Tag: reconciliation

David Dayen at Lake du Fire Dogs has been watching the Senate vote on the Reconciliation side car “fix” to the Health Insurance Bailout bill this morning.

http://news.firedoglake.com/20…

It passed, 56 to 43.  V.P.  Joe Biden was there, indicating that the administration didn’t quite trust the Democratic Senators to behave themselves. Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas (OPEC API IPAA, Mellon Scaife, & Koch Oil, Mutual of Omaha, & Walmart, LLC)  voted against the reconciliation bill.  

Surprise ! It has to now go back to the House again for another vote, saith the Parliamentarian      

Remember when there was talk of how the amendment process in the Senate would only need a simple 50 vote majority under the rules of reconciliation, and therefore some Senator could offer an amendment with a Public Option, and there was Sen. Bennett’s (D, CO) letter http://bennet.senate.gov/newsr…        going around with the signatures, and the People in Charge said Absolutely Not, we are taking no amendments on this because we can’t risk the Republicans delaying with their own ?  An everybody got into line?

Surprise !   They were just kidding.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

How about putting it in the year 2011 Budget, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota ?

“I’d be unwilling to kick up dust on some new matter before we’ve resolved this one,” he told reporters.

A status quo You Can Believe In.

They say over 25 million Americans will be left out of coverage. It’s more.   They’re wrong, there’s 300 million who were planning on the Constitution covering them, and it’s still random, depending on which state you reside in.

But only the Democratic Party could try to get away with it, having drawn such courage from watching the Republicans cheer them on as they continue to thumb their noses at the core constituency who actually voted to put them in office, and had bothered to read the quaint old thing.

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update:

AHIP Already kicking sick kids to the curb

nyceve has posted this story about America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP, think Karen Ignagni the lobbyist) which wrote much of the bill incognito, saying that it intreprets the new law as not requiring insurers to cover all child applicants this year.  They would prefer to wait until 2014.

This bill is being “sold” as finally making insurance available for all children (except non legal residents) this year. Supposedly the Sec of HHS is going to issue a sternly worded clarification, or something.  But insurers can jack up rates in the meantime-

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

This is breaking on the HuffPo and at FDL.  

Before you say, oh, ARC, don’t be silly-  let me tell you, I went digging around independently in the nether regions of the Facebook Heathers when he announced he was retiring, because of the Politico smear, and they are calling for digging up dirt on other Congresspeople who voted against the health care bill, so they can force them to resign, too.

Now think again, which political party and which political ideology practices deep public sexual hypocrisy, and tell me this doesn’t have a certain Chief of Staff’s little fang mark’s all over it ?

Bipartisanshipthingee, much ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid and his points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that. And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, ‘Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.’ And then ( I ) tossled the guy’s hair and left,

Massa also spoke about what he sees as connections between the timing of the disclosure of these sexual harassment allegations and his reluctance to vote yes on health care reform.

“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill,” Massa said, “and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots.”

Sounds like (colorful language deleted for hypocrites) an attempt at entrapment to me.  

Who is the staffer and has he worked for a Blue Dog ?  Does he have a consulting business on the side, like a lot of them do ?   Because if he has, it’s over.  Not for Rep. Massa, who is a cancer survivor, Navy veteran, and a stand up guy who was willing to say what needed to be said about the Iraq War and George Bush a long time before anybody else would dare to.

Mass claimed Steny Hoyer did not tell the truth about the investigation

http://news.firedoglake.com/20…

Massa also accused Steny Hoyer of lying about the investigation when he said that he told Massa’s office to file the allegations with the Ethics Committee. “Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once. Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever.”  

And that he got the Rahm Treatment

Later in the show, Massa addressed events in his Navy career which a right-wing radio host blogged about, insisting they were misunderstandings. And he detailed a conversation with Rahm Emanuel after the climate change bill vote:

“When I voted against the cap and trade bill, the phone rang and it was the chief of staff to the president of the United States of America, Rahm Emanuel, and he started swearing at me in terms and words that I hadn’t heard since that crossing the line ceremony on the USS New Jersey in 1983,” Massa said. “And I gave it right back to him, in terms and words that I know are physically impossible.”

“If Rahm Emanuel wants to come after me, maybe he ought to hold himself to the same standards I’m holding myself to and he should resign,” Massa said.  

