Achance, I believe Inspectorudy expresses ‘Topics’ for discussion while you are addressing ‘Particulars’. btw, I agree with you generally.

as an aside, I notice a lot of references to the ‘Republican Party is the Party of No’. My position is the ‘Republican Party is the Party of KNOW’. just sayin’

I do think that this sudden spirit of cooperation is a setup so as to put the Republicans in the postion of having a share of the blame when we reach economic crisis and/or collapse.

The One-Party system that has been in place since about March of 2009 has allowed Barack H. Obama to do plenty of damage already, the damage has yet to be seen in manifestation for the most part. The Democrats do not want to own what they have done, so now Rahm tells the POTUS to set up the Republicans to take the fall.

I wouldn’t trust Barack. Come to think of it, I don’t trust Barack or Rahm.

Don’t do it, Republicans.

Don’t do it.

You’ve been warned.

PC is Thought Control
LEE

However, my gut says we do not want a single Republican fingerprint anywhere on the current Health Care Reform package(s).

Stay as far away from this fiasco as possible until the playing field is once more reasonably level, as in 2010 and even more so in 2012.

Repeat after me: Obama is a one term president, Obama is a one term pres…. (continue the mantra every time you are tempted to act in a bipartisan manner)

Keep it up until this guy and his minions are gone.

PC is Thought Control
LEE

LEE

Nothing could be more destructive to Republican potential than to be seen in any way as cooperating in this farce.

There is only one bill possible that would even begin to be satisfactory to the Tea Party Party and the essential parts follow:

1. Tort/Malpractice Insurance reform
2. Insurance portability
3. Catastrophic coverage
4. Real anti-corruption legislation and prosecution.
5. Some form of reasonable insurance regardless of pre-existing health problems.

Not one of these needs a massive interfering government bureaucracy. Tort and Corruption fixes would more than fund the entire program.

It would also be almost impossible to hide abortion funding and Death Panels in this simple an approach.

Again, the smart response to an Obama invitation to a sit down at Blair house at this juncture is Mr President Pound sand. I think it should be delivered to the president by none other than Mr Bipartisanship himself, John McCain (lol)

PC is Thought Control
LEE

However it is my humble opinion that Boehner will not fall for o’s bull. If the repubs are smart, they’ll begin with some conditions (as mentioned above).

Bottom line, o is going to do what he wants to do no matter what excellent ideas the repubs bring to the table, and they have great plans as most of you know. This is all for show…that is all o knows how to do.

God Bless America and her patriots.

Message to Obama: “We do understand you and your legislation and we hate it!”

If they Republicans wan to have a major press conference where they control the agenda and push their ideas then they can show Americans that they have the good ideas and this would put the President on the defensive more. To let him control the imagery and the agenda for discussions is a non-starter and republicans who agree to take this risk are too incompetent or serve and need to be defeated.

Republicans should do and Contract for Healthcare and push it saying the dems had their chance and now it is time for Obama to push these ideas. Only on our terms this time and now expansion. All or none. Of course Obama will refuse the simple all or none package.

I would love to see a digital comparison behind every Republican press conference that compares the number of hours Republicans have had control of the country during the last 40 or so years vs the number of hours the Dems have had control. It needs to be constantly pounded into the heads of all Americans that Republicans have not been in control long enough to spend enough money or design enough entitlements to take us where we are today.

Yes, we have been complicit in many of them, but I have a feeling there may be a whole new bunch of Freshmen Republicans who will have gotten the message that we want SMALLER government, fewer entitlements, secure borders, and lower taxes when they are sworn in after the elections.

1- As much as I support tort reform, I just don’t see how my state’s liability laws are the US Government’s business except as they relate to interstate commerce.

2- So once somebody enters my risk pool they can just choose to stay there? I can see some tweaks to COBRA to make it easier for a person to transition from one employer or insurance provider to another, but different employers have different benefit levels, demographics, and risk pools that reflect the company’s hiring and business practices; why should they have to accept some other company’s practices and risks? There’s a lot of difference between the risk associated with sedentary white collar employees and the risk associated with, say, utility linemen or commercial fishermen. See above for my view on pre-tax benefits.

3- I can see removing the bar on sales across state lines, but I have a lot of trouble with the US telling my state what if any mandates we might impose.

