Seriously. DU used to be a place for informed discussion.

I don't see any of that now with regard to the topic of HCR.

First of all, far too many here have demonstrated that they have no idea of what the Democrats in Congress are trying to do at the moment. Presently, the Democrats are trying to get enough votes in the Senate to support passing the Public Option via Reconciliation. This is because there are not enough votes in the House to pass the Senate version of the bill, which is a good thing. I have always been in favor of the House version which includes the Public Option. This is a bill that was created by and supported by the entire House Progressive Caucus (save one member). The original author is the chair of the education and labor committee, Rep. George Miller.

The Congressional Dems and President Obama have been making progress working toward an agreement, not just on the contents of the final bill, but on how it will be done. And that is Reconciliation. The creator of the Byrd Rule, Sen. Byrd, himself, supports this use of Reconciliation to pass the HCR Bill.

To do this, the House Democratic members must agree to pass the Senate version of the HCR Bill and then pass a set of amendments that returns most of the House Provisions to the bill. This bill must then be passed using Reconciliation in the Senate and currently, of last count I heard, they confirmed 38 votes to do this. They don't have enough yet.

When Rep. Kucinich, the lone member of the Progressive Caucus who voted against the House version of the bill, which includes The Public Option, he is jeopardizing necessary votes in the Senate that are needed to pass the House version of the bill via reconciliation. This is simply unacceptable and undermines the efforts of the party to pass the Public Option through the Senate.

This is what is so wrong with Denis Kucinich. He is willing to completely destroy progressive legislative work done by his very own caucus members on the grounds of Single-Payer-Or-Die philosophy. Yes, we'd all agree Single Payer is a good solution to the Health Care Crisis. But it's not the solution that will work. We're struggling to get 50 Democratic Senators to support the House version. NONE would support Single Payer. In fact, you couldn't even get single payer out of the House. Millions of Americans health and well-being are at stake here and Kucinich does not give a damn. This destructive behavior is no better than the angry Republican mobs of the summer. Yes, we get it. Single Payer. But what Kucinich and his followers don't get are the real life-or-death consequences of the outcome of the Progressive Effort to pass the Public Option through the Senate using Reconciliation.

. . . than on the Kucinich-bashing you're continuing in this thread.

But when people do that to Obama it's OK?

Kucinich Kucinich Kucinich

If Kucinich is ever caught smoking pot its going to be hell for whoever speaks out against that.

I am really disappointed in Kucinich. I understand his criticism about the lack of cost control and how this is arguably a health insurance rather than health care bill.

But for millions of people, this health insurance reform (which is fundamentally what this is, health insurance reform. It is not the alpha/omega of health care reform) is a huge step up from current health insurance situation. For Kucinich to jeopardize that is a shame, because now progressives not only have to worry about the conservadems but the progressives who demand purity at the expense of pragmatism.

I am certain that there are many here who are not Democrats. However, they are clever about hiding that fact, some more than others.

Purity tests? Really?

Bullshit to that.

I fixed your headline

brilliant. I bow to your wit.

This sounds like a temper tantrum, and DU has ALWAYS had those....

Sigh.

I do not approve of mandated paying private insurance companies for more fucking profit.

Only it was about something I consider much more trivial. Cult of personality?

Good lord, does this guy ever do anything but moan about the rest of us?

I don't like them from Republicans and I damn sure don't plan to accept them from democrats either. Someone telling me that the White House saying A when logic tells me that what I'm hearing from the White House is overly optimistic doesn't really foster discussion.

I don't think your last paragraph, which certainly stakes out a reasonable path, reflects the post's title.

Funny that the OP starts with a complaint, then goes on to provide an example of how useful discussion gets derailed, time and again.

Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.

unfortunately that theme seems to be "impeach Obama". I have always held that FReepers and DUers were not really that different. People are people.

weren't you calling DK an asshole?



don't go away mad, just go away..

because there is no public insurance alternative, only a mandate to fatten greedy insurance companies. I've long said that a bad bill would be better than nothing since I've lived with nothing for so long, but they're going to have to prove this to me and they haven't done so thus far.

Only if insurance company premiums are strictly contained and there is strict public oversight of those leeches could this thing work. What we're seeing now is a desperate, last minute grab for as much money as they think they can loot, so this might actually be the case.

The only thing that could salvage this, IMO, is a last minute vote to expand Medicare by lowering the eligibility age, something that would be popular even in the insurance industry. The last thing the insurance giants want is to be forced to take on a bunch of sick older folks.

