onalimb's Comments (464)

“Yes let's get rid of the thing that wlll save 45,000 lives a year! Let's get rid of that one part that actually makes this universal health care! Great idea!”

“If they won't give us a public option or Medicare buy-in then they HAVE to drop the mandate. I'm with Olbermann. They can fine me or send me off to jail.”

“the mandate is the quid pro quo to the insurance cos to play along.
the mandate IS the bill.”

“It probably isn't very helpful to read the actual bill. There are references in there to changes in section A3 of statute 15, ammending paragraph 2 in the aforementioned subsection...

The CBO report from November, on the other hand, is very helpful. It's at cbo.gov.”

“There are options in the bill”

“There IS no bill. It's being created as we write. This is all in flux as the Finance and HELP bills get debated, re-written, merged, purged, amended. Then there will be a bill.”

“That's the thing. No one has seen it yet. The last Bill, which included the Medicare extension, was being scored by the CBO”

“stop it. that makes too much sense. it's too simple. you know they don't work that way.”

“Real health insurance reform, not this sham of a bill, would remove the burden of paying for employee health insuarnce from small and large companies, which would help them be more competitive and hire more workers. It would also allow more would-be business owners ro start up, which would create more jobs.”

“It's not available.”

“That is peanuts.”

“It's the lobbyists and PACs that make the difference.
Lobbyists $369,507
Leadership PACs $363,450

From 2005 - 2010
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?type=C&cid=n00005395&newMem=N&cycle=2010#cont”

“Yeah, I remember that...I also remember EVERYONE, save ONE Democrat in the house, voted in favor of going to war...only the pony-tailed effete middle-aged myopic kooks on the corners were in opposition.”

“Uh - excuse me - but Lieberman has a vote and Dean doesn't - in fact no one in the liberal base has a vote unless they are a Senator or Representative. The immediate goal is to get the bill passed by the Senate. Does that explain things a little?”

“Cobra is expensive. The new Bill would fix the need for Cobra entirely. You would keep your insurance when you lose your job (with no limitation on how long) and you can go to the exchange and purchase less expensive insurance and enjoy a subsidy if you need it. The Bill helps those who cannot afford insurance for whatever reason.”

“And Rahm.”

“No we will kill the bill.

And may you sleep with the guilt of all those that died from a lack of access to health insurance.”

“You obviously don't understand the Senate.

THey aren't catering to Lieberman/Snowe because they WANT TO, they are doing so because they HAVE TO.

It takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. So they need either Lieberman or Snowe to vote for cloture ( end debate) or it doesn't come to a floor vote. The only way to get either of them to allow the bill to get to a straight up or down vote--is to basically sacrifice the public option.

You may say Reconciliation is the method to be used -- but its very limited in what can be done through reconciliation. Only items relating to the buget can be passed -- meaning NO regulation on insurance companies can be done through reconciliation so we could have a public option but insurance companies would still be allowed to deny based upon preexisting conditions or cut off coverage if you get sick. More importantly, a NEW program can't be created through reconciliation so they'd be restricted to trying to open up medicare to more people which pretty much guarentees it'd be limited to the 55-64 age demographic.

The best bet is to pass the regulatory reform now, then spend 6 months to come up wiht a truly progressive public option and focus on getting a few more Dems elected to the Senate in 2010. Introduce the new public plan in 2011 which wiht a 63-64 majority won't be killed by Lieberman, Nelson or Lincoln..”

“Nor will it help the 30 to 55 year olds without insurance. >:|”

“Still not kosher, sadly. Kashrus is about supervision of ingredients and the distillery equipment - no moshgiach, not kosher.”