Tonight, Obama and the Dem leadership delivered a great victory for insurance company CEOs

[brentspeak]

Just like the great victory they handed to the banks last year.

At least $1 trillion of taxpayer money to private insurance. And a nation of captive customers. With no cost containment. And a "public" option available to just a whopping 2% or so of the American public.

That deserves more than just one victory lap, don't you think?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bluestateguy]

2. Then why did the insurance cos oppose the bill?

Seems to me that if they liked the bill so much they would have endorsed it and lobbied for it. This all would have been so much easier, and probably won some Republican votes too.

[geek tragedy]

4. Logic is wasted on the Disloyal Dem chorus.

Always looking for reasons to undermine the people out there fighting for progress.

[Ken Burch]

60. social change is never really achieved in trivial increments.

Incrementalism wouldn't have been worth it on Civil Rights.

[scheming daemons]

62. Actually, your grasp of history is way off...

Almost *ALL* great social change came in small increments.

Civil Rights has been a steady slog for years... everything wasn't won in 1965. Since then, we've gradually moved closer and closer to the goal.


Other than violent revolution, almost all social change has taken decades - if not centuries - to come to pass.

[CTLawGuy]

100. never mind 1965, try 1865

that's when slavery was ended. For the next hundred years, and more, equality has been coming along slowly but surely. Separate but equal in 1896 (was progress for its time), Brown in 1954, 1964 civil rights act, 1965 voting right act.

[HamdenRice]

67. ROFLMAO

It's so entertaining, if tragic, when people who seem to know nothing about history pontificate about history.

Your post is a joke right? Please tell me it's a joke, please!?!

Do you really think Civil Rights -- I assume you mean for African Americans and other minorities -- were not achieved incrementally?

I weep for our school system this morning.

[Ken Burch]

68. Before 1964, there were never any meaningful gains

The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the only previous piece of legislation, and it was worthless.

[olegramps]

69. You are almost an uninformed as the Repuks.

[Ken Burch]

70. No, on that one I'm right.

there were no incremental gains on Civil Rights prior to 1964. It was ninety years of straight apartheid prior to that. We couldn't even ban lynching, for God's sake.

[Ken Burch]

88. OK...put up or shut up

When did people of color win anything in Congress before 1964?

[demwing]

89. December 6, 1865

Then July 6, 1868, and then Feb 3,1870

The dates of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments

Pretty big steps, incrementally gained.

[Ken Burch]

92. May I remind you that the 14th and 15th Amendments were NEVER enforced?

Fine, they stopped being slaves(which was largely due to the successful work of the abolitionists). As a result of the defeat of Reconstruction, they lost everything again and didn't get anything back UNTIL 1964.

[HamdenRice]

97. Never enforced?

You really, really need to crack a history book.

[Ken Burch]

104. It was part of the devil's bargain both parties made after the 1876 election

The Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, was allowed to claim 19 disputed electoral votes(and thus win the presidency by 1 electoral vote)in exchange for agreeing to end Reconstruction. This meant that every black voter in the South lost the franchise and all other rights, the large block of black congressmembers and Senators were all forced out of office(and into personal servitude)and the Jim Crow system was established. None of those losses were restored until 1964, in the Civil Rights Act of that year.

This was what JFK was referring to in the 1960 campaign when he said any president could restore civil rights for all "at the stroke of a pen"(a stroke he never chose to make during his presidency, btw).

That's why I'm correct in saying the 14th and 15th Amendments(which, by the way, were not incrementalism, since they were ratified by the states within months after their approval by Congress)were never enforced(at least until 1964). So your smug "gradualism works" thesis on Civil Rights thesis is utterly bogus. And in even offering it, you insulted the historical memory both of every African American and of everyone who actually supported their struggle.

[HamdenRice]

108. If they were never enforced, what was "Shelly v. Kraemer"?

Shelly v. Kraemer (14th Amendment prevents state courts from enforcing racially exclusive deed covenants);

Sweatt v. Painter (14th Amendment forbids segregation of African American law students into unequal law school);

Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (14th Amendment requires Missouri to provide in state law school education to African Americans);

Buchanan vs. Warley (14th Amendment forbids segregation of African Americans into residential districts);

Lane v. Wilson (15th Amendment requires striking down of Oklahoma's grandfather clause);

United States v. Classic and Smith v. Allwright (15the Amendment invalidated the white primary);

McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (14th Amendment prevents segregated seating in university classes);

Kerr v. Enoch Pratt Free Library (14th Amendment forbids refusal to hire black librarian because white patrons object);

Morgan vs. Virginia (14th Amendment prevents segregation on interstate transport);

You seem to be saying that because you define incremental change as not change, all these incremental changes were not significant changes -- I suppose, but I can't really put any logical spin on what you are trying to say.

A more likely interpretation is that you just don't know your history. I'm kind of amused that you would try to lecture me, an African American with southern (Virginia) roots, on African American history from that cradle of Black History -- Alaska.

Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston specifically chose an incremental approach to civil rights that would last decades, chipping away at one facet of segregation after another until the entire rotten structure collapsed in Brown (still 10 years before the Civil Rights Act).

[Ken Burch]

110. And if the African American community agreed with you

it would never have joined Dr. King's movement or (later) embraced Black Power. There would never have been Freedom Riders or the March on Washington, or Freedom Summer in Mississippi.

It took a lot of "impossible persons"(as Frederick Douglass described himself)to end Jim Crow. If the Civil Rights struggle had been left to incrementalism, you'd still have segregated drinking fountains.

[HamdenRice]

111. What a dumb post.

What exactly about a list of historical NAACP cases is there to agree or not agree about?

Are you saying that it's important to be delusional enough to deny these cases exist in history? How would agreeing that these cases exist prevent the evolution of civil rights?



The African American community was firmly behind Thurgood Marshall's efforts and the NAACP, the successes of which I documented.

You're reaching. You're obviously very embarrassed that you have been revealed to know virtually nothing about the history of civil rights and twentieth century American history, so now you are writing non sequiturs.

[CTLawGuy]

101. Brown v. Board of education

1954.

[Ken Burch]

105. A Supreme Court decision isn't incrementalism

Brown was radical.

[HamdenRice]

109. But it was based on dozens of incremental cases that came before it

and it wasn't really all that radical in that context. Marshall and Houston used incremental change over nearly 30 years to make Brown inevitable.

[CTLawGuy]

112. on the contrary

it was a step up from separate but equal which came down in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which itself was better than separate and UNEQUAL, which itself was better than not being recognized as a human being and being held as slaves.

[Ken Burch]

114. The14th and15th amendments came BEFORE Plessy

Those amendments were approved in 1868. They SHOULD have made Plessy impossible. Plessy was actually a ton of steps DOWN from the Reconstruction Amendments.

[CTLawGuy]

116. those amendments had extremely narrow interpretations at first

and they didn't explicitly address integration, just equality. So the regime was, were you treated equally, if separately. Plessy just confirmed that original regime until Brown decided that separate was inherently unequal.

[Name removed]

72. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ken Burch]

74. The Civil Rights Act of 1886 was worthless

All it said was that black people were citizens. By itself, that was meaningless.

Jim Crow went on for another eighty-eight years without it. Lynchings went on for another ninety years or more.

Civil Rights was never an issue where half-a-load had any value at all. That's why the Civil Rights Act of 1957 changed nothing.

There were people struggling before 1964. But there were no victories before. And state laws in the north don't count.

[HamdenRice]

75. So much for 100 years of history

Dag teh stoopit it hurt brane sum thyme.

[Ken Burch]

76. The black freedom movement were heroes

But you know perfectly well there were never any victories for them before 1964. I've just shown the 1886 bill to be meaningless. Everyone knows the 1957 empty shell bill was as well. It's not a victory to pass bills that only change things trivially, and that's all any pre-1964 Civil Rights bill did. And you know it. You have no rebuttal to that.

[HamdenRice]

96. You are really embarrassing yourself

I suppose that Thurgood Marshall was a useless idiot because nothing he did before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 accomplished anything right?

You are really, really embarrassing yourself with this line of argument, and worse, you have to trivialize all the successful work of the late 19th and early 20th century civil rights movement.

I suppose that the federal court ban on state attempts to remove Chinese property and businesses from central cities, the anti-lynching laws, the incremental repeal or striking down by state courts of anti mixed marriage laws, the extension of the vote to Native Americans on reservations, the use of federal funding to promote fair hiring, the desegregation of industrial unions and the opening of the auto, steel and other industries to black workers, the formation of black combat regiments and fighter squadrons in World War II, the desegregation of the armed forces in the Korean War, the desegregation of state university law schools through NAACP law suits, the desegregation of retail employment in black neighborhoods like Harlem (another NAACP effort), the federal ban on state court enforcement of racially exclusionary restrictive covenants on real estate and the resulting dramatic expansion of housing opportunities, the election of black officials in northern cities, the desegregation of public and inter state transit in the north, and Brown v. Board of Education, and hundreds of other steps, all incremental changes that occurred before 1960, meant nothing.

