People here are missing the boat

[Cary]

This is a momentus occasion and it's unfortunate that so many of us feel compelled to wallow in pity instead of celebrating this huge achievement. It is a big step in the right direction and if we worked together patiently there's no telling how far we could go.

I feel sad and sorry for those of us who would rather berate, chastise, and pursue loserdom than to appreciate historical significance and real incremental progress toward achieving our mutual goals. A lot of you are missing out big time, but you're not going to drag me down with you into your gloom and doom.

I am so happy, so happy that I cannot even begin to tell you all. I invite you all into the pool. Please join us, the water is absolutely perfect.

We're your friends, not your enemies.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AndyA]

2. The end result is still down the road.

The Senate bill helps the health insurance companies more than anyone/anything else. It's better than nothing, but that's not saying much.

Perhaps it's a good first step. Perhaps it isn't.

The bottom line is: No one knows for certain what the final version will look like until it comes out of committee. If it continues to be a hand out to the for profit insurance companies, it will not be a good thing for most Americans, nor for the Democratic Party.

[Cary]

38. Focus on the goal

I have no love for insurance companies but I'm not intent upon destroying them for the sake of destroying them. I am intent upon rectifying the same problems you want see rectified and the best solution, it seems to me, is single payer.

We weren't going to get single payer. No way. No how. We have to get stronger to achieve that.

"Perhaps it's a good first step." Perhaps is all we ever have. Chi follows thought (I'm a martial artist). In case you don't know what that means, it means that when you hit someone you visualize your fist(which has chi) going not into your opponent but through your opponent. In this case I visualize this as being more than a good first step and I'm ready to attack again.

IOW, it's the power of positive mental attitude.

[LiberalAndProud]

46. While I understand how you have arrived at the conclusion that

this bill will help insurance companies more than the American people, I respectfully disagree. The profit-driven industry has maximized profits by pricing coverage out of range for those most likely to need health care. Under this bill, they don't get to pick and choose any more. That is a HUGE step forward. Sure, it would have been nice to take the profit motive out of the mix, but it isn't a realistic or attainable goal.

If we are pragmatic about what is possible, that doesn't make us sell-outs.

It seems to me you would rather we tilt at windmills for another decade or perhaps another century. We NEED change, and we need it now. This is a stellar beginning. I may have to eat my words as we watch this roll out over the next decade, but I remain optimistic.

[AndyA]

62. Nowhere did I say I "would rather we tilt at windmills for another decade..."

Those are YOUR thoughts, not mine. You should not impose your conclusions on others. I don't know how you would get that from what I wrote. I said nothing about delaying it for a decade or more.

The way things stand now, there is no competition, and there are no anti-trust laws to force private insurers to do anything. They can still set rates. They can't deny someone due to pre-existing conditions, but they can charge more for older people and with a 70-80% market saturation by one company in some areas, you can be sure rates will favor the insurer.

Insurance company insiders say this is a GIFT for the insurance companies. A quick check of their stock prices over the last week or two will confirm most investors agree.

Last time I checked, annual caps were still in the Senate bill. Hopefully, those have been removed along with the vague language about those costs. If not, people with cancer and other serious illnesses will have to wait until next year to continue treatment, once this annual cap is reached. Since a dollar figure wasn't specified, are the insurance companies going to arbitrarily set this amount?

You need to follow the money. The insurance companies are delighted. They spent hundreds of millions to get the things taken out of the bill they didn't want. Now they are relishing their new found source of income.

Watch the stock prices for these companies. There should be no doubt who the winner is at this point in time, and it's NOT the American people, unless they happen to own insurance company stock or be the CEO of one.

[LiberalAndProud]

70. You may well be right.

It seems to me that if your vision of the future is correct, then it is unsustainable. If so, it seems to me it will be far easier to fix it than it has been to get it.

[Extend a Hand]

105. exactly.

I still hope the bill will improve in reconciliation- but that too remains to be seen.

[peekaloo]

3. I'm confused. If we missed the boat why are you in the water?

Merry Christmas.

[lamp_shade]

4. Nice post, friend. Big rec from me.

[PVnRT]

5. "We're your friends" LOL right

I notice a lot berating and chastising of leftist posters here....a shame our "friends" can't take their own advice.

