I'm so "so disappointed" that we are getting the FIRST FUCKING STEP of health care reform

[wndycty]

I want to pout, cry, call Obama a corporatist, DLC, WHORE, SELLOUT! :sarcasm:

We need to fight to improve this bill and AFTER it is signed, lobby for new amendments in future years.

I have no problem with folks criticizing Obama, but the level of the rhetoric is just ridiculous.

[HuckleB]

1. Ridiculous is far too kind in describing the ugliness of the attacks.

[phleshdef]

2. The problem is, many were waiting for an excuse to talk shit and still don't understand the bill.

And don't care to understand it either, they'd rather go with the knee jerk criticisms that have been put out there and perpetuate that as much as possible.

[uponit7771]

3. but did Obama save Bambi though?!?!?! No?! Well there it is then!!!

[AndyA]

4. No one knows what the final bill is going to look like.

Most seem to take issue with the fact that Obama hasn't shown the leadership his office demands in shaping this bill. He promoted a public option when he campaigned, but has done little to actually see that a public option was part of the bill.

From what I've seen, without a public option, the cost controls and competition necessary to bring down costs are lacking, which will make the mandatory insurance too expensive for many.

We'll see what happens between now and if/when the bill is signed, but my major issue with Obama is that he has not led this at all, he's allowed folks like Rahm Emmanuel to do his work, and the result is something far short of what the original goal was.

We'll see... :shrug:

[mzmolly]

5. Agreed. It's barely tolerable here

these days.

[freddie mertz]

6. OK. Fine. But what about the lie today?

That is something I can't abide.

[mcablue]

7. Do you have evidence that the bill will be improved?

Or is that wishful thinking?

[Phlem]

11. right

like NAFTA is soooooo much better than it was before.

Star light star bright first star I wish tonight.......

[ShortnFiery]

8. We are getting the first step to Heath Care DEBTORS' PRISONS with these damn Mandates.

NO more, NO less.

[Donnachaidh]

10. and we cannot seem to understand that we are required to STFU and take it with a smile

The Cult of Personality Crowd is enraged that we still have the NERVE to badmouth the chains being rattled for our kids.

[johnaries]

17. I bet you believe in the "death panels", too.

Your charge Of "debtor's prisons" is just as ridiculous.

[LastNaturalist]

9. Yeah, it only took half a century to accomplish what he did in his FIRST ELEVEN MONTHS!

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. That would be a great claim if he actually DID anything.

The next bubble will be health care. It will be as big, and as catastrophic, as the credit bubble that was created by the deregulation of the banks.

We will be lucky if we survive as a nation.

[dkf]

12. I wish I had your faith. What evidence do you have that Lieberman wants any

Further improvements?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Your expectations must be awfully low

This is a step backward. It gives more power than ever to the corporations. Their stock prices are soaring, which should be a warning sign to you.

[MadHound]

14. Trouble is, this first step is backwards

You don't hand the insurance industry a mandated monopoly, without a public option and other strong measures to keep costs in control. You don't limit women's right to choose, either legally or economically.

Handing the insurance industry this mandated monopoly sans cost controls is simply going to destroy the middle class. Can you afford to pay twenty seven percent of your income over to insurance premiums? I can't, and neither can most Americans.

Meanwhile, you are taking this first step on the back of women's rights. Why must this first step continue to drive women into the ground when it should help them?

[Avalux]

15. I think the media has done their job. They've manipulated the unrest on the left -

and put them on the same side as the Republicans. I was horrified to see the two join in an effort to "kill the bill".

[MadHound]

16. Ooo, the big bad media, manipulating both the right and the left

Geez, and people call me conspiratorial:eyes:

Actually what you're seeing is an echo of a movement that this country hasn't seen in a while, that place where far left and far right meet and work together to meet their common goals. This is known as populism, and it was big in this country for awhile, from the 1880's through the 1930's.

In this, the left and the right may not agree on the ideological reasons why they are opposed to some particular issue, but they are agreed that they do oppose it and work together towards the common goal, whatever that might be. It is big, it's loud, it's scary. It's Huey Long and William Jennings Bryan, the Socialist Party and the Liberty League.

And it can be a very potent force counterbalancing the corporately compromised centerist politics that are prevalent in this country.

We saw a bit of this with the effort to kill the TARP bill last year, we're seeing a bit more of it now.

Personally, I welcome populism, if for no other reason than it gives the political pot in this country a good stirring and wipes the complacent smiles from the corporately controlled whores in our government.

[niceypoo]

19. I have seen no Democrats join republicans

With the exception of the blue dogs. Progressives want the health care bill strengthened. Republicans want health care bill destroyed. Not sure how you equate the two.

[Avalux]

27. I was referring to the 'progressives' on this board who want the bill killed.

One of them even defended teabaggers to me. :eyes:

[RaleighNCDUer]

25. The difference being, of course, that the right wants NO bill,

and WE want a GOOD bill.

The right wants everything this bill does, but doesn't want the Dems to have a success, so they poison it. The left wants everything this bill left out.

The squishy center wants to enrich corporations (just like the right wants, actually).

EDIT - If the right was to sponsor a HRC bill, it would look EXACTLY like this one.

[niceypoo]

18. Given the timid Dems in congress

I would be thoroughly shocked if they did anything to improve it.

[bvar22]

20. I'm "so disappointed" that thatFIRST FUCKING STEP ...

..is in the WRONG FUCKING DIRECTION.

This STEP enshrines the For Profit Health Insurance Industry as the Gatekeeper to Health Care and nails SHUT the door to a Single Payer System.

[ShortnFiery]

21. Yes, a giant step backwards: BLEEDING more Middle Class Tax Dollars to the Insurance Cartel.

:thumbsdown:

[Egnever]

24. No it doesnt

In fact it provides help to get non profits into the system.

your hyperbole is showing.

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Fine. Remember saying this in ten year and NONE of the fixes have happened.

We're fucked.

30 million left in the cold, right off the bat - and three years before anything happens. Three more years of ADDING to that 30 million.

You think we're going to get an expanded Medicare fix? There's no existing frame in this bill to hang it on. You think that a public option will be put in, once the principle of diverting public money to private companies by law has taken root? You think for a moment those private companies will ALLOW that?

We've done nothing but give so far - how do we add in fixes? Every fix is going to have to come with yet another compromise, and each compromise will make a bad bill even worse.

So, HOW do we fix it?

[Raineyb]

26. You mean how medicare was supposed to be fixed to include everyone?

Oh wait, that hasn't happened. Never mind. How about NAFTA? Oh that didn't get fixed either. Never mind that too.

Are you going to pay my outrageous bill for insurance when the time comes?

I didn't think so. This bill is a wet kiss to the insurance companies. I see no reason to to fix it before passing it because it damn well won't be fixed later.