James it is hardly Lieberman’s fault, he is just doing what he does, the crime is in the party letting him into the ranks as they did.

Not to mention not having control over their own party members.

After 2010 Reid will be gone, and so will likely many others. The Rinos you hoped would vote the democrat way will likely be gone as well.

Tough break, the party has been totally outplayed. Price of inexperience despite having the numbers.

Wow, I agree with almost everything said here:

what we’re getting is a crappy corporate sell0ut health care reform bill.

passing this will turn out to be suicide for the Democrats who hold office.

incompetent leadership

The problem is with all of the commentary above by Glenden and others, and especially by Congress, is their ignoring of the issue of the total cost to provide healthcare regardless of who pays for it. All of this discussion is about who is covered and who isn’t covered and how much is subsidized and how much isn’t subsidized. But none of that even mentions how much it costs in the first place and we are all paying for it now and going to continue to pay for it in the future unless there is some actual reform and not just rearranging of the deck chairs.

The amazing thing is that there are fantastic ideas out there which can be cherry picked and used. These include ideas from within this country as well as internationally. Safeway supermarkets, Whole Foods and Scotts garden products have very out of the box programs for their employees which reduce the overall costs dramatically. The Mayo system, the Cleveland Clinic and the VA also have very successful models which could easily be copied. Then there are other countries’ models such as Switzerland and Canada which could also be used.

But no.

We start off with Medicare as the starting point. A system that Obama has called a “broken system”. And this is what Pelosi, Reid, and the head nodders come up with?

The current process deserves an ugly death. Don’t blame Lieberman. Don’t blame the tea-baggers or Palin. Blame an incompetent and crooken leadership who wouldn’t know a well managed system if it bit them in the butt.

Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Ralph Nader was right.

A gift horse? Ask a Trojan about a gift horse. I will get “free” health care!! You will pay for it.

Some people are looking forward to the day when the bill comes due, this is being propagated on a bankrupt system, but if you want to pay for my health care, I’ll be happy to let you.

Oh yeah Richard…if you are indigent or unemployed, it will be as it is now, free, no cost to the person, but to the taxpayer. The more it costs to the taxpayer, the more free it is to the indigent.

Of course this could be mitigated by rationing which is now going on heavy in British Columbia.

It is part of the Obama wealth redistribution plan, that is why there will be zero cost savings, and if anything the price will rise. The poor get free care, the taxpayer pays more to none competitive insurers, pharma gets to keep its cushy high profit monopoly, and the insurers are kept in their yachts as well.

Perfect plan!!

Richard,
I did not defend the use of the word “free”.
I compared what they really did say (universal, lower cost, etc) to what they are trying to shove down our throats in a demonstration of kamikazi-like stupidty.

Hillary will resign as Secretary of State in January of 2011 and make a run against her former boss for the nomination. It will be 1980 all over again with an unpopular sitting Democratic President having to fight for the nomination of his own party. She will run on Obama’s inability to finish up in either Iraq or Afghanistan, inability to get a deal done on healthcare, inability to get a climate deal done, inability to control spending…..

This is starting to piss me off. Obama’s press secretary is treating Howard Dean like he’s crazy and disconnected for this statement:

Kill the health bill
By Howard Dean
Thursday, December 17, 2009; A33

If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries — in the range of $20 million a year — and on return on equity for the company’s shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.

From the very beginning of this debate, progressives have argued that a public option or a Medicare buy-in into would restore competition and hold the private health insurance industry accountable. Progressives understood that a public plan would give Americans real choices about what kind of system they wanted to be in and how they wanted to spend their money. Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to.

To be clear, I’m not giving up on health-care reform. The legislation does have some good points, such as expanding Medicaid and permanently increasing the federal government’s contribution to it. It invests critical dollars in public health, wellness and prevention programs; extends the life of the Medicare trust fund; and allows young Americans to stay on their parents’ health-care plans until they turn 27. Small businesses struggling with rising health-care costs will receive a tax credit, and primary-care physicians will see increases in their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates.

Improvements can still be made in the Senate, and I hope that Senate Democrats will work on this bill as it moves to conference. If lawmakers are interested in ensuring that government affordability credits are spent on health-care benefits rather than insurers’ salaries, they need to require state-based exchanges, which act as prudent purchasers and select only the most efficient insurers. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) offered this amendment during the Finance Committee markup, and Democrats should include it in the final legislation. A stripped-down version of the current bill that included these provisions would be worth passing.

In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care.

I have worked for health-care reform all of my political life. In my home state of Vermont we have accomplished universal health care for children under 18 and real insurance reform — which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn’t much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that as it stands this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.

Passing a bill that enriches insurance companies and criminalizes the poor who can’t afford the premiums for the sake of defeating the Republicans is some strange definition of victory, General Pyrrhus notwithstanding. This lunacy could very well cost Obama his job, and the nation any chance at 21st century democracy when a right wing loon is elected.

Howie is crazy. The media told us. Yee haaaw!!

Funny, use a psuedonym, get straight on, use my own name I get moderated. Confused boys?

So what gives Glendon? Off topic, off agenda, don’t like what I have to say? This site has its issues, or the administration does. The 1U is decidedly prone to hearing what it likes, but that is to be expected in the right based state you live in.

Cliff Lyon :Uncle Rico, Are you saying they took down the article? Is it in the print addition? Lets follow this?

Don’t know what happened to it. All I know is that it was there this morning and now it’s not. It even had some pretty pictures of the agitators and the agitated. Of course, I don’t entirely reject the possibility that it’s still there somewhere but my technical skills are inadequate to allow me to find it again, but I don’t think so. Don’t know about print edition. Didn’t see it in Deseret News at all.

Good sleuthing Larry. I don’t have any skills. You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.