GOP lawmakers change tune on costly health plans

[NJmaverick]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Democrats are troubled by the inconsistency of Republican lawmakers who approved a major Medicare expansion six years ago that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits, but oppose current health overhaul plans.
All current GOP senators, including the 24 who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion, oppose the health care bill that's backed by President Barack Obama and most congressional Democrats.
The Democrats claim that their plan moving through Congress now will pay for itself with higher taxes and spending cuts and they cite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for support.
By contrast, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House in 2003, they overcame Democratic opposition to add a deficit-financed prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The program will cost a half-trillion dollars over 10 years, or more by some estimates.
With no new taxes or spending offsets accompanying the Medicare drug program, the cost has been added to the federal debt.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091226/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_deficit;_ylt=AlU2WqV8qL1dA_aQx8jRfR6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNxYmIxOW5oBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMjI2L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX2RlZmljaXQEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM2BHBvcwMzBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5f

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May be helpful information when dealing with Republicans and Right Wingers

[NJmaverick]

1. Unrecced already, didn't know the paid GOP operatives worked on weekends

[elocs]

25. I'm sure those who UnRec would like to thank you for bringing it to everyone's attention

with the very first response 5 minutes after the OP was posted. Currently this thread has 33 Recs, so it is doing quite nicely. However it was not a complete loss for the Unreccers since they got their attention.

Do you actually believe than anyone who uses UnRec, a legitimate tool available to all DUers, is a paid GOP operative? Or does that only apply when your own OP gets UnRecs or one with which you agree?

[goclark]

29. Busy little Bees even on holidays

Yep

[dkf]

2. Buying a second car because the first one drove you broke never made much

Sense to me. Guess you could tell the hubby that his car drove you into outrageous debt so you want one too works for some but that scares the bejeebers out of me as an argument.

[The Wielding Truth]

21. Great article.This is just another example of Republican hypocrisy.

[Kber]

23. Your analogy would work better if the health care bills under consideration didn't reduce the dept

but what ever.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FarLeftFist]

4. Did you sign up to DU to make that 1 stupid post.

Gone.

[lydiap]

5. That the best you got in rebuttal????

Lucy, 'splain.

[roseBudd]

11. Yeah because allowing pharma & for profit insurers to write Part D wasn't enough for the

MAJORITY.

Personal responsibility.

[lydiap]

16. Your answer was...

...too short and relate it to the video, please.

[roseBudd]

18. i don't watch troll youtubes, but you seem to be a fan of for profit's higher admin costs...

like a typical "con".

You would refer to me as a "lib" correct?

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheEuclideanOne]

28. Sorry, Lydiap, but the GOP plans don't include you if they succeed.

You are among the millions of people that are so focused on future elections as if somehow you benefit. Your Republican leadership, if you call it that, has everybody on board to make sure that they win elections in 2010 by sacrificing the country. They have you suckers so focused on approval numbers of Obama and the 2010 elections and nothing else.

I hate to break the news to you, but you may accomplish helping them get elected in 2010, but don't wait for that "Thank You" note. You will sacrifice your healthcare and help them get elected. You might think that you are accomplishing something good, but the sad thruth is that they already have the healthcare that they tell you is so bad, so they lose nothing. But if you get them elected, you still end up with the same crappy healthcare system that you are helping to bring into reality. So, on behalf of the politicians that you so blindly support, "THANKS FOR HELPING US GET ELECTED, I JUST HOPE YOU DON'T GET SICK!!!".

[lydiap]

15. Im simply amazed...

...that instead of rebutting the video posted as best as you can that you resort to name calling. This will be the demise of the party, you do know that, right?

[Hansel]

17. I was going to rebutt, but don't think it's really worth it. Here goes anyway.

You are comparing apples and oranges and claiming hypocrisy. It is not.

Kicking people off of Medicare and Medicaid in order to fund windfall profits for the pharmaceutical industry is not the same is attacking waste and fraud to reduce the cost of Medicare and Medicaid to make them solvent. The Democrats were not about to go along with the destruction of Medicare and Medicaid because they want everyone to have health care. They have been consistent in that stand.

The Republicans have been consistent in the stand that they want to destroy Medicare. It's not a secret. They passed a BS bill to give big pharma excessive profits and pretended that they were doing something good for seniors. But in fact they were trying to bankrupt the treasury in order to destroy Medicare, not so good for seniors. That is the cold blooded hypocrisy you seemed to have missed.

The Democrats refused to go along with their little game, but the Republicans forced it through and made a lot of money for their coffers in the process and succeeded in driving up the national debt. Some even got lucrative jobs with big pharm. Now, after intentionally pushing through a completely unfunded mandate they are bitching about the cost of this bill. The cost of a public option. The cost of everything that the Democrats are trying to do for the people. Republicans are sickeningly hypocritical in almost everything they say and do. If you can't figure that out, you don't deserve to be taken seriously.

You need to do a little more research on the Republicans stand on Medicare and Medicaid and the Pharmaceutical Windfall Profits Bill they crammed down everyone's throats. If you opened your mind to just a little common sense, you would not be whining about people not taking your post seriously.

[lydiap]

20. I think it is you that needs to do more research..

At the end of 2003, Congress passed a Medicare reform bill that included a prescription drug benefit that began in 2006. We all agree that happened.
Because private insurers were put in charge of the drug money, Medicare wasnt allowed to negotiate with pharma companies for bulk purchases.
Why wasnt it suggested this time around that Medicare negotiate with Pharma companies for bulk purchases, like insurance companies do? Did we not learn anything from before?

