Reid pushes ahead on health care, public option included
It wasn’t long ago that Republicans and even a few Democrats were proclaiming the death of health-insurance reform. “The Congress will not pass this,” Rep. John Boehner concluded a month ago. “It`s really time for the president to hit the reset button. Let`s stop all of this, and let`s sit down and start over in a bipartisan way to build a plan that Americans will support.”
That was then.
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that health-care legislation that comes before the Senate will have a government-run health-insurance plan that states will be able to choose not to carry.
Mr. Reid told reporters that, under the legislation, states would have until 2014 to “opt out” of the public option. He cast aside questions of whether the measure can attract the necessary 60 votes to avoid procedural delays.
“I believe we clearly will have the support of the [Democratic caucus] to move to the bill,” Mr. Reid said.
It’s still a long way from done. But that’s clearly the direction this train is headed.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
253 comments Add your comment
Paul
October 26th, 2009
5:30 pm
If it’s moving, it’s not a train wreck.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
5:34 pm
Reid gets health care voted down, including public option.
FrankLeeDarling
October 26th, 2009
5:40 pm
fact of the matter is most people want this,even the few republicans I know think it’s a good idea.
It will pass and America will be better for it.
#1 Foxy Lady
October 26th, 2009
5:42 pm
Once again, President Barack H. Obama – WINNER on health care.
Conservative haters – LOSERS!
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
5:42 pm
Well, as Granny used to say, “it beats a slap in the face.”
pat
October 26th, 2009
5:55 pm
I guess they just love to fail. Reid is only slightly less of an idiot that Nasty Pelosi. My dog has crapped smarter things.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
6:02 pm
Dis is why it will dye-
In a statement, Ms. Snowe said she “deeply disappointed” that Mr. Reid would include a public-health-insurance plan in the bill. Ms. Snowe has argued for a public plan “trigger” that would spur the creation of public plans on a state-by-state basis only if private insurers didn’t provide affordable coverage to a large enough proportion of a given state’s population.-WSJ
The democrats have not the courage to vote on this without their human shield RINOs to hide behind.
Njoy the headline cause dats all ya gonna git.
Paul
October 26th, 2009
6:06 pm
#1 Foxy Lady
[[Once again, President Barack H. Obama – WINNER on health care.
Conservative haters – LOSERS!]]
I don’t think the Blue Dog Democrats’ll take kindly to your characterization of them.
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
6:09 pm
PAUL
“I don’t think the Blue Dog Democrats’ll take kindly to your characterization of them.”
That memo hasn’t arrived yet!
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
October 26th, 2009
6:09 pm
Well, I’m against this guvmint health care. Sure, we got a Christian duty to help people, only it ain’t giving them health care. Our duty is to make sure they get a good Christian burial. If they die, they die, but I’m willing to chip a couple bucks in to see that a good Baptist preacher puts them in the ground proper, so they don’t go with all those sins hanging on them.
Anyhow, I reckon that’s the Republican health care plan, but it’s a good one. People got to take Personal Responsibility while they’re living. If they make a Bad Choice and don’t save up enough for doctors or the hospitle or don’t get a job with health insurance, well, that means they didn’t take Personal Responsibility. But after they’re dead we got to help them out.
That’s my opinion and it’s very true. Have a good night everybody.
Dusty
October 26th, 2009
6:17 pm
CONSPIRACY, I say!!! By the time I get things lined up here at home and post a NICE comment, Bookman runs off to a new subject!!! Bah & humbug! Nobody reads the old stuff. I tell you, it’s gotta be a liberal thing, ’specially since RedNeck is ready everytime to load us with trailer trash.
Yep, I PROTEST!! Where’s that teabag???
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
6:18 pm
DUSTY–Hey, check out downstairs–more going on there than here. Norm’s home!
RW-(the original)
October 26th, 2009
6:28 pm
Jay B’s starting to sound like Chadly’s name choices. If that means they both have Swine Flu I’m getting the vaccine.
……..assuming the government ever gets it
Kamchak
October 26th, 2009
6:34 pm
Paul
Has there been any development in the search for a cyber-security chief? I’ve only found onearticle dated Sept. 10th 2009 asserting that the position would be filled within two weeks.
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
6:36 pm
RW
“……..assuming the government ever gets it”
Oh, ye of little faith! Didst thou not get the memo?
“Once again, President Barack H. Obama – WINNER on health care.”
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
6:37 pm
K’chak
That’s two weeks Ima Gonna time…let’s do the time warp again!
Normal
October 26th, 2009
6:39 pm
Josef, having gourmet fish sticks tonight. It’s amazing what you can do with the little boogers.
Don’t have much to say about this topic except that I think the public option is the only way it will work.
Paul
October 26th, 2009
6:40 pm
Kamchak
Not that I’ve heard.
Y’know, I used to run meetings with the first item being ’status of outstanding items.’ Then kept on it until something was done. Seems to me this White House doesn’t. Whether it’s that or the AF Lt Colonel getting discharged and hearing it’s gonna get fixed…. or a host of other examples. It’s like Attention Deficit Disorder Administration.
C’mon, Administration, follow up. It isn’t that difficult.
DoggoneGA
October 26th, 2009
6:41 pm
“except that I think the public option is the only way it will work.”
