Thursday, December 10, 2009

Think we have a "do nothing" Congress now? Just wait until Sean Hannity's wish comes true.

According to a recent CNN Poll, the country is presently divided on who would do a better job running the House and Senate. So for all those of you grumbling about Congress today, imagine what it would be like with a 49/49 split (since Lieberman and Sanders are technically Independents). NOTHING would get done. They would never be able to even get past a cloture vote thanks to the non-filibustering filibuster rules.

I believe that the best thing for Congress would be for it to shed itself of the dead wood Blue Dog Democrats who have been holding up the Health Care reform process since the spring. I have absolutely nothing against them voting against specific pieces of legislation that they do not agree with, or rather, that their corporate overlords do not agree with, but by holding up cloture votes and allowing the speechless filibusters to take place they are hurting our democracy. Dump those worthless old mutts and replace them with young, vivacious progressives who want to get into government to make our country stronger and our people healthier and better educated.

Ironically, what the party of No and their allies are hurting even more then the progressive agenda, is the image of Congress itself. By blocking bills and preventing even the debate on the bills to take place, they are proving Congressional critics right in their accusations that Congress is a do-nothing body.

2 comments:

  1. Ahhhh - if you could only blame the 'do-nothing' Congress on Republicans.
    Unfortunately, you mention the blue dog Dems and their alliance with Republicans - SO EVEN YOU KNOW THAT IT'S NOT ONLY REPUBLICANS!
    I say "Thank God" for the impasse in Congress. The healthcare bill(s) is/are ludicrous. We simply can't affordd it AND there are so many other options available which have been discussed over & over again - to no avail.
    Repeat:
    NEED TORT REFORM! Silly lawsuits are killing us - too bad the government is filled with lawyers (instead of businessmen) who want this gravy train to continue.
    SELL INSURANCE ACROSS STATE LINES - it is already done in the car insurance industry - which works!
    DEVISE A PROGRAM (catastrophic illness only) FOR THE SMALL PERCENTAGE WHO HAVE NO HEALTH INSURANCE - leave the rest alone!
    INVOLVE CONGRESS IN THE PROGRAM - OR LET US HAVE THEIR PROGRAM
    FIX MEDICARE & MEDICAID FIRST - then we will believe that something equitable can be done

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  2. Tort Reform = Diversionary tactic. This is nothing more than a distraction from the main issue of health care reform (as opposed to health insurance reform). Tort reform would save, according to the CBO, about $41 billion over the next ten years. That might sound like a lot of money but that alone is not going to get us anywhere close to where we need to be. It's also not going to get the Republicans to sign on to the bill.

    Crossing state lines - While this might seem like a great idea, and "Anonymous" points to car insurance as proof that it works, to make this work for the people Congress or the States would need to create an enormous bureaucracy to police the insurance companies that are going to start popping up to take advantage of new markets. One of the concerns is who will be responsible for holding insurance companies accountable? It's one thing if they have a physical presence in your state that the State AGs can go after, it's quite another if they're located in Duluth.

    Where "Anonymous" and I concur is that we need to involved Congress, or, open up Congress's health care plan to the people. In fact, let's go a step further. Everyone seems to like Medicare (even Republicans who used to cut it every chance they got are strong supporters of it now) so let's open it up to people under 65. How about everyone over 55 can get it? Or how about 45? Hell, let's just open it up to everyone. This also feeds into the last bullet point of fixing Medicare and Medicaid. There would be no greater motivation to protect a program like Medicare than if EVERYONE was able to enroll in it.

    ReplyDelete

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