Via the Washington Monthly, this WaPo piece on former McCain advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin, who is about to lose his health care, which contained this gem:
Despite his personal trials, however, Holtz-Eakin said his conviction on the hot-button issue of health care is unchanged. He believes that reform is needed, but that President Obama and congressional Democrats are going about it the wrong way. The system is “broken,” he said, but the bills now before Congress do not cut costs enough. On the campaign trail, Holtz-Eakin promoted McCain’s plan to eliminate the tax exemption for employer-sponsored health insurance and give tax credits to individuals to buy their own coverage.
Of the bills moving through Congress, Holtz-Eakin said: “I wish the policies were different, and I wish I could’ve somehow gotten us to a bipartisan place. I think McCain had the capacity to do that.
Will this myth of McCain’s bipartisanship ever stop? Putting aside the fact that he ran a disgusting and ugly campaign with amoral louts like Michael Goldfarb in charge of the campaign, and putting aside the fact that he gave us Sarah Palin, and putting aside the fact that McCain is an angry old fool with a mean streak a mile long, is there ANY DAMNED EVIDENCE AT ALL from the last year that any bipartisan solution could be found? The Republicans have yet to even release their health care plan, and have done nothing but propagate lies, foment unrest, and scream no. In the meantime, they are continuing their purge of anyone to the left of Dick Cheney.
So what exactly makes Holtz-Eakin think there is any way a bipartisan solution could be found. Or Obama, for that matter?
El Tiburon
Still, this is good news for McCain.
Cain
I’m glad President McCain won.
cain
Ailuridae
In fairness, Holtz-Eakin isn’t the economic advisor for the entirety of the Republican Party. John McCain did release a health care proposal and what is never mentioned is how radical his plan was. Eliminating the tax exemption is possibly a good idea but it also turns the health insurance industry upside down. Its a far, far more radical step than anything in Clinton’s early 90s plan.
Wyden-Bennett was the only bipartisan possibility. For many reasons it was DOA.
Linkmeister
He’s taking a leaf (okay, plagiarizing with paraphrase) from the old Journey song: “Don’t Stop Spinning.”
General Winfield Stuck
You leave John McCain alone meany John Cole. He is our National Demagod and pasty geezer.
Morbo
Translation: I wish McCain had won so that I could be on the government payroll and have some of that sweet, sweet government run health care without having to let anyone else get their dirty paws on it.
Just Some Fuckhead
I am confident McCain woulda found a bipartisan solution with the help of his wingmen, Droopy and Granny.
WyldPiratd
Better watch out, John Cole, Elie will soon be chewing you out for criticizing St Obama and not understanding how “the system” works. ;)
geg6
If we had Preznit McCain, I bet I’d have a pony. It is all Obama’s that I am ponyless.
Jay B.
Literally none of the sentences he says in order have any relation to the one preceding it.
.
OK. Of course, they’ve gone about it in about a billion different ways and they still want President Snowe to weigh in. Was that the wrong way? I say yes, but that’s not the “bi-partisan” way.
.
That’s because the Democrats pre-compromised on single-payer or Medicaid for All just to get Republicans to the table. Which they then shat on. And there are too many Democrats — and every single Republicans — who are siding with the Insurance Companies. So, where is this savings going to come from Doug?
And this lowers health care costs…how? Sounds like a pony hunt to me.
So, in sum, lower costs, keep everyone together, don’t challenge the insurance industry, sprinkle tax credits around for some reason and McCain would save the day. Also. Somehow.
And he’s the leading light of Republican health care policy. Awesome. Enjoy that shitty COBRA coverage you fucking asshole.
geg6
Damn it, fault. It’s all Obama’s fault. Shit.
WyldPiratd
Sure, Vice President Winky would be all about bring comity and cooperation for the good of the “Murican people once she figured out how a bill became a law.
kay
I don’t know how a tax credit to purchase health insurance was going to help him anyway. He doesn’t have a job, right?
McCain’s plan is a big loser for him.
