Sen. Max Baucus spent the past few months trying to negotiate a compromise health care overhaul package that would have bipartisan support. But when Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, finally released the details of his massive bill on Wednesday, there was no sign of Republican backing.
Many Democrats are worried that Baucus offered far too many concessions to Republicans ”” most notably dropping the idea of a government-run health care plan to compete with private insurers ”” without securing any firm support from across the aisle.
The top selling point of the Baucus bill was supposed to be its bipartisan appeal. Without some Republican support, Baucus’ version could end up adding to the cacophony of competing proposals passed by several committees in the House and Senate.
But why the push to blame the Republicans? The Democrats in both houses could pass the bill — any bill — with a straight party-line vote. The main problem is that the Democrats cannot get consensus among their own party on a bill that gives so much control by the Government over a private industry. Some socialism can be tolerated by a free people, when it truly does benefit the least in society (veterans; the elderly), but not when it attempts such a far reaching control over the lives of every person regardless of age or physical condition. The Democrats in congress (those who are not so full of themselves, such as Pelosi and Reid) know this and are keeping an eye open to the 2010 elections, and know that if they over-reach what the people want, they will be unemployed themselves.
I especially like the $3800 penalty should I decide not to participate. Live Free or Die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I recently spoke to a young Doctor in residency at a retreat. She told me that they were advised by the doctors they were training under to “Get out while you can. If the Democrat’s national health plan goes through there will no longer be a future in this profession.”
She went on to point out that it is virtually impossible to train enough doctors to meet the needs of the 37 to 57 million additional people who will require services. It would take a 20 year program for training doctors to even begin to address the doctor shortage. The result for us would have to be rationed health care, long waits for surgeries and a total depletion of medical resources, supplies and access nationwide; all while forcing the costs to citizens and businesses through the roof.
The rhetoric from Congress regarding health care is similar to their recent propaganda that “we can start looking at buying our drugs much cheaper in Canada,” while failing to explain the consequences of having 304,000,000 Americans buying up the prescription drugs Canada has for its 33 million citizens. No matter how you look at it, the math simply doesn’t work. There are numerous questions to be answered before we plunge off this cliff, and so far, they’re not forthcoming.
I have to confess, I’m in a terrible pickle financially right now. I’ve been buying five HDTVs a month for a couple of years now. At $2000 a pop, it’s really taken its toll on my family’s finances. We’ve spent all our savings, investments and the kids’ college funds. The plastic is at its limit all around, and the banks where we have our three mortgages are sending us nasty notes. So I’m finally realizing there’s a problem here and I need to be responsible.
I’ve gone to Best Buy and worked out a deal: I’m going to get my per-unit cost down to a mere $1000 in exchange for buying 25 units a month. Can you imagine how much money I’ll be saving?! Financial security, here I come!!
Do 50 million people, more or less, in this country really not have health care? Or just no health insurance? I spend a fair amount of time around or public hospital, and occasionally at the VA clinic. There sure seem to be a lot of people in those places getting health care. I think we can assume at least a good number of them don’t have health care.
NPR is carrying the water for the Left again. As #1 pointed out, the democrats can vote for whatever legislation they have the desire to vote for. They hold all the levers of power. They have a majority in the House and the Senate and they have the Executive.
So, what’s with the NPR headline blaming the GOP for not supporting the health care bill? Like the great B.O. said, “We won”. The democrat congress can do what they want. Evidently, the bills that have been presented are so bad that they cannot develop a consensus within their own party. They desperately want to have the political cover of even one Republican voting for this stinker so that they can blame the Republicans when things go bad. Grow up, democrats. You won the election. Do your thing and take the consequences of what you enact.