Numbers Not Adding Up for Senate Democrats on Health Care Reform
The Senate defeated Ben Nelson’s abortion language by 54-45 earlier in the week. If the Democrats get 60 votes to end debate and pass a bill, how many anti-abortion House Democrats who backed the Stupak amendment will support the Senate version of the bill that does not include this language? The House version of the bill with the Stupak amendment passed by only 220-215. One vote — by Republican Joseph Cao — only came after the 218 vote level was assured. Polls on the health care bill have gotten much worse since the House vote. Passage of a bill following the Senate model, without the Stupak language and with the Medicare expansion, is by no means assured in the House.
The expansion of Medicare is problematic for many senators and will be for many House members as well. Medicare pays widely varying rates across the country, and if the program is expanded, the lower Medicare fee schedule would replace the higher private pay rates for anyone who becomes part of this coverage group. There have already been estimates that 10-20% of hospitals and providers could face financial difficulty because of the proposed Medicare cuts that are in the bill.
The 55-64 age group have far higher use rates (occasions of service per 1,000) than younger populations. As a result, the shift to a lower Medicare rate schedule would impact a far higher percentage of the caseload for providers than the percentage of the population represented by those covered by the new plan.
It is possible that some of what is now going on is an effort at face saving by senators who in the end will not support the bill. Maine’s two Republican senators — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — are Harry Reid’s best hope for a vote or two to enable him to sell the reform effort as a bipartisan bill and for insurance if one or more Democrats, or independent Senator Joe Lieberman, bolt. Both have expressed reservations on the new Medicare expansion. The Senate bill would add 15 million enrollees to Medicaid. That is a new and very costly unfunded burden for the states, many of which are in grave financial difficulty already and don’t have the luxury of the federal government to print money and run up enormous annual deficits ($1.4 trillion for fiscal 2009; $1.5 trillion estimated for fiscal 2010).
As I said earlier, the numbers that most concern Democrats are the declining poll numbers. The president’s approval rating is now below 50% and reached a new low Saturday in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll.
Several incumbent Democrats are now trailing in their re-election runs in 2010, including Bennett in Colorado, Dodd in Connecticut, Reid in Nevada, Lincoln in Arkansas, Specter in Pennsylvania, as well as in the Democratic-held Delaware open seat. The open seat in Illinois is also very competitive. The number of retiring Democrats and vulnerable Democrats in the House grows each week.
Approval ratings for Congress are disastrous, and Democrats are the party in control of both branches of Congress. Finally, and most worrisome, are the numbers on health care reform. The disapproval ratings have soared in recent weeks, and not just the Fox News [oll.
Rasmussen has support for the reform bill at 41% and opposition at 51%. CNN/Opinion Dynamics had a shocking survey showing 36% support and 61% opposition, a more negative result than the Fox poll with 34% support and 57% opposition. Some Democrats have to wonder whether they will gain politically from pushing through a complex package of reforms with greatly increased federal spending, little evidence of any cost savings, and all the votes coming from their own party when 60% or more of the voting public think it is a bad idea.
The failure of the Democrats, if it occurs, will not be because they could not entice a few wavering moderate Democratic senators. Health care reform went off the rails when the Pelosi/George Miller/Jan Schakowsky wing of the Democratic party was given control over drafting the bill. The result was predictable. No GOP input was welcome. Tort reform, allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines, reducing the many mandates that drive up the cost of insurance, and encouraging the sale of more catastrophic insurance policies (much less expensive for the young and healthier among the uninsured) were all cost-saving ideas that never had a chance of inclusion in any of the bills.
Instead the Democrats have made the bad things worse — such as interfering with insurance underwriting policies so that age becomes much less a factor in premium cost. This will result in one more enormous wealth transfer from younger Americans to older Americans.
The design of this bill was purposeful: Create a new comprehensive middle class entitlement that would be impossible to reverse and would grow over time. Use smoke and mirrors to pay for it while hiding the true cost of the measure by starting the benefits five years out in the ten year scoring time frame.
