Outnumbered Republicans pledge to delay "train wreck of historic proportions" reform bill

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Sunday, Dec 20, 2009 13:18 EST
GOP pledges healthcare delay
Opposition threatens to stop "train wreck" reform bill
By Associated Press

Outnumbered Republicans are pledging to delay passage of historic health care legislation as long as possible after jubilant Democrats locked in Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson as the 60th and decisive vote.

Nelson's backing puts President Barack Obama's signature issue firmly on a path for Christmas Eve passage. Democrats will need to show 60 votes on two additional occasions, with the next -- and most critical -- test vote set for about 1 a.m. Monday.

"This bill is a legislative train wreck of historic proportions," the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said at a Saturday news conference. He pointed to cuts to Medicare that the Congressional Budget Office said totaled more than $470 billion over a decade, with reductions in planned payments to home health care agencies and hospices. He also said the bill includes "massive tax increases" at a time of double-digit unemployment.

A senior adviser to Obama criticized Republican senators on Sunday for trying to halt final action, saying the American people deserve a vote.

"The Republican party has spent a month engaged in parliamentary maneuvers and dilatory tactics to try and prevent a vote," David Axelrod, the Obama adviser, told ABC's "This Week."

http://www.salon.com/news/2009/12/20/us_health_care_overhaul_6/index.html

[HughMoran]

1. Yes, as stated in another thread, the Republicans are sitting on their hands

...tacitly supporting this reform.

On what planet to people that post ridiculous bullshit like that live?

[Joe Bacon]

12. This GOP train wreck is running on HO scale.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are getting everything they want from the Democrats. This bill is their wet dream come true!

[laughingliberal]

2. I'm all for saving Medicare's money but more cuts to home health and hospice?

Two programs which have, unfailingly, been shown to save money are, once again, taking it in the shorts. Those hospital corporation lobbies are powerful.

[cliffordu]

3. I'm sure that since the Republicant's have said that's true that it is.

:eyes:

:puke:

[laughingliberal]

4. Hope it's not true but it has been the trend since Clinton went after

"waste, fraud, and abuse," in Medicare. The home health industry was demonized and targeted disproportionately due to the hospital lobbies ability to keep the heat off them. Hospital corporations lobbied for new regs in 1998 to require patients spend 3 midnights in the hospital before they could be eligible for home health services. How special is that? Don't allow the patient help that would save us hospital costs until you give the hospital their cut. I hope the Republicans are lying about this. If it's true...well...as they say...even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[bvar22]

5. $500 BILLION dollars of "waste, fraud, and abuse"?

I don't think so.

These are the seeds for the destruction of Medicare, defunding it by $500Billion Dollars and transferring THAT $500Billion to the For Profit Health Insurance Cartel.

It is NO SECRET that the Privatizing (destruction) of Social Security and Medicare has been a long term goal of the DLC.


The DLC New Team

(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)

[laughingliberal]

6. Yep and, even after we saw what Wall Street did with the country's money

they're still at it. This thing, Bernanke starting up that entitlement reform crap, they have not backed off it. They know taking the money out of the government coffers and handing it over to private industry and the financial institutions will destroy the programs. They don't care. If there's a penny of the people's money out there they haven't stolen yet, it's their job to get it. Will it destroy the United States? Absolutely. Does that bother them? Not in the least. Plenty of countries left to raid in the global economy.

[cliffordu]

7. Hmm....How much of that money has been paid back??/

[laughingliberal]

8. I am not referring to the bailout money. I'm referring to the $ 5 trillion dollars lost to this

economy by the wholesale transfer of the money to the top. The bailout is a drop in the bucket but it might have been nice to require something in return from them, come to think of it. You know, like interest or a commitment to try to ease the situation on main street once they were back on their feet.

[dflprincess]

11. Quite a bit of it has been paid back by giving tax breaks to the debtors

Really, just kind of handing them the money to pay the loan with.

Go figure.

[TiberiusGracchus]

9. All those pragmatists who say we should pass this bill to save Obama's presidency are forgetting

something:

The financing for this bill is so flawed that the Republicans can actually REPEAL it and rightfully claim that they are doing it to SAVE MEDICARE.

Or they can just let it fester for a couple years and remind everyone that we are paying taxes for FOUR YEARS before the first benefits kick in at 2014.

Or they can hang this bill on any progressive democrat who ever runs for office as proof positive that the democratic party CANNOT BE TRUSTED to govern according to their principles.

This bill will be our "No Child Left Behind"---a piece of legislation that doubles as ammunition for the opposition and one that NONE of the original authors will ever want to take credit for ever again.

[walldude]

10. LMAO.. their pissed because it does too much and we're

pissed because it doesn't do enough.

Scrap the bill. Get 51 votes to expand medicare for all, tell the insurance companies and the fucking republicans to go piss up a rope...


And for those who are using the fact that the republicans have their heads up their asses to say this is a good bill maybe you ought to go ask Goldman Sachs why they are getting into the insurance industry starting Jan 1st.

I'm sure they're doing it because they want to help suffering Americans.... .... ...... ..... ..... :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: