You always save the biggest gift for last, right?
"After 2d test, Democrats sure on health bill; Final Senate vote scheduled for 8 a.m. tomorrow" by Erica Werner, Associated Press | December 23, 2009
Actually, I've tired of the s*** politically fooleys of the MSM papers on this issue, readers, as everything is decided behind closed doors for the predetermined outcome.
What you are going to get, America, is a forced health tax so the government avoids default and the rationing of healthcare.
Latest related: Senate Plays Santa For Health Insurance Companies
Senate Sleighs Sitting on Runway
Didn't get snowed in, didja, Senator?
WASHINGTON - From the White House to Capitol Hill yesterday, Democrats confidently predicted Senate passage of President Obama’s health care overhaul after the bill cleared its second 60-vote test and the time was set for a final tally....
At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “Health care reform is not a matter of if. Health care reform is now a matter of when.’’ Obama said the Senate legislation accomplishes 95 percent of what he wanted on health care. “Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill,’’ the president said.
Then you didn't want much, did you, 'bamer?
Senate Democrats remained united at sunrise yesterday behind their compromise bill.... With long hours getting in the way of family obligations - and the outcome now seemingly set - senators are getting frustrated. Even Obama has put his planned vacation to Hawaii on hold, saying he wants to be in Washington in case there are last-minute problems in the Senate.
Oh, THEY are frustrated, huh?
Then WE ARE LIVIDLY ORBITAL!!!
Majority leader Harry Reid appealed to his colleagues yesterday to set aside acrimony and reach for some holiday spirit. “I would hope everybody will keep in mind that this is a time when we reflect on peace and good things,’’ he said....
This the SAME OUTFIT that just sent along $636 billion dollar WAR BUDGET?
That APPROVED of ISRAEL'S WAR CRIMES in GAZA and elsewhere?
He is DISGUSTING, readers!
Also see: The absurdity of man....
Harry is the exhibit A.
Reid has defended the dealmaking, asserting that all senators got something they were looking for in the health bill and if they did not, it speaks poorly of them.
Oh, and he is INSULTING, too!!!!
Also yesterday, Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, announced that the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to his request to investigate whether drug companies are raising prices of brand-name prescription drugs used by Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries ahead of passage of the health care bill. AARP says prescription drug prices are on the rise, but the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said in a statement that Nelson’s request “was spurred, in large part, on misleading statistics and sensationalized media reports.’’
Related: MSM Monitor Going Through Menopause
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At least there is some hope, Americans.
Attorney General Henry McMaster of South Carolina, a candidate for governor, said yesterday that he and his counterparts in Michigan and Washington state are investigating whether the special provisions for Nebraska and other states are constitutional.
Related: ANGER WITH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NOT ENOUGH
It is a start.
“Whatever the legal status may be, and we hope to find out soon, these negotiations on their face appear to be a form of vote-buying paid for by taxpayers,’’ McMaster said, adding he hopes citizens will challenge the legislation in court....
Yup, LEGALIZED BRIBERY!!!
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"GOP fights to the end on health; Democrats set to pass overhaul this morning" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | December 24, 2009
WASHINGTON - Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska’s so-called “Cornhusker Kickback’’ is one of many special deals that Democratic leaders secured to push through the bill. In what has become known as “The Louisiana Purchase,’’ Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, made sure her state would get several hundred million dollars’ worth of Medicaid money she said it lost since Hurricane Katrina.
Why not call it what it is? Bribery!
GOP senators continued to question the logic of Democrats’ argument that, by cutting nearly $500 billion out of Medicare, they could simultaneously bolster Medicare’s fiscal health and cut the national deficit.
Yeah, that seemed contradictory to me, too!
Republicans have argued that the government could do one or the other by cutting Medicare that much - but not both.
Of course, when it comes to tax cuts and wars, the Repugs go blind.
This week they received a boost from the Congressional Budget Office, which agreed that the $500 billion reduction would not achieve such a double benefit for government coffers. The Democratic plan the budget office said, would “would essentially double-count a large share of those savings.’’
DOUBLE-COUNTING DemocraPs?
“We’re talking here about double-counting, spending the same money twice in order to create a massive new entitlement,’’ said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and the ranking GOP member of the Senate Budget Committee....
How can you spend the same money twice?
Democrats also turned back yesterday a Republican bid to block passage of the bill on the grounds that its requirement that all Americans buy insurance would be an unconstitutional expansion of federal powers.
This is where the Republicans are correct.
The bill was also under attack yesterday by liberals. A group of Obama’s former supporters and campaign volunteers released a new Internet ad taking the president to task for not insisting that a government-run plan be included in the bill.
So what? In the end, liberals will bend and spread.
I mean, I DARE YOU, LIBERALS!! I DARE YOU to BLOCK THIS MONSTROSITY!!!
Since you have NO GUTS and NO BACKBONES I know you WILL NOT!!
But President Obama, who put off his trip to Hawaii until after the Senate vote, said the bill accomplished most of what he had hoped for....
This guy is just as much of dissembler as Bush.
And no concern about the taxpayer-funded carbon footprint, 'eh, 'bamer?
Make sure you bundle up for the ride.
A vote on final passage had been scheduled for 7 p.m. today - the last possible moment of debate time allowed - but Republicans moved the vote up twice, first to 8 a.m. and then to 7 a.m., to allow more time for members and staff to get home for Christmas.
So the acrimony, etc, is only up to a point. When the crunch comes, these guys are all clubby.
Yup, POLITICS is CIRCUS, America!
Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, tried to argue on the Senate floor yesterday that the vote should be held last night in light of the winter storm in the West and Midwest....
I assume the storms killed the global warming tax, senator.
"Health win in hand; hurdles ahead" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | December 25, 2009
WASHINGTON - Convening before sunrise for a historic Christmas Eve session, the Senate approved sweeping health care legislation yesterday in a party-line vote, moving Congress toward the brink of enacting a broad expansion of health coverage.
Before President Obama can achieve his top domestic policy goal, however, Democratic leaders must resolve stark differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill on matters such as abortion, taxes, penalties for employers that don’t provide coverage for workers, and whether to establish a government-run insurance plan. But even with those contentious issues looming, Democrats rejoiced yesterday, celebrating passage of a bill after more than a year of grueling work.
The president, who waited until after the vote to leave for a holiday trip to Hawaii, told reporters that Congress was “finally poised to deliver on a promise’’ of a fairer and more affordable health care system.... The Senate proposal, which like the House bill is modeled on the pioneering law Massachusetts adopted in 2006, would extend health insurance to some 31 million people, primarily by expanding the Medicaid program for the poor and by offering premium subsidies to those without affordable employer-sponsored insurance.
Related:
- The Massachusetts Model: Working Or Not?
- The Massachusetts Model: Going Out of Business
- The Massachusetts Model: Crazy Coverage
- The Massachusetts Model: Immigrant Insult
- The Massachusetts Model: Profit and the Paycheck
- The Massachusetts Model: Doctors' Diet
- The Massachusetts Model: By the Numbers
- The Massachusetts Model: Treasurer's Assessment
- The Massachusetts Model: Care-Keeping Costs
- The Massachusetts Model: Mass. Hospitality
- The Massachusetts Model: Lessons Learned
- The Massachusetts Model: Non-Compliant Complacency
- The Massachusetts Model: Office Visit
- The Massachusetts Model: Student Shakedown
- The Massachusetts Model: Medicaid Mess
- The Massachusetts Model: Destroying Small Business
- The Massachusetts Model: Upset Stomach
- The Massachusetts Model: Poor Hospitals Shortchanged By State
It would require Americans to have insurance while prohibiting insurers from denying coverage or charging higher rates because of illness or gender. To help people compare prices and shop for insurance more easily, the bill would establish new government-sponsored marketplaces, or “exchanges,’’ much like the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector, and the government would provide subsidies to people with low and moderate incomes.
Yeah, the pro-bill, agenda-pushing paper is making the thing sound great.
All you are getting is tax, folks. No single-payer, no public option, no Medicare buy-in, just a ORDER to purchase overpriced crap coverage or pay a tax penalty.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the roughly $900 billion cost over 10 years would be more than offset by higher Medicare payroll taxes on the wealthy; levies on expensive insurance policies; and Medicare spending cuts. But Republicans say the bill would create a costly new government program, raise the deficit over the long term, burden businesses, encroach upon individual liberty, hurt care for the elderly, and ruin Medicare providers.
Minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said yesterday that, although they were outnumbered, Republicans were leaving “happy and upbeat,’’ and that Democrats would face wrath at home over the holidays and beyond. “The public’s on our side,’’ he said, “and the fight’s not over.’’
Well, he IS RIGHT about the PUBLIC being on their side.
We do NOT WANT THIS BILL!!!!
