Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Second rate reporter says what?

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

You are here: Home / Sixty and a Broken Party

Sixty and a Broken Party

by | 307 Comments

This post is in: 

So now that the Senate has ripped apart the party, it looks like they have cobbled together sixty votes:

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) confirmed moments ago that he will support the Senate health care bill, which will soon be amended to include new, more restrictive abortion language. But, he says, he reserves the right to filibuster the very final version of health care legislation if it changes significantly when Senate and House negotiators meet to agree upon a single package of reforms.

Now, in typical Democratic fashion, we will probably get the bill to conference, have a couple more weeks of acrimonious debate, pass the bill, get a bill with some meaningful reform and some decidedly bad things, and then spend the next year fighting a civil war and convincing ourselves that the bill is horrible and Obama hates the base.

being a Republican was SOOO much easier. Obligatory Will Rogers reference.

Reader Interactions

307Comments

  1. 1.

    Jack

    Still don’t see how the meaningful reform justifies the really awful stuff, but at least now dirty whores who should love Jesus better women can take a piss, too.

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    Via Steve Benen, the abortion language is mainly a state opt-out:

    Reid included a provision that allows states to prohibit abortion coverage in the insurance exchanges the bill creates. It’s basically a state opt-out, which largely allows Democrats to sidestep the tricky issue by dumping it on the states.
    …
    The amendment also requires that health plans that provide abortion services segregate the premiums from any federal money so that federal funds don’t pay for abortion services. Similar proposals have come under fire from pro-life groups who call the maneuver a shell game. They argue that because the insurance plans offered through the exchange are eligible for federal subsidies, taxpayer money is still paying for the coverage of abortion.

    Not exactly what I would call ideal, but far better than the Stupack monstrosity in the House bill.

    -dms

  4. 4.

    Quiddity

    We shall see how it plays in the elections of 2010 and 2012. My guess is it won’t have much impact next year since it’s too soon for lots of it to take effect, but 2012 will be a different story. Will it breed resentments like the (wonk-approved but subsequently revoked) Catastrophic Health coverage of 1988?

    Stay tuned.

  7. 7.

    cleek

    if only the Dems could happily fall in line behind authority the way those self-proclaimed self-reliant individualistic cowboys do…

    alas.

  8. 8.

    demkat620

    Well, this is how we roll, John.

    I thought it was really funny last night to hear Larry O’Donnell ask if the GOP’s cynical delaying tactics against the Defense bill would be a liability for them. Can’t be a liability if people don’t know about it.

    It’s not like the media or the Democrats will tell them.

  9. 9.

    Svensker

    I’m confused (so what is else is new). Did Holy Joe come back from Connecticut for the vote? Who’s the 60th?

  11. 11.

    JenJen

    Jane Hamsher’s latest outburst:

    It’s scary to think that people this obscenely stupid are running the country.

    My head still hurts from banging it against a wall all day yesterday. Now this shit?

    Oh, and this from Matt Taibbi:

    “I think it’s much better for the Democrats to lose on this issue and then have to regroup maybe eight years later, six years later, and try again and do a better job the next time then to have it go through.”

    Everybody cool with that?

  12. 12.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    The Senate hasn’t ripped the party apart—the Dems have survived more acrimonious debates than this. The blogospheric drama queens aren’t the party, although many of them see themselves as leading the country to the Light one keystroke at a time. Kinda like the Fighting 101st, but better.

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    @Svensker: The cloture vote comes 30 hours after Reid files a notice of cloture. He’s supposedly going to do that this afternoon, so the vote will be Monday morning. Plenty of time for Holy Joe to make it back. And it’s not like the last day of Hanukah is a secret; I’m sure leadership knew well ahead of time that Joe was going to be out of town today.

    -dms

  14. 14.

    K. Grant

    Some decent stuff in a bill that will rewrite a substantial section of the social contract with the people of the country? Check. Some ugly concessions to small-minded hacks? Check. It was ever thus.

    Who in their right mind thought that such a major piece of legislation was going to by anything other than ugly and not exactly what everyone wanted?

  15. 15.

    ken adler

    John, what is wrong with acrimonious debate in December of 2009? We had acrimonious debate in January/February of 2008 and the Democrats didn’t do so badly 9 months later.

    We will pull it together.

    And was it not you who put up that Steve Martin video?

    Ken

  17. 17.

    drew42

    and then spend the next year fighting a civil war and convincing ourselves that the bill is horrible and Obama hates the base.

    OR… Since we Democrats all actually agree on 99% of what should be in the bill but currently isn’t, we could roll up our sleeves and spend the next year harassing congress to get the good stuff back in.

    Great minds think alike. We just don’t all act alike.

  18. 18.

    Ella in NM

    Oh for Christ’s sake, just make it so women of childbearing age be offered the right to purchase a rider to any policy with their own money that would provide for abortion coverage. That MIGHT cost that person five-ten total extra dollars a month, agreed, but it’s worth it to move on past this bastard’s power over the entire nation.

    I agree with the earlier assertion that progressives now need to be hunting down every piece of legislation Nelson cares about and tacking on extras or stalling it to the point the guy has a stroke. What’s he gonna do? Filibuster everything he needs to get reelected?

  19. 19.

    rachel

    @K. Grant:

    Who in their right mind thought that such a major piece of legislation was going to by anything other than ugly and not exactly what everyone anyone wanted?

    FTFY

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    @JenJen: And what makes Taibbi think that a) this will be revisited anytime soon if the current version goes down in flames and more importantly b) that the Senate 6 years from now will be any less dysfunctional?

    -dms

  23. 23.

    Jack

    @dmsilev:

    What makes anyone think that the same people who spent four months befouling these drafts will come back later and undo their own work?

  24. 24.

    tomvox1

    For all the Taibbi fans:

    “I think it’s much better for the Democrats to lose on this issue and then have to regroup maybe eight years later, six years later, and try again and do a better job the next time then to have it go through.”

    To me, that position sounds, oh, I don’t know…INSANE! Sort of like saying “more people have to die so that we have the political will to really stick it to the insurance companies.”

    Maybe I’m just a self-loathing liberal who’s not pure enough but I say pass the fucking thing and fix it when people start bitching about its many flaws and putting the heat on their representatives to do the same. At least there would be a basis for government intervention, for goshsakes…

  25. 25.

    valdivia

    @dmsilev:

    because they think Kucinich will be president and that the country can stand even one more term of republicans. they really don’t care if the reps destroy us if they can get their purity candidate who will in truth never get elected and never accomplish anything.

  26. 26.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    @JenJen: Effective immediately children cannot be denied health coverage due to pre-existing conditions. So, yeah, lets kill the legislation now and come back and try for a better bill next the Democrats have 60 votes. Sheesh.

  27. 27.

    Comrade Mary

    Reid included a provision that allows states to prohibit abortion coverage in the insurance exchanges the bill creates. It’s basically a state opt-out, which largely allows Democrats to sidestep the tricky issue by dumping it on the states.

    Fuck. If this hasn’t been overturned by 2014 (and I have hopes that there is some way to get rid of this by then, but they’re faint hopes), this becomes a state-led runaround of Roe v Wade. Yes, abortion will still be nominally legal, but in opt-out states, it will now be priced out of reach of many women.

    Of course, these are likely to be the states that currently have few or no abortion services, requiring women to travel out of state — again, women with some money for both travel and out of state medical expenses — but this isn’t just the status quo. It’s worse than the status quo. Poor women would still be trapped, and now ALL women would have to face extra expense for a LEGAL medical procedure that many insurers currently cover.

    Any chance of this being yanked back in conference after they get their 60 votes Monday?

  28. 28.

    rachel

    @Jack: Because it’s happened* several times before, as has been pointed out repeatedly on this very site–with citations and links, even!

    *Not that it just “happened”; voters made Congress go back and fix the bad stuff.

  30. 30.

    KCinDC

    Why is anyone confident that Lieberman has had his last word? Don’t you think he’s sitting in Connecticut watching Nelson’s media coverage and getting jealous?

  31. 31.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @JenJen: Is it really surprising at this point, what Hamsher says? Translated: “They didn’t do what I think they should do, so they are deeply stupid.”

    The naivete, it burns almost as much as the stupid. If there is a lot of opposition by the minority (in this case, the GOP and
    ConservaDems), of course any drift in the provisions of the legislation has to be toward the minority, if anything is going to pass. People like Hamsher just can’t abide the real world intruding into their -fantasy- highly principled scheme for making the world a better place.

  32. 32.

    JenJen

    @dmsilev: It’s seriously unbelievable to me that anyone would suggest shelving these reforms for six, eight more years. Just unbelievable. No, it’s not all we hoped it would be, but is Taibbi actually asking people to wait six, eight more years for things like a ban on pre-existing condition discrimination, for example?

  33. 33.

    zoe kentucky in pittsburgh

    The thing is that I’m not sure how many people the loud, angry lefty voices represent. They seem convinced that they represent a lot of people but I’m really not so sure. While there are quite a few bloggers who seem irate I personally don’t know anyone in my personal life who feels that way. I think the more hysterical fits they pitch the less influential they will find themselves in the long run.

    I think HCR could have gone a lot better but it could be a lot worse. It needs to pass and it will, over time, be improved. It was a HUGE undertaking and will end up representing a huge boon for Americans who don’t have insurance or who buy it individually (like myself). Waiting is not an option, especially if you actually believe and understand how much the current status is actually killing people.

    I have personally not soured on Obama. So far he’s been exactly the kind of president I thought he’d be– no suprises. I’d like him to do more, sure, but I’m patient and pragmatic. I also think he’s only going to get better the longer he has the job.

  34. 34.

    donovong

    @Ella in NM:

    What’s he gonna do? Filibuster everything he needs to get reelected?

    Yes.

    And there is still climate change legislation to go, so don’t look for any real hardball anytime soon.

  35. 35.

    dmsilev

    @Comrade Mary:
    re: abortion:

    Any chance of this being yanked back in conference after they get their 60 votes Monday?

    Doubtful. The conference report can still be filibustered, so they’ll need 60 votes at that point as well. Ergo, we are unfortunately still subject to Ben Nelson’s whims and prejudices.

    -dms

  36. 36.

    jnfr

    This is going to be historic, no matter how broken parts of the bill are. Just setting in place the social agreement that everyone deserves health care shifts the debate in this country entirely.

  37. 37.

    KCinDC

    Apparently Taibbi thinks health care reform will be better if it’s handled in 8 years by the Republican president and Congress that will result from Democrats doing nothing.

  38. 38.

    Jack

    @rachel:

    Yes. When Congress gave lots and lots of money to the railroads, they turned around and built benevolent shelters for the poor and…

    …oh, no – wait, they didn’t. They used that money, along with Rock and Morgan, to break the fucking bank itself, and along with it the federal government. I know, it’s not in the George Washington and the Cherry Tree history books.

    But at least bonny JP was allowed to lend some of that money back to the Feds, to float them for a war or too.

    And we have dismantled your saidsame historical examples time and time again, because they are not parallels to this one.

    But, giving billions of dollars to people who will then fund the Republicans in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 is smart politics.

    I forget that.

    I’m not centricitist enough…

  40. 40.

    Libby

    @JenJen:

    Oh, and this from Matt Taibbi:

    “I think it’s much better for the Democrats to lose on this issue and then have to regroup maybe eight years later, six years later, and try again and do a better job the next time then to have it go through.”

    Everybody cool with that?

    Good Lord. Didn’t we just try that for the last eight years? I swear I’m going to give up following politics and devote the rest of my life to beach blogging.

  42. 42.

    cleek

    @tomvox1:

    that sounds exactly like the stuff you hear from the wingnut tea-bag zealots at RedState – let’s lose our way to purity! only then will we truly win, because people want purity !

  45. 45.

    Jack

    @Libby:

    Taibbi doesn’t have to be right on the time period (he’s definitely not) to be right on the wrongness of this legislation, and this latest (but not last) compromise befouling of it.

  46. 46.

    Libby

    I have had many moments in the last six years wishing I was a right winger. So easy to blog as a wingnut. You can say any kind of crap and nobody cares whether it’s true or if you have cites, as long as they agree with it.

    Best day of blogging life was the “blog like a wingnut day.” Hate to admit, it was fun.

  47. 47.

    dmsilev

    @JenJen: Entirely believable, unfortunately. It does demonstrate an impressive bit of innocence in assuming that anyone would want to revisit the issue in less than a generation, given the near-certain electoral bloodbath that would result from this version going down in flames.

    -dms

  48. 48.

    Jack

    And the red line question have been answered, as well.

    Not even a women’s uterus is enough for the centricitists.

  49. 49.

    Comrade Mary

    Jack, name a plausible time period to get this done right. I think the 6-8 years estimate is wildly optimistic if this bill gets killed now.

  51. 51.

    tomvox1

    Another thing that crossed my mind about the White House vs. the Senate Apostates (Lieberman, Nelson, etc):

    Maybe they were keeping their powder dry for the final bill after it comes back from conference, when it will probably be more liberal again. Something like “You can vote against the bill but if you join the GOP filibuster against the whole enchilada, you are dead to us.” After all, why bring out the hammer in the penultimate conflict? It’s the the vote prior to sending the bill to the President that’s the big dance, and that’s where the serious head knocking should come into play.

    The White House could still just be a bunch of pussies but maybe this is the way it will unfold…

  56. 56.

    jeffreyw

    Fixins for raisin bread are in the machine. Mmm..raisin bread toasted a bit, buttered, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.

  57. 57.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    and convincing ourselves that the bill is horrible and Obama hates the base. being a Republican was SOOO much easier.

    Yeah, cuz passing horrible bills was the point for Republicans.

  59. 59.

    Anya

    @K. Grant: Exactly my sentiment. I was not a voting age and did not pay much attention to previous Dem administrations but the reaction from some in the left and the right is toxic.

  61. 61.

    Jack

    @Comrade Mary:

    I’ve only suggesting tabling it until after recess, breaking the deals with bad faith actors (PhRMa, the insurance companies), and splitting the draft (which we should remember is not stand alone legislation, but an amendment) into three parts.

    First – force a vote on a ban of the practices we all agree suck. Rescission. Discrimination. Et cetera.

    Second – force a vote on Medicare and Medicaid expansion, including provisions which reduce the Medicare eligibility age to 55, and includes all Americans under 18. Earmark some of the money outlined as subsidies for direct payment to the Medi/Medi operating funds. Include whatever language necessary to normalize Medicaid disbursement inequities, state to state.

    Third – force a vote on a measure that would allow private individuals and companies to negotiate directly with Medicare for the provision of its insurance. Include what measures as are necessary to address disbursements, and percentages.

