U.S. President Barack Obama’s vision of government-mandated health care took a major step forward Wednesday as the Senate panel of liberal lion Ted Kennedy passed his socialized medicine plan with a 13-10 party line vote.
Largely drowned out by the furor over the Sonia Sotomayor nomination, Kennedy’s powerful Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee gave its approval to the $600 billion plan, which forces Americans to purchase health care and requires employers to help pick up the costs.
Democratic, huh?
Ironically, Kennedy himself wasn’t present for the vote as he was being treated for brain cancer. Honestly, though, that’s better than being one of the thirteen “brain dead” Senators who voted for this anti-democratic, anti-free market boondoggle.
Over in the U.S. House, Democrats are pushing a $1.5 trillion plan under their latest “class warfare” banner.
Under their plan, the government would assume responsibility for making sure that every person – irrespective of race, income or medical condition – is insured. Citizens and businesses that do not purchase or provide insurance would face huge fines and penalties.
Again, what country are we living in?
Meanwhile, Obama is flexing his political muscle on the issue, as his political organization will be running television ads across the country in support of the proposal.
By Pat Hendrix July 15, 2009 at 11:16 am
Wow, it passed a committee, sounds airtight. All you bedwetters should panic.
By BC July 15, 2009 at 11:54 am
I find it very interesting how so many people seem to support the idea of the free market health insurance industry…until they are caught up in it with a major illness. The stark reality of what is covered and what is not covered comes to light and the out of pocket expense (not including co-pays, premiums, and etc) can be significant. Let someone you know or even yourself be diagnosed with a major illness or disability; and you’ll find out very quickly how the free market system will leave you in the cold!
I’ve always felt that health insurance should not be for-profit due to the moral implications in reference to cost and profit.
By stede July 15, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I betcha this facist bill passes without “being read” by the people.
So much for transparency; another Obama lie…
By Pat Hendrix July 15, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Hee, the post has a reference to “socialized” medicine, and stede follows with a reference to a “facist bill.” Who knew you you could combine them? I guess the Terrorist/Communist/Facist and Chief can do it all.
By stede July 15, 2009 at 2:48 pm
We’ve seen what a great job Obama has done with the economy; why not just trust him with your life?
By cerius July 15, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Obama has earned our trust, STEDE.
Obama has earned our respect, STEDE.
Obama has fixed the economy, STEDE.
Obama will save the environment, STEDE.
Obama has saved the banking industry, STEDE.
Obama has saved GM, STEDE.
Obama will make sure the government controls every aspect of your life, STEDE, especially your health care.
By stede July 15, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Pat,
Don’t you find it curious that Congress (in the current bill) has given themselves the option NOT to participate in government health care?
HMMMMMM… Gee…Would Ted Kennnedy even be receiving care at this time were he forced to participate in government health care under the current bill?
Kind of like Obama NOT sending his kids to PUBLIC schools….
By CNSYD July 15, 2009 at 3:51 pm
When this bill passes, those in the medical field and insurance industry only have to look in the mirror to see who to blame.
By jaundiced July 15, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I can’t wait to see the doctor that Obama assigns me! I hear she went to med school in Central America and practices “root” medicine! They tell me the lines to her office are longer than those at the DMV!
By wally July 15, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Isn’t it interesting that the Democrats aren’t offering any medical tort reform? (despite the fact that an estimated 10%-20% of medical costs could be saved if “defensive medicine” weren’t so widely praced)
I suppose Obama’s is just being true to his trade; after all, the largest lobby in Congress is the Trial Lawyer’s Association.
I’ll know whom to call when my leg rots off because the government-assigned surgeon couldn’t fit me in his busy, government-regulated 9am-4pm Monday-Thursday schedule.
By James the Foot Soldier July 15, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Please oh please donkeycrats – keep over-reaching on your 2% “mandate”.
By roofus July 15, 2009 at 5:06 pm
No debate. No transparency. Just Rham it through.
How’s that hopechangey thing going?
By Mule July 15, 2009 at 9:14 pm
What a plan! Socialized medicine for all of us and they carve out a system for themselves. I wonder if Obama will put a “root” on all of us! I sometimes see patients with the “root”. Pat is nothing more than a donkey or a__. As for the hope and change, I will be lucky to have any change left after this dark man takes it all!
By Richard Fur July 15, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Pat Hendrix,
Why don’t you take a break from plagiarizing liberal blogs and get a real job…it’s no wonder you want the government to steal from hard-working Americans and give the spoils to crybabies like yourself.
