Dems Reportedly Eyeing Companion Health Care Legislation to Win Approval

[Leganfuh]

FOXNews.com

- January 23, 2010
Dems Reportedly Eyeing Companion Health Care Legislation to Win Approval

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reportedly are considering a new list of changes to the Senate health care reform bill that could be passed separately as a way to advance the suddenly stalled overhaul of the health care system.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reportedly are considering a new list of changes to the Senate health care reform bill that could be passed separately as a way to advance the suddenly stalled overhaul of the health care system.

If such changes are passed in a separate piece of legislation, it could make the current Senate health care bill acceptable to enough liberal House members to pass it, allowing Democrats to achieve their goal of sweeping health care reform, Politico reported.

But the move also could spark resentment toward the party for pushing through the same health plan that some have argued voters in Massachusetts rejected in the closely watched election of Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown, who had pledged to block the Senate bill.

The House and Senate already have passed separate versions of President Obama's reform package, but the differences would need to be reconciled and voted on again for joint legislation to become law. Brown's victory cost Senate Democrats the 60-vote majority needed to approve changes, and Pelosi said Thursday she did not have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill as is.

Neither Reid nor Pelosi know if their members will support the separate legislation strategy, but Pelosi plans to present the list of changes to her caucus next week, sources told Politico.

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who got health legislation through the Senate's health committee last year after the death of his friend, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, said Obama and lawmakers could "maybe take a breather for a month, six weeks."

Despite Dodd's comments, both Pelosi and Reid insist the health care legislation will go forward but haven't publicly said how.

House Republican leader John Boehner said Brown's victory has sent a loud warning to Democrats.

"For the better part of those nine months, Democrats in Washington have been focused on this government takeover of health care that working families just can't afford and want nothing to do with," Boehner said in his party's radio and Internet address Saturday.

Just a week ago the health legislation had appeared on the cusp of passage after Obama threw himself into marathon negotiations with congressional leaders to work out differences between the separate health care reform bills passed by the House and Senate.

"There are things that have to get done. This is our best chance to do it. We can't keep on putting this off," Obama said Friday at a town hall meeting in Elyria, Ohio. "I am not going to walk away just because it's hard."

Obama seemed to pull back from a suggestion he made Wednesday that lawmakers unite behind the elements of the legislation everyone can agree on. Obama said that approach presented problems because some of the popular ideas, such as new requirements on insurance companies, couldn't be done without getting many more people insured.

Obama put fixing a broken health care system at the top of his agenda in the 2008 campaign for the presidency, and once elected made it the top priority of his first term. He has faced solid opposition from the Republican minority, which has rolled over into his fellow Democrats in Congress and to growing numbers of voters.

Despite assurances from Obama and his administration, opposition to his plans have grown among people who bought into allegations of higher taxes, unbearable government deficits and serious government meddling in health care.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley told Politico that no decisions have been made but the office is "confident" they will pass health reform legislation this year.

"We are working with the White House and the House to identify our options for doing so. We anticipate further conversations with the administration, the House and our caucus," he said.

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami had a similar response.

"Discussions are ongoing and options are being examined on the best way to move ahead on health insurance reform, but no final decisions have been made," Elshami told Politico. "It is premature to conclude anything except that staff is continuing to work on various options."

[BaldEagle]

I believe the true killing of public support for healthcare came with the Louisiana Purchase, and the Husker Hustle which bought the last votes to get to 60 senators.

One needs only look at the poll numbers for the Massachusetts race to find that Coakley's support all but evaporated following the payoffs stuffed into the senate bill.

[Gneisenau]

I believe the true killing of public support for healthcare came with the Louisiana Purchase, and the Husker Hustle which bought the last votes to get to 60 senators.

One needs only look at the poll numbers for the Massachusetts race to find that Coakley's support all but evaporated following the payoffs stuffed into the senate bill.

Which means that as public outrage fades over the vote buying, we can expect some public support to increase on this. Unless congress does something else stupid that is. However, we can never underestimate the stupidity of congress so the chances that they do just that is pretty good actually.

[BaldEagle]

Oh most certainly time will quell the masses and it will return.

Case in point, In last night speech you heard Cap and Tax raised again in the face of all the reported manipulation of data and subterfuge on the climate data.

[rcmaster1029]

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi ought to be shot in public.

[SMU_Pony]

Can we waterboard them first?

[ElMoIsEviL]

Oh most certainly time will quell the masses and it will return.

Case in point, In last night speech you heard Cap and Tax raised again in the face of all the reported manipulation of data and subterfuge on the climate data.

What manipulation of data and subterfuge. Please elaborate with specifics (all the specifics which you know).

Thank You.

[orangegator]

Martha Coakly ran a terrible campaign. That's why she lost. She just assumed that since she was the democratic candidate, she would win easily. Also, unlike the rest of the country, Massachusetts already has it's own state version of universal health care in place. So, the fact Brown would try to kill national health care would not negatively affect anyone who voted for him.

[ElMoIsEviL]

Martha Coakly ran a terrible campaign. That's why she lost. She just assumed that since she was the democratic candidate, she would win easily. Also, unlike the rest of the country, Massachusetts already has it's own state version of universal health care in place. So, the fact Brown would try to kill national health care would not negatively affect anyone who voted for him.

Since this health care reform no longer has a Public Option, might be best to vote it down. Before you institute any sort of system which forces people to purchase health care coverage from Private entities (Corporatism) you ought to ensure that prices will drop. And the only way to ensure a price drop is to create TRUE competition. True competition would be a Public Option. It would obviously have the impact of cutting into Corporate profits (when it comes to health reform) but at the same time giving affordable health care to all.

So who do you stand with? Corporate Profits or the People? That is essentially the debate. To do nothing means to leave Millions of Americans without coverage. That sounds a tad immoral, and unlike Corporations, we the people tend to be moral.

PS. Unless you're a banking or corporate apologist, Fox News should never be quoted as a source just saying.

[Viperabyss]

I find it quite funny that whenever someone mentions "universal health care", most Americans would get riled up, and say that "if they're entitled to health care, they're also entitled to a new car, a new TV, a new yacht as well!". Ironically, the same group of people who would not spend a single cent on his/her neighbor, would donate thousands of millions of dollars to help oversea countries (Haiti for instance). There are 16,000 children homeless in NYC alone, which is the richest city in the states, yet we pour our money outwards.

[ElMoIsEviL]

I find it quite funny that whenever someone mentions "universal health care", most Americans would get riled up, and say that "if they're entitled to health care, they're also entitled to a new car, a new TV, a new yacht as well!". Ironically, the same group of people who would not spend a single cent on his/her neighbor, would donate thousands of millions of dollars to help oversea countries (Haiti for instance). There are 16,000 children homeless in NYC alone, which is the richest city in the states, yet we pour our money outwards.

Bang on!

[Gneisenau]

I find it quite funny that whenever someone mentions "universal health care", most Americans would get riled up, and say that "if they're entitled to health care, they're also entitled to a new car, a new TV, a new yacht as well!". Ironically, the same group of people who would not spend a single cent on his/her neighbor, would donate thousands of millions of dollars to help oversea countries (Haiti for instance). There are 16,000 children homeless in NYC alone, which is the richest city in the states, yet we pour our money outwards.

it's not so strange to me. Americans don't like government forcing things on us. That doesn't mean we won't choose to give to those in need. I think in general, Americans are really quite generous when it's our choice.

[BaldEagle]

What manipulation of data and subterfuge. Please elaborate with specifics (all the specifics which you know).

Thank You.

A primer on climate gate:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/im...e_analysis.pdf

Lets use only the data that supports our point of view:
Climategate expands - Russians allege data manipulated and excluded to show warming

We'll adjust the data we don't like to fit our view:
ClimateGate: Was Data Faked? - Megan McArdle

Pick the parts of science we agree with and discard the rest:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/asse...0Critique1.pdf

Find something that doesn't fit our view we can adjust it and then go back to delete the real data so that nobody will challenge the finding:
The Deleted Portion of the Briffa Reconstruction « Climate Audit

We'll design the program so that no matter what data is input you get the same answer.
Climate-Change Researchers Admit Their Data Is 'Garbage'

For global-warming advocates, there is an additional problem: The aggregated data appear to have been constructed to show an increase in temperatures. CBS' Declan McCullagh finds that the computer code contains programmer-written notes addressed to themselves or future people who will be working with the program. The notes include these revealing instructions: "Apply a VERY ARTIFICIAL correction for decline!!" and "Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend - so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!"
The programmers apparently had to try at least a couple of adjustments before they could get their aggregated data to show an increase in temperatures.

May be a few years since I was in school (well maybe a few decades), however, last time I tried band pass filtering data ( oh wait that was just last week) it introduced a phase shift into the data relative to the time base. When you go filter the pis out of the temperatures and CO2 the temperature and CO2 become displaced relative to each other on the time base. What that leads to is that instead of the raw data which shows rising temperatures bringing rising CO2 levels you could see rising CO2 ahead of rising temperatures. Now if we take and adjust the amount of filtering relative to the time base we create a plot that emphasises recent data while virtually ignoring older data and thus the "Hockey Stick". If temperatures are rising the hockey stick points up and if temperatures are falling the hockey stick will point down...


Online Experiment With the Latest Hockey Stick « the Air Vent

Now as we were speaking of fraud...
Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data - Times Online
Climategate Professor Phil Jones could face ten years on fraud charges | CLIMATEGATE

From the hometown paper:
Climategate: Step by step - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

I'm sure there are more, however this is off topic so we'll end it here.