself as an example. I am a young healthy male with no major or minor health issues. Do you think I am going to pay several thousand dollars a year in health premiums that I will very likely not use or pay a few hundred in fines? If something serious does happen to me, all I have to do is go sign up for insurance and Im covered. How many people do you think will go this route? Further legislation will be required to fix all the holes in this sieve of a bill, and you expect congress to get along then?

 

What job do you have, I am very curious.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/opinion/26gabel.html?pagewanted=all
[rquoter]... In each of the past three decades, when assessing major changes in Medicare, [the Congressional Budget Office] has substantially underestimated the savings the changes would bring.

...[/rquoter]
Apparently they tend to underestimate savings on health care changes in recent years.

I don't think that necessarily means they underestimated here, but I do think it debunks the idea that they always error on the side of lower costs. Short of somebody doing a cost analysis of their own, there's no real way to assess whether this estimate is over or under, and how much it misses the mark by.

 

Caterpillar Inc. said the health-care overhaul legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would increase the company's health-care costs by more than $100 million in the first year alone.

In a letter Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Caterpillar urged lawmakers to vote against the plan "because of the substantial cost burdens it would place on our shareholders, employees and retirees."

Caterpillar, the world's largest construction machinery manufacturer by sales, said it's particularly opposed to provisions in the bill that would expand Medicare taxes and mandate insurance coverage. The legislation would require nearly all companies to provide health insurance for their employees or face large fines.

The Peoria-based company said these provisions would increase its insurance costs by at least 20 percent, or more than $100 million, just in the first year of the health-care overhaul program.

"We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors," said the letter signed by Gregory Folley, vice president and chief human resources officer of Caterpillar. "We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we've raised throughout the year."

Business executives have long complained that the options offered for covering 32 million uninsured Americans would result in higher insurance costs for those employers that already provide coverage. Opponents have stepped up their attacks in recent days as the House moves closer toward a vote on the Senate version of the health-care legislation.

A letter Thursday to President Barack Obama and members of Congress signed by more than 130 economists predicted the legislation would discourage companies from hiring more workers and would cause reduced hours and wages for those already employed.

Caterpillar noted that the company supports efforts to increase the quality and the value of health care for patients as well as lower costs for employer-sponsored insurance coverage.

"Unfortunately, neither the current legislation in the House and Senate, nor the president's proposal, meets these goals," the letter said.

link

 

This aught to be good.

@GOPWhip Cantor, @reppaulryan & @RepDaveCamp to have press conf at 3:30 on #hcr costs, and REAL CBO costs. 3:30, H-321. #tcot #gop #hc

 

Interesting poll (via kos)...

So, the fact that Repubs are uniformly against HCR makes more people support HCR. Hilarious.

Here's the other question...

So, the fact that Obama supports HCR means more people are likely to support it.

 

Four more ‘no’ votes in November flip to ‘yes’ today.

closer and closer...

 

It's close, but not really.

 

The guy who is so desperate as to use a special needs kid to taunt another poster with has the gall to call someone else hateful. That's hysterical.

 

Apparently I misidentified the person with special needs.

 

lloyd dobler would be so disappointed. rather than say anything, the democrats would rather not discuss healthcare- they've higher priorities...

[rquoter]Dems waste time in House as vote search goes on
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
03/19/10 4:04 PM EDT

House Democrats say they will hold a vote on their national health care plan Sunday afternoon. But what are they actually doing between now and then? Behind the scenes, they're begging, offering bribes, threatening punishments, etc. But on the House floor, where lawmakers conduct their public business, the Democratic leadership is engaged in a days-long time-wasting effort to keep the House in session until the party can come up with enough votes to pass Obamacare.

For example, Friday afternoon -- a time when the House would normally have adjourned and lawmakers gone home -- the House considered H.Res. 1040, "Honoring the life and accomplishments of [novelist] Donald Harrington for his contributions to literature in the United States." The Democratic leadership allotted 40 minutes of debate to the subject, which is just a bit less than will be given to national health care. (For a summary of House proceedings, see here.)

Before the Harrington matter, the House considered H.Con.Res 244, "Expressing support for the designation of March 20 as a National Day of Recognition for Long-Term Care Physicians." Democrats gave that one 40 minutes, too. And before that weighty matter, the House dealt with H.Res. 1027, "Recognizing the 50th anniversary of the historic dive to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the world's oceans, on January 23, 1960."

Pressing matters all. But wait -- there's more. Before Harrington, long-term care doctors, and the Marianas Trench, the House dealt with H.Res. 1133, "Recognizing the extraordinary number of African-Americans who have overcome significant obstacles to enhance innovation and competitiveness in the field of science in the United States."

Throughout it all, Republicans have had the temerity to change the subject to health care, ignoring the time-fillers with which the Democratic leadership had filled the schedule. That left some Democrats very unhappy. Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, for example, said during what was supposed to be the Donald Harrington time, "The fact is, we're honoring a great American novelist, but we have to divert that important conversation…the Republican caucus wants to go toe-to-toe on health care." California Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier also chided her GOP colleagues, saying, "While we are trying to recognize the life and work of a great American novelist, we find ourselves drifting into a discussion of health care."

Imagine that! Not only do House Democrats not want to cast a vote explicitly for their national health care plan -- they don't want to talk about it, either.


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...te-search-goes-on-88641512.html#ixzz0ijNma0wv[/rquoter]

 

Momentum grows on Democrats' side for health care vote.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is apparently optimistic about Sunday's vote.

"It's looking good," she said smiling to reporters on Capitol Hill.

Indeed, if all of the remaining undecided Democrats were to vote as they did when health care reform first passed the House in November, the final legislation would pass on Sunday with a handful of votes to spare.

"It's over," declared Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. The bill "will pass [the] House."

 

Republicans fought a valiant fight, but they have lost in their efforts to deny President Obama a historic piece of legislation and they have failed in bringing about the president's Waterloo.

Better luck next time

 

Blah, blah, blah... "Newsflash: Congress Wastes Time!" Say it ain't so! Both sides do stuff like this. I'm sure you were up in arms back in 2003 when Pat Toomey (R) spent 40 minutes extolling the virtues of marshmallow Peeps, right? Geez, we've come to expect better garbage than this from you. It's like you're not even trying any more...

 

Desperation is setting in --

Brick thrown through window in Slaughter's Falls office

NIAGARA FALLS — The "Slaughter Solution" on health care isn't the only thing that has come under attack in U.S. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter's world this week. Sometime early this morning, someone threw a brick through the front window of her Pine Avenue office.

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Good lord. All this hyperbolic, incendiary rhetoric has consequences. I'm not sure if Murdock, Rush, and Glenn will figure that out before it's too late.

 

No, we really haven't.