Probably means nothing to you as a purist and as someone who was not African American at the time living through those incremental but momentous changes that radically improved the quality of people's lives.

Please, please stop embarrassing yourself.

[Ken Burch]

106. I did NOT say that nobody worked for Civil Rights before 1964

I said there were no meaningful gains. This was due to massive white resistance, not any lack of valor among the black freedom movement.

The activists of that movement were heroes.

[HamdenRice]

107. No one said you did. You said there were no achievements. I listed them.

Thurgood Marshall was very proud of integrating state university professional schools (medicine, law, etc) in the 1940s and of ending restrictive covenants (1948).

You seem to be acknowledging he "worked" on those issues, but accomplished nothing.

Well, you're just plain wrong. There were tremendous incremental accomplishments and some not incremental accomplishments before 1964.

You just don't have the history right.

[dionysus]

80. you're of the "when i make a fool of myself grab a shovel and start digging" school of thought.

[Ken Burch]

83. I didn't make a fool of myself

There were heroic figures in the freedom movement, but no gains before 1964. Everyone knows the 1886 and 1957 bills did nothing.

What else was there?

[HamdenRice]

98. Yes you did. Definitely. It's sad. nt

[suzie]

113. Yes he did. It's unbelievably sad.

[Waiting For Everyman]

90. You're a pompous (and wrong) idiot. You proved KB's point.

No progress at all for 70+ years? And then whoosh, the Civil Rights Act? And you have the NERVE to pile on him? Pfft.

What skanky behavior.

And yeah, that New Deal sure was incremental wasn't it?

[HamdenRice]

99. Thanks for that incoherent non-contribution to the discussion!

WTF was your post about?

[brentspeak]

11. They did endorse it...until a few days ago when talk about reducing the mandate popped up

But it turned out to be just talk; the mandates stayed in the bill. In other words, their "opposition" to it is as real as professional wrestling.

[mikiturner]

12. Super Jedi Mind Trick, Obviously. nt

[Davis_X_Machina]

15. No, no, no, you underestimate...

...how devious they are.

They've spent a hundred million lobbying dollars trying to make you think they're against it... but they're not!

See how subtle it is?

[Garam_Masala]

30. I think I figured out why insurance was against it

they do not like that we will be allowed to buy insurance across state lines.
That increases competition. That reduces cost for consumers and reduces profits for insurers.

Of course I have not read the 2000 page bill yet, so there has to be something else also.

[Go2Peace]

57. That's part of the game. They oppose it even while they get special access. You don't get it

[RoyGBiv]

5. Wrong

[brentspeak]

13. Maybe it's closer to $2 trillion for insurance companies

[RoyGBiv]

56. Still wrong

[Kdillard]

Being a ray of sunshine again.

[jefferson_dem]

6. Sorry.

Still bitter? Hope tomorrow is better for you.

[Ken Burch]

61. You're celebrating a slice, not half a loaf

No one who needs health care has time for incrementalism. Obviously, it's not something that affects you or you wouldn't be this blase.

[Zynx]

7. Insurance stocks would be hitting all-time highs if this was the windfall that you implied.

They are not.

[Deja Q]

14. That was good to read - thanks much!

[Garam_Masala]

95. The whole market is down by 35%

COMPARED to high's 18 months ago. Not easy for any category of
stocks to buck the overall market.

[Deja Q]

9. Last year? Uh, Bush was president last year. Obama has not been in office for even 1 year yet.

Having said that, I recall Obama's speech (which started off on an irrelevant tangent about "responsible homeowners" (a debate I'll spare for another time when it's relevant to do so)) having a lot more to do with "insurance" rather than building anew, given the current state of the current system. Especially with most people knowing Obama's stance in 2003 -- what happened since then...

As long as people who can't afford coverage don't have to pay this $3000 fine or whatever it is... (granted, some details I don't remember and forcing people to buy insurance or pay a big-ass fine just sounds insane to begin with... especially in this "new normal" economy, where hopping from one job to another at reduced pay - nobody can be a responsible homeowner anymore if, within a decade, the projections and claims that a job lasts no longer than 5 years, people having 13 careers in their lifetimes, and so on, are true...)

