A Last Word On The Health Care Summit

Obama’s right about one thing for sure. Some thing has to be done.

I listened to the feed for a few hours and the only thing I saw where they agreed was fraud cleanup in medicare. And that was it. They agreed that it should be cleaned up and it would save a ton of money and that was it. Maybe they’ll take that and work something out behind closed doors now?
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Sadly things became increasingly obvious as the afternoon wore on. Democrats want to improve health care in this country first by setting a minimum standard of quality for insurance plans then by making insurance available to a lot more people. The Republicans want to improve health care in this country only if it doesn’t cost the government anymore money and the end result is less government involvement in the market. The only way things will get better is if the government gets involved, intervenes with insurance company shenanigans, actively cleans up medicare fraud, etc… so the Republicans are effectively not interested in helping thing along (as if we needed more evidence of that).
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If you need an analogy for why the Republican’s position is nonsense you need look no further than Obama’s example about the cost of food: we could lower the price of beef dramatically in this country if we fired all the USDA inspectors. Draw your own conclusions about how that would impact the quality of the product…
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It’s sad that this is what the Democrats have had to work with for the last year, them just waiting for the Republicans to show up. Reconciliation is really the only way to go.

So after all the committees, all the hearings, all the dealmaking, all the concessions the total number of republican votes for HCR will be zero?

A bill that will be worse for no other reason than the dream of getting some votes from across the aisle (as if a Snowe or Collins vote would stop this from being called The Obama and the Democrats Bill) and Reid’s inability to exert his position’s leadership over his caucus.

This has been bad politics and bad policy.

The Daily Show had a nice compare-and-contrast montage of the Democrats insisting there was a lot of common ground between the two parties and the Republicans insisting over and over again that we needed to “start over” after a full year of working on this. The Democrats were trying to find common ground, the Republicans stuck their fingers in their ears and said no.
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But the geniuses at The Dick Cheney Press Office Politico insist that the Republicans really won the day because they got the meeting to take place at a square table that made them look like the president’s equals.
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No, seriously. That’s how they’re judging the success of this:
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The White House and Hill Democrats had hoped congressional Republicans would prove themselves to be unruly, unreasonable and incapable of a serious policy discussion — “the face of gridlock,” as one Democrat put it hours before the summit.
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That didn’t happen Thursday. In the 72 hours leading up to the encounter, Republicans drove a hard bargain with the White House over the seating arrangement — securing a massive square table that put them on a visual par with the president — to underscore their parity and seriousness. The move, ridiculed by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs at the time, paid off.

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Your press corpse, ladies and gentlemen.
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http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=07DFD093-18FE-70B2-A898BF0141BD6A24

“The Republicans really won the day because they got the meeting to take place at a square table that made them look like the president’s equals.’
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I listened yesterday to CNN (Sirius dropped C-Span long ago) and heard Gergen say the exact same thing.
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Then Gergen couldn’t wrap his head around what group Lamar! and BHO were discussing at the beginning.
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How people watch CNN is beyond me.

The Democrats seem incapable of taking “NO” for an answer. Continually groveling before the obstructionists, only fortifies the perception that they are weak and unable to make decisions. The behavior of the Republicans is anti-America — they have more loyalty to their radical ideology than making the country work — but one can hardly blame them for doing it, given how willing the Democrats seem to be to play their part in the drama.

There seemed to be agrrement that the D’s and the R’s have ‘philosophical’ disagreements about the role of government in business. The problem is that philosophy is rather empty when it’s disconnected from science. When the rubber meets the road, the R approach has been tested and found to fail.

As I mentioned in a thread yesterday, the idea that there needs to be a minimum standard of coverage is an important one that can’t be stripped out of the reform effort. Allowing people to underinsure themselves has the same effect as allowing them to not have coverage at all.

Ridiculous.
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The only people more out-of-touch than our politicians are the palace-hall courtesans in the press who cover them.

The bottom line is that the summit accomplished little legislatively, but it did frame the arguments of both sides in the clearest terms possible.

Obama and the Dems are accusing the Republicans of siding with the insurance companies and ignoring the uninsured and those struggling with bills. The GOP still insists this is a government takeover and that taxes and premiums are going up, despite what the CBO says.

