Ezra Klein points out that reconciliation will only allow the Senate to pass all the things that Lieberman hates, like the Public Option, but we cannot use it to pass insurance and other regulatory reforms that are still in the bill.
I say pass the Liebermanized bill and let the President sign it. Then use reconciliation to get the rest.
Malron
That would be my suggestion, too. If only the whiny ass titty babies on the left would shut up long enough to listen. My fear is the so-called progressives will end up following through on their threats to vote against any bill lacking a public option, in essence playing right into Lieberman and the GOP’s hands by killing all reform to fulfill Jane Hamsher’s purity pledge.
r€nato
Yes, this.
Get the bill passed. Make it better later.
r€nato
Those 22 million emails the Bush White House accidentally on purpose lost? They’ve been recovered, and it could take YEARS to go through them all.
I love the idea of former Bush administration flunkies living with the specter of that over their heads for years to come.
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
One might think, considering the potential slicing and dicing to get the bill past cloture, that this may have been the plan all along…
geg6
That is really the only possibility, but I have no faith whatsoever that it will happen. None. Zilch. Zero.
I hate every one of those bastards. And Lieberman especially. Because he is willing to let people die for his petty bullshit. And he runs the government now, it is clear. Harry Reid will probably give him a couple of new committee chairs just to underline the point.
robertdsc
That should have been the plan from the very beginning.
Robin G.
I would just like, once again, to thank the people of Connecticut for all of this. Heckuva job, guys.
r€nato
If it weren’t for the full plate Obama has in mind (financial regulatory reform, climate change legislation), I’d say the next thing Obama should do is get the Senate to do what Harkin has been talking about; modifying the cloture rules.
Remember how the GOP demagogued the shit out of Senate filibusters of Bush judicial nominees? They didn’t even have 60 seats. We have a 60-40 majority thanks to the voters. What the fuck?
Obama is going to be subject to blackmail all year long for his legislation, so long as all it takes is one Lieberputz to jam up the works.
Napoleon
That is pretty much what they are left with for an option. Since the plan has such a long lead time they can wait some respectable period of time and then come back to the issue so that it doesn’t look like they are rubbing the nose of people like Lincoln in it. (although it would be nice if they did it prior to Labor Day 2010 for the midterms).
The Sheriff Is A Ni-
@robertdsc: How do we know it wasn’t the plan all along?
Jack
@Malron:
When will triangulator fans realize that it just doesn’t work that way.
Lucy Parsons, perhaps from doing the real labor of resistance, understood a long, long time ago why:
“Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away their wealth.”
*
“Whiny ass titty babies” is sexist as hell.
Not surprising, from someone who spouts Clinton Logic.
Napoleon
@r€nato:
Or, heaven forbid, someone like Byrd dying. Also there is a decent chance they loose at least one seat net in 2010.
It is simply unconscionable in a democracy that absent an explicit constitutional super majority requirement that one is imposed (and quite frankly there should never be one except for the most narrowly tailored reasons).
rachel
@Malron: I read some of the more hysterical diaries and comments over at the GOS, and I fear you’re right. Even Nate Silver is having a hard time getting them to look at the numbers logically.
cmorenc
Can the bill be passed whole in the Senate (using Lieberscum’s vote to make 60 and avoid the filibuster) and then split into two during the reconciliation process? With the House then agreeing to pass the portion the Senate already’s approved as a separate bill for Obama to sign, and with another part to go through on a separate vote in the Senate (and then the House) containing the more progressive features?
If so, the White House and leaders of the more progressive-minded majority would be smart to play their cards very close to the chest right now and act as if they were chilly and skeptical about the possibilities of using reconciliation. UNTIL that is they get the original bill passed out of the Senate. Then do the great FUCK YOU to Lieberman with reconciliation.
The only problem is that this would so amp up Lieberman’s already egomaniac/vengeful/asshole act that he’d do his best to torpedo virtually EVERYTHING else having the slightest whiff of progressive agenda about it. BUT GUESS WHAT? Lieberman’s going to do that ANYWAY. Enable him by going along – he’ll only become even more of an asshole prima donna.
rachel
@Jack: “Whiny ass titty babies” is not sexist; if anything, it’s ageist.
JenJen
Dick Durbin is on “Morning Joe” now, saying essentially the same as Ezra, that reconciliation is a “very spare and thin process” that can’t be used for any kind of insurance or regulation reform.
Remember November
Agreed, lets get something on the table then we can rearrange the chairs. And may LIEberman lose all his seats.
Jack
@The Sheriff Is A Ni-:
A plan? Sure. To get something called “reform” celebrated by access journalists, regardless of content.
Jack
@rachel:
I tend to find comments reducing portions of the female anatomy to curse and epithet uniquely sexist.
Jack
@Remember November:
That worked well for the crew of the Titanic.
Jack
@cmorenc:
You seem to be under the impression that the WH is remotely “progressive.”
My condolences.
El Cid
In all seriousness, I think Obama would oppose this strategy.
liberal
@r€nato:
Yeah, that’s what they say. Yet, while I think computer science talk of artificial intelligence etc is always overblown BS, the idea that a few reasonably talented people couldn’t write up some code to quickly parse the emails is just nonsense.
Zandar
It’s a good plan.
The Dems don’t have the balls to try it. Nor will they get the 60 votes they will need to get past the parliamentary bullshit points of order crap that reconciliation entails.
Not happening. We now have two choices: accept the incoming reaming from the Democrats, or hand the reaming device over to the Republicans who will use it gleefully after making many structural improvements to reaming efficiency.
That’s November’s landscape now.
r€nato
@liberal:
that’s a good point; apart from the scale of such an operation, how hard could it be to write a script that searches for certain keywords?
Just give the job to Google, LOL
liberal
@Jack:
I thought from the outset that Obama was pretty much a centrist—all I had to do was look up his Am for Dem Action voting score in the US Senate.
r€nato
If I understand budget reconciliation correctly (and it is indeed an arcane topic), anything passed in this manner would expire in 5 years. Period.
liberal
@Napoleon:
Well, of course you still need to protect minority rights, though that’s what courts are for.
I don’t understand why the Dems don’t flush the filibuster. It’s not like Joe 6-pack is going to give a sh*t.