Yeah, I think so too…but if they go with the “opt out” option I think there might turn out to be a Supreme Court case in the offing under the “equal protection” clause.
RW-(the original)
October 26th, 2009
6:41 pm
Oh that memo.
RW-(the original)
October 26th, 2009
6:44 pm
“except that I think the public option is the only way it will work.”
Well it is pretty hard to have government health care without a government option.
jconservative
October 26th, 2009
6:45 pm
The prediction here is that a bill will pass but will have Snowe’s trigger instead of Reid’s opt out.
The difference is really a matter of the “automatic”. Snowe’s trigger says you are OUT unless you vote yourself in. Reid’s opt out says you are IN unless your vote yourself out. In both cases states have to do something in their legislatures.
That is enough of a difference to create a bare knuckle fight.
DoggoneGA
October 26th, 2009
6:46 pm
“C’mon, Administration, follow up. It isn’t that difficult”
The problem is…you don’t really know if they are or not. None of us is really privy to what is going on “on the inside” – we only know what the media chooses to report, which may or may not be accurate.
Taxpayer
October 26th, 2009
6:47 pm
I think the president has hit the reset button several times. The problem is that the Republicans just pick right up where they left off. Just sayin’ No! Don’t they realize that the “Just say no to drugs” campaign only applied to the illegal ones.
Dusty
October 26th, 2009
6:48 pm
Paul,
ADDA?? Do you think ritalin would help? Something certainly is in disorder in Washington.
Maybe Obama will appoint one of his children to be the Disorder Czar. Or Michelle. She can do hoola hoops. That oughta help.
F. Sinkwich
October 26th, 2009
6:49 pm
So what?
You liberals own the house, senate, and the white house. Do what you want. Why do you feel the need to quote any Republican?
Tell the conservatives, tea partiers, whatever to just shove it. Do it and stop the whining.
And reap the wrath.
You’re welcome.
Paul
October 26th, 2009
6:50 pm
josef 6:37
[[That’s two weeks Ima Gonna time…let’s do the time warp again! ]]
Lets!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6827163268088648679#
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
6:50 pm
If a health care bill contains: (a) an individual mandate; (b) an employer mandate; (c) plenty of new tax increases; (d) no tort reform; (e) few of the substantive ideas Republicans have been pushing for a while; (f) potentially a government-run insurance program – is it any surprise that almost all Republicans are opposed to it? Isn’t that what makes a Republican a Republican? This reads to me like another critique blasting Republicans for not being…Democrats.- RCP
60 votes in the Senate, all they can do is blubber and whine.
About us, bwahahaha, what cranks.
Paul
October 26th, 2009
6:53 pm
Dusty
Gotta come up with a new acronym. ADDA’s too close to ABBA.
Sacrilege.
Kamchak
October 26th, 2009
6:57 pm
Paul
I agree, the position needs to be filled. I also believe that the day of the announcement will be the day we begin to be bombarded with the term Cyber Czar.
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
6:58 pm
PAUL–
OOH! And when you put the lyrics into THIS context!! TOO apropos!
Paul
October 26th, 2009
6:59 pm
Kamchak
Heave help us all………..
Paul
October 26th, 2009
6:59 pm
Kamchak
Heaven! Heaven! Not that short guy from Fantasy Island!
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
7:01 pm
“Rabbi, is there a proper blessing for the Czar(s)”
“Certainly, Leibish. May G-d bless and keep the Czar(s)–far away from us!”
–Fiddler on the Roof
Paul
October 26th, 2009
7:01 pm
josef
Pres Obama and the far left Congressional Democrat power brokers?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZwFDDdt-bY
Paul
October 26th, 2009
7:04 pm
josef
Or maybe the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Alliance and the Blue Dogs?
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:06 pm
RGB–
I didn’t realize that in addition to quoting crap studies like IBD’s totally non statistical study that has been torn apart by everyone who analyzes polls and a study which won’t reveal its’ methodology you are an infectious disease clinican as well and apparently you know about vaccine p;roduction methodolgoy that no one else on planet earth knows about.
And since you are critical that the government went with chicken egg production for H1N1 vaccine, will you share your method of DNA based rapid production for viral vaccine because until you reveal it, no lab anywhere on the planet including NYU Medical that has made the seeds for the vaccine production knows how to make VIRAL vaccine by other methodolgy.
Not only am I waiting to hear how you do it, but the Nobel prize committee and a few thousand angel investors or waiting.
We have DNA based methodology for bacterial vaccines, but not viral as of 10/26/09. It’s really an honor to have an infectious disease clinician as bright as you to share your delusions.
So in the words of the Director of NIAID at NIH who ran the vaccine development program in the NYT today “We had no choice but to go to chicken egg production.” That’s because apparently Dr. RBG is the only individual on the planet who knows how to make viral vaccines another way.
The world is anxiously awaiting your sharing how you do that with us.
Further Georgia has actually used only about 5% max of its supply in most counties. Fulton County, the largest county has continued to sit on their Medimmune mist on day 18, offering it now to ages 2-24, vaccinating almost no one, and refusing to vaccinate 24-49 with Medimmune although every other county in Georgia started doing that last week. Hospitals are sitting on shots because their care takers are too dumb to take the vaccine.
No schools I know of have said a word about vaccine except to tell students to stay home if they have cough and fever, and stupidly don’t tell them they are contagious shedding virus for 7 days after the day they become asymptomatic.
Bring your new method of making viral vaccine other than chicken egg here. We all can’t wait to see it. Dr. Tom Frieden can’t wait to see it, and Dr. Tony Fauci can’t wait to see it.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
7:10 pm
democrats are the smallest most petty freaking people in all the history of the world-
Make no mistake: because of the gross mishandling of this war by past civilian leadership, there are no great options for its handling today…….
Bin Laden and his deputies in Northwest Pakistan haven’t gone far, and to keep them on the run, we must prevent the Taliban – with long-standing ties to Al Qaeda-from once again providing terrorists with an unfettered Afghan safe haven, just across a border that many there view as mere abstraction.-John Bandaid Kerry
Um, isn’t that exactly what Bush did the last 8 years?
First of all, we can’t draw down large of numbers of troops today in order to shift to a narrow counterterrorism mission. Second, we simply don’t have enough troops or resources to launch a broad, nationwide counterinsurgency campaign, nor do we need to.
OK, so check this one out, dimwits, 7 years of babbling about Bush not committing enough resources to the “real” war, what’s the freaking thing they do but draw down resources?
Afghanistan is lost to the terrorists, a dead man walking, and if they think an election is going to help them with the Islamic fascists and their pogrom of reprisals, guess again, all you are doing is identifying who will be hung in public.
Stupid little you, for trusting the United States.
F. Sinkwich
October 26th, 2009
7:10 pm
GODD,
I wonder if it’s possible to limit posts to 50 words or so. Or maybe just staying on topic.
Thanks in advance.
md
October 26th, 2009
7:10 pm
Considering Ms. Snowe is from a State that currently has a public option, and said plan is failing miserably, might be a good idea to study why their plan failed. We need changes, but is this what we are going to get:
“TARREN BRAGDON, MAINE HERITAGE POLICY CENTER: What happened is we set up this plan that was very, very heavily subsidized, and people flocked to it. And then, because people got something for very little cost, utilization went through the roof. And so premiums just skyrocketed, up 74 percent.”
“SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, R-MAINE: I opposed the public option for philosophical reasons. I don’t think that the government should be competing with the private sector.
I also am aware of what happened in Maine with the public plan. And it did not live up to the promises, a lot of the same promises that are being made now.”
“SNOWE: It certainly is the basis for understand that the public approach experience — it has been an expensive option in the state of when Maine. It has not been able to meet its goals because it has been so expensive. It has not been able to insure as many people as originally protected.
So it is an experience that we have to consider as we move forward in examining the public option approach that has been proposed by so many here in Congress.”
These folks have lived it already, and it didn’t do so well. May be time to slow down and figure this out before the entire country ends up like Maine.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:10 pm
And all you Re;pubo children get this straight. Bill Frist crippled Medicare Part D in 2003 in a deal he struck with Billy Tauzin Pharma’s lobbyist. It forbid Medicare to bid on pharmaceuticals competitively the way every single hospital in Atlanta does via consortium.
It sure is like trying to teach a brick wall how to talk to get Repubozs to own the crippling of Medicare. And if the 20% reduction to physicians isn’t fixed soon, a lot of patients will be dropped just like Medicaid which few physicians actually accept because you lose money just doing lab alone. They won’t reimburse you the cost of lab.
F. Sinkwich
October 26th, 2009
7:11 pm
Maybe that applies to I Report too.
Just saying.
Curious Observer
October 26th, 2009
7:11 pm
Well, I guess an opt-out public option will suit the South and some Western states just fine: it will drive many minorities and others too poor to afford private insurance into states that choose not to opt out. Of course, the privately insured who remain will continue to absorb the cost of emergency room treatment for the uninsured.
Meantime, states like Georgia can proceed to save tons of money on Medicaid and other forms of aid to the poor. It sounds like a win for the conservatives–maintain the status quo and get assured of reelection, without being bothered by that nasty liberal vote.
Kamchak
October 26th, 2009
7:13 pm
I wonder if it’s possible to limit posts to 50 words or so. Or maybe just staying on topic.
Twitter, twitter nothing slicker,
Shallow as a bumper-sticker.
F. Sinkwich
October 26th, 2009
7:14 pm
That’s better, GODD, but it would also help if you were cogent.
Thanks.
mike
October 26th, 2009
7:15 pm
I think it is a little early for Jay’s sneering. The fact that Reid is going to push the public option does nothing to the validity of Boenher’s point, which was that the particular reform package on the table wouldn’t pass.
The article cited by Jay demonstrates that this shift by Reid is not based on any greater support for the option. Let’s see if there are the votes for this updated bill before we start unfurling the “Mission Accomplished” banner.
Paul
October 26th, 2009
7:16 pm
Report/Whine
Well, when one considers Sen Kerry’s words in that context, is there any rejoinder but ‘oops’?
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:17 pm
Ms. Snowe is NOT from a state that has a public option whatsoever. She is from Maine where most people want a public option. And Ms. Snowe’s state has a high proportion of people with no access to health care.
Maine does NOT have a viable public option at all. That’s pure BS.