    Then, let AETNA et al react to that. Let them react, not set the tone. Stop being the faction on the defensive. Let them adjust their products and services, or dive out to the Republicans they are already going to support over the next four cycles anyway.

    *

    That’s a template upon which to build because it’s a template which already exists. That’s actual “incrementalism.”

  63. 63.

    El Cid

    I don’t see convincing evidence of a broken party, I mean, more broken than it was before. Yes, there has been a lot of stuff going on recently.

  65. 65.

    Leelee for Obama

    A Merry Christmas kitteh! I love this pic, and Smudge is the perfect name. Much love for you, Arguing! Enjoy!

  67. 67.

    valdivia

    @tomvox1:

    this was the plan according to accounts I have seen and interviews Obama gave in the summer. The plan all along was to put all the pressure on the conference bill but Reid pushed for the PO early and killed it before it got to conference.

  68. 68.

    demkat620

    “A trillion dollar starter home.” Hey Noron! There’s 300 million people in this country. Things cost alot more these days.

  71. 71.

    Kryptik

    @KCinDC:

    This.

    And I’m not sure it’s jealousy. It’s like he waits for the moment where people think ‘FINALLY, we get this damn thing to a vote, it’s about time’. before running in like a spiteful ex charging in to object to the wedding on account of the bride being a whore.

    I’ll believe this thing is settled when we actually get to a vote.

  73. 73.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Jack: And just how do you propose to “force” votes? If Reid could force votes, he would be having the problem he’s having now.

  74. 74.

    Libby

    @Jack:

    As I’ve been asking for days now, what do liberals/progs/Dems *win* by killing it now after working for a year to pass it, while the cons/teabaggers/GOP have been working to kill it for the same period of time?

  75. 75.

    TJ

    Nah. We won’t have to wait. Only 33% of anybody likes the Senate bill. The Democratic centrists are going to have to spend the next six months trying to convince the voters that they have won anything.

  76. 76.

    SGEW

    On the other hand, despite the acrimony, isn’t it great that everyone’s actually debating actual policies? (More or less?).

    It’s a lot better than blogospheric flamewars over “57 states,” or whether Hillary Clinton really did dodge sniper fire in Tuzla.

  78. 78.

    Rhoda

    The minute this passes and folks who are graduating right now realize that they can stay on their folks insurance for a few more years, the subsidies kick in to the middle class folks who are struggling and on food stamps, the public mood will change and it’ll change towards more reform.

    The first step is the hardest but the MA shows that when the initial change happens; people support expansion and extension of good programs. That is what gives us Medicare and Social Security as it is today.

    The Hamsher and Taibi of the world are looking at this as a static political fight. It’s more than that and there is no policy or political reason this thing should die.

    I also think that the no votes will haunt the Republicans. At the end of the day; the Democrats moved on these issues and pushed forward. The Republicans will be able to say nothing but corporate slogans and shouting no and I don’t think that will play in 2010. I think the midterms, when health care passes and the Congress focuses on jobs, will be better for Democrats than most predict. Mostly because the House is running such a good ground game IMO. And Steele hasn’t put the Republican house in order.

  80. 80.

    Libby

    I have personally not soured on Obama. So far he’s been exactly the kind of president I thought he’d be—no suprises. I’d like him to do more, sure, but I’m patient and pragmatic. I also think he’s only going to get better the longer he has the job.

    The patience part is what the youngsters who were raised in the age of instant gratification don’t seem to get. And sometimes I wonder if some people aren’t just hooked on the fight, and lose sight of the end goal.

  82. 82.

    K. Grant

    Vicki Kennedy has an op-ed in the Post today calling for the Senate to pass the bill. Not unsurprisingly, commenters at various bastions of clear thinking (HuffingtonPost, DailyKos) have decided that she has no idea what Ted Kennedy would have done regarding this bill, and that she should keep her corporatist trap shut. Kos, Ariana, Taibbi, Hamsher and the rest of the perfectionists can pack off to their utopia and leave the rest of us to actually getting stuff done in the real world.

    Of course, one view of Thomas More’s definition of Utopia is helpful in understanding just exactly what it is that they are pining for – no place. As in – no such place can exist, thus we are left with blundering about attempting to make our imperfect world just a wee bit better. If we hold out for perfection, well, good luck with that.

  83. 83.

    geg6

    Taibbi is sounding like an idiot, but Jane Hamsher isn’t wrong about how deeply, deeply, deeply stupid our political leaders are. Even the ones on our side. Hell, even Obama at times and he’s the smartest of them all. Just thrilled everybody’s okay with the Senate bill, now with new and improved punch in the gut for women, especially poor women. I think they could make it even better by cutting coverage for birth control! Whatever. Pass this piece of crap or whatever even crappier piece of crap we’ll eventually get after the bills are merged and move on to something useful. Sadly, because Jane is right about the intellectual heft of our government, I don’t expect they could find something useful if it was standing right in front of them.

  84. 84.

    Jack

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    60 votes is not necessary. Play hard ball. Harry Reid isn’t playing hard ball. Please don’t tell me you think he is.

    Force the up or down votes on each measure. Yes – the Senate is full of assclowns who will obstruct, because the Senate is Madison’s bad legacy. But they will have cast votes on manageable issues.

  86. 86.

    baxie

    I’m not sure why some folk are so happy about forcing people to buy shitty coverage from insurance companies that will be looking to fuck them over at every turn.

    Or have they added meaningful restrictions on insurer behavior since the last time I looked?

    Oh wait, subsidies, right. Yet another massive giveaway of taxpayer dollars to private industry. Let’s all do the wave to celebrate!

  87. 87.

    JScott

    I am also in the camp that feels that there is a significant victory in setting the precedent for broad social reform legislation.

  88. 88.

    Jack

    @Libby:

    I guess you can keep asking me to justify a position I haven’t argued if you want, but you are pissing in the wind for all that I ever will.

  89. 89.

    Autboy

    wonder if our petty potentates have the balls to remove the anti-trust exemption for the insurance industry. Wagers?

  90. 90.

    mcd410x

    Until people are getting clubbed by the cops in Chicago, I don’t think things are all that bad.

    Funny how things always break down into “people being too shrill” in wanting a change of course vs. “people being too stupid” because they want to stay the course. Human nature remains constant, no matter whether it’s health care reform or the woeful direction of the Stillers, etc.

    (Haha! Liverpool, won [email protected] all!!)

  91. 91.

    JenJen

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    How the hell do you make a decent pie crust? I can’t make a flaky one to save my life.

    A brilliant hotel pastry chef I once had the pleasure of working with taught me her secret, and it’s foolproof… it’s all about using cold ingredients and utensils. When you use room-temperature utensils, the warmth makes the fat in your pastry bind too quickly to the gluten in the flour, which makes the dough a little tough. Our pastry chef kept her flour in the fridge anyway, and then if you put your bowl, your pastry blender and your fork in the freezer for about 20 minutes, and then use ice water to blend and to clean your utensils as you work the dough, you’ll end up with the dreamiest, flakiest crust ever.

  92. 92.

    Jack

    @K. Grant:

    What’s utopian is believing that entrenched corporations will sit idly by and watch the hand out they long labored for taken away as an after-the-“reform” reform.

    It’s believing the very people who right now fucked this all up will revisit the issue with their better angels atop their shoulders.

  93. 93.

    valdivia

    @Rhoda:

    this. the dynamics will change when this is signed. and when the very important changes kick in that improve people’s lives. the child insurance part is huge.

  94. 94.

    blahblahblah

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    The blogospheric drama queens aren’t the party[…]

    That’s for sure. For example, I changed my registration back to Independent. I’m no longer a Democrat. And I most certainly now view the party leadership with a great deal of suspicion and anger.

    Definitely glad a voted Nader in 2000 now. No Democrat will shame me on that issue ever again.

  95. 95.

    Tsulagi

    Well, this cave compromise with Nelson makes sense given the Democratic thrust on HCR. Mandates for the people who haven’t made sensible spending decisions, and similarly, can you really trust a pregnant woman to make rational decisions when her hormones are raging? We need Democratic deciderers.

  96. 96.

    Joel

    @Comrade Mary: I imagine the workaround will look something like the workaround for Bush’s idiotic ban on stem cell research. Indepdently funded (but not necessarily run) non-profit institutions offering abortion services. Everything is kept in separate pools so that Planned Parenthood doesn’t lose government funding for a dedicated abortion-providing affiliate. Similar to how Harvard didn’t lose NIH funding when they started up their Stem Cell Institute.

  97. 97.

    jeffreyw

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Hah! I go to the grocery store, usually.

    The key to flaky crusts is in how the dough is handled, don’t work it too much, make sure the bits of butter or lard or whatever are still visible, use cold butter, chill the dough in the fridge before rolling, etc etc. It’s a skill that takes practice.

    Just do it. Or be like Tiger and just do it and do it and do it…

  98. 98.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Jack: I think Reid fucked up when he included the PO and upset the applecart. But I don’t think that there is any amount of arm-twisting available to get that upperdown vote you’re talking about. I get what you’re saying about splitting the bill into more palatable chunks, and that would normally make sense, but each chunk is still going to have to undergo a cloture vote—and that does require 60 votes. The bits about decoupling Pharma and the insurance industry sounds nice, but they own Dems as well as Pubs. It’s not that easy to ignore their influence.

  100. 100.

    Citizen_X

    @zoe kentucky in pittsburgh:

    The thing is that I’m not sure how many people the loud, angry lefty voices represent. They seem convinced that they represent a lot of people but I’m really not so sure.

    I have what’s called The Paulbot Rule, which states: The volume of posts (blogposts, comments, tweets, whatever) by a particular faction does not correlate at all with their actual political strength.

    The Paulbots were a strong demonstration of this principle: during the primaries, you could not escape them ever, and yet, did their candidate ever get over 1% of the primary vote, anywhere?

    So one shouldn’t ignore a lot of angry angry posts, but they shouldn’t be taken as representative, either. Polls, with all their weaknesses, are still the best way of gauging public opinion.

  101. 101.

    BTD

    With 2 changes, sunsetting mandates in 2019 and elimination of the excise tax (using the House financing mechanisms), I am supporting its bill. And can see that it does some good.

    What it does not do is reform health care. It’s a “starter house”, as Harkin put it, for addressing our problem in health care, and a progressive initiative, but it does not reform the system.

    It transfers monies from wealthy people to insurance companies and the government to provide less well off people with some modicum of health insurance.

    Clearly that is unreservedly a good thing. But let’s not pretend it is something it is not – health reform.

  102. 102.

    Napoleon

    @dmsilev:

    And what makes Taibbi think that a) this will be revisited anytime soon if the current version goes down in flames and more importantly b) that the Senate 6 years from now will be any less dysfunctional?

    I have been thinking about that question and I think the answer is found in something that the people that promote that view refused to say, that by in essence gumming up the works with bringing HCR down that will force a change in the filibuster rules, and with the change the Dems will attempt to bring the issue back to the table and when that happens they get the bill they wanted all along (or at least something not as bad).

  105. 105.

    JenJen

    @BR: Thank you for that! Giordano is cheering me up this morning. And Mitch McConnell is on TV now looking mightily pissed, so I think we’re moving in the right direction.

  107. 107.

    TJ

    As I’ve been asking for days now, what do liberals/progs/Dems win by killing it now after working for a year to pass it, while the cons/teabaggers/GOP have been working to kill it for the same period of time?

    If you’re really interested, go back a few days and read Chuck Butcher’s comments on this bill. He’s a local politician (or was). You might get an idea of what the Democrats are signing up for. Or not.

  108. 108.

    Libby

    @Jack: IOW, you don’t have an answer.

    Anybody who knows how to “play hardball” and deliver a magic pony out of our broken Senate — begging you. Run for office. Show us how’s it’s done. You’ll have my full support.

    Bitching about how bad it is doesn’t solve the problem. Calling for a game of hard ball is just noise unless you deliver the playbook to show us how to “win.”

  110. 110.

    Joel

    @JenJen: Here’s where butter v. shortening comes in. Loosely citing Harold McGee’s excellent On Food and Cooking (by the way, a great gift if you haven’t gotten one yet), butter has a much smaller working temperature range (where it’s soft but the fats remain solidified) than shortening does. Some pastry kitchens operate in a cold room to make up for this. Home chefs, if it’s really hot, are going to have a hard time with it. Shortening has a much broader temperature variation and you can substitute some (but not all, for the sake of flavor) shortening for butter if you don’t get the knack for it.

    Anyhow, this is a long way of recommending On Food and Cooking.

  112. 112.

    Silver Owl

    Love the people that get a boner treating we women like animals. America is not all that grand and quite primitive savage nation still.

  113. 113.

    Jack

    @Libby:

    Saint Satan on a holy rail, NH is blue because of people like me. Please don’t pretend that your opponents are ignorant just because they don’t share your means towards common goals.

  114. 114.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    I guess the same people who thought they were ordering a pony when they voted for Obama also thought that the Dem members of congress who come from Republican states and districts would just throw themselves on a sacrificial pyre for HCR when the time came. Because, you know, Obama would just work that Yes We Can mojo on them and make them do it.

    Alas, reality sets in. There is no reason for Nelson to go along with the thing, nor any reason for him to give in to an list of threats or punishments from his caucus. If I am him, the only thing that gets my vote is first an opportunity for maximum foot stomping and posturing over right to life issues, and then as much ass kissing and stroking as the caucus can give me behind the scenes, along with promises of god knows what to sweeten the deal. I’ll swear I was against it before I voted for it. I’ll look like the champion of Hold On There, Not So Fast right up until the very last second.

    Which is exactly what he is doing, as near as I can tell.

    So what? Do we get a Senate bill and a shot at conference? Good. If not, bad. Welcome to the impossible Republic run by rich white men that your Founders gave you. Guess what, it is still working despite everything.

  117. 117.

    bago

    PO can be rammed through reconciliation. Recission rules cannot. Think about the consequences of these facts.

  118. 118.

    Dreddfull

    @Libby

    As I’ve been asking for days now, what do liberals/progs/Dems win by killing it now after working for a year to pass it, while the cons/teabaggers/GOP have been working to kill it for the same period of time?

    We get a dead car in the driveway. GOP said no car to drive to the Capital City Hospital, we wanted one, we needed one. Now we have one. There it sits, with pools of oil and anti-freeze underneath. Oh, here comes one of the working poor, uninsured dogs! Look, he’s drinking the anti-freeze. Oh. My. God.
    See how great it’s worked out?

  119. 119.

    cleek

    NH is blue because of people like me

    waves from blue North Carolina.