Leelee for Obama
Rad this earlier. Apparently, H-E has at least one other pre-existing condition in that he’s full of shit. The McCain plan might work if the tax credits were doubled, and the insurance lobby didn’t poison the messenger and if pigs were careening around the Capitol Dome at Mach-5. The cluster-fuck that is the present Health Care Reform debate will eventually be something, what I do not know. At this point, if the Public Option is only going to insure the very sick segment of the population, it has to be left out. Then, all the cost cutting will have to be done w/o the mandate that would make it work. Damnit, I’m so sick of all this. And I have the headache from hell, so I’m crabby.
beltane
McCain and Lieberman would have come up with a horrible plan loved by no one but themselves and maybe Lindsay Graham. The rest of the country would have been united in bipartisan hatred of the plan, at least for a few hours.
MikeJ
Comments like this, putting words in the mouth of someone who comments in good faith before she’s even shown up, seem to me to be very unhelpful. Unless you just want to start a flame war. In which case it would be helpful. I’d just hate to see every comment here be on par with those of BoB or Makewi.
Colette
If you put all that aside, all you have left is an insubstantial husk with a rictus grin and a couple of medals – certainly nothing that could stand up to his own party enough to push through any bipartisan compromise.
kay
@beltane:
Oh, I don’t know. He’d have had a Democratic Congress.
The media would have scolded Democrats incessantly for “obstructionism” had they even thought about blocking McCain, and Democrats actually go to Congress with some half-assed intention of legislating, and they’re a broad coalition.
They’d have passed something or other, McCain would easily pick up 5 Right-leaning Democratic Senators, and McCain would get the credit.
I think we may be looking at this wrong.
The problem is….well, you know. We can’t say. But we know.
justmy2
John McCain, if he chose to tackle health care, which he would not have, would have gotten a bipartisan bill.
I guarantee he would have gotten Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Carper, and probably Bayh…maybe Bill Nelson and Mark Pryor. Webb and Warner could also be in the mix.
Joe Lieberman would have also caucused with Republicans. He may be the most brilliant politician evah…at least one who knows hows to play dems like a fiddle…maybe that doesn’t take a genius…
And McCain would have been hailed as a uniter.
That is just the way of the world.
The Grand Panjandrum
I have spent many hours study the proposals now up in the House and Senate. Give Holtz-Eakins credit because he’s is correct about the legislation not containing costs. These bills are a give away to EVERY stakeholder in the health care industrial complex. The only ones getting the short end of the stick are the tax payers. These bills are a fraud and will not squeeze one ounce of cost reduction out the hospitals and doctors. They have NO incentive to do so. None. Read both of those rancid fuckers and the only social legislation worse than this one is the Medicare Part D legislation passed earlier this decade.
Mark S.
@Ailuridae:
This is the god’s honest truth. If people actually understood what McCain was proposing last year, he would have lost a lot worse than he did.
Holtz-Eakin gets to enjoy McCainCare in its purity as he enters the individual market. We could have all been like him.
jwb
@justmy2: Little Johnny would have been too busy bombing Iran in a bipartisan fashion to worry himself about health care.
Anne Laurie
@General Winfield Stuck:
A portmaneau of ‘demagogue’ and ‘demigod’, I presume? And I hope he’s wearing a g-string with those pastys, ‘cuz euwwwgh!
Leelee for Obama
@jwb: Sadly, this is probably true.
As pissed off as I get sometimes with the making of the sausage, I always comfort myself with the fact that on his most disappointing day, Obama is orders of magnitudes better than McCain would have been. Then, throw in Winky, and I can sleep better again.
Please note, I did say I have a rotten headache earlier, I’m not all that pissed off-just having one of those millenia.
WyldPiratd
MikeJ@16
I refer you to this, this, this and this.
I also don’t think anyone has appointed you sheriff here either, MikeJ. I was joking about it based upon Cole’s comment in his post above about the uselessness of “bipartisanship” and I tried to indicate it by the us of the “;)” at the end of my jibe.
But hey, if you want a flame war and feel froggy….
Mike in NC
Few people are aware of the fact that John McCain was a POW in the Spanish-American War…
Leelee for Obama
@Mike in NC: Yeah, they just know he’s older than most dirt. And all our wars are glorious, so it doesn’t really matter which one he was a hero in, does it? (participle left dangling for effect)
General Winfield Stuck
@Anne Laurie:
You presume correctly. Someday, we will have the dictionary function again to save my dyslexic ass.