[Cary]

10. It takes two PVnRT

It's a lot easier to blame the other guy, but what exactly are you doing?

[Selatius]

6. I remember being burned on NAFTA, so forgive me if I feel overly sensitive about this situation.

I haven't yet gotten over NAFTA, and apparently I'm going to put this on the wall as well, hoping it's going to be amended to be better, but the picture for NAFTA is getting rather dusty since it's been sitting there sixteen almost seventeen years now.

[rug]

7. The boat is leaving Southampton.

[ixion]

8. Mandated consumerism? Quasi, for-profit federal agencies?

No, sir. I do not celebrate such things. I find them just as repulsive as when the rethugs piss on the Constitution.

[Kind of Blue]

9. Keep it up and don't let the will of the mourners

bring you down because we need both correctly placed anger, as well as the pride in moving on without taking a giant leap back (AGAIN) to take a small step forward.

[Cary]

11. So far all I see is a bunch of excuses for being miserable

:)

Bravo!

[Kalyke]

13. Then you might want to enroll in a remedial reading comprehension class.

No one is making excuses to feel miserable. Many are miserable because of this lousy Christmas gift to the insurance companies instead of to the American public.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. additionally i am not miserable. i think this bill is shitty however, i have

a life outside this bill and washinton, that continues to make me happy. to imply that one is miserable, because one disagrees with the content of legislation, is just stupid.

[jonnyblitz]

22. EXACTLY!! I am doing great despite the farce that occurred this

AM!! :crazy: when one doesn't expect much one isn't disappointed. :o Next on the list, the dismantling of public education.

hey pri, happy holidays! :hi:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

26. thanks you too, lisa and i are going to NJ today! i wonder what her crazy right wing aunt will say

last time she told me to vote for republicans, if i wanted gay marriage.

:hi:

[Cary]

Excuses, excuses

The work isn't done is all. It will never be done either. We will always have to fight for what is right.

You should know that.

[golddigger]

12. Thank god...

because it's going to sink from so many holes in it.

[Cary]

14. WE, THE PEOPLE will prevail

It's inevitable. I really wish you could see it, and I hope some day you do.

[Warren Stupidity]

111. See the thing is that what was laid bare for all to see, if only they

would open their eyes, was that 'we the people' actually have no say in this republic. Our elected officials represent the interests of large corporations, they do not represent us. 65% of 'the people' prefer medicare for everyone, but Congress would not even allow that discussion to occur. Nearly 45 years after the first step toward single payer universal healthcare, and the leaders of our party cannot even contemplate moving forward with the program enacted by the last liberal president of the republic.

[MercutioATC]

16. Polishing (passing) it doesn't mean that it's magically no longer a turd.

:hurts:

[tom_paine]

28. Well said, Mercutio. We have traded a MASSIVE expansion of Corporate Power

for the tiniest scraps from Master's Table, that won't even begin until 2013, which will give our Rulers and Masters plenty of time to make sure they don't even have to let those crumbs slide off the table in the first place.

Calling it a turd is an understatement, like calling an aircraft carrier a rowboat.

Crumbs from table = massive expansion of corporate power further burrowing into people's lives

And you watch, we won't even GET the promised crumbs.

[Mad_Dem_X]

31. +1

[Undercurrent]

17. K&R

I'm so happy this morning. We are creating a real foundation for health care reform. Finally! The Democratic part is once again on the forefront of social change. For decades, step by step we have moved our country forward. Often dragging the American people kicking and screaming, but we have continued to make progress.

We are not done with this. More to come in the years ahead.

[kctim]

21. Yep

because we all know that moving forward through force is how one truly makes progress.

[Undercurrent]

109. Of anyone thinks

that desegregating schools across America was not done under force, or threat of force they are either not telling the truth, or to young to have lived through those times and unaware of our history.



1957: 101st Airborne Div. Escorting Black Students into Central High School


typo edit

[kctim]

18. Sorry, but I cannot

I do not consider those of you who support as my "enemies" and I will not gripe about the reasons you have for supporting it either. But I will not vote for ANYBODY who supports this, in 2010 or 2012.

[kenny blankenship]

19. It's very sad

We've made the insurance companies the official, government recognized, and legally required means of obtaining health care. They are now "our system". They are now part of the government, in ways that mere people are not. Their profitability is now the government's look out.

