Senate Passes Key Test for Health Care Bill With 60 Votes
From The New York Times--Health Bill Passes Key Test in the Senate With 60 Votes:
After a long day of acid, partisan debate, Senate Democrats held ranks early Monday in a dead-of-night procedural vote that proved they had locked in the decisive margin needed to pass a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system.
The roll was called shortly after 1 a.m., with Washington still snowbound after a weekend blizzard, and the Senate voted on party lines to cut off a Republican filibuster of a package of changes to the health care bill by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.
The vote was 60 to 40 — a tally that is expected to be repeated four times as further procedural hurdles are cleared in the days ahead, and then once more in a dramatic, if predictable, finale tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
Made up by the morons and idiots in the senate republican party!
What a sorry bunch of filthy lying scumbags!
We as a country are fucked if we don't get rid of these republican pigs, war mongers, assholes, greedy, selfish, none caring slime we call the republicans! and the blue dogs also wo are really repiglicans any way!
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness that is killing America!
Yes, all that. But it's a first step, and it's a failure for the rethugs. Progressive means a bit at a time, right?
No. Things don't get created a bit at a time in Washington anymore so lets stop pretending we are in the 40's and 50's. Todays Washington is where things are destroyed a bit at a time and that's what we are at the end of with this vote.
This piece of crap bill looks to be as REGRESSIVE as it could possibly be. Helps the republicans. Is a boon to the insurance corporations. Jails the poor who can't afford insurance.
Where the hell do you find "progressive" in that mess?
And they'll keep going in the wrong direction until everything crashes down on our country's head. Then, Obama & Democrats will be blamed. And it will be their fault.
Not that it will make us feel better.
"This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy."
Martin Luther King Jr., August 28, 1963.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I'll refer you all to http://pleasecutthecrap.com/, the article entitled "Be Progressive..." because he argues it much better than I could.
I suppose I could make some comparison of the wisdom of Milt Shook to that of Dr. King, but that wouldn't really be fair.
Instead I'd like to point out the bait and switch that Shook and other bill proponents are running.
The "bait" is health care; the "switch" is health insurance coverage.
I get that there is a problem with 40 million uninsured people, but there are also the remaining 260 million people. Setting aside those with Medicare and VA coverage, the vast majority of people today are stuck with fraudulent, "for profit" coverage.
There is nothing in either bill that stops that. Rescission is only one method carriers use to avoid their obligations; they have literally hundreds of others.
You might remember Michael Moore's Sicko. Aside from the first few minutes, the movie focused on people who had health insurance. They still ended up bankrupt and unable to afford treatment.
If there is something in either bill that addresses this, I haven't heard about it. It's actually a relatively easy remedy: simply allow people to sue insurance companies for consequential damages resulting from their wrongful denials.
For example, your child needs an operation to save its life. The insurance company wrongfully denies the claim. Today, you can sue for the value of the operation but not for the wrongful death of the child. The insurance company has little incentive to pay. Even if it loses the eventual lawsuit, it will only have to pay what is should have paid in the first place (plus some attorneys' fees depending on the jurisdiction).
Health insurance is not health care, and, as long as it is profitable to deny care, "for profit" health insurance will deny as much care as it can get away with.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
... progressive implies direction not quantity.
For such a society so hell bent on putting every singe f*cking item on a neat little box, I find the propensity of some of you yanks to completely subvert the meaning of terms, in order to fit their narrative, a tad annoying.
Honestly, I must admit American Politics are fascinating. Had the most right wing government in the EU proposed a bill half as regressive as this one, there would have been riots on the streets and the offending party would have been slaughtered on every election cycle for at least one generation.
What I want to know is: where is organised labour on all this? Where are the riots? Where are those mighty Americans, you sure love to make all those fancy movies about USA being the good guys and saving the day to show us "helpless" foreign chaps how it is done? Is there any notion of people organising to make these people in the right wing pay? Any attempts at hurting them where it hurts: their pockets? Anything?
Politicians are scum everywhere, however... maybe it is time for you yanks to get the concept that a democracy is not an spectator's sport?
Of course, this is a debate on health care, and I readily admit the superiority of the British system.
But what I don't understand is: With such a superior system of socialized medicine in place for so many years, why is it that Great Britain is still unable to provide even basic dental care?
It can't be that difficult.
[on edit] Also, why isn't it called the UQ?
Corruption favors the wealthy.
It's the fact that the British eat HUGE amounts of sugar. You could the best dental care on the planet - it won't matter if everyone is constantly snarfing down great sacks of choco and sweeties and biscuits. And then refuse to brush their teeth, and smoke like a house afire.
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
The is no good thing that any Senator can possibly present to me in this bill that makes it worth accepting a mandate without a public option. Period.
Put in the public option, get rid of the mandate, or kill the bill. Those are the choices as far as I am concerned.
The only people willing to kill the bill are the ones trying to weaken it. Nobody is willing to kill it in order to make it better. What we have in this bill is a box of band aids that were mostly politically easy tweaks being sold to us as a big victory. Any one of these things could have been put onto any number of future bills along the way.
Meanwhile, they got us to accept a bunch of really ugly things in order to get a public option and none of those things were taken out. So we the people must pay the same price we would pay for getting a public option while only getting the marginal changes that nobody really needed to fight or sacrifice anything for.
Suddenly all the liberal Senators that were supposed to be fighting for us are reading from the same script like robots who now ignore all but their prime directives.
Even Bernie Sanders is willing to sell our soul to get peanuts and feel like he is serving us.
Bernie Freaking Sanders. . . accepting a mandate to skip taxes and make us pay corporations directly. . . . so he can have a box of bandaids.
I've lost all trust in the process.
Agreed on the majority of points. Well said.
Hmmm...only four strokes?
I guess the American People aren't even allowed an orgasm from this fucking.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
you will be allowed, will happen during Obama The Clown's Christmas Speech. He will ask us all to be thankful for this debauched healthcare reform. There will be much played out joy and cheer on the networks. Mark my words the Dems will bill this as a triumph. We might even see Pelosi and her grandchildren again spreading Yuletide Greetings. How warm and fuzzy as the American People are asked to bend over and take it. Merry Xmas.
Where's Harry Reid? Didn't the lobbyists give him time off to do his second job?
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
They're going to redub it the Luann Platter Bill.
http://z.about.com/d/animatedtv/1/0/_/4/kohLu...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
...meaningless until we see what comes out of committee. If it essentially the senate version, it won't change a damn thing except to provide a boon to insurance companies.
Hooo weeee....now we go to committee! Another round of dollars being thrown at politicians.
We know how much they hate that.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
How did holy joe blow?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
For Insurance company stock.
Whores.
DJIA is up 100+ points this morning as of the vote.
Of course, they're partially chalking it up to "economic recovery", but as we haven't fixed a damn thing, it's more our Keynesian half-effort going into effect.
I sure don't want to be around when the extension of unemployment benefits expires after the holidays -- it's going to be a bad lookout for all us plebes when a huge chunk of the consumer market drops off.
The market is up because this bill is the best thing to happen to Insurance Co's in years.
Of course it is.
The problem is that the majority of the stock holders are "haves", whereas the people being affected by this are "have nots."
Therein lies the problem.
Oh c'mon! If you divide it out...every American has a portion of at least several shares of those stocks!
We're gonna be RIIIIIICH!! Rich I tell ya! We won't need to worry about premiums! We'll have beautiful female models and cabana boys servicing our every NEED.
St. Ronnie told us so!!
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
Now BEND OVER and spread them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NwNCfb4xp0&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuzTP0LZqy4&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbTULjLtKP4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoDgk0JHnlk
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
no lube, no lights, no soft music...just get on, get off, and get out.
... Lindsey Graham declared that the Dems had called for a vote during a blizzard, rather than a blizzard happened during the time the vote had been scheduled.
Inconsequential - but typical for those b..tards
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
I would have thought that Lindsay Graham would have been practicing his part as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Congressional presentation of the Nutcracker.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
Now on to conference.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Media Matters For America presents the coveted
**Misinformer of the Year 2009 Award** to: Glenn Beck!!!
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
...bottom bitches, The U.S. Senate.
But of course they'll tell our stupid gullible asses that this toxic sewage is "reform".
My Fella Amuricans, today CONgress has delivered to my desk, the historic health care reform bill. My opponents, say I'm an inexperienced political hack, in over his head, and shouldn't occupy the oval office. But I got news for them. We're keeping score buddy!!!
