Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
That will change.
Healthcare reform by just removing two words, 'over 65'
- Thread starter blackascoal
- Start date
cancel2 2022
Canceled
Isn't Medicare supported by people paying into it over a lifetime, if it covered everybody how would it be funded?
It would be funded like any other insurance is funded -- through premiums. Right now you pay into Medicare over your lifetime and you get insurance when you retire but you can't get it until you retire. What I am suggesting is a method of allowing younger people to be insured through Medicare by allowing them to buy in by paying a premium.
cancel2 2022
Canceled
Yes exactly, to hear some on here all you need to do is remove two words and you're done.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
The ACA was passed by reconciliation without republican approval.
Medicare for All, HR 676 .. a FAR superior program .. could have been passed instead the same way. There was nothing left at the table but democrats.
Had democrats done that, the massacre of 2010 would not have happened and republicans would not be dominating the House.
Had democrats taken Medicare for All to the American people, the massacre of 2014 will not happen and republicans will not be set to rule the House and Senate.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
I don't know your circumstances .. but without question, the vast majority of Americans would be paying far less.
Families and individuals will pay less
Currently, health care costs for a typical family of four in the most common health plan offered by employers are an average of $8,584 a year -- $5,114 in premiums and another $3,470 in out-of-pocket medical services, drugs, and supplies. Employers pay an additional $12,144 towards the coverage, for a total cost per family of $20,728 (Milliman Medical Index, www.publications.milliman.com). Fiscal studies by economists Dean Baker (2007) and Gerald Friedman have estimated that under H.R. 676, 95 percent of U.S. households would be paying less than they now for all health care costs.
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/february/summary-hr-676-the-expanded-improved-medicare-for-all-act
It only makes sense that Americans would pay far less than the astronomical rates that we pay today .. and the entire nation would be covered.
The ACA was not passed through reconciliation. What actually happened was the Democrats passed a bill in the Senate with 60 votes after Kennedy died but before Scott Brown was elected. Then the House passed that same bill plus an additional reconciliation bill that amended the Senate bill. The Senate then passed the second bill via reconciliation.
I don't think that Medicare for all could actually be done through reconciliation procedures. Any associated tax increases would probably be fine, but the substantive changes wouldn't.
And if you couldn't use reconcilation, you couldn't pass Mediare for all since not all Democrats supported it.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
I've been hearing that for 3 years.
Democrats claimed Americans would love the ACA when they found out what's in the bill .. 3 years and a midterm wipeout ago.
"We had to pass the bill to find out what's in it" .. as it turns out it seems they had to pass the bill to find out what isn't in it .. like cost control.
Another midterm wipeout is on the way.
Insane politics
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Take a little step back .. HR 676 was never on the table because Obama took it off. Obama got the health care bill THAT HE WANTED.
Russ Feingold: Obama got the health care bill he wanted
http://www.examiner.com/article/russ-feingold-obama-got-the-health-care-bill-he-wanted
Even when republicans stood in the way, Obama could have taken a good bill to the American people and made the midterms into a referendum on healthcare. Americans .. including many republicans, supported single-payer. Many still do.
GOP Congressman: Expanding Single Payer Health Care ‘Is A Great Idea’
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/02/26/1639551/gop-congressman-single-payer/
In Order To Overturn Obamacare, Republican Pundits Propose Single Payer Healthcare System
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/0...ndits-propose-single-payer-healthcare-system/
13 Republicans Voted To Allow Single-Payer Systems In States
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/31/13-republicans-voted-to-a_n_249026.html
Democrats and Republicans Join Forces for PA Single-Payer
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/m...d-republicans-join-forces-for-pa-single-payer
Republicans for single-payer health care
December 9, 2009
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/republicans_for_single-payer_h.html
GOP Attorney General Suing Over Obamacare Supports Single-Payer
http://www.healthcare-now.org/gop-attorney-general-suing-over-obamacare-supports-single-payer
I Am A Republican Doctor and I Favor Single Payer
http://www.utahhealthcareinitiative.com/blog/i-am-republican-doctor-and-i-favor-single-payer
Republicans for Single Payer Health Care
http://www.correntewire.com/republicans_single_payer_health_care
Single-payer was never fought for by democrats. Not once. Obama, who never wanted single-payer, simply took it iff the table and told democrats it wasn't possible .. and they fell for that bullshit.