Now anything that harms the insurance companies' protection racket will henceforth be decried as an assault on our "national health care system", and as an assault on "President Obama's Landmark legislation", and as an assault on "the lives and health of 300 million Americans".

Not only have we squandered a historic moment, we've also made real reform even harder to do and pushed it even further into the future.

It's an utter failure and betrayal of the interests of the American people and an abuse of the confidence of Democratic voters who voted for promises of much better.

[Neecy]

37. +1

[SammyWinstonJack]

89. Wonder if the OP will respond. Perhaps after he climbs out of pool, he'll give your post the

consideration it deserves. :shrug:

[some guy]

95. well said. n/t

[blueworld]

20. It's wise, kind friends like you that I will contact first on "I told you so" day:) n/t

[Robyn66]

23. Hey I am just asking what there is to be happy about

I grant you I may not understand the whole thing but I am getting nasty comments instead of discussion. Which is what I was hoping for from people more knowledgeable than me on the subject.

[Cary]

40. There are all kinds of good provisions here.

One is a limit on how much insurance companies can charge over and above the amount they pay out for actual health care. For the first time there is some limitation on how insurance companies can handle insureds with pre-existing conditions. They say 30 million people will not be able acquire insurance.

There is more. I'm not going to delve too deeply into it myself until we're really sure what the bill is.

But look at the voting. 60 - 40 straight across party lines. What does that tell you?

Hey, you know what? If Republicans wanted to, they could have made this bill much, much better. Not one of them did that. They are all back benchers in this.

What does that tell you? I think it says a lot about our future, if we're smart about it. Wallowing in pity, IMHO, is just not all that smart.

Go out in November and vote in more progressives. Do that and there's no limit to what we can do. Wallow in pity and not so much.

[Robyn66]

79. I'm not "wallowing in pity"

WHATEVER! You are just so much smarter than me I would not want you to have to condescend to have to discuss it in a civil way without little jabs.

[Xicano]

103. "But look at the voting. 60 - 40 straight across party lines. What does that tell you?"

It tells me one of two things. Either this bill is so good for the people that sixty percent of the Senate wants to make sure their voting record shows they supported it -or- that the Senate is bought and paid for by wall street. Unfortunately the evidence shows the latter to be the case. This bill, IMO, is equivalent to one step forward and three steps back. That's a net negative of two steps in the wrong direction. I am sorry, but, thats not going in the right direction.

[iceman66]

24. K+R

[dhpgetsit]

25. While I appreciate the historical significance of what happened, I am far from satisfied.

I'm not celebrating yet. I have my eyes on the prize and it is still distant. And we still have a chance to improve this sessions legislation.

I predict that if the final bill mandates coverage by for-profit insurance companies who are exempt from anti-trust law, and there is no public alternative, the Democratic party will be on life support for decades. That is nothing to celebrate in here.

[NYC_SKP]

27. Rec, despite the unrecs from SINGLE ISSUE self-described "progressives".

:eyes:

[tom_paine]

32. Normally I despise the unrec function as infantile and never use it - in this case I'll make an

exception.

This might be the first time I have ever used the vile unrec function.

"Single issue progressives" lol

That's an example of Cable TV Binary Stupid Thinking one would expect from the RW Noise Machine.

But really, we are all programmed with it, me included...everyone. There is no escaping it, it's like the air we breathe.

Way to take a whole host of issue of extreme complexity and reduce them to a two-second soundbite.

You have been trained well. So have we all. :-(

[NYC_SKP]

35. When I was a teacher in a Juvenile Hall...

And this probably applies to any classroom, in fact any group of people...

...class would try to make a joint decision on what topic to study or what activity to do.

And one student, or two, wouldn't get their way.

And they'd often try to ruin it for the rest.

I don't see any difference here.

Obama hasn't addressed every damn issue all at once and a few are outraged by it, myopic, narrow visioned, and I'm calling bullshit on them.

[tom_paine]

44. It's not even about what issues he has or hasn't addressed, can't you see that?

That is why we are talking at cross-purposes and always will.

TV and the cacophonous nonsensical medial-political carnival in the M$M keep you concentrating on the trees, every detail, every line and vein in each leaf, but what most people are talking about here is the forest. This is a very old and tired, but very apt, analogy.

