Democrats: No Thanks On Public Option

As precious, as it is telling. When faced with an amendment requiring Senate members to join any passed public option, the Democrats declined. But the amendment passed nonetheless. Here's one that will never make it through reconciliation. What's good enough for you is not good enough for them.

On Tuesday, the Senate health committee voted 12-11 in favor of a two-page amendment courtesy of Republican Tom Coburn that would require all Members and their staffs to enroll in any new government-run health plan. Yet all Democrats -- with the exceptions of acting chairman Chris Dodd, Barbara Mikulski and Ted Kennedy via proxy -- voted nay.

In other words, Sherrod Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse won't themselves join a plan that "will offer benefits that are as good as those available through private insurance plans -- or better," as the Ohio and Rhode Island liberals put it in a recent op-ed. And even a self-described socialist like Vermont's Bernie Sanders, who supports a government-only system, wouldn't sign himself up.

Comments

[Alex]

This stat should be pushed all through this debate and also through the next election season. America needs to understand how the politboro works.

[DaveinPhoenix]

Agree with Alex - that stat should be front page news everywhere. The servants get the good plan, the "served" get the shaft.

[southdakotaboy]

When this is all over and the Conservatives are back in power we need to haul everyone who voted for this in front of a judge on murder charges. The number of American citizens who willdie because of this is going to be huge.

[mark l.]

"we need to haul everyone who voted for this in front of a judge on murder charges"

it is statisitcal murder.

"Ford was aware of this design flaw but allegedly refused to pay what was characterized as the minimal expense of a redesign. Instead, it was argued, Ford decided it would be cheaper to pay off possible lawsuits for resulting deaths. Mother Jones magazine obtained the cost-benefit analysis that it said Ford had used to compare the cost of an $11 ($57 today, allowing for inflation) repair against the monetary value of a human life, in what became known as the Ford Pinto memo."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto

the fact that a political party is willing to kill its citizens, for the sake of propoganda, is tragic.

the same cost analysis that was used in the logic of paying out on lawsuits for ford, will be used to justify testing, or lack thereof, done at hospitals. The govt holds the advantage over ford, of being immune to lawsuits.

[Jenny]

Wait.. I was under the impression that representatives and senators can't vote by proxy. That if they aren't there, they can't vote, period. Since when has votes by proxy been accepted in congress?

[Peg C.]

I'm sad. I was looking forward to watching these monsters denied care and rotting away in hospices. Why not? That's what they want for us.

[Plumpplumber(balding)]

True, the government can't be sued, but piss someone off badly enough, and .270 at 400 yds can't be stopped.

[Mark_0454]

Won't accept the plan they want for everyone else, won't read the bills.

[southdakotaboy]

The Dems think that if they can get this passed it will be locked in forever because that has always been the way things have gone on before. What they are forgetting or just plain ignoring is the rise of the Internet and social networking sites. This is where Conservatives really need to get ready.

What our side needs to do is start organizing the ground work for places where people who loose family members to this monstrosity can go and get together. We need to be ready to just hammer the lefties with this death toll relentlessly and hold them accountable. Hopefully not one Republican will vote for this and the Dems will completely own this disaster. Americans will not tolerate watching their loved ones die because of bureaucrats. This more than taxes could be the pebble that starts the avalanche of anger at the lefties in this country. When that anger finally builds to the point it explodes the left will not know what hit it.

[Rich K]

Glad to see no one here is actually surprised by this revelation.And on top of that all public and most private sector union plans will be exempt from the "Death of a Thousand Waiting Lists" too.

[WBestPresidentEver]

Our entire government with an exception of a "very few" have gone mad and have become power hungry under Obama. He is a madman.
Obama hates America and all she stands for and he hates older people. I think he hates himself and who he is and is screwing everyone because of the hate he holds inside.
What a pathetic piece of crap our government has become.
Something has to be done to put a stop to this madness !
These people are truly mad.
Maybe they will all come down with the pig flu. They have earned it. They deserve it.
After all they have all proved they are nothing but a bunch of porkers anyway.

[Bob]

"When this is all over and the Conservatives are back in power we need to haul everyone who voted for this in front of a judge on murder charges. The number of American citizens who willdie because of this is going to be huge."

What a rube. Somewhere around 20,000 Americans die every year from lack of health insurance.

http://www.urban.org/publications/411588.html

Hundreds of thousands go bankrupt from medical expenses, even though they had insurance.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2DD133BF931A35751C0A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=

The cluelessness of people like you is truly amazing. It's like you're standing on top of a pile of bodies and refusing to even acknowledge it because you're so lost in your dopey wing-nut reverie. Wake up and smell the corpses. This shouldn't be a liberal or conservative issue. It's a matter of simple decency and humanity.