    Please don’t pretend that your opponents are ignorant just because they don’t share your means towards common goals.

    right back atcha

  120. 120.

    JenJen

    @Joel: Agreed! I’m a big fan of shortening, and the butter-flavored shortening is really good. I stopped making cookies with butter awhile ago and instead use mostly shortening, and just cut in a little butter for texture and flavor. Try it in your favorite recipe and your cookies will puff up a little and be so melt-in-your-mouth moist and delicious.

    (Can you tell I’ve been doing a lot of holiday baking?)

    @jnfr: Michelle Malkin’s pissed, too. Things are looking up!

  121. 121.

    TaosJohn

    Well, John, I think you’re wrong this time. If this bill passes with anything like the Senate provisions — especially abortion restrictions and the mandate — the next few years won’t be anything like what we’ve seen in the past…

    The corporatist bullshit has passed the tipping point. Millions of us are not going back to business as usual, because the country is already in a crisis, and this so-called health care bill does nothing to change any of that. We haven’t begun to hear the screaming. Just wait until everyone’s employer-provided insurance breaks up, and the only plans anyone can afford are those that only pay 60% of the bill and hardly any services. That’s what’s coming down the pike.

    There comes a time when people won’t put up with any more, and now it’s left AND right. I am absolutely not afraid of another Republican administration, if that’s what happens between now and the populist revolution we need.

  122. 122.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Napoleon: Why would the rules on filibusters change as a result of killing HCR in its present manifestation? If you can’t get cloture, the rule worked for the minority. How are you going to get 67 votes to change the rule when you couldn’t get 60 before—and the people who opposed cloture are happy?

  124. 124.

    K. Grant

    @Jack:
    What I do know is quite simple – if you put the brakes on now, if you side with folks like Taibbi who say that we should scrap all of this and try in another 6-8 years, it won’t happen. There is plenty of evidence for this, as well. If you stop and say, ‘let us try again when conditions are more favorable,’ those conditions will not appear for quite some time, if ever.

    The difference between you and I is plain – I know that there is no such thing as a utopia, and I have no illusions about the players or the process.

  125. 125.

    Brien Jackson

    @JenJen:

    Except the 320,000 people who’d die in the interim, the million+ who will face medical bankruptcy, and the more people on top of that who will have a condition go untreated for lack of coverage. But sure, other than that, I think we’ll all be dandy waiting 8 more years. At least.

  126. 126.

    SGEW

    I am absolutely not afraid of another Republican administration, if that’s what happens between now and the populist revolution we need.

    I think that this is the sticking point. Some people see a slow progression towards reform, through a stable system. Others burn for a class war.

    N.B.: Populist revolutions are not determined through legislative processes.

  127. 127.

    cleek

    ok bakers… how do you make good bread ?

    i’ve tried a couple of times in the past week. the inside comes out OK, but the top never browns. it turns a dry, deathly gray…

  128. 128.

    JenJen

    @TaosJohn:

    I am absolutely not afraid of another Republican administration, if that’s what happens between now and the populist revolution we need.

    Well, suit yourself, I guess? I don’t know about you, but 2001-2008 weren’t fun years, and honestly, GOP 2.0 is crazier than the Bush-Cheney version. Are you really suggesting that what health care reform really needs is a President Palin or a President Barbour, and GOP majorities in Congress? This sounds nuts to me.

  129. 129.

    Jack

    @K. Grant:

    Christ, I spelled out a non-utopian, non-kill-the-bill, non-throw-firebombs-at-midwestern-assclown-Dems and you’d still rather treat this as a DFH thing.

    When you’re all done sneering at rational doubters and celebrating about a template for reform that actually isn’t one, take the time to read Reid’s manager’s amendment.

    It just doesn’t do what you think it does, this legislation.

    TaosJohn is right, all the same.

    Your centricitist betters in Congress will at least have managed to alienate nearly everyone who doesn’t want to be AETNA’s dog.

  130. 130.

    Libby

    @Jack: We’re not opponents. We’re on the same side. Just disagreeing on tactics.

    *North Carolina* went blue because of people like me. Was just as hard a slough. Color is meaningless when it takes electing blue dogs to get a majority. Winning an election isn’t the same as governing.

    And again, this is not the final bill. This is the Senate. Much can still possibly be improved in reconcilliation committee merge.

  131. 131.

    Mike in NC

    Why is anyone confident that Lieberman has had his last word? Don’t you think he’s sitting in Connecticut watching Nelson’s media coverage and getting jealous?

    Exactly. Count on Joe Lieberschmuck (AKA Senator from Aetna) to swoop in at the last minute to derail this bill, with all the meanspirited joy of a bully who stomps on some kid’s sandcastle on the beach.

  132. 132.

    The Sheriff Is A Ni-

    I am absolutely not afraid of another Republican administration, if that’s what happens between now and the populist revolution we need.

    Repeat as many times as neccessary until it finally sinks in:

    Nach Nixon Reagan Bush Palin, uns! Fourth time’s the charm!

  133. 133.

    Fern

    @JenJen:

    Also – freeze the butter or whatever you are going to use, and then grate it into the flour using the large holes on a box grater.

  134. 134.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @SGEW:

    Heh. Well a populist revolution would just as likely result in a president like Sarah Palin as anything else. It’s a remarkably absurd path to go down. The Dems can prevail only if they do what the Republicans managed to do for a long time, which is to hold their coalition together. All machine power in this country is about building and then using coalitions. Not about taking them apart. It’s the right that needs to work on its coalition building … unless the left is stupid enough to blow up its own, and martyr itself in the process. And, of course, yes, it is stupid enough, just look at the BJ threads.

    The smart move here is to hold the Dem coalition together and just be patient. Get a HCR bill, get the economy on track, and let the right self destruct as it will in the fullness of time. That’s the smart move. For an example of it in action, you might look just north of that tall white obelisk thing in DC.

  135. 135.

    Napoleon

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    You don’t need 67 votes to change the rule. First if the chair says the filibuster is unconstitutional you only need 50/51 votes to uphold the ruling. And come December 2010 the Senate has its next session start and as part of it they adopt the rules for the session, on a majority vote. All they need to do is not include the filibuster rule, or include it in revised form.

  136. 136.

    Bostondreams

    @TaosJohn:

    With all due respect, that last real populist revolution in this country was crushed when Washington and Hamilton destroyed the whiskey rebels and violated the very constitution that had just been written. So maybe I am a pessimist, but I just doubt we will ever come close to real change and ‘populist revolution’ that will result in real systemic alterations to anything.

  137. 137.

    K. Grant

    @TaosJohn: Define populist revolution. Do you even understand what kind of forces you would unleash if you actually fomented a real revolution? Burn the village to save it, eh? Is that what you want? Really?

  138. 138.

    R. Johnston

    Now, in typical Democratic fashion, we will probably get the bill to conference, have a couple more weeks of acrimonious debate, pass the bill, get a bill with some meaningful reform and some decidedly bad things, and then spend the next year fighting a civil war and convincing ourselves that the bill is horrible and Obama hates the base.

    Hopefully. More likely Democrats will be spending the next few years united in a futile effort to fight back Republican accusations that this legislation “forc[es] people to buy shitty insurance that they can’t afford” and proves that no good can come from government regulation.

    Whether or not this legislation is, in abstract, an improvement on the status quo, it doesn’t improve enough, for enough people, in a definitive enough manner, in a short enough term to prevent that argument from being a winning one for Republicans in 2010 and 2012.

  139. 139.

    The Sheriff Is A Ni-

    First if the chair says the filibuster is unconstitutional

    Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

    Filibusters are constitutional.

    And if you want to see some real fun, wait’ll you see what happens when you have a filibuster-less Senate and GOP majorities in both Houses!

  140. 140.

    scarshapedstar

    If by “acrinomious debate” you mean “Lieberdems grandstanding to have everything except the mandate stripped from the bill, abortion outlawed, women’s suffrage repealed, and no more minimum wage… and liberals saying that this is fucking bullshit”, you’re right!

  141. 141.

    Tokyokie

    Why does Reid feel honor-bound to abide by his pledge not to do this via reconciliation when the jerks he’s been dealing with haven’t exactly been forthcoming in their dealings? Screw ’em. If they want to shape the bill, let them act in a constructive fashion.

  142. 142.

    eemom

    @Brien Jackson:

    This. Again and AGAIN. And it wouldn’t be just 8 years.

    This is great fucking news, for now — all the sweeter cuz I get to watch Hamsher, Taibbi, Kos and their ilk stew in a great big steaming broth of hissy fit with the likes of McConnell and no-Boner. Looks like Jane got her wish on that score.

    We’re buried in snow here in the deecee area, btw, and it’s still coming down. My doggies looked soooo cute plowing their way through the backyard.

  143. 143.

    MikeJ

    Ahh, cleek, you’re here. Mind if I upload the chrome version of your pie script? It’s mostly your code, so I won’t release it without your consent.

    Still trying to convince chrome that the localstorage context of the options page is the same as the context of the contentscript. Afraid it may have to become a page action just to get the prefs read.

    Anyway, I’ll have it ironed out one way or another this weekend, depending on shopping, and other stuff I have to do. Would love to throw it up on userscripts.org.

  145. 145.

    Jay B.

    @Libby:

    But ignoring how bad it is and telling everyone this turd is a winner? That’ll work!

    You “incrementalists” are the real pony types.

    To believe in your approach, your premise rests on several things:

    1. People who need it now will be happy to have access to insurance in 2014.

    2. This insurance will be “good enough” for people to be happy to be mandated to pay it.

    3. The insurance companies are roped in by this legislation and that they will serve folks with ‘pre-existing conditions’.

    4. Despite the fact the government is giving them 30 million new customers AND will be shoveling $900 billion to them when this kicks in, they will also lay down when stalwart Democrats get back to addressing the insurance industry’s avarice and overreach down the line.

    5. This excise tax will be no big deal to the people who already have health care insurance.

    6. Healthcare costs will be brought under control with private insurance companies leading the way.

    7. The structural corrosion of American health care is being tabled now but will be “fixed” later.

    The way I see it is that Jack’s approach has a better potential outcome than passing what most Democrats already think is a crap bill only — because of a shaky reading of historical reform and thinking that such results are inevitable — because Democrats will go back and fix it again in the future.

    Why, why, why do you think this is more realistic than making necessary political adjustments and making it a fight about popular reform?

    I’m curious. I think it’s magical thinking on your part.

  146. 146.

    gwangung

    @Jack: No, no, you laid out a rational strategy. Mind you, I don’t think it will work out (several people have pointed out where it can probably go awry), and I think it’s unrealistic. On the other hand, there’s a sizable, non-zero possibility that it isn’t, and you have every right to argue how to go on this path.

    On the other hand, there are lots of people who don’t have a single clue. We should be willing to winnow out the clueful from the clueless, but I think you’re talking with people talking about the smaller picture and action steps and wonks; talking about that as opposed to big picture and activism is the arena where we should be taking this.

  147. 147.

    JenJen

    @cleek: I’m no expert at bread-baking, but it sounds like either your oven temperature isn’t quite warm enough, or your dough isn’t moist enough to trigger “The Mallard Reaction” which causes the browning process (I’m over-simplifying so as not to bore).

    If you find that your dough crust isn’t browning as its rising, I’ve seen pastry chefs throw a towel over the loaf and spritz the towel with water as the loaf is rising, which seems to do the trick. I have no idea how, mind you. I think it’s pretty common and I’ve seen a lot of pastry chefs bitch about pale crusts before doing the towel trick. :-)

    @Fern: Oh, now, that’s a neat trick!! Thank you!!

  148. 148.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @The Sheriff Is A Ni-:

    Um no, I think your correspondent there is right. The chair rules on THE filibuster, not on filibusters in general. A technical constitutional issue is raised and the chair rules, and IIRC, the ruling of the chair cannot be challenged. The ruling only affects the current debate, not filibusters in general.

    Als IIRC remember correctly, he is describing what the Reps used to call the Nuclear Option.

  150. 150.

    Jules

    @JenJen:

    I’m gonna just say I make a damn fine pie crust, but this year I thought I would try some of the butter flavored Crisco.
    It was a disaster…even after I keep the Crisco in the fridge and used ice water and put the dough into the fridge to get it nice and chilled before I rolled it out. It was still so soft (even with added flour) that I just pitched it and went back to may old (the same one I’ve used for 25 years) recipe.

    When I got married I got a copy of The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook and have used it since. I do add a bit of sugar and a tad more water then called for. The funny thing is, it is about the only thing I’ve ever made from the book so it just opens to that section when I lay it open.

    The bread question above it could be from baking the bread on too low of a temp and too low in the oven so the top is not getting the heat hitting the roof of the oven and coming back down to make a nice crust on the bread.

  152. 152.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Jay B.:

    Explain what you think the connection is between what you call a “crap bill” and the bill that would actually end up on the president’s desk early next year?

    How do the provisions of the crap bill override, say, the ones in the House bill that are not consistent with the crap bill provisions?

    Who decides those things, and how do you predict the outcome of those processes? Without, you know, resting your predictions on assumptions that have no basis in fact?

  153. 153.

    Boston Yankee

    Apologists for Obama should take a deep breath and ask exactly what is going to be in this health bill. If all the Democratic cats can be herded into voting for cloture, it will still have to be reconciled with the House bill. What we have now is simple conjecture. Rumored is that it will front load taxes to pay for it, significant parts will not be operative until 2014, and just how mandated health insurance will be administered and how much it will cost. Since the President has not chosen to be outspoken on the subject, nothing has been highlighted that we know with certainty will be or must be contained in the final bill.

    Personally, I would have been for a single payer plan with Medicare as the pattern for its operation. But BCBS and Aetna did not agree, so we find ourselves at a different place.

  154. 154.

    valdivia

    I love how some people pine for a revolution. do those advocating revolution ever been part of one? yeah didn’t think so. the forces unleashed will not get you what you guys are pining for, most probably the opposite.

  157. 157.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Martian Buddy:

    That’s a fine point usually missed around here. The more ugly the Reps oppositon gets, the more certain it is that they think they are losing this contest.

    True to Dem tradition, those are the moments when the Dems are most likely to throw in the towel and start beating each other up.

    What’s interesting about the Republicans is that even while they are on the verge of losing a 60-year contest, they aren’t attacking each other. If we had that kind of discipline, we’d have signed a bill already.

  160. 160.

    jenniebee

    All I can say, John, is that you clearly weren’t around for NAFTA. Beside that, this is nothing. And isn’t it interesting that immediately after the ruckus starts on the left, Lieberman and Nelson’s interminable demands suddenly get resolved? Remember that the last word from Nelson was that he still wouldn’t vote for it, even with the abortion language he wanted, because it covered too many people.

