How is Dean really any different than Nelson or Conrad

[Phx_Dem]

or Lincoln or any of the other asshole senators who refuse to vote for the HCR bill unless it's exactly to their liking? The only difference I see is that senators can kill the bill by not voting for it while Dean doesn't get a vote so he has to work the progressives into a lather hoping one of them will do his bidding and kill the bill for him. Not much difference from where I sit, except that Dean wasn't actually elected to represent anyone. And he's not just "voicing his opinion" which is certainly entitled to do, he's doing a media tour trying to get this bill killed.

Democrats are supposed to be the party of tolerance, but I have seen very little that in the Senate, on blogs or on DU. Too many Dems want everything their way and refuse to do much compromising, if any at all. Without compromise, we get nothing. No HCR, no climate bill, no DOMA repeal, no DADT repeal. Nada, zip, zilch.

ANY health care bill that regulates coverage is better than NOTHING. Which is what we may end up with. I'm really saddened by Dean's stance because I loved him, but his actions are irresponsible and appalling IMO.

Any why is it that progressives expect moderate or convservative Dems to compromise their principals when they won't do the same. I don't agree with the conversative bunch, but they have a different set of principals that I have. If I expect them to compromise then I had better be willing to do the same.

I have decent health care and a good job that allows me to afford it so I'm fine -- unless I get sick and dropped by my insurance company, in which case I won't be any worse off than anyone else who currently has a pre-existing condition. Progressives who claimed to care about that clearly do not so maybe Congress should just adjorn until November and tell everyone to go fuck themselves in the meantime.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

1. tolerance =/= compromise

[lapfog_1]

2. Any health care bill is better than nothing.

Bullshit.

What else would the bill have to contain for you to say "it's worse than nothing". That's the real question.

Is there ANYTHING that could find it's way in that would make you say "kill this thing now"? I'm curious.

[Phx_Dem]

3. Sure. If the bill didn't address pre-existing conditions, or if it didn't

offer subsidies for lower-income people to name two. But those things are in the bill as well as help for small businesses and many other good things.

A bill can be expanded upon once it's law. The hard part is getting SOMETHING passed that can expanded upon.

You're basically telling approx. 30 million people who currently don't have coverage to go fuck themselves because you don't want to compromise. I bet you have health care coverage so who gives a shit about the poor saps who don't.

[ima_sinnic]

6. I'm self-employed & don't have coverage & can't afford/won't pay multiple hundreds per month

for worthless "insurance."

oooh, big deal--people now CAN buy insurance who couldn't before--not only CAN, but would HAVE TO. But how can they AFFORD to?
I'd rather pay the fine. I heard it might be 2.5% of income. That would be about $1000 for me--certainly a lot cheaper than $600/month for something that would probably be quite useless--so I'll pay the fine, or barring that, go to jail and get free meals AND health care.

[lapfog_1]

9. OK, you say that they can't deny for pre-existing conditions.

Fine.

What they can do is charge people with pre-existing conditions MORE than people who don't. About 50% more.

And they can vary the cost of the premium by up to 4 X as much as the lowest premium based on age.

Yet to be seen if these two variances are mutually exclusive. But I guessing not. If not, then the top rate might be 6 times higher than the lowest premium. And there isn't anything in the bill to keep the premiums in check. Nothing.

Let's say the lowest premium from them is $10,000 a year for an healthy young person. That sound about right? That means for someone like me (over 50, pre-existing condition) I could be facing a premium that starts out at $50,000 a year. Sound insane? Well, it's possible. But it doesn't matter, when I am employed, I make around $60K to $80K a year. I probably can't afford even the $10,000 base premium. But I make way too much for subsidies or for Medicaid. So I won't buy into this plan and I'll pay the fine (which is what $700 a year to start, something like that). But I still don't have any health insurance. And I want and need it. Where will I buy it?

So, while it sounds nice on paper, in reality, this plan IS excluding people, strictly based on their ability to pay.

The subsidies, btw, do not cover the ENTIRE cost of the premiums. So those poor people are going to get stuck with a regressive tax (mandates are taxes, period). And they need to have health insurance.

So is this what you really want? Or just what you are being sold.

[Phx_Dem]

20. It's not what I want, it's what we can get. And it IS better than nothing.

As far as low-income people, they'd be alot better off than they are now so please don't pretend like you give a shit about them.

[lapfog_1]

29. Wasn't aware the CBO has scored the new Senate bill.

Breaking news. Publish it everywhere.

