Let's remember, the obstructionists as of today are Democrats. The question has to be asked, why did we bust our buns this fall and reach deep in our pockets to put a party in power that is incapable of governing and delivering what the American people asked for? Would someone connected with the party or our elected officials please try to answer this?

Is anybody every going to mention that the new CBO score for the house bill is deficit neutral and actually creates a $6 billion surplus? Has Wyden not talked to the CBO in a few days?

http://waysandmeans.house.gov

@Dave

Over a The Daily Dish, they suggested that instead of taxing the rich, why don't we means test them off the gov't dole. No medicare, no farm subsidies, no mtg interest ded, etc.

Here's Wyden's comments today, touts his plan for choice, including public option, says he's ready to stay on in Aug. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32061507#32035725

This is a farce. Taxing the rich to pay for the underclass getting health care. What a load. How is health care provided in, say, France.

From the taxes collected. Simple. Why not ask is Social Security broke. No. Taxes (FICA) were raised seven times during Ronald the Clowns term to save his ass. More precisely the Reagan tax cuts. Two Hundred Billion Dollars per year in debt service is being paid to retire that debt. Are the rich paying for that?

Why don't we bring the troops home from oversea and save over $100 billion annually?

End corporate welfare and cut another $100 billion, or more?

Let's get more midwives in the system and cut healthcare cost by $20 billion annualy.

Lots to be done, but has anyone what it takes to even mention bringing the troops home for starters?

Doubt it!

I enjoy reading BlueOregon. It is fun to see people spend time and effort throwing around the blame. There is plenty of it to spread, in all directions.

I often wonder why we don't discuss the solutions. The first step with healthcare reform, IMO, will be to define the problem. Our politicians of both stripes are not doing that. They are merely taking up positions that will allow them to satisfy the folks who got them where they are and to keep their current positions of power.

My current post suggests that defining the problem gets us half way to a solution. Just knowing what is wrong will put us in a better position to discuss answers/solutions.

We may disagree about what is to be done and how, but we should be able to get a consensus on what's wrong. I would love feedback to mystatement of the problem. I actually listen to both Democrats and Republicans.

I think Kurt Schrader is an unofficial member of the Blue Dog obstructionist coalition. He is unwillling to commit to passing a health care bill or cooperating with president's deadline. I think his office needs some phone calls.

D.C. Phone: (202) 225-5711

Salem District Office Phone: (503) 588-9100

"Lots to be done, but has anyone what it takes to even mention bringing the troops home for starters?"

You must have just joined this debate. Bringing the troops home, ending empire building and cutting the bloated military budget are among the issues that have been raised many times to cut back on government waste.

Strong criticism here of Howard Dean and Obama's health plan.

From Single Payer Action (http://singlepayeraction.org/index.php) website:

On Single Payer, Himmelstein Says Howard Dean is a Liar

Dr. David Himmelstein says Dr. Howard Dean is lying about the Obama health care proposal.

Himmelstein is a founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dean is the former head of the Democratic National Committee and is making the television talk show rounds promoting Obama’s health care reform.

Himmelstein says that Dean is portraying Obamacare as something it isn’t.

It isn’t single payer – as Dean said it is.

And it doesn’t give Americans the option to opt into a single payer system – Medicare – as Dean said it does – most recently last week on Democracy Now.

“He’s a liar,” Himmelstein told Single Payer Action yesterday.

Dean told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman last week that Obama’s public option plan is best thought of as Medicare or single payer.

“For the average American, they should best think of it as Medicare,” Dean said.

According to Dean, under the Obama plan, the American people will have a choice to opt into a single payer system.

“Look, you decide for yourself,” Dean said. “We’re going to allow people under sixty-five to sign up for what people over sixty-five have. And you make the choice.”

Dean said that the Obama plan will give Americans the choice “between whether they would like a single payer for themselves and their families or whether they would not.”

One problem: Obama’s plan is not single payer.

