–bumped–
With no clear path forward on major health care legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress effectively slammed the brakes on President Obama’s top domestic priority on Tuesday, saying that they no longer felt pressure to move quickly on a health bill after eight months of setting deadlines and missing them. – Democrats Slam Brakes on Health Care Overhaul
The headline has now been changed to Democrats Put Lower Priority on Health Bill. “Slam breaks,” lower priority, it all amounts to a retreat.
Can you just read the refrain from the right on this one. Democrats send up white flag on health care. … Democrats surrender.
(–update–) But never fear, the House is here? Ryan Grimm is reporting that House progressives are pushing Reid on the public option. Are they nuts, stupid or just a fan of wasting more time?
House progressives organizing to rescue health care reform are pressuring their Senate counterparts to go back to the provision that has most energized the party and a majority of Americans throughout the debate: The public option. …
This is as close as you can get to political malpractice. I’m all for pushing health care, but some in the House seem to want to play the fly to the Senate’s screen door, trying to find another way through a point that is blocked by millions of voters, because Democrats blew the message. Besides, the goal should be for Dems to move on from health care, while finding a way to salvage some portion of progress, i.e. offering a package of goodies for people that is easily explainable, which will put pressure on Senate members if they don’t pass them; things like portability, pre-existing exemptions, etc., things we’ve talking about before. But using precious time on the public option? It’s just nuts. (–/update–)
As this drama keeps spinning, already well out of progressive control, Steny Hoyer offers his two cents on what won’t be in Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight.
“I would be surprised if he says specifically exactly how he hopes to get health care done”…
Pres. Obama hasn’t a clue what to do on health care and never has, which is just one reason why we are where we are today, though the entire Democratic majority shares the blame. No one could have imagined they’d be in the fall back position one year into Mr. Obama’s presidency.
Meanwhile, Blanche L. Lincoln of Arkansas and Evan Bayh have said they won’t buy reconciliation. Diane Feinstein say it’s a “time out” for everyone.
So, the political party in charge of everything, which people worked so hard to make happen, are having a time out on health care. The single most draining issue on the economic futures of corporations, small business, job creation, but also the American family’s health. A time out, like children get when they’ve acted up. It’s all just too precious.
This is the setting on the day of Pres. Obama’s first State of the Union speech. A year after coming into office health care is in limbo, with Americans mad, but not at Pres. Obama, with Afghanistan raging, Baghdad exploding, and Netanyahu feeling cozy again.
According to the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Obama’s at 50% approval, with the public fed up with “Washington,” but not blaming him, which is what the White House has to bet on right now.
Only 27 percent say they blame him for not being able to find solutions to the country’s problems. By contrast, 48 percent blame Republicans in Congress and 41 percent blame congressional Democrats.
As for the report about Senate Democrats slamming the breaks on health care, I guess Trumka got his answer. Via Sam Stein:
“I don’t think there are the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill,” Trumka said. “I don’t think they exist. I think the ball is in the Senate’s court. The Senate has to come up with 51 votes for a bill that the American public can accept and that the House can get the votes to pass. So I think it is up to the Senate right now.”
In Republican speak, if the Democrats don’t get health care done or put it on the back burner, however you want to frame it, it’s what they will call a win.
The title to this post has been changed; updates added where marked.