Malron
(My reply in a thread discussion in OMSFBO in Facebook. Sue me later)
I think a watered down bill passes. The voting populace who doesn’t troll political blogs 24/7 like we do will hear that Obama made history by passing health reform after other presidents had failed and buy the story. They won’t care about the public option or Medicare buy-in. and won’t even know whats in the damn bill. Obama and the Dems hype the shit out of it to help them win a few extra seats in 2010. Once the Dems don’t have to worry about defending their seats until 2012, they’ll get down to business improving on what they end up passing right now.
Now, all this is dependent on the economy steadily improving by the summer of 2010 but I think this is the likely result.
@Jack: A Clintonite. Brilliant.
Jack
@liberal:
I campaigned for Obama, here in NH. I knew a number of his ground people, locally, and was impressed with their passion and conviction.
Then, I did the unthinkable and read his policy positions, especially with regard to FP and market regulation.
*
Before someone tosses some kind of lesser-evilism at me, yes, yes, John McCain would have been just awful.
That doesn’t excuse liberal faith in Obama, or this liberal tendency to see a master plan in everything he does, most especially in every concession he grants to corporate America.
He serves the interests of his class. This ought surprise no one.
r€nato
@Jack:
unlike several of my liberal bretheren, I’ve never mistaken Obama for anything but a left-center pragmatist.
I’ll take that any day of the week over what we had prior to him. And at least Obama can be counted upon not to be a wanna-be GI Joe with a really bad daddy complex.
You would never in a million years see Obama playing fighter jock like that shameful episode in May 2003.
Napoleon
One huge problem if you kill health care reform at this point in the hopes you make things even worse so that Congress comes back with a more serious proposal next time (an argument I find appealing) is that on this particular issue I think it is just as likely, if not more so, that it will boomerang on progressives and not only lead to no real health care reform but the dismantling of Medicare and Social Security. Health care spending is out of control and unless some kind of structure is put in place to build cost cutting measures on to you are handing the WaPo and WSJ editorial pages and the “serious” thinkers in the Village a seriously big weapon to argue that MC/SS needs to be gutted now to save the nation from ruin. Killing health care reform now is only adding to the out of control spending that Republicans hoist on the nation every single time they come to power to, IMO, cause the system to crash and provide them with the cover to enact what they really want, a return to 1880.
Be careful what you wish for.
@cmorenc:
That would never work. If you do that then opponents of the part you want to send through reconciliation simply do not vote for any of it. What has to happen is pass what they can pass (as long as it is not so bad it actually turns people against reform and sets you back) and then after a respectable period of time “discover” that the situation has changed and is much worse then you thought and therefore you have to tweak your reforms by adding certain things to it.
PS – I would be willing to bet that if they go to add the public option or medicare buyin in the summer of 2010 or in 2011 the rightwing noise machine will not even crank up on the issue since they will have moved on to something else having lost the real battle, whether something passes or not. You may even, dare I mention it, get some Republican buy in to changes at that point for the same reason since at that point they are stuck with a program.
Alex S.
Yes, I agree with this plan. However, the time for reconciliation is running out for this year. The Dems would have to add the reconciliation option to next year’s budget bill.
Punchy
Dems put the “silly” in “reconciliation”.
Will.never.happen.
Noonan
Would be great, but will never happen. Obama and the Dems want to declare victory at this point and move on. Never mind what’s actually in the bill.
Face
Question — does this bill mandate health insurance? I’m getting conflicting news. If so, and there’s no public option, how do the insurance companies stay honest about cost?
If I cant afford auto insurance, I dont drive. What happens to me if I cant afford health insurance? I’m jailed? For being poor? Clearly I’m missing something here.
Jack
@r€nato:
I try not to confuse mediated style with policy positions. And I don’t let myself fall into the trap of “well, Bush really sucked.”
So, Obama’s not a cowboy. Okay. We’ve got that covered.
He’s still the face of our imperium. He’s still the guy who deliberately encouraged Baucus, Lieberman, Snowe et al to have control of health care reform. He’s still the guy that Lieberman (Avigdor) and Netanyahu can count on to sit on the sidelines whilst they commit literal war crimes (occupying powers cannot take land, for starters). He’s still the guy who handed the Commons away to Wall Street, and now presides over a near permanent public insurance (of bank solvency, not human health) regime. One he was central in creating. He’s still the guy lyndoning Afghanistan. He’s still the guy chatting up some serious double speak about Pakistan and the Hindu Kush (escalation is withdrawal). He’s still that guy.
Perhaps Obama is worse than Bush, in the long run – given his commitment to making the corporate kleptocracy work better.
I’d rather the imperium has a bad face than a good one, kindly.
But, that’s neither here nor there.
Obama doesn’t have a sneaky progressive master plan. He’s committed to a different course, and at the ass end of it the Commons will be smaller and the divide between rich and poor more severe.
dmsilev
@r€nato: Ten years, not five. Which is why the GOP is beginning to wail about the imminent expiration of the first round of Bush tax cuts.
-dms
El Cid
FWIW, as long as the bill doesn’t actively make things worse for the average American, or even for a large number of Americans (excepting inevitable freak whining by the greedhead wealthy opposed to any taxes), it should be passed, because there will be no other effort to do anything for another generation, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t try to pull out all the stops to get the best bill possible.
Now, that ‘pulling out all the stops’ may require vows or actual games of chicken on killing the bill, because otherwise you’re just back in the ridiculous game that Democrats used to play under Bush Jr. where they simply gave ‘concessions’ one way and called that ‘negotiation’.
cmorenc
@Napoleon
This is too cynical about the “if you let things become bad enough by killing badly watered-down proposals, then real progressive reform will eventually happen” approach. There’s a terrific, historically very recent example of this strategy working out just splendidly – see e.g. how supporting Ralph Nader in 2000 worked out – we eventually got Obama after the disaster of the Bush years, didn’t we?
WHUPS! Bad example. Um…as much as it pains to admit it, you were right, this is a really TERRIBLE idea to hope that killing halfhearted reform now will bring real reform after the apocalypse.
El Cid
@Face: As far as I’ve seen, there are fines imposed for those not purchasing mandated health insurance, fines which start out really low in the first years and then raise year by year.
JenJen
By the way, it would be really nice if all the progressives on Twitter and elsewhere would stop freaking out about that HuffPo story where apparently, everything is Rahm’s fault. It’s a second-hand, anonymously-sourced account from a Senate aide, and honestly, this kind of shitty reporting is par for the course from HuffPo when it comes to covering health care reform.
