Riddle me this - How can the White House & Senate be so obtuse to think that 2013 is an acceptable

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

start point without being seen as political suicide? How can they be so damn dumb?

People can run against them and campaign against the reform for literally YEARS before Americans start seeing the real benefits and have the non-profit exchanges in place. They can actually be elected and REVERSE the bill if they want (and they will want)

YOU HAVE TO PROVIDE TANGIBLE REAL BENEFITS RIGHT AWAY!!!! Why don't these "smart" people get that?!

Will the National High Risk Pool proposed by the House to start immediately survive bill reconciliation? Why isn't anyone talking about that? Why the deep disconnect between the House and the Senate bills? Why does the House bill seem so much smarter and attuned to the actual needs of the people?

Why has the White House done almost all it's work on the bill through Finance and Max Baucus? Why do people say over and over that the Senate version of the bill will most resemble the final product? Is that always the case?

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Because The Stuff That Happens Starting 2013 Will Fuck People Up

Rahm wants to be re-elected.

Picking 2013 was my first tipoff that this would end badly.

[treestar]

2. Maybe it is just not possible

At least you can't accuse them of not doing it for the people. If they were doing it to get reelected it wouldn't be so.

[patrice]

7. That's what I keep thinking about it. How could they miss the FACT that this WILL take them down?

I feel like there's a whole bunch of shoes we are waiting to drop.

[Pirate Smile]

3. If you pass the Bill which needs 60 votes now then you can make modifications to

it through Reconcilliation where you'll only need 50.

I saw on Twitter and then posted this on DU on Tuesday night:

Marc Ambinder just tweeted the following:

New Dem strategy: hasten (move up) dates for #hcr mechanisms to kick in; add subsidies/expansions next year in budget using reconciliation.

I asked him for more details and he tweeted back "when Dems figure them out, I will pass them along."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x61614

The problem is - how much can you advertise anything you are going to do to make things better in Progressive's eyes before the 60 vote when you already know that Lieberman will basically pull his support if he sees anything which Progressives view as a silver lining? He was essentially OK with the Medicare-Buy-In until he saw it made Progressives happy.

You do the 60 vote stuff first and then tweak it as opposed to going with the limited 50 vote reconciliation route where you can't deal with a lot of issues.

[patrice]

9. Okay, but what I don't understand is: What is it possible to "tweak" and what isn't?

I just can't believe that it will be possible to tweak ANYTHING any way we want it "tweaked".

So, though the reconciliation process is limited, what if it includes stuff that WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to us by "tweaking" the Senate Bill?

You CAN'T tweak stuff that isn't there.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. I guess everyone thinks everyone else is stupid and some of them are proving it.

I guess we're supposed to believe that the Senators have no idea of what is in the House bill that they will be reconciled with?

I think Joe Lieberman made himself out to be a moron when he said he didn't realize what a good thing Medicare buy-in was until he saw that it made Weiner happy. I guess Weiner was supposed to go around saying - "Gee, that Medicare buy-in really sucks and it is making all of us Liberals extremely unhappy".

How dumbed down do we all have to pretend to be in this country?

[iceman66]

14. Lieberman will only vote for the bill

if he thinks it is going to hurt Obama and the Democrats in the long run.

His loyalties have not changed one bit since the election.

[Hutzpa]

18. advetisement can be a problem

SEE HOW LOUD I CAN GET?

retro fitting into parodox might help solve that,

just sayin'


:think:

[patrice]

4. Either they are COMPLETELY out of touch - being spoon-fed information that is

incomplete to say the least . . .

- or -

There are trolls in their midst who WANT the whole thing to fail.

[patrice]

5. P.S. Maybe the internet just achieved critical mass and they don't know it yet.

They don't know that they are dealing with a free, living, breathing, albeit immature but very powerful Person in their midst.

[patrice]

6. P.P.S. Maybe smarty-pants Rahm missed this fact.

[alc]

8. CBO analysis only goes through 2019

By starting in 2013 or 2014 they can claim the 10-year cost is less than Obama's magical $900 billion and reduces the deficit. If they collect fees for 10 years but the full bill is only active for 6-7 of those years, everything works nicely. If the full bill is in effect for the full 10 years, it will not be deficit neutral and will cost much more.

They've played other tricks with the numbers. Baucus had the failsafe clause (not sure if still in the senate bill). It says subsidies will automatically be decreased if necessary to remain deficit neutral (CBO says subsidies will need to be decreased which tells me they are intentionally hiding the actual cost and lying about subsidies).

And mandates will not be counted as part of the cost the way they were in 1993. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. On one hand it seems reasonable that our premiums to private companies are not included. On the other hand it seems like they tried to hide it and the CBO felt the need to put out an unrequested explanation - that makes me suspicious.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

12. Again, more stupid gamesmenship because they think we can't deal with the real numbers

THEY are the ones who can't be grown-ups and confront the real numbers. They are also the ones who set up impossible boundaries for themselves - "I have said it must be deficit neutral." Why? Because the Tea Baggers scared all the adults. War isn't deficit neutral. Dick Cheney himself said deficits don't matter. Why not quote Dick Cheney all day long until you're blue in the face. Isn't he the right wing poster boy?

Healthcare will HELP the overall economy. It will pour real dollars into a sector that employs people and can employ more people. It will free up dollars so Americans can do what they do best - consume. Again, I don't understand what they don't understand.

-

[Pirate Smile]

17. The people who can't deal with the numbers are the moderate/ConservaDems who wont vote for

a Bill that is a Trillion or more.

Why did we get a stimulus that was $787 billion? Because that was all we could get passed through the f#$king Senate. We had 3 Senators cherry pick out actual stimulative spending and insert non-stimulative spending like correcting the AMT tax.

Both the Stimulus and HCR would be drastically different if we didn't have the Senate we have.

[uponit7771]

10. Easy run on the bad republicans taking away health care from Grandma and Obama wins again

[iceman66]

13. I suspect they did this

to get some psuedo-democrats to vote for it with the expectation that there would be some opportunity to remove or cancel the more critical elements of the bill before they even go into effect.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that nothing close to a majority in Congress advocates true health care reform, even though most call themselves Democrats.

[JVS]

15. 2013 screams that they don't want to have to run for re-election with their bill being functional

[roody]

16. Because they have good health care now.