Krugman: House Democrats need to be told to pass the Senate bill

[ProSense]

Krugman

Health care reform — which is crucial for millions of Americans — hangs in the balance. Progressives are desperately in need of leadership; more specifically, House Democrats need to be told to pass the Senate bill, which isn’t what they wanted but is vastly better than nothing...

[DJ13]

1. Krugman likes him some mandates

Always has.

[grytpype]

4. He's a little better qualified than you, don't you think? And smarter?

I know you want free health care with someone else paying for it, but you aren't going to get it.

[DJ13]

8. He's smarter than you as well

But even smart people can make mistakes.

His mistake is in going for direct mandates instead of using our tax code to pay for health care.

[Hello_Kitty]

13. Oh for fuck's sake. Not this bullshit again.

Krugman's professorship and Nobel Prize don't make him the foremost expert on everything, ever.

I recall a few years ago when people "better qualified" than us we saying the Iraqis would greet us as liberators.

[ShortnFiery]

6. +1

:thumbsup:

[IndianaGreen]

2. The Senate bill is DOA to the House and to the AFL-CIO

It is a piece of crap that should have never seen the light of day.

[frazzled]

16. "This is a milestone," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka,

who helped lead the negotiations."

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/15/nation/la-na-health-congress15-2010jan15

Trumka said the final health care bill he expects to emerge from ongoing negotiations on Capital Hill is “a milestone."
"We’ve been fighting for health care for over 60 years, and we are on the threshold of a significant achievement….But we don’t look at this as the end of the fight, but another step in the quest for real reform,” he said."

http://ifawebnews.com/2010/01/15/unions-white-house-strike-deal-on-health-insurance-taxes/

The president of the AFL-CIO thinks its great now. Try a new argument.

[ibegurpard]

3. I don't understand why MANDATING the purchase of insurance

while providing little in terms of cost control, oversight, and regulation of the insurance companies is better than nothing.
Sorry, I just don't.

[grytpype]

5. No, you'll never get it.

You won't even listen to highly qualified, very smart, very progressive people like Krugman when they try to explain why mandates are necessary.

[ibegurpard]

7. i'll go for a mandate with IRONCLAD cost control, oversight, and insurance company regulation

now where is it...

[Hello_Kitty]

14. But his careful explanations don't mean he's drawing the right conclusions.

This is purely Appeal to Authority illogic.

[Jim Sagle]

9. Ahh yess...a Village "progressive" returns to the fold.

As Villagers go, he's among the best, but he has his limitations.

[pscot]

10. Here's the part you left out

I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.

[backscatter712]

11. We may see the Senate bill ping-ponged, then the changes negotiated between the House & Senate...

before the Choakley fiasco would end up in a budget-reconciliation bill, so as to jam it through the Senate with 51 votes.

I'm always more of an optimist than reality dictates, but I think there's still a chance we'll see a health care bill (though it'll be clusterfucked.) I say this on account of our elected Democrats knowing perfectly well that a total failure to get a health care bill will result in a repeat of '94, so they'll scramble to make something happen, out of a desperate survival instinct.

[Clio the Leo]

12. If they keep up with more of what they've done the last 24 hours I think they will be.

Anyone see Woosley on Countdown? .... Interesting take. Seems to not be wanting to pass the Senate bill, but later said "we want a PO and we'll do it in our own bill later if it's not in the fix."

And "the fix" would only happen if they'd already passed the Senate bill. Best news I heard all night.

[ProSense]

15. The media is spinning fast and furious

and the blogs are eating it up. Obama will pare down health care, blah, blah, blah.

[frazzled]

17. I think they will pass it

Because they know that if the Democrats fail to pass something ... they'll all be out of jobs come November. Honest, if there's one thing worse than an imperfect health care bill ... it's taking an entire year of the public's time during the middle of a recession to debate and grandstand about it and proclaim it crucial to our future, and then dropping it like a hot potato because some yokel from Massachusetts got elected, giving the Democrats in the Senate only a 59 rather than 60 vote majority.

No one will ever trust them to get anything done ever again. And when they sleep off their drunk, or take their sedatives, they will realize this.

[RememberWellstone]

18. Agreed

Do it or die...this is it.