Another problem: It’s not like Medicare.

“He’s a liar,” Himmelstein says.

“He knows that the public option plan is not single payer and he says it is to try and confuse people,” Himmelstein said. “He goes on Democracy Now and other shows and says that people can buy into Medicare when he knows that what is in the plan is not that.”

“Medicare doesn’t have to compete,” Himmelstein said. “That’s why it’s so efficient.”

And it’s definitely not single payer.

Himmelstein says that the Obama plan would mandate that people buy insurance from competing private plans – and one denuded public plan.

The private health insurance companies would cherry pick the young healthy patients, while the sick older patients would opt into the public plan – making the public plan unsustainable.

Himmelstein says the upcoming Congressional vote on the Obama health care reform has little significance because it does not represent fundamental reform.

“It’s like giving aspirin to a patient who has cancer,” Himmelstein said. “Instead of asking – what can we do to treat your cancer?”

Himmelstein says that when the time comes to vote on the Obama health plan, members of Congress should abstain.

Jeff,

While it is obviously true that there have been many recent spending initiatives that have also had massive costs, that does not in any way imply that spending $100 billion dollars a year on health care is justifiable. That's like arguing that spending $600 to fly to Las Vegas makes sense, since that's how much you paid your landlord this month.

I won't argue the merits or the demerits of the spending initiatives you mentioned (since they are besides the point), but if you're going to have a thread about health care reform, perhaps it would be helpful to weigh the pros and cons of the policy, rather than compare apples to oranges.

"I won't argue the merits or the demerits of the spending initiatives you mentioned (since they are besides the point), but if you're going to have a thread about health care reform, perhaps it would be helpful to weigh the pros and cons of the policy, rather than compare apples to oranges."

Among the pros for proper health care reform are: (1) It is the moral and humane thing to do; (2) It is ethically correct; and (3) It is part of a sound national policy for reasons of economics and a stable and strong society.

Otto von Bismarck, one of Europe's most staunch conservatives recognized the third point more than a century ago. Winston Churchill, another conservative, agreed and worked for what is now Britain's national health service plan. The problem here in the United States is our continuing conversion to fascism (according to Mussolini's definition) where health care and medical services are seen as profit centers for corporations with no relevance to humanity.

We could add a fourth point. Health care reform, if it provides for all citizens, would reduce the hypocrisy that is attendant when so many people recite the Pledge of Allegiance. How does "... one nation, ..., indivisible..." square with an attitude of "them and us?" And, what about "liberty and justice for all" when people have little or no liberty because they suffer from economic injustice or misfortune?

Jeff: The annual US budget was $2.66 trillion in 2008. I suspect Americans would be less alarmed by the cost of "Obamacare" if they knew it was just 3.75% of the budget.

The President just patted himself on the back saying that his administration has taken steps to reduce the deficit by $2.2T over ten years, from what it otherwise would have been had they not taken certain measures. In other words, without the "$1T$ health plan" that reduction could instead be $3.2T, a 50% improvement. Hardly an insignificant sum.

Recently at a townhall, when a woman asked whether she would have been able to get a pacemaker for her ninety-nine-year-old mother, Obama responded by saying her mother could have just taken painkillers. This illustrates what a lot of people have started to realize about Obama: He’s a moron.

That’s why his health care plans are not winning popular support; from Obama’s handling of the economy people know he’s a moron and they know health care will only be made worse by having a moron fiddle with it. They worry if they let Obama loose in a hospital, he’ll eat all the lollipops, chew on the wiring, and get a bio-hazard bucket stuck on his head. And if the moron Obama chases a ball into traffic, the White House has a spare moron, Biden, waiting. That’s why we have to keep health care out of governments hands: Government is full of morons who couldn’t make in the private sector just waiting to get their stupid on everything. You don’t want your life in their hands.