What Maine set up is nothing like a viable public option proposed in the Senate HELP and the 3 Congressional committee bills. What you done been smokin?
Snowe is so damn dumb she doesn’t even understand the difference between the crap fest they had in Maine and the coops that died in Maine and in every other state where they were tried.
Back to homework for Mr. md.
“These folks have lived it already, and it didn’t do so well”
Nope, what they had wasn’t anything like the HELP committee’s bill. No state has had a viable public option. That’s why we’re passing one.
And hell you can’t go much slower than the fact that anything that passes doesn’t begin to take effect until 2013. That’s 4 friggin’ years and many provisions of all five bills wouldn’t take effect until 2015 and that’s 6 friggin’ years. You want to sit around and let patients die in droves because they are dropped from insurance for six effin’ years?
F. Sinkwich
October 26th, 2009
7:18 pm
Thanks for your input, Kamchak.
Although I think everyone who read that lost at least 5 IQ points.
mike
October 26th, 2009
7:19 pm
“Dr” Chad yelled:
“And all you Re;pubo children get this straight”
Oh please, “Dr”. Give us more demonstrations on how adults behave. A lot of us are operating under the misunderstanding that it is children who call people silly names and it is adults who can actually have a civil discussion.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:19 pm
md–do you happen to have a link for the source of your quote that Snowe said something so stupid and patently untrue besides just putting quotation marks around whatever you type?
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
7:24 pm
Wonder if they’ll be playing this one for him in Stockholm….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpUz5zXywhY&feature=related
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
7:29 pm
K’chak–
The attention span of a,,,uh, well, like, you know…
Soothsayer
October 26th, 2009
7:29 pm
The MSM is pounding us 24/7 with the “fact” that the GDP will print a rise in the third quarter and hence “the recession is over.” Uh, do these charts reflect a growing economy?
You know me–I love those charts. For all you chart junkies, take a breather. And, heck, you might learn something in the process. Look for this: what is the fastest growing sector for foreclosures? Not what you think I guarantee it!
@@
October 26th, 2009
7:30 pm
Reid is pushing a head?
Whose head and where is he pushing it, jay?
AmVet
October 26th, 2009
7:30 pm
Health insurance reform?
Anyone who believes such words is laughable.
What exactly is it?
The tweaking of a fatally flawed, utterly inept and unabashedly corrupt scheme of a system?
Another deal cut between the insurance wh0res in Congress and the criminals who have to be replaced?
Great…
All the while the unindicted conspirators on Wall Street are a scant year later amassing staggering and record profits.
These are the men who brought America to the brink of disaster.
The men who have ruined untold numbers of decent working American families. Families who have lost their homes, their careers, their futures.
While these fascists and traitors at the Wall Street banks — notably Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase — are reporting spectacular profits. This month, Goldman announced that its profits in the last three months alone were $3 billion.
If the final quarter continues on this prosperous pace, Goldman’s year-end bonus pool may exceed $20 billion, according to the New York Times — enough to pay its 31,700 employees an average of $700,000.
Merry f&cking Christmas America…
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
7:32 pm
In 2002 Senator Obama gave a speech warning that Iraq was a distraction and that we should finish the fight against Al Qaeda. “I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.” [Senator Barack Obama, 10/2/02]
Yeah, by the way, where is Bin Laden at, mmm, mmmm, mmmmm?
Huh, huh?
(Apologies to dinkwich for not clearing my comments with him first, I would want any disapproval to arise, geez, that would be just awful.)
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
7:32 pm
@@== 7:30
I don’t care who you are, thass funny!
Back in a bit, G’kar calls!
Soothsayer
October 26th, 2009
7:35 pm
The real reason for the economic crisis
The problem is that the people in charge are asking the wrong question. They are asking, “How do we get back to where we were before this crisis?” The question they should be asking is, “How did this happen?”
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
7:38 pm
President Bush didn’t finish the fight against Al Qaeda because he was distracted by Iraq. Saddam Hussein didn’t attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaeda attacked us. And when we had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, 1,000 of his cohorts with him in those mountains, with the American military forces nearby and in the field, we didn’t use the best trained troops in the world to go kill the world’s number one criminal and terrorist. They outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who only a week earlier had been on the other side fighting against us, neither of whom trusted each other.-John Bandaid Kerry, 2004
That’s why the cornerstone of our strategy must be to empower and transfer responsibility to the Afghans.- John Bandaid Kerry, 2009
Do it git any better than dis?
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:42 pm
Paging md:
Earth to MD. It ain’t a public option when private insurance owns the plan as they do the complete non-public option turkey Maine passed and screwed up. Maine is one more stupid experiement letting the private insurance industry run it that didn’t accomplish ANY of the objectives it set out to do.
And I don’t believe you have a cite for a quote fromSnowe or Collins showing herself so stupid that she thinks Maine ever had a public option considering she is married to a former governor who lobbied for that awful turkey Maine has. What you quoted the twit Empress Snowe calling a public approach is actually a crap private insurance owned plan. It is not a scintilla like a real public option and I don’t care if the ditz head Snowe calls it Rin Tin Tin or Lassie.
And recent decent polls show that Maine citizens want a REAL PUBLIC OPTION.