Now, you know and I know that the Senate never had any intention of passing a cap and trade bill.  This is just more Kabuki Theatre Political Loyalty Performance Testing.

The strategy for passing health care insurance bail out:  hoping Democrats in Congress who wanted universal coverage and true reform sicken and die first, and then smear their reputations afterwards-  look at all the old crap on the Kennedy’s they dug up when Ted Kennedy passed, and the smear they did on Carolyn when she thought about asking to be appointed to a Senate seat.  Look at how Martha Coakley, the world’s worst Senate candidate, wouldn’t even bother to commit to a Public Option while running in Massachusetts to replace Ted Kennedy, the ultimate, in- your – face diss of implemented social liberalism.   Social liberalism, as it’s good enough for all of our NATO allies in Afghanistan, but don’t even think about having a non predatory financial market on the medical and mortgage businesses in this country when it comes to protecting citizens who need shelter and medical care. No protection from equity fund vultures and hedge traders more interested in passing bets around on things and services of no real world value other than the top of the pyramid scheme gets the payoff.  No protection from the oil companies expecting us to run mercenaries for mid east oil producers, in perpetuity, on credit and tax cuts for the rich, or they’ll jack up the commodities market in petroleum products and the resulting high gasoline, diesel, and heating oil prices will spike up another recession on top of this one.  

Rep. Massa should fight these outrageous smear charges, and we should have his back.

If the Senate wants their bill, the Senate should PASS THE HOUSE VERSION FIRST and then make a promise they’ll do reconciliation afterwards.  If the White House wants their historic photo op, put the Public Option back in the bill and quit smearing veterans, or they can be another one term wonder of all blow and no show, looking at a Republican controlled Congress their last 2 years.

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edited to add youtube video at 12:45 pm 3/8/10

Have you all noticed how QUIET all the usual suspects have been in the past 48 hours, as if it was coordinated or something ?

Dive !  Dive !

(warning sirens waaahoooowoo  waaahooooowoo  )

Now look, I never keep anything from the crew and I don’t expect them to keep anything from me.  So come on, speak up !  

You make one move to take over this boat and I’ll see that you’re hung.

A fleet boat of the Navy, a submarine with her fighting powers still intact, and you’d take her back to Pearl ?  I don’t believe it.  

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Emanuel, Pelosi Meet in Capitol To Chart Health Care Course Friday 2/26/2010   HuffPo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Rahm Emanuel ventured to the Capitol Friday evening to hash out health care strategy with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a White House aide confirmed.

Senior Hill aides speculated to HuffPost that Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, would bring the message that the House must move first, with a pledge from Senate Democrats that they would follow. It’s hard to make amendments to a law through reconciliation if that law hasn’t been made official yet, they argue.

Pelosi’s office wouldn’t confirm that the meeting, which was still ongoing as of the early evening, was taking place or comment on what Pelosi’s reaction might be. A White House aide said he was unsure what message Emanuel would deliver.  

Hoyer:  House Will Go First on Health Bill  Sunday 2/28/2010   The Hill

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Sunday that the House must pass the Senate bill before fixes to both bills can be approved.

Hoyer is the highest-ranking House Democrat to outline that path forward, which is perceived as a critical concession to Senate Democrats.

“Whether we’re willing or not, we have to go first if we are going to correct thing that the House disagrees with,” Hoyer said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) suggested that it be used last week.  

~Why the Excise Tax Sucks~

In the current Senate version of the Health Insurance Reform Bill, the funding mechanism is being called an “excise tax,”   and it is currently designed to be applied to HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFITS

There’s  4 major things wrong with the Senate version of the bill:

1.  This so called excise tax, which is regressive, hurting lower wage workers more than higher wage earners.

2.  The lack of a public option to provide a guaranteed alternative to the vampire blood sucking of private for profit insurance , and therefore, the lack of universal coverage-   this means insurers are guaranteed to have a rotating pool of “excludables,” perpetrating the caste system and the medical access lottery of the damned.

3.  The lack of universal health care coverage for all, which, aside from the moral implications, therefore still provides a mechanism for all the things wrong with the current cannibalistic system to continue.

4.  The Democrats in the Senate being unable, so far, to be willing to change the suckitudinalness and go for some serious reconciliation with the House.

Today, we’ll look at reasons to get rid of the excise tax.