You're pulling numbers out of your ass.

low income people will NOT buy this piece of shit. They will be fined (OK, the fines aren't very large) and they STILL WON'T have any health insurance.

Why? Because even with subsidies, they STILL CAN'T AFFORD IT.

Person I know works 30-40 hours a week, lives with my sister and pays about $300 a month for rent and electricity. Has a cheap plan cell phone. Pays for gas to drive to work. Makes $8.15 an hour at a truck stop food court.

She still has to go every week to the two or three food banks here in our little town. Takes whatever they are handing out. Going out to eat? Hah. Never. She is ex-Navy so she can get VA care for now. Otherwise she would be totally bankrupt. Trying to save money for a car (she drives an extra one that my sister owns). Trying to save money to go to school and get on the GI Bill (but even with the new GI bill, there are things they don't pay for).

She can't afford even $50 a month for insurance or co-pays or whatever.

Don't tell me that I don't care about poor people. We can pass Medicare for all in reconciliation. It's not a new program. It's a budget thing. Easily done via reconciliation.

We just don't need to bother with this complex pile of dog doo doo. People don't like it because they don't understand it. It's been a long hard sell all summer and fall. People understand Medicare. People LIKE Medicare.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. If all three truly believed that the bill in it's current form was bad for our nation...

...they would share a common conviction for different reasons. Personally I have greater faith that Howard Dean truly holds that conviction than the others you mentioned. But that all misses two central point. This hasn't been the bill that Howard Dean actually wanted for a long time now, so your comment about him holding out for exactly what he wanted is foolish on its face. Nonetheless Dean stayed on board with this legislation as long as he felt that the net effect of it's provisions for America were positive. As currently written he no longer feels that way.

But the really big difference between people who act consistent with their convictions is even more basic. Some people's convictions are spot on and others are not. I put Howard in the first camp and Nelson and Conrad in the latter.

[Phx_Dem]

8. Ah ha, So, if "you" agree with someone, their convictions are valid

But if you don't agree with them, they're wrong and they have no convictions. That's narrow-minded bullshit. It's helpful to try seeing someone else's point now and then. Not everyone is basing their

I didn't mention Lieberman because he's different. He's not basing his position on any convictions, he's changed his mind so many times, it's pretty clear he's just trying to stick it to the Democrats.

[Tom Rinaldo]

18. You misquoted me

I said in my opinion that Dean's convictions were spot on and the other's weren't; validity doesn't apply to subjective criteria. What I actually said was 180 degrees different than your rephrasing because I agreed that someone can hold sincere convictions even if I think they are wrong.

But let me ask you a question; If you agreed with Obama and disagreed with McCain, was that narrow minded bullshit on your part?

[Armstead]

5. We STARTED OUT ACCEPTING A HUGE COMPROMISE

Single payer or Universally available Medicare was taken off the table from the start.

So we accepted a huge compromnise with a "public option." But that kept getting weaker and weaker and now is gone.

Compromise is supposed to work both ways. But with this, we were expected to giver up and the other side allowed to takle it all.

[Phx_Dem]

13. Single-payer was not a compromise because there were never

votes to get it through. Not even close. It was always a non-starter.

You can't compromise something that wsasn't on the table from the start. Compromising means you are willing to take something off the table in order to get something (or someone) else in the mix. If it was never on the table, how exactly did you compromise it away? Lame.

[TheKentuckian]

7. What have such people been required to give up to move the process?

What actual regulation are we left with?
They keep the anti-trust exemption, they keep the caps, their are no price controls, no open exchanges, there is very little to control out of pocket expense so we'll see tons of cost shifting, they do have to cover everyone but can charge three times what they would ream you for if you didn't have a "pre-condition", and they get another 30-40 million customers without a hit because Uncle Sam will be writing about 1.6 trillion worth of checks to them every 10 years for being good corporate citizens.

We aren't getting any comprehensive bills out of this bunch on any thing. Its not about compromise from this end, there is plenty of that. No serious effort has been made to remake any wheels. Only fairly moderate proposals have been made and even from there very serious compromise has been granted and we're ending up with little more than a large bill along with a pistol to the head. Anything we do will be weakened to the point of being castles made of sand at best.

Can you not at least grant that extremely significant compromises have been made from moderate proposals but a supposed few on the right wing of the party have given apparently nothing because each one of them espoused a desire to have serious health care reform, usually much different than they now demand?

