Voting for health care reform – and at the ultimate least, voting for that bill to get to a floor vote – should be a fundamental element of being in the Democratic caucus. If you’re going to be against it, you shouldn’t be there in the first place. There is a party opposed to reform of of one of the most important elements in American society. It is called the Republican party.

Senate Dems and their staffers have coasted along for far too long, protected from the world of actual politics because for so long they could do no more than toothless stunts and speeches. Now they’ve got to step up to the plate and deliver, and playing CYA wont’ cut it.

UPDATE: Chris Rock said it best.

N***as always want credit for some shit they supposed to do. A n***a will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A n***a will say some shit like, “I take care of my kids.” You’re supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? “I ain’t never been to jail!” What do you want, a cookie?! You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!

The health care bill will require $849 billion over 10 years in new spending, to be paid for with cuts to Medicare, while reducing the deficit by $127 billion.

A notice obtained by CNN went out to Senate Democrats saying, ‘All Senators should be aware that former President Clinton will be making a presentation on Health Care at tomorrow’s caucus lunch. Senator Reid has requested that all Democratic Senators attend.’

We need a bill on the president’s desk by Christmas, at the very latest, New Years Eve.

The Senate Democratic leader indicated Tuesday that lawmakers may not complete health care legislation this year, missing President Barack Obama’s deadline on his signature issue and pushing debate into a congressional election year.

With just eight weeks left, the Senate is running out of time to finish a comprehensive bill to extend coverage to millions of Americans and control rising medical costs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., emerged from a closed-door meeting of rank-and-file Democrats signaling that delay was likely.

Asked if he could pass health care this year, Reid said: ‘We’re not going to be bound by any timelines. We need to do the best job we can for the American people. We want quality legislation, and we’re going to do that.’

Look, if health care reform doesn’t pass this year, it isn’t going to pass. The entire reason we’re this late on it is because Reid allowed Baucus to dick us around this summer. Harry Reid is a majority leader who acts weaker than a minority leader. He bends at the slightest sign of resistance. He talks big, then retreats.

If he doesn’t get a health care vote this year, Harry Reid should either step down or be removed from his leadership role.

UPDATE: And now, backpedaling. Message control in the Reid office is not a virtue.

“Our goals remain unchanged. We want to get health insurance reform done this year, and we have unprecedented momentum to achieve that,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley emailed. “There is no reason why we can’t have a transparent and thorough debate in the Senate and still send a bill to the President by Christmas.”

Republicans too often react with kneejerks to the demands of their base, Democrats act as if they’ve got none.

September 24, 2009

Statement by The President on The Appointment of Paul Kirk as US Senator From Massachusetts

“I am pleased that Massachusetts will have its full representation in the United States Senate in the coming months, as important issues such as health care, financial reform and energy will be debated. Paul Kirk is a distinguished leader, whose long collaboration with Senator Kennedy makes him an excellent, interim choice to carry on his work until the voters make their choice in January.”

###

>> Kirk named interim senator

Heck of a job on the waste of time and money, Max.

For the moment, at least, Max Baucus has come up short.

Mr. Baucus, the Montana Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who has led a months-long effort to develop bipartisan legislation to overhaul the nation’s health care system, is expected to unveil his plan Wednesday morning with Republicans not yet on board.

The senate Dems, and to a slightly lesser degree, the White House seems to have locked themselves in to the idea that the Republican party has any interest whatsoever in reforming the health care system in America. News alert: They could give a crap.

The GOP has no interest in reform. At best they’d like to scrap the status quo by killing medicare and social security.

Its like we’re in Die Hard and John McClain keeps giving the terrorists one last chance and keeps delaying what he should be doing: Yippie kay yay mother…

Q: How will U.S. Sen. (Edward) Kennedy’s death affect things?

A: I think it’s going to help us. He hasn’t been around for some time. We’re going to have a new chairman of that committee, it’ll be, I don’t know for sure, but I think Sen. (Chris) Dodd (D-Conn.). He has a right to take it. Either him or (U.S. Sen. Tom) Harkin, (D-Iowa), whichever one wants it can have it. I think he (Kennedy) will be a help. He’s an inspiration for us. That was the issue of his life and he didn’t get it done.

In a perverse way, I sort of want Reid to lose his seat next year. That seems to be the only way to get him out of the senate leadership, his replacement would be from a true-blue state (my preference: Schumer or Durbin), and it would teach Dems that milquetoast leadership leads to milquetoast results (though its arguable they will never learn that lesson, since they replaced a weak leader in Daschle with Reid).

Again I ask, why bother with a majority if this is what we get?

Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.

The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said of Republican lawmakers, “Only a handful seem interested in the type of comprehensive reform that so many people believe is necessary to ensure the principles and the goals that the president has laid out.”

The last time we had a Democratic president, we and he allowed for truly progressive change to be snuffed out in favor of conservative corporate interests. It was good, but it could have been far better.

I hope we don’t give away the farm this time.

In other words, they had a glass jaw.

If the tussle over the public option component of health care reform continues along what seems to be its current trajectory, the Obama administration will have taken a serious punch to the face and the GOP will end up running all over them.