Bush's wrongs don't make a right. Any mishmash of health care reform is bound to leave the door open for more of the pharmaco-industrial complex cartel to sink its meathooks in more taxpayers. Forcing people to pay a penalty because they can't afford healthcare in the first place is not democratic or progressive--it is regressive policy of the worst kind, a tax on being alive.

@ Vic

That's the best you can come up with as a right wing troll. Name-calling??

You want us all to place our lives in the hands of corporate CEOs who take 30% of our health care dollars for their bonuses, stock holders, and profit, while they deny sick people their claims. It's so comical that none of your GOP officials have turned down their govt. run health care,and your candidate John McCain has had govt. health care for his entire life.

Beyond economics we need an argument for health care security. In the U.S. citizens 65 and older, politicians, military, disabled, govt. workers, have an entitlement for health care. The citizens who pay this have no entitlement. They are, and should feel, very insecure, and a sense of injustice, that they are required to pay for the public option for the entire elderly population and for the very politicians who want to deny them a health care entitlement. I have a sister in law in her 50s, single, who is going to lose her health care and cancer treatment because she is too ill to work. She's been paying all her life for Mitch McConnell and his ilk to have a cadillac health care plan, but she is supposed to die quietly because she doesn't have Mitch McConnell's entitlement to health care.

"She's been paying all her life for Mitch McConnell and his ilk to have a cadillac health care plan, but she is supposed to die quietly because she doesn't have Mitch McConnell's entitlement to health care."

It's a myth that the Federal Employees Health Plan, the one that people in Congress, federal employees and retirees have is a "cadillac health plan." As far as most plans are concerned, you would be better with no plan, assuming you could find a doctor who will take you on a cash-for-service basis. If you have some health problems, some of these plans could be helpful and be worth the cost, but if you're unlucky enough to be afflicted by some illness that is not adequately covered you could be in for some hefty bills - and maybe join the many people who became medical bankrupts.

There are some plans, such as Kaiser, that work out well, but they are not universally available.

Probably people in Congress get extra courtesies when they go to medical facilities, but for most federal employees and retirees the plans aren't Cadillac standard - maybe Chevy.

" As far as most plans are concerned, you would be better with no plan, assuming you could find a doctor who will take you on a cash-for-service basis."

That should have read: ." As far as most plans are concerned, you would be better with no plan, assuming you are in relatively good health or could find a doctor who will take you on a cash-for-service basis for minor problems."

What bothers me about this debate is the attitude some have that we should go full speed ahead and not listen to the details, and how DARE any Democrat try to win Republican votes.

Report today that if a bill comes to the floor, Ted Kennedy will try very hard to come to the floor and vote on it IF he has the energy.

If either Sen. Kennedy or Byrd (both with severe health problems) is unable to vote, then Democrats alone will not pass anything in the Senate.

And is the House plan perfect, or could it possibly cause problems for states like Oregon in current form?

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/07/oregon_and_the_paradox_of_effi.html

To his credit, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., succeeded in adding language to the House bill so it provides a greater bonus to states such as Oregon, Washington, Minnesota and Iowa that provide high-quality care at lower cost. That bonus, however, would not be big enough to cover the overall loss to those states.

In an interview with The Oregonian earlier this month, Blumenauer expressed frustration with the larger states' disincentive to change the status quo.

"The simple truth is," he said, "if the practice patterns in metropolitan Portland were applied nationwide, Americans would get better health care and we wouldn't have a Medicare funding crisis."

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Seems like no one wants to talk about Earl B. or Peter DeFazio on this issue--why, because name calling wouldn't work?

Is Schrader really a Blue Dog (not what he told a local audience)or could it be that he has the same concerns about the House bill that Earl B. has?

I'm old enough to remember when LBJ was President. From way back then I have been skeptical of anyone saying "We have a great idea, therefore it will work if only people don't ask tough questions".

Call it heresy if you wish, but I prefer a bill with all the details ironed out than a bill based on peer pressure "we must pass this wording!".