Maine polls shows support for Obama plan, public option
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1009/Maine_polls_shows_support_for_Obama_plan_public_option.html
The difference is that the Maine plan was created by the state government but is administered by private insurance. The public option proposed by the Democrats in Congress does not contract the administration out to a private company–that’s a true public option not the piece of crap you quickly read a quote about and then renamed a public option. MAINE DOES NOT HAVE A PUBLIC OPTION. PUBLIC OPTIONS COMPETE AGAINST INSURANCE COMPANIES AND ARE NOT OWNED BY THEM LIKE THE MAINE Dirigo Health Agency.
It’s elementary school time here at the ole Bookman blog. People done telling Pinochio tails, fakikn’ quotes and makin it up.
It’s elementary school time here at the ole Bookman blog. People done telling Pinochio tails, fakikn’ quotes and makin it up.
First of all, Maine has nothing like a public option whatsoever in fact. Let’s get to the facts on Maine which are well known by every doctor but not by whatever calls itself md.
And Bragdon damn well knows Maine doesn’t have a real public option because he’s been quoted for years on the eff up Maine does have. You just hopped on something the turkey said and ran with it as a public option.
In 2003 Maine passed Dirigo Health Agency, which includes DirigoChoice, and has been all over every medical controlled circulation throwaway since. It’s a real turkey. It’s not close to a public option. First of all, it is controlled entirely by private frigging effing insurance companies but you failed to note that md because you read some superficial piece of junk, and jumped to quote from it.
The Maine program passed on the promise that it would pay for itself in savings and cover the uninsured. However, it only insured about 36 percent of the previously uninsured in actual fact.
There is nothing whatsoever about Maine’s program, owned by private insurance companies that competes with you got it–private insurance companies. The whole point of the public option proposed by Senator Dodd and the House Commitees is to compete head on with the private insurance companies. Maine’s program does nothing of the sort.
Maine’s program is a private insurance controlled/owned flop, and it’s been a huge failure and there are hundreds of articles on its effing up in thousands of medical economics jornals including Medical Economics over the past 5 years.
Soothsayer
October 26th, 2009
7:43 pm
That’s why every government stimulus package, every taxpayer bailout, every attempt at “solving” this economic crisis is really just an attempt at keeping the rich and powerful from having to realize their losses.
Of course that isn’t what the politicians and financial media tells you. They work hard trying to convince the public that they are only acting in the voters’ best interest. However, the lies are so transparent that few are being fooled. Who really benefited from bailing out the Wall Street banks, especially now that those same banks have cut back on consumer and business credit? Who really benefited from the subsidies for the real estate market that hasn’t slowed down the tsunami of foreclosures? Who really benefited from rolling back the mark-to-market accounting rules?
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
7:44 pm
Merry f&cking Christmas America…
Yes, merry Christmas one and all and Happy New Year to you, Envy boy!
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:45 pm
It get better than dis when we pass a public option and da Bearrzzzs continue to get their butts kicked.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:49 pm
Paging Mr. md:
57.4% of Empress Snowe’s subjects favor a government run insurance plan aka a real public option as opposed to the private insurance company owned plan that they in fact have that is a complete and utter failure.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1009/Maine_polls_shows_support_for_Obama_plan_public_option.html
This is from Pan Atlantic SMS Group, which regularly surveys the state of Maine and the poll is giving Empresses Snowe and Collins who represent the 40th most populous state in the US fits.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
7:50 pm
I’ll take the Bears this week and you take the Falcons, lobotomy boy, and if one should lose and the other wins, the loser’s takes a week off from the bookman blog, we shant call it a bet, on account of all the psychotics lurking about.
Let’s call it a gentleman’s agreement, shall we?
Unless you’re too skeered to put your posts where your mouth is at.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:50 pm
The Bookman whackjobs scream in unison–readin’ is hard. We wants our countrah back jist like Katy Abram do.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
7:51 pm
Would that cause you much excitement, soothie?
freak
md
October 26th, 2009
7:52 pm
Call it what ever you want, but it isn’t working.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574322401816501182.html
And do your own homework if you want to find the quote, I had no trouble. Google is your friend.
And if you truely are a doc, try working on that bedside manner, because it is surely suffering on here.
Soothsayer
October 26th, 2009
7:53 pm
The House passed a bill extending unemployment insurance by 13 weeks a month ago, but Republicans in the Senate have bogged down their version of the bill. Of course its not like we are rescuing Wall Street banks, so there is no rush.
Here it is unvarnished: if you lose your job, if you lose your house, the Ayn Randers are telling you to 1) get a tent 2) buy a .22 3) find some woods with plenty of squirrels. Any questions?
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
7:53 pm
Is you been drowned in the Chicago River? The Bears play the Browns who are overrun with H1N1 flu right now. And here’ the interesting part–if and when the Browns recover–they are contagious for 7 full days after the day they are asymptomatic. So the disease ridden team may lose to the Bears but they also may get sick from them.
And the Falcons play the Saints. Boy that sounds like an even bet for a moron–Saints versus the H1N1 flu Browns. Think I’ll pass.