The Medicare compromise of 2006 pumped $400 billion over ten years into the purchase of prescription drugs (because the government will pay for drugs that they never paid for before - does ANY of this sound familiar to you at all with this current bill? Who do YOU think the winners are going to be?)

By the way, the Pharma companies are behind this health care bill just as they were in 2003. Only this time it isnt the Republican coffers getting filled:
"Part of the strategy, shifting its campaign contributions to Democrats, began soon after the party gained control of Congress in 2006. In the 2008 election cycle, an unprecedented 49 percent of the traditionally Republican-leaning industry's $26.7 million in contributions went to Democrats." -
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=H04

[Hansel]

26. You are arguing that the Democrats are hypocrites because they

didn't go back and completely undo the Republicans pharmaceutical give away while they were trying to get health care legislation passed? HCR that they've being trying to enact for 6 decades without success mostly due to simultaneous attacks from the insurance industry and big pharma? That's what passes as hypocrisy for you?

You might not like the strategy to not take on two powerful industries at the same time while trying to pass HCR, but it's not hypocrisy. They'll fix the pharma bill when they get to it. The foundation was to get health care passed. If you don't like it, start a battle to get rid of the 60 vote super majority in the senate or start bitching openly about the continuous use of filibusters by the Republicans. Because if they could get bills passed with a simple majority the Democrats would have passed reform to the pharma bill at that same time. Unfortunately what stands in the way of getting this stuff done and getting a better bill is not the Democrats. It is continuous undemocratic filibustering by the Republicans--another one of their great hypocrisies. Whatever happened to the "up or down" vote?

The point of the article is that the Republicans had no problem pissing away money when they were in power, but now suddenly have found religion on the matter. What makes their hypocrisy even greater is that they passed a multi-billion dollar unfunded mandate as a give away to big pharma which provided relief to only a fraction of the population for drugs alone. The Democrats have passed a bill that includes relief to nearly the entire population on something much much more major than prescription drugs alone and it is fully funded and not at that much more of cost.

BTW, it was suggested that Medicare negotiate with Pharma companies for bulk purchases this time around. Just so you know.

[The Wielding Truth]

22. Did you see this comment? And .....

When this was done the country was in great shape economically from Clinton's work to help our country's solvency.

platero55 (3 months ago) Show Hide
President Obama isn't cutting Medicare payments to medical providers. He's cutting scheduled *increases* in Medicare payments. These increases were put in place during the Bush Administration. There still will be increases, but they won't be as big.

[No Elephants]

24. Didn't Republicans hold the majority in 2003?

[BP2]

6. The Pukes are here instead of returning their Xmas presents. We can point fingers at them, but

the fact is that the obstacles with HCR lie not with do-nothing GOP, but with the four Moderates in the Senate and the Blue Dawgs in the House.

If anything's going to get in the way of reform, it will come from traitors within our own party.

[LiberalFighter]

8. If GOP were really interested in HCR they would had made legitimate offers

and been on board instead of saying NO NO NO NO NO.

They were offered the chance to part of the HCR but turned it down flat.

At least in the 60's there were Republicans that came out in support of Civil Rights legislation despite DINO's back then that opposed it. (And those DINO's later switched to the Republican Party)

[treestar]

7. I'm amazed the Republicans voted to expand Medicare at all

The ones I talk to want it done away with immediately. It is "socialism" and ruins our freedoms. :sarcasm: (or quoting Republicanism).

[roseBudd]

10. They did it to rewardBig Pharma & get seniors to vote R in 2004

[Overseas]

32. I thought they did it to tarnish the image of Medicare.

They knew it would be very costly, and also knew Democrats would want to change it or cut it to make it work better and that would give them two potential anti-Dem talking points--

either "Medicare is too expensive; it will go broke,"
or "The Dems want to cut Medicare!"

[roseBudd]

9. click through to keep this most popular on yahoo for low info voters to see

GOP hypocrisy on display

[SpiralHawk]

12. I am not troubled. I expect hypocrisy from Republicons

That's all they ever give us. Why should now be any different?

[dhpgetsit]

13. Because the GOP plan is to shoot holes in Medicare

by packing it full of corporate welfare, causing it to ultimately fail. What a great way to enslave We the People and create a Neo Fascist corporate run government?

[jillan]

14. Excellent find! Since I have a republican in my life - this was like a Christmas present!

Thanks :)

[jasi2006]

27. The Dems need to keep this fact active in the media

If it were the other way around, Rush, Sarah, and Hannity would be harping on this all day and night in the media. Dems need to take a lesson from them and thow this back in teir faces, especially declaing loufly that the s003 measure was not paid fro. Problem with the Dems is that they don't know how to wage political warfare.

[geckosfeet]

30. May also be helpful in Nov.

[SandWalker1984]

31. No excuses for such a Democratic party majority

Who would have ever thought that a group of politicians that call themselves Progressives, would end up being the mandate henchmen for the rich, corporate fascist Republicans, aka follow the money?

The biggest problem we now have with health care in America is because we have a captive consumer driven, for profit ...and now thanks to the Democrats... monopolistic, capitalistic MANDATED system.

The main reason our system has evolved to this point is because of the many years of bribes of BOTH parties in Congress and a collective, somewhat selfish, I got mine culture of the citizens, fostered and encouraged by the very mainstream corporate media that substantially benefits economically from our collective division and confusion.

Jessie Ventura is right. Follow the money.

[ProSense]

33. Democrats are unified

It's beautiful