First, everyone please call 1-888-876-6242. That’s the Families USA number that will route your pro-HCR phone call to your representative. Read about the right-wing threats against Families USA here.
Also, please note that the next several hours before tomorrow’s vote are going to be insane.
The anti-abortion block in the House remains the biggest threat. Steve Benen and Brian Beutler explain the contortions Nancy Pelosi is going through to get some of the Stupak gang on board. In a nutshell, the deal may be to allow for a separate vote on putting the Stupak amendment language back into the House bill.
Note that such a vote, if it happens, is extremely unlikely to pass, but that hasn’t stopped Jane Hamsher from using the issue to rally “progressives” against the bill.
Let us all reflect on how grand it is to have purity of principles when you’ve got plenty of money and insurance to pay for your cancer treatments.
Steve Benen writes that “There are still a few liberal Dems who voted for reform in November, including Massachusetts’ Stephen Lynch, who intend to vote with right-wing Republicans because they don’t see it as liberal enough.” If the more-progressive-than-thou types would stop grandstanding and get behind the bill, Pelosi wouldn’t need any of the Stupak votes. This is a wonderful example of how grandstanding is an indulgence progressives would be better off without most of the time.
If you aren’t disgusted enough yet, check out this Kate Pickert post at Time.com, which begins:
Marcelas Owens, a young boy who’s been appearing on TV and at press conferences with Democrats who are trying to sell their health care plan, is a new fascination for some right-wing pundits, who have been saying incredibly cruel things to and about the Owens’ family and tragic history. Owens’ mother died in 2007 of pulmonary hypertension – a rare condition that requires constant expensive medical care – after she lost her fast food restaurant job and her health insurance.
Pay special attention to the discussion in the comments on What Would Jesus Do about health care reform. My favorite:
Jesus wouldn’t go around forcing people to pay for someone else’s healthcare, either. Forced charity is theft, and it is not a Christian concept.
So who cares if a couple of talk-show hosts say something “mean” when the people they’re opposed to are committing evil?
In a just universe, the person who wrote that would spend eternity copying and re-copying the Beatitudes on parchment with a bad felt-tip pen.
Finally, Dana Milbank says a true thing — running on a promise to repeal health care reform is unlikely to be a successful strategy for Republicans.
Beyond that, it’s doubtful that opposition to the measure will ever again be as high as it is now. Fox News polling found that 45 percent of voters would favor repeal, while 47 percent say leave the reforms alone or add to them. With the big insurance subsidies years away, the initial changes stemming from the legislation would be relatively modest — and that should come as a surprise to an American public told by Republican foes of the legislation to expect a socialist takeover of the United States.
What Americans would see — or at least what Democratic ad makers say they’d put on Americans’ TV screens — are the benefits that would take effect this year: tax credits that encourage small businesses to offer health coverage; a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the prescription-drug “donut hole” (the checks would start going out June 15); allowing young people up to age 26 to stay on their parents’ health policies; and, above all, a ban on refusing coverage to children with preexisting conditions.
There will certainly be ads this fall saying Republican Congressman X voted against tax breaks for small business and voted to deny Junior his life-saving treatments. These modest changes to the health system probably wouldn’t be widespread and noticeable enough to limit Democratic losses at a time of 10 percent unemployment. But, at the very least, voters would see nothing to justify the Republicans’ apocalyptic predictions.
I think that’s true, and I suspect enough of the troglodytes understand this is true, which is why they will stop at nothing to kill health care reform.
Update: I keep reading that there are something like 206 certain “yes” votes, and ten more are needed to pass. Wikipedia says there are 255 Dems in the House. If every Dem not in the Stupak gang would vote for the bill, then a compromise with Stupak would not be necessary to pass the bill. So why are people angry with Pelosi or Obama or me about Stupak? Why not get angry with the other holdouts?
Update update: It seems the Stupak attempt to use the HCR bill to further restrict abortion has been killed already. Everyone can stop hyperventilating.
when did protecting women’s reproductive rights become “more progressive than thou” among mainstream Democrats? Save the feigned indignity. You are selling out your mother, daughter, sister and every other woman in this country if you support this bill. Shame on you. And you can take your sanctimonious bullshit and shove it.
gaylib — I’ve been supporting reproductive rights since (I suspect) you were in diapers. But the Stupak threat, at worse, is unlikely to make much difference to the status quo regarding abortion, especially since the separate Stupak vote is unlikely to pass. And at worse, we can work to amend it. On the other hand, not passing HCR would be a huge setback to millions of people.
Poor little Jane, she hasn’t been on the TeeVee enough lately, maybe she can get a booking on FAUX Sunday show, that should quiet her for a while. I have to hand it to the wing-nuts, they know they can’t beat this bill on the merits so they make up lies about what is in it and get dimwitted liberals to overreact and vote with the dimwitted teabaggers, brilliant.
gaylib,
“And you can take your sanctimonious bullshit and shove it.”
I guess, based on that little sentence, that you might know ‘sanctimonious” and “bullshit’ better than most of us.
Btw, maha is right, if enough “Progressive” and “Liberal” Congressmen, and bloggers, would have stood behind the original bill, Stupid Stupak would never have been in any position to pull his special brand of sanctimonious bullshit in the first place.
If (and that’s a BIG if), the bill passes, I wonder what Glenn, Rush and Sean will go on about during the rest of the week? I mean, the sky won’t be falling, it won’t be December 7th and September 11th all wrapped up in one, and the sun will shine again one day…
I think Democratic Congress members should vote for the bill just for that reason. To shut the The “Boy’s of Bummer” the Hell up!
Of course, they will have to find some new fiction to feign outrage at. After all, money’s money. And Sean may have lawyer bills to pay if the allegations about his charity are true.
