Dems lack votes for Health Care passage with simple majority

[JakeYonkel]

I went to the doc in October for heart palpitations caused by anxiety. When I went in I was nervous and my BP was ridiculously high, as can be expected. They put me on a beta blocker and all is well.

Blue Cross told me I was a heart attack risk and rejected me as an applicant!

Mind you I'm 26, 6'1" and about 190 lbs. I can't imagine the shit other people must go through.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

Is there anyone here who remembers when the GOP was actually the party of fiscal responsibility, as opposed to the party that just talks big and spends bigger.

It's good to see you admit that the democrat party has never been the party of fiscal responsibilty.

You can't even spell 'responsibility'. Don't lecture me on it.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

It is structured this way because this is the only way they could get a CBO report to say that it reduces the deficit over a 10 year period.

They actually structured it to reduce the deficit over 10 years? Those bastards!

[Ugmo]

One reason this rules is that the Democrats will now realize they no longer have to play nice with the GOP when the Republicans are only interested in sabotaging the Dems' proposals. I think this is going to be the first of a series of defeats for the GOP in the coming weeks.

The GOP's primary game plan since the election has been to keep the Dems from getting shit done so that the voters will punish the Dems for their incompetence in November, but that plan has failed. I don't see the Republicans defeating the Democrats on financial reform or jobs either. The GOP either needs to start being a little more constructive or I think they themselves are going to suffer at the polls in November. I have a really hard time believing that anyone except the Republican base will vote against the Dems due to health care reform.

[Crazy Levi]

One reason this rules is that the Democrats will now realize they no longer have to play nice with the GOP when the Republicans are only interested in sabotaging the Dems' proposals. I think this is going to be the first of a series of defeats for the GOP in the coming weeks.

.

Yeah, it's pretty awesome. They are about to pass legislation that was never going to happened a couple months back when Brown won that election.

Huh? It IS gonna happen? Wow, that's amazing. Fuck the party of no.

[Ugmo]

Yeah, and the Democrats finally grew a pair and started acting the way Republicans act when they are the majority party!

Actually it looks like immigration reform is up next - that could get messy.

[Crazy Levi]

Yeah, and the Democrats finally grew a pair and started acting the way Republicans act when they are the majority party!

Actually it looks like immigration reform is up next - that could get messy.

That's a weird one...the fact is, big business, the Repubs' greatest financial ally, LOVE immigrants and want them to stay, documented or not, but the "salt of the earth" voters hate them.

So it should be interesting. I think the Repubs are gonna find themselves more waist deep in shit than the dems on this one. It'll be fun watching them twist in the wind.

[EvilMadman]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 39688.html

WOW! That's a pretty sneaky/sleezy thing to do. I wouldn't expect anything less from these creeps. Oh, well. Hope Obama's isn't going to be too shocked if he ends up like the next Jimmy Carter in '12.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

They actually structured it to reduce the deficit over 10 years? Those bastards!

Problem is they'll have to structure it the same way in the following ten years to do the same. Something tells me they won't be stopping health care benefits for four years to do so once they've already kicked in. And therein lies the problem.

Do you have some facts to back this up or is this a case of "my opinion is fact"?

[chickenona]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 39688.html

WOW! That's a pretty sneaky/sleezy thing to do. I wouldn't expect anything less from these creeps. Oh, well. Hope Obama's isn't going to be too shocked if he ends up like the next Jimmy Carter in '12.

In what world is 250k a year "middle class"? That editorial is some alarmist bullshit. No surprise it throws in the obligatory reference to the "Reagan as savior of the middle class" myth.

[Ugmo]

In what world is 250k a year "middle class"?

You're forgetting that this includes everyone who dreams about earning 250K themselves. Those people are always reliable Republican voters!

[Ugmo]

I think this is going to be the first of a series of defeats for the GOP in the coming weeks.

I'm with you. Here's hoping they ram through more legislation that the majority of Americans are against in the coming weeks and months. Hopefully using reconciliation or passing bills without a direct vote. That's a sure pathway straight to victory in November.

Yeah, it really killed the Republicans for all those years when they used reconciliation to "ram through" whatever the fuck they wanted. It only took the voters 14 years to vote them back out of Congress!

I'm thinking the only people who give two shits about the majority party using reconciliation to get things done are those who reliably vote for the other party anyway. Mark my words, when November rolls around the voters aren't even going to remember the word reconciliation (for that matter, I doubt anyone except the highly partisan party base voters even paid attention to that in the first place). They're going to remember that the Dems got shit done and didn't in fact establish any Marxist death panels after all, despite all the "sky is falling" propaganda from the Party of No.

[cantstopthemusic]

The GOP's primary game plan since the election has been to keep the Dems from getting shit done so that the voters will punish the Dems for their incompetence in November, but that plan has failed. I don't see the Republicans defeating the Democrats on financial reform or jobs either. The GOP either needs to start being a little more constructive or I think they themselves are going to suffer at the polls in November. I have a really hard time believing that anyone except the Republican base will vote against the Dems due to health care reform.