We are likely to see some very erratic behavior by Democratic senators in the next few weeks. The reform effort hangs by a thread, and the party may now suffer politically if it passes — or if the effort collapses.
At this point in time some kind of enormous, devastating event that shatters the Democrat Party to it’s core has to occur, or the entire world will be staring up the Obama’s upturned nostrils 24/7/365 as he arrogantly gloats about winning the Healthcare Reform Bill victory.
That victory will also serve up a massive dose of energy and momentum for the passage of all the other maniacal crap on Obama’s agenda; as well as a fortress of 2010 and beyond election campaign fodder.
I live in Virginia. Senators Warner and Webb are like two peas in a pod. One is rather verbose, the other wishy washy. But, the facts are that no matter which way you turn both of them there is a face showing.
Mr. Baehr, liberal Democrats do not process thoughts the way you or any normal person does. To their mind accumulative facts mean little or nothing unless it is clear to them that they have been crippled and ripped to shreds by their own kind. In short, there can be no hope that anything will change for the better in their lives because of Obama and/or the Democrat Party.
Look around where you are at.
America still has a long, hard row to plow and hoe before it is healed. It would be nice if common sense, optimism and rationale thinking was convertible into political reality. It isn’t.
The only numbers the Democrats are interested in are 60 votes in the Senate and 218 votes in the House. They don’t care if it will make health care more available or affordable. They don’t care if we can afford it. They want to pass something, anything. As Sen. Baucus said, “If 60 Senators favor it, I’m for it.” If there were ever any principles among these folks, they have long ago abandoned them. All they care about is expanding the federal role in health care. Maybe that was always their only goal.
Stop the gov’t from taking control of your lives. Rally in DC on Tuesday. Google “code red rally” for more info
Where is the common sense in this bill that’s over two thousand pages long. It’s all smoke and mirrors to the taxes that will be nailed onto something that will not go into effect for a couple of years but the taxes go on immediately. Are we blind to this? Tax the sunshine, tax the view, oh yeah, California tried that one already. My God it’s all about money and not one darn thing about health.
Obama sent the 30,000 ( or said he would) to Afghanistan in order to show he was more moderate in order to get health care and cap and trade through. They stand for nothing except the socialist/Marxist agenda.
Nothing is what they say, nothing is what it seems with them. you can’t except any one thing they say, you have to look at the body of work. A takeover of our economy and our way of life is their aim.
I am trying to digest the notion that the Democrat’s failure
to pass a hugely unwanted and unpopular piece of legislation
is going to hurt them politically. How does that work? People
don’t want this health care fiasco but will pound Democrats
at the polls in November if they don’t pass it? That’s some
logic.
The better question is whether Democrats have irrevocably
damaged their electoral chances in November just by attempting
to pass their warped version of health care. Dropping the health
care bill might not even help them at this point, which might
explain Harry Reid’s kamikaze like behavior.
I’m also intrigued by the notion that once instituted as a
middle class entitlement, government health care can never
be repealed. If the government’s involvement produces
a system as bad as most conservatives (including myself)
predict, who in his right mind would want to keep it? After all,
under the Democrat’s plan, the middle class is only entitled
to pay higher taxes and ever increasing premiums without
any guarantee they will actually be treated. Many will be
denied treatment or put on waiting lists. I’m sure the
middle class will just be wild about mandatory end of life
counseling. This is an entitlement worth fighting for?
If the middle class does eventually come to see government
health care as an iron clad entitlement, they will have to
see it as a positive, an entitlement worth fighting to keep.
Wouldn’t that mean conservative’s predictions of a health
care apocalypse were wildly overblown?
