Blue Dog Democrats Dominate House Health Care Debate

The New York Review Of Books:

So what did the House Blue Dogs do on the health care vote last Saturday? They were more supportive than one might think: Of the fifty-two-member coalition, twenty-eight voted yea and twenty-four nay. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, the Blue Dog whom I identified in my piece in The New York Review as being among the most knowledgeable legislators in the House on the issue, told The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "This was one of the best votes I ever cast."

Read the whole story: The New York Review Of Books

Comments

[Okieborn]

The only way the ill , poor and middle class will get a decent Healthcare bill is for the President to step up and declare exactly what he will accept and what he will decline !!
OK Mr. President we the American citizenry are waiting for the Change and Hope you promised !!

[CommunistUtopia]

Blue Dogs be careful. The public is against government medicine. If you want to support Pelosi, you will need to get a new job in 2012.

[dfranz]

Voters voted for change, but they didn't replace the tired old incumbents who keep getting reelected on name recognition. Real Change will require more cleaning out of the Dino's.

As much as I want to say the public's opinions have changed since 2000, I still have to remind myself theat Bush was reelected in 2004.

[parlimentMike]

That's true. If we don't turn these poseurs out of office, and I mean 433 of them, we deserve what we get. This Congress could not make it any clearer whose interest are being represented, and it's not the citizens.

We don't deed the Weiners or Graysons who talk loudly and carry a limp stick either. I'm with Yoda, there is no try only do or do not. It's time we start focusing on what they fail accomplish rather than supportive talk about what never happens. Get a clue Charlie Brown, the football will continue to be yanked away until we replace the holder - do you think this is what Schultz meant?.

When it comes to supporting the People's interests against an onslaught of Corporate attacks against the middle class, all we get out of Congress is Tough Talk and Capitulation, or Stupid Talk, and Resistance to Change.

[Littlewords]

Remain vigilant, this one must be fought until the final vote is cast.

[1010TRAVIS]

if congress is exempt, so am I, how dare they, it's going to be a WONDERFUL system, perhaps a Christmas present.......fools

[1010TRAVIS]

I don't want to go to jail for not participating in a single payer system

[dfranz]

As Rep Greyson said. Don't get sick. If you do, die quickly.

[ElsaIndy]

The House Democrats' healthcare bill is bad not only because it destroys a woman's right to choose by denying access to funding for legal abortions but because it does nothing to contain costs. Soaring heathcare costs are consuming nearly 20% of our GNP hindering job creation and destroying economic recovery. Obama needs to understand that the thorny issue of cost containment of our healthcare costs needs to be addressed or there is no "reform".

Obama needs to put healthcare in the budget along with the education, defense and so on. He needs to freeze medicare at its current level. That would be start.

It would be helpful to hold hearings on how other countries handle their healthcare costs. In Europe no one ever goes bankrupt because of healthcare. Instead of obstructing process in healthcare reform the Republicans should sign onto reducing healthcare costs while providing heathcare coverage to Americans. It is easy to smear but harder to roll up ones' sleeves and get to work on real healthcare reform.

[Helzapoppin]

The reason health care reform is going down the toilet is because everyone in Washington - from Obama to the House to the Senate - is more concerned with politics than with effective policy. All they care about is passing anything they can call "reform" no matter how shoddy and useless, so they can squawk about how great they are in their re-election campaigns.

[MadeandBakedintheUSA]

then how do you suggest this be done in our republic?

please-

enlighten us

[parlimentMike]

We could fire every incumbent in '10 who is opposed by a candidate promising to vote for banning corporate participation in the electoral process under penalty of dissolving the corporation, and to do it, as a constitutional amendment. We could repeat the process in '12 unless we have the amendment.

I can't imagine outcomes any worse with a new group than with these proven corporate sellouts.

[Whinger]

A guy recently said to me, it's as though the Democrats wanted it to fail after pretending to have fought tooth and nail to implement it, cynical way of thinking!

[wonketteRAWKS]

What gets me is that Pelosi had to "politic" her way to get these votes for this bad plan. She had to promise funding on "earmarks" in order to get a yea vote. This means the deficit will rise when those deals are called in.

If it doesn't cost us in one area, it'll cost us in another.

[tempting]

Everyone please call the faith based groups who are defending people like this and scaring off votes for health care in God's name. today I was checking channels and heard the CTN channel constantly harping on how bad the HR bill is and asking folks to call [phone] to sign a petition to stop the bill. Well I called and told them that they should be ashamed of using their faith to lie to the public. These people are with out guile.
The playing field is not level and there are hardly any outlets for those of us who are progressive in MSM. Their site is www.ctnonline.com.

[wonketteRAWKS]

Yes, keep religion out of government. Tell Pelosi no more meetings with Bishops!

[Marcospinelli]

Every modern industrialized nation in the world provides its citizens with what is a human right -- healthcare. It is a CRIME in 35 of the 38 other industrialized nations of the world to profit from primary healthcare.

What has happened to us, that we accept a corrupt political system where corporations that make obscene profits off by denying us health care can use some of those profits to pay off our elected representatives to keep the STATUS QUO?

Obama, after running on a platform of transparency and bringing all sides to the negotiations, shut out liberals from his administration and barred single payer advocates from the table. Obama conceded the People's already compromised positions. Obama unilaterally removed single payer from consideration keeping intact a failed employer-based for-profit private insurance industry healthcare system. Obama cut secret deals with phRma (that the government wouldn't try to negotiate for lower drug prices & phRma could continue price gouging) while saying it was Congress's job to create a plan.

History is filled with well-spoken crooks with a nice smile.

[Marcospinelli]

Bottom line:

Scrap these bills and put single payer universal health care, aka Medicare For All, through reconciliation.

What's going on is an abomination, and the DLC Democrats need to be ousted from controlling the Democratic Party.

[Chernynkaya]

I think they will be in 2012. There's is a losing strategy. No one gets enthused by center-right strategies. The only times those work are during times of peace and prosperity. And they are wrong even then.

[Thundercloud65]

OK OK enough. It's time for the crypt keeper to take off his drag and go back to the crypt! Sheesh!

[ljc]

Buckle up, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

Conrad Working to Cut Social Security/Medicare and Could End up Torpedoing HCR
by mcjoan
Thu Nov 12, 2009 at 10:30:03 AM PST
Kent Conrad is leading an effort to force Nancy Pelosi to cede the power of Congress over budget and taxes to an independent commission that will be allowed to slash and potentially partially privatize Social Security and Medicare. He's joined by an unsurprising bipartisan "gang" of Evan Bayh, Diane Feinstein, Joe Lieberman, and Mark Warner.

Senators from both parties on Tuesday put new pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to turn the power to trim entitlement benefits over to an independent commission.

Seven members of the Senate Budget Committee threatened during a Tuesday hearing to withhold their support for critical legislation to raise the debt ceiling if the bill calling for the creation of a bipartisan fiscal reform commission were not attached. Six others had previously made such threats, bringing the total to 13 senators drawing a hard line on the committee legislation.

“You rarely do have the leverage to make a fundamental change,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who said he hasn’t ruled out offering the independent commission legislation as an amendment to the healthcare reform bill.
.

[ljc]

Among [the panels] chief responsibilities would be closing the gap between tax revenue coming in and the larger cost of paying for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. The Government Accountability Office recently reported the gap is on pace to reach an “unsustainable” $63 trillion in 2083.

The panel would also have the power to craft legislation that would change the tax code and set limits on government spending.

Isn't crafting legislation on the tax code and government spending what we have a Congress for? Apparently not in the minds of these five intellectual powerhouses, who Chris Bowers says have formed a national suicide pact by vowing to vote against a must-pass bill to raise the debt ceiling if Pelosi doesn't cede to their wishes. As Chris says, Pelosi has no choice but to call their bluff:

Let's see these five Democratic Senators explain to the entire nation why they allowed the country to default on its debt. No matter how safe their seats appear to be, no Senator is going to win reelection after making the entire country default on its debt Their rationale does not matter. Being blamed for making the country default on its debt-especially after all five of these Democrats voted in favor of the Wall Street bailout and are demanding that Social Security and Medicare be cut-will be the effective end of their political careers.

[ljc]

http://www.dailykos.com/ They sent the rest of this to moderation?????

[ljc]

Go for it, guys. Form your national suicide pact. Tell the country that you are demanding deep cuts in Social Security and Medicare, or else you will personally cause the United States debt to double. Let's see how well that message plays on the air.

But if she does, Kent Conrad adds one more poison pill to healthcare reform. Here, you can provide healthcare coverage to millions of people, but only if it doesn't hurt the insurance and hospital and medical device industries, and only if we jeopardize the security of senior citizens by making deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

All so that the Blue Dogs and the ConservaDems can keep their precious seats in Congress by turning over the really hard decision making on how this government functions to someone else. This would take the heat off of them on critical budget votes. Again, we elect members of Congress to make these difficult decisions for the country, not to delegate them to some unaccountable group of people that we can't vote out of office. It's discouraging that there are actually Democrats who would be as cavalier as Republicans have proven to be about governing this country

http://www.dailykos.com/ Good Grief they pended the second part....

[Coastalthinker2]

This is what happens when you repeatedly compromise on issues that are in direct conflict with what is best for the citizens of our country. If the Democrats "cave" such that the final health care reform bill is similar or even more conservative than the current house bill, the Democrats (except the Blue Dogs) will be "lame ducks" for years. Why? Because the Republicans and "Blue Dog" Democrats will know exactly how far they can go to get what they want to accomplish. In regards to the President, he will also lose credibility unless the reality is that he agrees with the practices of Rahm Emanuel and the "Blue Dog" Democrats.

[Marcospinelli]

There is no working on a bipartisan basis with either Republicans or conservative Democrats.

Democratic voters, who really don't understand who and what the DLC is, should have been told just how UN-Democratic Conrad, Bayh, Feinstein, Lieberman and Warner (and Lincoln, Landrieu, Nelson) are.

[MOCONSERVATIVE]

Will free health care be provided to those who are jailed for not purchasing a plan?

[Marcospinelli]

By the privatized prison-for-profit industry?

I don't think so, Looosie. You'll be lucky to get one baloney-on­-Wonder-wh­ite-bread sandwich a day.