J.W. Hamner
Yeah, I’m a fan of the “incrementalist bullshit” approach to HCR. We’ll get a watered down framework that we can continually work to make better through things like budget reconciliation. In fact, I always thought getting (nearly) everybody covered was the first step… then we were going to get to work on costs.
rachel
@Jack: Then you find wrong. Babies of both sexes and all genders suck on titties before they are weened; they also whine if they don’t get to suck on said titty whenever they want.
“WATB” is a slam on certain people’s immaturity, not on the fact that women have breasts.
Jack
@El Cid:
How can a bill which doesn’t reduce costs but does make tens of millions of new captive consumers
body servants, er,actuarial inputs, um, poker chips for the gaming pleasure of private companies be better than what we now have, kindly?debit
@El Cid: That’s great. I mean, I budget to the penny and just get by now. What should I give up to not get fined? Food, rent or or utility bills?
Not directed at you El Cid. I’m just sick at heart about this. Sick and angry.
Face
I thought this health care stuff isn’t supposed to fully start until 2013. So what’s the point of passing this reconciliation stuff now if it’ll be almost expired by the time it’s enacted?
Guster
This link addresses just this problem: http://www.congressmatters.com/storyonly/2009/11/25/1888/-Resurrecting-reconciliation
kay
@Face:
The House bill taxes to collect the fine. If you don’t provide proof of insurance, you’re taxed to cover the cost of the emergency care or uncovered costs you’re incurring.
They did that because they don’t have the same power as states do, so the example of auto insurance is not a good fit. States have broad powers. The feds just have a couple. Taxing, commerce clause.
It’s not a criminal sanction. If it included the possibility of something like “jail time” they’d have to give you a trial option in a federal court.
Jack
@J.W. Hamner:
Kindly, some of you folks seem to be using “coverage” as a bromide.
I have a prop coat that “covers” my son’s body, left over from a shindig. That doesn’t mean that I let him wear it out into a rain storm.
Face
@El Cid: This seems logical. Punish a family without enough money as it is to buy insurance by taking some of their money (that they have in short supply) away. That way, insurance will be ever-so-more-affordable the next year!
WOW. Mandatory healt insurance without cost containment is going to be a devestatingly brutal aspect of this bill. Damn near criminal.
burnspbesq
@Jack:
If you sincerely believe that, you have completely misunderstood what the phrase is intended to denote. Please try again.
cmorenc
@Jack
The problem with a bona fide “bad face” imperium is that you get the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove and Tom DeLay running the country. Yes, you do have the advantage that they are so up-front about being malevolent assholes that there’s no lullingly deceitful ambiguity. However, you get toxically malevolent government along with it.
What good did it do the Jews in WW2-era Europe that their executioners were up-front about wearing Nazi uniforms? Extreme example, I know – but it does nicely illustrate the point that while truth-in-political-advertising is of itself a virtue, it’s light-years from being a sufficient virtue.
r€nato
See, I told you budget reconciliation was arcane…
kay
@debit:
You have to look at the bill as a whole. Go through the provisions. Medicaid is being expanded, do you fit in there? Are you eligible for coverage under a parent’s policy (up to age 27). What level of subsidy are you eligible for?
When you go through each provision, and still can’t be slotted in, then it’s time to think about the mandate. First find out if you’re covered.
Jack
@cmorenc:
I’m not sure the Nazi reference is relevant. Except, perhaps, that the Nazis had a lot of Jewish electoral and monetary support in the first ten years.
Perhaps there is a lesson, here…
rachel
And once again the point goes “Whoosh!” over Jack’s head.
r€nato
@kay:
*sigh*
I already know the answer to this question, but WHY THE FUCK do we have to make health care coverage so complicated in this country?
Do we really get better results for all this ‘choice’ we have?
Jack
@Face:
This is my primary objection, as well (well, short of distrusting the Washington and Village set to do anything about enduring social ills).
*
It’s too bad Americans have no real history of education in class conflict. One that makes the history books, at least.
*
We are not really all that savvy if we count on the wealthy to dismantle the structure which serves the possession, increase and maintenance of that wealth.
*
Which is why health care reform was pretty much going to devolve into horse trading for pittances for laborers, captives for insurance companies and a political win for the “liberal” party.
*
The 600 or so wealthy folks who rule a nation of 300 million aren’t really going to do anything which undermines their wealth, or their power.
Jack
@rachel:
I’m sure this tone works for you with others. You’re wasting your time, trying it on me.
The Nazi comparison was a giant stretch, bordering on Godwin’s. Perhaps a comparison to Blair’s Labour years would have been more a propos.
As for the “WATB” I still prefer to avoid any reductions of female anatomy to mere object. I concede the usage was not intentionally sexist, but I doubt this will ameliorate your slip to hauteur.
kay
@Face:
Children have made real gains in coverage over the last twenty years, through S-CHIP and state mandates.
If they leave S-CHIP in place, there will still be state to state disparity in coverage, because that’s decided at the state level (to some extent).
It’s why Republicans fought S-CHIP so insanely. It’s wildly popular and it covers a lot of children. So, take them out of the calculation.
It’s a process of elimination.
schaudenfraud
Shhh. The only way for this plan to possibly work is to not even talk about it until the first bill is passed. In fact, to get to that point, progressives need to wail and moan enough that Lieberman is satisfied he has extracted his pound of liberal flesh. So far progressives appear to be playing along.
I guarantee if the Medicare buy-in compromise had been met with this level of outrage from liberals, Lieberman would have voted for HCR + buy-in, and smiled doing it.
burnspbesq
My bottom line at this point would be to open FEHB to the self-employed and to people whose employers don’t provide coverage. Let’s just get a bill through the Senate, take Stupak off the bill in the conference committee, and get ‘er done.
Ultimately, I want to get to single-payer. My “compromise” would be a system like France’s. I don’t have any illusions about whether that’s likely to happen in my lifetime, but as we are often reminded, a journey of a thousand miles etc.
And in the grand tradition of using body parts as curses, Lieberman is a gluteus maximus and Jack is a wart on said gluteus maximus.
kay
@r€nato:
You’ll hate this answer, but the only reason is looks so insanely complicated is that we’re looking at it on this meta basis.
For you (“you” generically) it might not be complicated at all. You get to Medicaid expansion, and there you are, and you stop.
You, as an individual, are not going to be slotting your whole community in. You’ll just do your own family.
Lieberwho?
Joe Lieberman? Wasn’t he the proctologist you had to go to last year?
