Take John Cornyn, R-TX, for example:
CNN anchor Kiran Chetry twice tried to ask Cornyn if there is “anything Republicans would be willing to give on in return,” but Cornyn responded by criticizing the existing legislation:
CORNYN: Really, I think it’s not possible to take this bill or this proposal, this 11 page summary and to work with it around the edges. We’re going to have to put it on the shelf. That’s what the American people want us to do and start over and we would be glad to do that.
I’m sorry, but that’s simply not acceptable. After a year of work, scrapping the entire bill and starting over is not an option, and Cornyn knows it. Besides, what are the chances Republicans would decide to actually get involved if the Democrats started over? More likely, they’d consider it a major vindication of their strategy of obstruction, and up the ante even further.
So compromise isn’t happening, and in fact, has not happened since the bill began — and not for the Dems’ like of trying. If the Democrats were to water the bill down even further, what they would really be doing is making concessions, not compromising. I say they’ve made plenty of concessions already. It’s time to wrap this up and move on.
Not gonna happen!
Jeff:
You and the Democrats propose taking over the health care system and destroy it. The Republicans have the moral responsibility to say no to that.
If you want real health care reform quit pretending that this is a very a moderate package.
AND BY THE WAY SINCE YOU ARE A PROVEN LIAR THAN THE THINGS YOU SAID IN THIS POST MOST BE IN A LIE!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
“AND BY THE WAY SINCE YOU ARE A PROVEN LIAR THAN THE THINGS YOU SAID IN THIS POST MOST BE IN A LIE!”
People who write all in caps always carry a great deal of weight. They just seem more sane to me. Plus your reasoning is so rigorous, I just can’t find a way to rebut what you say. I guess that makes me some sort of ditto-head.
Well played, sir.
When people like Walter are ranting on a blog and they can’t scream directly in your face, THEY SCREAM USING THE CAPS LOCK KEY INSTEAD, FOLLOWED BY EXCLAMATION POINT OR TWO!!
I am reminded of the scene from Anchor Man: BRICK (AKA WALTER) “I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT. …..LOUD NOISES”
Let’s just hope Walter doesn’t pull another Brick move, “Yeah, there were horses, a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident.”
Can you even be slightly reasonable Walter? Every industrialized nation in the world has some sort of universal care even more extensive than the one proposd by the Democrats.
Answer me this Walter:
Is every health system, in every nation in the world, destroyed? That is your premise Walter. Is it reality?
Many of the proposals in the current senate bill were advanced by Republicans as components of Hillary Care, bucko.
Also, using “moral responsibility” and “republicans” in the same phrase means you are a moron.
or “moran”, as the case may be
Are you really that STUPID??
There are 40+ million uninsured, 40,000+ people die every year because they don’t have health insurance, insurance companies dump people after they have the unminitgated gall to actually use the product they paid for when they do get sick (if they can get insurance at all) and YOU don’t have a problem with any of that? Add to that the fact the we spend far more per capita than any other country. How is that other countries can cover everybody and spend far less???
Get your head out of your ass, Mr. Hanson.
Walter’s intemperance aside Jeff, your assumptions are all so wrong it isn’t even worth arguing with your conclusions.
People dont want Democrats “to gain bipartisan support for health reform”. They could give a flying fig about bi-partisanship. If they cared about bi-partisanship they would not have handed the House, the Senate and Presidency to a single party. No. They just want good solid common sense health care reform. They dont care who it comes from. They arent like you Jeff. They dont think in terms of right and left they think in terms of right and wrong. If you knew that then you’d know that they think your health care reforms are wrong.
Get it?
They think your reforms are wrong. The people would think your reforms are wrong regardless of who is voting for them Jeff. Every single elected republican could vote for this thing and the people would still be against it. This has nothing to do with party. Think about it. How could the Democrats win such historic majorities yet be facing such large opposition to their plans if opposition to their plans didn’t transcend party politics? They wouldn’t.
People genuinely oppose your reforms and the sooner you figure that out the sooner you’ll be able to figure out what the Republicans will vote for.
How could the Democrats win such historic majorities yet be facing such large opposition to their plans if opposition to their plans didn’t transcend party politics?
It exactly because of party politics that any legislation put forth by a Democrat is being blocked through parlimentary procedures. The GOPper’s tactic of doing everything possible to make Obama fail has worked so far but the GOP has reached the point now, where it is obvious that the GOP cares more about party politics then the welfare of the nation. It is absolutely time the Democrats stop compromising. It is time for the Democrats to use all the parlimentary games at their disposal to stymy any legislation with a GOPper name on it.
Yes, of course the republicans are trying to stop this legislation but up until the election of Scott Brown (R-MA!!) there was no need for a single republican vote. So you’ll have to explain to me why, with such a large mandate going into the session, so many democratic members were unwilling to pull the trigger on their own party’s health reforms if not for fear of voter retribution? Didn’t the voters just vote for them? Didn’t they just vote for Obama? So why would the Democrats be so afraid to vote for healthcare reform if opposition to the reforms was limited only to republicans?
Lloyd,
The Democrats failed to assert their mandate because of a fear of losing re-election. While Democrats realized gains in 2006 and 2008, the Republican party remains far more effective at controlling the electoral process by targeting vulnerable politicians in local races and by controlling the message to keep their base highly energized and deliberately mis-informed. Marketing lies remains a potent political weapon but it increasingly difficult to compete with the truth that the economy is in dire straights and health care costs are a big part of that. The single greatest threat to Democrats right now is their apparent weakness.
“People genuinely oppose your reforms and the sooner you figure that out the sooner you’ll be able to figure out what the Republicans will vote for.”
Humor us Lloyd. If, by by reforming health care, we alienate “the people”, that will be good for the Republicans, right? Isn’t that what you keep telling us? That is what we need to do then. If for no other reason, then just to clear the way for permanent Republican rule.
Ron, you’re squishing. Why would have a fear of losing re-election when they just won re-election. If the republicans are so persuasive, how did those democrats even win?
Nope. That’s BS. Every Democrat outside of the major progressive districts (which are also the districts with the greatest wealth gaps) knows that trying to fix health care with more federal mandates and more federal spending will get them fired. Your safe super libs don’t have to worry about that because the majority of their voters are on the dole. Contrast that with the suburban districts that swing back and forth.
But I’ll humor you of course. As the president is fond of saying, you won. So do your worst to us while you can - it wont stand for long.
Wow! What a bunch of responses I drew.
Lets see:
People made fun of the fact that I used caps and called Jeff a liar. Keep in mind that he has used this blog recently to try to promote that the stimulus plan has caused lots of jobs. 2.1 million according to a recent post. I went to the US Department of Labor and checked out some stats. On one table in the last quarter the United States actually lost jobs. On another table in the year 2008 the United States lost something like 3.5 million jobs and in 2009 when Obama slowed the drop in joblessness (as claimed by Jeff) we lost something like 5.3 million jobs. Thus the evidence shows that Jeff lies when he tries to make the coneection that Obama and his policies have been good for jobs. They actually have been far worse than President Bush. Furthermore when you take into account the tax increases for next year by repealing Bush’s tax cuts and the uncertain created by the health care proposal and cap and trade for example businesses aren’t encourged to hire people.
Obama who claims that this plan is good also said that we had to adopt the stimulus plan to keep unemployment from breaking eight percent! So why believe him now!
One person accused me for saying that the other countries in the world have a broken health care system. Keep in mind people think we should be like Canada. Canada has waiting times of more than a year for services, their doctors think the system is broken, and even canada’s medical system sends their patients to the United States. Why be like that.
There are problems with the US system, but if you look at the problems a lot of them can be linked to problems that government creates. While Democrats talk left and right we have to strip the health care companies of their profits there is no talk for lawyers to be stripped of their profits. Years ago I sat as a juror on a medical malpractice case. The defense called two witnesses and you had to wonder why this case ever got tried since both witnesses testified that the person would’ve died any way and the lawyer who sued the docotr didn’t bother to try to rebut the argument.
Unfortunately that causes doctors to practice defensive medicine. I’ve had a doctor who ordered two high cost tests because he thought that I was bleeding to death. The belief was based on a low iron level. I had immediately shown the doctor that I probably was getting enough iron in my diet (especially since I was asked to lose lots of weight) and maybe I needed to take an iron supplement. After the two tests he suggested I take an iron supplement.
Another problem and this health care bill will make it worse is that Congress has mandated plans cover a whole lot of things. The president joked on Thursday about how when he got into an accident he called the insurance to cover for his auto accident they laughed at him because he wasn’t covered. That’s because auto insurance you get to chose your coverage including what you get for car replacement in case of a collision since the most important part (but not the only part) is we pick what our coverage is. The insurance company adjusts the price for what you think you need the coverage.
The CBO has scored the plan when fully implemented as costing 2.3 trillon dollars. Opposition nationally has been from Republicans, Democrats, and independents who realize that! Keep in mind Obama’s so called fix looks like it adds costs and reduce revenues to pay for the bill.
And for the attacks on the Republicans the biggest problem is that the Democrats can’t agree to a plan. The House for example has restrictive language on the issue of abortion while the Senate’s plan was written to allow abortion. Both chambers use different tax schemes to get the funds. Just like for example when the Republicans controlled both chambers we couldn’t get a bill passed to allow drilling for oil in ANWAR even though bills passed in both chambers allowing it. The problem being they were on different bills and the House wouldn’t pass the bill that the senate produced that had the drilling.
That plus the fact that Nancy has lost votes since the health care bill passed the house. She lost Murtha’s vote because of his death, the one Republican who voted for it won’t vote for it because it won’t have the abortion language as will Bart Stupka. Plus two resignations. Nancy is at best 215 votes right now.
I can go on, but that is enough for right now.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Walter, the problem is you sounded like a complete ass when you called Jeff a liar. Niether you nor I know enough about Jeff to call him a liar but he’s given us plenty enough to know that he’s a fool. If you know hisotry, you know that there wasn’t a single founding father that wouldn’t punch you in the face for such an unfounded slander. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr%E2%80%93Hamilton_duel
Many posters on this site are so formulaic you know what they are going to say before they do. I pegged you as the ignorant meathead on my team who will only mean well when they have to. I’m glad I read your follow up post to see that you’re deeper than that. I’d ask that you stay that way.
As far as fools go, these fools are at least engaged in the process of thought and deserve your respect. I can’t say that about their leadership but niether can they.
Lloyd,
“Many posters on this site are so formulaic you know what they are going to say before they do.”
Lloyd:
Keep in mind and you might have missed on a previous post I challenged Jeff on his jobs numbers as I quoted in my later post. Jeff did the in the face challenge. I was in effect defending myself by reminding Jeff of that fact!
I was a little mad since Jeff basically said the Republicans don’t want to compromise so why deal with them. The problem you have the situation where the Democrats if they had their way they want to guarentee the right to abortion in their plan. The House Republicans have basically said along with a bunch of democrats that if we have a health care plan it should have strict language on not granting abortion. The senate plan doesn’t have that.
The Republicans have pointed out that if this plan is so good why start the benefits in 2014? It’s done in part because that is how CBO on paper can say it will reduce the deficit. Thus when you match up ten years of benefits with ten years of revenues you actually have a large increase in the deficit. Yet Jeff and others say that’s okay to have.
The Republicans were attacked in the mid 1990’s that they were cutting medicare by $300 billion dollars. This plan will cut it by $500 billion if implemented (if not it will increase the deficit by $500 billion). The Republicans were rightly charging that the Democrats were raiding medicare to fund medical care for other people instead of the seniors. Yet the Democrats want to claim they are the champions of the senior citizens.
And on top of this the bill passed with a senator who isn’t there now. Why not redebate the bill and ask for the same vote that took place on Christmas eve. They can’t because they wouldn’t be able to get the clouture to pass it.
I hope that explains some more why I did the first post. I forgot on such a website of insane liberals you have to try to bring facts in even greater detail. But even that doesn’t work sometimes. Frank Luntz recently did a focus group where he gauged the reaction that the audience did to Sarah Pallin having to defend her child Trig thanks to a family guy episode. The democrats were so hating of Sarah that they didn’t more their numbers even though Sarah was defending Trig and not herself.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
No worries. I’ve thrown a bolt a time or two myself.
Tell you where. The dems have the power to pass this monstrosity and I have the power to move to canada or costa rica. I have no job (as of yesterday) and four weeks pay coming, after that - nothing. I’m going on welfare and all you clowns will be working for me.
“The dems have the power to pass this monstrosity and I have the power to move to canada or costa rica”
So…you’re going to move to Canada to escape government health care plans? Interesting…
“Keep in mind and you might have missed on a previous post I challenged Jeff on his jobs numbers as I quoted in my later post.”
Yes, but you didn’t understand the meaning of what you were posting: it didn’t say what you thought it did. Furthermore, you weren’t really saying Jeff lied, you were saying the CBO lied…which is why your credibility is nil around here and people don’t feel inclined to rebut your sheer nuttery.
You made your bed, Walter.
Theoko:
Keep in mind Jeff has used different posts to claim that Obama is good for unemployment. He used the stimlus post and an earlier post to try to make that claim. Jeff is lying because the data doesn’t back up the posts. He has been told the data doesn’t back up the two posts and he doesn’t seem to care.
In my world that makes Jeff a liar!
It’s not sheer nuttery to point out that your policies haven’t worked!
And if your policies for employment haven’t worked there is good reason to believe that they won’t work for health care.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN