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Nancy Pelosi has been intimating that she could pick up some votes for the health care bill from conservative Democrats and Blue Dogs when it comes out of conference. I don’t see how the dynamics which led those Democrats to vote against health care on the first pass have changed to any degree to free them up to vote for it this time around. Jane offers a pretty good explanation of that. Blue Dogs didn’t vote against health care originally because of particular pieces of the policy, they voted against it because of perceived risks to their re-election prospects and the fact that they have no interest in passing any kind of health care reform whatsoever.
This was confirmed by Rep. Bobby Bright yesterday, when he revealed that he still opposed the health care bill, even the Senate’s version that does not include a public option.
“After it comes back from conference committee, unless it significantly reduces the expense that I know it’s going to add to our budget, I will not be able to support it,” Bright said.
He restated his opposition to a public option and told Kiwanis attendees he was “proud” the Senate’s version did not include one but said the Senate bill is still “entirely too expensive.” [...]
“When your budget’s in a bind, you don’t continue to borrow and you don’t continue to tack on. Even though we all probably want to see every American to have access to quality health care; we also realize that right now, our economy is in a state that we can’t afford additional financial burdens.”
This really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Even a negative reading of the health care bill still must acknowledge that it cuts the deficit, by $132 billion dollars in the first ten years and by much more thereafter. Rejecting the bill because of the cost is a cop-out and a total misreading. It suggests that Bright is just looking for a reason to oppose.
Bright comes from an R +16 district. There’s simply no way that he’s voting for this bill. And there are at least 25 others like him. Given all of the other issues facing the conference committee – immigration, abortion, the public option, financing – making sure 15 other Democrats will not join them will be a tall order for the House leadership.
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Congress is like the spouse who “saves” hundreds of dollars by buying something on sale whether you need it or not. And worse they max out the credit card to do it right after they loose their job. Doctors already refuse to see Medicare patients now because it cover costs and we REALLY believe that congress is going to cut costs by another $500 BILLION??????? Yeah right…maybe in your dreams.
Bright needs a primary challenger. I’d be willing to bet he hasn’t even read the bill. Wondering why no one is challenging his assertion?
Please sirs and ladies…can you spare some change I can believe in?
Great! Nancy Pelosi will pick up votes on already terrible legislation by further compromising what few tawdry redeeming qualities it has (had)! Legislation so bad we already don’t want we’ll be made easier for us to have nonetheless by making it worse!
What was Pelosi most famous for during the Bush years? “Leadership” in the “opposition” that pre-emptively capitulated to Bush on every issue. And now it appears she is still stuck in that rut. Somebody needs to tell Pelosi that liberals can be in power now, that the Democrats have a majority, that she can stop giving Bush everything he wants, he’s not president anymore.
(The entire vaunted Democratic majority in Congress has in one short year shown we progressives/liberals/leftists/populists why it is that the Democrats don’t deserve a dime, a vote, a kind word from us ever again. Their whipped and flogged Progressive Caucus is irrelevant to us if we want to see reform of any sort in our lifetimes. The sooner the inhabitants of web sites like FDL bond together to throw Democrats out of office in 2010 and 2012, the better for all of us.
And, oh yeah, for all her craven failures and corruption over the last 8-9 years, let Nancy Pelosi be the first in the line exiting Washington, DC, come January 2011. Please!)
lol, I have no idea if Blue Dogs will flip their vote, but this is a totally absurd argument.
Of course Bright isn’t flipping, he’s the second most conservative Dem in the house. But to conclude from this that all the other, less conservative members from less conservative districts won’t flip is just dumb.
Sad to see what fdl has become.
It’s a pleasure to see daylight between Rahm and the Blue Dogs that he created or enabled.
Bright’s a right wing ass. But bandying those deficit numbers around is hardly a convincing argument against him.
We know that $123 billion of the deficit savings in the senate bill supposedly come from income taxes on income passed along by employers who are going to lovingly convert pre-tax health care premiums into wages. Bob Herbert blows that idiotic notion apart today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinion/29herbert.html?_r=1&hp
“We all remember learning in school about the suspension of disbelief. This part of the Senate’s health benefits taxation scheme requires a monumental suspension of disbelief. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, less than 18 percent of the revenue will come from the tax itself. The rest of the $150 billion, more than 82 percent of it, will come from the income taxes paid by workers who have been given pay raises by employers who will have voluntarily handed over the money they saved by offering their employees less valuable health insurance plans.
Can you believe it?
I asked Richard Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., about this. (Labor unions are outraged at the very thought of a health benefits tax.) I had to wait for him to stop laughing to get his answer. “If you believe that,” he said, “I have some oceanfront property in southwestern Pennsylvania that I will sell you at a great price.””
So, yes, the Blue Dogs suck, but the supposed deficit reduction in the bill is a joke.
Looks like Rep. Bright could care less about whether or not the bill is good policy or would help his constituents. Playing politics in the worse possible way.
Get out of the Democratic Party, shameless asshole.
Yes, the only serious cost reduction mechanism is the mechanism that reduces costs by reducing access to health care. They should call it the Scrooge Tax because it’s the kind of thing most popular with plutocrats and corporate executives who profit by screwing little people, just like old Ebeneezer himself.
Look at the title again; “many” not “all.”
And since the dogs have already voted NO once, it’s not dumb to conclude that “many” not “all” will vote no again.
Who and What do Blue Dog Dems Represent? They don’t support Progressives issues, the base of the DEM BASE and the GOP TEA BAG crowd hates Blue Dogs Dems.
Ask CNN where the middle gets you today , LAST PLACE!
Rahm and his Blue Dog clan died in 1994, the DLC is a complete JOKE.
Blue Dog Dems are a people without a Political Base. Why not call Blue Dogs, Homeless Politicians, because they represent NO ONE.
Progressives need to remind BLUE DOGS DEMS, if we don’t vote for you, you want win re-election.
Why would anyone vote for a Blue Dog, when you can get an original TEA BAG follower? Not going to Happen in 2010.
The 2010 election is going to be a BASE ELECTION period.
The BASE of the DEM party is PROGRESSIVE. (Blue dogs need not apply)
Spending time and money helping a Blue Dog get elected has got to be one of the biggest waste of time on the PLANET.
The White House fights back:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/28/where-road-health-reform-began
Who is the WHITE HOUSE FIGHTING?
they are probably fighting Progressives the base of the DEM party.
Let me see if I understand. We want to kill the bill, so we hate Bright for wanting to kill the bill? Mmmkay….
I don’t hate him for wanting to kill the bill. I hate him because he is just another blue dog asshole that doesn’t care about america.
If it were up to me I’d give almost every person in congress a pink slip. Take away their house, their car, their government run medical insurance, and most of all their retirement and savings accounts.
No, we want to kill the bill, because it is terrible legislation. Bright wants to kill the bill because he is a corrupt wannabee Sith Lord. We hate both the bill *and* Bright.
Allright, maybe we can borrow Grover’s bathtub [Edited by Moderator. We really don't go down that path, thank you] in it, but rememcer: – after the no vote!
Famous advise to high sea pirates: Pillage before you burn!
Love how they keep saying reform will lower premiums. Just how does the WH expect that to happen when there are NO cost controls in place?
“Just how does the WH expect that to happen when there are NO cost controls in place?”
That’s why this whole tub of shit is scheduled to hit the fan after the 2012 elections!
Yeah. That’s pretty much the truth. Although, sometimes they do serve a useful purpose if they can be used to off a really egregious republican. The trick is to cut them loose in the next election.
“Scrooge tax,” I like it a lot.
Obama and Rahm actions are starting to look like those of the Emperor and Darth Vader, they are out to destroy the Progressive Movement.
Why does all this crap Happen after 2012, if it so great and the USA health care system is about to DIE?
We need to hang this piece crap call HCR around Obama and Rahm necks, this is not PROGRESSIVE HCR.