Can’t happen soon enough.
http://wonkette.com/412720/more-reasons-to-love-joe-lieberman
rachel
@Jack:
Oh, so you and your male moniker are going to concede how I can refer to those DDD things on my own chest, after all? How very generous of you! That and the scoop of pedantry on top (“ameliorate your slip to hauteur” indeed) warm my heart, so they do!
Edited to add: And anyone with a mere moiety of his marbles should be able to understand what the Nazi comment was getting at.
burnspbesq
@Jack:
Wow. An authentic Wobbly.
Name them. This ought to be highly entertaining.
P.S. You really need to step back and read your shit before you hit “send.” In terms of establishing yourself as someone who is likely to be taken seriously by this crowd, you have scored nothing but own goals this morning.
jibeaux
Not to ameliorate any slips to the hauteur or whatnot, but WATB is a cherished bit of BJ lexicon and isn’t sexist in the least. As we said, if anything it’s ageist, since in pretty much every respect crabby breast-feeding infants are superior to Republicans.
Back onto the point, I’m just disheartened at this point. I realize there’s something to celebrate in this, and I want to be optimistic that things will look up from here (change in cloture rules, maybe), but it’s just kind of bumming me out. And since I’m at work I’m not going to go re-live the awsumness of the gop.am thread, but I appreciated it, guys.
jibeaux
@rachel:
DDD, sister! Should we switch to whiny ass juggs babies? :)
But I would feel a little left out. One of them aspires to C, but one of them is firmly in the B camp. It ain’t pretty, but at least the babies are.
kay
@r€nato:
The reason I know how it might work is because there are currently mandates in all 50 states for the children of unmarried parents to find health insurance. I deal with it daily.
The reason it’s the children of unmarried parents is because the state can reach them through child support or through welfare assistance or through the juvenile court jurisdiction.
President Bush put that mandate in, by administrative order, through HHS, in 2007, and all states had to draft enabling legislation.
My larger point is this: states have been working on this for a long time. There is broad consensus that it’s broken, and no one knows that better than state government. They’ve been chipping away at children‘s coverage problems for years.
You can see why they’d start with children. It makes sense because they’re low cost to cover: most of them are healthy. It makes sense politically because they’re so darn cute.
It’s part of what makes me so mad listening to conservatives now.
Everyone knows it’s broken, and they have known for years.
rachel
@jibeaux: Whiny ass juggs babies, please! I can’t find bras that fit here in Korea. :-(
Phoenix Woman
@Malron:
The problem is that they don’t want to use reconciliation. Rahm wants a garbage bill passed now, because he’s still blaming the 1994 debacle — for which he had a front-row seat from his perch in the Clinton Administration — on not passing an HCR bill, when his demoralizing the Democratic base by ramming NAFTA down our throats just might be a more likely explanation for why so many of them stayed home that year.
jibeaux
@rachel:
I could see how that would be problematic. Hrm. We have a little place down the road called The Bra Patch (I guess it’s like briar patch, but it’s maybe just a little too far off for people to get it), I bet they could fit you, but it’s, oh, probably 8,000 miles or so out of your way. I hope you find someone to ameliorate your hauteur, though.
neff
There’s nothing funnier than you Obama apologists referring to his right-wing corporate-kleptocracy enabling administration as “center-left”. Yeah you keep telling yourselves that, while he sets up an additional pipeline from your wallet to your corporate masters while the Republicans feign opposition.
Shygetz
@Jack:
Well, balls! You’re a dick. Asshole.
Gee, it’s almost as if languages had a rich tradition in employing anatomical slang from both sexes in epithets. But you had to be a whiny ass titty baby and gripe about sexism.
The fact is that the “600 or so wealthy folks” (really? You think only 600) that rule this nation rule it by our consent, which means that you and your ideological compatriots have failed miserably in convincing your neighbors that you are right. Given the conversational and social skills you have displayed here, you can count me as less-than-stunned by your failure.
Hunter Gathers
Politically impossible. The Liebermanized bill is all we are going to get. Reconciliation means that they essentially have to start from scratch (go back to committee) they can’t spend another 2 months on this. They have to get a jobs bill out ASAP and climate change is still in the Senate. They also want to do immigration reform soon.
rachel
@jibeaux: My husband ameliorates my hauteur with fart jokes from time to time. :D
Napoleon
@Phoenix Woman:
It is amazing that morons like Rahm still do not understand what NAFTA did to them.
edmund dantes
From the sounds of it, what’s left in this bill is all the crap parts that do nothing to really change anything.
Except it forces everyone to buy insurance. I’m not sure I see where the upside is in that “reform”. For all these 2000 pages, what are we still gaining for all the compromises? What is left that hasn’t been given away or had a huge loophole driven through it? It’s nice they are patching the Medicare Part D donut hole, but if you are sticking us with Mandated insurance without cost controls or structural changes to health care what are you actually accomplishing? Your giving away a the house to get a new door for it.
Edit — Still time for it to get fixed, but I don’t trust them to come back to it later and get it better. The “centrists” right now are trying to get us to go back and make Social Security and Medicare better by gutting them. What is going to change that they are suddenly going to decide they want to help the Liberals pass true reform 6 months from now? Plus as 2010 gets closer, it’ll be we need to hold our powder for the mid-terms. Get us some more seats and we’ll see what we can do. After that it’ll be we need to focus on getting Obama a second term. Lather, rinse, repeat.
eastriver
rachel: DDD? Really? I’m skeptical. This un-maled moniker demands proof.
neff
edmund dantes: Exactly, and mixing up the government even more with the insurers is a formula for regulatory capture that will ensure the reforms on things like rescission and pre-ex will not have enforcement worth a damn.
Right now the health insurers are taking the Brer Rabbit approach to the issue. Oh please don’t toss us in that briar patch!
Common Sense
I don’t think reconciliation acts expire in 10 years. Period. I believe that after ten years they must be renewed. This was Bush’s strategy. Pass temporary tax cuts leading to electoral success leading to making the cuts permanent. Replace “tax cut” with “public option” and you get the strategy de jour.
edmund dantes
From the sounds of it, what’s left in this bill is all the crap parts that do nothing to really change anything.
Except it forces everyone to buy insurance. I’m not sure I see where the upside is in that “reform”. For all these 2000 pages, what are we still gaining for all the compromises? What is left that hasn’t been given away or had a huge loophole driven through it? It’s nice they are patching the Medicare Part D donut hole, but if you are sticking us with Mandated insurance without cost controls or structural changes to health care what are you actually accomplishing? Your giving away a the house to get a new door for it.
