House Rules Committee Chair: Kill The Bill And Start Over

I'll have my medical bills forwarded to her office in the mean time. Don't be late on payments Louise. I can't get a job if my credit is bad.

Louise, your bill has an individual mandate too. Further, you voted FOR the House bill which has STRONGER abortion language.

If you want to be against the bill as is, that's fine. However, if you're against the compromise before there's even a compromise, that's basically insane.

She also undercuts herself here: "Now don't get me wrong; the current House and Senate bills are a significant improvement over the status quo."

That's the whole freaking point. Louise, things aren't going to get better if you start over.

To hell with teabaggers. To hell with those who align themselves with teabaggers.

Interesting that she voted for the House bill with his Stupak abortion restrictions, individual mandates, etc.

She is a little hypocritical.

Thank God SOMEBODY has some sense. It would be nice to see sense from TPM, too, but I've just about given up on the toadies here. This site has become an arm of the DNC.

Wow! Fresh air in here! The HuffPo is starting to stink like a rotting corpse!

As far as killing the Senate Bill, anyone remember the last time Dems did that? Say, 1994? Bill Clinton was president with a Democrat controlled Congress, ring any bells? It should. And the reason why the president is anxious to get an imperfect bill out of the Senate is because he's been in the senate before. Even in his short tenure, he's seen good bills die because of endless debate and for the sake of perfection. He's banking on some improvements being made in reconciliation and also in future sessions of Congress. Medicaid today is a much better program than it was upon conception. This is how things work in our government. Always have. It's just that our country has lost the value of patients and we want what we want and right now! We have become as children fighting over toys who place no value in compromise or the long view.

Jockeying for position in the conference fight.

Louise, if I had your health plan I could be picky and grandstand as well. Unfortunately, as an American who lives abroad partly because I have a pre-existing condition and am not insurable in the US, I don't have such choices. This bill does a lot to improve the system and should be passed.

I’ve been saying for months that an ad-hoc righto-leftist House coalition would sink any bill, and while I’d be happy to be wrong, I don’t expect to be disappointed.

I anticipate that the same fate, based on the House vote on ACES, await the cap-and-trade bill, provided it too limps out of the Senate.

Bye-bye PUMAs—hello NOKIAs (No! Only Kucinich is Acceptable!)

As always, the most pragmatic solution is to give up and negotiate from there.

I wonder if signing Jane "Grover Norquist" Hamsher's public option pledge is tripping any of these people up and scaring them about their own reelection prospects and if they now regret signing it. I wonder if Jane herself has pledged to defeat Rep. Slaughter if she does not take this position. How very "Club for Growth" it would all be.

BRAVO!

fuckin bravo!

Guess what? I don't care about the Democrats chances for reelection in 2010 or 2012. If they want to fight the last war and talk about 1994, they will lose regardless of this bill. It is not 1994, and we don't know what would have happened after 1994 if they had passed a bad, insurance giveaway, anti-choice, mandated, delayed benefit, non-universal....ummm...why is this a change for the better...bill. The final and only reason to pass this horrible disaster is to cover for the fact that Democrats don't work for the American people who voted for them. Pass it if you can, celebrate mightily now and weep in the fall as progressives desert you for the Green Party or the couch. KofTX...We have "lost the value of patients(sic)" and we should have the patience to pass a good bill that will make patients the center of health care not a bad bill just to get done by Christmas.

Again, Walter Mitty, passing a bill that promises one thing but delivers the opposite is not going to keep their majority. They had a chance to get a good bill and could still do it if they were not corrupt. They will pass whatever bill is put in front of them and that is the reason they will lose many, many seats in the fall. I predict this bill will be repealed in 2010 or 2011 even though it will pass now.

It remains clear to me that some back room deals were made before the bill even got started, Rahm Emanuel convinced Obama to let him drive the legislative process, and the administration's failure to advocate a coherent reform of the health insurance system led directly to this watered down embarrassing piece of shit, and for me it all stinks of Emanuel. I could care less if it passes or not.