Talk, talk, talk. The issue is not the bill, or whatever else comes our way. The issue is political corruption. rahmbama, the whores lieberman, lincoln, nelson, lambeau, all the whores in the House who will soon show, are too lazy to work for re-election, sell us out instead. When we acquiesce by passing a piece of shit bill like this to cover their asses, we ensure the continuation of corruption. We should ensure that rahmbama is in its last term, along with all the known whores. Work to kill the bill, work to bring an end to corruption
I don’t agree with the logic, but the argument that the current bill controls costs is based on the assumption that the plans listed in the exchange(s) will be presented with standardized apples-to-apples comparison, common plan elements, and other information that will permit consumers to choose based on good cost-benefit knowledge. And the ability to do that comparison will cause competition that will drive costs down.
Now you know how the White House (and the Congressives) expect that to happen.
The experience in Massachusetts, says “no so fast, there, buster.”
“We really don’t go down that path”
Moderator,
May be the reason why we always wind up serving as doormats for those who do.
I guess the “drowning of a government” is about the whole lot of them (which makes it ok when Grover says it) and not just a select group of Blue Dogs, which becomes a no-no?
What is the difference when 45.000 die on account of a ‘drowned’ government, or a sold out few?
Advocating violence here is prohibited. Period.
There are places where it is permitted, and this is not one of them.
Jane Hamsher is upstairs!
Libertarians on Establishment Demonization
But what will we get when obamarahm is gone?
It is our govt that is corrupt . Our presidents are bad and worse now. There is something inherantly wrong with the system. And you can look at a couple of decades where the legislation CONSISTENTLY enabled corporations and STOMPED the working man.
I like obama still as a person. Maybe it is the way he smiles. He looks sick..like DC is killing him . Do not think for one minute he chose his cabinet and administration appts.? The “tell” is they are the same as hill would have chosen. Except rahm. She would have had enough clout not to have him anywhere around her.
When people are afraid of their govt. , that is another “tell.” cheney sneering and predicting another terroist attack. Puhleeze. This is not democracy. You cannot have change without using the correct words.
And all the war criminals and unconstitutional legislation that came out of the last administration. Nothing done. Another “tell.”
State media is another “tell.”
Look at how Amy Goodman has been treated. She speaks truth to power and pays a price.
Daily Kos has a diary saying how great Kos is as a leader in the progressive movement. He is encouraged to stop pushing for the public option as he is hurting his leader.
Bet Kos wrote that.
Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) has said that in the news. Was she talking about what he said. Any more names?
Since the choice between Democrats agreeing to the watered down provisions of the Health Care Bill, or scuttling the Bill, was, and is, a red herring, from start to end_ the only issue that I am willing to indulge is that which attends the REAL choice_ “Reconciliation,” or dropping the Bill. The jibber-jabberers in the media have diluted_ moreover,inundated_ the ACTUAL issue,by framing the choice in a false and disconcerting manner. Since Reconciliation is entirely doable, and only fifty-one votes are needed in the Senate to pass a Bill that includes a public option_ a provision that over two-thirds of the American people favor_ any other discussion of “choice,” becomes immaterial, at BEST_ IRRELEVANT, at worst!There is not a single Democratic official_ elected, or otherwise_ that should be allowed to evade this question_ especially, since it only takes ONE Democratic Senator to force the issue.
Bottom line, here, is… Why factor out the equation to its most invalid, denominational parts? Nothing TOO philosophical about asking_ directly… To TAKE… to Reconciliation, or NOT to… take?
And YES!_ that IS… the question!
Just as every Senator had his price, every Congressman has his price. Here is what I expect – payoffs in post-Congress employment, or in other words Federal Judgeships. 65 new ones were created, and one should expect The Great Obama to issue these wonderful lifetime positions to Congressmen who are with him, but expect to lose in 2010 over it. They will simply retire to the Federal Bench. But they had better act fast. They need to get confirmed while the Dems still have 60 in the Senate.
Blue Dogs…homeless politicians. I called my rep. Mike Michaud of ME several times when the house was deliberating HCR. At that time..rep.Mike had objections to cutting back on rural hospitals and docs funding. Would have impacted nursing homes. rep. Mike represents a conservative part of ME.
That was ok with me. But then he went along with the anti abortion clause stupak was pushing. So that elimanates the meme …just representing constituents.There are quite a few women in his district. Guess it is time for another call….
“Please sirs and ladies…can you spare some change I can believe in?”
Amen