The reality is that Barack Obama has been a marginalized president for over six months. He will be unable to sign into law any serious domestic bills. Obama is now a blue state president. Only those legislators ensconced in very politically liberal areas of the country will dare support his radical agenda. The red and purple ones are running for the hills. What in heaven’s name does he have to offer a Joe Lieberman or a Ben Nelson? There are rumors that some elected officials being bribed by promises of lucrative positions if they are defeated for reelection in 2010. However, common sense dictates that there are only so many of these sorts of jobs to go around. Most of them will be compelled to opt for the continuation of their political careers—and supporting Obama guarantees nothing less than political suicide.
The biggest indication I’ve seen so far that the ObamaCare/ReidCare/PelosiCare bill is dying swiftly is when Reid switched from debate on it to another pork-laden appropriations bill. The logical conclusion is that Reid didn’t have the 60 votes, or else he would have called for a vote on the healthcare bill.
It’s possible that he’s trying to use the appropriations bill to bribe wobbling Dems, but it’s equally likely that this pivot away from the health care bill is just because Reid can’t pass it now and it’s looking more and more like he won’t be able to at any time in the future.
I agree with “Not Yet” @ 1 when he states that “…liberal Democrats do not process thoughts the way you or any normal person does. To their mind accumulative facts mean little or nothing…”
Leftist delusuionaries are now in control our national government. Yes, “WE” elected them. Our job now, as citizens, is to minimize the damage such Marxists can do from this point until we are able to vote them out. Call, write or e-mail your senators and representatives. Encourage those who “get it” and give the others hell. The time to be polite to the leftists has ended. Stick to the facts and state them point blank. Just say NO to Marxism.
It’s full speed ahead. F**k the peasants. Only an uprising will stop them now. I know. Easy to say and hard, very hard to do. But there’s no out left. Serfdom otherwise.
A few years back my mother who lived in Canada had an aneurysm at 88 years old. I drove like a mad man for 300 miles to get to her side. By the time I got there she was gone. They had let her bleed out !!!! The quotes I heard was “Well, she had had a good life” . If she had been over the border in the States it would have been fixed………that is what is going to happen to us if we allow this bill to pass. I am praying every day against it !!!!
Agree with Not Yet (1) and Saltherring (9) that the Democrats are going to cram something down our throats by years end and worry about tweaking before November 2010 to look more palatable …. just so Obama can claim at least one victory. They’ve invested too much time and wasted effort crafting an irresponsible bill and totally ignored rising unemployment and the ailing economy for the fading glory of Obama’s socialist agenda. But we must make it known to Dumb (Webb) & Dumber (Warner) that they’re going to pay the price for their cupidity to pass anything whatsoever that sounds like health care reform so that they can crow that they accomplished a miracle. If so, ‘pink slip’ Webb in 2012!
“…that the Democrats are going to cram something down our throats by years end…”
Barack Obama’s poll numbers are too low. Your scenario makes sense only if he is minimally at 55%+. Other than that, it makes no sense for red and purple politicians to support his agenda. Obama is not the anti-Christ. He does not possess diabolical talents.
KDW, never mind the hurtin’ middle class. They’re already paying for Medicare, which is laden with fraud and inefficiency and would be better replaced with some privatized something — but woe betide the hapless leader who calls for effective reform. “Don’t kill grandma!” “Don’t end the dream of our dedicated nurses and doctors to care for the sick!” (accompanied by poignant photo of hard-working Female Nurse of Color at the end of her shift).
No, there are permanent constituencies to please — nurses’ unions, lawyers, bureaucrats. Such folk convinced 52% to vote for Obama, and they’ve got business leaders, the MSM, and most political leaders terrified of being branded as racists. Between gutless leaders and a gullible public, we’d be screwed.
I think they should take ALL of the social programs, review them openly and carefully, even if it takes years, and come up with something that makes sense. I think Medicare and Medicaid are horrible programs, but of course you will never be able to “reform” them because, in the case of Medicare, some old geezers will resist ANY change. I am an old geezer myself to I think I am qualified to say that. It seems there should be some clean, free market way, to implement needed social programs, but we have to start from scratch, and I’m afraid that’s never going to happen.