It’s up to Americans to decide who is right.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

The best part of the CNN coverage was that they literally broke into commercial or “analysis” ONLY during times when democrats were speaking. They actually killed their round table when a Republican got the mike.
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I am wondering if Pfizer will throw more ad dollars CNN’s way for the favor.
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You btw can not find common ground with Marsha Blackman or the crazy Senators from Oklahoma. It would be like the democrats blocking all the GOP legislation and sending Cynthia McKinney to the bipartisan talks to work out a compromise. I wish the media would call the Republicans on this. There are non nutty Republicans left. Shocking I know. They are the last people the GOP want at these things, because they might get cold feet from the party line and act reasonable.

A friend of mine — hedge fund guy who’s been out of work for a year, paying $850 a month just to keep COBRA coverage for him, his wife and his two little girls — just sent me a note about hearing Gergen say that.
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And I quote: “If I ever see Gergen on the street, I will never stop punching him in the face.”

Actually I thought CNN having a noted health care expert like Ben Stein pontificating was the best move they made yesterday.
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Swear to goodness it’s been so long since I have been exposed to CNN I had no idea how bad they have become.

Kevin please explain to your friend that Gergen is “reasonable” and has advised presidents from both the right (Nixon, Reagan, Ford) and center right (Clinton) ergo to be upset with him to show how out of extreme your friend is.
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The fools who dictate our national discussions.

Drudgico is teh awesome. I suggest we get a quick article up on the varnish of the wood in the table and what that means for 2012. Get to it Van Der Hei.

The odd thing is that this friend is a longtime Reagan Republican who’s only recently soured on the party as it fell captive to what he calls “the crazies.” He’d normally be Gergen’s biggest fan.

I gave up on CNN in 2008. They’re not as sad as Fox, but they’re more of a disappointment.

I just switched on CNN to see their report on the summit:
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* Characterization of it as a “last ditch effort” that Obama is “betting his presidency on.”
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* Discussion of the process, with an extended bit on McCain v. Obama talking about the process.
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* Highlighting the amount of time the session took, mostly talking about the process.
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* Focusing on the Alexander-Obama debate on premium costs and then finally admitting their fact-checker “gives the president the edge” when other sources (even the AP) said it was clearly Obama who was right.
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No real substance. No discussion of the issues at hand. No information on points of agreement. Just the fight night scorecard.
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At least Ed Henry didn’t talk about the shape of the table, or the color of the name cards, or the type of wood used in the chairs. I suppose that makes this a “serious” report by the network’s standards.

“Politico insist that the Republicans really won the day because they got the meeting to take place at a square table that made them look like the president’s equals.”
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Captured syndrom.

KT:

Sen. Bunning must be a fan of yours.

A rare moment of clarity for a liberal M. Halprin of Time on MSNBC

” Dismissive, petulant, some might say arrogant. You know he called most of the members by their first names, I think maybe to try to sort of be ingratiating and friendly. But it did seem to some–me–a little condescending.”

He discussion of Obama at the summit.

This is an excellent thread with great commentary.
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Thanks, folks.

But he does not know how to do it effectively. The way he has changed (promised) is vague and ambiguous.

Root cause analysis
Although I have been following the health care bill, I haven’t known why we have to overhaul the system. This would be the case in many other people’s minds as the current bill is vague and ambiguous.

In order to make it clear and to get more support from American public, the president or his budget office should come up with a spreadsheet to detail the cost structure of the existing health care system. From there, we can find out where is the cause of skyrocketing premium? Which needs to reform? And so on for the future. Outline these and put it online for the people to contribute.

Example of Switzerland: The study cited the following annual costs: $200 billion for obesity, $191 billion for smoking, $210 billion for administrative (billings) actions that do not contribute to any health outcome, $91 billion for medical errors, $210 billion for “over” testing. (Fee income for doctors, avoidance of lawsuits — tort reform needed?) The top two preventable costs are lifestyle choices costing us nearly $400 billion a year! $210 billion for administrative costs explains why we should not take the single payer option off of the table (or at least regional payer systems as structured in Canada). See here: http://www.boomnc.com/archive/2009_09/articles_greg_200909.html

Where do we should do? How can we do it? The bill would be absolutely transparent. A point by point comparison between the current health care system and the proposed reform with estimation of cost effective savings will guide the public to make their mind. Rally around the bill; Vote out those who against the bill; and much more.

