C-Ya! Senate Shrugs Off House Health Care Woes

I've been considering what I can do to get Obama re-elected in 2012. It's a very complicated subject and I have a full plate, so I've decided to let the dust settle and take up that issue in 2013.

Gee, I wonder why Harry Reid is gonna get his ass handed to him on a plate in November? Good riddance.

But the party extends beyond the House of Representatives, and yet it increasingly appears as if the Democrats' brethren in the upper chamber have hung them out to dry.

Told you so. Now can we bag the ignorant horseshit about those meanie progressives in the House? The Senate never had any intention of going ahead with "Plan B".

Time to start serious work on a modest Medicare buyin bill so that something can be salvaged. Of course, some leadership from Obama would be nice (yeah, right.)

Again, I'm seeing the same message: we're not moving on anything yet, but we're open to options, except starting over or moving a new bill in the Senate.

The scariest part is that I think Josh is right: we're running out of time. That doesn't mean the Senate is saying f*** off to the House or Pelosi is giving up.

The House Democrats are a bunch of ideological fools who are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I asked Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) whether there was any concerted effort on the part of leading Senate Democrats to help House members get a hold of their nerve. In so many words, he said "no."

Get a hold of their nerve?

Funny I thought it was the Senate Dems who couldn't get a hold of their nerve and stand up to their corporate masters, but then again they really are just a bunch of corporate sellout whores themselves anyway.

Get hold of their nerve indeed.

Fuck, the effect of the excise tax on labor, all by itself, is enough to let this fucker burn.

Burn, baby, burn.

Thank the Corporate Whore Sellout Democratic Senators America...

Good God the House got the shaft on this one. The only reason we're in this mess was because of the terrible job the Senate did getting a bill through their own chamber. Now that they have dragged their feet for months, they plop their bill in the House's lap and then has the nerve to say "just pass it, what's your problem?"

There's always been animosity between the two houses, but if I was in the House right now I'd be f*cking livid.

I think the Senate should punt to the House. It did its job and passed a bill. Members put themselves in a position to be severely criticized for passing the bill. Now, it is up to the House to look carefully at the Senate bill and ask whether it should drop health care reform entirely.

Pelosi, from my perspective, has not done her job if she does not firmly get her people to sign on to the bill. Seriously, folks, it's not perfect by any stretch. It's messy. But, we're not going to have a 20-vote majority in the senate in a very long time. This is particularly the case given today's Supreme Court decision. The House members should pass it and then look to improve it as soon as practicable. Otherwise, HCR will not happen.

This whole debate reminds me of the prescription drug bill that some GOP members ran on back in 2002, as some Democrats just refused to offer a benefit unless it was the full benefit even though it was clear that the votes for the full benefit weren't there.

We can't keep running on the same issues. We have to take our gains and move ahead to another issue. The bill has many, many positive attributes. Vote for it and move on to something else.

So let me get this straight. A twenty something blog employee called up some Senators and asked them what they were doing behind the scenes. They didn't tell him. Therefore, they aren't doing anything.

Mmm hmm, yeah. Okay. Guess that's definitive, then. 'Cause if it's not reported in the blogs, it isn't happening. There is no reality other than those shadows on the wall.

I can't help but feel that a large part of this clusterf*ck is because we allowed the ridiculous teabagger movement to take hold in this country. We sat back and snickered while they bulldozed the facts and reality in general. Their lies infected the legislative process and began to weaken spines. I don't want to give these freaks with their "keep you guberment hands off my medicare" signs any credit at all, but you can't deny they stole the message. And I feel we all deserve blame for that. HCR supporters should have stayed on message that this is about saving American lives. The main theme should be that if nothing is done thousands of our fellow citizens die. Why should it more appalling that someone with an underwear bomb attempts to kill Americans than allowing our citizens to die from an ineffectual health care system? We protest the wars and march in the streets over outrage of the deaths, when was the march to save the lives of the uninsured. When was the die-in on Capitol Hill to provide a mental image of the uninsured American dead? The real, factual dead not the phony Palin-land death panel, pulling the plug on granny hypothetical dead. Yes, there was a smattering of kitchen round tables but nothing that matched the scale of the teabaggers. I come from the school of fight fire with fire, I would have just loved to seen it brought back on them. Not only is this current turn of events a gut check to Washington, it is a gut check on us. Are we going to throw our hands up, or are we going to get out there and push our party like the teabaggers? We're not getting any respect because we aren't demanding it. We need to unite under one goal to save the lives of the uninsured. United we stand, divided we fall and we have some serious divisions in our party. Sorry so long, guess I'm just venting like everyone else.

FreeRider is DA BOMB. He is totally spot on. I have a feeling Schmedley wasn't engaged in politics in the 90s else he would have known what happened in 1994 and 1996 during the Clinton years. He is also spot on that Obama because he is black is being held to a different standard and make no mistake it is not just the thugs who want him to fail, so does the media, wall street and you name it. They are totally threatened by a brilliant liberal senator (who has the nerve to be black and run for President and win).

If this President ever needed his base to be with him, its now.

I can't imagine how anyone could expect to clean up a mess that was 8 years in the making in one year. It is incomprehensible.

Grow the fuck up

The Dems have been given a chance to write the best bill possible and let the GnOP filibuster. Ignore the blue dogs and just get a bill complete with all the trimmings. Thats what the people in MA who voted for Brown wanted.

