Saxby Chambliss: White House response to flood was ‘magnificent’ and ‘quick’

I’m Here, your comment about re-enlisting is completely out of line. I would be more inclined to listen to someone who has actually served their country and has been to war and seen the devastation than someone who chimes in on a blog to parrot the “we are not socialists” conservative line. And who says Tired is waiting for the government to take care of him? And by the way, aren’t Medicaid and public education also socialist programs? JB, you’re just another elitist sitting on your arse spouting your glorified sayings far from the problems that plague people like Tired. You spout against communist countries as if universal health care in this country means an automatic entry into the land of dicatorship, you rant against the poor, implying that the reason they are poor is because they are uneducated or on drugs. This isn’t about race: this is about the middle class in this country and the working poor who cannot continue to survive the status quo. They don’t envy you; they just want to feed their families. You think Pres. Obama is ruining this country, then please offer a better solution. But the finger pointing and bitxxing is just stupid.

• Link
• Report this comment

All you hard-headed, king of the mill, raging anti-people republicans…you people disgust me. Your vile is atrocious…you lack manners…didn’t you people learn about the Golden Rule (treat others like the way you would want to be treated) while you spent all that time in church?

• Link
• Report this comment

Thank you for putting me straight, nypeach. I do apologize for the re-enlisting comment. My point was this, though – don’t bash the military who paid your paychecks to serve the country with “take care of everyone” rhetoric.

I voted for a better solution. I offer better solutions. I do talk to my representatives. The problem is that nothing anyone says to the liberal congress or president will change their minds from doing what they want, regardless of an overwhelming majority of constituents against it.

Now can you give a good solution to make them start to listen?

• Link
• Report this comment

Let’s see. Sonny said there was no money in Georgia to help Georgians recover from this disaster (some of it likely brought on by deforestation and “development”), but he had enough of our money to take him along with some cronies to Panama to look at a canal that has been there for 100 years. Exactly, what is he doing that could not be done using a telephone?

• Link
• Report this comment

Hey, Norm

It’s important for Georgians to spend money for our governor to visit the landmark a former Georgia Governor, Jimmy Carter, gave away. And did you notice that the state’s IQ score went up a couple of points when Sonny landed in Panama?

• Link
• Report this comment

What’s wrong with all of you people? This isn’t a political debate. Federal assistance provided to our fellow citizens because of a natural disaster should be something we should all be respectful and appreciative of, regardless of whose in charge in Washington. We’re talking about people’s lives; our family, friends, and neighbors; others in the communities who have families just like the rest of us.

The storm didn’t care how old you were, your sex, your sexual orientation, what the color of your skin was, what language you spoke, how much much money you had in the bank, or what your political affiliation was. Why do any of you have to make this an issue? Let’s just try to solve the problem like a community. We’re better than this; we need to be better than this; or we’ll get what we deserve – nothing.

• Link
• Report this comment

I thought Obama could control the weather. Remember he promised to reduce the level of the rising seas. Well if he can do that then stopping the rain surely can’t be too difficult for him.

• Link
• Report this comment

I’m all for the death panels. We could probably start off with ignorant idiots like I’m Here and keep working our way up until we get to Palin and her trailer trash family.

• Link
• Report this comment

Who cares who showed up to tour the flooded areas in Georgia. Getting the assistance is more important. It doesn’t matter one way or another if the President, Governor or whom ever shows up! People are hurting and afraid of whatever is to come! Let’s stop talking about who we did or didn’t vote for and start being concerned about those that need assistance. Today, it is someone else…tomorrow it could be us! If that was the case…what would be important to you?

• Link
• Report this comment

@ Glenn-like your comments! @mick6701- You are right about that! You better get you some true prayer warriors that really care about your well being!!!!

• Link
• Report this comment

I’m Here- You have some serious issues! Get your facts right!!!!

• Link
• Report this comment

argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Link
• Report this comment

This site is hilarious. It is so funny how people hide behind the computer and type this trash. What’s even funnier is the people who want aid now are probably the same ones who didnt want it for Katrina victims or were miffed when we sent it to Tsunami victims. Now it’s more like give me my money because I don’t have flood insurance! What a riot. We will never EVER get along and deal with things UNITED. We are awful as a country.

• Link
• Report this comment

Before I state anything in my article that I’m going to write let me say that I vote for who I feel benefits this country and my family. I am not blinded by party lines but at this point it would take the Republican party pulling a giant elephant out of their hat for me to ever vote for them again. Point one: Anyone moron that compares Katrina to what happened in Georgia lives in a bubble and must have never visited the area after it happened and deserves a Darwin Award and needs to have their genes removed now! Point two: What unwritten law says that a Republican cannot give praise to someone for doing the right thing Democrat or otherwise? Point three: Iraq was a farse and was a son trying to impress daddy more than doing the right thing. Bush took his eye off the ball and put a much higher number of troops in a country that need it and left our troops in Afghan territory to fend for themselves. Point four: Actually as far as health care goes. Health care or the lack there of cause a much larger strain on our TAX MONEY that any people not carrying auto benefits ever has and it did at the time we made it a requirement to have it.
Look at the facts

