GOP Targets Social Security & Health Care Reform

The Republican leader in the House of Representatives, who may become the Speaker of the House next year, is proposing that federal spending levels be returned to what they were in fiscal year 2008 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_republicans_economy. Returning Social Security's budget to its 2008 level would be a massive cut. There would be layoffs. The agency would go into free fall, with dramatic reductions in public service. It would be a nightmare. You may have noticed that Republicans are in a "take no prisoners, make no compromises, our way or nothing" mode. It has not made Republicans more popular, but it has certainly made Democrats less popular, by making it difficult for them to govern. There are frighteningly plausible http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/choke-it-starve-it-shrink-it-what-government-shutdown-hints-are-really-about.php?ref=fpblg Republican plans to shut down government next year to try to stop health care reform. (Posted by Social Security News)

http://socsecnews.blogspot.com/2010/09/government-shutdown-coming-next-year.html

Comments

[Bruce Hotchkiss]

Steve, you have no argument from me that the health care reform we got was not the answer. I think you got my point -- I believe it is easier to take the leap rather than try to crawl.

I know from my Canadian history that the same type of arguments took place there before single payer was put in place. When Tommy Douglas brought single payer to Canada, those afraid of change thought it would be the end of the world. It wasn't.

If the United States of America cannot institute a single-payer health care system that is better than any other, maybe it's time we just throw in the towel as we have done with so much else. Is it really like James McMurtry's song "We Can't Make It Here Anymore"?

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget's stretched so thin
And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore

That big ol' building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore

See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna set there till they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore

The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore

High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore

Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their sh@# don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the da$% little war
And we can't make it here anymore

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat sh$%, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore

And that's how it is
That's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you're listening at all
Get out of that limo
Look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why

In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore

Music and lyrics © 2004 by James McMurtry

[Steve Sinai]

Bruce, it's not much of a procedural leap to go from banning interracial marriage, to allowing it. It only means people start saying "yes" instead of "no." That's not at all comparable to changing a huge, ingrained, bureaucratic system.

According to what I've seen from polling, I'm one of the majority who believes health care reform is needed, yet were very disappointed with the mess that came out of Washington. The people who passed the legislation seemed more concerned with the symbolism of passing legislation by a certain date than they were in getting it right.

[Rocky]

I would like to point out to readers that Obamacare was sold as a means to ensure health care for all those uninsured, as well as resolve the issue of pre-existing conditions and the tragedy of people going bankrupt due to medical care costs. What was shamelessly left out of the discussion was the information on the following website brought to you by our friends at the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (in care of the taxpayers of America):
http://findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov/Search_HCC_byAddr.aspx

Now if your complaint is that HRSA is not offering the same type of Cadillac care our politicians in Washington and beyond are receiving, then I cede your point.

For those of you who think there is some sort of partisan conspiracy going on here, maybe there is. Many economic and health care experts agree that costs could be dramatically reduced if we were allowed to purchase health care insurance across state lines. The other area of opportunity is tort reform. NEITHER of the aforementioned is addressed in Obamacare. Curious, isn't it?

[Bruce Hotchkiss]

I'd love to let blacks marry whites, but that is too big a leap for now (sentiment of some circa 1950). Now is always the time to move mankind forward.

[todd bray]

Read "THE WRECKING CREW" if you want to understand Republican disgust and hatred of America and her citizens.

[Kathy Jana]

The Big Oil billionaire Koch brothers are fighting all public good -- and are behind the "take no prisoners, winner take all" non-compromising position of the Republican Party on the Hill -- and they are behind efforts to stop true public health care.

They also oppose public health care.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

[Dan B. Underhill]

"Even the relatively small changes imposed on the health care system resulted in new bureaucratic mess that looks to rival the IRS."

What makes the bureaucratic mess is trying to exclude some people from health care and trying to find ways of not eliminating the useless and insatiable insurance companies in the process. We can either allow the same pigs their traditional place at the trough or we can provide for the health of the people. The bureaucratic mess is what comes of trying to do both at the same time. I am not impressed with Obamacare. I am less impressed with the status quo.

[Steve Sinai]

I'd love to have single-payer health care, but it's too much of a leap from where we are now. Even the relatively small changes imposed on the health care system resulted in new bureaucratic mess that looks to rival the IRS.

I don't think it's realistic to move to a single-payer system anytime soon.

[Bruce Hotchkiss]

When oh when are we going to pull our heads out of our butts and put a single-payer health plan in place?

And for those naysayers out there who will tell you what a mess other single-payer systems are, they are definitely better than the system we have, where fewer and fewer people every year can afford health care. Give me a system where people do not have to bankrupt themselves when they get sick or injured.

[Steve Sinai]

"If the Republicans try to stop it by defunding it, they should be defenestrated."

"Defenestrated?" Does that involve cutting off a body part?

I'm a big believer in health care reform, but what got passed several months ago was a useless mess. As someone who's self-employed and thus has to research and purchase health insurance directly, I don't feel like it improved my situation at all.

As a first shot, I'd like to have seen competition opened up across state lines, and insurance companies forced to be clear and straightforward about what is and isn't covered.

[Indiana Anthem]

Waste and fraud are two big reasons for these increases. We don't have to dismantle the system -- just tweak it a bit.

Maybe a new Congress will understand.

[Peter Loeb]

The American people want health care reform. If the Republicans try to stop it by defunding it, they should be defenestrated.

[Lionel Emde]

I think the American people are already getting drained dry by the broken, for-profit health care system in this country.
The biggest mistake in the new health care bill, IMO, is the lack of cost containment. Kaiser Permanente has been rising by 9 to 13 percent per year for many years now. Can working-class people who have to pay their own health care premiums keep from going under before they reach the age where Medicare kicks in?
I'm in the process of finding out.

[George Vateor]

Let's all hope that the GOP can stop or at least put the brakes on Obamacare. It goes against the basic tenet of US health care -- that everyone gets the best possible treatment, as opposed to the view that it's a numbers game. We have this much money and can do the best for the most people by making these choices. In the end, old people and young people -- and I might add, poor people -- get cheated. But the political elite still get the best care.