Posted on 11/21/2009 4:24:18 PM PST by indianrightwinger
Why was it so hard for Dems even to start health care debate? By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 11/21/09 6:43 PM EST The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there is any drama in it at all. Lawmakers are simply voting to begin debate on their version of health care reform. Just begin debate -- not end it, and not move on to a final vote.
If Democrats, with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, were not able to begin debate on the top Democratic policy priority in a generation -- well, that would be a devastating turn of events, both for the party and for President Obama. And yet just starting debate has proved difficult, and only today did the 60th Democratic vote fall in place in favor of beginning the process.
I asked a high-ranking Republican Senate source whether it was really that hard to get the Democratic votes together. Could it have been a media-fed story, with reporters looking to inject some unwarranted drama into the proceedings? No, I was told. "It really was that hard for them to get to 60 just to proceed," the source said. "Very telling."
And judging by the statements of four moderate Democrats -- Lieberman, Lincoln, Landrieu, and Nelson -- it will be far, far harder when the process comes to the really important vote, the one that would bring debate to a close debate and move on to an up-or-down vote on the Democrats' health care plan. Today all four of those Democrats publicly threatened to side with Republicans and kill the bill before it can move to a final vote, unless their concerns are met.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Bingo! Someone gets it. This is why this site is so great. So many Freepers here know what is really going on, much more so than the cluless , government educated, general populations does.
a crap-for-brains bill shouldn’t even get out of committee, much less to the floor for consideration.
these bozos have yet again violated their oath of office.
Can any of the People’s representatives, having voted to put US in jail for exercising our rights, ever be considered a friend of the State?
B S !!!
Please stop the panicking.
If the bill was such a sure thing then why was the such a big deal over a lousy vote to debate the bill ?????
this wasn’t the bill voted out of committee !
The bill would have to be greatly modified if they went nuclear .
Just remember the names of the tyrannical elitists who voted to put YOU in jail
That's an excellent point this IS taxation without representation. This is tyranny .
Our founding fathers, like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington: what would they say today? They must be watching from Heaven with Reagan by their side.
"Look," said [Louisiana secretary of health and hospitals] Alan Levine, who has been lobbying the administration and Congress on the FMAP issue for eight months, "it's good to have a senator in a position to be able to make demands like that."
The stimulus plan increased the share of Medicaid paid by Washington for 27 months — through the end of next year — while sparing states any reductions in their FMAP formula in the meantime.
The net result is that the federal government is paying 81.48 percent of Louisiana’s Medicaid costs, a figure that will plunge nearly 18 percentage points come Jan. 1, 2011. That would cost Louisiana, according to Levine, some $900 million a year for the ensuing three years. It would, he has warned, wreck the state’s budget.
The Obama administration has insisted that only legislation can fix the formula, and on pages 432 to 436 of the Senate health care bill is Landrieu’s answer.
Section 2006 is entitled, “Special Adjustment to FMAP Determination For Certain States Recovering From a Major Disaster.’’ Louisiana is the only state that qualifies. Landrieu’s remedy would halve any decrease in Louisiana’s FMAP percentage for 2011 from the 72.47 percent in place before the stimulus was enacted. In other words, if the bill as written becomes law, Louisiana’s FMAP percentage in 2011 would be 68.04 percent instead of dropping to 63.61.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of Landrieu’s FMAP fix for Louisiana at $100 million for 2011, the only year it would likely apply.
But Landrieu’s office was not clear on where CBO came up with that score, and Levine said the fix as written would more likely provide Louisiana — and cost the federal treasury — between $200 million and $300 million.
In the meantime, the House health care reform bill, which was enacted 220-215 on Nov. 7, would extend the stimulus support for Medicaid another six months until the end of June 2011, at a cost of $20.5 billion in federal Medicaid costs. That provision, however, does not now exist in the Senate bill
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/11/sen_mary_landrieu_holds_off_on.html
‘Louisiana Purchase’ Landrieu Blames ABC Report of $100 Million Buyoff on ‘Very Partisan Republican Bloggers’
“I know that my time is up, but I would like to ask personal privilege for just one more minute to address an issue that has come up unfortunately in the last 24 hours by some very partisan Republican bloggers so I need to respond I think and will do so now,” Landrieu said. “One of the provisions in the framework of this bill that I’ve just decided to move on to debate has to do with fixing a very difficult situation that Louisiana is facing and any other state that might have a catastrophic disaster - let’s hope they don’t - like we did in 2005.”
Still, Landrieu elaborated on how federal aid in wake of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina disrupted the state’s economy and this $100 million was deserved.
Our state is still as poor as it was, if not poorer. I am not going to be defensive about asking for help in this situation and it is not a $100 million fix, it is a $300 million fix.”
They would need supermajorities to repeal this over Obama’s veto.
“If this bill passes and Obama signs it into law, can the newly minted Congress of 2010 which will NOT include the Dems who got kicked out of Congress because of their vote, REPEAL this deficit busting bill?
I would think the GOP would need a veto proof majority in both houses with Obama in office .. ? .. !”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the House control the purse strings and if conservatives control the House, couldn’t they just refuse to fund this monstrosity?
Its a PR ruse.
100% correct.
But there isn't, and the Con(gress)men who approved this will skate.
Goodbye America, it was nice to know ya.
America -- a great idea, didn't last.
The Obama state media is so heavily invested in this Marxist health-care bill.
I can just imagine David Espo of the AP in his cheer leading outfit raising his pom poms to Dirty Harry.
These idiots in Congress have no clue what’s in the bill and couldn’t explain it if their life depended on it. I daresay the average American knows more about it than they do. I guarantee there are mutually exclusive areas that no one can untangle. I heard a Republican congressman and Democrat congressman discussing the bill on TV, and the Democrat refused to acknowledge one of the tenets of the bill even when it was pointed out to him in black and white.
The question I’d like to know is, how many Dems said to Harry, “I’ll give you my. Vote to start this, but don’t count on my vote to end it?”
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