Here I am, trying to figure out what the House just passed in the way of a health care bill, and I get this Tweet from Gresham Barrett:
Sad day 4 Freedom. I worry abt my children. Big Gvt-more red tape-more debt-is NOT the answer. Today-our Forefathers cry.1 minute ago from mobile web
Oh, give it a rest, Gresham. What pitiful histrionic nonsense. I don’t know about your forefathers, but mine were made of sterner stuff.
I don’t know at this point whether this was a good bill or a bad bill, but I suspect rather strongly that whether it was the best conceivable bill, or the worst thing you ever saw, or somewhere in between, ol’ Gresham would still be over-emoting against it. He’s been overreacting to all sorts of stimuli this week, hasn’t he?
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At the moment, I’m not finding any good summaries of what was voted on tonight. All the stories I’m looking at concentrate on the sideshow of the abortion amendment. (Typical of the way important issues get covered — sweeping, historic legislation that will affect us all gets passed, and coverage centers around a Kulturkampf fistfight.)
I’m tired and have a long drive down I-95 tomorrow. I’m going to do the old-fashioned thing — hit the sack, and read up on this once some serious coverage has been published on it, and THEN decide what I think. If y’all know what you want to say already, have at it — I’ll try to keep checking your comments on my Blackberry so I can approve them while traveling. See you back in SC.
I suspect that most of those who voted on this bill (whether year or nay) don’t know exactly what it says (much less means)either. Drive safely!
Should be ‘yea’ not ‘year.’
From what I’ve read in the WashPost this morning, the bill the House passed sounds pretty good. Maybe the Senate can improve upon it but it seems to me it might do well to pass this version.
My forefathers (and foremothers) came to South Carolina for the same reason that most of the other early South Carolina settlers did — the government was giving away free land. It is hard to argue that they were anti-government crusaders who would weep bitter tears over the health care bill.
Brad,
How about taking these two guys to the woodshed also:
“If a government plan is part of the deal, “as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.
“The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.”
What do they know (or, more likely, who pays them) that you don’t?
Gresham Barrett’s tweet has a lot of Roland Hedley in it, but then….
“our Forefathers cry”?!?!
because health care was such an issue back then — “here, Mary, bite on this rag while I run fetch the leeches.”
Why ever are you following him? I guess it’s your sense of duty.
Be safe.
Brad, when I read this sort of stuff, I really don’t feel bad about following college football. I mean really, I can read The Economist and check the BBC and I’ve got a good summary of what is going on–including in the U.S.–and still have time to enjoy something.
Why make one’s life miserable by having to read, much less digest such drivel?
Doug, it seems to me that Joe and Lindsey expressed their opposition in fairly mature, calm terms. Nothing about their forefathers weeping or other unforgivable nonsense. Neither of them seemed to be having a cow…
I don’t know guys. When yellow dogs like me are wary, it’s no surprise that the republicans are pulling a Chicken Little.
Yeah, Joe and Lindsey both just went on national television (Meet the Press and Face The Nation) to make it clear the bill is dead… I mean that’s no big deal as compared to a tweet from an unknown guy with 2,000 followers.
If there’s a camera on, you can probably find Lindsey Graham in front of it.
From the Face The Nation transcript of Senator Graham:
” GRAHAM: Well, let’s start with the House bill. The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. Just look at how it passed. It passed 220-215. It passed by two votes. You had 40 — 39 Democrats vote against the bill. They come from red states, moderate Democrats from swing districts.
They bailed out on this bill. It was a bill written by liberals for liberals. And people like Joe Lieberman are not going to get anywhere near the House bill. It cuts Medicare about $500 billion. It’s over $1 trillion in new spending. It does have the public option. So the House bill is a non-starter in the Senate. ”
Brad – is the “written by liberals for liberals” line a mature one?
