Democrats want to use reconciliation to pass healthcare legislation

[Beattie]

http://www.latimes.com/news/na...9apr25,0,2883760.story

tl;dr - the democrats want to use this reconciliation process to introduce new programs that fundamentally alter how the country works. Also it only allows for 35 hours of discussion in the house and senate about this.

Whether you like it or not, this seems pretty underhanded.

 

[Jaskalas]

If former generations were stupid enough to create such rules, then future generations shall exploit them. It?s just rather amusing that Republicans didn?t think of this first. Way to lose the war.

 

[marincounty]

Republicans used this to pass Bush's tax cuts. Did you have a problem with that?

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Beattie

tl;dr - the democrats want to use this reconciliation process to introduce new programs that fundamentally alter how the country works. Also it only allows for 35 hours of discussion in the house and senate about this.

Whether you like it or not, this seems pretty underhanded.

You mean "altering how the country works" and "underhanded" with the same parliamentary proceedures that allowed the Republican majority to pass the devastating Bushwhacko tax cuts for their wealthy Wall Street robber baron contributors? :Q

We know how well that worked. :roll:

Get over it. Under reconciliation, the act will expire and have to be renewed if it's to continue. That's the only safeguard built into the reconciliation process.

 

[Beattie]

Originally posted by: marincounty
Republicans used this to pass Bush's tax cuts. Did you have a problem with that?

At least tax cuts are a budget item...

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: marincounty
Republicans used this to pass Bush's tax cuts. Did you have a problem with that?

yes.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Beattie

Originally posted by: marincounty

Republicans used this to pass Bush's tax cuts. Did you have a problem with that?

At least tax cuts are a budget item...

So is health care... Or do you think it comes free from the health fairy? :roll:

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: Harvey
Get over it. Under reconciliation, the act will expire and have to be renewed if it's to continue. That's the only safeguard built into the reconciliation process.

You bring up an interesting quandry

Assuming some form of National health care is enacted over the next 4 yrs under reconciliation and assuming that at some point Republican's regain power be it 4yrs 8yrs or later and wish to let NHC expire would it be possible to abandon an entrenced nationwide system and go back to the way it was?

Or perhaps the Repub's don't regain power but the implementaion of NHC is bad enough that there is major public support for killing it? Would it be economically feasable?

Personally I don't think there is a road back from either schenario. Once we go down this road there will be no coming back. I'm tepidly in support of NHC, but there is no margin for error it has to be done right the first time and faces many ethical and legal hurdles that we must reach consensus on.

 

[CanOWorms]

The filibuster itself is a sort of trick. They're just using another one now.

 

[bbdub333]

Originally posted by: Harvey
Or do you think it comes free from the health fairy? :roll:

Most people advocating this type of stuff are under that exact impression.

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: bbdub333

Originally posted by: Harvey
Or do you think it comes free from the health fairy? :roll:

Most people advocating this type of stuff are under that exact impression.

Actually we're people who pay attention to how much the current system is costing us and our employers and how little we get for the money.

 

[Zorkorist]

So why would you want to give more money to such a corrupt system?

-John

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: Zorkorist
So why would you want to give more money to such a corrupt system?

-John

I don't. I want a single payer system.

 

[Zorkorist]

Socializing Medicine will not fix Medical costs nor care.

It's the government, insuance companies, and lawyers that have destroyed our health-care system.

If you go single payer, then you just have consolidated all the forces that screw the consumer.

-John

 

[ProfJohn]

Harvey are you seriously comparing letting people keep more of THEIR money (tax cuts) to a government take over a healthcare?

 

[cubby1223]

In a day in age where perhaps the most important job the government has is to unite its citizens...

Health care reform is vitally important to our future growth. But federal government growth is almost always counter-productive. Pool together the money, divide it out amongst the states, and let the states rework health care programs. Let's get 50 different legislatures develop 50 different plans, spanning the range of the political spectrum. Some time in the future evaluate which ones work and which ones don't. But the fear is always that the feds will mandate a program in a panic hurry, run largely along partisan lines, bowing to corporate and union influences, and be so ineffective and virtually unfixable. Look at Great Britain's great health care programs :roll:

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Harvey are you seriously comparing letting people keep more of THEIR money (tax cuts) to a government take over a healthcare?

Actually people aren't keeping any of THEIR money with tax cuts. They are borrowing more for services they haven't paid for. Services including one hugely expensive, unnecessarily war of choice.

 

[Zorkorist]

Hell, look at Hilaarious's socialized medicine plan in 2000.

It's hated by the American people.

You act as if 50 states could spend the money better, well, how about 300 million citizens?

Stop taxing, insuring, suing, us, and we can buy health-care.

-John

 

[senseamp]

If Republicans want to have an honest debate followed by an honest vote, then I'd be all for that. If they want endless and pointless debate followed by a filibuster, bring on the reconciliation.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Farang

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Harvey are you seriously comparing letting people keep more of THEIR money (tax cuts) to a government take over a healthcare?

Actually people aren't keeping any of THEIR money with tax cuts. They are borrowing more for services they haven't paid for. Services including one hugely expensive, unnecessarily war of choice.

The cost of Iraq over the last 6 years = $600-700 billion

The cost of the stimulus package passed by Obama and the Democrats = $787 billion

Tell me again how hugely expensive that war was?

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Farang

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Harvey are you seriously comparing letting people keep more of THEIR money (tax cuts) to a government take over a healthcare?

Actually people aren't keeping any of THEIR money with tax cuts. They are borrowing more for services they haven't paid for. Services including one hugely expensive, unnecessarily war of choice.

BTW your argument is totally false.

The people who are paying the most taxes are getting the least amount of government services.

It is the people who are paying no taxes that are sucking up all the government services.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

The cost of Iraq over the last 6 years = $600-700 billion

The cost of the stimulus package passed by Obama and the Democrats = $787 billion

Tell me again how hugely expensive that war was?

The Iraq war costs $600-$700 billion if you choose to completely and utterly ignore all of the other costs associated with the war that didn't fall into appropriations bills. That would be insanely dishonest though, so you wouldn't want to do that now would you Pro-Jo?

Not only that, but a large amount of the money spent on the Iraq war was spent on projects outside of the US or on military spending (which is by FAR the worst form of government spending from an economic standpoint). The stimulus package on the other hand is entirely spent within the United States. Also, no matter what you think of the package it was designed to address a problem that we have, while the Iraq war was there to fix a problem we never had, and in fact harmed us in the long run.

You sure you want to keep bringing up Iraq comparisons?

 

[Zorkorist]

Eskimo,

How can you say the Iraq War was frivolous, or that it hasn't benefitted us?

We've killed tons of terrorists, and established another base in the Middle East.

-John

 

[quest55720]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy

Originally posted by: Harvey
Get over it. Under reconciliation, the act will expire and have to be renewed if it's to continue. That's the only safeguard built into the reconciliation process.

You bring up an interesting quandry

Assuming some form of National health care is enacted over the next 4 yrs under reconciliation and assuming that at some point Republican's regain power be it 4yrs 8yrs or later and wish to let NHC expire would it be possible to abandon an entrenced nationwide system and go back to the way it was?

Or perhaps the Repub's don't regain power but the implementaion of NHC is bad enough that there is major public support for killing it? Would it be economically feasable?

Personally I don't think there is a road back from either schenario. Once we go down this road there will be no coming back. I'm tepidly in support of NHC, but there is no margin for error it has to be done right the first time and faces many ethical and legal hurdles that we must reach consensus on.

There is no going back if Obama gets he his way and takes health care from the middle class to give to illegals and the poor. There will be no going back from a 20% tax increase on those who actually pay federal income tax to pay for half ass rationed health care. I will never vote for anyone who passes Obama care and bankrupts me with new taxes.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Zorkorist
Eskimo,

How can you say the Iraq War was frivolous, or that it hasn't benefitted us?

We've killed tons of terroists, and established another base in the Middle East.

-John

Seriously? Killing 'tons of terrorists' doesn't mean anything. That's the same mentality from the Vietnam War where our generals would report body counts as if they meant something. Nearly all of the 'terrorists' we have killed in Iraq have been homegrown insurgents from there, people we wouldn't have been fighting otherwise. Furthermore, Iraq has served as a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda and according to the most recent CIA estimate I can find AQ is stronger now than it has been at any time since 9/11. So as far as 'killing tons of terrorists' goes, it would appear to me that Iraq has been a failure of epic proportions... assuming that the goal of killing terrorists is to have there be fewer terrorists in the world.

Now for 'establishing a base'. According to the current force agreements in place with Iraq we will not have a significant troop presence there for very much longer, so it's not exactly like we're going to have that much larger a presence in the ME than we already did from support by Turkey, Bahrain, and Israel. What IS quite likely however is that the newly formed government of Iraq will be significantly influenced by Iran, our single largest antagonist in the region. Iran has always been far more dangerous to the US than Iraq, and this war has immeasurably strengthened our key adversary. That's bad.

Oh, and we paid trillions of dollars and thousands of lives for the privilege of strengthening Al-Qaeda and Iran. And it was frivolous because it was designed to stop a problem that didn't exist.