Reconciliation & Health Care Reform: Senator Robert Byrd Weighs In.

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22 Responses to “Reconciliation & Health Care Reform: Senator Robert Byrd Weighs In.”

  • Mike's America says:

    18 Dem Senators are on record stating they oppose reconciliation:

    http://republican.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=blogs.view&blog_id=0ce61200-60e3-46d2-aa4e-745421299344

    But you just watch. In all likelihood, nearly every single one of them, Byrd included, will shelve their principles and vote for reconciliation.

    If that wasn’t the case then Harry Reid would never contemplate this move which amounts to a declaration of war on the American people.

  • Disturber says:

    Bbob:

    You don’t seem to have much of an understanding of how the legislative process works. The speaker can call up a bill at any time. She could call up the Senate version now, tomorrow or could have done it any day in the past. If she thought that she could pass it, that is to get the apparently 216 votes, she would have done it. This is the whole concept of “whipping”. She doesn’t have the votes and from what seems to going on, and despite her skills at strong arming, bribing and whatever else she is promising, it appears that she is losing and not gaining votes.

    Insofar as your argument that the election of Obama and majorities in the two legislative branches concludes the opinions of the electorate for four years, you might find it helpful to read a little history. Perhaps the Federalist Papers would be a good start and then you could read the Jefferson-Adams correspondence. You might then have some grasp of the concept of representative government that is embodied in our Constitution and in the bedrock principles on which this nation is based. The election is a slice of public opinion at a particular point in time and does not and never should lock in the electorate to what happen to be the whims of those in power. It is not a carte blanche to ignore the will of the people as it is expressed from day to day. This is a representative government the last time I looked, and the responsibilities of the legislative bodies is to effect the will of the people and not to impose the legislative will on the people. America is not a dictatorship where the gov’t runs roughshod over the will of the people as it exists. Obama may be enamored with the Castro brothers and Hugo Chavez, but he will be stopped in his tracks if he tries that crap here.

    Obama ran as a moderate. He promised a post-partisan style. He promised solutions that departed from politics as usual. He promised transparency. When he got into office, he immediately shifted dramatically to the left, abandoned any moderate positions, and delegated the formulation of what he claims to be his most important priority to Ried and Pelosi, two far left ideologues. So what was elected and what was the hidden agenda are two dramatically different things. His misrepresentations are what has caused his dramatic drop in the polls. The people don’t believe him and his increasing anger and petulance are quite disturbing. How else can you explain the profound defeats in NJ, VA and MA? And profound defeats they were. And there are a few more on the horizon.

    There is no question that there are problems with the medical system. There is universal desire to correct these. However, these are very complex problems that require contemplative solutions formulated not by 1500 lobbyists, and a bunch of political hacks meeting behind closed doors. Yet that is precisely the solution that is being proffered. From the Raging Cagin on down, there is not one astute commentator who hasn’t opined that if Pelosi succeeds in her maneuver, that the Dems will suffer a profound defeat in the November elections and could possibly lose the House and the Senate by considerable numbers. Whether the change will be enough to override a veto is by no means certain, but what is certain is that if this bill is stuffed down the throats of Americans, who will see an immediate increase in taxes of about 15 to 20 percent and no changes in the scope and availability of either medical care or insurance availability until 2014, Obama will be a one term president and his replacement will be a Republican with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. As I said, the winning candidates will run on the repeal of Obamacare, which will be so hated by that time that they will win by large margins. It won’t be necessary to convince Obama to sign the repeal. He won’t be around and his dear wife will have to have given up her 43 attendants.

    The Democrats are making a huge mistake treating the American people as a bunch of idiots who need to be told what is good for them. That elitist, condescending attitude has backfired every time it has ever held political power and it will fail once again.

    Every scoring of the Senate bill, which is the only one that is on the table, concludes that it will result in increased premiums, rationed care, shortages of medical personnel, increased deficits and the cancellation of millions of existing policies. There has never been a cost estimate of a bill of this complexity that was anywhere near accurate and there has never been an instance with the sole exception of the drug benefit where the actual costs did not greatly exceed the estimates. Obama said today that he was going to squeeze $100 billion a year out of fraud and abuse of Medicare. Well, is it not reasonable to ask what in the heck he is waiting for. Just think how credible he would seem if he could truthfully show that in his first year in office he squeezed even $50 billion in fraud and abuse out of that program. So this statement like so many others he has made turns out to be spin and hot air and as I said, the reason that his popularity has declined is that Americans no longer believe him. (Accomplishing such a reduction in fraud and abuse would have required focus and hard work. It cannot be accomplished by yakking away half of each day.)