  161. 161.

    Libby

    @Jay B.: You have some evidence that “most” Democrats think it’s a crap bill? Most liberals/progs think it’s a crap bill and they’re right. I don’t like this bill. Hate that women will be Stupaked. Hate the corporate giveaways But we are not a majority yet or else Obama would have won by 85-90%, not 50 whatever.

    In fact most voters don’t even follow this stuff and they vote for shallow reasons. Like it or not, optics matter. Killing the bill will play out as a win for the GOP-teabaggers. Not sure I want them to feel any more energized.

    Anyway, I’m done with arguing this in comment sections. I’m going to spend my energy lobbying my Congresslizards. For single payer. Which is what *I* wanted all along.

  162. 162.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Napoleon: Dream on. The filibuster rules might change to allow cloture with incrementally smaller vote totals over some time period, but it won’t go away. It’s too valuable a tool for the minority to use to gain concessions, and the Dem and Repub leaders are practical, and know that eventually whatever party is in the majority now will be in the minority later.

  163. 163.

    JenJen

    @Jules: I have a 20 year-old copy of The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook that I live by! That’s funny… mine opens up right to the flank steak recipe that I’ve loved forever and ever. :-) As much as I adore that old cookbook, I really want to check out “On Food and Cooking” as @Joel recommended, above. Maybe I should bust out a little. :-)

    Disclosure: I’ve not used shortening in my pie crusts, just butter, and like you, I take great pride in my buttery, flaky crusts and adore the compliments! I love shortening for cookie recipes, though.

  164. 164.

    jeffreyw

    @cleek: I highly recommend an oven thermometer. I bought one at the urging of Alton Brown and was aghast at the actual temp v. the index on the knob. The knob on my oven actually has a way to adjust the index marks so as to jibe with reality. Alas, the actual temps can be either higher or lower than indicated. Make sure to preheat the oven, also.

  165. 165.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @R. Johnston:

    Only if the Senate bill becomes the final bill. Which it won’t.

    Chances are pretty good that a decent package will come out of conference. That’s because all the action is in secret, where the GOP tactics won’t work. They know this, which is why they have put all their eggs in preventing conference from happening, rather than working to make the bill more to their liking. They are trying to prevent passage of any Senate bill precisely because they know that the final bill will be worse for them. That’s why none of them want to vote for the Senate bill. Their strategy is entirely based on stopping the process before the really productive part of it can start.

    Not to put too fine a point on it, but if Dems “kill the bill” then the GOP has won this round for probably the next ten to fifteen years. An outcome that, believe it or not, is supported here on these pages by Dems.

    What a country!

  166. 166.

    Jay B.

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    Explain what you think the connection is between what you call a “crap bill” and the bill that would actually end up on the president’s desk early next year?

    What I think is a crap bill? Jesus fucking Christ, how far around the bend to happy town do you have to be to think this is something that’s anything BUT the barest of reforms? I can understand the “pass it and hold your nose, we can’t get 60, so let’s take what we can get” idea even if I think that’s a disastrous approach, but I literally can not believe people actually think this is a good bill.

    Why do I think it’s the one, or very similar to the one, that will end up on Obama’s desk next year? Because what do you think Lieberman and Nelson and Baucus and Lincoln and all the other assholes have been doing? Under what conceivable scenario do you see them now giving in? Do you think all this grandstanding and progressive retreating was for? We have literally no leverage against them — that’s what so many of the supporters have been trying to say — so let’s suck it up! Eat the shit sandwich!

    But now you think that this was all a grand plan to negotiate away everything so that they can come up with a good bill in conference? And I’M the one thinking about ponies?

  167. 167.

    Jules

    @jeffreyw:

    I always bake everything 10ish mins less and at a tad less (20ish degrees) then a recipe calls for, but an oven thermometer would probably be a great thing to own.

  168. 168.

    Nellcote

    @cleek:

    i’ve tried a couple of times in the past week. the inside comes out OK, but the top never browns. it turns a dry, deathly gray…

    Try brushing the top with melted butter before baking.

  169. 169.

    Jay B.

    @Libby:

    Because I can read polls. A robust public option is supported by Democrats and Independents. It’s not there. This hasn’t been a showcase of Obama’s political leadership, it’s been a passive approach which Reid has let get out of hand so the politics and process have been a mess. Democrats are widely and rightly seen as demoralized.

    I didn’t think any of these things were secret.

  170. 170.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Jay B.:

    I’ve already answered those questions on other threads, but the short version is, once conference starts, all bets are off. Everything is done behind closed doors, and the dealmaking and dick sucking and vote trading begins in earnest.

    The final bill is not likely to look like the Nelson bill. But it is going to have to satisfy the Blue Dog concerns for right to life, somehow.

    As for the technical parts of the bill, who pays for what, who can write what kind of insurance …. we have no idea really what that will look like. But one thing is sure, we only find out if we pass a bill in the Senate.

    Otherwise it’s a long wait until the next opportunity, because we lose ground in the congress next year no matter what happens right now.

  171. 171.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @JenJen: Just chiming in to say that it sounds like a temperature problem to me, too. I turned out a couple of loafs like you described, then went out and bought an oven thermometer. Turned out my oven temp was way lower than than the little dial thingy said it was. Since then, no problems.

  172. 172.

    PeakVT

    Let me point out two things:

    1) The current version of the HCR bill is nothing like what it needs to be to actually fix our health care system. The argument over which pretty shitty outcome is better strikes me as missing the larger point.

    2) We’re going being getting a lot of bills that are nothing like what they need to be unless the filibuster is substantially reduced or eliminated.

    I happen to think the filibuster is unconstitutional. I see only one case where internal operations requires a supermajority vote (ejection). Otherwise, a simple majority wins. YMMV. But it doesn’t matter what anyone here thinks because there’s no outside agent that can force the Senate to change its rules. That leaves persuading the 50 least stupid members of the Senate to invoke the nuclear option.

  173. 173.

    fasteddie9318

    I think that this is the sticking point. Some people see a slow progression towards reform, through a stable system. Others burn for a class war.

    Or are just burning to fight back (for a change) in the one-sided class war that rich white Republicans have been waging against the rest of us since 1980.

  174. 174.

    Dr. Squid

    For fuck’s sake, Nader has so completely polluted the discourse with the attitude, “If we elect Republicans, everyone will get mad enough that they’ll have to elect Real Progressives.” Taibbi, were the previous 8 years not bad enough that you want them back so Real Progressives can still not get elected?

  176. 176.

    Maude

    @cleek: It depends on what type of bread. The oven rack has to be in the middle. The temp has to be high enough to brown the crust. You use s bit of sugar for the yeast and also it helps brown the crust. Don’t use too much liquid in the dough.
    You can brush the top with butter or egg and I forget what else to help it. Good luch and if it tastes good, that’s what counts.

  177. 177.

    R. Johnston

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat: The more ugly the Reps oppositon gets, the more certain it is that they think they are losing this contest.

    Actually, the more Republicans are sure that a bill will pass the more they want to be seen as being out front in doing everything they could to oppose it. It will be very easy to frame this legislation in a way that makes it unpopular and discredits the regulatory state–it does, after all, seem to force an awful lot of people to buy shitty insurance they can’t afford; somewhat less obviously but no less arguably, by allowing health insurance companies to spend no more than 15-20% of premiums on non-medical expenses while utterly failing to regulate what qualifies as a legitimate medical expense it makes sure that insurance companies have no incentive not to throw as much money as they can at useless medical procedures so they can bump up premiums and take their profits out of 15-20% of a higher dollar total, and will result in runaway escalation of medical costs beyond even the current levels of escalation–and the Republicans are salivating at the chance to run a campaign that doesn’t center on infantile cries of “SOCIALISM!!!!!!!!!!!”

    Democrats have been so stigmatized by decade after decade of Republican cries of “SOCIALISM!!!!!!!!!!!” that they forget that the Republican establishment will, at the drop of a hat, switch gears if right wing populism offers a better chance to drown government in the bathtub.

    Only if the Senate bill becomes the final bill. Which it won’t.

    If you think that the bill that comes out of conference won’t look overwhelmingly like the Senate “compromise” then you’re much less cynical than I am. We’ll see soon enough.

  178. 178.

    Jules

    From Ezra Klien:

    “Reid released “the Manager’s amendment (pdf),” a single piece of legislation that contains hundreds of amendments within it. This way, there is one big vote oh changing the bill rather than dozens, or even hundreds, of smaller votes.”

  181. 181.

    shep

    You used to be more fun to read too.

    Take a pill, John. I know you’re new here but the left criticizes their leaders when they f*ck up. That concept may take some getting used to. Sorry.

  182. 182.

    Brien Jackson

    @PeakVT:

    Perhaps, but declaring the filibuster un-Constitutional would in all likelihood provoke a Constitutional/legitimacy crisis, and there’s no way to tell how it’s going to go. Going along with eliminating the filibuster while you’re in the minority is a much more stable way to go about it.

  183. 183.

    JasonF

    The abortion restrictions in this bill are odious and morally abominable. The idea of a taxpayer’s veto on the exercise of constitutional rights is horrific, and Senator Nelson ought to be ashamed of himself.

    That said, the practical impact of these restrictions is minimal. Abortions simply aren’t that expensive. Most people who had insurance already could afford an abortion out of pocket. People who had no insurance to begin with are, by definition, no worse off with coverage that does not include abortions.

    With this provision, I have no doubt that some private plans will drop their abortion coverage. That is unfortunate, and it means that some people who have these plans will wind up paying more for abortions than they would have. But it will affect a relatively small number of people, and the monetary cost per woman (or couple) affected will be measured in the hundreds of dollars. That is not ideal by any means, but this is not the end of the world.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to donate to Planned Parenthood.

  184. 184.

    Davis X. Machina

    “If we elect Republicans, everyone will get mad enough that they’ll have to elect Real Progressives.”

    Auf Deutsch übergesezt: ‘Nach Hitler, Uns’. Worked a treat for the German left.

    This all assumes Lieberman behaves. What happens to the internet progressive community when they have to thank Joe Lieberman for nixing cloture on Reid’s amendment, and saving us all from a bad bill? Will they apologize for Lamont?

  185. 185.

    valdivia

    @Davis X. Machina:

    apparently they have snowe. it seems she has been keeping her cards close to her vest and note a republican in Maine just quit the party this week because of obstruction by Reps in health care. that is some tea leaves right there.

  187. 187.

    silentbeep

    @Jay B.

    “I’m curious. I think it’s magical thinking on your part.”

    More mud-slinging! Splendid.

  189. 189.

    Libby

    @Jay B.:

    Polls are only good on the day they come out. They’ve changed a hundred times in a hundred days. And as far as I can tell no version of this bill has ever contained a “robust” public option. That’s my point about how shallow the majority of the electorate is. They hear a buzz word. Sounds good. No idea what it means in practical terms. But they’ll support it if comes with a good ad. Good to remember that people like us who work 24/7 to stay informed are small subset of the electorate.

    In 20/20 hindsight, we should have all united behind single-payer from day one. If we had, we might actually be looking at a decent public option now. But there’s no reverse on this train. Either you go forward, or you pull the emergency cord and come to a dead stop. Still don’t see how that gets us anywhere but stuck.

  190. 190.

    Davis X. Machina

    You gotta love Snowe. It’s like her staffers and Collins’ staffers have bet a pizza on it. “Wait. Susan pulled an arbitrary round number out of her ass that the stimulus could not exceed? We’ll have Olympia pull an arbitrary date out of her ass that the HCR vote can’t happen before!”

  191. 191.

    BombIranForChrist

    Eh, I still think the bill should have been killed, although I am as uncertain about that belief as anything in recent memory.

    And I think Obama’s first year has been a massive sellout to corporate interests, with a special emphasis placed on his entire Treasury team, but I definitely won’t participate in any civil war.

    I _am_ pretty bitter about this experience, but I am also thankful that 30 million people will now have insurance, even if it means that I will continue to be gouged by insurance companies, via premiums or taxes or deficit. I hope they enjoy their gold plated yachts.

    But I also hope that people can now start getting health care now instead of when they are almost dead, crawling into an emergency room.

    And progressive Congresspeople are still a bunch of pussies, and will continue to have their face rubbed in shit, because they cower too easily. If just one had pulled a Nelson or a Lieberman, it might have sent a message of strength, but as usual, they signaled their continuing weakness and reinforced the idea that they are a bunch of weak, emotionally fragile hippies who don’t know how to play hardball when it counts.

  193. 193.

    Davis X. Machina

    is it a Maine thing?

    I dunno, but I predict neither will vote for a jobs package unless the draft circulates in a green folder, or for a climate bill unless the PDF of the bill uses only Caslon fonts.

  196. 196.

    Napoleon

    @The Sheriff Is A Ni-:

    I don’t think it is constitutional. Just because they can set their own rules doesn’t mean they can adopt rules that otherwise violate the constitution. Seriously, if they adopted a rule that any issue on the floor would be determined by the roll of a dice do you seriously think that that rule would not be determined to be unconstitutional? It flat out flies in the face of the entire constitutional system to set up a system where a minority can under all circumstances keep an issue the majority wants to vote on from a vote.

  197. 197.

    Davis X. Machina

    I think it’s some kind of OCS. Both Maine senators have this schtick where they work really, really hard — not smart, hard.

    Collins ran on a platform of never missing a vote — regardless of how dumb she voted. And Snowe’s constituent service apparatus is unparalleled. Fixating on arbitrary dates and numbers are all of a piece with that, they’ve raised focusing on the sizzle, not the steak, to an art-form

  199. 199.

    Napoleon

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:

    Read my original post. I am not saying that is what I want but that is what I suspect is behind the logic of people on the left who what to kill HCR now. But they can not come right out and say they are trying to basically bring the senate to a halt to force it to adopt majoritarian rules, and it would explain why they are seeming to ignore 70+ years of history, because past history didn’t include a rule change as a result of the failure of HCR.

  200. 200.

    Davis X. Machina

    It flat out flies in the face of the entire constitutional system to set up a system where a minority can under all circumstances keep an issue the majority wants to vote on from a vote.

    1.) There are enough exceptions to make a Supreme Court challenge fail, starting with the Byrd rule.
    2.) The Supreme Court would never touch the case, both on separation of powers grounds, and because they rely on Congress for their own funding. The Constitution may keep the Congress from cutting their salaries, but not their budget.
    3.) Being able to litigate the process, and not the product, of the legislature would introduce another veto point into a governance system that already probably has too many.