Something that no one seems to address is the tax we pay for 3 or4 years before the helth care mess takes effect. Who in their right mind expects the money to be there when the bills come due. I for one don’t not the way they spend money in Washington. Also where do the states get the money to cover their part of Mecicade.
@KDW
“I am trying to digest the notion that the Democrat’s failure to pass a hugely unwanted and unpopular piece of legislation is going to hurt them politically.”
It’s very simple. Most elected Democrats need the party faithful to show up AND they need independents. They can’t either pass or fail to pass the healthcare bill Obama has been talking up without making one or another group really, REALLY mad.
Of course, from the later bits of your post, I suspect you know that and just hope it isn’t so.
I take my hat off to the big insurance corporate elite and their people on the far right, like Limbaugh, Palin and Beck. Like the big oil corporate elite selling us all down the tubes… their millions spent on defeating health care reform is beginning to pay off. Will they succeed? I think so, but I also believe the demand for reform and the recognition that something must be done about the greed.. will not go away. Plus, even the politicians they have bought and paid for have told them enough is enough, next time they will have to make some progress or they to, shall face the wrath of working people, the old, the sick and the poor sooner or later. Republicans may wish they controlled the government again like they did for eight years, but they may listen to the old saying….becareful what you wish for.. !! Good Luck to them !
All Virginia has to do regarding this ridiculous healthcare bill, or any state or any bill, for that matter, is exercise their sovereignty under the 10th Amendment, and simply say “NO”! Just say “NO”!
Pol numbers are like the wind. They change direction and force on a whim.
The Usurper starts bombing Iran and his poll numbers go up 20 points overnight. It worked for Slick Willie, it has worked for every POTUS. Kill some wogs and the voters are happy. Bombing Iran will take EVERYTHING else off the front page, even Tiger.
If I was a Mad Dog Mullah, I would be making sure my bunker was stocked up.
I fully believe that the Democrats are willing to fall on their swords over health care reform. I think they believe that passing this legislation will give them a lock on future elections, even if they lose control of both houses of Congress in the mid-term elections. If the Democrats lose control of the House and the Senate, the Republicans will most likely pass legislation to repeal this monstrosity. But, the GOP will not have enough votes to overcome a Presidential veto. So, the legislation will stand and provide an opportunity for the Democrats to demagogue the GOP on lack of compassion and trying to take away people’s health care, just like they always accused the GOP of trying to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. If we want to keep some semblance of our liberty, we need to stop this legislation now!
Crappy, overpriced universal healthcare is good business– invest your freedom and the lives of everyone over 40! (Enjoy the police state!)
President Obama has been campaigning for ObamaCare since April of this year, yet he cannot pass ObamaCare as the resistance grows; he’s asking for the Congressional Democrats to commit political suicide for his out-of-control narcissism. Despite the super-majorities, the Congressional Democrats are scared stiff with 2010 on the horizon. Many of them are politically dead given their previous votes on the failed Porkulus, TARP 2, & Crap & Tax, & this ObamaCare abomination.
I agree with David Thomson that Obama is a lame duck given his poll numbers continue to free-fall into oblivion. The Congressional Democrats will not walk the plank for a lame duck–even if his name is Barack Obama.
The Senate has one week to cram ObamaCare, but I don’t believe it will get done. ObamaCare is getting more intense inertia from other scared Democrat & RINO senators….
Senator Reid is cracking-up under the pressure.
We need to still melt the phones & keep the inertia active within the Senate. Once 2010 rolls around, ObamaCare will be DEAD as will the vaunted president’s popularity.