By Pat Hendrix July 16, 2009 at 8:52 am
Stealing from liberal blogs? Hmm, don’t recall doing that. I try and link to posts I quote. But I’ll take your advice on getting a real job, as I sit at my desk and work a ten hour day. I just like to come over to fits and read the online version of a clown car with *cough* insights from the likes of you, Mr. Fur.
By the way, I pay at one the highest brackets for federal taxes that there is. I do it I and don’t cry about it and assume anyone who disagrees with me is taking a handout from the federal government. But hey, keep at it. Electorally, your strategy is working out great.
By BC July 16, 2009 at 9:37 am
Wow! Most of those on this comment board are pretty ruthless to any form of support to President Obama. Why is that?
Maybe because the national debt is high. Oh wait, during the Clinton administration the national debt started to fall and the federal government had a surplus in funding. That was quickly eliminated during the Bush administration but none of you had nothing to say about that.
Maybe because unemployment is increasing at a record rate for the first time in 26 years. Oh wait, most economist sounded the alarm of the pending recession back in December 2007 and for anyone that knows anything about economics…unemployment is always on a lag.
Maybe the Obama administration is working to quickly to force change. Oh wait, let’s do nothing and watch what happens to the entire system. The free market system will correct itself…if there is any markets left afterwards.
I’m going to use a business phrase here so prepare yourself accordingly; to make money you must spend money. Sorry but that is the reality of business and that is what the Obama administration is doing and has done. While no one wants government to interfere with our everyday lives but the sad fact is it does. It starts with local government setting ordinances during droughts to limit water use. All the way up to the federal government protecting your right to free speech…such as on this forum. Wake up people and stop being blinded to the facts that is around us. The previous administration left a mess…sorry but it is true.
Problems are solved with solutions not complaints!
By Pat Hendrix July 16, 2009 at 9:50 am
nd stede, for accuracy sake, Kennedy is already on government healthcare.
In any event, ladies, I’m not blindly supporting a move to grandly reform healthcare. Frankly, Obama squandered his opportunity when he passed the stimulus, the effects of which will probably not be felt until we are already moving out the deleveraging of the economy. He made his choice. There’s no more money. But there is no doubt that something has to be done to control double digit inflation in healthcare. Five percent of Americans account for fifty percent of cost – that seem efficient? But rather than engage in a debate over policy, we get nonsensical talk about fascists, racist remarks (grow up, Mule), and the comforting but silly notion that anyone that disagrees is a welfare recipient. It’s inanity at its best.
Seriously, is doing nothing an option when small businesses are being murdered by the rising cost of healthcare? Pissing and moaning from the sidelines is not a viable policy option.
By Red Bank Bar July 16, 2009 at 10:19 am
I see Wally is watching Faux News again with his fact-free post.
Howsabout we get some medical practice reform? The way to eliminate medical malpractice suits is to eliminate medical malpractice.
Wally’s doctors kill up to 100,000 Americans a year through their negligence and he’s outraged the legal system trys to hold them accountable.
By sandy July 16, 2009 at 10:26 am
Why do I have the distinct impression that Obama is running this country like a drug king-pin would run a cartel?
Once a druggie, always a druggie, I suppose.
By Rick July 16, 2009 at 10:45 am
Pat, Want to see the future of your health care….go visit a VA Hospital.
By wally July 16, 2009 at 11:00 am
Red Bank Bar,
So it’s the Doctor’s fault that noble, parasitic lawyers are costing our symptoms billions annually! I should have guessed!
Where would we be without those ambulance chasers?
By md July 16, 2009 at 11:11 am
RBB,
If you think doctors “kill up to 100,000 Americans a year through their negligence”, just wait ’til Obamacare passes.
The smart doctors will migrate to other countries where their years of sacrifice and hard work will be rewarded.
America will be inundated with an influx of Caribbean and South American-educated “providers.” Your “100,000″ number will likely increase exponentially…
By A_Network_Administrator July 16, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Okay… we’ve had free market driven healthcare for a while now and it is not working. Every study, every statistic shows that Americans get LESS quality of care for MORE money than any other western democracy. So, let’s let the other side have a shot and see if it works. Honestly, it can’t be any worse than it is now. Everyone knows someone who has had terrible experience with insurance companies. Mine, I had a best friend die of cancer when she was 26. She worked for BCBS. She had to quit when she got so sick she couldn’t work anymore. BCBS canceled her insurance. She had to get COBRA. She died in 1999 and her Mom is still paying off the debt from those last few months of expensive treatments. That’s a specific case, but we all know people that have gone through that. Come on, get off your ideological high horse and look at the reality of the situation…
By cerius July 16, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Impeach Obama for stealing our children’s future and for transforming this once-great nation into a 3rd world Bananna Republic!