You further oversimplify by ascribing juvenile motives to the opposition. This also mimics our media narrative and what I call cable TV Binary Stupid that afflicts our nation, infantilizing it.

Are there people out there with the motives you describe? Absolutely. Is it possible that some of the opposition to this bill comes from a juvenile wellspring to which you ascribe to them? Statistically, I suppose it is a near-certainty.

But to ascribe a very nuanced opposition with many, many good reasons for thinking as we do, as all juvenile, is...well, what I can see by flipping on my Cable TV (if I still had it, which I don't and don't want it, as it stupefies and propagandizes and I am already aflicted as badly as anyone else) to any channel any time of day.

Let me boil it down to a couple of two-second soundbytes to see if I can clarify it:

We are trading some crumbs from Master's Table for a MASSIVE expansion of corporate power and a massive transfer of wealth upwards.

The pre-Bush dynamic of the two parties remains almost 100% the same as what it was when the Repugs controlled all 3 branches of government.

Now, there is so so SO much more to elaborate on and flesh out these ideas and just plain old explain myself in more detail, but I won't bother because I know from experienece it's pointless and a waste of my time and I, like most everyone else, have places to go and things do do today.

Suffice to say that NEITHER of my italicized "soundbytes" has anything to do with HCR, specifically, just that HCR is like being whacked with a stick in the same place after it's been hit a very many times there, is already hurting before this latest, heaviest blow lands.

AND after we were promised the beatings would stop, so we got our hopes up, no pun intended.

Anyway, I have learned from painful experience that 95% of people dont change their minds on anything, and how weird it is to be one of those who actually can be moved by a well-marshalled factual argument. But we are not dealing with a topic that affords even the chance for a "well-marshalled factual argument", so I expect even less.

In any case, have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc. Maybe you'll turn out to be right (not about the juvenile nature of HCR opponents but that HCR won't turn out to be the crushing defeat for the American People long-term) and not me. I hope so. I just see that as being a <5% possibility, given the absolute trends we have witnessed in this country at all levels for the past 30 years and especially the last 10, and how even Obama's election really can't even slow down the onrushing freight train dynamic of Inverted Totalitarianism (Google it) now that it has grown so powerful.

[Cary]

47. Eventually those who received crumbs from the master's table prevailed

Take the crumbs. Eat them and grow stronger to fight the next day.

You have no viable alternative anyway.

[tom_paine]

49. That's Slave Talk - and I was born a Free Man

Sorry to be so blunt, but that is a hideous, and frighteningly seductive, way to look at it (especially the second line, much more than the first)

Of all the slaves that ever were, millions of them, possibly over a billion of all races, creeds, and colors throughout history, how many were (and are, don't kid yourself - slavery and now "virtual slavery" - like the Bangladeshi workers in Iraq & elsewhere - is still being practiced today somehwere in this world and maybe your local Asian massage parlor closer to home) successful with that philosophy?

1%? 0.01%? More like 0.00001%, if such a sad statistic could be tallied.

Remember what Harriet Tubman said, "I could have freed a thousand more, if only they knew they were slaves."

Plus a change, plus a la meme chose. (the more things change, the more they stay the same)

Please don't take any of this personally, I am not speaking of you personally but of our society collectively, and on this we're just going to have to agree to disagree. Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyous Winter Solstice, Etc.

[Cary]

60. I am no slave and our nation is not a slave colony

I have a fabulous education. I live in a great house. I am powerful in terms of my ability to achieve and accomplish. I live a lifestyle that few people in this world can match. I have my health. I have a beautiful family and my own business.

Mostly I can and do affect the direction of our nation.

I can't stop you from thinking of yourself as a slave because you have to compromise. Go for it if that's what you think you have to do, but don't expect me to go there with you.

Merry Christmas to you to and I hope you feel better soon.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

50. Wow. Thats an astonishing mentality. nt

[Sebastian Doyle]

56. Have you seen any of his other threads?

I would understand if you had not, as they're usually locked within 5 minutes. Every one of them has been an angry screed against anybody to the left of Lieberman. This kid is pure Rahmbot, straight out of the Chicago office.

[jonnyblitz]

54. wow.

:rofl:

[Cary]

61. Wow is right

:)

[SammyWinstonJack]

98. Humble he isn't and likely full it. A LEGEND in his own mind.

[Raineyb]

93. Wow! Slave masters like people like you.

You keep the stupid from realizing there's something better.

[varelse]

133. Wait... which side are you on?

seriously... :wtf:

[PVnRT]

48. Golly gee, sorry for making you feel sad

:eyes:

[lamp_shade]

33. Pony People.

[Ignis]

58. From the 2008 Democratic Party platform:

Covering All Americans and Providing Real Choices of Affordable Health Insurance Options.

Families and individuals should have the option of keeping the coverage they have or choosing from a wide array of health insurance plans, including many private health insurance options and a public plan. Coverage should be made affordable for all Americans with subsidies provided through tax credits and other means.

I support the Democratic Party platform. I don't know what you support. :shrug:

[Donnachaidh]

29. loserdom?

oh yeah, that really shows just what you think of the voices of dissent.

Fake smiles, false pats on the back, and then snickering with your *crowd* about the *losers*.

Mature.Not.

[Cary]

34. Loserdom is a state of mind

IMHO if you can't see the positives and work toward building on them and instead wring your hands and bitch and moan then you're in loserdom.

Do you have a better word for it?

[JamesA1102]

30. Well said nt

[Prism]

36. Democrats just never learn, it seems

This is going to be one of those things, like NAFTA and the repeal of Glass-Steagall, that puts a bomb under the American people, to be detonated at some later date.

And like those two things, they will be marked as a Democratic "victory".

I hope the celebration you now enjoy is worth the anguish you will have inflicted later.

[Cary]

39. Yesterday Ron Reagan said:

that the Republicans would be much, much worse.

As for NAFTA and Gramm Leach Bliley, and the Commodities Futures Act of 2000 for that matter, those were products of an ideology that prevailed even under Democrats since the Carter years. Reagan is given too much credit. Carter and his Inflation Czar (Kahn?) began the process of tight money and deregulation in order to combat stagflation. Regan took it to a higher level. Clinton bucked the trend a little but not all that much.

It's a new era Prism. Things will not be perfect but this 30 year experiment with "supply-side economics" and lassaize fair objectivism is over.

Don't let them back in. Keep working. WE, THE PEOPLE will prevail or we only have ourselves to blame if we don't.

[laughingliberal]

41. That pool you're inviting us into...

...is the one we've been in where they keep turning the temperature up a few degrees at a time so we don't notice we're being boiled alive. I thank you for your gracious invitation but I must, respectfully, decline.

[get the red out]

42. Excellent post!

Thank you, I agree completely. Progress is being made.

Happy winter observances to everyone!

[gratefultobelib]

43. Great post and I thank you!

[firedupdem]

45. Rec'd!! n/t

[Tailormyst]

51. Ah yes, what a nice thread. I am sure people are just dying to hop in the water with you.

If you truly want to heal the rift and work together then perhaps you should rethink how you approach others. There was nothing "friendly" about your post, no matter what your last sentence says.

[Cary]

57. Tell you what. . . .

I'll continue with positive messages and you continue to berate me, and then we'll see what happens.

:)

[Tailormyst]

59. errr, okay, you continue on with your "positive" messages

:eyes:

Happy Holidays to you.

[Cary]

63. Likewise, but I don't need your permission

:) I march ahead, one foot in front of the next, with you or without you.

[Moochy]

76. Very apt descritpion of your gait: marching

[Cary]

83. Actually, I'm a plodder

I have been nothing but successful as a plodder. I am the penultimate tortoise. I have watched all hares race to the top and then fall, while I have continued to plod toward the finish.

I highly commend plodding.

[Moochy]

87. You seem to have a bit of a goose in your step on this thread

I'm a strong advocate of walking, just not so much the silly walks with boots.

[Cary]

101. Health and prosperity for you and yours

Do you see this Jew goose stepping with that too?

Godwin's Law much?

:)

[Moochy]

104. Godwin's Law? really?

Because you are marching in lockstep with the insurance industry and the Nelson/Lieberman agenda, that is enough for you to invoke Godwin's Law? ...
And you are asserting that it was my implication that you are a Nazi? Do you really feel that or are you just faking it?

[Cary]

106. Faking?

I Googled, just to make sure. . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose-step

"Goose-stepping is commonly associated today with the German armed forces of the Reichswehr and of the Wehrmacht during the Third Reich."