What is very disturbing about this whole process is that when you have only 36% of the American public supporting this plan (according to a recent CNN poll) and Democrats in BOTH houses of Congress STILL want to pass it, then something is fudamentally wrong with this system. Washington no longer represents the will of the people, only the lobbyists and special interest groups (like labor unions). Everyone else in this country can just go pound dust, because you are never going to get any “representative democracy” out of Washington, DC, anymore. I really do think we have hit a tipping point and if Congress passes healthcare in its present form, you are going to see a revolution take place in 2010. The Democrats will be finished as a political party for at least a generation and the country will be broke. Literally broke and in debt up to its eyeballs. Inflation will probably be out of control and at sky high levels. It will be the late 1970s all over again, only worse because our national debt will be unsustainable. Trust me, start storing your food and clothing and anything else you may need for now and in the future. It will be the complete opposite of deflation, which was the problem during the Great Depression. A horrendous inflation, caused by the massive spending and money printing we’ve done over the past year, will crush our economy. Courage, America. We’re going to need to be strong and stand tall, because the people in Washington certainly are NOT going to do so. What a shame.
#23 SS
“President Obama has been campaigning for ObamaCare since April of this year..”
Yes and since doing this my insurance premiums increased $200/mo in May, switched networks that covers NOTHING!, and now increased my monthly premiums by another $300/mo and still covers NOTHING! Merry Christmas and welcome to Obama care.
“The Democrats will be finished as a political party for at least a generation”
The Democrats are definitely flirting with political oblivion for the next couple of national elections. It is rapidly becoming home only for the safest of blue state candidates. Independent voters will have nothing to do with them. The only real contest in 2012 may revolve around those candidates fighting for the Republican presidential nomination. It will be taken for granted that the winner will easily defeat their Democratic Party opponent. And please note that I am not taking for granted that Barack Obama will still be in the White House. The odds are that Joe Biden will finish out his term. Obama will likely suffer from a mental breakdown and try to punish the American public for betraying his vision.
#26, I sort of agree. With enough votes in Congress, the Usurper will have no choice but to produce a birth certificate that will pass muster by Forensic Document Examiners. If he can, fine, politics goes on as normal. If he can’t, Joe takes over and ALL legislation signed by the Usurper becomes null and void. My best guess is that any pending legislation will be OK if Biden signs it, but anything signed by Berry is null and void. The USSC will have to rule on that, although some of the legislation would fall under a pocket veto, that legislation which was sent to the President while Congress was in session would have become Law automatically within 10 days without a signature. Is a false signature the same as no signature? I can’t find any ruling on that and none of my Attorney friends have the slightest idea. One of them is a retired judge in his 90′s who vaguely remembers a case where a CEO signed a bunch of sweetheart contracts as the board was busy firing him. So it will be a real sack of snakes. Not sure what happens with Berry’s Supreme Court appointment.
Unlike almost everybody else, I think Biden will make a fine President. He’s liberal, but not a Socialist. He doesn’t seem to have an agenda that involves destroying America.
Anything that resolves the issue and leaves the Constitution intact and avoids a civil war is good.
The Blue States think they have the upper hand but if the Red States stop sending them food, it won’t take a week before they change their mind. Not much the left can do about it either. Standing in front of a field with a powerpoint presentation won’t make the corn grow, get it to the plant to be packaged, nor ship it to their local store.
#6 KDW:
“I am trying to digest the notion that the Democrat’s failure
to pass a hugely unwanted and unpopular piece of legislation
is going to hurt them politically. How does that work? People
don’t want this health care fiasco but will pound Democrats
at the polls in November if they don’t pass it? That’s some
logic.”
Well, they’ve done such a thing before, have they not?
I’d offer both the 1994 “Brady Bill”/Assault Weapons Ban and the 1993 Clinton Budget, (not to mention the Hillarycare Fiasco), as examples of how Democrats pandered to their persistently shrill liberal Statist wing in media and academia and quangos and then as a result had their butts served them on a plate by the general electorate.
Tom Perkins at #17 perfectly captures the straits between Scylla and Charybdis that they Dems have to navigate to stay in power.
It’s their bad luck that their Captain Obama isn’t worried about getting re-elected yet,(maybe ever), their Chief Engineer Pelosi in her safe district is going to keep her job regardless of what happens, and their Chief Mate Reid has already been notified of his being fired at the next port of call.