Indeed, with polls showing tepid support for the federal health care legislation, industry groups are already lining up to defeat or weaken the bill....
Oh, if INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS are looking to defeat it, it will be defeated!
And even though insurers successfully fought to keep a government-run insurance plan out of the Senate version, they are now attacking other elements they say will drive up premiums, including a requirement that insurance companies spend 80 to 85 percent of their premium dollars on patient care.
They are incredible. You have to GET RID OF THEM, America!!
The potential implications for Massachusetts are not clear, partly because the state’s insurance system is built on a special agreement with the federal government that will be renegotiated in 2011. But aides to Senator John F. Kerry said the state would benefit from $500 million in additional Medicaid money Kerry helped secure for the state in the Senate measure, and from new money for subsidies.
So Kerry f***ed you, America, and then he lied to us!
It was still dark yesterday when senators wearing Christmas ties and overcoats rushed into the Capitol for the 7 a.m. vote. With Vice President Joe Biden presiding in his role as Senate president, they cast votes from their desks, standing as their names were called. Several weeks of detailed negotiations, late-night haggling, and voting at all hours of the night had clearly worn everyone down.
Oh, the poor dears! If they are feeling that way, you can only imagine how the reamed-out American public is doing lying there bleeding.
Majority leader Harry Reid accidentally started to vote “no’’ before quickly correcting himself, with a sheepish shrug, as the chamber burst into laughter.
Oh, HA-HA-HA-HA!!
Harry is a BEFUDDLED OLD MAN, but TRUST HIM!!
Yup, OUR FUTURES are a LAUGH RIOT to these SCUM!!!!!!!!!
Tributes to Edward M. Kennedy, who died of brain cancer in August and who had called health care “the cause of my life,’’ abounded yesterday, most poignantly when the clerk called the name of Senator Robert C. Byrd, a 92-year-old West Virginia Democrat who is in frail health.
“Mr. President!’’ he shouted from his wheelchair, raising a trembling arm to point skyward and startling the chamber into silence. “This is for my friend Ted Kennedy! Aye!’’
In the first row of the gallery, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the Massachusetts senator’s widow, wiped tears from her eyes. Later, in the Senate reception room, she embraced Senator Paul Kirk, who as Kennedy’s temporary replacement voted in his place yesterday....
Kirk later called it the proudest moment of his public life. “He’s having a merry Christmas in heaven,’’ he said of his friend.
Actually, I think he is burning. I mean Chappaquiddick, the womanizing, you know....
And I TOLD YOU they were going to INVOKE TED to pass this s*** -- and it is ONLY GOING to get WORSE the further along we go because we are TALKING HISTORY NOW! You WOULDN'T WANT to STAND in the WAY of TED'S DYING WISH and HISTORY, right?
The Senate has not voted on Christmas Eve since 1895, when it considered a motion to kill a bill to let former Confederate soldiers enter the Army, according to the Senate historian, Donald A. Ritchie. It has not held such a long continuous session - 25 days - since 1917, when senators opposed to US involvement in World War I filibustered a proposal to allow the arming of US merchant ships....
Amazing! WARS take LESS TIME, huh?
Wish you had TAKEN MORE TIME then, Senate!!!
As for this bill, how about letting it join Ted?
Kerry downplayed the difficulty ahead. “We’re so close, and everybody understands what we have to find is a product that works,’’ he said.
Yeah, that works for WHO, John? From what I can see, it is only the insurance industry which is going to be guaranteed government money for an expanded customer base.
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More political BS:
"Tenuous support may unravel as compromise is negotiated" by Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | December 25, 2009
WASHINGTON - Many Americans will learn in the upcoming months and even years that while painful elements of the bill such as Medicare cuts and perhaps higher taxes on wealthy Americans would take effect quickly, the subsidies to help lower-income people buy insurance would not be introduced for three years under the House bill and four years under the Senate version.
Oh, the CUTS are going to take effect RIGHT AWAY while the SUBSIDIES to purchase your mandated coverage will be ON HOLD for THREE YEARS!!!
Yeah, the MORE YOU FIND OUT about this bill the LESS YOU LIKE IT!
Even if you had this crap coverage it would not help that violated rectum, America!
I'm almost afraid to read the next paragraph.
That could prove to be a liability for Democrats, an opening that Republicans, who have been in lockstep opposition to the bills, are sure to exploit.
Oh, it is already a liability for DemocraPs, and when people find out that CARE is going to be RATIONED it will make the problem even worse.