The bottom line here is that we really don't know everything that will be voted on. All we have is a bunch of disinformation from the media and insurance companies, neither of which is our friend.

However, without any sort of public option, it's not real reform, at all.

It just makes me feel so tingly inside!

says you.

I get upset with anyone who grandstands on a single issue. Does Kucinich really want to be known as the guy who tanked HCR? Seriously?

Him, Stupak, Lieberman... they're all the same to me, in this regard. They need to grow the f*ck up, get on board & get HCR passed.

Once the dust settles, he can bring up Single Payer again.

He's not. If you were going to hang that title on a single person, I suggest you start with Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, or Joe Lieberman. They're the tools who ensured there would be no REFORM in this stinking pile of shit bill.

...and there are a LOT of good things in this bill that we can always add on to.

The Status Quo is what's not an option.

At this point, that option is not available to him.

He's just trying to make himself relevant. BIG FAIL.

This thread has assembled more comedians in one place than I've ever seen.

Kucinich is a perennial loser. You hitched your wagon to the wrong star.

I can see the headlines: Perennial Loser Wins 7th Term in Congress. You should take this act on the road.

Best comedy act I've seen in a while. You and WeDidIt may be on to a whole new career path.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Another thread that's had me screaming with laughter all evening. It just doesn't get any funnier.

I couldn't believe it. But they are aligning with anyone who opposes the health care reform.

Olive Garden threads, breastfeeding threads, unintended acceleration threads or Carrying Conceal Weapon threads..

However, that was both funny and informative to read.

we didn't have scads of people whose only response to serious questions was repeating the same talking points. (Well, we had jiacinto, but that was about it.)

Jiacinto -- wow, that one was a piece of work.

You can't have a discussion with "talking points" taken right out of a speech or off a campaign website. And "it's better than nothing" does not an argument make.

conversations most. We ALL know the talking point. We hear what the White House says. It is the White House.

But, all too often, discussions get bogged down, dragged down and distracted by TalkingPointsPoster's.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Like when someone puts forward a bold statement and then refuses repeatedly to provide a simple answer (or refuses to admit he doesn't know the answer) to a simple question asked by multiple other posters? Tries to deny that he's quoting a press release when it is clearly labeled as such?

Look, I usually don't post much. I don't know much about you or anyone else here, so this is isn't personal. I just find it funny that you are the one posting a thread with that subject line given how you treated people on your earlier thread.

Seriously.

changes along with a house and senate combined bill, though I think they want the house to pass the senate's version with President Obama's 11 page document of change via reconciliation.

They want to get the Public Option passed through Reconciliation but that will come after a combined house and senate bill with the changes is passed.

They do not have the votes to get the PO in the combined house and senate bill passed. Obama has pronounced the PO dead and wants them to concentrate on the combined bill and his changes.

said the opposite. He said the House will have to pass the Senate bill just as it is and it's because the Senate won't pass the bill with the public option. Sorry I didn't get the Congressman's name because I tuned in just after he was introduced. So who is right? And Dennis is not for single payer or die. He was on countdown last night and said he wasn't for a bill that didn't have the public option.

Also, the only reason single payer wasn't even considered because this health care reform bill is one that protects the insurance company profits. Single payer advocates were not allowed to present their case before the committees because it's really the bill that would save this country but it would put the health insurance parasites out of business and our Congress apparently needs their campaign funds.

We are going to get Medicare Part D in this. It's totally privatized and you will made to buy private health insurance if you don't qualify for Medicaid and if you don't want to buy a faulty product even with subsidies through tax credits and other Republican fiscal tricks, you will be fined. I know. I have already trekked through the Medicare Part D BS on this, but enjoy.

Never mind, it will pass as is and President Obama will sign it.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

That's the key to your frustration. You and a handful of others have worked this issue intensely while the rest of us are focused on this and a lot of other issues. Still, as many posts as you have created on this single subject of National Insurance Reform, it has had no effect on the majority of us here.

You've spun your wheels in vain. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

is ever denied Health Care. I've lobbied my Congressmen and Senators to reform the system. But because many here see only Single Payer as a solution, they jeopardize any reform that would bring good to millions.

The reality is, the one you deny, is that there is no health care in the U.S. without Insurance. It's simply not affordable. And Single Payer is not going to happen. There is only one route left. Reform the insurance industry.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I have to give it up to you. You admit what is going on is "insurance reform". That is refreshing. Why? Because it is honest. President Obama might take a page from your script and call it what it is. It is an insurance bill underwritten largely by Big Pharma which gets to keep their price structuring and keeps importation of meds illegal.