You couldn’t be more wrong while sitting on your high horse championing this corporate fiasco. No cost controls, mandates to buy private insurance, no reform of a monopolistic industry. Bought off by deals with corporate for-profit Hospitals and PhARMA.
But then, I bet we could look back and and find you sucking up (what is it an Obama fetish or just a partisan tool?) for the bank bailout and who knows what else.
My suggestion. You take off the shackles, and start to write like a real spiritual liberal, and not some two-bit punk who goes after anyone that finds this so called HRC a radical form of corporate values run amok.
Apple — I stopped reading your comment at “no cost controls.” You have no idea what you’re talking about.
I hope Nancy is using Stupak to pressure the “more-progressive-than-thou types”. If you are forcing me to make a deal with Stupak, I am going to blame you for that.
Typical right-wing corporate tactic to usurp religion for their own evil purposes. The people they’re using it on want a narrow sliver of Christianity to pervade our government while conveniently omitting the basic tenets.
This cherry picking will never stop until it disgusts more people. It’s like these idiots have come up with a new designer religion that tells them all their faults are OK and gives them license to force the parts that prove their own virtue (yet cost them nothing) on everyone else.
How convenient (for them).
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william_rivers_pitt/27463/five_yards_and_a_cloud_of_dust
erinyes — Thanks for the William Rivers Pitt link. Explains the situation very well.
Yes, Pitts piece does.
Of course, it’s disconcerting that it took 14 months for Obama and key people in his administration to figure out that Republicans want to throw out not just the bathwater, but the baby, the tub, and the whole damn house.
Of course, some of us have been trying to tell them that the whole time! Sheeeeeeesh! Talk about slow to learn…
Or, maybe I’m stupid and it’s that 11th Dimensional Chess I keep hearing about?
Jane doesn’t deserve this level of attack.
She’s misguided in her opposition to the bill as it is – she wants better. She’s bitter that progressives caved on things like the public option, and PhRMA and Insurance gain from the bill. That it was inevitable doesn’t make her losing these battles easier.
Your snark towards her doesn’t show compassion towards others. A lot of Jane’s writing about biosimilar exclusivity has been informed by her own battles with cancer and a desire for poor Americans to be able to afford treatment. I know, she and I had a very nasty day talking about Anna Eshoo last year.
I realize that’s how she sees it. But in the real world, if the bill at hand is defeated, there won’t be another one. Or, if there is another one, it will be more conservative, not more progressive. It’s one thing to fight for better while better might have been possible. We all wanted better. But killing the bill now is sentencing people to death. It’s one thing to be theoretically compassionate. It’s something else if you’ve had the real-world experience of being without insurance.
So, I say again, you can afford pure principles when you’ve got plenty of money and insurance to pay for your cancer treatments. I guess some of us can be bought more cheaply.
10/4 Maha!
Maha, I was suggesting compassion towards Jane. She’s losing a battle she is very invested in. Personal animus towards her doesn’t help her see that this HCR bill is a victory, just not the one she has fought for.
We’re going to get reform passed. The bill at hand will pass. Jane’s followers will berate their congresspeople for it, sure. But even at FDL there’s pushback against the purity – acknowledgment that it isn’t what we hoped would pass, but it does help.
Jane is ultimately on the side of the good guys. Snark like this will make her bitterness at her perceived loss last longer and make it harder for her to work with people that she should see as her allies for progressive change.
Life sucks for everybody.
This is not about personal animus. She’s doing real damage to real people, and I’m calling her out on it. And I think she’s blind to what she’s doing in part because of her lack of experience with what we might call “poverty.” If no one else has the nerve to tell her the truth, then I will.
I just commented at FDL doing the same. I’m uninsured presently. I use the Planned Parenthood community clinic for my health care – Jane had said PP is in it for political power… no, more money for clinics means I and others like me get better service and that is important.
This reads as personal animus to me. It doesn’t help put her into the shoes of an uninsured poor person. It just helps to calcify a sense that the person that writes it is an enemy.
I agree Jane is doing damage right now. I don’t think snark like that helps to contain the damage, and in the longer run it doesn’t help bring her talents to bear in ways that help progressive change.
I doubt that anything would. She’s got to wake up and see what she’s doing, but she’s got enough people around her reinforcing her current position that I doubt anything I could say would have much impact, one way or another.
Now, drop this. This conversation is over.
[Deleted; comments that are nothing but juvenile insults are not permitted here. If you have nothing substantive to say, go away. — maha]
[More juvenile drool deleted. — maha]
Apple,
“Loser.”
Wow, what a great comeback! I’m sure maha’s blinded!
I bet Groucho Marx, WC Fields, HL Mencken, and Will Rogers are all rolling in their graves from envy at your rapier-like wit.
Now, as to that wit, the question is, are you a ‘half,’ or a ‘nit,’ wit?
“Loser!”
This bill will no longer let an insurance company not insure you because of pre-existing conditions. This feature in and of itself makes this bill worthwhile. It also will ensure Americans who have no insurance now. This will improve the lives of many Americans. I am always for improving the lives of more Americans. I agree that if this bill doesn’t pass, you will see no progress in the US healthcare arena for another 10 to 20 years. How many Americans will die during that time period if the bill doesn’t pass?
It saddens me to see that Righties aren’t the only ones behaving like infants over this bill. One would almost think Teapartiers have taken to masquerading as Lefties, since the modus operandi has the same unpleasant odor of disinformation and name-calling.
joanr16,
there seems to be an Orthogonian flavor of resentment among some progressives. As if some degree of appeasement of powerful interests like PhRMA and Insurance was not inevitable.
I’d like to see the damage being done by pandering to this resentment forgiven and all of us get to work to keep improving our country.