Edit — Still time for it to get fixed, but I don’t trust them to come back to it later and get it better. The “centrists” right now are trying to get us to go back and make Social Security and Medicare better by gutting them. What is going to change that they are suddenly going to decide they want to help the Liberals pass true reform 6 months from now? Plus as 2010 gets closer, it’ll be we need to hold our powder for the mid-terms. Get us some more seats and we’ll see what we can do. After that it’ll be we need to focus on getting Obama a second term. Lather, rinse, repeat.
jibeaux
@neff:
Well, I would say that off-topic cut and paste screeds are funnier, but really “tiresome” would be more accurate. Have you met Jack? Maybe y’all could go start a blog. You could call it Jeff.
rachel
@eastriver: What is this site, 4chan?
neff
@jibeaux: Which health insurance company do you work for?
geg6
@Face:
Yes, it mandates. With fines for not buying. And there is nothing to compel insurance companies to stay honest. And anything in the bill that anyone would actually want will be gone before it passes because that’s what President Lieberman will insist on. It’s clear as day that the final result will be a massive pile of paper that gives everything to insurance and drug companies, imposes burdens on the young and middle class to cough up even more money for millionaires, and does nothing to stop recision and lifetime limits. But it will have a nice, shiny label on it calling it “Health Care Reform,” so I guess it’s all good.
And then President Lieberman will go on all the Sunday shows this weekend and explain why he’ll be filibustering it.
jnfr
The Senate is broken.
neff
@r€nato: By the way, as part of Obama’s commitment to protect the Bush crime syndicate, most of those emails aren’t going to come to light for 13 more years anyway (see TPM)
kid bitzer
weird troll invasion here.
still, “ameliate your hauteur” may have made it all worthwhile. that’s a strong contestant for the bj lexicon.
J.W. Hamner
I know this won’t comfort any progressives, but I think Jonathan Cohn is right about this:
This of course presumes that more gutting does not occur before passage… which seems optimistic… but I’ve always felt the subsidies were orders of magnitude more important than any public option that’s been on the table.
rachel
@J.W. Hamner: Nate Silver over at 538.com also has some good arguments.
neff
@kid bitzer: I’ve been posting on BJ for a long time although I’ve never been one of the kibbitzing types (nice username btw) who share recipes in the Tunch and Lily posts and so on.
Hey I have an idea, maybe next Obama can pass some financial industry reform package that will require everyone to have a bank account and invest in the stock market. Maybe he can even make mandatory stock market investments be a replacement for Social Security! Won’t that be a wonderful progressive victory!
Kirk Spencer
@rachel: I’m surprised you can find DDD (F) bras anywhere without having them special made. The few bras I’ve made have been for women who need the very large sizes and that’s the complaint I hear, anyway.
ummm, I assume you know the trick of buying one band size up and one cup size down? Don’t think it’d help in your case (Korea) but it might.
jibeaux
@neff:
which blog do you go to, cause it ain’t this one.
jibeaux
@kid bitzer:
Aw hell, maybe he’s Wilfred?
jibeaux
“ameliorate your hauteur” is priceless, but definition? I’m at a loss.
neff
@jibeaux: Sorry that the truth hurts. Hey, maybe Obama can make Lieberman even happier by sending Predator drones to bomb liberals’ weddings! Obama’s administration has already set the precedent that presidents can commit as many war crimes as they want without getting in trouble over it, so he won’t have to worry about that.
rachel
@Kirk Spencer: Thanks, but I’ve found that they don’t fit quite right when I do that. Instead, I stock up on bras my size when I go home to visit my family (no problem finding DDD in Utah). I also sew and have bra patterns, so if worse comes to worse, I’ll try making my own.
Edited to add: Hurrah for being able to edit again!
Conrads Ghost
Ezra Klein makes the accurate point that reconciliation can ONLY be used for items that directly, not indirectly, affect the budget. So: industry reforms (most of which still stand, and are largely not controversial) stay in the bill; and the public option, buy-ins (or opt-outs – notice how that idea has fallen off the discourse map) etc. get pushed through in reconciliation. As Mr. Klein points out, this could, if Reid has the wherewithal, end up in a considerably more progressive bill than even the House’s version.
Markos Moulitsas [sp?] at Kos has been pushing this tactic all along. It fits the legislative requirements, and does not openly defy traditional uses of reconciliation (though you know the Neanderthals will weave that meme into their precious little mythology). Reid is sinking in Nevada – will he give in to the usual Dem “run away! run away!” reactionary impulse and wholly sell out, or will he see health care as a “nothing to lose” moment?
To take it meta – hundreds of thousands of lives are hanging on the puerile whims of what is proving itself to be one of the least Democratic institutions in the industrialized world: the US Senate. A bigger bunch of massively overentitled, venal douchebags it is hard to imagine. With the Senate’s pathetic, crippled collective tantrum on full display via the 24 hr news cycle, I think Harkin’s ideas on the filibuster just might find fertile ground – it’s time to re-imagine the chamber along the lines of the House of Lords, it’s direct progenitor, and remove the effective veto of the filibuster to a time limited delay of, say, one month. The filibuster was intended to encourage debate; a time limited delay returns it to its, and the chamber’s, original intent. It’s not so much Lieberass, or Nelson, or pick-your-Repukelican; it’s the structure which allows their juvenile antics. Seriously, do these assholes have a clue how fucking stupid and pathetic they look? “Greatest deliberative body in the world” my ass. More like a sycophantic clown parade, a clearer exposition of the rot at the center of American politics being hard to imagine.
geg6
@neff:
Sorry, asshole, but that precedent was set decades ago. But keep on telling yourself it’s all Obama’s fault. ‘Cuz we all know President Kucinich would never do the same. Of course, there’s the whole problem of how you ever get to the “President Kucinich” point.
jibeaux
He IS wilfred!
I hope he does the Palestinian thing next.
rachel
@jibeaux: “ameliorate your hauteur”: When a WATB troll takes his remaining moiety of marbles and pouts all the way back to his bridge?
The Republic of Stupidity
Well… seeing as everyone else has chipped in their two cents worth, here’s mine…
The subtleties and nuances of the actual bill aside, I came to the sad, painful conclusion weeks ago that faaaaaaaar too many Dems really DIDN’T want truly meaningful HCR to pass because they’re just too damned beholden to the insurance companies and their money.