General Winfield Stuck
@WyldPiratd:
We are open 24 hours a day motherfucker. And taking shots at folks who aren’t on a thread is a sure way to get a flame war going. Your move.
Zach
It’s worth indulging in his bipartisan claims until cap and trade passes. His vote is getable if you put enough nuclear subsidies in the bill… easier than a lot of Dem votes. Just put his name on there. Sounds like he’s forgotten he used to support the idea when he goes around spouting “cap and tax” but my guess is that it’s just bluster to bring along to the bargaining table.
Not to mention that cap and trade would benefit his state quite a bit. Relatively low carbon emissions (noted in that link), and AZ will undoubtedly get more than its share of solar and nuclear subsidies whether or not McCain jumps on owing to its plethora of both sunshine and empty space.
WyldPiratd
Why don’t you mind your own business, Winfield Suck?
I explained myself to MichaelJ above. And yeah, I saw your comment to me in the thread below and left you one.
Suck on that, bitch…
General Winfield Stuck
@WyldPiratd:
When you come around slinging general insults and acting like a wanton asshole, then expect to get the same back from anyone, not just who you link your comment to.
The no rules rule.
Brian J
@Ailuridae:
It was a good proposal, generally speaking, that would have been better if the money had been used to subsidize health care insurance for those at the lower end. But did McCain ever make a big deal about this once the campaign ended? Maybe he did, but certainly not enough relative to the amount of time he’s on television. Not all of those appearances were related to health care, of course, but you’d think he might have made a point of discussing a signature proposal of his campaign in the midst of one of the biggest debates in decades. There’s no guarantee he would have made any–if the behavior of Republicans is any indication, it would have made precisely no difference at all–but he would have actually lived up to his reputation if he tried getting his ideas out there.
So, in short, John Cole is right.
LD50
Yeah, and it would have been a piece of shit that only benefited insurance companies. Your point being?
RareSanity
Oh man, that never gets old to me…
WyldPiratd
I was giving what I got unsolicited several threads below. I clearly made a joking reference–in the context of this thread–to Elie. I was done with the business from several threads below until you stuck your nose into it.
You can either mind your own business and this ends now., or keep it up. I’ve got all night too, “motherfucker”.
LD50
@WyldPiratd: Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to post, son.
Elie
General Winfield…
“Pasty Geezer”
Sounds like a new appetizer I was planning to roll out before my Thanksgiving feast under the notion that it was a favorite of our local Dutch population..
First, you start with two pounds of butter… melt over low flame and add lots of pork and and simmer in cheesy smarminess for a couple of minutes before turning out. Serve cold after butter congeals …
Wish I could think of something more witty…but the “pasty geezer” just could not be passed up!
Y’all got any better ideas of what “Pasty Geezer” could be?
RareSanity
I was off the Matrix all day so obviously I missed it but…
WyldPiratd <– What’s up with this??
Pie?
General Winfield Stuck
Yea right. Barrel of laughs.
@LD50:
I cannot improve upon this/
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
Seconded. Thanks for articulating what was sort of vaguely nagging at the back of my mind.
Brian J
The idea is that since benefits aren’t treated the same as income, people consume more health services than they otherwise would. It’s a fairly standard claim in the debate, so it’s not as if McCain was proposing something truly nutty. I don’t seem to remember him making as big of a deal about subsidizing those who currently can’t afford it, although in fairness that might just be my memory failing me. Of course, it could also be because he campaigned on Obama trying to redistribute wealth and rape puppies or something.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yeah, well too bad you and your pals sucked at your jobs. Sure, you didn’t have much to work with between Angry McGramps and the One Hit Blunder, and you probably got a little sloppy because the other guy has a funny name and does not come in standard presidential coloring, but at the end of the day, you failed.
Buh-bye now.
Brian J
@The Grand Panjandrum:
There are a lot of people who have been saying the same thing, although it’s supposedly not that the bill contains nothing in the form of cost control, just that it doesn’t contain nearly enough. Either way, it’s certainly a fair criticism, although some economists, like Jonathon Gruber of MIT, say it’s more important to pass a bill expanding coverage and worry about containing costs later.