    And one other thing. I will lay you odds that you have never read the Senate bill. And if you would like to reverse the bet, I will take it, for I have read both the Senate and the House bills as they were passed. While they are maddeningly complex and it is nearly impossible to grasp their entirety, I can assure you that there is nothing in either of those bills that addresses either an increased availability of medical services, or that provides any discernible approach to lowering medical costs overall and I defy you to point to a single section that would accomplish either of those ends. Nor is there anything there that addresses the fraud and abuse in Medicare in any direct way. What it does do is increase the Federal employee headcount by several hundred thousand.

    So, I suggest that you are advocating a piece of legislation not on the basis of a lawyer’s understanding of its contents, but rather on the spin and puff that Obama and his minions
    have been spouting off for the past ten months, much of which is simply untrue. And Obama and his minions would sell their mothers to get what they want and that explains the endless misrepresentations as to what is in these bills.

    Disturber

  • johngalt says:

    BRob

    What part of “keep you hands off my healthcare!” do you not understand? Are you just one of those win at all costs types who doesn’t care how it affects anyone, and especially those you deem unworthy of your care? Millions and millions are very happy with their healthcare coverage and do not want the government messing with it at all, including forcing people onto the insurance wagon when they do not desire it? Obviously you have more than one screw loose, but we understand your positions quite well, probably better than you do. Why don’t you just come out and say what you truly feel, which must be something like “Eff the Constitution!” Other posters come here and discuss these topics, including some who are on the opposite side of the issue that we conservatives are. You know what the difference is between them and you? They have respect for our opinions, thoughts and philosophies, while you come on here and spit forth hate and bile every chance you get. Nice life you must have, sitting by yourself and crying about your lot in life, expecting everyone else to carry your burdens for you. My teenagers are better men than you are.

  • BRob says:

    Rasmussen is accurate at polling what he polls: the popularity of Obama among Rasmussen’s particular subset, what he calls a “likely voter.” But he screens out people who do not fit his definition, so you cannot get an appropriate idea of what Americans, as a whole, think anymore than you could judge popular opinion by excluding the entire Midwest plus New England. Yeah, you would get an idea of something, but it would deserve a big fat asterisk.

  • BRob says:

    Disturber –

    “if the votes were there in the House, it would have passed already.”

    Not sure why this is important. It’s like saying “if we were there already, we would be there.” She will not “have the votes” until the vote is actually taken. Hey, she may need to hold the vote open for three hours the way the GOP did on the drug bill. Is she does need to do that to pass, so be it.

    “And if ultimately it does, there will be candidates in every single House and Senate election campaigning on its repeal.”

    A silly and futile effort it will be. What exactly will you be asking to repeal? The prohibition on pre-existing conditions? The closing of the medicare drug bill donut hole? Good luck running on that in Florida. Or how about repealing the reductions in Medicare spending? So how are you cons going to pay for those increases you would put back on the books? Tax increase? Or cutting something else? Or ar you just going to put that on the Chinese Communist credit cards you cons so love to use? What great system are you conservatives trying to conserve?

    “And, they will win because there will be the democratic equivalent of blood in the streets if the Demonocrats manage to push this through by parliamentary maneuver over the will of the majority.”

    Uh, yeah. You say “the majority” opposes this. Based on what? A poll of 1,500 people? You think that should override the votes of the millions of Americans who voted for Obama, and override the votes of the majority of voters in the majority of states that put Dems in 59% of the House seats and 59% of the Senate seats. How does that make any sense? What the hell kind of country would this be if a poll of 1,500 random people was the way we made policy decisions? That’s just nuts!

    “And it will be repealed and the Demonocrats will be out of office for a good twenty years or so.”

    Like I said — first explain to me how you sell this! Back to pre-existing conditions, reinstating the donut hole, put the antitrust exemption back in place? Real winning slogan.

    By the way — how exactly how would you go about convincing Obama to sign your supposed repeal proposal . . . and that is as if you could actually (a) win the House and Senate [exceedingly unlikely] and (b) get a big enough margin in the Senate to defeat a filibuster [damn near impossible]?

  • American Voter says:

    I didn’t hear Dems protesting Rasmussen when his polls showed Nobama leading McCain — in the 2008 Presidential Campaign — except for 2-3 weeks.

    Rasmussen has been one of the most accurate pollsters in recent years. . .based on final results vs his predictions

    Ultimately, the best poll is at the voting booth . . .and the last three statewide elections haven’t gone in Nobama’s favor — especially after personally campaigning.

  • Disturber says:

    Here is Michael Barone’s take on whether Nancy has the votes and he concludes that she does not.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703701004575113292688090292.html

    Disturber

  • Patvann says:

    @Plainjane

    (Who is NOT “plain” at all, imho)

    Nancy Pelosi is my rep….