Taylor Marsh, what is exactly the problem with putting off Health Care?!!!…I remember reading endless blogs blasting the White House about the Health Care being watered down and worthless to pass through….On evening news stations people talked of the Kill Health Care bill started by Progressive Democrats outraged about the deals taken in order to get this bill passed…
Now, those same wimpy purest are crying foul because there will most likely be no Health Care Bill at all….Good Grief!!! I understand them wanting a good bill and refusing to accept the one Obama was offering at the time…But thanks to the White House failure at communications in explaining the importance on getting this bill passed with the added large Kill bill from his own party…Health Care for my generation is officially dead…I’m so ashamed, I wasted my vote putting in a Democratic majority that I will most likely never vote for another Dem in my life time…and Republicans are no better with there bottom feeding attitudes at this moment in time…
One last thing about Obama poll numbers…right now he stands at the same polling average of Ronald Regan…so, I don’t understand all this screaming about Obama hovering around 50%…If anything people should be shocked it’s not 22% or lower with the way his White House has governed. The press narrative should be “How in the Heck President Obama is still able to poll positive numbers….When we keeping saying over and over here on Fox News he’s the worst President Ever?….lol”
Fox Cable News maybe the most watched news station in America…but that really doesn’t matter…I mean weren’t they number 1 during all Bush years…Yet, they could not save Bush’s sagging Poll numbers or John McCain/Sarah Palin horribly run campaign…Heck, even Rush could not pull them over the finish line…lol
In the end, I still believe Obama can be reelected again in 2012 no matter how awful people think his policies or govern style has been…But only if Republicans don’t find a better alternative to him… because once Republicans someone else that Americans like and trust…Dems goose are cooked…Now, back to my morning nap
Mornin’ Marie205. I’m against the Senate bill, as I’ve said innumerable times. But the Dems spent ONE FULL YEAR on the issue, something by the way that still needs to be solved because it isn’t going away.
To not do anything hands Rep. a win on an issue that is one of the biggest things in our economy costing us dearly.
Taylor, most of the public I think are being polled as not giving two hoots about Health Care…all they want to hear Obama talk about is Jobs and more Jobs…I understand where you and many Dems who fought for Health care are coming from in not wanting to abandon the issue …but so much bad press over a long year on this serious cause as turned into political mush…I blamed the White House for lacking a better communications front on putting forth why we need this passed in out time…
People with out jobs or in the millions right now…and them watching their President push a complex causing issue as Health Care has gone way over their heads….Nobody, I talked to even understand how this new Health Care Obama was planning will work…all they understand is it might possibly cost them money…The White House can blame Republicans all they want about causing problems in dealing Health Care…but the true blame lies with every Democrats who slowed the process down in Washington for their own personal agenda…Now, I’m really out of here for that delayed nap
see you guys later.
My goodness…I have a lot of types…Taylor, you ever thought of adding and Edit button for your posters?
Taylor, most of the public I think are being polled as not giving two hoots about Health Care…all they want to hear Obama talk about is Jobs and more Jobs…
I advocated a LONG time ago that Obama should have begun his term with a go to the moon energy technology jobs program, coupled with an infrastructure explosion.
Given how Obama screwed up the messaging, I don’t blame the public. Dems have to present GOODIES to them that they can see are real benefits. Remains to be seen if they will or can figure out how to do it so they simultaneously repackage the disaster that is now health care.
Hillary & Co. made innumerable mistakes. Obama & Co. looks even worse because they didn’t learn from them.
hubris
Taylor do you believe the polls that say 90% of the base is still with Obama? Do we just live in a tiny sliver?
Who are they polling? I never answer calls when the ID says “private” maybe that is a pollster? I always think it is a marketer.
Maybe it is the way they ask the question. If they asked me would you vote for Obama or a generic Republican, I would say Obama, it is not that I don’t support him,I am just so mad at him. Maybe it’s the enthusaim numbers that reflect this dissatisfaction in the base?
MA didn’t really work out in congruence with the polls.
This is such an incredible mess – the Democrats in the Senate are fundamentally corrupt and incompetent and the President/White House is totally compromised by corporate interests, lacks leadership (meaning the Big O isn’t interested in leading), and O’s incompetence have caused the American Public to come to the conclusion that this bill is just a bastardized pile of shit and piss. The Dems are all so tied up in the beltway world that they don’t understand how something is “born” matters and the Senate bill is seen by the American Public as evil spawn from hell.
