David E’s Fablog: Race Riot, sponsored by corporate lobbyists
Glenn Greenwald: There's nothing new about right wing insanity...or stupidity
distributorcap NY: All American Children Left Behind
Scott Horton: Two Marine Generals take Cheney to the woodshed
$Blind In Texas$: I'm a Ninther
AMERICAblog News: One year after the fall of Lehman, few changes
Greta Van Susteren asks Michael Steele the question that should be asked of Republicans every time they claim they really care about "reforming" health care/insurance. Why didn't your reform it when you had control of the House, the Senate and the White House? Of course she forgets that we did get the Republicans idea of health care reform when they were in charge, with the giveaway to the big pharma in the form of Medicare Part D.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, what is this "bill of rights" that you've unleashed? And -- well, let me just start there. What is this "bill of rights"?
STEELE: Well, the "bill of rights" is really kind of a placeholder as we begin the fall discussion on health care. We watched at the beginning of the spring and summer the administration say we were going to have a health care bill by July 31 with no real input or discussion by the American people, let alone the Republican members of Congress. They were going to try to get it done by then. We raised some concerns and we talked a little bit more about it and laid out clearly what we thought we should be doing.
Town halls began to take place as citizens began to get ahold of it. And in the process of this discussion, the one thing that struck me that was being left behind was our seniors. When the administration's kind of slipped out there the idea of cutting $500 billion from the Medicare program with no indication of whether that's going to be cutting waste or if that's going to be cutting the substance of programs or what that was, I thought it would be appropriate to put a placemaker out here to very clearly delineate what we should be doing and how we should be doing it on behalf of the seniors as we begin this debate in the fall.
So I wanted to lay out about six principles that kind of talked about the -- you know, the doctor-patient relationship, the role of government, the decision-making process involving seniors or their caregivers, and I wanted to be as fairly clear as I could about it.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, but this -- so this is not an exact answer to the 1,500-page bill that the Democrats have put forward. This is sort of just your principles of how you and the Republican Party would like to see things proceed, so just broad-based principles, right?
STEELE: It's broad-based principles and -- and the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate will come back with the legislative, you know, bills and amendments to the HR 3200 or whichever bill the House and Senate are going to be working on, to put into law those guidelines or those protections, if you will, for our seniors.
VAN SUSTEREN: Are the Republicans sort of sitting back, waiting to see what the Democratic bill is so they can then punch some holes in it or rewrite it, or are they -- or are they writing their own, saying, Look, scrap the Democrats. This is the bill we should have.
STEELE: Well, I think -- well, this is -- that's a very good question, Greta, and I'll tell you why, because between the House and the Senate, there have been over 800 pieces of legislation and amendments to various bills introduced by Democrats in the House and the Senate that have been rejected outright. So they've tried that, writing the bill, if you will, or putting their input into the documents that have been produced, and it has all been rejected.
So I think in this instance, what I thought was, Let's put a placemarker in place, then let's just follow back up. And now that the rhetoric has heated up from the American people, maybe the House leadership will pay attention to what Republicans want to put on the table because, quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of all this conversation about all bipartisanship and bipartisanship that, when, in fact, the House and Senate leadership are not doing anything to bring Republicans to the table in any meaningful way, and the president is giving lip service to this idea, when he's not encouraging, and in fact, demanding that we work together in bipartisan fashion on this problem.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Now, I understand that a lot of Republicans want reform. In fact, most have said some reform is needed. I understand that they don't like the public option, or the government option. I understand that they say there's no bipartisanship. But can you sort of, you know -- you know, bring me in on the secret why the Republicans didn't do health care reform when they owned the House, the Senate and the White House? Do you have any idea?
When I think of how much the Bush administration shoved down the country's throat on strictly partisan votes, it makes me crazy when Democrats start talking about being bipartisan. This kind of talk by Tim Geithner on This Week with George Stephanopoulous is more like it:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you about health care. The negotiations seem to stall out in the Senate, they are going to try to come back by Sept 15th. The House committees have all passed the bill. One of the things that, Senator Grassley, we just saw, is asking about is that he says he wants some assurance, some guarantees really, that whatever deal, if they strike a deal, a bipartisan deal in the Senate finance committee it's going to hold all the way through the process. The Senate floor, the House floor, the conference committee, can the administration give him that assurance?