The ONLY thing that would actually make a real difference for the country in the long run would be to curtail the profits of the big carriers, period.
That’s the problem, and that’s the only REAL solution.
And that was simply too unpalatable to faaaaaaaar too many Dems, as it was to the GOOPers. Hence this truly disgusting kabuki we’ve all been forced to watch the last few months, the endless charade of Dems PRETENDING to support HCR, while all along working to see it doesn’t happen and desperately hoping they can blame its ultimate failure on the GOOP… and still collect THEIR money from the carriers…
Talk about having your cake and eating it too… simply disgusting… and infuriating.
Kirk Spencer
@rachel: Assuming you’ll eventually have to make your own (or that you decide you’d like to try it), I offer one of the better advisory pages I know on making bras. Lots of good advice, and while there are extra tricks around they’re not necessary to making a good bra.
jibeaux
@rachel:
ok, now we need an entry for “moiety”…
rachel
@Kirk Spencer: Hey, thanks!
rachel
@jibeaux: Huh? Why? It’s just a word.
edit: Which alliterates nicely with “marbles”
Svensker
@geg6:
I’m assuming Joe will be moving into the White House any moment now, since he is president. Mr. Obama will have to leave, but Rahm can stay as Joe’s shoe shine boy.
matoko_chan
Umm…..I think the public option was a sacrifice play all along.
HCR is just the camels nose.
As long as reform of pre-existing conditions is in the bill, there will have to be some sort of universal coverage.
If pre-existing conditions are abolished, and there is no universal coverage, people will wait to buy insurance until they get sick, or are injured. This is gobsmackingly obvious to anyone with an IQ over room temperature, which apparently excludes “conservatives.”
So expanded coverage will have to be retrofitted somehow as long as the bill gets passed with PEC reforms.
jibeaux
@geg6:
Duh, President NADER. Kucinich is a sell-out.
jibeaux
@rachel:
I just don’t know it. Teh google results seem to suggest it’s “half a molecule”?
Chris Johnson
Exactly. Seeing as I’m fucked anyway, I like the idea of setting things up with no real industry reform (I thought the idea was nothing useful is being done?) and then the public side goes in via reconciliation and does NOT need the 60 votes.
What happens is, the insurance industry goes into convulsions and the more pressure it’s under, the more it acts out, hurting people and driving them to the public side, putting more pressure on the insurance industry and so on, until it’s like Single Payer vs. Fucking Josef Mengele, and then single payer gets to happen and we can move on.
I do not want legislative restrictions on how evil insurance companies can get. Let them be themselves so people can see what they are. You’re not going to make the case for single payer any other way.
rachel
@jibeaux: “Half a molecule?!” I first heard it in Anthro 101 to mean “more-or-less than half of a group of people.” Here’s the Dictionary.com entry.
Dang, it’s way past my bedtime.
kay
@Svensker:
The rationale for keeping Lieberman seems to be that he’s needed on other issues. Climate change and extension of benefits to same sex partners.
But I’m not seeing it like that. I’m seeing Lieberman dangling that to keep them coming back, and then reneging on every promise.
We know he does this. He just did. Why would anyone think he wouldn’t do it on climate change? He’ll wait for the weekend following the agreement, and announce he wants all the progressive ideas removed.
What is the point of pretending he operates in good faith?
matoko_chan
Let me put it this way….if the bill passes with abolishing pre-existing conditions intact, the insurance companies will be screaming for a public option.
Svensker
@JenJen:
The story about Rahm demanding that Joe get everything he wants is NOT just liberal cry-baby stuff. See TPM.
Rahm IS the droid you want.
Bill H
So as long as we restrain the insurance industry, which is presently making a 6% profit, then what the hospital industry, presently at 36% profit, does is irrelevant?
jibeaux
@rachel:
I like it!
kay
@Svensker:
And why in God’s name would they hand him the lead on same sex partner benefits? He’ll use that to extract HUGE industry-friendly concessions on climate change and financial reform. Is that a fair trade?
They have to stop handing him leverage. He’s just using it as a sort of ransom.
General Winfield Stuck
@matoko_chan:
Correct. The cost controls that a PO would arguably bring over time is important, very. But absent that, and if more folks are covered by expanding medicaid, and other reforms preventing denials of coverage for pre existing conditions, and all the other ways insurance companies screw their customers, a bill absent a PO or Medicare by in will save lives, maybe a lot of lives. That is progress, is it not? Reconciliation of a PO can happen later.
And nobody call me a dickhead, even if I am being one. I am a delicate liberal flower and wilt easily under politically incorrect weather. Me pecker deserves respect, /el snark
And fuck Joe Lieberman, all to hell.
Guster
@matoko_chan: Isn’t the problem that the bill mandates that we all buy insurance, without any cost controls?
Svensker
@Jack:
Do you faint away at “dickhead”? How about “prick” — does that get you all upset at the awful objectification of men’s body parts? People need to relax a bit.
mak
This would be an excellent plan if there were the slightest chance that Reid, et. al. could muster the stones to ram through a public option/medicare buy-in via reconciliation AFTER passing the present bill. However, since they’re all gutless swine and will be busy pretending the present POS bill is the greatest ever, I have very little faith that they’ll figure out that it’s in their interest to do so.
Svensker
@rachel:
Ha ha ha. Win.
Guster
I find the phrase ‘double-breasted suit’ sexist. And ‘abroad.’
General Winfield Stuck
@rachel:
go ahead, pull my finger, see what happens.
My fav fart joke.
NobodySpecial
It seems very easy for a bunch of people who are already covered somewhere to not care too much if more people get actually covered well rather than ‘covered’ as long as they get to hold a victory flag up.
And, no, they’re never going to visit this again in my lifetime.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
“Localizing campaigns doesn’t really work when you’ve had such a national presidential campaign and a national agenda,” he said. “I don’t care if you voted against everything Barack Obama put forward, you’re going to have to swallow it.”
“The environment is not going to get that much better,” the consultant warned.
Democrats in Congress are now blaming Obama for putting them in the awkward position of actually having to legislate.
I love that “Barack Obama put forward”. Last month the problem was he wasn’t leading them. Now that it’s difficult it’s that he was “too ambitious”.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
They are Emily Littela Democrats.
It’s always something, never mind
gg
“I say pass the Liebermanized bill and let the President sign it. Then use reconciliation to get the rest.”