Soothsayer
October 26th, 2009
7:56 pm
Andy:
You’re a hopeless loser whose only life 24 hours a day revolves around spouting ultra-right-wind propaganda on this blog in the vain attempt that some unfortunate will “see the light” as it has been revealed to YOU by Lush, Vannity, Bellow, Dorkz, etc. What a pathetic person you are.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
7:57 pm
Just what I thought, all mouth, no stones.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
7:59 pm
soothie- I’m still not biting you on the butt, freak.
Bosch
October 26th, 2009
8:01 pm
Dusty,
If you should check back in. Thanks for the comment downstairs. I took a break from discussing plans on the porch – it’s harder for the other Bosch, I’ve been there for the past few years to lend a hand and shoulder, and a good heave ho when there’s been a fall. I’m definitely doing what Paul suggested and giving a good donation to the hospice people we’ve been working with. They have been angels (like the real ones). Thanks again.
Soothsayer
October 26th, 2009
8:05 pm
Poor Andy. The hopeless loser that everyone recognizes has no life other than this blog. His pathetic existence is bound up in denouncing everything not spoonfed to him by talk radio or Faux News. And yet, he is too involved in his rants to realize he is the laughing stock of this blog. Get a life! And while you’re at you might consider taking a day off once in while so everyone will know that you do SOMETHING other than rant on this blog 24 hours a day 7 days a week!
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
8:06 pm
Call it what ever you want, but it isn’t working.
I called it what it is. You mistook it for a public option. We don’t have any states with a public option. You are welcome to disagree with me, but I’m not making up info about what health care plans are out there. And as I said you betcha it’s failing. Again, it’s been all over every newspaper and magazine we get in controlled circulation for years. But it was always a private plan owned by the insurance companies in Maine and by the way 2 of them contgrol Maine. In 94% of the US two insurance companies are the only choice you have.
I want a public option because of where the premiums have gone and the criminal dropping of patients when they get sick–think breast cancer because it happens every day of every week. It will only stop when there is viable competition for private insurers.
I read the WSJ and often it slants its articles politically. WSJ absolutely refused to run one article on Libby the entire time he was on trial and refused to even print that the DC Circuit upheld his conviction until the Bush moron commuted his sentence but did not pardon his conviction the way Shooter Cheney wanted.
I really am a doc and my beside manner is fine. I long ago learned that when you don’t charge people and they’re strangers they’ll always fling fecal material and disrespect. They respect your information a lot more when they pay for it–unless they’re poor and you’re donating it.
When I tell you Maine never has had a public option, that it’s a private insurance company owned and run plan that passed in 2003 that’s straight fact. It is in no way shape or form the dilution of bed side manner, and hey–you aren’t a sick patient. You’re someone who arrogantly argued something that was patently false and I corrected it. And I did it without beratting you. I simply said to read more carefully. And you got into my wheelhouse–the Maine program has been widely circulated and criticized in the Medical throwaway journals for 6 years now.
What really irks me is not you at all, it’s Collins and Snowe. It never made any sense to try to be bipartisan when there was no indication that any Republicans were going to remotely back any kind of health care reform.
And look at it this way. We have had about 6 presidents who couldn’t get the respect to shape health care reform. Why should Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins whose ideas are dictated by the insurance companies who pay them huge amounts in contributions from the 40th largest state be able to write one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the history of the US?
And Senate Finance who wrote a bill that would simply bankrupt most middle Americans or poor Americans had a committee of 6 people who futzed around for months while insurance companies poured billions into their campaign war chests, and they represented 2.5%^ of the population. Baucus the Blue Dog Chairman got literally $3.5 million from insurance companies over this summer and August.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
8:12 pm
soothie- You can keep trying all you want, the butt thingie ain’t happening, sicko.
And now that you have some extra time on your hands, you really should count the number of my posts, you have enough fingers…….freak.
md
October 26th, 2009
8:24 pm
Sorry godd, but whatever you want to call it, Maine calls it a public option and it was set up under government control.
Where I have a problem with the program, and your analysis, is it was set up and controlled by a Democratically controlled Maine government. They have/had the power to dictate whatever they wanted (as they recently denied premium increases by the insurance companies), and it is failing.
Again, I see a need for reform. But I don’t trust the screwballs in Washington to know how to reform it. And I definetly don’t trust the lefty screwballs that believe in all for one, but only one pays.
Once subsidies are created, tell me where the incentive to get off them will come from?
We are on the road to bankruptcy, and the solutions I see contain more spending, not less.
Try paying your credit card bills with another credit card, and see where that gets you.
TGT
October 26th, 2009
8:26 pm
From yesterday:
“Conservative Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska told CNN’s John King that he has not committed to lend his vote to aid Democrats in avoiding a filibuster of health care reform legislation.
‘I’ve made no promise,’ Nelson said Sunday, adding that he can’t decide whether he should help stop a filibuster until he sees the substance of the Senate bill being crafted by Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid.
Nelson also said that he does not support the latest proposal that Reid is considering – a national public health insurance option that would allow states to opt out. But Nelson said he might be able to support a public option where states are allowed, instead, to opt in.”
From last week:
“Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces a potentially tough re-election race next year in Arkansas, where Obama lost to Republican John McCain by 20 percentage points. She says she will base her health care votes on what is best for Arkansans.
Choice and competition among insurers are good, Lincoln said, but ‘I’ve ruled out a government-funded and a government-operated plan.’”