As a Democrat I’m being forced to admit that the Democrats in the Senate, the House and White House are not competent to lead this Country. There is too much corruption (Baucus, Nelson and several others are simply criminals and should be in prison – not in positions of power), incompetence (Harry Reid is simply an idiot and sadly so is Obama) and cowardice in the Democratic Party and Leadership (that charge sticks to Obama and about 90% of the Dem members of the House and Senate) to be able to fight with the Republicans and fix the problems this country faces. When this is added to the biggest issue of all, it seems that none of our elected Dems actually believe in anything, we are left with a Party that isn’t fit to govern.
Sadly for the Dems the American People are coming to the same conclusion. The problem for the United States is that besides the big issue of belief (what the Repubs believe is nonsense but they do believe!) the Republicans are in exactly the same shape. Neither Party is competent to run the US.
I didn’t see how the ? was asked, LL, but when compared to Republican X, it’s the point I made earlier this week and what the White House (and Rahm) believes. In the end Dems will come home to Obama. Everything is built around that, which is likely true with most.
NOTE: I’ve added ad update to the post above re: the House & the public option. Please read, thanks.
AP story, Gibbs regarding SOTU: “We need to stop pretending every day in Washington is election day.”
“We” — that would include a president who failed to lead; a Democratic majority who failed to act; a Republican minority who succeeded quite well in their usual obstructionist tactics.
And, of course, “we” includes all of us — whatever our political choices, whatever level of “civic responsibility” we assume. As many have pointed out, a focus on personality is a mistake; a focus on policy (proposed and in a candidate’s track record) is key. “We” the people / voters are getting a big dose of our own experience of what can happen when personality dominates, and “experience” becomes a point of derision.
Gibbs is correct that we should stop the election day framing (it’s not a pretence, it’s what happens) for decisions and actions regarding governing, but if anyone believes for a second he, Obama, Dems or Repubs will stop campaign fund raising mode, well, we can each fill in our “sell you a bridge” cliche.
As if the White House isn’t “pretending” every day?
Thanks for posting stuff on the SOTU, JA. It’s the thing today.
This is some of what Doctors have to say about:
The Ponzi Scheme That is Health Insurance
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/588861
snip
“Commercial, for-profit health insurance is one of the greatest Ponzi schemes ever foisted on the public,” says a family medicine physician. “The executives are the ones that benefit to the detriment of everyone else. How else does the president of one of the largest insurance companies get to be a billionaire? By being at the top of the pyramid of companies’ and individuals’ premium payments.”
“The single most important factor in the atrociously high cost of healthcare in the United States is the rapacious, money-hungry insurance companies and their fat cat CEOs,” comments an MPC contributor.
“The damage that the insurance companies do is not limited to the salaries of the CEOs,” says another contributor. “They waste the time and resources of healthcare workers, institutions, and patients. They are clearly a negative, wasteful element in healthcare today that needs to be heavily regulated, changed, or eliminated.”
Physicians point to a number of supposedly routine practices of the health insurance companies that cry out for oversight. One MPC participant remarks that health insurance companies increase their premiums even as they decrease coverage. Another discussant notes that insurers typically burden physicians and patients with filing requirements as part of a strategy to delay or deny legitimate claims. According to one contributor, some companies frequently change their coding schemas to avoid paying legitimate claims. “The insurance companies make billions of dollars in profit each year,” says one MPC commentator, “and they do it by limiting care, denying claims, limiting contracts, and limiting reimbursements.”
The practice of systematically denying legitimate reimbursement claims by insurance companies has been the focus of an ongoing investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. In January 2009, Cuomo reached an agreement with UnitedHealth Group, Inc. that the insurer would shut down its controversial Ingenix database and pay $50 million to fund a nonprofit, independent database for the purpose of establishing fair compensation rates. The Ingenix database, which was owned by UnitedHealth, served all the major insurers and, according to The Wall Street Journal, skewed downward the “usual and customary” rates of out-of-network insurance reimbursements through “faulty data collection, poor pooling procedures, and lack of audits, thus forcing customers to pay more out of their own pockets for healthcare.” In February, WellPoint, Inc., the nation’s largest health insurer, agreed to Cuomo’s request to pay $10 million to help fund the new database. WellPoint is the sixth insurance company to make such an agreement with Cuomo’s office. As quoted by New York Daily News, Cuomo commented on the insurers’ use of the Ingenix database, saying, “This is as egregious a situation as I’ve seen, of a virtual monopoly.”