[Bob]

By the way, this quote is too hilarious to ignore:

"Our entire government with an exception of a "very few" have gone mad and have become power hungry under Obama. He is a madman.
Obama hates America and all she stands for and he hates older people. I think he hates himself and who he is and is screwing everyone because of the hate he holds inside."

Is there a contest to see who can top everyone else with the stupidest, most hysterical Obama-hating screed? I nominate WBestPresidentEver. You rock, baby.

[North Dallas Thirty]

"What a rube. Somewhere around 20,000 Americans die every year from lack of health insurance."

Isn't that amazing.

You'd think that the multimillionaire Obama Party members like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Kennedy, Kerry, Dodd, Soros, and Buffett would have simply reached into their own pockets by now and bought these people health insurance.

Or you'd think that, since the Obama Party insists that it can run a health plan that never denies care and that accepts everyone on a 2% annual overhead, that these rich Obama Party members would have started a company that does exactly that already to give these people health insurance.

But instead, they're raising taxes on the poor and on working Americans to pay for free health care for white Obama Party parents who think it's more important to buy a Volvo than to take care of their children.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/03/01_regressive.html

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/children-war-care-1899214-health-government

That is because this is not about helping people; it is about forcing Americans to hand over their hard-earned money in exchange for a government IOU in which the government is fully able to deny you the healthcare for which you paid. After all, Barack Obama says that it is perfectly legitimate to deny you surgery if he doesn't think you need it and doesn't want to pay for it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health25-2009jun25,0,1978875.story

If Bob and his Obama Party actually cared about these people, they would buy them health insurance themselves. But they don't; indeed, they need the corpses of these people to fuel their propaganda and lies geared towards stealing from decent, hard-working Americans, so they just let them die instead of spending their own money.

[jacksmith]

AMERICA’S NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY!

It’s official. America and the World are now in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. A World EPIDEMIC with potential catastrophic consequences for ALL of the American people. The first PANDEMIC in 41 years. And WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES will have to face this PANDEMIC with the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed World.

STAND READY AMERICA TO SEIZE CONTROL OF YOUR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.

We spend over twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as any other country in the World. And Individual American spend about ten times as much out of pocket on healthcare as any other people in the World. All because of GREED! And the PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare system in America.

And while all this is going on, some members of congress seem mostly concern about how to protect the corporate PROFITS! of our GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT NATIONAL DISGRACE. A PRIVATE FOR PROFIT DISGRACE that is in fact, totally valueless to the public health. And a detriment to national security, public safety, and the public health.

Progressive democrats the Tri-Caucus and others should stand firm in their demand for a robust government-run public option for all Americans, with all of the minimum requirements progressive democrats demanded. If congress can not pass a robust public option with at least 51 votes and all robust minimum requirements, congress should immediately move to scrap healthcare reform and request that President Obama declare a state of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY! Seizing and replacing all PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance plans with the immediate implementation of National Healthcare for all Americans under the provisions of HR676 (A Single-payer National Healthcare Plan For All).

Coverage can begin immediately through our current medicare system. With immediate expansion through recruitment of displaced workers from the canceled private sector insurance industry. Funding can also begin immediately by substitution of payroll deductions for private insurance plans with payroll deductions for the national healthcare plan. This is what the vast majority of the American people want. And this is what all objective experts unanimously agree would be the best, and most cost effective for the American people and our economy.

In Mexico on average people who received medical care for A-H1N1 (Swine Flu) with in 3 days survived. People who did not receive medical care until 7 days or more died. This has been the same results in the US. But 50 million Americans don’t even have any healthcare coverage. And at least 200 million of you with insurance could not get in to see your private insurance plans doctors in 2 or 3 days, even if your life depended on it. WHICH IT DOES!

If President Obama has to declare a NATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY to rescue the American people from our healthcare crisis, he will need all the sustained support you can give him. STICK WITH HIM! He’s doing a brilliant job.

THIS IS THE BIG ONE!

THE BATTLE OF GOOD Vs EVIL!

Join the fight.

Contact congress and your representatives NOW! AND SPREAD THE WORD!

(http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/publicoption) (http://www.actblue.com/page/healthcareheroes)

God Bless You

Jacksmith – WORKING CLASS

[North Dallas Thirty]

So Bob, now that jacksmith has shown just what Obama actually has planned, do you want to just drop the pretense and the lies and tell the American people that you intend to seize private insurance companies and force everyone onto rationed government healthcare?

Meanwhile, jacksmith, I pose to you the same challenge I pose to every leftist liberal; if you think you can run things more cheaply and provide better service, start your own health insurance company. If you can truly do so, you'll corner the market; more likely, since such a thing is impossible without the power to tax and mandate that people buy only your coverage, you'll fail.

[southdakotaboy]

Ok Bob lets say just for the sake of argument that 20,000 people a year die because of lack of medical insurance since the population of the US is around 304,000,000 that works out to about 00.007%.

Now if you take Canada as an example the mortality rate from prostate cancer is about 28% in the US it is about 6%. That a rather large difference.

So people on the Conservative side of things say that if we adopt a system like Canada and the rest of Europe it is reasonable to assume that we would get the same results. What that means is we would see that 20,000 figure of yours take a rather dramatic spike upwards.

My question to you then is; at what point (taking into account population growth) would you admit that Government run health care was a failure? Would an extra 4,000 dead a year be enough maybe 20,000?

Yes our health care system has major problems, but why do anything to make them worse? And if Politicians make this kind of mistake where potentially thousands of extra people who would live under the current system die they should be held accountable.

[Bob]

"Now if you take Canada as an example the mortality rate from prostate cancer is about 28% in the US it is about 6%. That a rather large difference."

southdakotaboy, whenever I hear a right winger bandy statistics about health care, I just know that it's got to be some manner of B.S., misinterpretation or outright lies. It's so simple to look up the information oneself. So I checked out a scholarly paper that was published in Public Health Reports in 2004:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1497609&blobtype=pdf

Running the numbers, here are their results:

Incidence of prostate cancer in the U.S. (189,000 out of a population of 293 million): 0.06%
Deaths from prostate cancer in the U.S. (30,200 out of a population of 293 million): 0.01%

Incidence of prostate cancer in Canada (18,200 out of a population of 31.9 million): 0.06%
Deaths from prostate cancer in Canada (4,300 out of a population of 31.9 million): 0.01%

Where on earth did you get YOUR numbers from? The results from this study show the incidence and mortality are both almost identical between the two countries. The paper concludes the following:

"Recent incidence patterns observed between the U.S. and Canada suggest a strong relationship to prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test
use. Clinical trials are required to determine any effects of PSA test use on prostate cancer and overall mortality."

In other words, southdakotaboy, your "facts" don't seem to make any sense. But that's what I expected.

[WBestPresidentEver]

Bob, You must be one of those RICH FOLKS that does not care if you pay for illegals healthcare or if you pay for healthcare of those that would rather have a big screen TV or a new SUV instead of buying health insurance for the family.
HAVE YOU ACTUALLY READ THE ENTIRE BILL ???
Do you really hate old people. Will you be old one day or will just commit suicide when you get old and get it over with ??
I don't want the government telling me, my children, my family or friends or their families that there loved one cannot get a treatment to give them a year or two more of life, that they will have to just go to a hospice care facility or have hospice come to their home and keep them comfortable. RATIONED CARE ?? HELL NO.
Why not try reading the entire bill. Look at all the nooks and crannies it has in it.
You Bob are an idiot and are just as bad as Obama and his Democatic croonies and czars. Get a life.
Leave the healthcare alone until it's overhaul is accomplished in a civil, decent way. What the hell is the hurry. Get it right the first time. This scare tactic just don't get it.
If it takes 2 years to get it right so be it !!
In this country, people can get health care if they need or want it. Hospitals do not turn people away if they cannot pay. Every hospital has a social worker that works on this for folks.
Maybe you should check into it. The healthcare in America at the moment does not leave people out if they seek care. IT IS THERE ! Many people do not go to Dr.'s when they are sick. Is that my fault, your fault or their own ignorance ??? Many mothers do not have thier kids vaccinated. That is free at any local health department. Have you checked into that ?
You just run you leftist mouth like all dems do. You know nothing.
Maybe we should have the healthcare patrol go to every home in America and knock on their doors to make sure they are not sick and get them to the hospital if they are.
You know you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink !!
Even people that have health insurance want go to a Dr. Some of them die.
What is your solution for that ???
Bob, you are an idiot. You get the idiots award of the week !! Enjoy it !

[Bob]

"What the hell is the hurry. Get it right the first time. This scare tactic just don't get it. If it takes 2 years to get it right so be it !!"

WBPE, as I posted earlier, about 20,000 people per year are currently dying -- literally -- from lack of affordable health care. Further hundreds of thousands are going bankrupt every year because their crappy or unethical private insurers won't pay for their medical bills. Designing a new system is not rocket science, and there's more than one way that could work. It needs to be approached with a positive, can-do attitude, but we need to start NOW. It's too late for excuses and foot-dragging from conservatives who have no good-faith intention to do anything but maintain the status-quo. Your side has had many years to come up with a workable system, and what have they done? Absolutely nothing. You had your chance.

And just as a side note, I think it's really silly and dumb to accuse people of hating America or hating old people. All it does it prove that you're not someone to be taken seriously.

[WBestPresidentEver]

Bob, from the looks of it you are out-numbered on this post.
Get over yourself. !

Bob, why don't you pay for those 20,000 a year that are dying. You have no proof of this.
How many of those folks did not go to a DR.?
You need to get off your duff and get to work taking all these 20,000 to the DR.
They will not be refused care in this country and you know it, it they woudl only go !!
If it takes 5 years to get it right then so be it.

[North Dallas Thirty]

Bob, jacksmith above exposed your party and its lies about "change"; your goal is nothing less than to seize control of the American health system and force all of us onto government-rationed health care.

Furthermore, you don't care about those 20,000 people you keep bandying about; if you did, you would be paying for their healthcare NOW. You're merely using them just as before, when your party prayed for more attacks on American soldiers so that you could use their bodies for propaganda ads.

And I loved this:

Further hundreds of thousands are going bankrupt every year because their crappy or unethical private insurers won't pay for their medical bills.

Bob, your own party says that you will deny care for treatments if you think they're too expensive or not good enough.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health25-2009jun25,0,1978875.story

But of course, that's not "crappy or unethical" when the government denies care to the people who have paid for it for years through their taxes. Why is that, Bob?

[Doug]

What would be far better would be to find a candidate who runs for office NOT on political principles, but instead runs because he wants the healthcare coverage that these prima donnas receive. Think "Pat Paulsen," but 42 years later. Imagine the warm embrace he would receive in the Land of Princes and Princesses (aka DC).

[Bob]

"Bob, why don't you pay for those 20,000 a year that are dying. You have no proof of this."

WBPE, the dishonesty and callousness of people like you is unacceptable when dealing when matters of life and death. Your attitude amounts to, "F*#k those losers who die because they can't afford healthcare." And of course, there IS proof which I linked to, for both the death toll from lack of healthcare coverage and also for the number of bankruptcies due to medical bills. If you choose to ignore the proof that is reputable and readily available, it's because you don't want to know the truth. I challenge you to disprove the studies that I linked to. Go ahead, prove me wrong (LOL).

Obama shouldn't waste any more time trying to make deals with Republicans or the healthcare industry. There's no room for compromise with people who are acting in bad faith.

[North Dallas Thirty]

Bob, once again, you don't care about those 20,000 people you keep bandying about; if you did, you would be paying for their healthcare NOW. You're merely using them just as before, when your party prayed for more attacks on American soldiers so that you could use their bodies for propaganda ads.

The proof that you don't care is in the fact that you have already raised taxes that disproportionately affect the poor to purchase free healthcare for white Obama voters who own expensive homes and cars, but don't want to provide for their children.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/03/01_regressive.html

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/children-war-care-1899214-health-government

Furthermore, your own Barack Obama specifically stated that he would deny healthcare to Americans who had paid for it if he thought it was too expensive.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health25-2009jun25,0,1978875.story

Of course you scream and stomp your little feet like the child you are, demanding that we "disprove" your "studies" when you've already been slapped repeatedly on your claims, when you've made it clear that you ignore every single bit of evidence that counters your propaganda, and when your Obama Party is openly bragging that your intention is to destroy private health insurance.

It doesn't work, Bob. Just as we know that you calling someone racist is a lie and hypocritical statement because you openly attack people based on their skin color, we also know that people like you who support firebombing houses with children in them like your Bill Ayers did use "dishonest" and "callous" to attack anyone who dares counter your lies and propaganda.

[North Dallas Thirty]

"WBPE, the dishonesty and callousness of people like you is unacceptable when dealing when matters of life and death."

You mean like this, Bob?

"President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare law on July 30, 1965, and 11 months later seniors were receiving coverage. But if President Barack Obama gets to sign a health care overhaul this fall, the uninsured won't be covered until 2013 — after the next presidential election.