Now I know this going to mean additional hardship for Amuricans, but hey we won!!! Even if I'm a one term President we got Health Care!!
Every Amurican now has a choice of competitively priced health insurance!! Prices as low as $600 a month. That's CHEAP!!!! CHEAP CHEAP!!!!
What kind of loser are you if you can't afford $600 extra a month!! Get a JOB!!! DEAL WITH IT!!!!!!!!!
All he needed to do was ramrod single payer through. He would have had a legacy, we would have had health care.
Instead, we get this clusterfuck.
No financial reform (apparently we can't "turn back the clock", even when it would save us from another potential meltdown), no removal of derivatives from trading, no serious fanged limitations on campaign finance, no women's healthcare for reproductive issues while we're still subsidizing erectile disfunction medication, still have gulags for people with legal black holes to dump them in, still have two raging wars going in the Graveyard of Empires (the Russians gave up on Afghanistan after longer than we've been there with more troops, why do we think we can still "win"?), still have warrantless wireltapping, still have no investigations of where our Fed is sending our money, no limitations on insurance companies, no healthcare for millions even with this halfed-ass bill.
I'm getting more cheesed with this guy by the day. He's going to have a fucking primary opponent if he's not careful.
All he had to do was go with the popular party sentiment, but no... has to try to be some great "compromiser". Compromise only works when the other guys are willing to meet you half way, otherwise it's just a fancy word for "bend over."
And guess who's getting screwed? I think that's us, ladies and gentlemen.
but watch out for the Obama Apologists, here they come.
Are they apologizing for pre-presidential campaign Obama, who loved the idea of single payer, or President Obama, who seems to loathe the idea?
I think you have to sell some important part of your soul to become that powerful. He may have gone into it with honorable intentions, but he's fucked that shit up, whether by inaction or the false idealism of "bipartisanship".
Hint to President Obama: "Bipartisanship" only works if the other party isn't completely full of manure. Republicans' philosophy is "the government is bad, lower taxes", then wonder why everything government supports (with less money) falls apart. Morons.
Bent over and the dirty deed done without so much as dinner, drinks and a movie. Didn't even get kissed on the mouth.
Government + the Federal Reserve = organized crime
Replace those "centrist" Dems with progressive Dems. Work should start Jan 1 to get REAL Dems elected in '10 and '12. It may not be possible, but it's our only hope. If this country continues with the current crop of spineless corrupted sellouts we're screwed. If this country goes back to Republican control we're REALLY screwed. Stick a fork in it.
No kiddin!
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Not every Dem in the Senate is a "moderate" or Con which means even so-called Progressives voted for this bill. So who do we turn to now?
Health insurance stocks are some of the strongest performers in late-morning trading on Monday, extending their advance following the Senate's successful first vote on the $871 billion healthcare reform bill... enough said.
Before it was "They can't get anything done" - now "it's not good enough"
Kind of hard to take the nattering naybobs seriously.
Seems like the same talking heads and pols who were against it before it was ever written are (surprise surprise) against it as it is written.
Someone has managed to herd cats and get then dissed for it.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
they herded all the cats into the wrong corral.
You know. . there is such thing as a bad bill meeting the definition of not "getting it done" too. . Or are you also in the camp that says any bill at all. . no matter how broken it needs to be. . is worth passing. . and calling a victory? I suppose taking any stand to make something better is whining where taking a stand to make it worse is just political reality?
Sometimes cats just need to be sprayed with water to get the results you want.
Unfortunately the only ones with the spray bottles are Lieberman and Nelson.
Got any pearls of wisdom from the great progressive, Richard Nixon? How about Joseph McCarthy?
And the "They can't get anything done" whine was not from Obama critics from the left, but was instead a straw man set up by his defenders.
Just like this "it's not good enough" whine. The argument isn't that it's not good enough; it's that this is a bad bill.
I realize that flaming straw men is easier than addressing actual criticisms, but co-opting an insult from that criminal is a bit over the top.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
The Repukes, conservative Dims, and their corporate masters LOVE this piece of shit bill and yet the GOP will stand in front of the teevee cameras, pretend they hate it and tell the American people how they are being fucked by SUCH a travesty and, golly, we GOoPers had NOTHING to do with it. What's really sickening is just how many American idiots will actually BUY into that line of tripe.
