Durbin: Dems weighing healthcare strategy, but not starting over

[cal04]

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/77689-durbin-dems-weighing-new-healthcare-strategy-but-not-starting-over

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Sunday that Democrats needed to sit down to figure out how to push through healthcare reform, while firmly rejecting any notion that the process has not been bipartisan.

"We're now considering our strategy" after Sen.-elect Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) surprising win Tuesday took away the Democrats' supermajority, Durbin said on "Face the Nation."

That includes sitting down with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other leaders, Durbin said.

"But for those who say start over... I would just tell them if we do nothing the Medicare trust fund will be exhausted in seven years," Durbin said.

(snip)
He rejected the notion that Republicans weren't part of the process, saying "to suggest that we have closed the door to them is not a proper statement of what's happpened."

[endless october]

1. start over. medicare for all.

reintroduce it every year until it passes.

that's better than some "look, we did something" giveaway to big insurance.

if it takes another 20 years, it takes another 20 years.

[KittyWampus]

2. the Senate Bill would allow me to get Medicaid. My rates just rose from $500 monthly to $600.

I cannot afford 20 more years.

[endless october]

3. i would support expanding medicaid.

what i don't support is the rest of the health insurance bailout act of 2010.

[spanone]

4. the 'bipartisan' thingy is just too laughable. the republicans will NEVER participat

never

[wackywaggin]

5. I listened to the talking heads

this morning. Why isn't tort reform part of the solution to medical care cost increases? If the answer is to keep doctors from practicing bad medicine, why not just strengthen ethical practices in medicine by pulling the license of doctors practicing bad medicine. This seems to be an adequate deterent for mistakes and cuts the trial attorney middle man costs out of the picture.

[dkf]

7. Yes yes yes.

This is the one decent thing repubs could fight for if they had a spine.

But they would rather be useless

[WeCanWorkItOut]

6. Medicare is in trouble, but this is not the way to save it

The plans the Democrats have produced will do little to reduce
health care price inflation. And (I feel like I've said this many times)
they will hurt many people.

We need to bring more intelligence to the process.
That means letting the American people in on the discussion.
They've done little of that, so far.

[backscatter712]

8. The process has been very bipartisan.

Just to start, Blue Cross Baucus had stalled the health care bill for months with his Gang of Six meetings, trying to get Republicans to agree to something constructive. The Republicans offered NOTHING constructive - they just used the meetings to stall the bill.

We gave the GOP plenty of opportunities to add something constructive to the bill, and they turned their nose at all of them, deciding that letting 45,000 people die every year is acceptable to them, just so they can screw the Democrats.

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. What the hell does this bill have to do with the Medicare trust fund? It's about protecting industry

profits.

The authors of the bill said so years ago.