As to pre-existing conditions, the new insurance reform does address this issue, but it allows the insurance company to charge far higher prices to those with pre-existing conditions...making it pretty much like the exotic element at the center of Avatar: Unobtainable.

Again, the reality is there is no health care reform in the U.S. without reforming the health insurance industry. You need to realize this.

And not only reformed, but cracked down upon.

But the greatest tool to reforming it besides legislation (which will always be filled with special loopholes) is to open up a Medicare for all to stand alongside the private corps and make them compete with it just as FedEx and UPS compete with the Post Office, as private schools compete with public schools.

We will never reign in insurance abuse until there is a big public option to compete against it. President Obama said the same thing throughout his campaign. He was right then, but he's wrong now.

I would compromise my stance if Medicare was dropped to 55 and this legislation went through for a host of reasons, but the primary being that it would be a huge incremental step toward single payer and that coupled with "insurance reform" would pretty much signal the end to for-profit health care as we know it. It would still exist, but it would not have its clutches around our collective throats as it does now.

That's the problem with the current legislation: it will institutionalize the insurance cartel as the sole provider of what they determine to be healthcare to anyone under 65. And, it will empower them to control Congress even more than they do now, especially in light of the recent ruling by the SCOTUS.

This would be the competitive factor, along with removing the anti-trust exemption. The latter of which would be a huge crack-down on the insurance industry. It has been de-regulated far too long. The Democrats are trying to do this, but when a voice like Kucinich's comes out against even the Public Option, it's damaging.

I see Kucinich's stance as completely unrealistic and damaging to the efforts to try to accomplish this. And I take it personally because of my personal situation. Yes, I am very angry with him about it.

He opposed the puny public option in the House Bill because of the tiny scope of it.

He's the greatest advocate of the real public option: Medicare.

Lyndon Johnson got us half way there. Obama should seal the deal.

Medicare for all (best avenue) or at least Medicare down to 55 with harsh controls on the Insurance racket, permission to import meds from Canada ( former Obama stance) and no mandate to purchase insurance (a former Obama stance) and no taxes on health care plans (a former Obama stance).

Kennedy had authored several Medicare-For-All bills in the past. Why don't you think he tried when he knew they had a real chance at passing HCR?

with that whole "dying from brain cancer" thing.

trying to pass Health Care Reform. Dying of brain cancer or not, he believed in the bill he proposed in his committee... a bill that was not Medicare for All, but a Public Option plan that was very similar to the House Bill.

Your friends in the DLC made sure it got killed real quick. His name might have been on another bill, but Chris Dodd and his insurance industry whore wife had a lot of impact on that one. In the end, it wasn't really Teddy's bill, and he wasn't around to fight for it.

If the President & Congress would use the most honest measure of a bill's worthiness, the CBO score, then we would only have two bills on the table.

From the House, HR 676

From the Senate SB 1218


But the insurance criminals wouldn't like that, would they?

Those annoyingly inconvenient facts that just keep sitting there, no matter how hard we try to ignore or talk around them.

He was dying a very bad death. Why is it that you are so eager to kick a dead man who worked all his life to try to make things better for people who had less than he did. With all the loss his family endured in public service and the effort he put forth in his last days, he was amazing.

I think he was probably just trying to get from one day to the next. My mother in law died of lung cancer. It is a horrible disease. The patient is literally consumed right before your eyes.

I have seen remarks like these before regarding Ted Kennedy, and I think it is cruel and callous to attack people who have done so much good, died so painfully and who make Obama look like the ineffectual, do nothing leader he is, simply by contrast.

You need to find some understanding and compassion somewhere for other people. What you have written may not have been meant badly, but it sure sounds terrible. I am really, really tired of seeing remarkable people defamed to protect Obama's reputation which he has made himself and is responsible for himself, as you are responsible for your own reputation and actions.

You want to accuse someone of that, try the cheerleaders who are attaching his name to this corporate fellating PIECE OF SHIT bill that spits in the face of everything Ted Kennedy stood for.

And BTW, you don't have to tell me about cancer. I watched 4 people in my life die from it within the last decade, and another (thankfully) survive it. And the last thing I would have done, is write some piece of shit bill that makes every man, woman, and child in this country a forced customer of a criminal industry, and attach any of their names to it.

Chris Dodd deserves a punch in the face for writing that turd and putting Teddy's name on it.

I'm sorry for your losses and I wish that had not happened to you or to your people. I don't have to tell you about cancer, you already know.

Please don't punch Chris Dodd though. His actions are reprehensible, but you would suffer for it and I think we are all suffering enough already.