Feh!
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
So...let's see the list of who voted.
I want to see all the interesting "Yes" votes.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
What a dog and pony show! How proud they are of their latest sell-out of the public to the interests of the corporate world. They are not only unashamed of their weakness, incompetence, and most of all corruption, they are proud of it!
The 21st century Democratic Party, obedient servant of corporate america.
FDR is rolling in his grave.
Hey! Show respect. Those Senators cost the special interest alot of the the hard earned money you pay them for denial of service in order for them to get hold of your tax dollars so they can then expand their enterprise and deny you even more service.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
A completely corrupt exercise in corporatist governance.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Until campaigning starts! LOL!
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
in Wanted: Dead or Alive (1986:
"The next time you decide to fuck me, Randall... kiss me first!"
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
The corporate traitors who add nothing to health care and exist solely to siphon off a percentage of the take have won once again while the actual American citizen continues to get it up the a$$.
Obama is a traitor. He and his fellow Democrat piles of what-else are all traitors.
Change you can believe in -- if you're a stupid, uneducated, illiterate American idiot.
1. Demand single payer health care plan! YES WE CAN!
2. After several months of angry debate (and dozens of retarded lies about death panels and oral surgery isn't actually medical care and neither is abortions or eating drugs prescribed by a doctor), receive an unconstitutional regressive mandate that demands that even the poorest shell out thousands of dollars a year for health insurance coverage to private companies or pay a fine or go to jail.
3. Receive no guarantees that pre-existing conditions and coverage caps for adults will go away.
4. Boot about 1/5 of the Medicare/Medicaid clients off of Medicare/Medicaid, based solely on their income without factoring in their medical history, their credit, or their cost of living.
5. Spend the next 30 years explaining how you totally didn't get fucking trolled by Obama, McCain, Pelosi, Reid, and those damn Insurance Companies just because hey he was our first black president and so it was "historic".
******
seriously guys, wtf.
I can't wait to see the credit card overhaul next where we all get forced to own credit cards instead of using cash amirite?
Wait till you see those mandates!!
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
How many of you idiots who voted for Obama or any of these other Democrat traitors *still* think that there's a difference between the two major political Parties? Show of hands?
I don't know what's worse, the uneducated ignorant cult following sheep who believe anything FOX "News" tells them, or the metter educated Democratic voter who still labors under the delusion that voting for one criminal traitor over another actually means anything.
What stupid fuck is going to vote *either* Democratic or Republinazi next time? Only the stupidist American retards still vote.
No offense intended.
I wanted Ron Paul.
Ron Paul is an insane loon, though, a Creationist moron who is everything equal to Sarah Palin. Worse: Ron Paul is a 9/11 Truther conspiracy fuckloon.
Mandating Americans by law fork out $600 and up per month in this economy.
Real Brilliant Guys!
its like 3 times as much as rent for college kids. wtf??!
will there still be copays for each office visit, too?
And benefits will be taxed.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
Only after meeting the $7500/year deductible.
...what would happen to a person who refused to pay? Would they garnish wages? Penalties, fines, or jail time? What would the repercussions be for refusing to comply with the mandate?
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/21-8
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Government not representing the people
Let me think how that has gone over in history…
Seems that there were a few heads rolling and a few revolutions along the way.
Won’t happen here until there is desperation.
Never thought I would side with a tea-bagger.
Freedom with Justice could catch on.
Obama used us to get elected then when he got into office promptly crapped on us , the ones who gave all they could and worked for the man , his base , in fact this goes for the entire Democratic party collectively . Well , lets not forget come the next elections , enough ! At this point I am for staying home or voting some Independent or third party . The consequences ? Just what the hell is the difference ? Unplug the nose , take the blinders off and what the hell ? It's the same old shit . Change we can believe in ? WE WERE HAD !
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
to believe
...in change.
Change you can believe in.
We shall overcome
...someday.
... & prosecute somebody for two illegal wars?
That's a karmic Hiroshima waiting to happen,... & no health care or other political dodge is going to save us from it.
I think you may have intended to write acrid instead of acid when you wrote, "After a long day of acid, partisan debate..."
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