Now it's time for democrats to pay for Obama's deeply unpopular and seriously clusterfucked corporatist health insurers bill .. AGAIN.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
I read everything I post .. much of it archived on disk because I refer to it for op/eds and Green Party political discussions.
Perhaps this is what you're looking for .. but then again ..
Pass broad Medicare For All with Budget Reconciliation
" ... the Medicare buy-in compromise is directly related to the budget. All it does is allow people to buy into an existing government program, not create a new program. Since this is the case, the bill would not need to be split, and could be packaged entirely into reconciliation. So we can pass this with 51 votes and tell Lieberman, Nelson, and friends to kiss our asses."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/...d-Medicare-For-All-with-Budget-Reconciliation
Radical New Idea: Medicare Buy-In For Everyone
You only need 51 senators to pass a bill through reconciliation. But theoretically the main problem with reconciliation is that it can only be used for legislation that affects the budget. So, a public option or Medicare buy-in would definitely affect the budget, but getting rid of insurance practices like barring people for pre-existing conditions or denying them care through rescission could not be handled through reconciliation.
So, if you just want one bill you can't go through reconciliation because you can't keep many of the important elements of health care reform. That's conventional wisdom. But here is a radical new idea - how about we just do Medicare buy-in for anyone who wants it and not bother to pass any regulations about pre-existing conditions or rescission or anything else.
But what about all of the people on private health insurance who are getting screwed by those companies? Well, I guess they'd have to buy in to Medicare, wouldn't they? And if the private insurance companies lost enough customers, my guess is they would all of a sudden see the wisdom in actually providing better insurance. I believe they call that competition.
Medicare does not engage in any of the abuses that we are trying to address with this bill anyway. They don't turn people away. They actually treat you if you're sick. They don't take 20% of your money as profit for their executives and shareholders. It's a policy that a lot of people might feel very comfortable going with.
We know the Republicans can't possibly object to Medicare because they spent the last several months pretending to defend it against what they said were attacks by the Democrats. Great, we're on your side - Medicare it is.
This has the advantage of tremendous simplicity instead of the bureaucratic monstrosity that is the current bill with all of its regulations, mandates and loopholes. The government doesn't have to create a whole new entity. People pay the premiums for this Medicare buy-in, so it's deficit neutral.
And since it can get passed through reconciliation where you only need 51 votes, you remove all of the political headaches. Joe Lieberman can go ... himself. Ben Nelson, you are free to vote with your Republican friends. Olympia Snowe, you get to keep whatever perks you had within the Republican Party. Blanche Lincoln, you are free to be as conservative as you like in Arkansas (see how that works out for you).
Chris Matthews said the other day that passing health care reform through reconciliation would be Armageddon. Why? George Bush passed many bills through reconciliation, including the largest tax cuts in history. He got most of his legislative accomplishments in 2001-2005 when he had only 50 or 51 senators. And there was no Armageddon. In fact, nary a peep was heard.
There are only two groups who lose in this. The insurance companies that are going to see most of their customers walk away when they see how badly they've been getting screwed all of these years. And the Obama administration because they will be all out of excuses on why they can't get real reform passed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/radical-new-idea-medicare_b_396749.html
Could be that you're just not interested in any thought that doesn't come from Obama.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Thank you brother.
I respectfully disagree that it couldn't have passed, with reconciliation or without it.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
I'd call this the proverbial 'nail in the coffin' of the healthcare debate.
Hospital Prices No Longer Secret As New Data Reveals Bewildering System, Staggering Cost Differences
When a patient arrives at Bayonne Hospital Center in New Jersey requiring treatment for the respiratory ailment known as COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, she faces an official price tag of $99,690.
Less than 30 miles away in the Bronx, N.Y., the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center charges only $7,044 for the same treatment, according to a massive federal database of national health care costs made public on Wednesday.
Americans have long become accustomed to bewilderment and anxiety when confronting health care bills. The new database underscores why, revealing the perplexing assortment of prices for medical care, with the details of bills seemingly untethered to any graspable principle.
Even within the same metropolitan area, hospitals charge prices that differ by staggering degrees for the same procedures. People without health insurance pay vastly higher costs for care when less expensive options are often available nearby. Virtually everyone who seeks health care winds up paying inflated prices in one form or another as these stark disparities in price sow inefficiencies throughout the market.
While this basic picture has emerged as the consensus reality among health care experts, their evidence has been primarily anecdotal. Hospitals have protected their price lists -- documents known as charge masters -- as closely guarded secrets.
Their prices are secret no more.
The database released on Wednesday by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services lays out for the first time and in voluminous detail how much the vast majority of American hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures billed to Medicare. The database -- which covers claims filed within fiscal year 2011 -- spans 163,065 individual charges recorded at 3,337 hospitals located in 306 metropolitan areas.
The Obama administration shared the data in advance with The Huffington Post, The New York Times and The Washington Post. What emerges through a preliminary analysis is a snapshot of an incoherent system in which prices for critical medical services vary seemingly at random -- from state to state, region to region and hospital to hospital.
These price differences impose a uniquely punishing burden on the estimated 49 million Americans who have no health insurance, experts say. They are the only ones who see on their bill the dollar amounts listed on these official price lists. Yet these same prices effectively shape what nearly everyone pays for health care, because they determine how much private health insurance companies must surrender in reimbursement for services. That in turn influences the size of the premiums that insurance companies charge their customers.
Obama administration officials declined to characterize the causes of these gaping disparities in price, leaving unclear whether they reflect some form of malevolence -- profiteering by some institutions or price-rigging -- or rather more nebulous factors, such as varying estimates about the underlying costs of providing services.
[Click here to search the database.]
---
How is it possible that two hospitals in close proximity would set prices as differently as Bayonne Hospital Center in New Jersey and the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in New York? It's partly a relic of how hospitals used to operate and partly reflects their strategies to maximize revenues in ways that don't have a direct connection to the cost of the care they provide any individual patient.
The charges are the prices hospitals establish themselves for the services they provide. Although Medicare and Medicaid don't base their payment rates on these figures, private health insurance companies typically do, which means they usually pay more for the same health care than the government does. That translates into higher premiums for people with insurance. And uninsured people are expected to pay the full list price or a discount from that number, which tends to mean they pay more than anyone else.
The new Medicare database is replete with examples of inexplicably high prices and wide variations between hospitals in the same geographic area. The peculiar disorganization of the American health care system is evident by looking at just a few instances.
In the New York metro area, Bayonne Hospital Center -- part of a chain called CarePoint Healthcare -- charges the highest prices for several types of procedures, including COPD treatment, among the regional hospitals reviewed by HuffPost. Its price for that treatment runs four times the average in the New York area, according to the database. Medicare -- the government health care program for older people and people with disabilities -- paid an average of $6,826 for these same treatments within the New York area -- or less than 7 percent of Bayonne Hospital Center's charge.
Major joint replacement surgery at the hospital comes in at $155,769, which is almost three times the local average and more than nine times the price at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx. Medicare paid an average $18,944 in that area.
---
"It would be hard for a hospital -- unless there's a justified reason -- to be able to preserve a large margin over what its otherwise equal competitors charge," Huckman said. "If someone knows the amount that even the most advantaged payer reimburses a hospital for a particular service and they can take that in with their own bill, I think that gives a pretty powerful opportunity for that customer to interact with the organization and say, 'Why is my number so different?'"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/hospital-prices-cost-differences_n_3232678.html?1367985666
Medicare for all Americans was the easy answer for America's healthcare crisis.
This information is just being revealed to the public, but the Obama Administration had this information when it walked away from the easy solution and opted for a corporatist nightmare instead.
Hospital Prices No Longer Secret As New Data Reveals Bewildering System, Staggering Cost Differences
When a patient arrives at Bayonne Hospital Center in New Jersey requiring treatment for the respiratory ailment known as COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, she faces an official price tag of $99,690.
Less than 30 miles away in the Bronx, N.Y., the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center charges only $7,044 for the same treatment, according to a massive federal database of national health care costs made public on Wednesday.
Americans have long become accustomed to bewilderment and anxiety when confronting health care bills. The new database underscores why, revealing the perplexing assortment of prices for medical care, with the details of bills seemingly untethered to any graspable principle.
Even within the same metropolitan area, hospitals charge prices that differ by staggering degrees for the same procedures. People without health insurance pay vastly higher costs for care when less expensive options are often available nearby. Virtually everyone who seeks health care winds up paying inflated prices in one form or another as these stark disparities in price sow inefficiencies throughout the market.
While this basic picture has emerged as the consensus reality among health care experts, their evidence has been primarily anecdotal. Hospitals have protected their price lists -- documents known as charge masters -- as closely guarded secrets.
Their prices are secret no more.
The database released on Wednesday by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services lays out for the first time and in voluminous detail how much the vast majority of American hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures billed to Medicare. The database -- which covers claims filed within fiscal year 2011 -- spans 163,065 individual charges recorded at 3,337 hospitals located in 306 metropolitan areas.
The Obama administration shared the data in advance with The Huffington Post, The New York Times and The Washington Post. What emerges through a preliminary analysis is a snapshot of an incoherent system in which prices for critical medical services vary seemingly at random -- from state to state, region to region and hospital to hospital.
These price differences impose a uniquely punishing burden on the estimated 49 million Americans who have no health insurance, experts say. They are the only ones who see on their bill the dollar amounts listed on these official price lists. Yet these same prices effectively shape what nearly everyone pays for health care, because they determine how much private health insurance companies must surrender in reimbursement for services. That in turn influences the size of the premiums that insurance companies charge their customers.
Obama administration officials declined to characterize the causes of these gaping disparities in price, leaving unclear whether they reflect some form of malevolence -- profiteering by some institutions or price-rigging -- or rather more nebulous factors, such as varying estimates about the underlying costs of providing services.
[Click here to search the database.]
---
How is it possible that two hospitals in close proximity would set prices as differently as Bayonne Hospital Center in New Jersey and the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in New York? It's partly a relic of how hospitals used to operate and partly reflects their strategies to maximize revenues in ways that don't have a direct connection to the cost of the care they provide any individual patient.
The charges are the prices hospitals establish themselves for the services they provide. Although Medicare and Medicaid don't base their payment rates on these figures, private health insurance companies typically do, which means they usually pay more for the same health care than the government does. That translates into higher premiums for people with insurance. And uninsured people are expected to pay the full list price or a discount from that number, which tends to mean they pay more than anyone else.
The new Medicare database is replete with examples of inexplicably high prices and wide variations between hospitals in the same geographic area. The peculiar disorganization of the American health care system is evident by looking at just a few instances.
In the New York metro area, Bayonne Hospital Center -- part of a chain called CarePoint Healthcare -- charges the highest prices for several types of procedures, including COPD treatment, among the regional hospitals reviewed by HuffPost. Its price for that treatment runs four times the average in the New York area, according to the database. Medicare -- the government health care program for older people and people with disabilities -- paid an average of $6,826 for these same treatments within the New York area -- or less than 7 percent of Bayonne Hospital Center's charge.
Major joint replacement surgery at the hospital comes in at $155,769, which is almost three times the local average and more than nine times the price at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx. Medicare paid an average $18,944 in that area.
---
"It would be hard for a hospital -- unless there's a justified reason -- to be able to preserve a large margin over what its otherwise equal competitors charge," Huckman said. "If someone knows the amount that even the most advantaged payer reimburses a hospital for a particular service and they can take that in with their own bill, I think that gives a pretty powerful opportunity for that customer to interact with the organization and say, 'Why is my number so different?'"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/hospital-prices-cost-differences_n_3232678.html?1367985666
Medicare for all Americans was the easy answer for America's healthcare crisis.
This information is just being revealed to the public, but the Obama Administration had this information when it walked away from the easy solution and opted for a corporatist nightmare instead.
BAC...please...don't jump in the teabagger fire and research before you repeat inane talking points and misquotes.
The actual quote from Pelosi is:
That's got a far different meaning than what you and others are implying; and Pelosi told the truth. If we take all the naysayers, critics, misinformation, and outright lies on both sides of the discussion out of the equation, let the ACA get fully implemented, we'll then be able to see what needs fixing.
Until then, we just need to STFU.
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
except the numbers you have provided don't back that up....the numbers are still there for everyone to see.....you have stated that it costs $8k per person under Medicare.....even under your new numbers that's $12k more than the average family....
I also wonder about your new numbers, given that I pay BC/BS about half what you say a combined employer/employee cost is for premiums......I never suspected that walking in the door and taking the only thing available to me I would be able to get a better deal than some company with 5000 employees......
Here's something else, BAC. I'd like you to read all of it and then comment. This is, btw, from a progressive like me who shares my thoughts.
http://www.winningprogressive.org/d...or-72-days-during-president-obamas-first-term
“The president controlled Congress for two years, and had the opportunity to do everything he wanted to do.”
The statement simply isn’t true.
How did so many people get this so wrong?