[brentspeak]

20. This wasn't Obama in the Senate, pushing hard to get TARP passed?

http://metavid.org/wiki/Stream:Senate_proceeding_10-01-...

In other news, I recall that Obama campaigned and won people's votes by vowing NOT to have a individual mandate: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/164880.php

[ej510]

27. Obama would never break a campaign promise.

[grantcart]

10. wrong on the facts and wrong on the logic but you get points for consistency

[cry baby]

16. yeah, that's why they spent so much $ lobbying against it. nt

[Kdillard]

17. You seem to forget that Tarp was started and advocated for by Bush

and Paulsen.

[brentspeak]

24. Who is the person in this video?

Was this Henry Paulson?

http://metavid.org/wiki/Stream:Senate_proceeding_10-01-...

[Kdillard]

32. Le sigh you seem to have a problem with Democrats because

after Bush and Paulsen get through with them alot of them voted for TARP. Again Obama was not President this was not his solution to the crisis we faced at the time. The President at the time went on TV and pronounced the situation dire. Something needed to be done and that was the solution presented. EOS.

[brentspeak]

35. Ok, so now we've established that really was Obama in the video

plugging and endorsing with all his rhetorical might the greatest swindling of the American people since...well, there's no real comparison. Though tonight's $1 trillion+ bonanza might rival it.

[Kdillard]

41. Yes he voted for it as a Senator as did many others otherwise it would not have passed.

You do understand again that we had a very serious financial crisis brewing. Even the idiot President we had in charge at the time was forced to admit it so he came up with a solution. Now you can accurately say that the US Congress under the urging of Bush facilitated a bailout of the financial industry which would be accurate. In any case keep on your hating of the Dems. I am done.

[brentspeak]

43. I like Democrats. More specifically, real Democrats

not corporate Democrats who are simply more pleasant Republicans.

[Kdillard]

55. Brentspeak I am afraid you are going to spend the next 4 or 8 years

deeply frustrated. No Democrat, bill or party is perfect. They will disappoint you either with an imperfect bill or not getting what you think is a perfect bill passed. That is life and politics.

[dionysus]

81. like johnny hedge fund eh?

[Kdillard]

33. delete.

[andym]

18. They really appreciate the repeal of their anti-trust exemption

and the minimum 85% cap on their loss ratio (ie 15% overhead cap).

[RBInMaine]

19. GO PISS IN YOUR SOUP ! I am SICK of your STUPID naysaying pissing and moaning !

[ecstatic]

22. +1000. It's getting REALLY old

[earth mom]

59. And there are a lot of us that are sick of your shit too!

Lay off the Hope & Change Kool Aid why don't ya?

[dionysus]

78. you know what? i for one am glad obama's presidency makes you miserable. it's nectar to my soul.

[msallied]

84. Your posts are nectar to mine. lol

It's like you project sanity and sense everywhere you go. I really appreciate that.

[dionysus]

86. why, thank you!

[suzie]

115. +1

[Ken Burch]

85. Bobby Kennedy wouldn't be celebrating last night's vote

n/t.

[dionysus]

87. he would considering the congress we have.

[Jennicut]

21. Yeah, and people like me and others here can just sit around and twiddle our thumbs some more

while we wait for a so called perfect bill. I obviously am being selfish with my preexisting condition. I can wait for the right bill to come along, right?

[dionysus]

79. he doesn't give a flying fuck about health care. this is his bitter personal mission against obama.

pure and simple.

[RBInMaine]

23. How about some cheese to go with your shitty whine ?

[ind_thinker2]

You are so WRONG! You are so WRONG!

I guess in a wrong forum as well

[vaberella]

25. I'd be covered on the PO. So I'd say as one of the people...victory for me with my taxes. n/t

[Jennicut]

31. But vabrella, you are being selfish when we could have perfection....in 15 years.

Wonder how long we would have to wait when Dems "start over"?

[vaberella]

38. That's if they'd be given that chance to "start over."

[Jennicut]

40. They wouldn't. And you would be out of luck.

Now, onto the Senate!

[liberalmuse]

26. Oh fuck this shit.

Keep your 'purity'. Maybe the perfect bill will get passed in a hundred years or so. I'll take affordable heath care now, even flawed. It's the start we could have used decades ago, but I'll take it. I guess some people don't realize that you can't just wave your hand and get the perfect legislation on the first try. Reality doesn't work like that. I suppose some believe it would be better to stay with the status quo, or worse, let the people sink into the mire rather than do something, if that something does not meet the liberal ideal on the first try. Go sit in the corner with Kucinich (I'm a fan, but also know that there are times when hard-headed liberals can become a liability).