It’s an odd feature of the Congressional seniority system that the leadership hails from the safest districts, and thus tend to be the most ideologically committed, regardless of what consequences ensue.
If the GOP is smart, (and I’m still not convinced that they are), they’ll hang this economy right around the necks of the Dems, who took office in the Majority in January of 2007.
CODE RED RALLY
Tuesday, 12/15/09
http://www.americansforprosperity.org/120709-afp-host-senate-house-call-december-15th
#27: You’d be right if the feds didn’t come in and take the food from agricultural states at gunpoint. I think we all know that that’s what would happen. If you don’t produce enough food for everyone the coastal elites will get to eat first.
Senator Pryor (D) Arkansas and Senator Testor (D) Montana have important votes.
These two should be famous.
The significance of climategate has been greatly underestimated, including its effects on health care.
1. the “progressive” movement worldwide, including political parties, is inextricably linked to the theory of man-made global warming.
2. The Democratic party specifically is inextricably linked to the theory.
3. The main-stream media, MSM, has been pushing the theory hard for over a decade.
When man-made global warming is finally recognized by the public to be false the credibility of all of these groups/parties/institutions will be severely undermined. Even NASA’s and NOAA’s credibility are in jeopardy.
The stakes in the battle over AGW are enormous, tectonic.
I would love to know how we can ever get out of this if we ever get into it… Because evidence is that we are going to get it whether we want it or not! They payoffs must be SOOO huge that all these people voting for it will risk everything, life as we know it, their jobs, the entire US economy, their mothers and fathers, the future of America – EVERYTHING, to get this passed.
Even though Obama’s approval ratings have fallen below 50%, even though there is no stomach for this takeover of 1/6th of the economy, even though almost everyone is unhappy – they are plowing ahead.
This is the worst administration in history.
The large life insurance company I worked for also sold health insurance.
But when the controllers in the HO began to realize that every time they raised the health premium rates to cover increased costs, thousands of health insureds dropped their life premiums in order to pay for increased health premiums.
We bailed out.
Now Obama has made the situation worse-
imagine thousands of insurance companies getting rid of their sick and older clients and raising the rates times 500 percent for the younger generation in hopes that Bambie and the states will pick up the throw away on Medicare and Medicaid.
This travesty will only last another six months.
Most of the private health companies will be gone and Obama and the democrats will have to explain why you no longer have a job or health care.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
What ought to be worrying Democrats in Congress is not that Obama’s approval or the health care plan’s approval is now “underwater,” it is the accelerating downward trend in both numbers, as well as the widening gap between those who “strongly support” and “strongly oppose” the President and “his” health care reforms (although his fingerprints don’t seem to be on the actual bill[s] at any identifiable point thus far).
The economy will improve through the late spring of next year; the increase in equity from the stock markets over the past months almost guarantees it – better GDP and earnings growth, that is, not necessarily jobs, which is a lagging indicator of recovery. After that, the huge tax increases effective on January 1 by the expiring Bush tax cuts, combined with the unprecedented amount of debt we need to auction to finance Obamanomics, will begin to exert a great drag upon economic growth, even as inflation begins to rear its ugly head next year.
Democrats in competitive districts won’t be able to count on any economic boom to carry them through, especially if they voted for all these new spending and entitlement programs.
I am continually dismayed at the lack of a philosophical answer to both the left and the right of the political spectrum who call for some form of government program to provide for those “less fortunate” than ourselves. Do I have fewer rights than those labeled as “less fortunate”? Where is the morality in having to sacrifice what I have worked for (my freedom, my property, my life) for others “less fortunate”? Until we as a nation can defeat this notion that sacrifice is moral and self interest is evil, which both the left and right advocate, our freedoms and our prosperity will be forever lost. As Ayn Rand so eloguently put it via John Galt, Francisco D’Anaconia, and Dagney Taggart: “I swear by my life and my love for it, I shall not live for another man nor ask another man to live for me”. Imagine how prosperous our country would be if we all lived the morality of self interest and if we possessed a government that fought to defend individual rights rather than the thug who constantly violates them by the threat or use of force.