Say goodbye to the Congress in 2010, DemocraPs! Between this, the bank lootings, the war funding, and the stimulooting, YOU BLEW IT!!!!
“They face a significant ‘expectations gap’ because people’s health care costs are going to continue to go up, but it will be some time, 2014 probably, before the key benefits of the legislation kick in,’’ said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan groups that tracks health care issues. “The public could become quite frustrated.’’
Yeah, COSTS are going to GO UP RIGHT AWAY and YOU WILL BE FORCED to buy crap coverage from the insurance industry!!!
That is ALL YOU are GETTING, AmeriKa!!!!
And Senate and House negotiators will have part of their attention focused on the political impact on the 2010 midterm elections as they make their decisions. Two crucial Senate leaders on the health care effort are up for reelection and already trailing in some polls: Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
Oh Reid and Dodd are in DANGER, huh?
Related: Dodd's Done
Dodd's Financial Friends Fly to Campaign's Rescue
I don't think that corrupt cash is going to help.
Just a reminder of whom he really work for.
Of course, that would leave YOU-KNOW-WHO as the SENIOR SENATOR from Connecticut, wouldn't it?
Bye, Chris.
Reid, who was lauded effusively yesterday by fellow Democratic senators for his leadership, isn’t getting the same reception at home, where a Mason-Dixon poll showed that only 38 percent of Nevadans approve of his performance. The poll showed that he trailed two main Republican challengers, a former local basketball star and a former television reporter.
Need I really say anything?
Good riddance, Hank!
Or are you going to rig the machines?
The idea of repeal could become a real concern for Democrats.
Nah, I don't think so, deceptive MSM.
Related: Reid Bill Says Future Congresses Cannot Repeal Parts of Reid Bill
Did you just not know, not read the bill, accept some political handout, actively conceal, Globe, and does it matter, readers?
In 1988, with much fanfare, Congress approved a measure designed to provide Medicare insurance to senior citizens for catastrophic health care events, which at the time was seen as a key step toward implementing wider health care legislation. But the measure was pilloried by seniors who objected to paying a surtax to fund the measure, and it was repealed on a bipartisan vote a year later.
That is one reason why the Democratic euphoria yesterday over Senate passage may prove premature, according to Stuart Rothenberg of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report.
“It reminds me of ‘Mission Accomplished,’ ’’ Rothenberg said, referring to the infamous banner that was hung on an aircraft carrier when former President George W. Bush in 2003 announced major combat operations were over in Iraq.
Not only do Democrats have to reconcile a bill and get it signed by the president, Rothenberg said, but they have to do so without splitting apart the party as House liberals attack the Senate version, which does not contain a government insurance plan that was favored by the party’s progressives.
Don't worry; House liberals will roll over once Pelosi threatens them.
He predicted a painful period of bargaining to get the bill into law, followed by an equally painful span in which Democrats try to convince the public that the legislation is worth its cost.
Impossible, especially when costs will go up and we will be forced to purchase overpriced and unaffordable insurance as Democrats lie to our face.
Democrats are seriously misreading -- or indifferently ignoring -- public attitudes at their own peril. We are ANGRY and in NO MOOD to be LIED TO AGAIN!!!
Even in victory, he said, Democrats are going to be under extraordinary political pressure that could result in midterm election losses. “The worst-case scenario would have been no bill at all,’’ Rothenberg said.
No, that would be the BEST CASE since the CBO said costs would be lower if they DID NOTHING as opposed to this travesty!
“A close second is getting a bill. This is the kind of thing that people are going to complain about. Health care is always going to be expensive and cumbersome and it is going to be a pain, a problem. There are always going to be people who are dissatisfied, saying, ‘We changed the system, how come I still have to do this, how come it is still so expensive?’ ’’
Right! And we are in NO MOOD considering what has happened over the last year!! Didn't the Town Halls enlighten your fat asses, DemocraPs?
While Rothenberg doubts that a repeal will be successful, he and many other analysts said the aura of victory may be short-lived if Republicans are successful in using passage of the bill as a means to bring down their top target of Reid.
Reid wrote in no repeal, so.... ?
“To supporters of the bill, his defeat probably [would] make him a martyr,’’ Rothenberg said. “To Republicans, it makes him an example.’’
Right, Reid the martyr!
He's a SUICIDER!! Throw him in Gitmo!!!!
If there is any goodness and justice in this world, please block this bill.