I don't understand what killing the bill will accomplish. If progressives didn't get what we wanted the first time, what in the heck makes anyone think we would get it on the second?

When was the last time we even had a discussion about healthcare reform? When Clinton was in office?

I understand why people are unhappy with the bill. What I don't understand is what killing it would accomplish.

I hate this bill, I think it's an insult and a tragedy. People will die because we can't get a proper health care system in this country. It's immoral and disgusting and I hope that all the people who made it impossible to pass single-payer or socialized medicine are run over by a bus.

BUT

If I had representation in Congress, which I don't because I'm a socialist living in NY-26, I would tell my rep to vote for the bill. If you want the bill killed, then you have to believe that we will get a better bill later. I don't believe that we will, unless by "later" you mean "fifty years from now."

Wait a minute - did she actually SAY "Kill The Bill And Start Over", or is this breathless sensationalizing by TPM, the newest member of the mainstream media?

Is it possible Rep. Slaughter is trying to turn this into the Juice Bill? If the Senate and House start over, doesn't that mandate a new round of contributions to the powerful chair of the House Rules Committee from all affected interest groups, labor unions, industry organizations and corporate officers?

I'm an unapologetic fan of the current bill. My wife's a doctor, and she's tired of seeing her reimbursements cut by Medicare. We know that her income would be on the chopping block if any strong public option were passed. Having more people buy into private insurance that negotiates rates will be good for doctors. In our opinion, this bill extends coverage without significantly harming us.

It's been a difficult process, though, because she's had a lot of difficulty finding a job while all this uncertainty surrounds the outcome of health reform. If the bill passes as-is, we'll both breath a sigh of relief.

I'm not concerned about passing this bill in the Senate; It's going to happen no matter what Rep. Slaughter says. When this bill gets to committee, it's in trouble and it won't be Slaughter's fault. There has been too much bad faith negotiating on this bill among the Democrats and some members of the Congress are frustrated.

Blame Nelson, Baucus, Landrieu, Lincoln, Conrad and Lieberman. Slaughter is not the problem.

I can answer you easily, pl3bian, this bill does not have any cost controls but it has expensive requirements for insurance companies for pre-existing conditions, etc. which must be paid for by raising premiums as they have already promised to do. The requirements on the insurance companies will have to be enforced by the states, not the Feds, and they have no money or will to fight billionaire national companies. But why kill it?....because your assumption that it won't be addressed again for another generation is wrong. If it fails in this version, the Democrats will bring it back in 2010 and pass something that gives them a chance to keep their losses to a minimum in 2010 and 2012. Only something progressive and effective will save them from the voters' anger. Why didn't they do this in 1994?....they didn't realize what was going to happen as a result of their failure. It is because of 1994 that Democrats will pass good health reform but only if the are prevented from passing bad reform. So kill it before it kills us.

The bill is still only one half of the process--its complete condmenation is a lot of premature ejaculating about the villains of the piece hourly (Obama, Nelson, Lieberman, Emanuel--Hamscher just joined hands with Grover Norquist to kill the bill!). And all of this does not play perfectly into Republican hands how?

I think maybe Americans don't really like democracy very much, and are looking for a strong man leader, ala C street, perhaps? Who will just tell them what to do and dispense with the Reichstag--oops, I mean the Congress?

Slaughter spokesman already saying that Slaughter has NOT ruled out not voting for final bill even if it doesn't have a public option. Instead she wants to make it better.

* But a spokesperson for Slaughter, Vince Morris, confirms she’s not ruling out a vote for the final bill, even if it lacks a public option or other concessions sought by progressives.

“She’s not ruling anything in or out at this point,” Morris tells me. “She is hopeful that we can make the bill better in conference.”

No one cares about the bueracrats in DE, like Joe Biden's former cross section.