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ej510]

39. What's affordable to you?

[NYC_SKP]

44. lol your subject line...

sweet and to the point.

"Oh fuck this shit."

[phleshdef]

28. Yea that whole having to pay out 85% o their intake to customers, losing anti-trust exemptions...

...no dropping people from plans to avoid payout and having to cover pre-existing conditions, those are all huge victories for their bottom lines, right?

Sorry, maybe I missed something, I don't speak brentspeak, otherwise known as complete horseshit.

[ipaint]

47. There is already a loophole for that 85% requirement. n/t

[CakeGrrl]

34. Blah blah blah blah blahhhhhhh...

[brentspeak]

36. "Nah, nah, nah! I can't hear you!!!!"

[CakeGrrl]

37. Not surprising. You're in your own world. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

42. The devil is in the details

Here is one detail: People won't see any benefits out this fatally flawed bill until 2013. Prior to that, the mandates will kick in with their onerous tax, or penalty, putting additional burdens on people already burdened.

The public option is no more, replaced by a bullshit exchange where there won't be any real competition with the corporations that run health.

Add to that the dagger the Democrats stuck on women's reproductive rights, and what do we have? Crap!

[ej510]

45. Mitt Romney couldn't have written a better bill himself.

Wait a minute, Romney wrote the bill. We got Romney care.

[Scarsdale Vibe]

46. Wealth transferred from millionaires to insurance companies to cover 36m people.

OH THE HUMANITY!

[ej510]

49. Being forced ro by insurance from private corporations

sounds like a repuke idea.

[Jennicut]

53. Actually, didn't Hillary and Edwards both support mandates in the primary?

[dionysus]

82. why yes, of course they did.

[Egnever]

94. SHHH! We arent suposed to remember that.

[Aramchek]

48. brentspite

[CreekDog]

50. Which is why they opposed it

oh wait.

[CTLawGuy]

103. no it was their secret plan to mass-oppose a bill they really like

and spend untold sums on ads bashing it, so that dems will pass it for them! The purpose for doing this... unclear.

Or these far lefties are just stupid. Yes, that's the simpler explanation.

[ipaint]

51. The insurance companies fought to neuter the public option.

They love the mandates but a real public option would threaten their business model.

Lucky for them all that money and lobbying paid off. If the faux PO makes it to the final bill it is so weak it won't bring prices down nor as we now know will it be any cheaper.

Absolutely no competition for the ins. giants plus a mandate. This is most certainly a victory for them and money well spent.

The throw women overboard last minute amendment really sealed the deal. A million plus abortions a year and no taxpayer subsidy coverage for working class and poor women. Unlike our aid to other nations which does now go to abortions here in the states women are treated with bush like cruelty by democrats.

That certainly justifies another victory lap.

[ej510]

52. Don't that get you down, because it is a great day for

the democratic party. You should be excited about getting gouged to death by the insurance industry. To make even better if you choose to get gouged you will pay a fine.

[joeycola]

63. oh, thanks, I forgot to be excited...

NOT!!

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[earth mom]

58. Banks and Insurance companies = Same Same.

[Skittles]

64. CORRECT

[lonestarnot]

65. bulshit, bullshit and more bullshit.

[lamp_shade]

66. You're still here?

[treestar]

71. Then why didn't every Rethuglican vote for it?

They protect big business.

[Truth2Tell]

93. Because defeating Obama is a higher priority here

for the Republicans. The blue dogs are doing just fine protecting big business on this one.

[Bonobo]

73. Substantiate your 2% claim or STFU. nt

[dionysus]

77. brent, really sorry john edwards was such a dismal failure that you feel the need to do this.

no, wait, actually, i'm not.

[Waiting For Everyman]

91. Couldn't agree more.

One shouldn't have to state the obvious, much less argue it, but evidently in GDP that's the case. Wow, I never realized how overrun with DLCers it is over here, compared to GD. How weird!

[CTLawGuy]

102. available to 2%?

no, that's how many people the CBO thinks will USE it (leaving out those who will choose the private options - you know, we hate socialism!).

It's available to ANYONE who doesn't already have insurance through employment. read the bill.