The Will of the People: question for Republicans and Tea Partiers

[MaggieMae]

Lately, the rhetoric has been about "listening to the people" and how a majority of "the people" are being ignored. The self-appointed spokesmen for "the people" appear to be the Tea Party Movement and, as part of a new chapter in rightwing talking points - the GoP.

In poll after poll, a consistently high majority is in favor of some form of public option in health care. Yet , the Republicans (through legislative digging in of heels) and the Tea Partiers (through desruptive and misleading rhetoric) have consistently denied "the people" any chance of this option being realized.


Why is the will of "the people" being ignored? Is it only the will of a special interest minority you listen to?

Here is the deal...the righty's say the people dont want this bill, the left are saying we do want it...

We won the election. Obama is president. In other words, we lefty's are going to win this little battle. Righty's lost. nuclear baby. lol

It doesn't do much good to win a battle but lose the war.

 

[MaggieMae]

Lately, the rhetoric has been about "listening to the people" and how a majority of "the people" are being ignored. The self-appointed spokesmen for "the people" appear to be the Tea Party Movement and, as part of a new chapter in rightwing talking points - the GoP.

In poll after poll, a consistently high majority is in favor of some form of public option in health care. Yet , the Republicans (through legislative digging in of heels) and the Tea Partiers (through desruptive and misleading rhetoric) have consistently denied "the people" any chance of this option being realized.


Why is the will of "the people" being ignored? Is it only the will of a special interest minority you listen to?

Here is the deal...the righty's say the people dont want this bill, the left are saying we do want it...

We won the election. Obama is president. In other words, we lefty's are going to win this little battle. Righty's lost.

So far you've won nada.... Your party has wasted a year with nothing to show for it. It was entirely your own fault. Now you've lost your filibuster proof majority and Obama has spend his political capital on losing causes. Yeah, you're winning.....

I wouldn't say it's been a "wasted year" at all. The full House and Senate were not in there every day debating health care, you know. I look at the health care process, as it took front/center in the media as being the biggest teaching experience for those who before now were clueless about the process of government (how a bill gets passed), who suddenly sat up and paid attention as people lost their jobs (AND their health care along with their jobs), and my favorite teaching moment: The DEFICIT, which has been steadily rising for decades and most folks didn't even know what it meant as it applies to government because people went about their own private lives with little financial upheaval. Now they're able to equate their own fiscal deficits to the government's.

 

[Sinatra]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This president is veering wildly to and fro these days, and at present, we see a White House completely stunned to the point of near-panic.

Obama's listless, tired, and uncertain teleprompted talk today (how many times does he do this?) of going after the banks yet again, only resulted in those bank stocks declining, and the economy as a whole contracting - the very opposite of what Americans seeking jobs need right now.

I offer this:

President Obama is totally failing both on the economy, and national security - the two most vital components of any president's ultimate success. He is completely out of his depth, is surrounded by far too many leftist idealogues who have no clue on what constitutes sound governing for the good of the people vs the good of the ideology. He cannot control the far left Congressional leadership, which has driven the Democrat brand name off the cliff.

Obama lacks the intellect to construct his own original views on any policy matter, rather falling back repeatedly on progressive cliche that is the essence of what limited political experience he has.

What little economic recovery that has happened has done so despite Obama, not because of him, or his fellow Democrat policies - namely the special interest laden $800 billion dollar porkulus bill. Now as Obama continues to mouth his progressive anti-free market rhetoric, even this shallow recovery is endangered. Yet another troubling jobless report today, consecutive triple digit stock market declines, and a banking industry frozen in uncertainty over what this bereft of common sense administration and Congress is planning next.

Simply put - Obama sucks.

 

[MaggieMae]

Fair enough. You are doing some deflecting yourself. Voters in Massachusetts took a poll on Tuesday. The candidate that won promised to KILL OBAMACARE. Obamacare had a public option.

No...I'm not deflecting...I'm being very very specific and refusing to go off on tangents

But - I'll walk down the tangent on this one.