Is health insurance a scam? The 100 MPC postings in response to that question are unanimous in their assertion that the health insurance industry needs reform. Yet, MPC contributors are divided as to the extent and nature of that reform.
“The health insurance system is so profoundly flawed,” says one MPC contributor, “that the only solution is a nonprofit, single-payer healthcare system.” Other MPC contributors contend that a single-payer system would harbor its own set of problems. Comments a psychiatrist, “I would rather have evil insurance companies than absolute power concentrated in a single agency. If you have a complaint about an insurance company, you can complain to the regulators and drop the insurance. If you have a complaint about the government, you are screwed.”
snip
re your update~ I would say that they are responding to the survey work done after MA. It has a good of a chance as preexisting conditions does without a mandate. Do you think the insurance industry would stand for that? Premiums would go over the moon.
The President, according to Gibbs, thinks he needs to EXPLAIN to the American people why they are frustrated and angry. Puuhhhhleeeez
From HuffPo:
Gibbs: President Will Explain Why Americans ‘Are Angry And Frustrated’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100127/us-state-of-the-union-gibbs/
“The president is going to explain why he thinks the American people are angry and frustrated,” his spokesman said.
Well, this should be interesting.Is he going to say we are pissed about the biggest transfer of wealth in history from all of us to the fat cats?
More:
Voters See Health Care Reform As Marred By Backroom DealsWASHINGTON —
Special legislative favors, especially one designed to secure a Nebraska senator’s vote for the embattled health care package, ignited so much public outrage that President Barack Obama is calling them a mistake and House leaders say the bill can’t be resurrected unless such sweetheart deals are scrapped.
snip
Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat, said Tuesday the House may be able to pass the Senate health bill – and salvage Obama’s top domestic priority – if the offending items are deleted.
“We’ve got to get rid of that Nebraska stuff, we’ve got to get rid of the Louisiana stuff,” Clyburn said, referring to provisions inserted to help secure the votes of holdout Democratic senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Snip
Republicans caught Democrats flatfooted by turning derision of the “Cornhusker Kickback” into a national furor.
Strategists say Democratic leaders underestimated their foes’ ability to use the Internet and other outlets to feed unsavory depictions of legislative dealmaking to angry voters already suspicious of Congress.
“The political dynamics have changed,” said Democratic consultant Chris Kofinis. “The Google electorate,” he said, can swap political information and opinions with lightning speed. Average Americans may know little about congressional traditions for brokering deals, he said, but when they hear about it, “they don’t have a lot of patience for the sausage-making process.”
Just about every citizen understands fundamental fairness.
djjl~As well they shouldn’t…. not in it’s present form.I understand that compromises can often be ugly and that politics is the art of compromise but when they are all made to accomadate the special interests rather than legitimate difference in principle it is broken and enraging.
djjl~ You put it better
John Meachem, who I find incomprehensible much of the time, said Monday night on Charlie Rose,”we are being governed in the Establishment Republican style…” tha’t a paraphrase but it is pretty close.
“with Afghanistan raging, Baghdad exploding, and Netanyahu feeling cozy again,”…..and we’re still talking about health care???? Peace
On page 147 of the 9/11 Commission Report it says, “By his own account, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel.” You all know who KSM is. He’s the guy with the long gray beard who the Republican and Democratic neocon warmongers don’t want brought to New York to stand trial. This man attended Chowan Baptist College in Murfreesboro, NC in 1983. Then went on to get his degree at NC A&T University in 1986. He went to Afghanistan and fought against the Soviets with his brothers after graduation. Why doesn’t Obama tell us all about this guy in his SOTU address tonite? Peace
Yes, something indeed must come out of Congress on health care. Of course they are not going to be able to pass that gargantuan 2000+ page disaster that they were trying to send out before the Massachusetts election. But they need to pass a piece of legislation that will address some inadequacy in our present health care system. The old fashioned incremental approach. To handle healthcare in totality is insane. You will always have almost insurmountable obstacles. The Obama administration did not learn the lessons of 1993 when Hillary tried to deal with this issue.
