Barney Frank Concedes Health Care Approach 'No Longer Appropriate' After Brown Beats Coakley

[IndianaGreen]

Barney Frank Concedes Health Care Approach 'No Longer Appropriate' After Brown Beats Coakley

I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results.
If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate healthcare bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate.

I am hopeful that some Republican senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of healthcare reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the healthcare status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a healthcare bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened.

Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the healthcare bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of this process.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/barney-frank-concedes-hea_n_429128.html

[nsd]

1. I think Josh Marshall had the right reaction to Barney Franks' statement.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/genuinely_surprised_barney_frank_edition.php?ref=fpblg

I've always been such a big admirer of Barney Frank, on so many different levels. So I was genuinely surprised, really shocked to see this statement he put out tonight that is just an embodiment of fecklessness, resignation, defeatism and just plan folly. The gist of his point is that that's it for health care reform. If a few Republican senators will come across the aisle and help maybe it will happen. But if not, that's it. Amazing. Just amazing.


************

This kind of defeatism is weird and so not what we need right now.

[msongs]

2. well Barney my man, repubs didnt let that crap get in their way......oh but you're a dem lol nt

[frazzled]

3. Barney has jumped the shark

That is just freaking unforgivable. Someone needs to slap him.

If we give up on health care, after spending a whole goddam year yakking and compromising and making sausage and taking up all this time, and then drop it like a hot potato ... we are done for. We deserve to lose. The American people won't know what the hell to think.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Barney has not jumped the shark!

"If it comes down to that Senate bill or nothing, I think we're going to end up with nothing, because I don't hear a lot of support on our side for that bill," said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA). "I've lost my faith in anything happening quickly that requires Senate action.

"If she loses, it's over," Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) said this evening in New York.

Two high-profile progressives--Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)--said the only way they could sign on to the Senate bill is if it was accompanied immediately, or even preceded by, a separate bill, making a number of major preemptive changes to what they regard as an inferior package.

"It would have to be so quick that they happen at the same time," Weiner said. "We're in full whistling past the graveyard mode in there.... They're talking as if, like, what our deal is, what our negotiations are with the White House. Yeah, I mean if the last line is 'pigs fly out ass' or something like that.... We've gotta recognize we have an entirely different scenario tomorrow."

"You should do the other stuff first and then pass the Senate bill," Nadler told me. "I don't see how I could vote for the Senate bill," otherwise.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/determined-or-delusional-house-leadership-sounds-optimistic-on-hcr.php

[Mimosa]

10. TRUE! B. Frank is part of the problem.

I often doubt that any of the clowns in congress wanted a fair simple Healthcare plan. If they did, they would have done it. Instead they messed around, stunk up the whole thing.

[S_E_Fudd]

4. The system is beyond fucked up...

When the switch of one seat in this situation can in effect condemn 10K people a year to death...

Republicans have no heart...

Democratis have no spine...


They both suck!

[playboyj305]

15. Amen my brother...

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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

[Mimosa]

7. Barney didn't get it right first time around.

Barney is an arrogant twit. There, I said it.

How about term limits?

[treestar]

8. Of course

We can't get anything now.

Congratulations, "progressives."

[rockymountaindem]

9. I suppose the high voter turnout doesn't mean anything to you?

If liberals had boycotted the election turnout would have been far lower. Can't pin this one on the left.

[treestar]

17. Well many of the progressives on DU are claiming that's the reason

They stayed home to punish us for not getting them what they want. 100% of what they want within one year was all that was good enough for them.

In reality it is the stupid independents who sway with the wind and vote for whoever ran the best campaign, regardless of the issues. But with the weak support of the progressives, the Democrats cannot hang onto what power they manage to get for long.

[liskddksil]

12. We can easily get a medicare-buy in attached to a jobs bill

possibly through reconciliation, as Anthony Weiner has suggested. This proposal is certainly more popular than the Senate health care bill.

[treestar]

18. Why is that easy?

They will just make a point of order that there is something extraneous to the budget. Reconciliation is only for budget issues.

[ima_sinnic]

16. right--it's "progressives'" fault!

just like the republicans, the corporacrat "democrats" don't want to take responsibility for anything.

here's a ticket to the clue train: people get apathetic when they're promised things like health care "reform" and all they see is a lot of closed-door deal-making that ends in mandated, useless giveaways to insurance companies. They don't see the difference between the 2 parties when both are kissing billionaires' butts and NOT regulating anything--and continuing to let the foxes on Wall St.--the bankers and greedhead CEOs and people like Geithner and Summers--guard the hen house of the public treasury.

It's more like, Congratulations, billionaire butt-kissing "democrats" for showing you're nothing but republicans in disguise. Congratulations, Rahm, for alienating the voters who won back the Democratic majority.

Take your blaming of progressives (I wondered how long it'd be before I saw that from one of the DLC shill morons) and shove it so far up your bung hole it comes out your ears.

[treestar]

19. Congratulations on a new Republican being elected

since the Democrats aren't good enough for you and don't get you what you want fast enough, maybe the Republicans will do it for you.

Good luck, call Sen. brown's office soon, I'm sure he will consider getting single payer for you.

[ima_sinnic]

21. what are you congratulating ME for?

congratulate the voters who voted for him.

And especially congratulate Rahm and the rest of the DLC for a winning effort to alienate Democratic voters, making it even easier for things like single payer health care and tax raises for wealthy pigs never to see the light of day. YAY! a win-win for the fake "democrat" DLC and the repigs!

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. The individual MANDATE must go!!!

[burning rain]

13. The Senate bill plus a few improvements, notably a public option, should do.

House members could, for instance, agree to pass the Senate bill without changes and send it off to the White House for the president to sign if and only if Senate Democrats first passed a package of improvements to the Senate bill, including a public option, whether by the nuclear option or reconciliation (although reconciliation provisions automatically sunset in 10 years, so I wouldn't prefer that route). A public option in particular is necessary to make the bill reasonably saleable to the public, and members of Congress have every right to think of their reelections.

House members could also extract a promise from Democratic senators to pass an add-on package after the House passes the Senate bill, but they'd surely be ill-advised to trust the Senate Democratic caucus that much.

[unhappycamper]

14. Make the bastards fillibuster every time they cry "Fillibuster".

Give them phone books. Have C-Span cover it live. Every fucking useless, wasted hour of filibustering should be available to all Americans upon demand.

[QuickDraw McGraw]

20. Barney is doing CYA

I think Barney has started worrying about his own job. If Kennedy's seat can be lost to repukes, so can his. What a spineless wimp.

[Milo_Bloom]

22. Barney seemed fairly tepid on the bill to begin with

This is an easy way to kill it, without having to KILL IT.