National Health Care Spending

National health spending is expected to reach $2.5 trillion in 2009, accounting for 17.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). By 2018, national health care expenditures are expected to reach $4.4 trillion—more than double 2007 spending.1
National health expenditures are expected to increase faster than the growth in GDP: between 2008 and 2018, the average increase in national health expenditures is expected to be 6.2 percent per year, while the GDP is expected to increase only 4.1 percent per year. 1
In just three years, the Medicare and Medicaid programs will account for 50 percent of all national health spending. 1
Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures this year than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues. In addition, the Medicare Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund that pays for physician services and the prescription drug benefit will continue to require general revenue financing and charges on beneficiaries that will grow substantially faster than the economy and beneficiary incomes over time. 2
According to one study, of the $2.1 trillion the U.S. spent on health care in 2006, nearly $650 billion was above what we would expect to spend based on the level of U.S. wealth versus other nations. These additional costs are attributable to $436 billion outpatient care and another $186 billion of spending related to high administrative costs. 3
Employer and Employee Health Insurance Costs

Over the last decade, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have increased 119 percent. 4

Employees have seen their share of job-based coverage increase at nearly the same rate during this period jumping from $1,543 to $3,354.4

The cumulative increase in employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have raised at four times the rate of inflation and wage increases during last decade. This increase has made it much more difficult for businesses to continue to provide coverage to their employees and for those workers to afford coverage themselves.4
The average employer-sponsored premium for a family of four costs close to $13,000 a year, and the employee foots about 30 percent of this cost.4 Health insurance costs are the fastest growing expense for employers. Employer health insurance costs overtook profits in 2008, and the gap grows steadily. 5
Total health insurance costs for employers could reach nearly $850 billion by 2019. Individual and family spending will jump considerably from $326 billion in 2009 to $550 billion in 2019.6
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that job-based health insurance could increase 100 percent over the next decade.7 Employer-based family insurance costs for a family of four will reach nearly $25,000 per year by 2018 absent health care reform.7
The Impact of Rising Health Care Costs

Economists have found that rising health care costs correlate with significant drops in health insurance coverage, and national surveys also show that the primary reason people are uninsured is due to the high and escalating cost of health insurance coverage.8
A recent study found that 62 percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80 percent had health insurance.9
According to another published article, about 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs.10
Without health care reform, small businesses will pay nearly $2.4 trillion dollars over the next ten years in health care costs for their workers, 178,000 small business jobs will be lost by 2018 as a result of health care costs, $834 billion in small business wages will be lost due to high health care costs over the next ten years, small businesses will lose $52.1 billion in profits to high health care costs and 1.6 million small business workers will suffer “job lock“— roughly one in 16 people currently insured by their employers.11

Point five: Oh that’s right only the Republicans should tell me what I need to spend my taxes on and what laws to follow only they are the smart ones that can’t make up the rules. Funny that the party for less government sure puts alot of rules AND TAXES on me to follow and they can’t even stay awake for a debate on healthcare I feel safer already.
Since I have covered most of the mud slinging stuff in here let me say that I know two families that lost alot in this storm and now because one of those families could not afford health insurance and two of them have been injured they have now lost alot more and may not be able to recover from this for quite some time.

• Link
• Report this comment

To: aj tired of drama: Bravo! very well put. I wish we had many more of you. Obama has done more good in his 9 months in office than GWB did in the 8 years he was in office.

• Link
• Report this comment

PLOW – you have a great deal of rage calling me names, but your buddie Saxby has been found out– taking $250,000 from special interests (tonight’s news) while telling everyone he was raising money for other “projected republicans” to the tune of $210,000. hahahahaha–now who is stupid!

• Link
• Report this comment

Sorry. There is plenty in the constitution that authorizes the federal government to tax the rich.

Check the amendments moron.

• Link
• Report this comment

Nice to see Saxby stepping in here even when it benefits a “Democrat” for a change. Weird to see Chambliss taking the lead considering that Johnny Isakson WAS our “moderate” Republican Senator until he realized that made him vulnerable (all a testement to when he supported “end of life” counseling until Obama mentioned it and then he had to withdrawl all support…..even of the stuff he sponsored……God, politics sucks!).

I should say (without saying for some of you I suppose) that I am very impressed with the reaction from Pennsylvania Ave. They KNEW they’d be graded more harshly in how they responded to a natural disaster in the homeland compared to crap like Iranian nukes (nothing we can really do about except continue to isolate them until their people tire of it) or Afghanistan (a war all of us are sick of but there is no exit at the moment).

I truly believe that Bush cared about Katrina but he had Cheney and the other handlers telling him to just “stay the course” in Iraq and not get distracted by “domestic concerns”.

• Link
• Report this comment

[...] Galloway pointed out that other Republicans — namely Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson — actually praised the administration’s response to the flood as “magnificent” and [...]

• Link
• Report this comment