4- This is a tough nut. If you cover pre-existing conditions, it isn’t insurance, it’s just assuming a liability. The part I think we need to work on is a person who acquires some condition while insured under some pool but who loses their job or is for some reason forced to change jobs. It makes some sense for the insurer who was covering that person when the condition arose to continue to be liable for treatment of that condition but if the person leaves that employer, treatment of that person will definitely cause the employer’s costs to go up because the employer’s plan will be paying still but no contribution will be made on that employee’s behalf – unless you go back to the notion that a person can stay in a pool indefinitely and the employer should pay indefinitely once a person enters the pool.

5- I’m fine with finding ways for people who don’t have employer provided insurance to purchase insurance with pre-tax dollars though the logistics of it can become complex. I also like removing restrictions on forming pools based on trade associations and other voluntary associations. As to the tax credit on expenses, unless you’ve been involved in plan administration, you can’t conceive of the clever, wierd, and expensive things people can try to get their insurance to pay for or the clever, wierd, and expensive things that docs will try to charge to health insurance, so you’d want to be really careful with that.

6- Alas, the poor will apparently always be with us and this is just one more way to make it more comfortable and even profitable to be poor.

Employers consider providing health insurance to be part of the remuneration of the employee (and obviously, it is). But in this economic situation, if an employer dropped health insurance, I don’t believe there is a prayer that the employer would increase base pay to keep the employee’s salary and benefits package equal. So please inform me as to why this would be popular with the citizens, most of whom obtain their health insurance from their employers.

Oh, and “poor people” already get coverage – it’s called Medicaid.

Seems to me you are simply in favor of the government having more than their current 50% control of health care spending.

1. The current bill(s) must be scrapped and the effort start anew; and,

2. The President guarantee that no effort will be made to use “Reconciliation” to avoid the 60 votes necessary for ending debate.

FNC also is reporting that the President considers these as simply negotiating positions and that neither condition will be met by the Democrats.

There might be hope that the Repubs will finally shake their image as the “Stupid Party” – though I won’t hold my breath. They should stick to their two stated requirements, and loudly and repeatedly hold news conferences to put their position, and the fact that they have had their input ignored for almost a year, before the public. But I also won’t hold my breath that the MSM would put that before the public.

However it does demand action from the Repubs. And regardless their rhetoric to the contrary…it may force their hand in at least attempting to put up an alternative plan of action. It could very easily be turned right back against O and the Crew by laying ground rules.

Why not try a very novel approach for once. Find a Repub leader with some balls to confront the Pres straight up and get him to agree, on TV, that the entire system is broken and unsustainable long term. He’ll agree. Then say, then if this is in fact true, instead of trying to hide or deny that fact with more smoke and mirrors…then let’s agree, to tell the American people the bold faced , ugly TRUTH. That if we want a better health care system, we need to FIX THE EXISTING SYSTEM….and to do so …. means it is going to hurt and will change things…across the board, and will affect everyone one of us.

Will you take that step Mr. Pres , will you join with the Repubs and issue this blast of reality to the people. Most of them with any common sense know it already. Why not affirm the fact from the highest office and be a leader. It might be shocking to see the people actually face the realities and WANT to do the things needed to fix the problems….regardless the pain. Adversity has built the American character. It’s part of our legacy.

We all know this will happen when pigs go flying by our windows. As long as a political career is a path to personal empire building we are going to get exactly what we are getting. These people are bought and sold daily in the markeplace by special interests and driven by personal greed. Not all of them of course, but
the arguement can be made that Washington presents this picture.

If by some quirk of fate, or the hand of God made the above scenario play out, we might actually see some positive change come to this country and take us out of the death spiral we are falling into. The above actions would kill the current health care deformation dead in its tracks.

Then maybe we could get a bipartisaned effort at doing the hard work of what is right for the entire country. That goal, or ideal, seems to be missing from the collective minds of our elected elite.

Fix the economy first. Nobody wants to do anything when their wallets are empty, they fear losing their job, and continually get their name co-signed to the rampant burgeoning debt of an out of control teenage who stole the credit cards and are on spending blitzkreig.

Once again, I say thank God for this administration, and the problems that we face in this country today. If it takes that to wake us up…then so be it. Until we stand up collectively and stop the game in progress, we deserve to live in Fantasy land.