Sounds fairly Un-UnParty to me…
More:
“Nobody in this country in the insurance business can compete with a government- sponsored plan, where the government writes the benefits and politicians will never raise the premiums. It will be a death blow to private choice.”
“Death blow” — Mature? Calm?
Doug, you can probably say that the authors of this bill were liberals without insulting anyone.
And while I think both Joe and Lindsey are wrong on this, I don’t see either overemoting; neither speaks of forefathers weeping or anything close to that.
Lindsey Graham may not have matched Barrett’s level of hysteria, but nevertheless, his “dead on arrival” phrase was a very unfortunate choice of words when you are indeed talking about the lives of thousands of Americans depending on meaningful health care reform. As has been pointed out often before by others, if Americans were suffering casualties on home soil at even a fraction of those rates (that thousands are because of lack of health insurance and/or prohibitive cost) as a result of hostile enemy actions, Graham would be decrying those opposing remedying actions as causing great harm to our nation.
Meanwhile, let’s take a moment to say hip-hip-hooray for a man of conscience, Rep. Anh Cao.
Brad, I don’t think we should get too caught up in style points here. In fact being civil might actually be a bad thing. The fact is Graham and Leiberman are absurdly wrong to take the position they’re taking. Graham is smart and a camera hog which makes him very dangerous. Style points generally rule the day in the American Congress. Sadly good style points tied to bad legislation makes for the worst of the worst. That is, someone effective at getting bad legislation or preventing good legislation. Because of his combination of smarts, charisma and idiotic thinking on the issues Graham has risen to the top of my list of most disliked legislators.
So if Graham is so smart why does he seem to flock to bad legislative decisions (war in Iraq, Healthcare, opposition to stimulus)? He’s probably motivated mostly by his desire to increase corporate wealth for his rich buddies. He really doesn’t give a damn about the average American. That is pretty obvious to me.
Here’s an excerpt from an article in the UK Guardian:
“Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.
These are some of the startling conclusions from a major new report which attempts to explain why the world’s number-one economy has slipped to 12th place – from 2nd in 1990- in terms of human development.”
This is what makes Graham so dangerous. He probably knows this informatin yet still stubbornly clings to his Neanderthal position regarding health care. And he’s such a good speaker, a snakeoil salesman really, that many folks buy into this nonsense. Yet facts are facts. We spend enormous amounts of money on healthcare and get very, very poor results in return. And the probably lies at the feet of the GOP and the likes of Lindsey Graham.
Well, y’all, if this health care monstrosity ever gets signed into law we’ll ALL be weeping!
Yeah Gresham, knock it off. “A Painted House” sucked.
Good point, Phillip.
Mimi–
I daresay it depends on where one falls in the health status/health insurance matrix…
I have great insurance and no disqualifying conditions in any real world sense, and my biggest concern is that everyone else can be as secure as I am right now. I want everyone to have the same access to health care regardless of wealth or employment status or pre-existing conditions. If that means I pay more, so be it. If that means I don’t get as much care as I have been getting,that’s only fair because I must have been taking more than my fair share. (I am seriously annoyed at what I see as the time-wasting, fee racking-up practices of my current providers’ practice–do I really need to be seen every three months to renew a script that every other doc in town will renew annually, for example? If I didn’t have great insurance, would they still want to see me so often? Wouldn’t we as a society rather have the doc see some currently uninsured kids instead?
Can someone explain why the whole abortion issue has to be piggybacked on the health reform bill?
Would it really bring great harm upon society if a pregnant female was expected to pay for an abortion out of her own pocket? Couldn’t non-government organizations take donations to pay for those women who couldn’t afford it?
According to the information I have seen, a first trimester abortion costs between $300 and $600 dollars. Lobbying groups will spend millions of dollars to try and make sure the government pays that bill. Why? Just put the money in a fund and let anyone who wants an abortion submit the bill.
We’re going to hold up health care reform over that?