By Pat Hendrix July 16, 2009 at 12:46 pm
What country would they go to? We are the last remaining western country without single payer. They would be going to exactly the same situation in any developed country, save China.
Nevertheless, there’s not a single post that contains anything other than complaining. No policy solutions, no alternatives, just the usual invectives. Do you really think the current system is sustainable? Okay, let’s say that a plan containing a public option (remember it is optional) is off the table. What then? The benevolent invisible hand of the free-market going to solve the problem with inflation? Don’t hold your breath.
Rick, we agree that VA hospitals are a national disgrace, but I’m not sure it applies here.
By BC July 16, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Pat,
Very good points. I’ll take your comments a step further for Rick to grasp. The entire VA system has been underfunded for almost 30 years. That’s right, you heard me the first time…30 years. The Obama administration is pumping new cash into this agency for the first time in quite sometime. So, do not attempt to compare a system at its current state and make a call on this is what it will be like.
Change is a difficult and scary process and for many of you that is probably why your venting and acting as children. Stop with the Fox News, Rush and Michael garbarage and look around you! The wheels have long been placed in motion for our current state of affairs. Accept that and lets come up with some real solutions for these problems. Out of everything that I have read so far that is the one thing that is lacking from this forum!
By James the Foot Soldier July 16, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I see our resident communists have arrived to regurgitate moveondotorg talking points.
First, destroying the healthcare that 70% of Americans presently enjoy for the benefit of the 30% seems to me not a good “electoral strategy”. However, as I posted earlier on this topic, I fervently hope the democrats continue to misread the November election results and continue to over-reach.
I rang up the largest bar tab in my life at an Outback Steakhouse on election nite 1994 in Lansing, Michigan watching the electorate give Hillarycare a big thumbs down. I’m already looking forward to election night 2010.
Policy solutions? Stop paying for routine doctor visits, x-rays, and prescriptions through health insurance. It’s ludicrous for folks to pay $20 out of pocket to see a highly skilled profesional that spent 10 years AFTER college studying to become a physician. Health insurance should be what Medicare orginally was: hospitalization insurance.
Now that politicians have overpromised and BANKRUPTED Medicare they are on to their next demographic. The only problem for the democrats is the un-insured, i.e., those that don’t want to purchase it (the young and healthy), the ILLEGAL immigrants, and the folks on Medicaid too lazy to enroll have no base of the pyramid upon which to build a new ponzi scheme.
That the democrats would model their “public option” after a bankrupt health insurance scheme is the ultimate folly.
Pushing folks into a medicare part whatever we’re up to now will devastate hospitals that had a small base of actuall rate payers to cost shift to. But don’t take my word for it, take the democrat from North Dakota for more on this topic that michael moore disciples ignore:
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/126428/
p.s…the market driven healthcare system that democrats loathe is far and away the world’s finest. Great jobs, innovations, advancements, all brought to you by those risking their capital. I haven’t read where any American is scurrying across the border to get into the vaunted socialized healthcare offered in Canada or Mexico.
By dirtbogger July 17, 2009 at 10:55 am
Many advancements have been made over the past 30 years in Medical care such as MRI, Robotic surgry, and laser surgry and those technologys are not cheap. But their are 2 other factors to concider. For one is the inflation tax that the privitly owned Federal Reserve creates by printing billions of dollars and giving out to their rich friends and they do not have to tell us who, it could even be forgin intrest. Anyway, when they print all this extra money it dilutes the economy, then we are taxed to death to pay it back at intrest. Now I am not even talking about the failed bail outs or the war department spending. The next problem is socialized medicine, that money will be borrowed from the Fed as well and then the working people in this country will be taxed again for that. then you have more inflation tax yet again because more money will be printed again. This runs down the value of our savings in the bank and is espicially hard for the retired. now lets get to my next point, the carbin tax that will come an the next month or two. This will send jobs out of our county at a rate that would make NAFTA blush. After this happens it will most likely run the unemployement level to 65% and half of working will be government jobs. How can this be sustained? It can not! Top this with the fact that alot of people waking to relize that the WTC was brought down with controlled demolition and 9-11 was a joint CIA / Mossad opperation and you will have revolution. Our country is becoming ripe for one, and most of you know it!
watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7cvjBViV7g