There is a public option in one of the bills but Obama has already indicated - numerous times, he will let that go in order to get a healthcare bill passed. Therefore "Obamacare" is highly unlikely to contain the public option. It could easily be said that if that election was a poll on Obamacare - then it could also be a reaction against the public option being removed. When it was becoming clear that the public option was likely to be lost - support for the bill dropped noticeably (among liberals) and MA is predominately liberal.

The bill is chock full of crap and some of the most important things got dropped or deferred. There is much I don't like in it - at no point have I been arguing here in support of the healthcare bill - despite the attempts of others to turn it into that.

Healthcare reform - in general - has wide public support
The inclusion of a some form of public option has a majority public support. And it is that support that is ignored.

I hear what you are saying, but it just ain't so. Voters don't know what a "public option" is. The language is too vague and nebulous. Get specific and define exactly what a public option really is - and watch voters say "no thanks".

Yet you posted a "poll" on what the public option is. I'm sure by the time Round Ten was making the news cycle, people WERE confused. That said, nobody I know is ignorant of the fact that it means universal, single-payer health care. But I also don't know anybody who is stupid enough to believe something like it will ever pass because of stiff opposition, as usual, by the Republican Party. We'll just continue seeing private insurers raise premiums, and as a result more and more people winding up either added to GOVERNMENT Medicaid rolls or overburdening hospital emergency rooms. And conservatives will think that's just fine.

 

[Coyote]

And while you're at it, remind them that they HAVE TO PAY FOR IT too.

Irrelevent. That's not what's being argued.

I disagree. The cost is totally relevant. I want lots of things. In fact, I could make a huge list of all the things I want. But when I balance "what I want" against "what I can afford" I have a much shorter list. That is reality. People always want "free" shit, until they realize it ain't "free".

I meant irrelevant to this particular argument which is this: why is it that those who proclaim to be speaking for a majority of the people when it comes to healthcare shut up when it comes to the public option - a plan which is supported by that majority?

As to raising taxes - surprisingly, that too seems to have varying amounts of support. In a number of polls - the question of payment is brought up along with the question of supporting a public option.

Mixed Views of Economic Policies and Health Care Reform Persist: Section 2: Opinions of Health Care Proposals - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Also: in a Kaiser poll

Paying for Reform
As was true of support for individual proposals to expand coverage, there has been little change over the summer in expressed support for paying for this expansion. Overall, as
has been true for many a month, willingness to pay has bounced around the 50-50 mark, this month settling on 49 percent willing to pay more to cover more Americans and 46
percent unwilling. Democrats, those who think they will benefit from reform and African Americans are among the groups more likely to say they would personally pay more to expand coverage.

The three tax proposals which receive the most public support – increasing taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, and raising taxes on wealthy Americans – are not currently the focus of discussions in the Senate.

Two new items added in light of recent discussions among policymakers, however, both garnered majority support: 57 percent say they would support “having health insurance companies pay a fee based on how much business they have” and 59 percent would support “having health insurance companies pay a tax for offering very expensive
policies.” In both cases, Republicans are divided half and half on the measures, while both Democrats and political independents tilt in favor.

The public remains divided on limiting future increases in Medicare provider payments as a way to pay for health care reform. This month, 52 percent back such a proposal, compared to 39 who oppose it. These numbers vary between seniors and nonseniors,
however, as we will examine in the next section.

 

[MaggieMae]

And while you're at it, remind them that they HAVE TO PAY FOR IT too.

Irrelevent. That's not what's being argued.

I disagree. The cost is totally relevant. I want lots of things. In fact, I could make a huge list of all the things I want. But when I balance "what I want" against "what I can afford" I have a much shorter list. That is reality. People always want "free" shit, until they realize it ain't "free".

There will come a day when huge choices will have to be made: Spend on domestic priorities or defense systems to keep us out of foreign wars but we go anyway. In my opinion, at the rate we're going, Americans will be too unhealthy to use the weapons of war and/or too uneducated to read the directions. So we're screwed.

 

[Coyote]

And while you're at it, remind them that they HAVE TO PAY FOR IT too.

Irrelevent. That's not what's being argued.