From a post today on Huffpo by Robert Creamer.."On the other hand, Progressive leaders across America need to direct their own frustration at the forces that are defending the status quo and standing in the way of the Obama agenda..... not encouraging cynicism and disaffection of base voters." Many of you here should take a long hard look at it, particularly if you have any interest in moving the process along, because it's constructive and it makes sense. Here's the link to the article
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/lessons-from-the-massachu_b_429465.html?view=screen

What the heck is wrong with the Democrats in Washington??? I am a proud liberal who has never voted for a Republican in my life. I have volunteered for, worked for, and donated to countless Democratic candidates in every election since 1992. But if they can't get their act together quickly, I am done with them.

I met President Obama in March 2003 when he was running in the U.S. Senate primary in Illinois and volunteered my butt off to support his candidacy. I wrote policy papers, organized volunteers on the northside of Chicago, and canvassed virtually every weekend in the bitter cold winter of 2003 (and the warmer spring and summer of 2004). When then-Senator Obama announced his candidacy for President, I was estatic. The day Obama was elected President was a day of great pride for me - not only had I met Mr. Obama, but I thought we finally had a brave leader who could strongly and eloquently communicate the progressive message to the American public. When the Democrats also got a 60-seat majority in the Senate and a large majority in the House, I was even more elated, as I expected real action to address the critical economic, health care, national security, civil liberties, and environmental issues facing our nation.

I am not naive - I did not expect change to be easy in light of the mindless right-wing control of our media and the intransigence of the do-nothing Republicans. And I realize that most elected officials are less liberal than I am, so I did not expect my wish list of liberal policies (such as single payer health insurance) to be passed. But I did expect the Democrats to use the overwhelming mandate the public had given them to actively fight for real reform and improvement for every day Americans, and to challenge the Republicans who have proven themselves to be an illegitimate political party whose candidates do not deserve to be elected as dog catchers, much less as Senators and Congresspeople.

Instead, we have gotten the same spineless, afraid-to-take-a-stand approach to governing and campaigning that has stricken the Democratic Party for the past 30 years. Instead of fighting for the real health care reform and other progressive changes that President Obama was elected on, the Democrats have spent the last year negotiating away every progressive policy proposal in an absurd effort to try to placate folks who do not hold progressive values but instead seek to continue the same conservative policies that got our country into the mess it is in. Instead of loudly and proudly fighting for the progressive policies and values that have made this country great, Democrats continue to cower in fear of criticism from Tea Baggers and Fox News. And the person in charge of our party - President Obama - has done virtually nothing to push back against the conservatives or to bring his own party into line in favor of progressive principles and policies, and is now basically raising the white flag on real health reform because the Democrats now have only 59 Senators instead of 60.

Enough is enough. I have been told for the past two decades that I need to concede my liberal values so that Democrats could win elections and achieve incremental change. Over those two decades, I have seen income inequality escalate, our health care system continue to collapse, our military budgets skyrocket, our social safety net be dismantled, our infrastructure crumble, our civil liberties corrode, and barriers to unionization continue to increase. Yet now that Democrats have an overwhelming majority in the House and Senate, and have the Presidency, they are not fighting for progressive values or even attempting to fundamentally alter the conservative political frame that has gotten our country into this mess.

In short, the Democrats are once again proving that they are too spineless and scared to fight for, much less achieve, the real change this country needs. Continued spinelessness is both horrible for our country and will lead the Democrats back to the political wilderness as the American public wants leadership, not cowardice. If the Democrats do not start fighting soon, they certainly will have lost my support, as I will be left with no other choice but to conclude that working for Democrats is not the way to achieve the progressive change this country needs.

What's truly amazing isn't that Brown won, but that the democrats had no "Plan B" ready.

It's not like voters woke up on Tuesday and just suddenly decided to act on a whim. Brown had been steadily gaining in the polls all month.

If you know Republicans are desperate to derail your key legislation, and there's only one option- however slight- left for them to try, how do you NOT take measures to prevent it? Worse, how do you not plan for if it does happen?

The current disorder is something I would've expected last week, when a Brown victory began to seem more and more likely. Not two days after the fact. I mean, at least PRETEND it's not as bad as it looks. The Republicans are the ones who should be milking this loss for all its worth, making the public think they've just gained the entire Senate. Not the other way around.

Shocking that the democrats are going to up on the healthcare debacle they created that should have never gotten to this point. You still have a huge majority, pass it. The republicans would find a way. Can you say utterly pathetic

step 1 - Get rid of the filibuster.

step 2 - Rewrite HCR so it makes any sense.

step 3 - Pass everything else like a walk in the park.

Screw Lieberdouche, Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, et al. All we need is 50 + Biden. Put on your pants Reid and get to work, youve only got 10 months left.

Written in Jan 2010: “A mere seven months ago, The New York Times/CBS poll found that 72% of Americans ‘supported a government-administered insurance plan—something like Medicare for those under 65—that would compete for customers with private insurers.’” Do you think the Democrats wanted to help the American people, the health insurance companies or big pharma? Pick two out of three. They did not want to help the American people and they have succeeded.

It takes 67 Senators to change the filibuster rule. It ain't happening.

Obama has shown he is not working for the middle class.

Anyone who says different is either mentally challenged or making money from us.