GEITHNER: I think that is what every legislator wants. They want that to be of confidence.
STEPHANOPOULOS: They are not going to get it through?
GEITHNER: You know, (chuckles), we want to have an outcome that meets these core principles the President laid out. Which is we want to make sure that we're doing something that is going to reduce the growth in cost over the long term, expand access, improve the quality of care. Do that in a fiscally responsible way that does not increase, increase unduly the burden on average Americans today. That's the basic test. And we're going to try to make sure that we achieve that with the broadest consensus as possible.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You want broad consensus but Senator Grassley, his colleague Senator Enzi are saying that they need those assurances, that can't get them?
GEITHNER: Well again, you know (laughs) we want to make sure we get this done. And we're gonna- as the President's said, we're going to look at anything reasonable, consistent with those principles that's going to get this done.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You want it to be through consensus, the President has said he wants a bipartisan bill if possible, but do you believe it is possible if necessary to get meaningful health care reform with democrats only?
GEITHNER: George, I think that again this is a big consequential reform of the country. And as many people observes, ideally you want to do this with as broad a base of consensus as possible. But people on the hill are going to have to make that choice, do they want to help shape this and be part of it. Or do they want this country, the United States of America, to go another several decades without doing whatever other serious country has done, which is to give their citizens access to basic quality of care.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But if Republicans can't come to an agreement with the democrats are the Democrats and the White House willing to go it to alone?
GEITHNER: George, again, we're going to try and get this done on the best possible terms consistent with those principles. Can't tell you what it's going to take. But you see what the President is trying to do.
As gratifying as it is to hear tough talk from the Dems, though, there are some very serious drawbacks to doing it through the reconciliation process. It would require Obama to walk quite a political tightrope after dangling major healthcare reform in front of the voters:
(h/t Down with Tyranny for the graphic.)
I've been asking members of Congress if they would forego their August recess to make sure health care won't get left behind. Why shouldn't republicans and democrats work instead of taking a holiday? Since I asked President Obama if he should demand that Congress stay in DC to work on health care in August the media has picked it up too and now we're getting statements from Congress saying they would work instead of taking a holiday.
I asked Blue America's Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR) if he would give up the August recess to make sure legislation gets done. Here's his reply:
"I'm committed to passing health care reform and I'm extremely concerned that the window of opportunity is starting to close. Anything that can speed up Senate deliberation is valuable. And if keeping the Senate in session in August can move the bill forward, I'm absolutely committed to being here."
Sen. Merkley is committed to reforming health care and he now joins the list of members who have said they will work in August. Thanks so much Senator.
Senator Wyden
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Rep. James Clyburn
Sen. Jeff Merkley
Obsidian Wings: Farewell, Hilzoy
skippy the bush kangaroo: The same Republicans who scoffed at the CBO during the Bush administration's crazed spending and tax cutting, now revere the office's prognostications
AverageBro: Mr. "I Been Had" is back
A Tiny Revolution: Interview with Wendell Potter, a former head of corporate communications for CIGNA who finally listened to his conscience, left behind the blood money, and started talking about the evil he was doing as a shill for the health care denial industry.
Bitch Ph.D.: PUMAS are all about the white ladies
Danger Room: Company denies its Robots feed on the dead
The Mahablog: Drama Queen exits, stage right
The Moderate Voice: Happy Motoring America; Shafted Again
The Existentialist Cowboy: Texas: The Gulag wasteland Bush left behind
Bernard Avishai: While Prime Minister Netanyahu scoffs at Ahmedinajad’s beatings of peaceful demonstrators, his government does the same
open Democracy: The archaeology of Iran's regime
Vagabond Scholar: Diagrams On Conservatism
Rachel Maddow talks to Left Behind authors Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. Bob Cesca makes a good point about Rachel's emphasis in the 65 million copies of Left Behind that have been sold:
Adding... 65 million copies sold. But I don't know if book sales are any indication of popularity. Sure, the Left Behind series is popular among the wackaloons, but it's also well-documented that various wealthy wingnuts like Richard Mellon Scaife literally buy up thousands of copies of books in order to artificially inflate sales figures.