LOL, the truth is irrelevant? what planet are you from? or do you just want to see polls that are engineered to tell you what you want to hear? If that's the case you seem to be on the right track with your Huffington Post links and your MoveOn.org polls......

Not at all. I'm making a very very specific argument which you continually try to deflect.

Feel free to provide other polls and see if you too can meet your own criteria of unbiased sources. (note - I included a GoP poll in my sources and, more recently one from Kaiser).

Thus far, Rasmussan (kind of the rightwing equivalent of MoveOn.org) is all I've seen to counter my argument.

 

[MaggieMae]

And while you're at it, remind them that they HAVE TO PAY FOR IT too.

Irrelevent. That's not what's being argued.

LOL, the truth is irrelevant? what planet are you from? or do you just want to see polls that are engineered to tell you what you want to hear? If that's the case you seem to be on the right track with your Huffington Post links and your MoveOn.org polls......

Polling is all in the way questions are formulated, period. Just ask Scott Rasmussen. As for HUFPO, to my knowledge, they've never been sued for printing inaccurate information, which they obtain from wire reports, as do right-wing publications. If you don't like their opinion pages, stick to NewsMax or WND. Another non-sequitur by a rwinger grasping at straws with irrelevant comments.

 

[Coyote]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This president is veering wildly to and fro these days, and at present, we see a White House completely stunned to the point of near-panic.

Obama's listless, tired, and uncertain teleprompted talk today (how many times does he do this?) of going after the banks yet again, only resulted in those bank stocks declining, and the economy as a whole contracting - the very opposite of what Americans seeking jobs need right now.

I offer this:

President Obama is totally failing both on the economy, and national security - the two most vital components of any president's ultimate success. He is completely out of his depth, is surrounded by far too many leftist idealogues who have no clue on what constitutes sound governing for the good of the people vs the good of the ideology. He cannot control the far left Congressional leadership, which has driven the Democrat brand name off the cliff.

Obama lacks the intellect to construct his own original views on any policy matter, rather falling back repeatedly on progressive cliche that is the essence of what limited political experience he has.

What little economic recovery that has happened has done so despite Obama, not because of him, or his fellow Democrat policies - namely the special interest laden $800 billion dollar porkulus bill. Now as Obama continues to mouth his progressive anti-free market rhetoric, even this shallow recovery is endangered. Yet another troubling jobless report today, consecutive triple digit stock market declines, and a banking industry frozen in uncertainty over what this bereft of common sense administration and Congress is planning next.

Simply put - Obama sucks.

Thank you for your input. I'm sure it will be most....constructive....in this debate about listening to the will of the people on a public option in healthcare

 

[MaggieMae]

The voters already have affordable health care why more?

Yes, they do, in Massachusetts. Which was also a factor in electing Brown.

 

[MaggieMae]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This president is veering wildly to and fro these days, and at present, we see a White House completely stunned to the point of near-panic.

Obama's listless, tired, and uncertain teleprompted talk today (how many times does he do this?) of going after the banks yet again, only resulted in those bank stocks declining, and the economy as a whole contracting - the very opposite of what Americans seeking jobs need right now.

I offer this:

President Obama is totally failing both on the economy, and national security - the two most vital components of any president's ultimate success. He is completely out of his depth, is surrounded by far too many leftist idealogues who have no clue on what constitutes sound governing for the good of the people vs the good of the ideology. He cannot control the far left Congressional leadership, which has driven the Democrat brand name off the cliff.

Obama lacks the intellect to construct his own original views on any policy matter, rather falling back repeatedly on progressive cliche that is the essence of what limited political experience he has.

What little economic recovery that has happened has done so despite Obama, not because of him, or his fellow Democrat policies - namely the special interest laden $800 billion dollar porkulus bill. Now as Obama continues to mouth his progressive anti-free market rhetoric, even this shallow recovery is endangered. Yet another troubling jobless report today, consecutive triple digit stock market declines, and a banking industry frozen in uncertainty over what this bereft of common sense administration and Congress is planning next.

Simply put - Obama sucks.

How profound. You post something similar at least once a week. Yawn....