I’m guessing that after the election, the media made such a big deal of the fact that Democrats had captured the majority in the Senate (obviously referring to a 51+ majority), I think people became confused. Just as many things changed once Barack Obama became elected, the “new filibuster-proof majority” totaled 60 and somehow, the fact Democrats only captured 59 seats got lost in all the excitement.
Everyone also apparently forgot that Ted Kennedy Collapsed At The Obama Inaugural Luncheon and returned to his home in Massachusetts to recuperate. While the Minnesota seat remained outstanding, because the election results were contested.
When Arlen Spector switched parties, in April, 2009 the media announced that the switch gave “Democrats a filibuster-proof majority”. The statement was only technically true; it was an assessment that assigned the still-contested Minnesota seat (between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken) to Democrats. Perhaps the media did so because Republicans openly admitted contesting the election was a stalling tactic.
Even the swearing-in of Al Franken did not seal the majority of sitting senators because Senator Kennedy was still at home ill, but paid a surprise visit to the Senate to cast a healthcare vote on June 29. Senator Byrd was hospitalized in Mid-May and did not return to the Senate until July 21.
Many emailed to ask why the President had not accomplished more, though I don’t think most people know what the President has accomplished.
Republicans wanted the President to fail
Despite the fact that the President was democratically elected, Republicans launched an all-out attack against the presidency.
Ten days before the inauguration, Rush Limbaugh declared, “I hope he fails.” After the inauguration he would add,
“The dirty little secret … is that every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so; I am willing to say it”
In nothing else, the revelations that Republicans formulated a strategy to cripple the newly-elected President undermines claims that Obama is to blame for the partisan deadlock in Washington.
From the guardian:
A detailed account of January 20 and the plan Republicans worked out to bring down Obama (one hour after the inauguration) is provided by Robert Draper in ‘Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives’…..
Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, .
Kevin McCarthy, was quoted as saying,
“We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.”
And that’s exactly what they did. It is unconscionable that legislators elected to govern and move the country forward chose to allow the economy and Americans to suffer, other than work with the opposition party. And just think, one of the saboteurs is slated to be Vice President of the United States.
Is it me? Millions of Americans remained jobless, while those employed by voters not only refused to work, but lampooned government workers. They work for the government. They are the government! They complain about the President’s failures as if they have no vested interest in or responsibility to the public at large…and the public continues to employ these high-paid, benefit-rich deadbeats. Republicans, like Newt Gingrich, of course, insist that Democrats employ the same tactics, but I challenge anyone to point to a Republican administration that has been completely denied the right to govern for their entire tenure by the Democrats. Every single one of them should be voted out of office.
Guantanamo
In a blatant show of disconnect, many express disappointment that Guantanamo remains opened. In January, 2009 President Obama signed an order to shut down Guantanamo. On May 20, 2009, the Senate passed an amendment (H.R. 2346) by a 90-6 vote to block funds needed for the transfer of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay.
Any disappointment should be with Congress, not to mention that in my own view, people ought to be more concerned about the 2 million Americans who languish in prisons in their own backyard.
The Stimulus
A group of Senators, Republicans and Democrats, led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins who cut billions from the original stimulus. In the interest of bipartisanship (another promise) job-stimulating measures were traded for tax cuts. Despite their public protestations, over a hundred Republicans happily handed out enormous checks.
People behaved as if President Obama was the first president to employ a bailout or a stimulus. When in fact, bailouts and stimulus programs have been employed by one administration after another, Republicans and Democrats, to combat the effects of an economic downturn. Governors across the nation cut public employment rolls when in the past the practice has always been to expand federal employment,
About those Government employees, the debt and the deficit
We emerged from the Great Depression because of a series of public works projects; roads, bridges, tunnels, buildings that created employment. Republicans love to tell how Reagan delivered the country from a depressed economy by implementing the largest tax-cuts in history. What they don’t tell is that the following year, Reagan enacted the largest single tax increase in history, followed by ten additional tax increases. What they don’t tell is that Reagan expanded the federal workforce by nearly a million more employees than President Obama has today.
Under Reagan, the size of the federal government grew by 7% and the federal deficit ballooned to the largest peacetime deficit in history and for all that ballyhoo about the debt ceiling,under Reagan, the debt ceiling was raised 17 times!
According to David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan:
“The plan was to have a strategic deficit that would give.. an argument for cutting back the programs that weren’t desired….one creates deficits so large that absolutely everyone becomes convinced that no more money can be spent….persuade Congress of the necessity of spending reductions by means of an immense deficit….”
The idea that the country will implode because the debt is 100% of GDP is sheer poppycock. That isn’t to say the debt should be ignored, but to instill fear and anxiety in the public is a republican strategy. The debt to GDP was 122% in 1946. We’re still here.
The Tea Party staged its first rally just 38 days after President Obama took office; ten days after he signed the Stimulus. While they had remained completely silent when Bush signed the Wall Street Bailout, the prescription drug expansion, massive tax cuts and committed the country to two wars.
To me, the reaction to the Stimulus defied common sense. TARP had been for the bailout of Wall Street, while the Stimulus was directed at Main Street. Go figure. And while economists, pundits, Republicans and some Democrats screeched that the Stimulus was too costly, in the end they would all concede that it was just too small.
Healthcare
From Ben Smith of Politico:
South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, the founder of Conservatives for Patients Rights told 104 participants on a conference call, which was organized to coincide with National Tea Party Patriot’s protests:
“….if we can hold it back (delay a vote) until we go home for a month’s break in August,” members of Congress will hear from “outraged” constituents….Senators and Congressmen will come back in September afraid to vote against the American people…If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him”.
The outbursts and demonstrations at town hall meetings across the country were clearly coordinated.
Congress
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared,
“Our top priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.”
If the President was in favor of it, they were against it…even when they were their ideas. They refused to do anything to help heal the economy or unemployment for fear the President would get credit for any improvements, while they harped that the President promised the unemployment rate would not exceed 8%. But the President never said that…economists did! And it was an assessment made on the Stimulus as presented, not one sliced and diced with tax cuts.
The Senate had 60 sitting Democrats only from September 24, 2009 to February 4, 2010, the day on which Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts was sworn in.
Senate Calendar January 21, 2009 – December 31, 2009
17 days out of session from September 24 thru December 31
Senate Calendar January 1, 2010 – February 4, 2010
12 days out of session from January 1 thru February 4
From September 24, 2009 to February 4, 2010, the President had a filibuster-proof majority for 72 days.
http://www.winningprogressive.org/d...or-72-days-during-president-obamas-first-term
“The president controlled Congress for two years, and had the opportunity to do everything he wanted to do.”
The statement simply isn’t true.
How did so many people get this so wrong?
I’m guessing that after the election, the media made such a big deal of the fact that Democrats had captured the majority in the Senate (obviously referring to a 51+ majority), I think people became confused. Just as many things changed once Barack Obama became elected, the “new filibuster-proof majority” totaled 60 and somehow, the fact Democrats only captured 59 seats got lost in all the excitement.
Everyone also apparently forgot that Ted Kennedy Collapsed At The Obama Inaugural Luncheon and returned to his home in Massachusetts to recuperate. While the Minnesota seat remained outstanding, because the election results were contested.
When Arlen Spector switched parties, in April, 2009 the media announced that the switch gave “Democrats a filibuster-proof majority”. The statement was only technically true; it was an assessment that assigned the still-contested Minnesota seat (between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken) to Democrats. Perhaps the media did so because Republicans openly admitted contesting the election was a stalling tactic.
Even the swearing-in of Al Franken did not seal the majority of sitting senators because Senator Kennedy was still at home ill, but paid a surprise visit to the Senate to cast a healthcare vote on June 29. Senator Byrd was hospitalized in Mid-May and did not return to the Senate until July 21.
Many emailed to ask why the President had not accomplished more, though I don’t think most people know what the President has accomplished.
Republicans wanted the President to fail
Despite the fact that the President was democratically elected, Republicans launched an all-out attack against the presidency.
Ten days before the inauguration, Rush Limbaugh declared, “I hope he fails.” After the inauguration he would add,
“The dirty little secret … is that every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so; I am willing to say it”
In nothing else, the revelations that Republicans formulated a strategy to cripple the newly-elected President undermines claims that Obama is to blame for the partisan deadlock in Washington.
From the guardian:
A detailed account of January 20 and the plan Republicans worked out to bring down Obama (one hour after the inauguration) is provided by Robert Draper in ‘Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives’…..
Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, .
Kevin McCarthy, was quoted as saying,
“We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.”
And that’s exactly what they did. It is unconscionable that legislators elected to govern and move the country forward chose to allow the economy and Americans to suffer, other than work with the opposition party. And just think, one of the saboteurs is slated to be Vice President of the United States.
Is it me? Millions of Americans remained jobless, while those employed by voters not only refused to work, but lampooned government workers. They work for the government. They are the government! They complain about the President’s failures as if they have no vested interest in or responsibility to the public at large…and the public continues to employ these high-paid, benefit-rich deadbeats. Republicans, like Newt Gingrich, of course, insist that Democrats employ the same tactics, but I challenge anyone to point to a Republican administration that has been completely denied the right to govern for their entire tenure by the Democrats. Every single one of them should be voted out of office.
Guantanamo
In a blatant show of disconnect, many express disappointment that Guantanamo remains opened. In January, 2009 President Obama signed an order to shut down Guantanamo. On May 20, 2009, the Senate passed an amendment (H.R. 2346) by a 90-6 vote to block funds needed for the transfer of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay.
Any disappointment should be with Congress, not to mention that in my own view, people ought to be more concerned about the 2 million Americans who languish in prisons in their own backyard.
The Stimulus
A group of Senators, Republicans and Democrats, led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins who cut billions from the original stimulus. In the interest of bipartisanship (another promise) job-stimulating measures were traded for tax cuts. Despite their public protestations, over a hundred Republicans happily handed out enormous checks.
People behaved as if President Obama was the first president to employ a bailout or a stimulus. When in fact, bailouts and stimulus programs have been employed by one administration after another, Republicans and Democrats, to combat the effects of an economic downturn. Governors across the nation cut public employment rolls when in the past the practice has always been to expand federal employment,
About those Government employees, the debt and the deficit
We emerged from the Great Depression because of a series of public works projects; roads, bridges, tunnels, buildings that created employment. Republicans love to tell how Reagan delivered the country from a depressed economy by implementing the largest tax-cuts in history. What they don’t tell is that the following year, Reagan enacted the largest single tax increase in history, followed by ten additional tax increases. What they don’t tell is that Reagan expanded the federal workforce by nearly a million more employees than President Obama has today.
Under Reagan, the size of the federal government grew by 7% and the federal deficit ballooned to the largest peacetime deficit in history and for all that ballyhoo about the debt ceiling,under Reagan, the debt ceiling was raised 17 times!
According to David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan:
“The plan was to have a strategic deficit that would give.. an argument for cutting back the programs that weren’t desired….one creates deficits so large that absolutely everyone becomes convinced that no more money can be spent….persuade Congress of the necessity of spending reductions by means of an immense deficit….”
The idea that the country will implode because the debt is 100% of GDP is sheer poppycock. That isn’t to say the debt should be ignored, but to instill fear and anxiety in the public is a republican strategy. The debt to GDP was 122% in 1946. We’re still here.
The Tea Party staged its first rally just 38 days after President Obama took office; ten days after he signed the Stimulus. While they had remained completely silent when Bush signed the Wall Street Bailout, the prescription drug expansion, massive tax cuts and committed the country to two wars.
To me, the reaction to the Stimulus defied common sense. TARP had been for the bailout of Wall Street, while the Stimulus was directed at Main Street. Go figure. And while economists, pundits, Republicans and some Democrats screeched that the Stimulus was too costly, in the end they would all concede that it was just too small.
Healthcare
From Ben Smith of Politico:
South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, the founder of Conservatives for Patients Rights told 104 participants on a conference call, which was organized to coincide with National Tea Party Patriot’s protests:
“….if we can hold it back (delay a vote) until we go home for a month’s break in August,” members of Congress will hear from “outraged” constituents….Senators and Congressmen will come back in September afraid to vote against the American people…If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him”.
The outbursts and demonstrations at town hall meetings across the country were clearly coordinated.
Congress
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared,
“Our top priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.”
If the President was in favor of it, they were against it…even when they were their ideas. They refused to do anything to help heal the economy or unemployment for fear the President would get credit for any improvements, while they harped that the President promised the unemployment rate would not exceed 8%. But the President never said that…economists did! And it was an assessment made on the Stimulus as presented, not one sliced and diced with tax cuts.
The Senate had 60 sitting Democrats only from September 24, 2009 to February 4, 2010, the day on which Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts was sworn in.
Senate Calendar January 21, 2009 – December 31, 2009
17 days out of session from September 24 thru December 31
Senate Calendar January 1, 2010 – February 4, 2010
12 days out of session from January 1 thru February 4
From September 24, 2009 to February 4, 2010, the President had a filibuster-proof majority for 72 days.