This evening the Senate passed the motion for debate on the healthcare bill.
Here’s what Senator Dodd, who took over work on the HELP committee for his ailing friend and colleague, the late Senator Edward Kennedy, had to say:
if you’ve watched the debate here in the Senate over the past few days, you’ve probably noticed something else – nobody has stood up and said that they’re okay with doing nothing. In the weeks ahead, we’ll have a full and open debate about every provision of this bill. But tonight’s vote is nothing more than a choice between doing something and doing nothing.
Make no mistake: Those who vote “no,” even though they have stood on this floor and said that the status quo is unacceptable, are voting to do nothing, to put health care reform aside for another year, to let more families – maybe your family – fall through the cracks.
But tonight’s vote is historic because tonight, for the first time, the status quo will not win.
Tonight, for the first time, the Senate will vote to take on health care reform.
Tonight, with this vote, the American people will finally have their voices heard on this most basic issue.
27 responses so far ↓
I appreciate Senator Dodd’s efforts at trying to improve the health care situation in America. But seriously… TBTF is his baby. And he sat back for the past year, watching as TBTF got even B’er!
Eliminating the Fed’s regulatory role is a step in the right direction. And Senator Dodd needs to discuss healthcare at this moment, but he really needs to get his act together and begin fighting Wall Street. Unfortunately, he’s already on record siding with Wall Street and Mel Watt… rather than with the AFL-CIO, SEIU, Naomi Klein and Alan Grayson… on a simple good government measure – Audit the Fed.
Sara… do you know what word I used that got moderated? I was trying to be respectful.
No, what thread was it in? Chris used to deal with all that stuff, so I might have to do some research.
Ok, fixed it. Not sure why that got held in the moderated queue. Unless TBTF has some kinky meaning we don’t know about
>>This evening the Senate passed the motion for debate on the healthcare bill.
Thank goodness!
Had it failed the mood in the country might have have cooled down to a mere simmer; now it’ll boil over.
Thank you Democrats!
Have a fun year and we’ll you next November.
BTW – good luck with your national fund raising efforts!
Sara… hahaha!!!
I wonder, is the U.S. Senate the only major legislative body in the world that can spend so much time in “debate” on whether or not to continue with weeks more worth of debate?
BB – Whether you like or hate Dodd, he totally nailed it with what he said in the quote above. Because I don’t think there’s a single Senator in that chamber who has the cojones to get up and say that healthcare as it is works just fine. So to then vote against debating reform?
Sara,
What a difference a day makes. Today, Sunday, the Hartford Courant is featuring on its front page a new Quinnipiac poll. The poll shows a positive for Dodd on “leadership qualities” (Yes 61%, No 35%). However the “deserve re-election” figures are disappointing (Yes 39%, No 53%). Searching for a nexus between these two sets of figures, I come up with this: a) people agree that Dodd is a leader (your point) but, b) they don’t like where he’s leading them. What’s your interpretation?
Listening to Bill Dyson on Stan Simpson’s show now. What a standup guy, wish he had stayed in electoral politics….
The Senate vote won’t happen until next year IMHO.
The Liebermans and Nelsons will allow the filibuster meaning the bill will need rewriting over the holiday break while the Dems work on the naysayers.
The negotiating committe will likely craft a bill that won’t pass House muster in February (too lenient on abortion, too liberal on the public option opt out, AARP unacceptable Medicare changes) forcing a rewrite and the Presidential branch to rescope the proposal closer to Obama’s speech.
After that who knows? The deficit and unemployment will likely clog up the primary season. My guess is that the abortion language stays in, the Public Option is very limited and must meet certain competitive conditions, and that Seniors don’t lose any benefits. The 2012 through 2016 elections will determine what really happens and gets funded.
>>Listening to Bill Dyson on Stan Simpson’s show now.
A superb guy who’s handshake can be taken seriously – actually someone who can be referred to as a “good man”.
Never have enough of those regardless of political stripe.
A superb guy who’s handshake can be taken seriously
The man has integrity, no question….
“Whether you like or hate Dodd, he totally nailed it with what he said in the quote above. Because I don’t think there’s a single Senator in that chamber who has the cojones to get up and say that healthcare as it is works just fine. So to then vote against debating reform?” – Saramerica
Saramerica,
When will you read the bill and give us your in depth analysis on this bill?
Will you please tell us why this bill is Constitutional?
Can you? Are you able to? Do you think Dodd wiill or has read the bill?
Let’s call a spade a spade, ok?
This bill is about giving free health care to the voting base of the Democrat party period! At the expense of working people!
Can you find me where this is legal?
Are you willing to get another job, if there is any out there to help fund some elses “free” health care?
If one Senator’s vote is going to cost the tax payers 100 million, how much will it cost to get Dodd’s? Or Leiberman? What do these pork items have to do with health care?
Challenging the Democrats and the Press…
great post by Steve McGough at Radioviceonline…
http://radioviceonline.com/democrats-refuse-to-point-out-bill-sections-that-will-improve-health-care/
“Challenge the media. Challenge your friends. Challenge the congress-critters. And yes, challenge yourself. We’ve pointed out specific sections of current health care legislation that will make things worse for Americans. We’ve given you the page numbers. We’ve told you exactly what it means and what it will do. Why don’t the statists (lefties) point out sections that will make things better?” – Steve McGough
Listen Bluecoat, I’m a “working person”. And last year my health insurance went up 18%. The year before that, 20%. Just got my renewal. This year it ONLY went up 13%. What was the inflation rate? Remind me. Oh wait – it was NEGATIVE 1.3%!
And you’re telling me there’s not a problem with healthcare in this country? I can’t “shop around” for healthcare, because we all have pre existing conditions. I’m hostage to the bastards at my insurance company, who incidentally, after charging me huge premiums, use every possible excuse NOT to pay for things. I don’t have time to list all my experiences here, because I need to work on the job that pays, but suffice to say, I could write a book about my experiences with the insurance companies.
Here’s another thing. A friend of mine just got divorced. Got an e-mail from her this morning. Turned down for health insurance due to pre-existing conditions. Section that will make things better – there’s one. The one that prohibits insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
I did a book signing yesterday and met a guy whose son had a cleft lip when he was a baby. Not a cleft palate, but a cleft lip. He had surgery and now he’s fine. But now, when the family applies for insurance they get turned down because that’s a pre-existing condition. Like the guy said, it’s not like the kid is going to get a cleft lip again. It was a one off . It’s just crazy.
Sarah – no one that I can recall has been defending the rapidly rising price of health-care or insurance.
However – simply handing the whole dastardly mess from people that might have some idea as to what they’re doing, over to a pack of bureaucrats hardly seems like any sort of logical solution.
No malpractice caps?
No mention what-so-ever of affordable national catastrophic coverage?
The FDA remains intact when in fact it should be shut down?
(and the employees arrested, their property seized…..oh never mind)
All this effort and we’ll be left with just as many idiots in the left lane as we have now!
How about a little effort to solve problems that *matter* to working Americans?
Let’s get those damned “law abiding drivers” off the road once and for all for starters.
Then we can move on to items of lesser importance; like health care, national defense, things like that.
So tell me why the bill is Constitutional?
Will you read it? Instead of giving me sob stories that we all have, tell me why we need to go bankrupt to pay for your health care?
The problems are government created and this new Senate and House bill will make it worse. Healthcare, or health insurance, is not a right.
We no longer shop around for health care options anymore because of Ted Kennedy’s HMO bill. We all expect or have been conditioned that someone else is supposed to pay, like our employer. Are you telling me you are not smart enough to ask for the money your company is spending for your health care, and go out and shop for better pricing? Is not health insurance most people recieve from their empoyer part of their salary and their company gets the tax credit for?
Have you ever offered cash for routine office visits to your doctor? Shouldn’t we be buying catastrophic health insurance for the problems that may occur in our lives, and not for routine items?
So since you are a “working person” are you willing to work another job to help fund your divorced friend’s new goverment health coverage?
The real question is not whether the proposed Health Care Reform will “bankrupt” us or not [it won't] but whether it will do anything to lower health care costs. That part is debatable. What is certain, however, is that the continued path of escalating health costs [now at 16.7% of GDP] will eventually sink the US, going to about 20% of GDP by 2018, or $4.2 trillion from the current $2.4 trillion, and a whopping 100% of GDP by 2080, if you want to take the CBO estimates to their logical conclusion. What is baffling about all this is that this problem has been known to exist and studied in models since at least the 1960’s. And nothing has been done to seriously address it. In the end, health care may be the ultimate test of whether the American political system, our democracy, is dysfunctional or not. Right now I suspect we would not want to hear the verdict.
I accepted that the Romney planin MA is the only viable solution. The important thing is to get universal coverage accepted and to set up an exchange that can’t discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. The cost-containment will come later as a result of crisis when costs explode..
The only cost-containment planks alive in the current plan is the negotiating ability of government to get near Medicaid rates for a public option and possibly for the exchange . Everything else has been gutted.
As has been said some quick and easy solutions could be legislated such as lowering lowering Medicaid to age 60, raising the age of coverage of kids on their parents policy to 25, eliminating pre-existing exclusions and/or price gouging, making COBRA open-ended instead of an 18 month limit, real malpractice reform and adding some tax credits for states to create their own exchanges like MA and that’s all doable.
The insurance companies have already threatened to ‘raise rates on young adults to offset a removal of the pre-existing conditions clauses and capping the premiums on policy holders over 50s to a ratio based on young adult premiums (3X). I’m not sure if forcing young workers to pay $400 a month saves me much if I am required to spend at least $1,200 a month. In some ways eliminating the pre-existing conditions clause is the only benefit any of us over 50 are going to see and even that has limited value. Most who are working have accesss to group plans.
Bluecoat – I AM my employer. I don’t expect anyone else to pay. And with a child with a chronic condition like diabetes, it simply isn’t feasible to only carry catastrophic coverage. And that’s just one kid.
But here’s where you and I have a fundamental difference of opinion that cannot be reconciled. Because I DO believe that access to basic healthcare should be a right in an advanced industrialized country like the USA, and that it is absolutely shameful that it isn’t. And frankly, all the GOP and Blue Dog Congresspeople who benefit from government healthcare yet rattle on about how they are fundamentally opposed to a public option make me sick with their hypocrisy. Let them try getting their health insurance on the so called “free” market.
So, I will ask again.
Will you read the bill and tell me exactly which points of the said bill will be good for the taxpayers? And why it is Constitutional?
Do the ends always have to justify the means with liberal socialists like yourself, and Damn the Constitution?
YOU DO WANT and expect someone else to pay, that is your hypocrisy!
You are not paying attention to other “industrialized” countries who have and are trying Nationalized healthcare. They are going bankrupt! And care is rationed!
In my view liberals like yourself aren’t happy until everyone is miserable.
And not only are we going to miserable, we will all be broke for this stupid utopian health care plan that won’t work.
If the idea was to make healthcare less expensive with the House and Senate versions, please read this bill and tell me what line item in either, is going to make that happen.
What will happen if this new plan will not pay for insulin because some government agency will rule that your kid is not worthy?
The language in this bill will become law as written. Their will be “death panel” and care will be rationed.
So Saramerica,
How many people are you going to hire if this health care plan passes?
Surely you will be hiring more, won’t you?
Do you hire people just so you can pay for their healthcare insurance?
Or do you hire people because their talents help you continue to live on the Gold Coast of CT?
If this passes say in July, taxes are going to be raised retroactively back to January 1, 2010 to start paying benefits starting in 2013 or 2014.
Are saving up?
How many books in the upscale coffee shops of Greenwich are you going to have to sell so you can pay for all those new employees health benefits?
For Saramerica,
While you are studying the Senate Health bill, keep this article handy.
Health care is not a right to be controlled by the Feds, Nancy Pelosi is wrong.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/no_health_care_in_the_constitu.html
>>How many people are you going to hire if this health care plan passes?
Not likely – take the link when you click her name or google her.
Sarah’s an author and writes commercially often with deadlines; she’s a classic case of “self – employed”.
She has an enormous monthly outgo for various meds (not her’s, not life-threatening, but expensive nonetheless.
I sympathize with her plight but don’t agree with her conclusion as to a solution.
ACR,
I do also sympathize. We have Medicare and Medicaid for people who need help, and both of those are on the brink of bankruptcy, and I can’t see how another Ponzi Scheme Government plan will fix that.
On a side note, I also see on her blog pages, that her kids get to go on yearly traditional over seas trip to London. Must be nice. I still don’t understand the persoanl need to write on a public website one’s whereabouts, your family details… etc.
Yeah. Must be SOOOOOO nice having a dad who lives 3000 miles away and only sees you a few weeks a year. Aren’t they just SOOOO lucky. Bet every kid wishes they could be that lucky. Save your fricking crocodile tears Bluecoat, and stop being so quick to make judgments of people you don’t even know.
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