Reid Confident He Has 60 Votes To Pass Health Care Reform

Hey Snowe! Whatever happened to "when history calls, you have to answer?"

The one thing in this health bill that needs to be fixed in conference with the house is the pre-existing condition. As it stands right now only children will be covered starting in 2010, but everyone else are not covered until 2014. This is just plain bullsh_t. We are being forced to pay for health insurance, yet if anyone and most people do, have a pre-existing condition will not be covered and are out of luck to be treated. The other things that need to be adjusted in this bill are any loopholes that insurance companies could use to deny coverage.

80 / 20 ‘Compromise’: 20 cents of every dollar - that’s 20 cents of every 
100 cents - by law (at least by the Senate ‘compromise’) can be retained by 
private sector insurers to pay their bonuses, lard their bottom line, expand their 
investments, etc. The Senate bill as now written provides that everyone in 
America pay for private sector health care, in short, wasting 20 cents of each 
health care dollar, piddling it off to middlers, who deliver no health care whatsoever, require mind numbing paper work, jerk you around with ‘co-pays’ and 
‘contributions’, etc, but do not ever in any shape or form deliver health care 
services to you. This is what the Senate has brought us. And here’s an added 
insult brought by the White House to everyone who is not a private sector health 
insurance corporate employee: Because both the right and the left think 
citizens should not be mandated by their government to provide corporate 
welfare for private sector health insurance companies with both taxes (paid to 
corporations as ‘subsidies’ to cover the poor who cannot afford to payoff the 
corporations) and premiums (20 percent of which are not used to provide health care services), they have persuaded themselves that independents will 
just love it! That’s a three- bagger: They have insulted virtually everyone. And who are these political masterminds? Like Bush, they were good at getting elected and, like Bush, very good at ignoring the American people.

Every single problem with today's health care system is caused by the for-profit health care insurance model: large number of uninsured, exorbitant rate increases, preexisting conditions, bureaucratic inefficiencies, etc., etc. Every single one of them. I do not understand how anyone can consider a Senate bill that reinforces this model progress.

Congratulations Harry Reid! You did good!

Who wants to bet that Lieberman's huge ego gets in the way and he signals he cannot support the bill? After all, his name has not come up on over 2 hours.

Who wants to bet that Lieberman's huge ego gets in the way and he signals he cannot support the bill?

KILL THIS BILL!

its not reform.
it doesnt control costs.
it forces people under fines to buy insurance the ycant afford.

there is no PO.
no price controls

insurance makes 100s of billions of dollars FOR DOING NOTHING.

and it fools all the dumb bells that think it is good work.

RAM IT THROUGH!

If you read some of the changes in the bill one of them is an increase in the individual mandate penalty.

They raised the fucking penalty.

Kill this piece of shit bill.

This is Romney-care writ large.

I feel betrayed by both my US Senators.

Chuck Grassley for proving that Republican obstructionism and lying works.

And Tom Harkin who promised at his annual steak fry in Indianola, IA last September that he would never vote for a health care reform bill without a strong public option!

This is Romney-care writ large.

Meh. You can do worse. You weren't going to do better with this Congress.

These Senators are not human beings. They have no conscience. What does Senator Snowe meant by delaying this reform. There are people dying because they do not have health care. These people are just inhumane and they do not care about other people. They are just selfish and I am not sure what they are trying to prove. They can have money for wars and spend billions on our so called Department of Defense but not Health Care. What is the difference between bribes and lobbyists? NONE!!!!!!

Does that include the cap on payouts? The House version came in with a similar score and it is superior. The House represents the people, who gives a rat's ass what the Senate thinks. They represent the states. This is health care, not commerce care.

Now I'm lost. Snowe's reason for delaying the vote into January to get her support is ?

ok, i have several questions about these bills
1. how many are there besides the house and congressional one? i thought there were 5 total but i could be wrong.
2. since the bills have to all be merge into one, doesn't this make the public option still in play since the house has the po?
3. if the bill lowers cost, provides healthcare and gives the insurance companies competition, why do you still need a public option
4. why is abortion being considered. that is not a health issue for the woman. it is for the baby, but not her.
4. how is this being paid for

Healthcare Reform Part D

While I sincerely hate the republican platform, at least they stick togther in their hypocrisy and bull shyt, unlike the wussy Democrats.

If I understand correctly, this bill will go to a Senate/House conference where the differences will be "ironed out"; ie, anything "liberal" will be dumped. Why that assertion? Because the bill will have to be passed again by the Senate and 60 votes will be needed again for cloture. So forget about any of the more liberal ideas from the House bill being included.
The most that can be hoped for at this time is that the portions of the House bill concerning recissions and denials of coverage are included since they are stronger than the Senate's version.
But don't hold your breath...

Now I can add Nebraska to my list of states I never need visit again. And I am proud to say that neither of my senators wears a really cheap wig.

So, who is doing the betting pool on when Lieberman will say something new to derail the process in order to get more "concessions"? (Perhaps a straight-up payment of $1 billion, no strings attached, to Aetna would be enough?) My money is on 11am Eastern, tomorrow. How about you all?

As I understand it, this bill forces people, under penalty of the law, to purchase health insurance. If that is the case, you can count me as a former Democrat. It's insane for the federal government to force anyone to purchase anything. If I find myself out of work, I'll be damned if I spend any money to buy health insurance. It's insane.

I'll bet there will be a court challenge, as well. It is unprecedented.

LBJ is reported to have said that the civil rights legislation would lose the south for the democrats for a generation. This will lose a lot more than that - and for a lot longer. Americans don't want to be forced to buy insurance. Give them a Medicare type system, fine.

I love the smell of bullshit in the night...
Kill, this piece of shit bill.

Kill it!

It's time to stir the pot, because the base is getting burned.

The mandate is pure evil. The Dems are REALLY shooting themselves in the foot with that one, which will probably cost them for the next three, four, five elections. I bet the Repuglies are sniggering up their sleeves about what they're about to pull off.

This is not a 'liberal' bill. This is a corporate bailout of a magnitude second only to Obama's first corporate bailout shortly after taking office. Here it is again (Im sorry to do this, but i think it's getting lost, and, in my opinion, at least, deserves to be right at the top). From the Washington Post's summary of the 'Compromise' written by Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery and posted December 19, 2009:

“And all insurance companies would be required to spend at least 80 cents of every dollar they collect in premiums on delivering care to their customers.” The 80/20 ‘Compromise’ is by far the most blatant admission that Reid et al have crafted yet another corporate bailout at the citizens’ expense. Now, get this: 20 cents of every dollar - that’s 20 cents of every 100 cents - by law (at least by the Senate ‘compromise’) can be retained by private sector insurers to pay their bonuses,marketing and advertising, lard their bottom lines, expand their 
investments, fight sick people's appeals to the ‘independent insurance panels’, contribute to candidates ‘sympathetic’ to insurance companies, etc.

The Senate bill as now written provides that everyone in 
America pay for private sector health care, in short, wasting 20 cents of every health care dollar, piddling it off to middlers, who deliver no health care whatsoever, require mind numbing paper work, jerk you around with ‘co-pays’ and 
‘contributions’, etc, but do not ever in any shape or form deliver health care services to you. This is what the Senate has brought us.

Medicare operates at about 3% administrative costs; the alleged 'fraud' (of 7%) is difficult to believe, if you've ever been on or known someone on medicare (as fraud would involve a host of folks from the doctors, patients, pharmacists, etc - large cabal - all staying quite about it). But, let's give 'em half the 'fraud'; is there not that much 'fraud' in the current insurance industry operation (denying coverage, denying treatment, closing off insurance when it's most needed, capping coverages, etc)? If this is not 'fraud', isnt it on par with 'fraud' - only it's stealing from people, not the government? So, let's say the 'fraud' factor is about equal.

That still leaves us with a health care dollar. In the Senate bill, 80% of our health care dollar goes to health care. In a single payer or government option, 97% of our health care dollar goes to health care. Under the Senate bill, 20% of our premiums (the ones we're going to be 'mandated' to pay) are going to private sector overhead and profits. Under a single payer or government option, 3% of our health care dollar goes to overhead.

This a simple way to provide more health care for the same money. You can gain efficiencies in the neighborhood of 20% by limiting insurers to the rate maintained by the public sector (cut private sector overhead to 3%). Or, said another way, for every 100 dollars spent, you could have 17 more dollars going directly to provide health care to people. (It's easy to see here why the right and the 'Tea Party-ers' yell at meetings; they want any thing but an 'honest debate' about this.) The mystery is why the left does not speak up.

This is not a liberal bill; it is purely and simply another corporate bailout.