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New York, 6:55 AM
Fri Nov 27
11 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/29/09
10/29/09
I guess 8 years of silence can eventually cause outrage. #healthcare
10/28/09
1. In 2006 he campaigned on health care reform
2. His wife is a lobbyist for the healthcare industry
3. CT has a public option
Special bonus reasons:
1. Voting for cloture doesn't mean you support the legislation
2. This one applies to all Senators, I suppose — does the blatant hypocrisy of opposing something you yourself have (government run health care benefits) never occur to any of these douchenozzles?
10/28/09
10/28/09
I am wildly optimistic that some health care bill will pass. And when it does, I can only hope Lieberman will be rendered a man without a country (or a party). Let's hope Dems learn their lesson and shun him, for real this time.
I am so over Olympia Snowe. Pssst, Democrats: YOU WON!!!! Remember?!!! Why the fuck do you guys care about her?
10/28/09
I am so fucking fed up with Joe Goddamn Lieberman and the Democrats' inability to either bring him into line or kick him out of the caucus. And Olympia Snowe...I used to think Maine was awesome for their all-lady delegation. NO LONGER, MAINE! #healthcare
10/28/09
Better dead than with a public option! #healthcare
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
And how does he get his hair so silky soft? Pantene? He must be using Pantene. #healthcare
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
I think the Dems are scared to take on this health plan without any conservative support. With such a sweeping piece of legislation, if something goes wrong it is going to lie squarely at their feet.
I personally think that the public option is nearly dead. Let's see if the Dems can resurrect it. It is going to be interesting to watch this play out. #healthcare
10/28/09
1) They want to exercise Obama's promise that he would extend an olive branch to the right and try to work with them, rather than despite them, on legislation.
2) They want to make extra sure that the public sees them extending that olive branch to the right, so when it's smacked out of their hands and the left consequently says "fuck y'all, we're ramming everything down your throats now," it will appear wholly justified.
Last time I checked, polls showed that a hefty percentage of the public view congressional GOP just as poorly, in general, as the democrats, but still feel like the democrats are handling the healthcare issue better than the GOP. I think the GOP have a hell of a lot more to lose if healthcare reform works out than the democrats have to lose if it doesn't. Where are the GOP going to be if/when a robust public option turns out to be wildly successful? #healthcare
10/28/09
I just hope the Dems' marriage to the gov't option doesn't shoot the whole health care/insurance reform down the crapper. #healthcare
10/28/09
Where they've always been. The contrapositive is true: even though deregulation of the financial sector proved to be disastrous, the GOP hasn't backed away from its fundamentals. Nationalized healthcare is antithetical to the party's fundamentals, and will always be wrong. If it is shown to be a success by any measure, some will deny it while others will say it's not worth it.
And when half the country is inclined to tow the party line (or perhaps it's the party towing conservative America's line), I don't think they have a whole lot to lose playing obstructionist politics on healthcare.
I do believe, however, that once you give a people a right or access to resources, it's much more difficult to take it away than it was to pass it in the first place. For this reason, I hope that the Democrats 1) shove it down the GOP's throat and avoid compromise for the sake of compromise, and 2) get it right. I'm still worried about a Republican controlled Congress, down the road, that decides to take a national healthcare system built under Democrats and tweak it through deregulation into something unrecognizable and to the detriment of the people.
10/28/09
So again, I pose the question: where is the GOP going to be if/when healthcare reform, which they've by and large attempted to obstruct, becomes the new Social Security or the new Medicare? It will a number of election cycles for them to live down that kind of shame. #healthcare
10/28/09
My concern is that I can conceive of a world in which, for any number of reasons, Republicans have chisseled away at a nationalized healthcare system, maybe by advocating a few points on which Democrats would be more than happy to "compromise", but which serves to shanghai the new national healthcare system into the service of privitization and deregulation. We already know that the Republican platform calls for a national market for private insurance companies as the part of the "solution" to the healthcare crisis. It'd be like a trojan horse -- and all the while Republicans are paying lip service to just how darn good our new safety net is. I'm also reminded of the Republican Congress and Bush that passed the 2003 prescription drug plan on behalf of insurance and pharmaceutical interests.
10/28/09
10/29/09
10/28/09
Also. Someone please tell Joe Leiberman to clear his throat, he's had an air bubble back there for the last 30 years. #healthcare
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
I'm really enjoying the Al Franken decade so far. #healthcare
10/28/09