McCaskill Ready For Health Care Battle: "This Will Be A Fight And It Will Be An Ugly Fight"

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) laid out the battle over health care reform in simple terms on Tuesday.

"There's serious money made in health care in this country and all of that money is pushing back. This will be a fight and it will be an ugly fight. If anybody had some notion that this would go smoothly, or it was going to happen easily, I don't think they've been paying attention," she said before entering a closed-door weekly Democratic luncheon.

The push back from the financial interests opposed to health care reform is being felt strongly in Congress. But McCaskill warned that "whoever wants to be part of bringing all this down ... will have to own" the consequences of their resistance.

"Everybody's free to run whatever ads they want to run. I think there'll be real consequences if we don't provide stability to the American people as it relates to health care," she said.

A group opposed to health care reform -- she was unsure who funded them -- is currently running ads against her in Missouri, she said.

Fears that a week of bad news would derail reform, she said, were misplaced. It was never going to be simple, and the loss of momentum is the natural result of the opposition from the interests afraid to lose their piece of the health care pie.

"You know what, I think the momentum is only slowing down because it's hard. If this were easy, it would have been done last year or the year before that or the year before that," she said. "If this were easy, it would have happened a long time ago."

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Comments

[kdp59]

True public option for ANYONE...o­r........

we cut out all the politco's government healthcare AND

we repeal Medicare!

Since most seniors don't want "government involved in healthcare­"....and they are the biggest and most costly users of it......le­ts give them what they want!!


I 'll give it 60 days before the first "marches on Washington" for a universal one-payer system....­..led by all those seniors who hate the "guvunment".


Biggest mistake made for true universal helathcare coverage was creating Medicare a generation ago.

[Artemis34]

Each Senator has and uses a PUBLIC OPTION!

And there are no bureaucrats between them and their doctors!

So why don't they lead by example by giving up their PUBLIC OPTION first
and buying private care as the rest of us have to try to do.

The opposition has zero credibility on this!

[Artemis34]

If insurance companies think the public option should not exist,

then that is the best endorse FOR the public option I can think of!

[jian1312]

I'm writing today to make 2 suggestions about HuffPost:

1. It'd be nice to have a feature to vote up or down a post or comment, so that readers can sort posts/comments by rating. This will be particularly helpful if we don't want to sift through lots of senseless dribble that unfortunately is plenty online.

2. I've been hoping to see a Big Page on HEALTH CARE REFORM on HuffPost for a while.
This page would list all the other industrialized countries' health care system, how they did it, if it's private or public or hybrid, strengths and weaknesses of each, challenges each faces, etc. Make a giant table, so readers can easily compare. It's like buying a car. We do comparison shopping and read reviews. If enough Americans get this kind of real information, then the debate could move from do we want to reform our health care system, to which model do we pick from all these living examples? How do we make ours better, more efficient, and provide better quality care? How did other countries pay for theirs and can we do something similar? PBS has already aired such an excellent program, HuffPost can certainly do it, and with its online prominence, it'll be immensely valuable contribution to a intelligent debate on health care.

[bobo6]

I second the motion by jain 1312.

[JoeBlows]

Why does it have to be a fight, and why does it have to be a nasty fight? Other civilized countries have universal health care, and it works for them.
Maybe they have figured out that no one should profit from a citizen's illness.
Bite the bullet and give us universal single-payer health care.

[Diplomacy]

Yes, other countries have "universal" health care. Infact, the USA is the ONLY industrialized, wealthy nation that does not have it. The model in the USA is "health insurance for PROFIT".

If you are under the impression that other nations got their health care easy, you are mistaken. There was a Doctor Strike in Saskatchewan, Canada in the fight for health care, but the "PEOPLE" banded together to fight the "special interests" whether they were "doctors" or not. Saskatchewan was the first province to get "universal" health care & the whole country followed suit a few years later based on the SUCCESS of health care in Saskatchewan. Google: Tommy Douglas + medicare & it's all there.

What the FIGHT comes down to is PRIORITIES. Not enough money? But, there's plenty of money for military spending & bombs. It's up to you to tell your Senators & Representatives the PRIORITY NOW IS HEALTH CARE FOR THE PEOPLE.

No money? BUSH spent the WAD & DOUBLED the DEBT! Gave away borrowed money from China to pay for the BUSH TAX CUTS, spend over a TRILLION in IRAQ, and neglected the THIEVES on Wall Street so they ran away with another WAD.

And, then the "Grand OLD/OBSTRUCTIONIST Party" has the nerve to say: "There's NO money"!!!!

Find it, cut the waste, cut the BUSH Tax Cuts,

STOP the dithering & get on with it!!!! HEALTH CARE FOR THE PEOPLE!

