Tag: health care

Bill Bradley wants to trade tort reform for the public option.

Good luck with that.

The best that I can say about the former Senator’s plan is that he means well:

Whenever Congress undertakes large-scale reform, there are times when disaster appears certain — only to be averted at the last minute by the good sense of its sometimes unfairly maligned members. What now appears in Washington as a special-interest scrum could well become a triumph for the general interest. But for that to happen, the two parties must strike a grand bargain on universal coverage and malpractice tort reform.

It’s also unfortunately the worst that I can say, too. Democrats in Congress had their opportunity to seek a bargain, and they deliberately spurned it. Since then, they have libeled, slandered, lied, and schemed against not only Republican legislators (which is part of the game), but the American people (which is not). And now they are poised to try to pervert the rules of the Senate itself in order to pass corrupt legislation that ignores the concerns of… pretty much everybody in the country who isn’t a major contributor for the Democratic party, really.

So no deal.  If this distresses former Senator Bradley, then he should have spoken up before this: say, at the beginning, when Madame Speaker and Reid decided to freeze out the GOP.  But it’s so easy to go along to get along when things are coming along well for your party…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Henry Waxman doesn’t *care* what President Obama said.

He doesn’t think that he has to care.

And he wants to make sure that the pharmaceutical companies understand that, too. The House Energy Chair intends to retroactively remove what Waxman calls a ‘windfall’ involving Medicare D drug charges, and never mind what either the President or PhRMA thinks:

Drug makers contend they have already worked out a 10-year, $80 billion cost-savings deal with the White House and crucial Senate gatekeepers on the trillion-dollar health care overhaul. The industry says that trying to add Mr. Waxman’s provision could scuttle that agreement.

Putting aside the actual merits of the argument for a moment – I (and Hot Air) may have excellent reasons to assume that a Democrat posturing about ‘windfall profits’ is simply posturing, but it’s still an assumption – it’s instructive to see how little a powerful House Democrat fears the wrath of the White House on this issue.  Then again, this is what happens when you’re a President who hands off responsibility for a bill in the first place; the people who do the work naturally end up deciding that their opinions on its final form are more relevant than yours, and unless you have the ability to do something about it they’re going to show little reluctance in showing public defiance.  Given that the President just hit 50% on Gallup, and lacks any real experience in leading people who don’t want to be led, I’m not surprised that Waxman is doing this.

And this is why people say “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”  Cliche, yes, but cliches exist for a reason.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Sen. Tester (D, MT) ‘meh’ on public option.

Devastating, in its own way.

It apparently doesn’t excite his interest either way:

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester said that a so-called “public option” in the health care bill is optional for him – and said he is not yet committed to backing the plan being put together by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus.

Tester said Wednesday he could envision voting for a health care reform bill with or without the option that would let the uninsured buy into a Medicare type government program.

“I don’t need it either way,” Tester told The Associated Press between meetings with constituents. “I could either support it or not support it. It’s all in the design.”

Via @seanhackbarth. This is actually worse news for health care rationing proponents than if Tester was adamantly opposed to public/government option; it demonstrates that not only is he indifferent to what many progressive Democrats consider to be a make-or-break part of the bill… but Tester thinks that he can get away with saying so in public. Which he probably can, at that.

Honestly, the sooner that the other side simply admits that government option is off the table, the better; it’s keeping us from discussing the minimum level of tort reform and cross-state insurance availability needed in the final bill before Republicans will seriously consider voting for it…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The Washington Post discovers fiscal responsibility.

The Washington Post, alas, gets this editorial wrong in the very first sentence:

NO ONE LIKES to be the bearer of bad news — especially when it could threaten your multibillion-dollar health-care reform bill.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: considering the amount of time that the Right’s bloggers, pundits, and legislators have spent explaining why the Democrats in Congress needed to institute a Stop spending money we don’t have, you idiots policy, well.  We do live here, too, so our liking is hardly unalloyed – but we did say that this wasn’t going to work*.  Moving on:

And so the Obama administration did not exactly rush to publish yesterday’s required mid-session update to its federal budget estimates of last February. Still, once the numbers finally emerged in the dog days of August, they retained the power to stun: Instead of a cumulative $7.1 trillion deficit over the next decade, the White House now projects a $9 trillion deficit. These figures imply average annual budget deficits greater than 4 percent of gross domestic product through fiscal 2019, a rate of debt accumulation faster than projected GDP growth. This is not a sustainable fiscal path.

Continue reading The Washington Post discovers fiscal responsibility.

Irony: Democrat begs for civility while attacking Republicans.

Double irony: the author called the piece “Their Own Worst Enemy.”  In a world where 58% of the population wants the Democrats to abandon their policy of freezing out the GOP on health care, Dan Gerstein writes an article with sidelong sneers like these:

…against the exaggerations and fabrications (which, no doubt, have been manifold and damaging)…

…But much as the Republicans have gamed the issue…

…listen to what the non-screaming skeptics are saying…

…is as much a canard as Palin’s phony claims about death panels…

…call it Bush’s revenge…

…so much of what has come out of Congress is every bit as partisan and one-sided as the last eight years…

…the main change has been to go from one extreme to the other…

…yes, they [Republicans] are being opportunists and obstructionists…

Triple irony: Gerstein will undoubtedly not understand why his ever-so-civil outreach will be unfavorably received by the opportunistic, obstructionist, extremist, Palin-loving, canard-screaming game-playing partisans that he’s trying to oppose.

Own worst enemy, indeed.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, I’m often rude about my ideological opponents.  I’m also not trying to get anything from them, either.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rasmussen: 24% of voters want Democrats to go it alone.

You can say a lot of things about this Rasmussen poll on health care rationing (and, if you’re a Democratic politician, most of them will probably be scatalogical):

If Democrats agree on a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress, 24% of voters nationwide say the Democrats should pass that bill.

But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% believe the Democrats should change the bill to win support from “a reasonable number of Republicans.” Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure what congressional Democrats should do.

…but here’s one thought that might escape notice: remember how, last year, there was a lot of confusion about which party was actually running Congress? Well, I think that we can safely assume that this is no longer an issue for the Republican party.  Which is funny, because trying to figure out how to make that fact of life clearer was a big problem for us last year…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Pro-Obamacare fanatic attacks CO Democratic party HQ!

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.

That is me being charitable.  Because the alternative is that Maurice Schwenkler is an idiot whose idiocy is only matched by the Democratic idiots who sent him out to bust his own side’s window:

A 24-year-old arrested this morning on suspicion of smashing 11 windows at Colorado Democratic Party headquarters tried to conceal his identity while allegedly committing the crime, according to police descriptions.

[snip]

While [Maurice] Schwenkler does not appear in the state’s voter registration database, a person by that name in November 2008 received $500 from a political 527 committee called Colorado Citizens Coalition for “communications,” according to campaign finance disclosures.

[snip]

A Maurice Schwenkler also signed an online 2005 petition to free anti-war Christian protesters who were captured in Iraq.

More details here, here, and most assuredly here (the phrase “connected to ultra-liberal groups once investigated by the FBI for potential domestic terrorism incidents” features prominently) [and now here and here]: this Rootswire screenshot of the Colorado Citizens Coalition will also prove amusing.  Which leads to the next question: what does State Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak know about this?  She familiar with Schwenkler at all?  Or the guy that’s still at large?

At any rate, I think that it’s time that extremist fringe supporters of health care rationing stop using violence to accomplish their goals.  It’s not going to derail the democratic process, and it’s bad for the country in general.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Health care is important, of course. Now watch this drive.’

Well, this should be an interesting week for the health care dispute, seeing as how it’s the beginning of the two-week homestretch before Congress reconvenes.  The anti-rationing side is smoothly going along; and now the pro-rationing side is doing its best to turn a collection of union bullyboys, professional agitators, paid rent-a-crowds, and a thin shell of hardcore Democratic enthusiasts into something that looks like an actual grassroots movement, at least when you squint.  It’s going to be a hard week’s worth of work…

…well, it’s going to be a hard week’s worth of work for everybody except the President.  He smoothly went from haranguing the steadily-diminishing faithful about how they should keep pushing health care rationing to vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard. He might make a few calls to Senators. Might.  It all depends on how the golfing is going.

Obamacare.  Because he has you to fix things for him.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Lieberman looking for baby steps on health care.

Vicious revenge optional.  Fun, but optional.

There’s not much that I can add to this…

Lieberman says many health care changes can wait

WASHINGTON – An independent senator counted on by Democrats in the health care debate showed signs of wavering Sunday when he urged President Barack Obama to postpone many of his initiatives because of the economic downturn.

“I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy’s out of recession,” said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. “There’s no reason we have to do it all now, but we do have to get started. And I think the place to start is cost health delivery reform and insurance market reforms.”

…except to note three things:

  1. Sen. Lieberman’s not, strictly speaking, against health care rationing per se; he’s just worried about what will happen to the Democrats and this administration if the House leadership keeps screaming-and-leaping on the issue.  Which is a very reasonable worry, but it’s not a particularly conservative-friendly one.
  2. That being said: if ‘health delivery reform and insurance market reforms’* can be extended to include Rep. Shadegg’s (R) ‘allowing customers to buy personal insurance across state lines‘ and Rep. Ryan’s ‘meaningful tort reform” (neither are negotiable, of course)… sure, those two features are excellent things with which to assemble a workable health care bill around.  A pity that House Democrats didn’t think things through from the start, but that’s life.
  3. I imagine that not a few members of the netroots ground their teeth at the sight of, once again, Senator Lieberman… actually, that sentence works just fine as is.

Moe Lane Continue reading Lieberman looking for baby steps on health care.