Man, are YOU ever going to be in for a surprise, between November 2010 and November 2012!

[Ugmo]

Man, are YOU ever going to be in for a surprise, between November 2010 and November 2012!

Yeah, we'll see what happens. Probably some Democrats in GOP-leaning districts will go down, but the majority party almost always loses seats in mid-term elections. The thing to keep in mind here is that Republican voters are really pissed off that they lost on this issue, so they automatically assume that everyone is as pissed off as they are. And by the same token the Democratic voters are stoked and presume everyone except Republican voters is just as happy about this health care victory. Probably it'll be largely a wash, with the minority party picking up a few seats as is customary in mid-terms.

[Ugmo]

Name the bills as big and game changing as health care reform in which the majority of Americans were against yet the Republican party used reconciliation to ram it through anyway because they couldn't get the votes to pass it. I'm not holding my breath.

The mistake you are making is including all the people for whom the Senate bill wasn't radical enough, such as myself, and most other progressives. When it became a choice between this bill or the status quo, the Democratic base came around.

The Republicans are far better than the Democrats at getting their message out, which is why we spent all of last summer talking about death panels and Marxism. Once the bill goes into effect and people see that they can get insurance despite pre-existing conditions, and that no death panels have been set up, it will not be the hot-button issue in November that it is now.

And I honestly believe that if the Republicans campaign to repeal health care reform they will be in major trouble. The people that are so vehemently opposed to HCR voted for the Republicans anyway last time around, whereas this bill will benefit a bunch of people who probably didn't care much for either party but will be happy to vote against the Republicans if the alternative is that they get their insurance taken away.

Monitoring the winds of American opinion from thousands of miles away.

Yeah well, we'll see. I'm not claiming to be able to monitor public opinion in whatever tiny corner of the country you're from, but I don't see why I wouldn't be able to monitor the national trend as well as you. We have access to the exact same media, after all.

[cantstopthemusic]

Man, are YOU ever going to be in for a surprise, between November 2010 and November 2012!

And by the same token the Democratic voters are stoked and presume everyone except Republican voters is just as happy about this health care victory. Probably it'll be largely a wash, with the minority party picking up a few seats as is customary in mid-terms.

You couldn't be MORE wrong, if you tried.

I've phone-polled a lot of these "democrats" and they feel NO SUCH WAY!

BTW - I said 2010 AND 2012, for a reason.

This is a states rights constitutional issue and people are going to be in for a RUDE awakening as to what this legislation actually mandates and what results from it.

[Ugmo]

You couldn't be MORE wrong, if you tried.

I've phone-polled a lot of these "democrats" and they feel NO SUCH WAY!

BTW - I said 2010 AND 2012, for a reason.

Recently? Like I said, everyone thought the bill sucked compared to what it could have been. But when it became a choice between this bill and nothing at all it started to look a lot better.

Not really much point in arguing about the future, but I am willing to wager that the Democrats will not lose their majority over this either in 2010 or 2012.

Anyone up for a wager? I will bet the Dems don't lose their majority in either house.

[cantstopthemusic]

Everyone thought the bill sucked compared to what it could have been. But when it became a choice between this bill and nothing at all it started to look a lot better.

You are swallowing the KOOL-AID ... no surprise.

This is going to have a disastrous effect on our economy and Obama and the majority of these politicians will be LONG GONE before the full financial implications are felt.

This is NOT some "great deal" for Americans, like it's being sold as. It's going to send the national debt absolutely soaring and keep the unemployment rate in double-digits for a long time to come.

[Ugmo]

You are swallowing the KOOL-AID ... no surprise.

This is going to have a disastrous effect on our economy and Obama and the majority of these politicians will be LONG GONE before the full financial implications are felt.

This is NOT some "great deal" for Americans, like it's being sold as. It's going to send the national debt absolutely soaring and keep the unemployment rate in double-digits for a long time to come.

Well that ain't what the Congressional Budget Office said, and they analyzed it pretty thoroughly. They said the exact opposite, as a matter of fact. What do you know that they don't know?

[tin00can]

Everyone thought the bill sucked compared to what it could have been. But when it became a choice between this bill and nothing at all it started to look a lot better.

You are swallowing the KOOL-AID ... no surprise.

This is going to have a disastrous effect on our economy and Obama and the majority of these politicians will be LONG GONE before the full financial implications are felt.

This is NOT some "great deal" for Americans, like it's being sold as. It's going to send the national debt absolutely soaring and keep the unemployment rate in double-digits for a long time to come.

And you're swallowing the republican kool-aid...no surprise.

[cantstopthemusic]

You are swallowing the KOOL-AID ... no surprise.