In fact, a timeline of the 1,000-page health care bill crafted by House Democrats shows it would take the better part of a decade — from 2010-2018 — to get all the components of the far-reaching proposal up and running."

Or if that isn't enough proof:

"First comes the pain. In 2011, the government would start collecting higher taxes on upper-income people to pay for the overhaul. The uninsured would have to wait until 2013 before they started receiving the benefits — after the 2010 and 2012 elections."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32013032/ns/politics-white_house/

In short, Bob, for all your screaming about people dying and going bankrupt right now for lack of health insurance, your Obama Party's proposal is deliberately written to not do thing one to stop it FOR FOUR YEARS.

That makes it beyond obvious that you do not care at all. Indeed, it makes it blatantly clear that these people are worth nothing to you other than propaganda.

That shows how utterly and completely disgusting you and your entire Obama Party are. No principles, no values, no morals. You whine about dying people and lie about providing them coverage. There literally is nothing you will not do for power.

[WBestPresidentEver]

Bob, you are just as much as an IDIOT as Obama is.
Get over your arrogant self. I bet you walk around with your nose stuck up in the air like "THAT ONE" does. Your s*%$ does stink and so does his.
Get a life.

[No Oil for Pacifists]

Bob:

The study you cite on medical bankruptcies is flatly false:

http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com/2009/03/obamas-14-words.html

http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com/2005/02/us-healthcare-costs-not-so-fast.html

[WBestPresidentEver]

DISPROVE THIS "BOB"

Don't Be Fooled by Obama's '45 Million' Uninsured

When the numbers are crunched, it turns out that only 11 million legal American citizens who would like health insurance don't have it, and even that figure is likely high. If we take it at 11 million, that's less than 4% of the country.

There's that number again: 45 million.

That's supposedly the number of people in America who don't have health insurance. How do I know that? Well, for one, President Obama's said it, like, 45 million times.

Democrats also love to say it. Michael Moore quoted it in his last movie, "SICKO" which in hindsight may as well have been a commercial for Obama-care.

Enter "45 mil" into the Google search bar, and before you're even done typing it will fill out the rest for you: "45 million uninsured." Finish typing in the search term and Google will bring up 147,000 results. The figure is quite literally everywhere. And now it's being used by the Obama administration to convince average Americans of two things: the uninsured represent a sizeable group in America; and Obama's plan will make health care more affordable and accessible to everyone, especially those 45 million.

Both premises are patently false -- the number of uninsured is far fewer than 45 million, and the Congressional Budget Office finds that Obamacare will practically bankrupt us, while simultaneously penalizing citizens and businesses who refuse coverage. It will also probably mean that the quality of our health care system will plummet, countless patients will not receive the life-saving care they need, good doctors will be driven out of business, and fewer people will actually want to become doctors. But 45 million Americans will finally get health insurance.

Considering the scope of Obama's massive proposal for health care overhaul, shouldn't we be considering how the vast majority of Americans will be affected, as opposed to just a small minority? (And, even a smaller minority than is often suggested?) Indeed, isn't it the number of insured Americans that should matter, since they are the ones whose medical coverage is about to drastically change for good?

This number, the number of insured Americans, is not an easy figure to find. Just try Googling it and you'll navigate through a frustrating labyrinth of dead ends, most of which lead you directly back to that uninsured "45 million" number. Eventually I had to ask the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Census Bureau to get an answer.

It turns out that 253.4 million Americans -- or a whopping 83% of the country -- have health insurance, whether it's through private insurers, employer-based coverage, a government program or Medicaid/Medicare. The majority, 202 million of the 253.4 million, pay for private insurance.

And as a number of clever skeptics have recently pointed out, breaking down the 45 million number reveals that far fewer folks are actually uninsured. Nearly 10 million of those 45 million aren't even American citizens, and nearly 17 million of them can easily afford insurance, but choose not to get it (these folks will be taxed under Obamacare for opting out.) When the numbers are crunched, it turns out that only 11 million legal American citizens who would like health insurance don't have it, and even that figure is likely high. If we take it at 11 million, that's less than 4% of the country.

Now, it's important that we get health care to those 4%, of course. But is it really necessary to rip apart the health care system we currently have to do it? Yes, we all want better coverage that's more affordable and easier to navigate. Obamacare doesn't solve any of these. All it does is help less than 4% of the country get health insurance, while putting the rest of us through a tangled maze of bureaucracy, for worse care that costs just as much, maybe more. The long-term effects are even more frightening, but in the short term do we really want to penalize the many in favor of the (very) few?