But at this point, healtcare needs to become a secondary priority to the economy and putting folks to work. Looks like the stimulus bill was a bust. Bill Clinton knew that the economy was job #1 before he took office. The Obama administration absolutely needs to concentrate on putting money in the pockets of people and create incentives that business starts hiring again– TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS. Bush tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the year the first thing he can do is to extend and enhance them. If people are still struggling by 2012, Obama will be a one term president with a LESS than mediocre record.
For those who didn’t see this last night on Jon Stewart – chilling. I’ve read that the WH had Ms Warren over after MA. She gets it – do they yet?:
.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/27/elizabeth-warren-the-chip_n_438379.html
On Tuesday night on the Daily Show, Elizabeth Warren told Jon Stewart “this is really the moment” for America’s middle class — the system must be fixed or “the game really is over.”
Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to monitor TARP, said frankly: “It is simple. This is America’s middle class. We’ve hacked at it and chipped at it and pulled on it for 30 years now. And now there’s no more to do. Either we fix this problem going problem going forward or the game really is over.”
nzanh…if we wanted Republican solutions to our problems we would be found on a Republican blogsite. If you are a missionary from the other side you might be disappointd here.
I wish Elizabeth Warren would run for President. How about the Justice Party?
Handling health care in totality is likely the only way it can be done – you can’t drive a car missing two wheels – at least not very long.
This is OT but I don’t think Taylor will mind. Tavis Smiley launches his new series tonight on PBS,Tavis Smiley Reports. It is on before the SOTU 8/7 central. His first interview is with Hillary.
Thankfully, she is in London so she will be spared putting a good face on tonight.
I’m going to try and go watch the Geithner grilling if I can stand it.
BBL
“We’ve hacked at it and chipped at it and pulled on it for 30 years now.” That would include Reagan-Bush in the 80′s, Clinton in the 90′s and bush in the 00′s would it not? The worst hacking, chipping and pulling that the middle class took was NAFTA and the repeal of the Glass/Segell Act under Clinton in the 90′s. Peace
That’s Glass/Stegall and NAFTA under Clinton. Two of the worst actions ever taken by any president against the middle-class in America. Even worse than bush starting two phoney wars. One in Afghanistan and one in Iraq for the sake of Israeli and Saudi foreign policy. Oh, and the oil barons like the Bush Family and Cheney. Peace
Let’s take a look at how the AMA helped keep health care costs high:
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/mar/10/health/chi-ap-medicalschoolboom
Health care in America is a $2.4 trillion annual business, or about $8,000 for each of the nation’s 300 million residents. President Barack Obama has made overhauling health care – extending coverage to the 48 million uninsured while fighting rising costs and attacking waste – an early priority of his administration.
A quarter century ago, experts blamed rising health costs on what they said was a surplus of doctors. They said doctors seeking income would perform unneeded procedures, making medical care more expensive. In response, medical schools capped or cut enrollments.
But in recent years, doctors and medical school groups have re-examined the issue of doctor supply and now warn of a large shortfall in the number of doctors in coming decades.
If healthcare costs are out of control eating up family budgets as well as the federal budget then logic would tell you and healthcare reform being considered should include cost containment.
The legislation being mourned here does not provide for cost containment, so glad to see it has hit a wall.
I just think Obama wanted to do Health Care because his ego compelled him to try to beat Hillary Clinton on the issue. I know, I know, “bitter-ender”.
But I still say Obama never had a real passion about it; it was always about a victory over Clinton, not the issue itself.
But reading that Obama is going to tell us why we’re angry really made me laugh. But not a good laugh, a sneering laugh.
Barack Obama simply can’t help himself. He’s just so superior. Poor Obama; it must be tough living in a world where no one is as smart as he is.
Lake Lady says:
27 January 2010 at 11:00 am
I wish Elizabeth Warren would run for President. How about the Justice Party?
More conversation about Justice Party, or other party, possibilities is what I hope to see. I’m glad you mentioned it.
kris,
The most powerful union in the country just may be the AMA….note – they reduced the number of doctors in order to keep individual physician INCOME HIGH – the idea was if they didn’t the “union members” – aka medical doctors would perform unnecessary procedures.
And noogan, I was reading that he will take responsbility, but not blame, for current issues. With that I have an idea.
Let’s play an Obama drinking game….every time he says “I”, “me”, or blames the previous administration, take a shot of your favorite drink.
I’ll see you all in the ER
Bill Burton on CNN blaming Congress and the American people for the stalemate. Look for more of that to come. These people can’t take blame for anything. It’s pathetic.
More from Burton….anyone who has watched the President over the last 3 years knows he has NO ideology. Wow.
He’s congenitally incapable of honesty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu-zUIjgi_Y&feature=player_embedded#
Think what you will about Richard Wolfe and I don’t think much of him, but he does have access.Here is what he says the SOTU will be about.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-26/obamas-pivot-point/?cid=hp:mainpromo2
Krugman agrees with Warren.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/the-curse-of-the-supermajority/
He also agrees with Taylor.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Lake Lady says:
27 January 2010 at 10:57 am
nzanh…if we wanted Republican solutions to our problems we would be found on a Republican blogsite. If you are a missionary from the other side you might be disappointd here.
———
If you research your history, Lake Lady, you will find that these kind of tax cuts are not “Republican” ideas. John Kennedy proposed similar tax cuts to great effect.
Sorry but I am not a Republican. In fact I was a die hard, knee jerk Democrat before the primaries Even though I had difficulty reconciling some of my own views with the Democrats. I always thought that the Democrats, whether I agreed or not, had their hearts in the right place. I tend to be conservative where fiscal, defense issues. I believe in limited government as enumerated in the constitution and side mostly with the originalist where the constitution is concerned. BUT I do believe in a woman’s right to choose. I am anti-death penality. I am a strong gun control advocate. I also am a strong believer in the separation of church and state. I was also an opponent of the war George W Bush started with Iraq. We should have never been there. So if that still qualifies me as a “Republican” in your eyes, so be it–oh well.
Oh and BTW, someone on the last thread accused me of being a “tool” of the right and told me to go back to Hannity and Limbaugh. That is not true that I am anyones tool (not that I have to defend myself from this creep). I do listen to Hannity, Mike Gallagher, and Mark Levin but I have listened to the likes of Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Al Franken and Thom Hartman for years. I am well aquainted with the thinking of them all but in the end, I make up my own mind. Hmm, I thought that liberals were supposed to be tolerant of differing points of view. But I find that some of the so-called liberals really aren’t so tolerant after all.
Hey, don’t worry about it, nzanh. All independent thinkers welcome.
I would say a liberal Republican. I wish there were more Republicans like you.
Speaking of history, it also shows that when Republicans are in charge and they cut taxes the deficit goes up.
If you are talking about targeted tax cuts for small business people or payroll tax cuts that is one thing. What in the world is wrong with asking the very small group in this country who are literally making out like bandits or you could say looting this country to pay a fair share of the countrie’s taxes? The Bush tax cuts were another transfer of wealth from us to them.They were not paid for,therefore as revenue went down debt went up.
Do you not see the imbalance?
country’s
nanzanh~ I welcome your thoughts on this site anytime. Not that I have any say in the matter. You can’t expect to agree with you if I don’t.
nzanh…oops! sorry!