  201. 201.

    scudbucket

    @Jack:

    I agree with you here. I also think that the argument for ‘incrementalism’ is undermined by the fact that there have been no legislative initiatives to expand two already existing programs (Medicare and Medicaid) in the direction of universal coverage or insurance/provider reform. Personally, I think that pursuing this path would have been a huge victory for Dems. As it stands with the current bill, Dems will take a beating at the polls because GOPers can focus on the coercive aspects of a mandate, etc.

    Re: options currently available, I also think that reconciliation to expand medicaid to the poor might bring about a better political environment for Dems come 2010 and 2012. I haven’t seen any argument that the current bill can be sold to the public in such a way as to make people vote D in the future, and that seems to be the only reason folks here advocate supporting it.

  202. 202.

    Libby

    Adding to my last comment, and then I’m really leaving, I do think that bitching about what’s bad in the bill is helpful in changing the narrative to some extent, but it has be done dispassionately or it comes off as petulance. I also think it’s probably helpful for elected liberals to issue a few Lieber-threats of their own. Worth a try to wring some concessions in the other direction.

    However, taking an intractable position with no willingness to compromise, is not that helpful. We won’t always be a majority. Do we really want to establish a precedent that the minority position gets nothing?

    Plus, it seems to me our fight is with all politicians that vote the corporate interests instead of the public interest. Thinking it would be better if we were screaming at them, instead of each other.

  203. 203.

    CalD

    Yeah, well. When you think of some of the storms the Democratic party has weathered in the 200-odd years of its corporate existence, perhaps there’s still some hope for it even now.

  205. 205.

    JenJen

    @Davis X. Machina: And when the .pdf is produced in the Caslon font that the Senators from Maine so desired, they shall respond: “Oh dear. The kerning still seems a bit off and I’m feeling rushed.” Pizza Party!!

    POTUS on teevee right now, speaking live. OMG HE IS NOT WEARING A TIE

  206. 206.

    Davis X. Machina

    ….no legislative initiatives to expand two already existing programs (Medicare and Medicaid) in the direction of universal coverage or insurance/provider reform.


    H.R. 676 or its equivalent     has been put before the House and Senate annually since Noah shut the door on the Ark.

    Its failure to achieve any traction is why the mongrel we’re looking at is what we’re looking at.

  208. 208.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    I just had to go to Redstate to see how they are taking it.

    Not well at all.

    After all the feast of ranting and raving here and at other progressive sites, it’s nice to visit a banquet of insanity like Redstate and sample the goods.

    Crunchy, just like nuts should be, but bitter, oh so bitter.

  209. 209.

    DC10

    Taibbi: “I think it’s much better for the Democrats to lose on this issue and then have to regroup maybe eight years later, six years later, and try again and do a better job the next time then to have it go through.”

    Aside from the troubling idea of making the individuals most in need and the nation’s economy wait for 6 to 8 years to do a “better job” with the legislation, what makes Taibbi so sure that the Senate Democrats will still have the 58 + 2 potential votes 6 to 8 years from now, along with a Dem President who would try pursuing the issue, if they let this whole long effort be killed this time? There are virtually no moderate Republican Senate votes to get anymore and I doubt they will stop misusing the filibuster to force the issue of 60 votes vs. 51 votes for this type of legislation. I don’t think there have been 60 potential Dem votes in the Senate since Carter’s time and it seems unlikely, based on history, that Dems would be able to retain or regain that number 8 years from now. Having enough pieces in place to revisit this in 6 to 8 years seems unlikely.

  210. 210.

    les

    Well, I almost don’t care what’s in the bill anymore; we have to start the process before we get anything good, and this will do that.

    What I love: the godbots (including my suckass Sen. Borwnback) are having a prayer-a-thon to kill HCR. If anything passes, I get to point and laugh and yell “your god hates your ass!”

  211. 211.

    Tonal Crow

    @Napoleon:

    I don’t think [the filibuster] is constitutional. Just because they can set their own rules doesn’t mean they can adopt rules that otherwise violate the constitution.

    The second sentence is correct, but the first doesn’t follow from it. Also, even if the Senate adopts an unconstitutional rule, it’s difficult to challenge; the courts often refuse to decide such challenges by holding that the plaintiffs have no standing to sue and/or that the dispute is a “political question” that’s beyond the court’s power or competence to decide.

    Seriously, if they adopted a rule that any issue on the floor would be determined by the roll of a dice do you seriously think that that rule would not be determined to be unconstitutional?

    Yes, I think that a court would be unlikely to rule that it’s unconstitutional, for the standing/”political question” reasons stated above. Also, if a court actually got to the merits, it would almost certainly hold that such a rule, while stupid, is within the Senate’s Art.I s.5 cl.2 power to determine its own rules. The Constitution’s restrictions on arbitrariness, such as they are, mostly affect legislation, not internal processes.

    It flat out flies in the face of the entire constitutional system to set up a system where a minority can under all circumstances keep an issue the majority wants to vote on from a vote.

    Only if the majority is also unable to change the rules governing when a vote is allowed. Thus, the Senate rule requiring a 2/3rds majority to change the rules is probably unconstitutional (see, e.g., http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Gold_Gupta_JLPP_article.pdf ), but the filibuster itself probably is not.

    All that said, we need to do something about the filibuster. Martin mentioned a proposal from Sen. Harkin to amend the filibuster rule to require fewer votes for cloture each week a filibuster continues, ending with only 51. I think that’s a good idea: it ensures plenty of time for debate while preventing obstructionism. I haven’t decided whether it should apply generally (to legislation, appointments, treaties, etc.), or only to legislation.

  212. 212.

    scudbucket

    @Davis X. Machina: Look, it’s academic at this point, but …. yes, the wholesale adoption of Medicare has been introduced, and rejected. Serious legislation designed to incrementally expand it has not. Congressional Dems in ’09 set on advancing real change in healthcare could have adopted a more limited approach to all this, focusing on a bill (eg) limited to expanding Medicare to those over 55, expanding medicaid to 4x FPL, and had a better chance of succeeding, both legislatively and at the polls next cycle. This is the very type of incrementalism advocated by the ‘just pass it’ folks. And just those few changes would have constituted a huge victory for Dems. As it is, a mandate without any tangible goodies (no PO, no Medicare expansion, but there are abortion restrictions!) constitutes both a loss for Dems, and a big stick for the GOP next cycle.

  214. 214.

    R. Johnston

    @PeakVT: I don’t want Senators or anyone else to declare it’s unconstitutional. I want 50+1 of them to agree to change it. And there are good reasons to think 50+1 can.

    It’s indisputable that 50+1 Senators can change any non-constitutionally-mandated rule they want to–in particular, if 50+1 senators vote to report out legislation that also gets passed by the House and gets signed by the President then then that bill becomes law and the validity of that law can’t be challenged in any forum on the basis of whether or not Senate rules were followed. It’s also indisputable that 50+1 Senators won’t do any such thing.

  215. 215.

    Jackie

    @JasonF: What we need to fight for is an exemption for the life AND THE HEALTH of the mother. A first trimester elective abortion isn’t all that expensive. A medically needed late term abortion is a horse of a different color. And John McCain can take his air quotes and shove them. Yes after all these months I am still pissed at that debate.

  216. 216.

    PeakVT

    @R. Johnston: It’s also indisputable that 50+1 Senators won’t do any such thing.

    Never ever ever? If you know that, can you also give me tonight’s Powerball number?

  217. 217.

    Chuck Butcher

    You have cut your electoral throat by giving your opponents a huge cudgle to beat you with. Good luck with your fixing without votes. I won’t pretend to tell you what the left/activists will do with this and I don’t think it makes any difference. You’re going to be pissed at how ungrateful your beneficiaries are. Why do they vote….

    When the corporate give away masquerading as reform is signed I will change my registration to NA (non-affiliated) and whether I bother to vote for the least horried candidates or not is open to question.

    Not because it isn’t good enough, because it is bad and electoral suicide.

    I suppose I should write a blog post on this so it is archived and when who could have known starts up once again somebody can get it and say, you were warned, don’t do it again.

  219. 219.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Chuck Butcher:

    I suppose I should write a blog post on this so it is archived and when who could have known starts up once again somebody can get it and say, you were warned,

    Heh. Every blogger’s wet dream, amigo.

    Yeah, we are all warned, and warning. Hey, this is better than the comments section in the local paper’s website.

    Over there, they just bitch that the slob in the car accident was probably a product of the public schools, and all taxes are bad. It’s not that much worse than what goes on here, really.

  220. 220.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @R. Johnston:

    the more Republicans are sure that a bill will pass the more they want to be seen as being out front in doing everything they could to oppose it

    Well, of course. It’s win win for them. By taking the intractable position, they win insofar as they can win in their situation. They win with their base, certainly, and that is their goal.

    If they batter us into killing the bill, they win. If they batter us into coming out with a lousy bill, they win.

    The only way they lose is if we get a decent final bill fairly soon and run on the good results three years from now. Next year is basically a writeoff for our side, as I see it now. It all depends on jobs.

    In any case, Kill the Bill is a win for the GOP, totally, IMO.

  221. 221.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Napoleon:

    If we are still talking about the Nuclear Option scenario, then the way it works is, a constitutional technicality is cited in front of a friendly chairperson, the chair rules in favor of the challenge and stops the filibuster, and the ruling cannot be challenged. It’s a parliamentary trick for all intents, but it can be used in theory.

    It’s not about the deep and profound constitutionality of anything.

  222. 222.

    Citizen Alan

    @The Grand Panjandrum:

    Nelson has already stated he isn’t guaranteeing a vote for cloture if the conference committee alters any of his little pet alterations. Oh goody. More fun.

    I’m amazed that you sound so surprised. I’ve said for days that whatever the Senate passes is what the conference committee will approve. Until the final cloture vote, we are all hostages to Nelson and Lieberman. Personally, I’m just stunned that Evan Bayh didn’t announce that he’d filibuster the bill if it didn’t abolish Social Security.

  223. 223.

    Citizen Alan

    @Comrade Mary:

    Poor women would still be trapped, and now ALL women would have to face extra expense for a LEGAL medical procedure that many insurers currently cover.

    Oh, Mary, what are you so upset about? It’s just sluts after all. No one ever seriously thought that such an important, marvel, super-awesome bill would be held up on account them. (/sarcasm)

    Any chance of this being yanked back in conference after they get their 60 votes Monday?

    Theoretically yes, but in the real world, no. It might make President Nelson angry, and you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

  224. 224.

    Chuck Butcher

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    Heh. Every blogger’s wet dream, amigo.

    ‘

    I suppose the current mess really proves the utility of such a thing.

    I suppose I’ll stick around here for the fun of it. It appears that ‘the fun of it’ measuring stick is going to get hell worked out of it.

    Political addiction is a hard thing to kick…

  225. 225.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    I’ve said for days that whatever the Senate passes is what the conference committee will app

    I’ve said for days that we won’t know what conference will produce until we have conference.

    Between the two of us, only one of us is right, and it is not hard to figure out which one it is. It’s me. There is no way to know what will come out of conference, from out here.

    But when I see the GOP desperately trying to prevent it from happening, I know that having conference is probably the right way to go. They are licking their lips for us to Kill the Bill. That is 100% win for them. They know it, and our leadership knows it.

    That’s how it looks from over here in the alfalfa patch, compadre.

  226. 226.

    Citizen Alan

    @tomvox1:

    Maybe they were keeping their powder dry for the final bill after it comes back from conference, when it will probably be more liberal again.

    Nothing personal but I vote that from now on, anyone who uses the phrase “keeping their powder dry” be taken out and shot. We’ve been keeping our powder dry since 2005 at least. It’s very easy to do when the people holding the gun don’t ever have the guts to pull the trigger.

  228. 228.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    I am not too worried about what happens to Ben Nelson in the conference process. Either his vote will be needed, or it won’t. If his vote is needed, they will do what they need to do to get it.

    You’d be surprised what a nice shiny new 6 lane highway from Lincoln to Nebraska City might do to persuade him.

    Bridges to Nowhere? I can only imagine how many of these will be on the planning tables after that conference.

  229. 229.

    gwangung

    But when I see the GOP desperately trying to prevent it from happening, I know that having conference is probably the right way to go. They are licking their lips for us to Kill the Bill. That is 100% win for them. They know it, and our leadership knows it.

    ANd I can see passing it is 80% win—but passing it gives you room to maneuver that killing it won’t.

    Mind you, I don’t LIKE the current Senate bill. But the latest version is more palatable. And there’s an even chance that conferencing will improve it more.

    That’s a road I can chance going down.

  230. 230.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Rhoda

    The minute this passes and folks who are graduating right now realize that they can stay on their folks insurance for a few more years, the subsidies kick in to the middle class folks who are struggling and on food stamps, the public mood will change and it’ll change towards more reform.

    Or the minute this passes and all sorts of middle class people who have decent health insurance policies from their employers start getting clouted with the taxes on so called “Cadillac” plans, you know, those health care plans that actually pay for the care you need and where you don’t end up being forced into bankruptcy if you have an accident or need an operation will tell Barack Obama and the Democratic party to go fuck themselves. But hey, those people are just union members, and how often do union members vote? I cannot wait for the Republicans to take that and beat the shit out of the Democrats with that; hammering on how not only is their health insurance more expensive and less useful, but also on how Barack Obama lied when he promised not to increase taxes on those earning less than $250,000 a year.

    I also can’t wait for all of those idiots who keep saying “well everyone will have health insurance now” to be lying in a hospital bed after something happens to them and having their health insurance company give them a call and say “Oh, by the way, we’re denying your continued stay in the hospital. Have a nice day.” It’s not because I think going through that little bit of suffering will make them better people, it won’t, most of them are too stupid to learn. It’s because I’m a mean bastard who thinks that dumb sons of bitches don’t suffer enough for their stupidity and who enjoys it when they do.

    If President Obama signs this bill he is allowing himself to be associated with a bill that will hurt a large part of his constituency, union members who have negotiated decent health care plans, often doing so in lieu of salary increases. He is allowing himself to be associated with a plan that will raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year, perhaps indirectly, but it’s a real increase nonetheless and it’s gives his opponents ammunition He will be associating with a bill that places further restrictions on reproductive rights. He’s associating himself with a bill that doesn’t do anything to control costs, and please don’t point me at Ezra Klein’s columns saying that it does. I’ve probably read as much of the bill as Klein has, and the cost control language is nebulous at best. When it comes to substance Ezra Klein is nothing more than a liberal version of Ross Douthat. But I don’t think that President Obama cares, I think that President Obama just wants to get something passed and will use this to pad his resume for 2012.