Case closed. I accept your apology. :)

[Moochy]

107. ok so you do beleive that.

case closed, alright. Thrown out of court as frivolous.

I must be off to eat crumbs from the master's table and grow strong. :eyes:

[Forkboy]

52. Friends? Your posting history says otherwise.

You know, all the locked ones?

[THUNDER HANDS]

53. missing the boat...some people here are missing the whole ocean

[brooklynite]

75. If I missed the boat, wouldn't I be -IN- the ocean?

[THUNDER HANDS]

78. they could have missed the boat and the ocean

maybe they hit the dock or something. :P

[malaise]

55. Not this group of DUers

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7313159

[fascisthunter]

64. come down off those drugs

thanks

[Cary]

67. Not on drugs, bud, just the high road

Not going down into your pit of dispair. Your pit is a delusion. If you just peaked your head up a little bit you would see that a whole world that you don't even know exists.

[Skittles]

65. a prime example of why things do not get better

[Cary]

69. Except things are a lot better

We started the Obama administration losing over 170,000 jobs a month and now we're down to losing only 11,000.

My rightists friends don't think that's better either. I do. I think it's a lot better.

[Skittles]

80. were you not referring to HCR?????

or did I misunderstand MOMENTOUS OCCASION?

[Cary]

96. Doesn't matter, it's all good

We are winning. We will win. Republicans will lose. We will crush them and we will have our way.

Resistance if futile.

:)

[snooper2]

66. A lot of people are still bitter...

amazing isn't it?

[Cary]

68. Not so amazing

Just plain old ridiculous.

[Skittles]

81. it's not amazing or ridicuous

to those of us who fucking PAY ATTENTION

[Cary]

71. ROTFLMAO

Have to laugh, sorry.

People can't handle a positive message. That's just hysterically funny to me.

:)

[Skittles]

82. ROTFLMAO

at people who reply to their own posts

[Cary]

84. Sure, I'll ROTFLAMO at that too. No reason not to laugh.

:)

Merry Christmas.

[Skittles]

85. OMG guess what Fedex delivered to me just now

I mentioned to my boyfriend, an airline pilot, that I had never had a Christmas stocking - he sent me a CHICAGO BEARS stocking stuffed with Twizzlers and Butterfingers. He got it at O'Hare Airport. I AM LOVED!!!!!!! :D

[Cary]

91. I hope he enjoyed O'Hare.

I like you too. Your boyfriend is a lucky man.

:)

[blindpig]

72. So sad,

seek help

[thelordofhell]

73. I find it rather funny

It seems that there are a lot of people here who would vote against this bill.....just like every single Republican did. Hmmmmmmmmm

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[Cary]

86. Yeah, but what's even funnier is that at the end of the day . . .

the people here will be where, exactly?

Hint: Not with the Republicans. :)

[Wardoc]

74. The bill is garbage, and rahrah cheering over it is pointless. Hopefully it can still be killed.

[ThomWV]

77. I'd be willing to let it live until it gets to Conference, but nothing resembleing it better emerge.

what comes out of Conference will be the benchmark. By god, I do not want that one rushed through.

[ZombieHorde]

88. I reced your OP, but I kind of want to unrec it too.

"People here are missing the boat" versus "I invite you all into the pool."

"I feel sad and sorry for those of us who would ... pursue loserdom" versus "We're your friends".

[Cary]

92. Relax

I mean only the positive.

[ZombieHorde]

94. I know you mean well, which is why I reced your thread. I was just pointing out my pet peeves. nt

[Cary]

97. Look, one can spin anything

Republicans pukes do that all the time. If they can do it so can any 3 year old. There's no challenge in that.

[Moochy]

108. You are proving this every post you make...

"one can spin anything"

[Cary]

113. Spin this one for Moochy

I am a prominent attorney concentrating my practice in helping people with special needs. I do a lot of pro-bono work. I am intimately familiar with how government and government programs work. I help to make them work.

What do you bring to the table?

[Moochy]

114. A disdain for shills

[Cary]

121. IOW, nothing n/t

[Moochy]

122. ...