Make the people own the bill.

Please think about this! I am sure it will change the way Washing ton works now.

Ownership of Legislation: make our congressmen own the health care bills
I have been following the debate on the health care overhaul and I am confident that there would be a good strategy to pass all legislations and to make the government more effective.
Why have many congressmen resisted to the health care overhaul bill?
Majority of them do not own the bill. The president and few people drafted it and forced others to accept it. On Thursday, the president also resisted to other people ideas that he does not own. I think human by nature as they like to have some kind of ownership.
Lack of performance evaluation is also a big problem for making the government cost-effective. It does not matter much if elective officials do or do not work effectively as they rely on their money and party to win election.
What does it mean ownership?
Make people own what they work for and ownership has been an effective management tool in many business organizations. For example, if all senators and house representatives are to own the health care bill, they will take their responsibility to pass it for American people. Otherwise, those who voted for her or him would vote them out in the next election. Why don’t we do politics in that fashion?
How can they own the bill and pass it?
Let our congress men and women draft their own terms based on the ideas of the people whom they represent and then they seek support from their colleagues. If any single legislature gets 60 votes of approval from the senate and 217 from the house, put it to the bill. By doing so, the president as the CEO empowers his team and builds a stronger teamwork environment.
Moreover, making ownership will erase the party line as they have to compete for good ideas to prove to the people whom voted for them that they are working for them. Ownership is also a barometer to evaluate individual performance. In the current system, people cannot weigh who is or is not working effectively.
Finally, ownership which is the norm in many other organizations will eliminate government bureaucracy and give American people the power to evaluate their elected officials not the money.

Progressive* Democrats voted in a self-important, colossal idiot who has never done anything in his entire worthless life (other than voting present). Now, when he looks down his snoot and lectures us, insults our country, insults our religion, insults my friends and insults me, I take offense!

How to create jobs…
…From a man who has never held a real job.
How to run our businesses…
…From a man who has never run a business..
How to run our education system…
…From a man who hides his college records.
How to manage our finances…
…From a man who spends money we don’t have.
How we should respect his faith…
…From a man who mocks Christian faith.
How to run our military…
…From a man who embraces those who attacked America.
How he respects our American Heritage…
…From a man who is dedicated to Socialism.

*progressive: I am elite and smart, you are stupid, therefore I will be your master

Obama Mocks Christian Faith
http://usataxpayer.org/?0033881580

Obama’s Own Words
http://usataxpayer.org/?0097519370

You are the Lord of Flies.
are you happy, now?

Karen, a finer point is really getting passed over thanx to an overly anxious extremist right wing crowd.
COMMON GROUND is We the People.
and We the People got to see up close and personal the workings of Professional Politicians.

I can only hope that there are more of these public debates on EVERYTHING…
Maybe, by putting the spotlight on them, we can better weed out the chaff.

And I still think we should give Louise Slaughter a Big Stick to go pound some sense into a bunch of feet dragging, non-partisan flatliners until they see that it’s OUR lives they are playing with. Course, some folk think I’m a bit harsh.

The American People WANT affordable Health Care!

I was unfair as I didn’t include any facts…
Here you are proposing another Bush junior regime?

How to create jobs…
create a fantasy about another country and go to war
How to run our businesses…
give the very rich as many tax breaks as possible
How to run our education system…
just keep talking and maybe they won’t notice that the money for education is being shipped to a war
How to manage our finances…
GIVE away money to those who failed at totally ripping off America, and don’t ask for the money back
How we should respect his faith…
Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition so that we can shoot people in a war that had no business being waged in the first place
How to run our military…
from a man who held down a desk job because his Dad could make that happen for him
How he respects our American Heritage…
create divisions in the population and denounce all who believe differently to be un-American

And, by the way, after the planes were grounded after 911, one flight left the country.
Who was on it?
Mrs. bin laden and child…
While hiding in his mountain retreat, where did the American Army get shipped to?
Iraq, leaving the scene we needed to clean up, but for Bush junior’s friend, bin laden…

Imagine for a moment that Bush junior, your god and hero, had gotten his way in the second year…that the American people could have sunk their Social Security into stocks and bonds…
What devastation that.

You, fantumx, are what’s wrong with this country.

(or is reality too harsh for you?)