- Obama has an excellent command of the issue and caustic sense of humor ("Let me guess: That's the 2400-page bill.").
- I'm so glad that John McCain isn't president.
- How did Rep. Eric Cantor (VA) rise so high in the Republican party? He's barely coherent
- Kathleen Sebelius is sharp.
- Obama keeps using the summit as an opportunity for education. He's good at explaining the nuances, but does anybody want to hear?
- Republican plaints that they want health care reform but not mandates might not make sense but it could be good politics.
- Cantor keeps arguing that the government shouldn't define what standard health care benefits are. Unfortunately, the response has been technical rather rhetorical, meaning that someone ought to point out that right now it's the insurance companies that define benefits.
- Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, commenting on MSBC, just took Obama to task for not negotiating with Republicans. But they're the ones who have said at every turn this morning that the philosophical differences are too far apart to negotiate. Pence repeated the Republican mantra that the current bill must be scrapped and the process started anew (which of course they are too disingenuous to admit means killing health care reform). Pence also claimed that Obama didn't show Republicans respect, as if they've shown him any.
- Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) made an impassioned case for legislation that makes it illegal to not offer coverage because of preexisting conditions. Everyone, including Republicans, agree, but what the R's won't admit is that this requires a general mandate...
Commentator Chris Matthews says that it's up to the Democratic party to pass health care reform, noting that with the odd exception of Richard Nixon, Republicans historically have had no interest in health care expansion...
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Yup, in the end they're going to have to go the negotiated route to avoid the filibuster. The Republicans don't want a bipartisan plan, and they have no intention of coming up with a plan of their own. The sole Republican agenda is to sabotage the Democratic congressional majority and Barack Obama's presidency. Why nobody in the White House and in the Democratic hierarchy in Congress has faced up to this and developed a strategy that essentially bypasses the Republicans entirely is beyond me. Are they really that blindly optimistic?
I can't find out whether or not the mandatory purchase of policies from the health insurance 'professional' racketeers remains in the bill.
I bet it is.
But NOBODY talks about it.
It's part of this whole thing as a scam for the racketeers. O yeah, the insurance corps must insure you (you pay for it) whether or not a pre-existing condition, but they will NOT pay out when you use it. What a racket.
Love, c.
It's not as much a matter of optimism as actual surprise that the Republicans have so intransigent. It was essentially a misreading of the state of the Republican party. Unfortunately, they've been able to have it both ways, positioning themselves as the victims of unreasonable partisanship, a bipartisan voice in the Obama-Reid-Pelosi wilderness while actually acting as an immovable partisan bloc.
Employers must offer health insurance or pay a fine. (John Cornyn, in essence, complained that the fine wasn't high enough!). If you're self-employed, you have to buy it yourself. There are protections against being dropped or not covered. When you get right down to it, that was the nub of one of Eric Cantor's gripes: That the government and not the insurance companies defines basic care and coverage.
Also, small businesses will receive subsidies to provide insurance for their employees.
Cornyn sucks the BIG one.....any Texan knows that. He IS his own special interest!
Good call, K. Couldn't bring myself to watch the proceedings, so I'm glad you summed things up for me. Curious about Nixon--perhaps it was his Quaker roots gave him a glimmer of conscience?
Ima: Isn't Cornyn in the Phil Gramm Seat? :) At least he isn't as bad as Gramm. That would an impossibility for any senator not named Thurmond.
RobinB: Nixon was a complex man, of course. In additional to proposing universal health insurance, he also established the Environmental Protection Agency. The consensus appears to be that he did all of this less out of liberal instincts and more to fend of challenges from the left, especially to his foreign policy. The times were different, too: Some Republican politicians (Javits, Case, Percy, Hatfield, for example) were outright liberals.
BTW, one of the first heads of the EPA was Donald Rumsfeld. By many accounts he was quite effective, too.
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