One serious question that nobody has addressed yet.
If taxes go up to pay for later entitlements, who on Earth actually believes that those funds will be there, unspent, when the time for payouts starts.
That makes this a blatant deception for a tax increase now, and later tax increases to pay for what this tax was supposed to pay for.
36. It is the height of morality to VOLUNTARILY sacrifice one’s own interests to assist another in need. However, charity is not charity if it is forced. Forcing a man to give to another robs a man of his liberty and deprives him of the benefits of true charity, all the while teaching the recipient of this largess to feel they deserve it, rather than treat it as an act of grace.
30. Except the residents of red states have guns, too, and they also supply most of the military personnel. How many military personnel will fire on their families?
18. Greed cannot be attacked by statute. Greed is a crime of the heart, like lust and hate. As such, it is impossible for government to do anything about it- greed can only be attacked by the one who harbors it. The only thing government can do is restrain people from acting on their greed to maliciously or negligently harm other people.
I think the Democrats are trying to get this Health Care Reform passed because with only 60 Senate votes that could be counted as being in their camp this session might be their ONLY chance to pass it. Or at least that is the way they may be looking at it.
The House is heading into an election year and some proportion of Senators will also face reelection as well. There is no guarantee that the Democrats will (in the Senate) still have a cloture majority when the elections are done. If they don’t, you can expect that they won’t get it passed in any manner — the Republicans learned pretty well from the Democrats’ action during the Bush years. Certainly, if the Reform effort continues into 2010 and continues to be as unpopular as seems to be the case, the Democrats may not be able to force their members to vote for Reform at that juncture.
So the upshot is that the Democrats are going for the long bomb, or maybe that is the quarterback sneak, in the hope that once it is passed and the process of implementing it started that it won’t be repealed.
On the other hand, if it is passed, perhaps a few angry mobs of seniors and constituents chasing Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi down a road might enduce Congress to repeal it in short order.
snip…SNIP
@18 Poor Citizen
Where do you currently get your health care insurance? If you are like most people, you pay for a group policy in partnership with your employer. It’s not wonderful, but it works for most.
Within one year of Obamacare being fully implemented, you have the possibility to have your physician quit the parctice, your insurance provider jettison any members who are soaking up resources or are risky (70% of members by some counts) and whatever congressionally mandated care for the public option members will be the only coverage you can get without huge premiums.
If that’s OK with you, fine; but you are selfish!
My wife has a serious medical condition that is expensive and terminal. In Canada she would already be dead. That goes for Britain, Germany and most of Scandanavia as well. This is not hyperbole; it’s just the way things are. I am grateful to my insurance provider for paying for the wonderful, state-of-the-art care she has received. But they only do that because I have a contract with them and so long as I keep my job my contract remains in force. If they could dump me, they certainly would. It’s not because they have anything against me as a person, it’s just the bottom line! Health-care providers care about people; health insurance companies care about dollars. It’s not personal; it’s strictly business!
Although you can certainly find the exceptions; for most people in the industrialized world, American health care is an unattainable dream. The statistics don’t lie; we’re head-and-shoulders above the rest. Again, it’s not perfect, but it’s better than anything else out there. You want to destroy the best health-care system in the world and replace it with something resembling the mediocrity the rest of the west suffers with. Please excuse the rest of us for not wanting to get on your bandwagon.
I prefer that we work with the system we already have to ensure that some baseline level of care is available to anyone who wants it, for a nominal fee. I prefer we do not destroy the system we already have. I prefer to make things better not worse. I understand perfection is unattainable. I’m OK with that.
Your ad-hominem attacks against everyone who does not agree with you do not advance your arguments. In fact, you didn’t really make any argument; you merely insulted the rest of us. Smooth move, that!
Someday there will be a sequel to JFK’s book, Profiles In Courage. Will any Dems be candidates for inclusion? Are they still proud that they voted for Obama?