Your far left wing zealots cannot deal with facts. The republicans never had the votes - the health care measures got watered down WITHIN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY in order to get the moderate votes from Dems who just won seats in Republican states. If you might recall, the Dems won the majority by winning seats in traditionally Republican States.
thats the beauty of the filibuster. it only takes one vote to stop the process. they used it over and over to stall and water down the final bill. when brown got elected in the middle of the health care debate the dems lost the ability to end filibusters. last word on the subject today at least. the market is closing and i have errands to run.
that's how our government is suppose to work. Do you think Reagan got everything he wanted. The dems controlled the house for over 2 decades under Reagan and Bush. Christ man, you act like you took your first civics class today.
Proof Positive that it was the Dems who butchered their own bill, not the Repubs December 21, 2009 Tallying the Health Care Bill's Giveaways (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg) In criticizing the Senate's health care bill today, Sen. John McCain complained of the "Cornhusker kickback," the "Louisiana purchase" and the "Florida flim-flam." McCain was echoing Republican criticism that votes for the bill, as Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said, "have been bought." But what exactly did he mean? Critics say the "Cornhusker kickback" was added to the health care bill to appease Ben Nelson, the Nebraska Democrat (pictured at left) who until this weekend was the final holdout keeping Democrats from getting the 60 votes they needed to overcome filibuster. The deal gives Nelson's home state of Nebraska "a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, meaning federal taxpayers have to kick in an additional $45 million in the first decade," as Politico notes. The "Louisiana Purchase," of course, is the name given to the United States' acquisition of a large swath of what is now the middle of the country in the early 1800s. But within the context of the health bill, it's the name critics have given the inclusion of $100-$300 million in added federal aid for Medicaid recipients in Louisiana, the home state of Sen. Mary Landrieu. (Notes Foxnews.com: "The actual Louisiana Purchase was considerably cheaper.") On his twitter feed, McCain described the "Florida Flim Flam" as "a deal to grandfather Medicare Advantage enrollees in Florida â apprx $5 Billion." That provision is tied to Florida Democrat Bill Nelson, who denies that he negotiated a special deal for Democratic south Florida. Not every provision that critics have deemed a giveaway has a special nickname. The New York Times details how Minnesota Democrat Max Baucus, one of the main authors of the Senate bill, included in the legislation an expansion of Medicare to cover people exposed to asbestos from a Libby, Mont., mine. (Said Baucus in defending the provision: "The people of Libby were poisoned and have been dying for more than a decade.") Also in the bill, the Times notes, is an item that increases Medicare payments to hospitals and doctors in states where half the counties are "frontier counties" -- which means they have small population densities. Those states? Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, meanwhile â who complained that the bill was not liberal enough â secured $10 billion to increase community health centers around the country, including two in his home state. Also in the bill: Additional Medicaid funding for Vermont and Massachusetts; Medicare Advantage protections for New York and Pennsylvania, in addition to Florida; and $100 million for a health care facility/medical school in an unknown state, possibly Pennsylvania or Connecticut. "You'll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged over the weekend. "That's what legislating is all about. It's compromise."
Free Thinker, I'm long Sept-Dec 11 Heating Oil on a swing trade and all of this non-sensical political bantering is keeping me in the trade and suppressing my scalping impulse. My gratitude, thanks.
if you were to watch the frontline special on the process. you will see how the drug companies told Obama specifically and the dems in congress what they could pass and what was going to be in major sections of the bill. The true believers in health care reform were corrupted by the the drug and insurance lobby. the republicans were not players.
The two are not remotely comparable. Bachmann along with probably millions all over the world, belongs to a denomination started by the father of the Protestant movement. He had some harsh words for the Catholic heirarchy in his time, which happened to be 500 years ago. They are interpreted today as meaning that Christians do not need a Pope to stand between them and God and for a man to claim godly infallibility is not supported by Scripture. The church itself is about as mainsteam and uncontroversial as religion gets. Obama, by contrast, was a prominent member of a church pastored by what can charitably be called a madman. By obama's own admission, this lunatic was a mentor and huge influence on obama. His recorded sermons are crazed racist and anti-american rants. Obama was a member for 20 years and exposed his young children to this weekly dose of hate.