JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
- 878
- 527
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Republican members of Congress need to reconsider their public position to "Start from Scratch" on the Healthcare Reform bill, reconsider calling for the bill to be sent back to the Congressional committees to begin anew formulating the bill. It is good that they insist that the current bills (Senate and House passed versions) which are in the combined Senate/House conference committee be thrown in the trash and the conference committee draw a bill up from scratch because the versions of the bill passed through the Senate and House are not what mainstream Americans want and definitely not what they need.
It is important that Republicans take full advantage of the legislative progress that has been made so far on this bill in getting it through each chamber and to the conference committee. Republicans don't seem to be appreciating how hard it is to get to this step even if they controlled both chambers. For any healthcare reform bill that is really going to make headway on America's healthcare problems the Federal Government is going to have to spend significant amounts of money because it is going to have to help buy health insurance for those lower income Americans that don't have employer sponsored health insurance and it is going to have to help Americans with a pre-existing health condition who currently get socked with sky high health insurance premiums. Therefore, in order to spend significant levels of money, Congress is going to have to raise significant levels of money meaning either ordinary working Americans are going to have to pay the tab or special interests are going to have to pay the tab and both groups have powerful lobbies who can severely penalize those congressional members that oppose their will on this matter. Further to fix America's healthcare system, the Medicare system will need to be fixed which is going broke in nine years which means Medicare expenses will need to be cut or benefits reduced which will unleash a pandora's box of senior citizen lobbying and this factor plus the aforementioned money factor mean that even under the best scenario, Republicans controlling both chambers, it is going to be a super heavy lift to get healthcare reform bills through the congressional chambers and to the conference committee so Republicans should try to seize the opportunity presented by a healthcare reform bill already being in the conference committee if Democrats are prepared to seriously negotiate over this bill.
I don't think Americans that follow politics closely believe that Republican Congressional leadership will seriously negotiate with Democrats over this bill which means make making major compromises because the right wing of the Republican party has too strong of a hold over the Republican congressional leadership and this wing puts their agenda over the best interests of the American people. However, these Americans do hope that centrist's Republicans in Congress won't waste this precious opportunity for the American people and seriously negotiate and if they can reach a deal with the Democrats that will help.
This idea of having a Democrat/Republican meeting on February 25 to try to forge a bipartisan agreement on this bill is incredibly dumb and naive. It is so dumb and naive that one should wonder if the Democrat leadership isn't scheming with this plan by that I mean not being serious about negotiating and using this meeting as a cover (allowing Democrats to claim we tried to incorporate non-Democrats points of view in the legislation) to eventually force a healthcare bill through Congress using the reconciliation procedure which would subvert the societal protections that are part of the Senate and which protect against majorities pushing bills through Congress and into law which don't deserve to be even voted on for passage. On this whole healthcare bill saga and especially with this Feb 25 meeting people of high stature have been proclaiming that negotiations on the bill aren't public, they should be public bla, bla, bla. The following statement applies to this health care bill and universally to all bills - Political negotiations related to a bill should never and the operable word is "never" be public, Barack Obama made a naive inexperienced mistake when during his campaign he said negotiations related to bills should be on C-span. Any highly capable negotiator will tell you, you shouldn't negotiate in public especially with a complicated bill that deals with extremely important matters. When one negotiates on a bill one side makes a proposal to another side and the other side makes a counter proposal. If negotiations on a highly important bill like healthcare reform are done in public when people with a vested interest especially powerful ones hear a proposal they have serious problems with they are not going to wait and see what the final bill looks like and weigh the good and the bad rather they are going to essentially immediately try to contact members of Congress involved in the negotiation and influence their response making this process essentially a guarantee that the country won't see the best legislative product possible. Negotiations should be done in private, the problem with the current process on the health care bill is that when negotiations are complete the majority leadership sits on the negotiated bill and doesn't disclose it to the public, what needs to happen is that once a bill is negotiated it needs to be publicly disclosed without delay so that the public can be fully informed about the bill and a full and fair public discussion can be held on the bill before it is voted on. This Feb 25 meeting idea is utter foolishness. From now until this meeting is completed the America people will see political theater coming from Washington nothing will be achieved and valuable time will have been wasted where a responsible conference committee could have been making valuable headway in putting a bill together. During this period both Democrats and Republican will do a lot of grandstanding, Americans will see a repeat of the last ninety days with Democrats and Republicans trading barbs on Health Care.
See Part Two
It is important that Republicans take full advantage of the legislative progress that has been made so far on this bill in getting it through each chamber and to the conference committee. Republicans don't seem to be appreciating how hard it is to get to this step even if they controlled both chambers. For any healthcare reform bill that is really going to make headway on America's healthcare problems the Federal Government is going to have to spend significant amounts of money because it is going to have to help buy health insurance for those lower income Americans that don't have employer sponsored health insurance and it is going to have to help Americans with a pre-existing health condition who currently get socked with sky high health insurance premiums. Therefore, in order to spend significant levels of money, Congress is going to have to raise significant levels of money meaning either ordinary working Americans are going to have to pay the tab or special interests are going to have to pay the tab and both groups have powerful lobbies who can severely penalize those congressional members that oppose their will on this matter. Further to fix America's healthcare system, the Medicare system will need to be fixed which is going broke in nine years which means Medicare expenses will need to be cut or benefits reduced which will unleash a pandora's box of senior citizen lobbying and this factor plus the aforementioned money factor mean that even under the best scenario, Republicans controlling both chambers, it is going to be a super heavy lift to get healthcare reform bills through the congressional chambers and to the conference committee so Republicans should try to seize the opportunity presented by a healthcare reform bill already being in the conference committee if Democrats are prepared to seriously negotiate over this bill.
I don't think Americans that follow politics closely believe that Republican Congressional leadership will seriously negotiate with Democrats over this bill which means make making major compromises because the right wing of the Republican party has too strong of a hold over the Republican congressional leadership and this wing puts their agenda over the best interests of the American people. However, these Americans do hope that centrist's Republicans in Congress won't waste this precious opportunity for the American people and seriously negotiate and if they can reach a deal with the Democrats that will help.
This idea of having a Democrat/Republican meeting on February 25 to try to forge a bipartisan agreement on this bill is incredibly dumb and naive. It is so dumb and naive that one should wonder if the Democrat leadership isn't scheming with this plan by that I mean not being serious about negotiating and using this meeting as a cover (allowing Democrats to claim we tried to incorporate non-Democrats points of view in the legislation) to eventually force a healthcare bill through Congress using the reconciliation procedure which would subvert the societal protections that are part of the Senate and which protect against majorities pushing bills through Congress and into law which don't deserve to be even voted on for passage. On this whole healthcare bill saga and especially with this Feb 25 meeting people of high stature have been proclaiming that negotiations on the bill aren't public, they should be public bla, bla, bla. The following statement applies to this health care bill and universally to all bills - Political negotiations related to a bill should never and the operable word is "never" be public, Barack Obama made a naive inexperienced mistake when during his campaign he said negotiations related to bills should be on C-span. Any highly capable negotiator will tell you, you shouldn't negotiate in public especially with a complicated bill that deals with extremely important matters. When one negotiates on a bill one side makes a proposal to another side and the other side makes a counter proposal. If negotiations on a highly important bill like healthcare reform are done in public when people with a vested interest especially powerful ones hear a proposal they have serious problems with they are not going to wait and see what the final bill looks like and weigh the good and the bad rather they are going to essentially immediately try to contact members of Congress involved in the negotiation and influence their response making this process essentially a guarantee that the country won't see the best legislative product possible. Negotiations should be done in private, the problem with the current process on the health care bill is that when negotiations are complete the majority leadership sits on the negotiated bill and doesn't disclose it to the public, what needs to happen is that once a bill is negotiated it needs to be publicly disclosed without delay so that the public can be fully informed about the bill and a full and fair public discussion can be held on the bill before it is voted on. This Feb 25 meeting idea is utter foolishness. From now until this meeting is completed the America people will see political theater coming from Washington nothing will be achieved and valuable time will have been wasted where a responsible conference committee could have been making valuable headway in putting a bill together. During this period both Democrats and Republican will do a lot of grandstanding, Americans will see a repeat of the last ninety days with Democrats and Republicans trading barbs on Health Care.
See Part Two
