Someone should abort that hairdo
“The absolute refusal of Republicans in the Senate to support health care reform and the hijacking of the bill by defenders of the insurance industry have brought us a Senate bill that is inadequate,” said Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO.
His criticism of GOP lawmakers aside, Trumka’s blast seemed aimed at Nelson, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and possibly other members of the Senate Democratic caucus who have stripped the legislation – a year in the making – of any form of government-run insurance option.
As I said from the beginning, the legislation would start out strong (public option) then in the end be stripped of anything good in it, help few people and cost too much. I hope it does fail, and so does Howard Dean;
Andrew Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, said he, too, is deeply disappointed in the proposal.
But, like Trumka, he stopped short of urging its defeat. Not so Howard Dean, the former national party chairman, who has said he opposes the legislation because it does not include a strong enough role for government in a remade health care system. Dean unleashed his criticism this week after Lieberman won the deletion of a proposed expansion of Medicare.
I would go farther and say Medicare should be available to everyone, it would be the ‘Public Option’. I have also felt that if you are going to force people to have private insurance there should be a 75-100% write off in your taxes for the cost of premiums, you would think that would be something the private insurance companies would support.
The legislation’s current form is a gigantic turd that won’t do anything for anyone, and for once, I agree with Thune, it needs to go down in flames. BUT, after the Holiday recess they need to start fresh, offer a strong public option TO EVERYONE and get it done before November 2010 when the Republicans will likely gain more seats.
Thune is 100% correct to kill this steamy pile of crap. The whole thing is based on lies. What lies?
Glad you asked, let’s start at the beginning as people lapped up this bile during the campaign:
“I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table,†Obama announced. “We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators, insurance companies, drug companies. . . . We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN.â€
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/517/health-care-reform-public-sessions-C-SPAN/
Well, that was a load of Bullshit, and you only need to listen to a couple of high ranking Dems to prove it:
“In an exchange on the Senate floor, Republican Sen. John McCain asked Durbin, “Should we not at least be informed as to what the proposal is that the Senate Majority Leader is going to propose to the entire Senate?” Durbin’s answer: “I would say to the senator from Arizona that I am in the dark almost as much as he is, and I am in the leadership.” Durbin explained that during a Democratic caucus, Reid and the small group of senators involved in crafting the bill turned to their fellow Democrats and “basically stood and said, ‘We are sorry, we can’t tell you in detail what was involved.'”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Number-two-Senate-Democrat-in-the-dark-about-health-care-bill-79122507.html
Or from Sen. Webb D-VA:
“I have stated on several occasions my concerns that the Obama administration should have begun the health- care process with a clear, detailed proposal, from which legislation could then be put into place. Instead, the legislation now before the Congress is the product of five separate congressional committees, three in the House and two in the Senate. I and my staff have carefully worked through thousands of pages of sometimes contradictory information, and have done our best to bring focus to the debate and clarity to any final product.”
http://webb.senate.gov/newsroom/newsarticles/12-15-2009-02.cfm
Okay, so Obama lied during the campaign, so what?..Well he also says the Bill will reduce costs, that’s true right?
Nope..per the CBO:
“average premiums per policy in the non-group market in 2016 would be roughly $5,800 for single policies and $15,200 for family policies under the proposal, compared with roughly $5,500 for single policies and $13,100 for family policies under current law.â€
and
“As for government costs, the Health and Human Services Department’s chief actuary analyzed Reid’s legislation. Compared to doing nothing, Richard Foster estimated that “total national health expenditures under this bill would increase by an estimated total of $234 billion (0.7 percent)†between 2010 and 2019. U.S. health spending would grow from 16 percent of GDP to 20.9 percent.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDdjNTU3YzlkM2UxMDhkNDk3MTg5MWQxZjUyMTA2NGM=
So what’s BHO saying now, or at least on Tuesday? Here ya go:
“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,†he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/12/president-obama-federal-government-will-go-bankrupt-if-health-care-costs-are-not-reigned-in.html
Are costs rising 25-30% a year? Hadn’t heard that, someone better tell CNN:
“NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Despite a drop in inflation, the annual cost of employer-sponsored family health insurance coverage has risen 5% this year to $13,375, according to a new survey released Tuesday.
Employers picked up the lion’s share of that tab. Companies paid an average of $9,860, while their workers picked up the other $3,515, according to the 2009 survey of employers from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust. Kaiser is a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research foundation.
For individual coverage, annual premiums rose more modestly, up an average of 2.6% to $4,824. But those increases came as prices fell roughly 1% this year because of the recession.”
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/15/news/economy/health_insurance_costs/index.htm
Obama and the Dems have zero credibility on this to the point where the best option has actually become to do nothing at this point.
“Obama and the Dems have zero credibility on this to the point where the best option has actually become to do nothing at this point.”
I agree. Howard Dean has always been right on the healthcare reform issue, and when he says it is a bad deal, it’s a bad deal. I can’t wait for him to hand David Axelrod his ass on Meet the Press Sunday morning. Dean and Axelrod are debating the issue.