General Winfield Stuck
@Elie:
You can defend yourself, I know.
But he used the “ass-kissing Obama apologist.” term that lit my O-bot fuse.
Elie
Brian J
“it’s more important to pass a bill expanding coverage and worry about containing costs later.”
My thoughts exactly ( not that I am an MIT expert). Practically, land the beachhead and push forward…lost of learning and power growth as we go is my thought..
Elie
General:
Still appreciate it.
WyldPiratd
LD50
Seems like you may have been on the wrong side of that LD50 if the best you can come up with is a ripoff of a 30 year old movie.
Your shit is weak, LD50.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
I agree: we can worry about containing costs later. If we come out of this with a government-run public insurance program that covers everybody who’s now uninsured or uninsurable, that plus Medicare and Medicaid adds up to a pretty big sector of the health-care industry where the government can say: “You wanna get paid? This is what we’ll pay. Take it or leave it!” What do you want to bet they take it?
LD50
@WyldPiratd:
As opposed to that devastating fratboy riposte. Gotcha.
WyldPiratd
Elie,
My apologies about the bs in the thread below. I took offense at your tone and what I perceived as you lecturing people. I had no problem with the “lecturing” until you turned it on me.
No hard feelings.
Winfield Stuck and LD50–you two can blow me. ;)
slag
I’m not so sure John McCain would be mavericky enough to pal around with people who pal around with terrorists. Doesn’t he consider that unconstitutional?
Elie
LD50
Fratboy riposte… yep
maybe we put some “riposte” on the pasty geezer torte that I am making upstring for Thanksgiving
Dr. Morpheus
You posted on a public blog so it’s Winfield’s, MichaelJ, myself and anyone else business to tell you your comment sucked ass.
So why don’t you go outside and play go fuck yourself?
Elie
Wildpiradt:
all is forgiven..
Now go forward and post !
WyldPiratd
Better than being some tired old fuck living in the 70s like you ,LD50.
Bet you still have the leisure suit and platform shoes…
General Winfield Stuck
Yawn
LD50
We all cringe in the face of ‘blow me’, ‘Suck on that, bitch’, and ‘your shit is weak’.
WyldPiratd
Dr. Morpheus,
When I’m done with your momma maybe I’ll think about it.
General Winfield Stuck
@WyldPiratd:
Christ man. You already used that one. A little originality is expected.
LD50
@Elie: It’s not my fault if you had to look it up in the dictionary.
WyldPiratd
General Winfield Stuck
Nah. I used a variant. In another thread.
Besides, momma jokes are timeless and perfect for flame wars. ;)
Dr. Morpheus
Sorry, my last post was directed toward WyldPiratd.
Elie
Hmmm LD50
I get riposte…just was playing with ya…
No worries — have looked up a few things in the dictionary from time to time. Dictionary is an old friend
dww44
Hate to get back on topic here, but this from Cole is why I come to his blog most days. This is exactly what I thought and what I still think of McCain’s bipartisanship and his political spine. Non-existent.
Did anyone catch Chris Wallace’s interview of Rush? Chris Wallace does not do his Dad proud.. And seriously, does Limbaugh actually believe what he spews?
Augie
Did John McCain pass away recently? Or did he resign from the Senate? I’m mean, nothing else would prevent him from talking to the Democrats, the president, or even the media about his bi-partisan solution to the healthcare crisis that Holtz-Eakin refers to.
Boney Baloney
Every single time “Obama (greater than) McCain” is trotted out, I giggle a little harder.
Forced fellatio at icepick-point is better than gang buggery avec blunt trauma. So what? Christ in Coventry, is that the best the United States can do?
Obama had better start spraying rainbows directly out his bunghole tomorrow morning, or 60% of the “Obama Army” will be disillusioned and disaffected for life, and 2012 will be The End with or without Mayan prophesy.