What have Nelson, Lieberman, and company relinquished at great pains to make this work? The reality is they don't want a damn thing but to make big insurance wealthy and too big to fail and that's a tent that is a bit over expanded. Maybe I'm not seeing something but the argument in this OP seem pretty blindly one sided. You can't wring your hands at the people who have been asked to give in at every step and who will be required pay for it.

Go ask the people who profit to give.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

11. Well they had to give up...........

.................. wait I know there's something here........ ahhhhhh.......

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

14. ..........

........ Still nothing...... I know I'll think of it if not I'm sure somebody will..........

[NJmaverick]

10. That's why both Bill Clinton and Paul Krugman have come out against Dean

[ima_sinnic]

12. Dean has the interests of We The People in mind

Nelson is obstructing on the basis of "religious beliefs," so he says, but he and republicans as well as corpo-democrats are protecting the interests of their true base and biggest campaign contributors, the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Please explain how Dean benefits by being obstructive just for the sake of being obstructive?
If you can't see the difference between an uncorrupted person acting in the interests of We The People--sticking his neck out to do so and inviting getting it chopped off--which to me is truly noble--I mean, he could just go along to get along and be ass-kissed by the republican democrats--and slimeball obstructionist republicans and corporate democrats acting in the interests of insurance and pharmaceutical companies, then there's no help for you.

on edit: by the way, if Dean says, "kill the bill," I trust and respect that. He has never given me reason to think he has any ulterior motives. On the contrary, he has proven himself to be magnanimous and sincere, and that's why the DLCbots hate him--he's not corrupt like them.

[cali]

15. Dean backed iteration after iteration of legislation as it grew progressively

worse, until he just couldn't do it anymore. Joe and Nelson have tried to kill real reform any way they could.

That's a big honking difference

[Umbral]

16. Lets see: Dean is trying to get a bill to help people...

...those you mention are working to please the insurance companies. That was easy, I didn't really have to look far at all for that answer.

[depakid]

19. Methinks there's a surfeit of cognitive dissonance around these days

[Phx_Dem]

21. Dean CAN'T GET A BILL. Dean is not an elected representative.

He can kill a bill by getting progressives to do his bidding, but he can't "get" anything.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. How is Obama different from the Allstate pitchman?

And now, tell me how you intend to compromise on repealing DOMA or DADT? Would that mean that we switch to Sometimes Ask, Have to Tell, call it 'compromise'? I mean, what is your notion of half way to equality?
Easy to shout about compromise when you are not making any.

[brentspeak]

22. "Democrats are supposed to be the party of tolerance" (sic)

I'm trying to find anything approximating that in the Democratic platform.

In any case, no amount of "tolerance" extends to tolerating the screwing-over of the entire American working class with forced mandates as well as having their tax dollars taken from them and handed over to same corrupt insurance companies which will be raising their rates on an annual basis.

[Phx_Dem]

23. Most of you talk about this bill like it's the final version.

It's the senate version, which still has to be combined with the house bill in conference. But you're all so ready to kill it before we even see what comes out of conference. Most of you deserve exactly what you'll probably get, nothing.

[depakid]

25. Some people know profoundly bad policy- and a pattern when they see it

and they're also ready to support responsibly policy aimed at solving (or taking positive steps designed to solve) problems.

I'm quite sure that there will be a big sigh of relief if the final version is something other than an insurance industry giveaway (though it will likely not make people forget what's gone on at the Whitehouse during the process).

As to deserving what one gets, that cuts both ways.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

27. Learn the procedure and you'll get it

The conference report is subject to filibuster.

Whatever comes out of conference faces the same 60 vote hurdle as the bill under consideration.

The conference report will be almost the same as whatever the senate passes or it will fail.

[TheKentuckian]

28. They don't have to conference. Nancy may be told to "get them in line"

It seems clear now that we won't be permitted to move much from the original "Max Tax" pile of puke that came out months ago, except to make it crappier.

[Sebastian Doyle]

24. How are Nelson & Conrad any different than the dogshit I just scraped off my shoe?

well, if dogshit could talk, it would probably admit it was dogshit. And wouldn't form the Blue Dogshit Coalition or the Dogshit Leadership Council, pretending to be something it wasn't.

[quiller4]

26. In my view, Dean is worse. I'm both angered and saddened by Dean's stance.

[styersc]

30. Dean is interested in a decent bill. GOP wants no bill, regardless.

Obama is so absorbed with being LBJ and FDR rolled into one that you could smear feces on a piece of paper, call it a Health Care Reform Bill and he would have a Rose Garden ceremony to happily sign it!!!!!