Also:
“Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana…said she might be willing to let some states try “fallback or trigger” mechanisms that would create a public option if residents don’t have enough insurance choices.
But she told reporters, ‘I’m not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be.’”
All of this gives weight to what George Will noted (which I posted on last night) yesterday:
“Will on Sunday accused the media of manufacturing the return of government mandated healthcare to the current reform debate.
Discussing the subject on the recent installment of ABC’s ‘This Week,’ Will said it was highly unlikely Democrats actually have the votes for what they call a ‘public option,’ but the media are assisting them in ‘cleverly and skillfully manufacturing a sense of inevitability that they hope will be self-fulfilling.’”
Doesn’t look or sound like anywhere near 60 votes to me. Sounds like Dems are attempting to produce an air of inevitability. (More on that here.
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
8:28 pm
Checked back in…don’t have a dog in this fight, so, I guess I’ll just go ahead and call it a night…
Laugh of the Day
October 26th, 2009
8:35 pm
“I really am a doc and my beside manner is fine.”
TnGelding
October 26th, 2009
8:42 pm
This train is headed for a wreck!
Somebody please get a stick and kill this monstrosity!
josef nix
October 26th, 2009
8:45 pm
TnGelding–
Pardon me, boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo-choo!
Pokey
October 26th, 2009
8:52 pm
A breathless Bookman…
Hey Bookman how come you have NEVER commented on the repeated BHO’s claims about “reform” that have been unequivocably contradicted by the CBO?? Or why the CBO scoring of the Baucus bill was based upon conceptual language rather than actual legislative language?
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
8:53 pm
“Sorry godd, but whatever you want to call it, Maine calls it a public option and it was set up under government control.”
NO IT WAS SET UP COMPLETELY UNDER PRIVATE INSURANCE CONTROL. IT IS NOT A PUBLIC OPTION, BY ANY STRETCH, BUT YOU HEARD FOX SAY IT AND YOU’RE RUNNING WITH THEIR STUPIDITY.AND MAINE DOES NOT CALL IT THAT. THEY CALLED IT ‘universal health care” and in fact it only covered 36% of the uninsured in the 6 years it has existed.
Fox and McConnell call it a public option because they’re stupid and you like quoting stupid people.
Could you be either Rush Limbaugh or Orley Tates? You sound just like them.
The only thing you prove, md, is that it is iimpossible to teach a concerete wall to read.
It has nothing to do with what I want to call it and you always persist in arguing fiction like a concrete wall. You’re impossible to educate and I’m quitting. A public option means a government owned plan. Maine has a completely insurance company owned plan. You’re getting confused by the crap you choose to read. Again no state has a public option. I wish I had a nickle for every article I read and threw away on Maine’s non-public option crap health plan totally owned by the insurance industry after the bill was passed to set it up in 2003.
Maine contracts out its plan to private insurance companies and has nothing to do with running a separate competing plan. It is NOT A PUBLIC OPTION UNLESS YOU ARE A MORON.
The Maine plan was created by the state–that much is true but it is not run and owned by the state. It’s run and owned by private insurance companies. That is not a public option by any stretch of the imagination. There is no competition for the 2 private insurance companies in Maine from a government run plan.
The only people who call Maine’s plan a public option are this insurance hooker idiot Tarance Bragdon, the idiots at Fox news who are stoo stupid to read, Mitch McConnel who knows nothing about health care or insurance, and you who seem to have McConnel’s level of knowledge. You’re in very poor company and you cannot make a plan owned by insurance companies and controlled by them in Maine a public option when it does not compete against private insurers. Sorry.
Calling a public option a turkey because Maine’s non-public option is a huge failure does not make a public option a failure because it is a far different thing.
Call Maine’s Legislative and Constituent Liaisons, Trish Riley, Executive Director and Adam Thompson Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance Phone: (207) 624-7442 and get yourself straightened out on this.
The Maine Legislature recently approved a tax on paid health care claims that lawmakers say will generate $38 million to help pay for the costs of the program. It won’t help.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
October 26th, 2009
9:02 pm
CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising.
Um, guess who’s number one, mmm, mmmm, mmmmm, Fox!
bwahahahaha
Soothsayer
October 26th, 2009
9:04 pm
Turn on channel 8 for a history lesson.
Jimmy Carter
October 26th, 2009
9:05 pm
Ah yes, more “change we can believe in”….
Obama plays more golf in 9 months than Bush did in nearly three years…
CNN Drops to Last Place Among Cable News Networks…
Reid to announce push for ‘public option’…
PELOSI WORDPLAY: CALLS IT NEW NAME — ‘COMPETITIVE OPTION’…
Progressive Podesta: Tax Pot to Pay for Health Care…
Banks ‘Experiment’ By Charging Fees For Having Perfect Credit…
CLIMATE CHIEF: GIVE UP MEAT TO SAVE THE PLANET!
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
9:09 pm
The CBO’s scoring of every one of the 5 bills shows not only that they save money but that coops are a complete and utter failure. And if you follow CBO socring of every thing Senate Finance has done including cripling the Post Office under Grassley as Chairman or under Jim Davis as Chairman in the House (both Repubos) it didn’t do that great a job on guestimating what would happen when you forced Potter who runs the Post Office to set aside billions for employee benefits for people who will never work for the post office on the planet earth in your lifetime.