Same for illegal immigrants having access to insurance. The answer is no. Again, if you want to pay for illegal immigrants healthcare, set up a charity and pay for it. The reason the Democrats can only get 50.1% of Congress to support a bill is because they insist on shoving divisive issues into the bill.
Why not create a bill that gets 67% support and then vote up or down on the individual hot issue items? I guess that would be too much democracy.
I just don’t remember all this hoohaw about cost when we invaded Iraq, and the cost of the war (which, BTW, was optional) may well exceed the cost of keeping Americans healthy.
“When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community.”
Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
March 27, 2003
“Conservative rhetoric notwithstanding, the House bill is not a “government takeover.” I wish it were. Instead, it enshrines and subsidizes the “takeover” by the investor-owned insurance industry that occurred after the failure of the Clinton reform effort in 1994. To be sure, the bill has a few good provisions (expansion of Medicaid, for example), but they are marginal. It also provides for some regulation of the industry (no denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions, for example), but since it doesn’t regulate premiums, the industry can respond to any regulation that threatens its profits by simply raising its rates. The bill also does very little to curb the perverse incentives that lead doctors to over-treat the well-insured. And quite apart from its content, the bill is so complicated and convoluted that it would take a staggering apparatus to administer it and try to enforce its regulations.”
It’s from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20091109/cm_huffpost/350190
It’s a good article that explains why the blue dogs are bailing on this bill.
It was a bill written by liberals for liberals. And people like Joe Lieberman are not going to get anywhere near the House bill. It cuts Medicare about $500 billion.
What in the world, Lindsey Graham, is so horrible about cutting Medicare? Because in this geriarchy, you have to give senior citizens whatever they want because you won’t risk losing their votes?
And how is cutting Medicare a liberal idea? Because it is necessary to keep the deficit under control? Lord knows minding the deficit isn’t a conservative idea.
Sometimes I like Lindsey Graham. But then I am reminded of how “Republican” he is.
Maude, thanks for that link. Most of the doctor’s points sound good to me. My addition would be graduated premiums based on family income and size (I’m a believer in the old “you value what you pay for” idea), with subsidies, if there are holes before Medicaid would kick in, paid for with some good sized premiums for people like Warren Buffett, Oprah and various and sundry actors, athletes and Wall Street thieves. (Does it not bother anybody but me that the cap for contributions to Social Security is a little over $100,000 and that all the billions of earned income over that cap is FICA payroll tax-free for those actors, athletes and Wall Street thieves? Those people are not paying their fair share.)
But it’s single payer and that qualifies as govt takeover to the those who have a problem with that. If the Democrats had been pushing for Medicare for everybody for the past 16 years, it would not be so scary, but they didn’t and missed the opportunity.
The doctor in your link is talking about the House bill and there will be changes before it gets through the Seanate. I’m not as worried as she is about regulating insurance companies to the extent that is needed. If it isn’t there at the beginning, I’m sure they will show themselves and it will come.
I do disagree with her and think something is certainly better than nothing. If we don’t start, it may be another 16 years before it even comes up again. That will mean more harm to our people and economy.
If Harry Reid doesn’t watch out, it will be town hall time again over the holiday breaks. They need to do it before Thanksgiving.
martin–
I worry that something can be worse than nothing insofar as it relieves the pressure to do the right thing enough, yet does very little. Minimally adequate health care bill, anyone?
Martin,
I missed the memo where Social Security turned into a welfare system to transfer money from the rich to the not-so-rich.
I’ll never get back all the money I’ve put in and I have no option to opt of of becoming another government welfare recipient.
Luckily, around this time of year I finally reach the point where I get to keep more of my paycheck and not give it to the elderly. But every year, I pay more into Social Security even though my salary hasn’t increased because they keep raising the maximum limit. Yep, that’s fair. Why should I be able to keep my money when there are so many people who didn’t have all the advantages and lucky breaks I’ve had?
That’s why these things go into conference and committee, to get straightened out.