Who is opposed to the filibuster?
"[People] are fed up -- frustrated and fed up and angry about the way in which our government does not work, about the way in which we come down here and get into a lot of political games and seem to -- partisan tugs of war and forget why we're here, which is to serve the American people. And I think the filibuster has become not only in reality an obstacle to accomplishment here, but it also a symbol of a lot that ails Washington today."
"The whole process of individual senators being able to hold up legislation, which in a sense is an extension of the filibuster because the hold has been understood in one way to be a threat to filibuster -- it's just unfair."Give up?
Yep. It's Joe.
Huffington PostLabels: filibuster, hypocrites, Lieberman
Democrats Risk Electoral Disaster If They Drop the Public Option
By Robert Parry, Consortium News.
Indeed, if the Democrats abandon the public option for the sake of passing a bill like the one that came out of the Senate Finance Committee, they may be courting electoral disaster once voters grasp that they will have to wait years for the law to be implemented and then that it could lead to higher costs for much the same unpopular private insurance plans.
The public option offers the only means for a reform to be quickly implemented and to demonstrate a beneficial effect for the people by 2010 and 2012. It has the potential for reducing costs, especially for small businesses and individuals who are now being soaked by private insurers or denied coverage.
After assessing the five pieces of legislation that have cleared different committees of Congress, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the nation would get the most savings on health-care costs from a public option tied to Medicare rates. Such a version, which is included in two of the House bills, would save an estimated $110 billion over 10 years.
If the Democrats bend to the demands of the industry and the Republicans, Obama and congressional Democrats could find themselves in several years explaining how they enacted “reforms” that bully moderate-income Americans into buying over-priced health insurance, fatten the industry’s profits and fail to achieve any meaningful cost controls.
Such an outcome could be catastrophic to the Democratic Party’s future and to the concept of progressive governance. Yet, some members of the Senate Democratic leadership appear to heading in that direction, wanting to portray pushing through some bill – even one without a public option – as a victory.
The whole articleLabels: Democrats, Healthcare, Republicans
Bob Dole tells Republicans to knock it off.
Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole says "there will be a signing ceremony" for a health care reform bill either late this year or early next.
But the former presidential candidate says he isn't sure what the bill will say.
Dole, 86, spoke with reporters after an hour-long speech at a health care reform summit sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.
And he repeatedly blamed "partisanship" for the failure to produce a bill so far.
"Sometimes people fight you just to fight you," he said. "They don't want Reagan to get it, they don't want Obama to get it, so we've got to kill it...
"Health care is one of those things...Now we've got to do something."More...Labels: Bob Dole, Healthcare, Republicans