Post on and go in peace.

tell that to the 19 million who have been effectively DISAPPEARED from the *official argument*.

man, I need new hipwaders....

and there's those talking points again.

.... language in THIS BILL that forces insurers to cover pre-existing conditions AT THE SAME PREMIUM LEVEL, BECAUSE WITHOUT THAT STIPULATION THE CLAUSE IS WORTHLESS.

So far you've provided nothing but talking points.

Excuse me if I'm skeptical of a ZILLION PAGE PIECE OF LEGISLATION THAT PROBABLY NOBODY ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS.

I hope it DIES.

It's less than pathetic.

It is getting too close to Nov for us to worry about the kids that come here to pick fight with you. It is a hold over from the Obama vs Hillary days I think. They love the fight and contribute nothing to the discussion as you state.

And you feel comfortable making that statement? That's amazing.

This site was here long before the Hillary/Obama contest, such as it was.

and takes a long, long time to internalize and accept.

Unfortunately, what is best for us (despite our worldview at that moment) isn't always readily apparent. Often times when our thinking isn't clear, society can pick up the slack.

An example:
My mother-in-law survived the suicide of her spouse over 5 years ago, but just went off the hook for those years. She began to accumulate animals, cats and dogs, to fill the void in her soul, and each new acquisition helped, for a while. Unfortunately, as she became more and more unhinged, the pet thing got more and more out of hand. She was selling heirloom jewelry to buy cat food, instead of her own medication.

About 3 months ago, on one of her many trips to "reevaluate" her, I had all 13 cats, and 4 dogs removed to rescue facilities, and they were ultimately adopted out to good homes. She was furious with me....for about a month. She then came to realize that often our irrational actions and thoughts are best moderated by an outside force, and she quietly admitted later that she knew her actions were out of control. (We= Wife and I)

This is how I see HCR, and your incredulous view of Democratic (especially liberal) opposition.

But sometimes Bernie, the collective consciousness gets it right, and our is but to wait and see.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

"Yes, we'd all agree Single Payer is a good solution to the Health Care Crisis. But it's not the solution that will work."

And it "won't work" because sold-out Congress won't do the people's will.


So DU discusses breast milk cheese.

"This destructive behavior is no better than the angry Republican mobs of the summer."

That destructive comment makes about much sense as wearing teabags on your head.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Sorry, no. And you really need to drop this obsession with Kucinich; I'm amused that, all of a sudden, he's able to to influence votes in the Senate. I thought the Brain Trust here on DU has decreed that he's a largely ineffective loudmouth who's never done anything in his career and commands no real influence outside of his Cleveland district.

depends entirely on the day and the lithium level.

Because it's been pretty much nonstop poo flinging since I joined.

Regardless of that, Kucinich is an ass and his fan club is delusional.

....and then the DLC moved in and turned it into a spin zone.

I can see by the unrecs that the absolutists have been here, and I'm not going to bother reading the 'same old shit' responses above, but I, for one, appreciate your taking the time to post simply the facts without regard to the fact that too many here are immune to simple facts.

"I can see by the unrecs that people who can see through all the spin that people like us desperately try to perpetuate everyday on DU have been here, and it's clearly a sign that we need new material because our tried and true schtick is just not as effective as it used to be.

I'm not going to bother reading anything that interferes with the false paradigm we defend so vigilantly, but I, for one, appreciate you taking the time to keep The Perpetual Spin Machine going, without any regard to the ACTUAL facts and reality that too many here are starting to wake up to."

There, MUCH Better.

Hahahahaha

Ohmanohman


Hehehehe







snort










giggle












whew

I will eat my hat.

"Presently, the Democrats are trying to get enough votes in the Senate to support passing the Public Option via Reconciliation"

Really? Are they 'trying' as hard as they did last year, when they sat around with their thumbs up their asses for months?

Do you believe that your own actions have made things better or worse here? How can you model for the rest of us the kind of behavior you wish to see?

I hope you get an honest answer.

to answer a simple question.

one notices...

I hope the crickets have a union.

Your OP is seriously uninformed discussion.

Bill critic: I have the following problems with the bill (List problems)

Bill supporter: WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO DIE!!!!

Bill critic: Explains does not want people to die but sees trouble with following provision

Bill supporter: HERE IS A PICTURE OF X FAMILY MEMBER YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL THEM!!!!

Bill critic: What the hell is your problem

Bill supporter: YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO EVERYTHING GOOD IN THE WORLD I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY MURDERING PEOPLE

I'v pretty much given up talking about it, save a sporadic post here and there.