How difficult is this? I spent the weekend carefully not observing high school upperclassmen drinking, but listening closely, and these people are not stupid, not expendable and not going. Even the skinheads aren’t ready to line up behind catbox-veteran sergeants — they have their own idea of what’s next, which should scare the living shit out of US domestic intelligence. Kluckers are easy; kids who pre-arrange “idiot codes” for SMS communication, and spent puberty studying object-oriented traffic studies with their $1200 Cray supercomputers powered by Free Software, scare even me. They watched Iranian reformers misuse the Net and get rounded up and disappeared, and they learned. They watched submarine fiber-optic cables being cut and saw who got repaired when, and they learned.
Foreign students who might carry the disease of “USA = not too shabby!” are being kept out of the US, and Presidential-candidate-qualified homies are proceeding on the assumption that the government will crap on the Constitution from a great height as soon as they have a free hand. The latter DO NOT BELIEVE in politics, and being called “truthers” for asking intelligent questions has pointed them away from the Donkey party. And God alone knows how they’ll vote in the next two years; the ones who bother to show up and stand in line may flip coins in the booth. They know it doesn’t matter.
I refuse to say “I told you so” about Obama the way I refuse to tip over wheelchairs in the street, but I’m concerned. I gather there was some kind of ball game this weekend, but I missed it, and I don’t much care.
What do you think is the opposite of “The Villagers”? HRC and Lieberman bitched about video games and got their asses paddled pink a few short years later… by whom? By New Americans, who remember events more than four years in the past? Could be.
General Winfield Stuck
@Boney Baloney:
That reefer must be some kickass shit/
handy
@Boney Baloney:
You lost me at Obama and McCain are exactly the same.
Wile E. Quixote
@Boney Baloney.
Wow, Boney Baloney sounds kind of like Tom Friedman.
Wile E. Quixote
@WyldPiratd
Yep, he sure does, and you know what, he makes them look good! Now choke on my purple-headed, veiny fuckstick! WyldPiratd. Choke on it and call me Daddy!
Anne Laurie
@dww44:
Given his drug consumption, Limbaugh’s defense during his terrorism trial is going to be that he doesn’t even remember what he spews.
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
Just for clarification are we talking bipartisan as in “of, relating to, or involving members of two parties ; specifically : marked by or involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties” or bipartisan as in tire rims and anthrax bipartisan?
P.S. If you type “tire rims and anthrax” into the Google search bar that post comes up as the first hit. It’s John Cole’s world, we’re just posting in it.
Boney Baloney
The truth only hurts when it should. Pie me if you can’t cope, and if “Obama = McCain” is what you took away from my rant, you can’t cope. Good on ya. No fear! I’ll probably catch shit for posting this anyway. You lot only think you’re being observed; I know I am. But nobody ever got canned for muddying the waters. Everything I say is crazy? I’m crazy? That’s pure bonus.
My mercenary specialty is observing and listening and then reporting what’s going to happen. I’ll put my hand up to catastrophism, and some of the bosses have scraped an extra 10% out of adding a month to my estimates, but I’ve called the Obama presidency so far… starting with the fungoo in Las Vegas during the primaries, incidentally. Everyone breathes air and pisses water. (I hope I didn’t lose anybody there. It’s a metaphor. Look it up on the sidebar or whatever you people do.)
All I have to do is pay attention, not care which team wins, and catch exactly the same shit from home office that I’ve caught here — and then deposit the Euros, and very carefully not notice that the shit-givers tend to drift out of circulation and into history like last year’s Top 40 bands. Life could be worse. Good luck with your preconceptions, by the way. I freely admit that flipping a coin often tracks my results. You could be a winner!
Nick
@Boney Baloney: What? Fungoo? Euros? LOL
liberal
@The Grand Panjandrum:
This.
Nancy Irving
Funny, but Cobra itself is some of that dangerous guvmint health care this guy is so against.
mai naem
I saw this piece yesterday. Mistah Holtz Eakin loses his COBRA coverage within a few months. He ain’t bitching because he can afford a high premium. What he doesn’t apparently understand is that he will have to live in a state that has high risk pools because I can guarantee you he ain’t going to get any coverage with his renal preexisting condition. Ofcourse that will be a blue state he will have to live in because that big bad blue state gubmint forces the ins. cos. to have a high risk pool. But ohhh, the irony, the karma, the schadenfreude of seeing somebody face their wild west free market healthcare that they want so bad is something to behold.