    Nothing short of a nuke over SanFran will dislodge the bitch from her bone. Imagine 800,000 masochistic BRob zombies all voting as a block in a gerrymandered district, and you’ll have the reason I have lost all patience with progressives.

  • plainjane says:

    The White House: (202) 456-1414

    The Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

    Contact Your Elected Officials: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/ Elected.shtml

    Fax Free Website: http://faxzero.com

    Write Your Representative: https://writerep.house.gov/ writerep/welcome.shtml

    TweetCongress.org…: http://tweetcongress.org/ and

  • Disturber says:

    BRob, if the votes were there in the House, it would have passed already. And if ultimately it does, there will be candidates in every single House and Senate election campaigning on its repeal. And, they will win because there will be the democratic equivalent of blood in the streets if the Demonocrats manage to push this through by parliamentary maneuver over the will of the majority. And it will be repealed and the Demonocrats will be out of office for a good twenty years or so. By the way, win any cases lately by the hotheadedness you exhibit on this site? I don’t think so.

    Disturber

    Merce

  • Patvann says:

    @Bob-the-idiot

    -Again with the multi-posts….(Telling, isn’t it folks?, as it has become obvious that when he does this, his head is 3 psi from exploding.)

    “left handed White Southern GOPers who voted in the last county election”

    Ummmm. I guess that the same as “likely voters” to idiots like you…talk about “nutty”.

    And in light of your powers of observation (like a good lawyer should have) let’s review this:

    I think I now know why Massa was a GOPer star yesterday, why Patvann pulled out a nine year old video of an old man’s recollection about a 1994 bill that was never even submitted to a vote, and why Ricky Cantor and John Kyl have been “advising” their Dems “friends” that it would be best for them if the bill did not pass:

    Hey bright-boy…I didn’t post that video, so please stop obsessing over me and ask the janitor in your building to go over your work before you post again.

    You have once again beclowned yourself. But I’ll give points for the entertainment value.

    What does desperation taste like, and do your clients know you have comprehension problems?

    @Suek

    I agree. I want them to try this in such a bad way! :-)

  • BRob says:

    Oh, lookie here!

    http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/healthplan.php

    Hmm . . . seems like a trend. What happens when you remove Rasmussen’s poll of his quant “left handed White Southern GOPers who voted in the last county election” demographic:

    http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/healthplan.php?xml=http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/HealthCare.xml&choices=Oppose,Favor&phone=&ivr=PPP (D)&internet=&mail=&smoothing=more&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=1&lines=1&colors=Favor-000000,Oppose-BF0014,Undecided-A69A37,No Opinion-68228B

    I think I now know why Massa was a GOPer star yesterday, why Patvann pulled out a nine year old video of an old man’s recollection about a 1994 bill that was never even submitted to a vote, and why Ricky Cantor and John Kyl have been “advising” their Dems “friends” that it would be best for them if the bill did not pass:

    methinks the GOPer polling is telling the same story as the second pollster.com… chart!

  • BRob says:

    Ok . . . you found a 2001 commentary about a 1994 bill that was NEVER PRESENTED TO THE SENATE . . . and you use that to prove . . . what? That an entirely different bill 9 years later that has ALREADY PASSED THE SENATE BY A 60-40 VOTE should not be tweaked by a simple majority vote? Why do you cons insist on ignoring the 60-40 vote that passed the damn bill? As if a supermajority vote means “nothing” because GOPers decided to sit that one out! How nutty!

    Cons, this is a done deal . . . and I think I smell the desperation among the cons who know it is a done deal. The Dem House will vote on and pass the Senate bill. It will then go to committee for a reconciliation alteration/trimming. If the paliamentarian says the bill has non-reconcilable stuff in it, some will be lopped off (like the abortion stuff) and sent to the Senate and House separately.

    I dare the GOPers in the Senate not to vote thumbs up on the Stupak amendment! Double dog dare ya!

    If the reconciliation bill fails, the Senate bill (which passed 60-40) will still be in place. So Obama wins no matter what. And the GOPers? Have to suffer the fact that 30 million people will get health insurance over your objection . . . boo hoo! Delicious!

    This is what happens when you play checkers (crowing about Scott Brown’s big win) and the other side is playing chess (figuring out how to make the “big win” irrelevant). Because after all that smug bleating about “the people have spoken” . . . as if a special election outcome in one state should derail legislation that is a year old and hammered out after a national election in 50 states . . . it was such silliness. Betcha wish Scott Brown had not tipped his hand so arrogantly, dontcha!

  • BRob says:

    Patvann —

    Did you note the complete lack of any sourcing on that restate post? Seems to me that someone pulled that out their hindquarters to rile up the increasingly dejected cons!

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