[KeynesWasRight]

A-MEN! If everyone posting on this thread (or even better, everyone posting on HP) took 30 minutes to phone Senators Baucus, Conrad, Feinstein, Landrieu, Lincoln, Bayh and Carper, there's no way they could ignore it. Phone them, tell them you will be watching them and that you plan to let their constituents know how they voted. Despite all the money and special interests, they are still elected officials responsible to voters and they are very replaceable! We just need to remind them that this is our government.

[Artemis34]

For those talking about the next election, I think we should remind ourselves and our elected representatives of the words of the declaration of independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"

Not enacting public option health care which is the will of the 8 out of 10 Americans is evidence that our government has become destructive to these ends and it is time for US to

ALTER OR ABOLISH IT

and institute a new government which is our right.

All people are "created equal", but some can get life saving care because they have money and some cannot?

If Life is an unalienable right, than how can we let 18,000+ people die in the US each year due to lack of care?

And how can we pursue happiness in ill health?

I"m glad Senator McCaskill is coming around, now we just need to get the rest of them.

[TrueSense]

What someone should ask the GAO is what is the cost of not providing more universal access to quality and affordable care ? What is the cost of our current methods ?


Send your horror stories, with a photograph, to these hold outs and even the President.

Send them your bills and ask that they cover you but get the cost under control too. Tell them you need some medical attention and do not have the money or cannot take your medicine.

Ask them to give up their medical care and that of their family and children if they are not willing to provide it to the country !

[FdeBear]

Well win ugly!

[TrueSense]

It's about jobs, small busines, and entrepreneurship.

Jobs, jobs ! It' also about humanity ! It's about morality and competiveness ?

Are we a "Judeao/Christian" nation in practice for our fellow man ?

Why do countries less wealthy than our and all industrialized countries have care ?

Why is China building up their infrastructure( with a buy Chinese only policy) and part of that is bringing in a robust national health care system for it's people ?



What's wrong with US !?

[byla]

Senator Bernie Sanders Petition for single payer.

[byla]

oops, technical difficulties.

link

http://sanders.senate.gov/petitions/index.cfm?uid=7fd59f2e-88e1-477a-8eaf-762a5b050809&ref=patrick.net

[USCitizenShareHolder]

Our national representative (both Republican and Democrats) are not listening to the people.

Our national representative need to realize that the people mean business and they want real change.

In what states can you have recall elections if you feel your national representative is not representing the people? If just may be time to investigate this option.

Now thats a change I can believe in.

[unite4change]

Here's the email addresses for the Finance Committee - 111th Congress - 2009:

Democrats:

http://baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue - Montana

http://rockefeller.senate.gov/ - West Virginia

http://conrad.senate.gov/ - North Dakota

http://bingaman.senate.gov/ - New Mexico

http://kerry.senate.gov/ - Massachusetts

http://lincoln.senate.gov/ - Arkansas

http://wyden.senate.gov/ - Oregon

http://schumer.senate.gov/ - New York

http://stabenow.senate.gov/ - Michigan

http://cantwell.senate.gov/ - Washington

http://billnelson.senate.gov/ - Florida

http://menendez.senate.gov/ - New Jersey

http://carper.senate.gov/ - Delaware


Republicans:

http://grassley.senate.gov/ - Iowa

http://hatch.senate.gov/public/ - Utah

http://snowe.senate.gov/public/ - Maine

http://kyl.senate.gov/ - Arizona

http://bunning.senate.gov/public/ - Kentucky

http://crapo.senate.gov/ - Idaho

http://roberts.senate.gov/public/ - Kansas

http://ensign.senate.gov/public/ - Nevada

http://enzi.senate.gov/public/ - Wyoming

http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/ - Texas

[rad21]

Americans should undertake weekly peaceful protests marches till we get the right healthcare reform.

Let's skip watching our favorite weekend sports and put some efforts into what we want to get done.

[kstuff]

Thank you Claire. Keep rocking the boat.

[jadeba]

She's a blue dog - good, maybe the pressure is got to her. The more we push them, the more vocal they will have to be in support of real health care reform. Or else.

[Artemis34]

She's getting pretty good marks this year on supporting the middle class:

http://themiddleclass.org/state/MO

She's got 89%

compared to Kit Bond's (R-MO) 33%

[Ohsherri]

Get ready for the "scary-talking fear-mongering" ...
and the most remote...u­ncommon stories from other countries with UniversalHealth.
Keep this in mind-
What countries are demanding they reverse the Universal healthcare?
There is no FREE or perfect systems.
But they are all way way ahead of you ...and what do they all have in common?

[tralfas]

What will happen if nothing happens?

[Artemis34]

Let's revisit the words of the Declaration of Independence:

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm