Republicans going down!

[Hatch on left; Cornyn on right]

It appears that Senate Democrats might utilize the reconciliation provision to pass health care. What the hell is that? you ask.

The Booman Tribune explains: It is "[A] little understood parliamentary trick called 'budget reconciliation' [which allows] the majority party in the Senate to pass legislation with a mere 50 votes (plus the tie-breaking vote of the vice-president). Basically, there is a rule limiting debate on the budget which means that the budget cannot be filibustered. Bill Clinton used budget reconciliation to pass his tax hikes in 1993 and George W. Bush used the process to pass his tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

"Technically, you are not supposed to use the procedure to piggy-back controversial legislation onto the budget in order to get around the filibuster. There's even a thing called the Byrd Rule which is supposed to prevent this from happening.

"If the Democrats include a health care bill as part of the budget reconciliation process the the bill will be subject to a point of order that it is in violation of the Byrd Rule. Then it will be up to the parliamentarian to decide whether the Byrd Rule has been violated. If the answer is 'yes', then it takes 60 votes to waive the rule."


Okay. The Repugs are worried that the Dems are going to utilize the reconciliation provision to pass health care! Omigod!

Hey, wait a minute. Didn't Bush use this provision? Oh yeah, but that doesn't matter. Only Repugs get to use rules to get around rules! That's in the consitution somewhere!

Anyway, two nogoodniks, Sen. John Cornyn, the neanderthal from Texas and Orrin Hatch, the guy who can't sing, another neanderthal from Utah, are threatening the Dems that if they do this nefarious thing of which they themselves are guilty, they will shut down the goddamn Senate! Yes, sir. They'll show these Democrats who want to provide health care for Americans a thing or two!

Here's how they might go about it, according to David Drucker (Roll Call) who "quotes a former GOP senate leadership aid (sic) as saying:

"The GOP might first go after White House nominations. Republicans could require each appointee to get a separate hearing and a separate roll call vote. They could stop attending committee meetings, and decline to provide 'unanimous consent' to move forward on even the most benign issues or routine Senate business. Republicans could also demand that the text of the bills, which are often hundreds of pages long, be read aloud."

Or, as the PoliGazette noted: "In other words, Republicans are preparing to lock down the Senate if Democrats push through reconciliation."


Heh. Heh. Let 'em try it! Two things:

1. First every one of the Repugnican nogoodniks in the Senate need to remember (perhaps someone should inscribe these words on their nogoodnik foreheads - what goes around comes around - and if, God forbid, the situation in the Senate should be reversed some day, the Dems will have a powerful precedent to follow when another Bush tries to pull a similar stunt!.

2. Secondly, if the Dems institute the reconciliation provision and get health care passed, it will be a great day for America. The majority of the American people will be overjoyed! How will it play on Main Street when the Republicans throw a tantrum about giving their fellow citizens health care, and shut down the government in response?

That should pretty well doom the reprehensible Repugs in 2010 and 2012 and many years beyond that into the future.

Would serve them right, too!


Read the entire Booman Tribune article here.

New money for health care is socialism

The National Center for Policy Analysis is a right-wing think tank which is worried about such things as how regulating emissions to fight global warming will raise energy prices and that the United States is becoming socialistic.

One of its so-called "experts," Dr. John Goodman, also believes that universal health care plans put forth by "liberals" in Congress are bad, bad, bad. Goodman says these plans will "not ... expand health care because it's difficult to insure the uninsured with new money you don't have."

Goodman, like so many on the right, sets up a straw man and then proceeds to knock it down. The straw man is this: We are going to have a "rationing problem." "[T]here is a common pattern among all the health care proposals coming from the left: they envision expanding Medicaid and lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare.

"What that means is putting millions of people into health plans that pay below market rates. And if you pay below market rates, then it's going to be hard for them to get health care. These are going to be the patients the doctors want to see last at the end of the day. We already have a rationing problem in Medicaid; we're beginning to see one in Medicare."


Now, do you think this rightwinger is really concerned about patients who don't get to see good ol' Dr. Stranglove until the end of the day? Nah. The real problem, which Goodman ignores, isn't so much that people paying "below market rates" are going to have a hard time getting health care, it's that we've got millions of people (including children) who have no health care whatsoever.

Furthermore, the problem of "paying below market rates" which Goodman claims will create a "rationing problem" is a financial one that can be conquered by the right health care plan.

But that's exactly what worries Dr. Goodman. He doesn't want to use any "new" government money as that would somehow involve the government too deeply in the health care bizness. Money already in the system is fair game, though, and that's why he thinks John McCain's plan of dividing up $250 billion in tax subsidies and giving everyone the same amount is great. He also supports Mitt Romney's plan to take "all the money the government is spending on free care and [use] it to subsidize private insurance."

Thus, it becomes clear the issue isn't so much money as the philosophical objection to "socialized" medicine. And Goodman doesn't want to use any "new" money we don't have to insure the uninsured. That would be "socialistic." God wouldn't like that.


People like Goodman have been conning the American public for too long. It's all right to give massive tax breaks to the rich in hopes that some of that largess will trickle down to the poor and needy, even though since the days of the B-grade movie actor turned prezident, such nonsense has been proven nothing more than a scheme to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. It's all right to spend $10 billion (or whatever) a month in Iraq [using borrowed money]. It's all right to spend trillions bailing out financial companies, banks and automobile companies that have cratered our economy and the economy of the world because of their greed.

Don't spend another dime of new money on health care, though. That would be "socialistic"!

McCain's health care plan - oops!

This from Joe Sudbay at Americablog three days ago:

On CNNMoney.com, McCain's top economic adviser said:

"Younger, healthier workers likely wouldn't abandon their company-sponsored plans," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

"Why would they leave?" asked McCain's senior economic policy adviser. "What they're getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit."


Hmmm. The wheels really are coming off the straight-talk express.

The Obama campaign responded thusly:

"'This morning, the McCain campaign's top economic policy advisor unleashed an October Surprise of straight talk when he finally admitted that the health insurance people currently get from their employer is 'way better' than the health care they would get if John McCain becomes President. Independent studies have shown that under John McCain's health care plan, at least 20 million Americans will lose the insurance they rely on and be forced to buy health care coverage on the individual market that costs more than $12,000 with a tax credit of just $5,000. Senator McCain has been trying to cover this up for months, but his advisor's brutal honesty today is certainly better late than never, and it should give every American pause about electing a candidate who has proposed such radical and dangerous changes to our health care system,' said Obama-Biden Spokesman Bill Burton."


Yup!