The main problem here is that President Obama seems overly focused on getting some kind of bipartisanship out of Washington, but the problem is he’s going about it using the Tom Daschle method. Many of us will remember the days where Tom Daschle led as minority leader and majority leader as marked by all sorts of ridiculous concessions to the Bush administration and the Republicans – most notably on the Iraq War. In retrospect all that bipartisanship led to was the loss of political power and clout for the Democrats, and more importantly, the near-ruination of the prestige and fiscal supremacy of the United States. That’s all.

In theory, concessions on these things are supposed to lead to votes. Senator X wants this, okay we do it, now we have his vote. Representative Y really wants this to cost this much, okay we do it, now we have her vote. The problem is President Obama and the leadership in the Senate (for now, the House seems to be sticking to their guns) seem to be in a mode of permanent concession that is not going to produce any Republican votes.

The Dems could negotiate health care reform down to a band-aid and a sheet of prayer and the GOP wouldn’t vote for it because the band-aid cost too much. Gotta be “deficit neutral”, you know!

I don’t get this. And while intellectually I sort of understand the various moving parts that have to be juggled around simultaneously, my gut feeling – and I’m sure the same goes for much of the American majority who supported the President and the Congress – is that we have the votes to get things accomplished, so why are even playing this game?

There are 60 votes for cloture in the Senate – at least there should be unless any Democrat is stupid enough to filibuster health care reform for Christ’s sake, and there has got to be at least 51 Dems with the guts to do this thing, or why bother? In the House the margins are even better, with 40 votes of wiggle room for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer. GET IT DONE.

I’ve often written here about how I think its kind of ridiculous how the religious right invests so much in Republicans expecting things like the outlawing of abortion – their ultimate goal – and instead Republican presidents like Bush refuse to do more than make a phone call to their rallies, let alone enact actual legislation related to their cause.

President Obama and the Democratic Congress risk serious damage with their base over health care, in a way that won’t be papered over like the religious right and abortion. This is not 1992, where a President with less than 50% of the vote won on a moderate platform with very little wiggle room to work with in the congress. Obama won by almost 7%, with more than double the electoral votes of his opponent. His party enjoys considerable majorities in both houses of congress. That is not a mandate to go play pattycake with John Boehner. Its a mandate to get serious stuff done.

Democrats are in power because the electorate trusted them on 3 major items: Economy, National Security, and Health Care. On economy and national security they are on the right path, with a return to some sort of fiscal sanity and regulated markets, combined with a strategic disengagement from Iraq as well as a rededication in Afghanistan to finishing the job that began on 9/11. But while 2/3 will get you into Cooperstown, it won’t help the Dems electorally.

And again, more importantly, it won’t help the country.

Heart Bypass Surgergy: I’ve Seen Too Many

While I haven’t seen the worst of this first-hand, I have seen what our current health care system screws up. I’m lucky, I’m one of those people with a pretty good health benefit from my employer. Other, close, members of my family don’t have that. The costs are too high, they aren’t covered on their jobs, and they have pre-existing conditions. Sure, they are cared for when they need emergency care but I honestly would much rather not have to have people in my family wait until the doctors have to rip arteries out of their chests to get their health care needs adressed. Oh, and the giant bills that ensue.

The Republican party and a few Democrats with their heads shoved up their butts want more people to suffer. They – especially the Republicans – won’t budge and they won’t give an inch. Their ideology and the idea of winning one fight versus a President they seek to kneecap is far more important to them than the members of my family or the millions of others out there. That’s why they insist on mob rule and death panel lies rather than a serious discussion on this.

Their minds were made up on November 4, 2008. There is no sense in engaging with them, let alone conceding anything to them until they decide to bring some honesty to this issue.

The president and congress could make the Washington village types really happy with a milquetoast nothingball package of legislation that doesn’t do a thing and leads to policy and electoral failure. Or they could do the job we put them in place to do.

In other words, the exact opposite of Harry Reid.

‘Sometime in September we’re going to have to make an assessment’ about whether to keep trying to negotiate with Republicans, he told MSNBC.

Obama said he ‘would prefer Republicans working with us’ but that getting his main priorities for a health care overhaul are more important. It represents a marked change from the emphasis Obama placed on bipartisanship when he launched his campaign for a health care overhaul at a White House summit in March.

The president’s shift is being echoed by Democratic senators.

‘The time is closing in,’ said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. ‘We cannot finish this year without passing major health care reform. It’s our sacred duty to the American people.’

Republicans aren’t for some form of health care reform. They are not for reform at all. So why would we work on them on something they’re not interested in?

Ben Nelson – Democrat – is really a piece of work. The folks at Health Care Can’t Wait are running an ad and petition to get real and meaningful health care reform – with a public option – through the senate. How does Nelson respond?

In a statement issued late in the afternoon by Nelson’s office, spokesman Jake Thompson warned that if the new series of ads calling out the Senator’s “stalling” on reform were “an indication of the politics going into August, then health care reform may be dead by the end of August.”

These are the words and statements of people with no grasp on reality when it comes to this legislation. Ben Nelson (and Harry Reid) just don’t get it. They seem to think that the support they got in 2006 and beyond is going to keep them up if they just have a (D) behind their names. Conservative democrats who obstruct meaningful progress in Washington are the political equivalent of Bush Republicans, and they’ll be treated that way.

Do your job, Senator.

At least then we can elect a new majority leader.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted, 13 to 6, on Tuesday to endorse the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, easing her path to likely confirmation as the first Hispanic member of the tribunal.