I thank you, good people—there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

[Bluebear]

90. "You will NOT ruin this for the rest of us!!!!1"

[Greyhound]

99. Some of us would rather sell our Steerage Class tickets on the Titanic and use the $ to survive. n/t

[Vinnie From Indy]

100. Other than that, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?

Have fun on sailing on the Titanic! Bon Voyage!

[Cary]

102. You fancy yourself to be what?

John Wilkes Booth or an Iceberg?

[Gormy Cuss]

110. I don't think you're that happy about it.

If you were there'd be no need to try to persuade everyone else that their displeasure is invalid.

This bill adds some new and important protections for those who have previously been left behind by the health insurance industry but it's far, far, removed from momentous health care reform. We will still have an expensive, profit-driven insurance system in charge.

Enjoy your swim. Pay no attention to the people drowning in the deep end of that pool.

[Cary]

112. How great is it that I have you to tell me what I'm happy about?

You'd be happier if I was wringing my hands and running in circles with you. Oh well.

[Gormy Cuss]

115. You're so funny.

So, it's okay for you to tell everyone else how they should feel, but when someone turns the table on you all of a sudden there's something wrong with the picture?

I don't care one whit how you feel and I didn't tell you how to feel. Get it yet?

[Moochy]

117. careful he's a prominent lawyer

:rofl:

[Gormy Cuss]

118. Oooh, I'm shaking here.

:rofl:

[Cary]

124. Yeah it's a real joke

I help people who have cerebral palsy, Alzheimers, traumatic brain injuries, all kinds of mental illnesses, . . .

I help them with private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, Worker's Compensation, and all manner of public benefits.

And you? You're laughing because you do what?

[Moochy]

125. Righteous Acts

Is this a Job Interview? Who is questioning or judging your CV?

Righteous Acts™ done in Public are very convincing to juries on the issue of a witnesses character I'm sure!

[Gormy Cuss]

126. You really are funny.

Your specialty as a lawyer isn't what I was laughing about, it's the insinuation of the OTHER poster that I should be careful because you passed the bar.

And for the record, public policy research with a specialization in poverty programs, something of particular interest to me as a former beneficiary of federal poverty initiatives.

[Dr. Strange]

127. Aren't you violating some rule here?

:P

[Gormy Cuss]

129. Yes.

Thanks for reminding me.

[leftstreet]

116. UnRec for calling DUers losers

:eyes:

[ibegurpard]

119. water's fine?

you just haven't noticed it's sitting on a lit burner yet
how anyone can celebrate the insitutionalization of the insurance industry as healthcare "reform" is simply baffling to me.

[havocmom]

120. caving to a couple GOP partisans, bought and paid for DEMs

giving a huge gift to Big Insurance while fucking the American people is a momentous occasion?

When you have a whomping majority and you do all the above, it ain't the right correct direction. But you are correct, it is a right direction.

Not what we busted our humps for in the campaign.

[Political Heretic]

123. There's no huge acheivement to celebrate.

[gleaner]

128. I don't think you're my friend ...

My friends don't tell me how to feel, what to think or that crap is clover. So if all of you so admire the scam that has been run on us, feel free to keep rowing in circles singing Kumbaya, while the rest of us try to deal with the mess that people who think everything is just great have made.

Thinking, by the way does not make people losers. Denial and making excuses does. If you are blind to the facts you can't very well deal with them, can you?

[Nikki Stone1]

130. Yeah, I really do miss that boat. Where the hell did I put it?

I think it's with the picnic basket, but I'm not sure.

[ShortnFiery]

131. Let's celebrate the final nail in the coffin for The Middle Class? Debtors' Prisons? Rah! eom

[Johnny ramone]

132. "huge achievement" ?

Err...Yeah,we missed the boat to Fantasy Island.Bon voyage.

[donheld]

134. You missed the boat too, obviously and such a little boat it was

after all you're in a pool

[DIKB]

135. I'm not celebrating or complaining

I'm taking a "Wait and see" approach.

So many people have altered it and changed good things about it into bad ones, unless it can be rectified in committee, I see it as Dems filing a "Win" with a lot of public backlash and giving repubs tons of ammo for 2010 (mandated coverage alone is a huge magazine).

Not everyone is gonna love this, your Average Joe Republican is pretty dumb, with an extremely short memory, you have to AMAZE that greedy lil shit, and be able to point to the bill and say, "It's cause the Dems passed this, that..."