And their has been no CBO scoring yet of any of hte melded bills in the House and the Senate. Whether the language is conceptual or not is hardly the problem with CBO guestimates anyway.
Reid will send several versions for CBO scoring which is imperfect and has lots of gaps. So will Pelosi.
CBO scoring doesn’t consider many aspects of reality. No bill starts until 2013 and much of any bill kicks in 2015. So you get to lay back and enjoy 4 more years of rape by the insurance companies.
Important aspects of improvement of health care criteria are non existent in the bills except for pilot projects that don’t mean diddly. C-Span has a good critique of the bills on this front from the thoracic surgeon who runs the Cleveland clinic and is about as good as they come.
This is fun. I remember when all the repubozos here were saying McDimwitt and Dimwitt were gonna crush Obama. Then I remember when they said public option was dead and coops coops coops including all the Blue Dog hookers. How fast the words exchanges and coops have vanished from the old boob tube and the MSM. I can’t wait to see Charley Rose bring on his “experts” who all scoffed 3 weeks ago that the public option was dead–Brooks and Hunt and hear them coment on a video of their stupidity.
Looks like Empress Snowe is working at a Chick Fil-A in a mall ’bout now. Bye Bye Olympia–we hardly knew ye.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
9:10 pm
Bush took far and away more vacation days than any other 5 presidents clearning brush like the moron he is.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
9:12 pm
CNN isn’t a liberal news organization and no one cares if those idiots fall off the face of the earth.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
9:15 pm
Taxing pot to pay for health care and legalizing it compared to the devestation for alchol is smart policy. DOJ’s decision to divert resources from enforcing stupid pot laws when states have legalized it makes Bush DOJ look like the morons they were.
AmVet
October 26th, 2009
9:16 pm
Wow.
Just mentioning the baby Jeebus holiday has the misanthropic “christian” slobbering a bit more this evening.
Soothsayer at 7:56, regarding the twice banned and ever hapless duhng as a laughing stock, it really goes without saying. Seriously. There are no end of people who have blogged here that would concur.
But for sheer puerile entertainment, he’s hard to beat…
md
October 26th, 2009
9:21 pm
Godd,
You truly value your opinion and have the audacity to criticize others, I think you missed something in your endless quest for knowledge.
The very definition of “public option” is basically control by gov’t. And lo and behold, Maine meets that definition. Their program is “run” by private insurance companies, under gov’t mandate. Kind of like GM under gov’t control. Go ask Mr. Wagoner if GM is still a private company, I’m willing to bet he says no. And go ask the bailed out banks if they can do business as they please, and they’ll also tell you no.
Your rants don’t contribute to the solution, all they do is compound the problem. Maine did basically what the current dems want to do, and it isn’t working. Instead of pounding your chest and declaring everybody else as inferior, try analyizing why it didn’t work in Maine. They are a gov’t run by democrats, and they screwed it up. What makes you think the National dems are going to do it any different? They think alike, so explain that please.
Shananeeeeee Fananeeeeeee
October 26th, 2009
9:38 pm
Just watch, Harry Reid will not be re-elected next year. Believe it.
Jimmy Carter
October 26th, 2009
9:46 pm
Shananeeeeee Fananeeeeeee
October 26th, 2009
9:38 pm
Now THAT would be change I could believe in.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
10:20 pm
You are as unteachable as a concrete slab. Maine does not control one scintilla of its insurance program. It’s completely owned by private insurance and definition of public option is competing insurance plans. Think Corvette and Porsche. Maine passed the effer. They have nothing to do with running it now. You’re spewing the crap Fox teaches you to spew.
It isn’t my opinion any more than what is a normal LDL. It’s fact. Maine has never had a public option and does not have it now. And that hog head you quoted in Maine is an insurance company employee. Of course he calls it a public option. It screws the public and it’s an option for nothing but private insurance. There is no public insurance plan in Maine or anywhere else.
And I don’t care how stubborn and dumb you are in accepting that or researching it. I gave you their number. Get off your ass and call ‘em.
McConnell was ripped apart by people in Maine the second he mouthed that BS.
And how dumb are you? If in fact Maine had a public option why do 57% of their population polled the other day by an independent polling group say they want one? They wouldn’t need to effing want one if they had one.
Boy Republicans grow up to bring the stupid.
Maine has done nothing llike we’re going to do. We’re going to offer a choice of a government run plan. Maine doesn’t have an effing plan run by the government. It was simply passed by the legislature. Maine has a choice of another plan run by the insurance companies period.
Color yourself an unteachable putz. You and Katy Abram are close in IQ.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
10:22 pm
If Maine has a public insurance plan why did 57% of them say they want one the other day? Boy we sure get the stupid here.
Gov Option Done Deal!
October 26th, 2009
10:23 pm
And putzface stating the truth isn’t a rant. Maine and no other state has ever had a public insurance option in the US. And if you call the woman in charge, she’ll tell you that. She’s been quoted widely criticizing it. It is owned and run by private insurance PERIOD.
BOY BOOKMAN GETS THE STUPID TEABAGGING IDIOTS. If only he could bottle them and sell ‘em.