This is going to have a disastrous effect on our economy and Obama and the majority of these politicians will be LONG GONE before the full financial implications are felt.

This is NOT some "great deal" for Americans, like it's being sold as. It's going to send the national debt absolutely soaring and keep the unemployment rate in double-digits for a long time to come.

Well that ain't what the Congressional Budget Office said, and they analyzed it pretty thoroughly. They said the exact opposite, as a matter of fact. What do you know that they don't know?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbo ... 2-trillion

[Ugmo]

That's an opinion piece by some conservative dude. Now here is a non-partisan source:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... cut-defic/

There's no debate about the first 10 years: the CBO analysis clearly states that the health care bill passed by the Senate, together with the reconciliation proposal, "would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010–2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenue."

..........................

Bottom line, the CBO report says the health care bill -- with the proposed reconciliation -- would continue to improve the deficit situation in the second 10 years.

In other words, it probably won't reduce the deficit as much as the Democrats are claiming, but it won't increase the deficit like you are claiming.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

Do you have some facts to back this up or is this a case of "my opinion is fact"?

Absolutely. From the New York Times no less:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opini ... ef=opinion

The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform

Published: March 20, 2010
Arlington, Va.


Times Topics: Health Care Reform

ON Thursday, ... of spending[/size].[/b]

Op-Ed Contributor
The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform

By DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN
Published: March 20, 2010

Hmmm... off the Opinion page. You really can't tell fact from opinion, even when it's clearly noted.

And this:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Medicare- ... l?x=0&.v=2
Medicare fix would push health care into the red
Rollback of Medicare cuts to doctors, if added to health care bill, push it into the red

Buzz up! 74 Print
On Friday March 19, 2010, 6:33 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional budget scorekeepers say... doctors year by year.

It's been removed from the bill.
Nice try, though.

[cantstopthemusic]

That's an opinion piece by some conservative dude. Now here is a non-partisan source:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... cut-defic/

There's no debate about the first 10 years: the CBO analysis clearly states that the health care bill passed by the Senate, together with the reconciliation proposal, "would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010–2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenue."

..........................

Bottom line, the CBO report says the health care bill -- with the proposed reconciliation -- would continue to improve the deficit situation in the second 10 years.

In other words, it probably won't reduce the deficit as much as the Democrats are claiming, but it won't increase the deficit like you are claiming.

You don't even live here. Doesn't affect you either way, when the rest of us get fucked-over.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

That's an opinion piece by some conservative dude. Now here is a non-partisan source:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... cut-defic/

There's no debate about the first 10 years: the CBO analysis clearly states that the health care bill passed by the Senate, together with the reconciliation proposal, "would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010–2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenue."

..........................

Bottom line, the CBO report says the health care bill -- with the proposed reconciliation -- would continue to improve the deficit situation in the second 10 years.

In other words, it probably won't reduce the deficit as much as the Democrats are claiming, but it won't increase the deficit like you are claiming.

You don't even live here. Doesn't affect you either way, when the rest of us get fucked-over.

It makes him nonpartisan.

[Ugmo]

You don't even live here. Doesn't affect you either way, when the rest of us get fucked-over.

Haha.... okay, fair enough, but that's not really a response to the link I posted which clearly explained that the bill will reduce the deficit.

I'll tell you something though, since you brought it up: the country I live in has universal health care and an insurance mandate, and unemployment is something like 4 percent here right now. In part because despite the universal coverage, it only spends half as much on health care as the United States as a percentage of GDP.

It's the lack of health care reform that's been killing the United States fiscally. I think you've got it ass-backwards.

[Ugmo]

It makes him nonpartisan.

I wouldn't go that far... I'm about as partisan as it gets!

[cantstopthemusic]

That's an opinion piece by some conservative dude.

Translation: You dismiss it out-of-hand, due to the source, rather than read it, regardless.

What a shock.

[cantstopthemusic]

You don't even live here. Doesn't affect you either way, when the rest of us get fucked-over.

Haha.... okay, fair enough, but that's not really a response to the link I posted which clearly explained that the bill will reduce the deficit.

The link I posted for YOU, clearly explained HOW your "response link" is ABSOLUTELY INACCURATE.

It will do exactly the OPPOSITE - AFTER "year 10," especially.

[Ugmo]

That's an opinion piece by some conservative dude.

Translation: You dismiss it out-of-hand, due to the source, rather than read it, regardless.

What a shock.

Okay, setting aside the fact that it is obviously biased to the right (it actually uses the term "Obamacare" in the title), it only tells half the story. Even if that guy's figures are accurate - and since he is highly partisan there is reason to doubt his math - he's only mentioning the cost and not the revenues. The CBO clearly states that on aggregate the bill will reduce the deficit, not increase it. That's explained in the non-partisan source I linked.

The CBO analysis is one windmill you probably shouldn't be tilting at.