Thank you! This is what I’ve been thinking for some time, and what I’m (vainly) hoping is what the D’s are planning. I think it would be especially sweet to pass the bill, have it signed, have a press conference with Lieberman at Harry Reid’s side, and then declare the intention to pass a public option via reconciliation — and kick Lieberman out of the caucus.
Ed Drone
Does anyone remember that this is just the Senate bill? And that the House bill complete with a public option, passed handily? And that the two bills must be reconciled by a conference committee?
So the big game will be in the committee members and the instructions the Senate gives those members when they go to conference.
Get the best bill from the Senate, appoint the best members to the conference committee (I nominate Al Franken), and instruct the conference committee to keep a public option in the final bill. I am not sure if the instructions to the committee members can be filibustered, but I think not. I also think (correct me if I’m wrong) the final bill, coming from conference, cannot be filibustered.
Get the best we can get from the Senate bill, and make sure the conference committee is composed of people with the “right stuff,” and we should have a health-care reform law we can live with.
And the parts that don’t work so well, or get left out, can be promoted and researched and argued for later addition next Congress.
Ed
General Winfield Stuck
@Ed Drone:
I do ed, but grew tired of repeating it.
NobodySpecial
Sure.
Citizen_X
@jibeaux:
It’s “ameliorate your slip to hauteur;” the odd construction gives it that extra oomph in pedant value.
[And, given the lingerie talk here, I’m thinking “Slip to Hauteur” would be a good name for a bra shop.]
Anyway, definition? “A five-dollar way of saying STFU.”
Elie
@Jack:
Though I have tended to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, I would not extend that benefit indefinitely and therefore acknowledge that your concerns and observations may have merit.
That said, even if every word and fear you express are true, what is the action plan? For me and most progressives it is get the best you can out of the situation for the most folks you can. Influence, write and work to get the best (whatever that is) you can.
In this situation, I am as frustrated as you and many posting about the situation we are in as Democratic progressives — on the 30 yard line and 3rd down. I could wish we were closer to the goal, that we had one or two more downs or that we had a different quarterback, but we are where we are so lets do the best we can. That’s all we can do for now.
Long term, I don’t think anyone disputes the need to keep working to drive out the Liebermans from the party..That is very local and hopefully, we can do the grassroots leg work nationally to make things like that happen.
Anyway, those are my thoughts and I am hoping that whether you agree or not, my opinion will be handled respectfully.
Elie
@Ed Drone:
Thanks for the reminder Ed (and General). Sometimes hard to have the situational awareness called for. There is lots of noise out here and not always a lot of light…
Thanks for holding up the lantern, so to speak!
SenyorDave
Lieberman better hope that there is no karma, because if there is he is due for some seriously bad shit to happen.
I’m Jewish and it disgusts me when that pig talks about Jewish values, when the only thing he understands is pork for his insurance company friends and bringing home the bacon for his wealthy CT buddies.
Ed Drone
@Elie:
Diogenes? Is that you?
Ed
JMY
Isn’t this only the Senate Bill?
Da Bomb
@Ed Drone: Yes, there is a house bill.
That’s precisely why when this came out, I just avoided the internets last night.
People can’t see the forest from the trees.
General Winfield Stuck
@Da Bomb:
And that forest is full of House liberals, including the Speaker who have repeatedly laid down the red marker that they will not pass a bill without a PO. Though red markers sometimes get washed away when backs are against the wall, or with a medicare by-in compromise. The strident signals sent out by these House members time and again has been stark and uncompromising, and won’t wash away all that easy, I suspect.
Corner Stone
@r€nato:
That is very true. You would never in a million years see Obama continue those shameful militaristic policies and make some awful decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanista….um..hmm.
Corner Stone
@kay:
That’s a damn good point kay. I guess the only question is who are the poor bastards getting eliminated.
JMY
Does anyone think the public option, Medicare buy-in, whatever, has a chance to get pass the conference committee?
lamh31
This whole thing is just so frustrating, cause someone correct me if I’m wrong here, but Harry Reid, and some of us on the left has to shoulder some blame for this new fiasco on HCR, including the “lack of leadership” that some see from the White House.
Does anyone else remember that after the summer from healthcare Hell, the White House’s plan seemed to be to try and keep Olympia Snowe on board, pushing a trigger instead of insisting that Reid push a public option. But Reid (looking at his own election prospects, and not the true nature of his caucus) made his statement about the PO being apart of the Senate Bill. I distinctly remember many on the progressive blogs backpatting Reid, and the calls of “good ole Harry”, but no one seems to remember that the other story out of that was that the White House (who was dealing in reality at that time, THERE WAS NEVER 60 VOTES FOR THE PUBLIC OPTION) was not as sure as Reid that he could hold his caucus, so they basically said “okay Harry, you say you go 60, then it’s on you and you betta be right”.
Well guess what, he was wrong, and some on the left knew he would be wrong (and were called Obamabots, or the like cause of it), but no, some of us wanted to see what we wanted to see in terms of the make-iup of the Dem caucus, and we ignored the spinelessness of many of them. And if anyone dared say that there was no way Reid would truly have 60, that if we had gotten Snowe on board earlier, as the White House wanted to do, then we might have gotten a better bill because Snowe, unlike Lieberman, may have been invested in the bill’s succeess.
Nope, progressives, Reid, the “leadership-less” WH, or whoever…we were all hosted by our own patards!
Corner Stone
@Napoleon:
Did to *them*? NAFTA did exactly what corporatists like Rahm wanted.
I get your point on the political and election side, but I do not believe Rahm is a moron, and IMO he knows full well how passing NAFTA served a higher agenda than short term election results.
Rahm isn’t concerned about beating the Republicans politically, he’s concerned about beating them financially.
NobodySpecial
@JMY:
Fools, maybe. There is already pressure on Pelosi to ping-pong the Senate bill. It’s a fact of life that when conference committees come together, that the Senate bill always wins. Always. Holding out hope that this one time that the House will win a conference is a magical unity pony.
No, the PO is gone. So too will be a broad Medicare buy-in. And they will find many many reasons not to revisit this in the future.
danimal
I haven’t heard anyone look at this part of the health care debate: what do the Republicans use to oppose the bill now? I don’t doubt that they will, but opposing a bill stripped of the most controversial parts will be difficult to justify.