    In 2008 Barack Obama made his change speech, remember that. In that speech he said:

    Theirs are the stories and voices we carry on from South Carolina. The mother who can’t get Medicaid to cover all the needs of her sick child. She needs us to pass a health care plan that cuts costs and makes health care available and affordable for every single American. That’s what she’s looking for.

    Well that’s what she’s asking for, but that’s not what she’s getting. This bill does not make “health care” available and affordable for every single American. It makes every single American buy health insurance, which may or may not be affordable and which may or may not pay for any care. Meanwhile the insurance companies get a mandated customer base (I’m hoping that mandates will be challenged in court. Really I am, and I’d love to see where it says in the Constitution that the government can compel you to purchase a service offered from a private entity, and please don’t bring up automobile insurance, the two cases don’t even compare. I’ll laugh my ass off if our conservative judiciary sticks it to the Democrats on this one.), there are no cost controls on doctors or hospitals (But I’m told not to worry, that we’ll get those inserted later, right after we get comprehensive immigration reform and cap and trade fixed, and the second stimulus bill) and there’s nothing that prevents insurance companies from screwing people over the way they do today.

    But I’m told not to worry, that all of that can come later, that we have to pass something, anything now, regardless of how odious it may be because if we don’t pass something thousands of people will die and it’s for the children. Hey, where have I heard this before? Oh yeah, about eight years ago a total idiot and his shrill, moronic supporters were out there running around telling us that unless we invaded Iraq “RIGHT NOW” that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were going to be launching WMDs at our cities in 45 minutes and that afterwards armies of Islamic zombies would be putting teh sexx0rz on our white women and making them wear burquas. How did that work out anyways?

    This bill isn’t health care reform any more than TARP was financial industry reform.

  232. 232.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @gwangung:

    Ah, a fellow pragmatist!

    Put on your kevlar, they hate practicality around here. Nothing but purity is considered passable to the suckup echo chamber crowd.

    In the netroots universe, which is about to set records for the shortest flight from obscurity back to obscurity in political history, unless maybe you count Ross Perot, you ain’t nothin’ unless you have the toughest talk.

    I heard Markos on tv, yesterday I think, talking about how the netroots had raised over $100m for this or that. I laughed out loud.

    Well I guess if money talks, then we just let Blue Cross win the healthcare contest, eh?

    Or did I miss something?

  233. 233.

    FlipYrWhig

    Oh, Lord, the “revolution” rhetoric. Someone remember to reanimate my moldy bones when the leftist “revolution” happens. I’ll be sure to be buried in my Doc Martens so I’ll be prepared to join the ranks.

  234. 234.

    Citizen Alan

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    Only if the Senate bill becomes the final bill. Which it won’t.

    As a general rule, I try never to cast aspersions on the mental health of those who think differently than me because its not conducive to debate. But after everything we’ve seen, I think anyone who believes this terrible bill can be fixed in conference is simply delusional. There will be negligible changes but nothing that can plausibly be used by Nelson and Lieberman as an excuse to vote against it. Not that the crass bastards couldn’t still vote against it and claim that they changed their minds after seeing Teabaggers protesting no their front lawns singing Christmas carols about the evils of Socialism.

    “Obama’s
    Socialist
    We don’t want healthcare”

    (to the tune of “Jingle Bells”)

  235. 235.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    I’d love to see where it says in the Constitution that the government can compel you to purchase a service offered from a private entity,

    Um, mandatory auto insurance?

    Oh yeah, you’ll come back with “nobody has to own a car” as a response. I mean, can’t everybody just take a taxi?

    Right. Let’s reinvent America for the no-car lifestyle and economy, and then we can eliminate THAT awful constraint.

    { eyes roll like the reels on a slot machine }

  236. 236.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Wile E. Quixote: Also, President Obama is/was/could still be/might not be any more opposed to the mandate. He spoke about it very eloquently when it was politically expedient.

  237. 237.

    Citizen Alan

    @fasteddie9318:

    Or are just burning to fight back (for a change) in the one-sided class war that rich white Republicans have been waging against the rest of us since 1980.

    This. “Class warfare” is what rich people call it when the middle and lower classes finally start fighting back.

  238. 238.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    Um, mandatory auto insurance?

    Not sure how it works in yer part of Hell, but here you are only required to carry liability and if you don’t want to do that, there is a public uninsured fund you can join.

    I’m not sure why the individual mandate is so controversial. President Obama is opposed to it.

  239. 239.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Oh yeah, about eight years ago a total idiot and his shrill, moronic supporters were out there running around

    Right, the catastrophe rhetoric on the Iraq War was pumped up and out of place and… wrong. But how about climate change? Do nothing until there’s either a cataclysm and/or a perfect solution, or do little things that nudge the needle in the right direction? Because that’s another possible parallel to what’s going on with health care reform, and I don’t detect the same relish for letting shit burn just to teach people a lesson about political leverage.

  240. 240.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Citizen Alan: Teez never met a Democratic dick he couldn’t deepthroat like a professional pornstar. He’s a get-in-line-and-take-what-they-giva-ya loyalist and he’s damned consistent. So when a shit bill comes out of conference, he’ll be the first to chow down on it and swear it’s chocolate.

  245. 245.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @K. Grant

    Some decent stuff in a bill that will rewrite a substantial section of the social contract with the people of the country? Check. Some ugly concessions to small-minded hacks? Check. It was ever thus.

    Yeah, except that we’re rewriting the social contract so that corporations win and citizens lose, oh and we get some really nifty new restrictions upon abortion as well, as well as policies that will hurt the middle class and union members. But hey, we can always fix the bad stuff later, just like Congress did with the AUMF and TARP.

  246. 246.

    Citizen Alan

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    I’m just sitting here slack-jawed at your pronouncements on how “gettable” Nelson and Lieberman will be if there are anything more than cosmetic changes to the bill in conference. It’s like you have Stockholm Syndrome.

  247. 247.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @MinneapolisPipe:

    does Ben Nelson wear a toupee?

    Nope, there is a plush and malevolent chinchilla that has formed a symbiotic relationship with an empty suit and former insurance company executive.

  248. 248.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Ah, the homophobic personal attack?

    Nice job. You are on a great trajectory there, shit for brains.

    I have a 5 year, 20 zillion post body of material out there, Fuckhead. Anybody can read it and judge for themselves what I am for and what I am against, as I have stated both, clearly, over the years, with no ambiguity.

    They don’t need you as a tour guide.

    And if you think you can represent your views better than I can represent mine, go ahead, start now. Good luck to you. But one thing you won’t do is represent my views for me. Capisce?

  249. 249.

    Comrade Mary

    Ezra is checking out the abortion details.

    The basic compromise is that states can impose the Stupak rules on their own exchanges, but the rules will not be imposed by the federal legislation. I’ve been assured that at least one plan in each state will cover abortion, but I’m still trying to get clarification on how that works (my hazy understanding is that at least one of national non-profit plans, and probably more, will include abortion coverage, and they’ll be offered in all states).

    This is still not great — this means any woman of child-bearing years who think she might ever need an abortion may have potentially only one plan to choose from — but I’m still ready to look at the plan and how it evolves.

  250. 250.

    Martian Buddy

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    The only way they lose is if we get a decent final bill fairly soon and run on the good results three years from now. Next year is basically a writeoff for our side, as I see it now. It all depends on jobs.

    The teabagging cloud-shouters are still chomping at the bit to repeat their “success” with Hoffman in NY-23–they just might snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for us (IIRC, they’ve got more contested seats to defend.) If nothing else, they might at least cut down on the amount of seniority on the right side of the aisle.

  251. 251.

    Jack

    @scudbucket:

    That’s my analysis, too. That people have a lot of faith in the political process, going forward. And that they believe, in all sincerity, that the political process which produced flawed policy will – with the exact same actors, no less – suddenly produce a fix to the flawed policy.

    It was always better to take existing programs (Medi/Medi) and expand them.

    I was willing to pay more taxes to expand both knowing full well I’m a decade or so away from gaining any direct benefit.

    And it polls really well, as politics.

  252. 252.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Citizen Alan:

    I am making no such pronouncement. I am saying that if their votes are needed, then every avenue will be explored to get it, behind closed doors, where nobody will ever know how they did it. That’s why that process has a higher chance of success than the stupid browbeating shit you are seeing out here in public.

    And if their votes are not gettable, then most likely somebody else’s will be. We have no idea what these liars are saying to each other away from the microphones. That’s where the truth lies, not in public, and not what you are hearing and seeing. That’s why they do conference in secret. Everything is for a reason.

  253. 253.

    Jack

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Come on, Wile. Did you really think that the bow ties were going to draw a red line at the filthy whores who should never have been poor and unmarried to Baby Jesus women who need abortions?

    Uterus schmuterus.

  255. 255.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat: Look Cardiac Kid, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want and if you don’t like it, you’re free to change handles or kick Stuck or posture. I call ’em like I see ’em and you just got called. Now get out there and prove me wrong.

  256. 256.

    Citizen Alan

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    I’m hoping that mandates will be challenged in court. Really I am, and I’d love to see where it says in the Constitution that the government can compel you to purchase a service offered from a private entity, and please don’t bring up automobile insurance, the two cases don’t even compare. I’ll laugh my ass off if our conservative judiciary sticks it to the Democrats on this one.

    The mandate will be premised on Congress’s Commerce Clause powers, and the Commerce Clause at least arguably allows for it. But there are at least 4 votes on the Supreme Court for sharply curtailing the use of the Commerce Clause (and 2 for striking down everything from child labor laws to OSHA to Title VII as unconstitutional), so it will come down, once again, to how Justice Kennedy feels that day.

  258. 258.

    Jack

    @Citizen Alan:

    What a damned bind. Jeebus in a half shirt. Get demonstrably awful legislation shit boated by the Roberts Court, only to see the very foundation of corporate curtailment (such as is left) shot to pieces.

  259. 259.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    I’m not sure why the individual mandate is so controversial. President Obama is opposed to it.

    Well apparently his concern at campaign time was whether the safety net, the subsidy, would support the thing. This all seems a little ambiguous to me, but there is room for wiggle in it, Obama last year:

    But the fact of the matter is, is that if, as we’ve heard tonight, we still don’t know how Senator Clinton intends to enforce a mandate, and if we don’t know the level of subsidies that she’s going to provide, then you can have a situation which we’re seeing right now in the state of Massachusetts, where people are being fined for not having purchased health care but choose to accept the fine because they still can’t afford it even with the subsidies. And they are then worse off. They then have no health care and are paying a fine above and beyond that. And the last point I would make is, the insurance companies actually are happy to have a mandate. The insurance companies don’t mind making sure that everybody has to purchase their product. That’s not something they’re objecting to. The question is, are we going to make sure that it is affordable for everybody? And that’s my goal when I’m president of the United States.

  260. 260.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    You call it as you see it? Hey, so did Hitler and Manson. They stood up for what they believed in, goddy bless ’em.

    I need something a little more true to the facts, kid.

    Sorry.

    Like I said, my opinions are out there. Nobody needs to you describe them, even if you could, or were qualified to do so, neither of which is the case.

  261. 261.

    Citizen Alan

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    Um, mandatory auto insurance?

    Oh yeah, you’ll come back with “nobody has to own a car” as a response. I mean, can’t everybody just take a taxi?

    Okay, screw diplomacy, I think you’re just plain feeble-minded! The government has never “required mandatory auto insurance for everyone.” It has required mandatory auto insurance for people who wish to have the right drive on public roads. It is a condition placed on a privilege to drive on public roads, i.e. a driver’s license. People who don’t drive because they live in cities are not required to purchase auto insurance. Children too young to drive are not required to have auto insurance. Blind people and quadraplegics are not required to have auto insurance.

    And if Congress ever passed a law saying that such persons would be required to purchase insurance, especially from private, largely unregulated markets, you can bet your ass that it would be challenged as unconstitutional.

  262. 262.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Now get out there and prove me wrong.

    Headster, I have been proving you wrong for 5 years. Please pay attention, for crissakes.

    No, I am not patting myself on the back. First of all, I’m a cow, I cannot pat myself on the back. Second, trying to puff myself up at your expense would be called “damning myself with faint praise.”

    I am sure you get my meaning.

  263. 263.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat: Dude, yer really not as complicated as you seem to think you are. The only thing that might make you seem that way is that you change handles when yer schtick starts to get stale. Otherwise, same shit, different Teez.

  265. 265.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Citizen Alan:

    I think we already had this stupid argument. People are not going to flee their cars to avoid insurance costs. What they actually end up doing is driving without the insurance. That’s why we have “uninsured motorist” insurance in states that have mandatory insurance.

    There will always be people who don’t comply. But no insurance scheme can work when the only people who buy the insurance are the ones at high risk.

    But anyway, I tend to think that Obama had it right, see the blurb I quoted at #260. If the subsidy takes care of the cost risk, what is the relief that would be sought on behalf of the people who don’t want insurance?

  266. 266.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat: I’m running out patience with ya, Teez and I’m liable to say something very mean to ya, in much the same way as you have done to many of my friends over the years.

    I tolerate you because you make me laugh sometimes and you are a good writer but let’s be clear, you have never had an original or controversial position in your fucking life. Whatever majoritarian Democrats want to dish out, you will find a way to suck up and then browbeat everyone else for not going along.

  267. 267.

    Jack

    @Citizen Alan:

    I don’t think you’re supposed to point out that State level user only mandates (many of them coupled with existing public risk pools) are not the same as universal national mandates (with penalties), for an entirely different product and set of services.

  268. 268.

    Jack

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    You skipped right past his point.

    *

    My grandmother has never owned or driven a car in her life. She lives in urban Massachusetts, always has, and being now at the end of her life, always will. She has never needed a car.

    She has never been mandated to carry auto insurance by the State of Massachusetts, because she does not have an automobile, or a motor vehicle license.

    *

    Get it yet?

  269. 269.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Well first of all, that is simply not true. The most obvious example would be the yearlong flame war I had over US policy towards Israel, a clusterfuck which is totally supported by the Dems in power and always has been. And that’s not the only example. Your assertion is just a baldfaced lie, and the proof of that is out there all over this blog’s archives. The biggest flame wars I ever got into here were over bashing some damned fool Democrat position on one thing or another. I’m not here to make friends, suck up to blogowners for their cute pet pictures, or have group therapy, dude.