Remember, they were claiming that everyone agreed to 80% of the bill a few months ago. Now, all that remains is that 80%. It puts them in an awkward place, if any damned reporter or columnist would actually put them on the spot.
Svensker
@lamh31:
Is that like a party for retard daddies?
matoko_chan
@danimal: @danimal: oh, they will oppose it.
Never fear.
The “conservatives” are perfectly aware that abolishing the pre-existing conditions mandates universal coverage…….but they can’t demagogue that because the electorate supports that part.
This bill is their waterloo, not Obamas.
If anything passes, they lose.
Da Bomb
@General Winfield Stuck: I don’t believe so either. But it’s all sausage-making at this point.
We really don’t know how the bill will turn out. All I can say is that this revisionist history how previous social bills have passed is laughable.
And as Lamh31 pointed out, there was some skepticism on whether Harry Reid had the votes or not to pass a bill through the Senate with a PO. Hence why there was such a push to appease Snowe, she was wanted a triggered PO, people bitched about that. Liberman wouldn’t have been a factor. But at least she was on board with having a PO. She wasn’t being as insufferable as that windbag Lieberman is being.
kay
@NobodySpecial:
Why does everyone keep saying this?
It isn’t even partly accurate. They revisited S-CHIP, and vastly expanded it. It took five years, and two Presidents.
They revisited Medicare, many times.
They privatized a quarter of Medicare and added a massive new prescription drug benefit, and that’s just in the last ten years.
kay
@NobodySpecial:
How much attention did it get when conservatives privatized 25% of Medicare, in 2002-2003? It took them ten years to slip that by.
None. I bet 1 in 100 Americans are even aware it happened.
It’s just incorrect to continue to say that these things aren’t revisited.
Elie
@kay:
Yay!
I dunno, for some of us, progress is never enough and we do not seem to have any patience for improvement over time… Isn’t that what “progressive” means?
My question for the complete “I give up” crowd is, what is your action plan? What do we do if all is Fail?
Corpsicle
@Jack: Lighten up, Francis
kay
@Elie:
I’m disappointed in the Medicare expansion, truthfully. That was hard to take.
But we lost like thirteen rounds on S-CHIP before we got it, and “getting it” entailed 1. getting a Democratic Congress, and then Bush vetoed and 2. electing Obama.
It wasn’t exactly a cake walk.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — President Bush vetoed the children’s health insurance bill today, as he had promised to do, setting the stage for more negotiations between the White House and Congress and sparking unusual dismay from some prominent Republicans.
Not a good day. I was throwing things. At people.
Maude
@kay: I heard that they tossed out Medicaid expansion.
The Senate bill goes to conference. The House version goes too. Think the outcome will be much better?
There has to be a wedge that Medicare expansion can be worked on after the basic bill passes.
These people are awful to prevent people from getting medical care.
geg6
@Elie:
We do what we’ve done up until this point. Suffer, die, pay out more than you can afford for health care, or go bankrupt. It’s not gonna happen, so no point in even going forward on it. Let it die. Lieberman isn’t done fucking this up and anyone who thinks he is is completely insane. So I’m all for Pelosi and Co. blowing the whole thing up. There will be nothing in this bill in the end that isn’t a straight out giveaway to the insurance companies and Big Pharma. No actual human citizens who need it will benefit from anything in it.
Conference ain’t gonna happen either. And even if it does, the Senate always hold the advantage in those negotiations. So this is dead, dead, dead.
I say move on.
Elie
@geg6:
geg6 — Is that you?
So you think that this whole thing is over? I am sorta surprised given your previous comments on this.. I certainly don’t want to characterize your view point inaccurately…
Hmmm
geg6
@Elie:
Yes, I think it’s over. They’ll pass something they call “health care reform” but it won’t be. Holy Joe has just had the affirmation of a lifetime and he won’t be letting it go. He will make sure that anything valuable to real people is taken out (goodbye ending recision! goodbye ending lifetime limits!) and anything that will benefit pharma and insurance companies will be strengthened or added. It will be another giant shifting of middle class cash into the hands of the corporations and we will gain nothing beneficial from it. And Lieberman will grin and preen and keep right on running the country to suit himself.
I have tried every means of staying optimistic that something good will happen. I have lost any taste for continuing in such a stupid quest. My side is filled with losers, from the very top in the White House right on down. I’m tired of them and I’m tired to trying to make them better, as good as the people they claim they represent. But I really have lost all hope of ever seeing anything truly good coming out of our government in my lifetime. I plan to hunker down and wait for the whole selfish, incompetent thing to blow up and destroy the entire country. I’ll still vote, but that’s about it. I won’t be contributing or volunteering for anyone or anything. I’ve spent 40 years living on hope. I’m too old to do it any more. I’m fresh out of hope and don’t expect another shipment at my advanced age.
JenJen
@Svensker: I saw the TPM story, but it’s the same hear-say as the HuffPo story. I’m not advocating discounting the story, I just think any time a Senate staffer is anonymously quoted criticizing the mechanisms of the White House, it should be taken with a grain of salt, regardless of the outlet reporting the anonymous quote.
I’m not knee-jerk-defending the White House here, and I also don’t think it’s cry-baby stuff. I only suggest that as it stands, it’s not solid enough of a story to get worked up over.
Elie
@geg6:
I am sorry to hear that.
For me, I have seen a lot of really good change over my almost 60 years…
Civil Rights was probably the most important, although these are still a work in progress..
I have seen a lot more attention to the environment. Complete fix or even partial fix — no. Increased awareness and action on that awareness, yes
Women generally have reproductive freedom. Perfect? No. Under threat. Yes
Medicare and Medicaid passed in my lifetime. Both have brought huge benefits to the elderly, poor and disabled. Solved all health care problems? Obviously nowhere close but individuals have been greatly helped who would have had nothing — particularly children
CHIP — Child Health Insurance Program. From personal knowledge, a lot of kids whose parents struggle to make things meet and who have serious chronic conditions, as well as needs for preventive care, have benefitted from this
…There are many many more. We try to help people. I know that you do. Just have to remember that and keep doing that in the world you can affect. If we all did that, there would be a lot less to worry about
Mnemosyne
Oh, Tim, you know that will never happen. That would be an actual practical way to get things done instead of picking out which hill we’re going to die on.
Mnemosyne
@Ed Drone:
Nope. Everyone “knows” that this is the one-and-only bill and if it passes, it immediately becomes law. Reminding them that it’s not how it works only makes them angrier.