    And don’t mince any words with me. If you want to flame me, go ahead, I am not going to be hurt by it. I can both dish it out and take it. And of course, ‘browbeating’ is what you call aggressive and take no prisoners argument, which you are apparently afraid to do most of the time. Well, good for you, it’s your style, whatever. But I’m not. I say what I think and I say it in the style I think is best for the occasion, and I don’t care who it pisses off, ever. Not for one second.

    Fuck you and your “I don’t want to say something mean” bullshit. Say what you mean, and let my chips fall where they may.

  270. 270.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @MinneapolisPipe

    What I really want to know is: does Ben Nelson wear a toupee?

    Actually it’s the other way around. The toupee wears Ben Nelson. I think that there is an alien race that looks like bad toupees or weird helmet hair that has invaded Earth and is working through the Republican party and Conservadems. Look at Mitt Romney, or Rick Perry, is that some alien looking hair or what? I’m sure that if you put a bullet through Ben Nelson’s heart that his hair would quickly scuttle off of his dying body and look for a new host.

  271. 271.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Jack:

    Nope, did not skip past it. I am saying that it is not relevant. We live in a car culture and it’s cousin, mandatory car insurance. Not everyone participates.

    Not everyone will participate in a health insurance mandate, either, but if the government buys the insurance for them and pays for it, where’s the injury? If the insurance company that gets the premium is a pool schem of some kind, or a private company participating in a round robin risk sharing arrangement or whatever, who cares? Who really cares whether the insurance is provided by a private or public organization? If all you have to do is show up at the hospital and have a Social Security Number, and get treated, who the hell cares? Who is going to ask for relief from that?

    Again, what Obama said. I can’t figure it much better, as near as I can tell.

  273. 273.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat: One time at band camp..

    You are really pathetic. There isn’t a bigger statusquotian on the fucking site than you. Are you even reading what you write??? Or do you think a bunch of bluster is actually effective against someone as piercingly intuitive as me?

    Here, let’s make it easy – and relevant. Bill comes out of conference committee exactly as the Senate version is going in. Where is The Bull now?

  274. 274.

    Wile E. Quixote

    What you have to remember about Angus is this: he’s a profoundly stupid, ignorant and lazy sack of shit. Yesterday he asserted that Howard Dean wouldn’t have lasted a week in a legislative body. Now if Angus hadn’t been suffering from mad cow disease he might have done some basic research and spent say, 60 seconds or so surfing over to Wikipedia to read Howard Dean’s entry. If he had been able to, because prions weren’t eating his tiny little bovine brain (and remember kids, cows are bred to give milk, taste good and be turned into shoes, not for intelligence) he might have found that Howard Dean had been elected to the Vermont House of Representatives in 1982 and spent four years there.

    Angus is no different than any teabagger or birther out there. Punch holes in the stupid arguments he makes by showing that they’re ignorant, illogical and incorrect, such as his assertion that everyone needs a car and that therefore mandatory auto insurance is the same as mandated health insurance, or just flat out wrong, such as his stupid statement vis a vis Howard Dean or just flat out illogical and he just shifts the goalposts and keeps on going, as he’s attempting to do right now since everyone has been handing him his ass over his stupid and incorrect mandatory auto insurance analogy (which I’m sure he didn’t think of himself, like a bagger or a birther Angus is just repeating crap that someone else has told him). Angus is Brick Oven Bill, sans entertainment value (and let’s face it, BOB’s been pretty dry lately).

  275. 275.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    someone as piercingly intuitive as me?

    Oh, well, you got me there. I hadn’t considered that. You win, I lose, I give up. Good game. Better man won.

    Bill comes out of conference committee exactly as the Senate version is going in. Where is The Bull now?

    Then the bad guys won this round.

    But the round goes to them by default if we give in now. Failure to take the best shot we have, which is the secret handshake pants down suck my dick world of the backroom in the capitol, is foolish. There is nothing to gain by not taking that shot.

    Saying so is not status quo capitulation, in my view. It’s just the best shot we have at this moment. The other shot looks to me like “wait for the next Democratic administration.” Sorry, I will be dead then, you will be gloating over my demise, and it will be too late for me to have a little HCR in my life.

  276. 276.

    Citizen Alan

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    I’m not disputing any of that. But you seem to be implying that Congress can pass a law requiring every citizen to purchase auto insurance regardless of whether they own a car or are even physically capable of driving, without exceeding its powers under the Constitution, and I think that’s absurd.

    We could solve the problem of homelessness if Congress simply required every American who had a spare room to take in a homeless person without charging him any rent, but that doesn’t mean Congress has the power to pass such a law.

  277. 277.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Jack:

    Fine, call it unrelated. My position is essentially what Obama said in the blurb at 260. I don’t see where the big controversy is. And I don’t agree that Obama’s position on this is that he is against a mandate, it appears to me that he is against a mandate with no safety clause.

    The problem with this issue is that somehow or other the Public Option and Choice v Life have become the poison pills in this process. Everybody takes their positions on these, and the lines are drawn.

    Meanwhile, HCR can go up in smoke while these ideological battles are fought. What is the point? Are you telling me that I can’t have anything better than the expensive shit sandwich I have right now, unless we come down on these two poison pills in one and only one way?

    Then the lobbyists won, AFAIC.

  278. 278.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    But the round goes to them by default if we give in now.

    We’re not giving in, you daft bullet-headed little fool. We’re saying make it great now. Use the necessary legislative tactics to ram through what we want now.

    It’s you that is giving in. But in magical ponies upsidedown world, it’s the folks that want to fight this thing that are somehow giving in.

  279. 279.

    Citizen Alan

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:

    Not everyone will participate in a health insurance mandate, either, but if the government buys the insurance for them and pays for it, where’s the injury?

    Well, some people think the injury arises when either the out-of-pocket insurance costs for people not fully subsidized or the fine people will have to pay for failing to purchase insurance is more than some people can easily afford. Some people also think that Congress shouldn’t be allowed to pass laws that exceed its enumerated powers just because it doesn’t cause a cognizable “injury” to anyone. That last group of people includes at least 4 Supreme Court Justices.

  280. 280.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    But you seem to be implying that Congress can pass a law requiring every citizen to purchase auto insurance regardless of whether they own a car or are even physically capable of driving, without exceeding its powers under the Constitution, and I think that’s absurd.

    You could be right. But I don’t think that the question of providing healthcare for every citizen has to come down to “who buys the insurance from whom.”

    Why not just have a fund that pays for healthcare for the small number of people who won’t or can’t comply with a subsidized mandate, for whatever reason? We have a slice of people in this country who won’t do anything sensible that other people think they should do. So, we work around them. I don’t see that problem ever going away.

  281. 281.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Citizen Alan

    The mandate will be premised on Congress’s Commerce Clause powers, and the Commerce Clause at least arguably allows for it. But there are at least 4 votes on the Supreme Court for sharply curtailing the use of the Commerce Clause (and 2 for striking down everything from child labor laws to OSHA to Title VII as unconstitutional), so it will come down, once again, to how Justice Kennedy feels that day.

    That’s what I’m assuming any challenge would be predicated on, and let’s face it, a federal mandate requiring citizens to give money to a private entity else face penalties is even more of a stretch of the Commerce Clause than Wickard v. Filbourn was. Who are you counting as the two votes for striking down everything? I was figuring that there were at least three, Scalia and his two catamites, Clarence Thomas and Scalito.

  282. 282.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Oh, I see. This is about who is giving in as opposed to who is hanging tough.

    Okay, well I’ve been hearing about these magical tougher legislative tactics for several years now, since the 2006 election, and I haven’t seen them work.

    I saw the Republicrats doing their thing with their majority in years past. As near as I can tell, the secret strategy that worked for them was really simple: Give every member all the pork he could carry home, conduct Goverment by Earmarks, give the president what he wants, and never get vetoed. Everybody was happy.

    Seriously, that is the only coherent strategy I saw at work back there in the last 20, maybe 40 years. All the rest of this supposed tough-guy stuff has never worked that I can see. Have the assholes Lieberman or Nelson or any of those people ever been moved by that kind of thing?

    I don’t see it working. I therefore conclude that it won’t work. I am a pragmatist by nature, man. Give me 2/3 of what I want and I will come back for the other third later. Call me whatever names you want, that’s what I want here.

  284. 284.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    it’s the folks that want to fight this thing that are somehow giving in.

    Because it does not appear that the process can start over in this Congress. They aren’t going to revisit this next year in the middle of a campaign year. That puts the thing into the next Congress. That Congress probably loses us seats, and the position we are in now becomes even weaker.

    I think the GOP would love to be fighting this battle right into campaign season next year.

    If you can draw up a scenario that “starts over” and gets Senate passage, conference and final passage by, say, Memorial Day, okay. I don’t think it’s doable. The same buttheads are going to apply the same tactics all over again, the lobbyists are going to lick their lips over going into overtime, and we end up worse off than we are now.

    What is it about the “tough” approach that makes that scenario come out ahead for us? Apparently nobody in the White House thinks that will work. Why do you?

    Just asking, seriously. Information please. I don’t see it.

  285. 285.

    Chuck Butcher

    If the measure of success is GOP outrage, somebody is making a real serious mistake. This mess is a GOP wet-dream, they’d pass it in a hot second and use the same rationales I’ve seen here – if it didn’t have a (D) label. As it is they get what they like – corporate subsidization AND the ability to kick shit out of the (D)s for doing what they’d love to do. Jayzus on broke crutch, pull this SOB apart and find something they wouldn’t do on their own or like.

    Honest to fucking god, Joe Ho is going to let this go to cloture, Joe fucking McCain Buttbuddy Aetnawhore and you do not get it? Closed doors mean this will get better? Oh, OK it’s almost Xmas and you all need to get the milk and cookies set out … oh yeah – Easter Bunny.

  287. 287.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat: @AngusTheGodOfMeat: Fine. You’re weak and afraid. I understand that. I was the same way before I discovered a Charles Atlas ad in the back of a comic book as a teenager.

    So compromise with the so-called left. Pull the individual mandate, gut the excise tax. Problem solved, how hard was that?

    Instead, you Ezra Kleins Of The Corporate State tell us why we can’t have what we want while you get to keep what you want.

  289. 289.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat: StatusQuotian, blowing this shit up has to start sometime. How do you imagine a Climate Bill is going to pass? Which Democrat senator are we going to have to felch for three months in order to be required by law to buy electric cars from ACMECorp?

  290. 290.

    Wile E. Quixote

    Oh, and here’s another kick to Angus for his stupid car insurance policy and his stupid statements about car culture. Imagine if we had a problem with people not being able to get from point A to point B. Some people had cars, others didn’t. Some people were able to get around, others were constantly bumming rides from the rest of us or calling cabs and then stiffing the driver on the fare. So imagine if the president and congress said “We must solve this problem and we are going to do so by mandating that everyone buy a car.”

    Now some people would say “OK, we need to solve this whole ‘getting around’ problem. I’m with you there. what if we offered some sort of cheaper option to owning a car like a public transit system. Something that polluted less and didn’t funnel billions of dollars into the car companies, who are after all, a bunch of dicks who sell unsafe cars and then try to cheat the customers on their warranties” and those people would be told to fuck off and eat shit because they were DFHs and because the debate had shifted from “How can we make it easy for people to get from point A to point B who currently can’t” to “How can we make sure that everyone has a car”.

    Now, if everyone gets a car that actually runs then the “getting from point A to point B problem” is solved and people are genuinely better off. But the way the law gets passed is that you don’t necessarily get a good car, you might end up with a 1973 Pinto, or a 1985 Yugo (The cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology!), or anything that Kia built before about 2003. The car might not run well, it might not even run at all. It might just sit in your driveway and leak fluids all over the place. It might start in the morning but when you were on your way from point A to point B it would break down leaving you stranded in the middle of nowhere, or maybe the brakes fail and you end up plowing into a semi, or someone rear ends you at 10 MPH and you die screaming in agony as gasoline flames burn the flesh from your body. But to some people none of this would matter because they had lost sight of the real problem, people not being able to get from point A to point B, or were too ignorant to understand that just because you had a car didn’t mean that you could get from point A to point B safely. No, to these people the only thing that was important is that everyone now have a car, regardless of quality.

    OK, that probably went over Angus’s head, he’s a cow, cows are stupid animals, because face it, it doesn’t take a lot of smarts to sneak up on a blade of grass. But it’s a better analogy to the current situation than “mandatory auto insurance” is.

  291. 291.

    Jack

    @Chuck Butcher:

    I read something similar in a comment on one the deep Dem sites, MyDD IIRC.

    If the GOP might tackle health reform (a la Medi Part D), this is what they’d come up with.

    Damn it.

    *

    Also, OFA Florida is in revolt against…Obama.

  292. 292.

    Jack

    For some reason my NOW/NARAL/PP post isn’t showing – perhaps it’s the links.

    In brief, NOW is officially pissed and NARAL and PP aren’t going to take it.

    Good job, team Obama-Reid-Emmanuel. Good job.

  295. 295.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Just Some Fuckhead

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat: StatusQuotian, blowing this shit up has to start sometime. How do you imagine a Climate Bill is going to pass? Which Democrat senator are we going to have to felch for three months in order to be required by law to buy electric cars from ACMECorp?

    For the types like Angus and Ezra Klein (the left’s answer to Ross Douthat) it wouldn’t even be electric cars. The Climate Change they’d be willing to settle for would require everyone to buy Hummers, but the Hummers would run on ethanol, and anyone who questioned this or said that it made things worse would be told that no, it was a great victory and that we could fix it in the future by making sure that the ethanol refineries burned natural gas as a heat source instead of burning coal.

  297. 297.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Jack: Wow, has President Obama united the anti-abortion right and pro-choice organizations??? That is change you can believe in.

  298. 298.

    Jack

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    NOW’s official release:

    “NOW President Condemns Compromised Health Care Bill;
    Women’s Access to Abortion Care Traded Away

    Statement of Terry O’Neill, NOW President

    December 19, 2009

    The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Manager’s Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a sweeping anti-abortion law for the rest of us. And by the way, it’s the rest of us who voted the current leadership into both houses of Congress.

    The National Organization for Women is outraged that Senate leadership would cave in to Sen. Ben Nelson, offering a compromise that amounts to a Stupak-like ban on insurance coverage for abortion care. Right-wing ideologues like Nelson and the Catholic Bishops may not understand this, but abortion is health care. And health care reform is not true reform if it denies women coverage for the full range of reproductive health services.

    We call on all senators who consider themselves friends of women’s rights to reject the Manager’s Amendment, and if it remains, to defeat this cruelly over-compromised legislation.”

  300. 300.

    Jack

    Y’know – the Dems haven’t incrementally improved the MCA2006, the PATRIOT Act or FISA.

    Obama loves those, too.

    Just a thought.

  301. 301.

    Chuck Butcher

    Political will generally involves the concept of winning or losing an election. Sometimes not. Senators are less constrained in that regard with the 6 yr cycle, but the year before it gets important. Case in point the gymnastics Gordon Smith indulged in before and during the election vs Jeff Merkley as he tried to keep his self-annoited moderate GOP label – an entire fiction backed by OR’s establishment media. oops, he lost the hard right and to Merkley.

    Ron Wyden is up this cycle, everything he’s done on health care is violated by this POS and he’s a wonk, on this and other stuff. Wyden will not filibuster something that is the kind of corporate giveaway he’d scream about because … well, because of the sentiment here. You’ve told him shit is good enough and to oppose it would sink him, even though he knows what harm this will do because he wants to go back. You’ve given him no cover and since you’re his constituency he’ll just go along. There’s no stirring you up to give him cover, WATB. Same thing with every other “progressive” they become by default Lieberman.

    You call Joe names and make your representatives into him. I really did think that the screaming corporatism and electoral outcomes of this thing would keep it from making it in this form and the realization of what my own party is, sinks it for me. You do understand that you ARE Liebercrats. That IS your policy and your politics.

    I’m not a Liebercrat and I won’t go under that label.

  302. 302.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    I’m weak and afraid because I basically want to stay the course that Obama is on now? If I support that tack, I am weak and afraid?

    Christ, what an argument, man. Really. You know, it’s just a judgment call. It’s not a proof of manhood thing, or an ideological do or die thing. It’s nothing more than taking a practical view of a difficult, but not hopeless, political situation.

    And for taking this tack, you have unloaded on me here today? Wow, I am …. surprised, honestly. I thought you had more than that.

    Basically your argument boils down to, You’re A Pussy If You Don’t Agree With Me. Okay, got it. I’m a pussy. Whatever, but I might be a pussy that ends up with a better HC situation than the one I have now if we see this process through, and ready to take that gamble rather than blow it all out of the water just to prove a point or what a toughguy view you have of government. Fuck that, really.

    And fuck you, you really are a Fuckhead, and here I thought it was just a funny moniker that you did for laughs. Okay, for at least the second time today I am wrong.

    At least you are better than WEC, who can write a 1000 word essay on how my entire Dean position is disqualified because I forgot he was a Vermont legislator, and how that proves that I have been nothing but stool my entire life. Which, you know, I may have been, but he doesn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest. If you get my meaning.

    I was right about Dean, in that he wouldn’t last a week in the US Senate, for the same reason that his presidential campaign went up in flames. He is a pigheaded man in a world where smoke and mirrors and doubletalk are the coin of the realm. He is a man who would rather be proven right, than win something for me. He’d rather have us wait another ten years for HCR and say, yep, that Howard Dean was right, we waited and we got a better bill. Sorry, I voted for Obama, and I haven’t changed my mind this year.

    The US Senate is one of the most dysfunctional and really disgusting governing bodies I have ever seen. But there it is, it is what it is. The Republicans used it as a pork barrel machine for a long time, and I say, good for them. They got what they wanted, in their own lovable way. Now it isn’t theirs, and we will see what we get out of it.

    So anyway, if we Kill the Bill, or do something along those lines, in ten years you might come along and say, See, Teez and all those other pussies were wrong, we stayed true to our principles all these years and look what we got! Or, we can see what we can get on this go-round, and in ten months, I can say, See, I got 2/3 of what I really wanted, and before long, we can get some more.

    The latter looks like a win to me, the former looks like one to you, apparently. If your magical thinking that somehow if we just talk tougher (or was it louder?) to Lieberman and Nelson, we will get what we want from them, turns out to be right, even though it has never shown any signs of working in the past … great. I win that way too, if it happens this year. The alfalfa will be on my tab, graze all you want.

  303. 303.

    Wile E. Quixote

    Angus, could you me more pig-ignorant and chock-full-o-doublethink? Firstly the statement you made about Howard Dean was that he wouldn’t last a week in a legislative body. I pointed out that this was crap and that he lasted four years in a legislative body and now you’re saying “No, no, what I meant was “he wouldn’t last a week in the US Senate”. More of your birther/bagger goal-post shifting, anything other than admitting that you were wrong and didn’t have a clue.

    As far as Howard Dean’s pigheadedness boy he really pissed in your cornflakes when he came out against this bill didn’t he? Here’s where I’m coming from. If I have the choice between listening to Howard Dean’s position on this bill, a man who was a doctor and who worked as governor to improve health care in Vermont and did so, or Ezra Klein, a 25 year old policy wank with a BA in political science who has never held a real job I’m going to listen to the guy who actually been a doctor and a politician and not the guy who has spent his entire adult life, such as it is, as a blogger. The cheering section for this bill consists of a bunch of policy wanks and bloggers who really at the end of the day are every bit as ignorant as George Will or Maureen Dowd. These people don’t give a shit about anything except passing a bill, any bill, regardless of whether or not that bill is any good.

    Now for your doublethink. You write:

    The US Senate is one of the most dysfunctional and really disgusting governing bodies I have ever seen. But there it is, it is what it is. The Republicans used it as a pork barrel machine for a long time, and I say, good for them. They got what they wanted, in their own lovable way. Now it isn’t theirs, and we will see what we get out of it.
    So anyway, if we Kill the Bill, or do something along those lines, in ten years you might come along and say, See, Teez and all those other pussies were wrong, we stayed true to our principles all these years and look what we got! Or, we can see what we can get on this go-round, and in ten months, I can say, See, I got 2/3 of what I really wanted, and before long, we can get some more.
    The latter looks like a win to me, the former looks like one to you, apparently. If your magical thinking that somehow if we just talk tougher (or was it louder?) to Lieberman and Nelson, we will get what we want from them, turns out to be right, even though it has never shown any signs of working in the past … great. I win that way too, if it happens this year. The alfalfa will be on my tab, graze all you want.

    So let me see if I understand you correctly. The US Senate is dysfunctional and disgusting, so you’re willing to accept the bill we’re getting now, because it gives you 2/3rds of what you really wanted and then hope that you can go back to this dysfunctional and disgusting body in ten months, a mere ten months (did you pull this figure out of your ass like every thing else you post), you can go back to them and get the remaining third, or some fraction thereof. Tell me again who’s engaging in “magical thinking” here.

    What exactly is it that you want? The way I see it you’re getting 100 percent of what you want, because like the policy wanks all you want is for something called a health care reform bill to pass. It doesn’t matter if this bill actually reforms health care, by you know, making it easier for people to go to doctors, or how much it costs, or if it enriches a bunch of companies who are currently doing quite well by fucking over their policy holders. No, Congress could pass a plan to invade Iran and call it “The Health Care Reform Act of 2009” and you’d be onboard with it.

    Well here’s what I want. I want accountability for the health insurance industry, competition for the health insurance industry and cost controls for health care, and I want these things to be real and meaningful and not just vague bullshit and this bill provides none of that.

    There is nothing in it that prevents health insurance companies from fucking people over the way they are now. Absolutely nothing, and please don’t tell me about the rescission provision, it’s vaguely worded and there are no penalties attached to it so it’s meaningless. There’s also no definition of what constitutes a minimally acceptable health insurance policy, none whatsoever, the companies could offer policies that didn’t even cover the cost of a bottle of aspirin and get away with it.

    I want competition for the health insurance industry, this bill doesn’t provide it, there’s no public option and the industry retains it’s anti-trust exemption. Competition is important because it enforces another form of accountability on health insurance companies. A meaningful public option would require companies to offer better benefits at a better cost than the public option and if properly constructed would provide a safety net in the form of a minimum acceptable standard of care. This bill doesn’t provide any of that.

    Cost controls. The insurance industry isn’t the only part of the problem here, although they’re a big one because let’s face it, they’re parasites who charge lots and lots of money for writing checks with your money. Doctors, hospitals and big Pharma are also part of the problem. We need to reform the way doctors and hospitals charge for service, it’s a fucking joke and rips off patients. The way the current system is set up the amount of money you pay for a procedure depends upon whether or not you’re insured and which insurance company you have. Go into a hospital without insurance for a procedure like a spinal fusion and they’ll charge you around $80,000. Go in with insurance and they charge you anywhere from 20 to 40 percent less. What other industry in this country works this way? This bill does nothing to change that, there are some minor provisions about bundled payments that Ezra Klein is spooging all over, but there’s nothing meaningful, and we spend way more on medical costs than any other country does and often with poorer outcomes.

    There’s also a philosophical issue here, if I’m going to be paying taxes for health care, and even though I’m middle class I’m probably going to end up paying those taxes, as are a lot of other people who are going to find out that they have a “Cadillac” health plan, then I goddamned well want those tax dollars being spent by the government on health care so that people who aren’t getting medical care now can get it and not being given to a small group of largely unaccountable companies who are currently a huge part of the problem. Glenn Greenwald wrote about this the other day, this bill is the Blackwaterization of our health care system, it’s does as much to reform health care in this country as TARP did to reform the financial sector.

    So this bill provides exactly zero percent of what I want and the only thing that this bill guarantees is that over the next ten years the insurance industry is going to get a few hundred billion taxpayer dollars in the hope that they’ll be really, really nice and spend that money on paying for medical care. That’s it, oh yeah, there is the 85 percent medical loss ratio, which may or may not make it into the final bill. Let’s look at the MLR shall we? With an 85 percent MLR the insurance industry gets to skim 15 cents off of every dollar and use it for whatever they want, it’s an overhead expense. So for every 100 billion taxpayer dollars we give the health insurance industry for subsidized insurance premiums they will, if they’re in a good mood, give us 85 billion dollars worth of health care.

    Remember Barack Obama’s change speech. The one in which he said:

    Theirs are the stories and voices we carry on from South Carolina. The mother who can’t get Medicaid to cover all the needs of her sick child. She needs us to pass a health care plan that cuts costs and makes health care available and affordable for every single American. That’s what she’s looking for.

    Well this health care plan doesn’t even give Barack Obama anything he wanted, assuming that he really did want a plan that cuts costs and makes health care available and affordable for every single American. Nope, all this plan does is make you buy insurance and give insurance companies lots of money. Health Insurance != health care, really it doesn’t. If you believe it does answer a question for me, when you get sick or have a problem with your health do you

    A) See a doctor
    B) See an insurance agent.

    Perhaps there are some people who go see insurance agents when they get sick, I’m willing to bet that their outcomes aren’t very good though.

    This bill is not health care reform, it’s not even health insurance reform, unless you count giving health insurance companies large quantities of taxpayer cash and forcing people to buy their products without any guarantee that their health care will be paid for or that those products will be affordable, as reform.

    Go ahead and support this piece of shit Angus, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed in what you will actually get versus what you think you’ll be getting and you’re going to be bitterly disappointed if you think that the senators you currently deride are going to let you fix it.

  304. 304.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Go ahead and support this piece of shit Angus, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed in what you will actually get versus what you think you’ll be getting and you’re going to be bitterly disappointed if you think that the senators you currently deride are going to let you fix it.

    He won’t be disappointed. He’ll just double-down on his efforts to swear it’s raining while they’re pissing on us.

    Teez, you wanna be a big pushover for the short time you have left on earth, get out there and be the best patsy you can be. You’ve earned that right. But you can’t demand the rest of us lay down beside you with our butts in the air. I’m fighting for something better.

    Otherwise, I have nothing to add to what W.E.C. said.

  305. 305.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    “No, no, what I meant was “he wouldn’t last a week in the US Senate”. More of your birther/bagger goal-post shifting, anything other than admitting that you were wrong and didn’t have a clue.

    I forgot about his Vermont legislature gig. But that fact doesn’t impeach what I was saying, which is that his style won’t work in the US Senate. I spoke imprecisely to make my point and forgot an important fact, but the point I made was valid when I made it and it is still valid. Dean is a pigheaded ideologue to my eyes, in a world where backroom dealmaking and thuggery and thievery are the lube that keeps congress functioning. I was right about that and still am.

    The US Senate is dysfunctional and disgusting, so you’re willing to accept the bill we’re getting now, because it gives you 2/3rds of what you really wanted and then hope that you can go back to this dysfunctional and disgusting body in ten months, a mere ten months (did you pull this figure out of your ass like every thing else you post), you can go back to them and get the remaining third, or some fraction thereof. Tell me again who’s engaging in “magical thinking” here.

    i take this to be the core of your argument here, and there are two things I take to be wrong with it. First of all, it doesn’t represent my view. The fact that the Senate is a well dressed collection of mafia figures and thieves isn’t the reason why I am willing to settle for 2/3 of what I want. It’s the fact that in the republic that actually exists, that is generally the way things like this work, and this particular measure is one of the biggest we’ll see in our lifetimes. It couldn’t happen some other way, and it would never happen the Dean way. The Senate is what it is, and has always been. This trainwreck of a process is what is going to be required in order to govern for a good while, just as it has been for a good while in the past. Neither you nor I can change that.

    Second, which is the best example of “magical thinking?” Taking a practical view of what can be done with a shitty system and getting the most I can get, or insisting that “tough” tactics, which are obviously not working, are suddenly going to start working if we just act tougher and say our demands louder? And do the latter by giving our opponents exactly what they want most, which is more time to delay and build on public unrest and confusion over what is going on, and carry the resulting failure into next year’s election?

    The question answers itself, as far as I am concerned, and I obviously do not agree with you on this, and never will. I stand on the position I am taking on this issue, and on what I’ve said about it here. I’m a pragmatist and not an ideologue, and I make no apology for it.

  306. 306.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Teez, you wanna be a big pushover for the short time you have left on earth,

    See my #304 and the last two paragraphs. I basically think that your position on this issue is about as useful as the GOP position, and worse, plays right into their hands.

    As with WEC, I say to you, I don’t agree with you on this and never will. The government we live under is an ongoing trainwreck, and any time I can get 2/3 of a long list of things I want in a situation like this, I will always take it and consider it a win. Tough blog talk is cheap, but bill passage in this political reality comes dear. I’ll take the bill passage, you can have the tough talk.

    Chances are pretty good that 10-15 years down the road, you will find that the healthcare system in this country is actually pretty close to the other good ones out there in other countries. Then you can write me and tell me I was right all along. Meanwhile, I wish you plenty of good alfalfa.

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. […] John Cole: Now, in typical Democratic fashion, we will probably get the bill to conference, have a couple more weeks of acrimonious debate, pass the bill, get a bill with some meaningful reform and some decidedly bad things, and then spend the next year fighting a civil war and convincing ourselves that the bill is horrible and Obama hates the base. […]