This. This is what a nonfunctioning government looks like.

“Shame” implies that there is a transgression against a higher moral code.

The only code that counts is tribalism, is the gaining of power and the using of it for elite interests.  A modern-day Republican can no more be shamed by lies and hypocrisy than an author can be shamed for using slang in their writing - “whatever works” is the sole criteria for judgement.

The dimwits in their base probably think that the law really is repealed now.

What turns this into infinitely-recursive bullshit is that the GOP’s money people would never have let them even start debate on repeal if there were any chance of it being signed into law. Health care repeal is like outlawing abortion or full-blown deregulation: great for riling up the base, but the proximate cause of massive electoral defeat if actually achieved.

Nah. The magic of the Republican strategy is that they never have to show results. Repealing Roe v. Wade? A federal ban on gay marriage? They’ve been promising those things for decades. But if they actually delivered, the threat would be over and they’d have to go to all the trouble of making up a new threat to scare their base with.

Aw, paul beat me to it.

Sorry, but this is the very definition of the modus operandi of the modern Republican Party.  They scream about “big Government Democrats” when Bush oversaw one of the largest expansions of the federal government in the past 100 years.  They are obsessed with deficits now, but had no problem with Bush running up massive deficits, even proclaiming that Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.

I would just like to point out that the CBO predicts that repealing health care reform would increase the deficit.  For all their talk of “fiscal responsibility”, they’re really just a bunch of toddlers who hate it because a Democrat will get credit for it.  They’ll increase the deficit just to make sure that more people suffer.  I think this point needs to be spread more.

Instead of trying to repeal the individual mandate, which at the end of the day is just another way of saying that everyone is covered by health insurance, thus lowering overall costs (progressives support an individual mandate except one that is operated publicly), conservatives in Congress should be proposing health care reform that actually lowers the cost curve, something we still don’t have, largely a consequence of politicians on both sides being unwilling to stand up to hospitals’ and doctors.

I would just like to point out that the CBO predicts that repealing health care reform would increase the deficit.

The fact that reality has a well-known liberal bias means it can be ignored at wil by Republicans.

I would just like to point out that the CBO predicts that repealing health care reform would increase the deficit.  For all their talk of “fiscal responsibility”, they’re really just a bunch of toddlers who hate it because a Democrat will get credit for it.  They’ll increase the deficit just to make sure that more people suffer.  I think this point needs to be spread more.

And this is why I’m tired of calls for bipartisanship, claims that both sides are being silly, etc.

The Republicans are demonstrably, provably, factually working against not only the interests of the people, but against the budgetary interests of the nation. It’s not a matter of opinion that the Republican agenda won’t fix the deficit. It’s a goddamn demonstrable, quantifiable fact.

And as we all know, it’s the media’s “fair and balanced” approach that makes it look otherwise. We’ve reached the point of meaninglessness where the media finds it important to strike a balance between delusion and reality rather than pointing out which one is reality.

”...conservatives in Congress should be proposing health care reform that actually lowers the cost curve, something we still don’t have…”

“Modern” conservatism is predicated on the idea that government is always the problem, and never the solution.  Conservatives want to keep government from doing anything productive or progressive, and that is why they want to be elected to government office.  (no, it doesn’t make sense…)

Improving healthcare in the US would require the cooperation of conservatives and Blue Dogs, which under the current conservative (and conservative-wannabe) philosophy is the next best thing to impossible…

“We’ve reached the point of meaninglessness where the media finds it important to strike a balance between delusion and reality rather than pointing out which one is reality.”

It all makes sense (unfortunately for us all) when you remember “the media” is just another form of entertainment, not drastically different from a football game or a sitcom.

It really is important that they manufacture a false “balance” between the left and the right.  It keeps the proles watching, keeps the advertising money rolling in, and pays the bills.  Simply presenting the harsh reality would do none of those things.

Of course, the fake “balance” doesn’t help the citizenry or the the country.  But there are no ethics in business and there is no business in ethics.  It’s Ayn Rand’s evil and cynical dog-eat-dog, rich-own-the-poor, survival-of-the-least-moral world, we just live in it…

Nah. The magic of the Republican strategy is that they never have to show results. Repealing Roe v. Wade? A federal ban on gay marriage? They’ve been promising those things for decades. But if they actually delivered, the threat would be over and they’d have to go to all the trouble of making up a new threat to scare their base with.

When is this tired cliche going to be put to rest. Please do stop promoting the nonsensical bullshit that is “republicans don’t really deliver to the base”. The precise, exact opposite is ture. But don’t just take my word for it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#Current_legal_situation

Look at that! It looks like abortion is severely restricted! But it’s okay, because Republicans know that it would take a sympathetic court to actually overturn Abortion, and that’s why they haven’t spent the last 40 years packing the court with right wing sociopaths every chance they ge- Oh shit, wait:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Court_demographics

And if you think that the DOMA isn’t significant impediment to Gay Rights, you’re an idiot.

Seriously, seriously, NO ONE gets what they want from their politicans like conservative assholes. The fact that they also believe nonsensical bullshit about trickle down theory is of course the bonus, but make no mistake, the conservative movement gets major payout for their complicity in destroying the middle class.

Please, for the sake of my heart health, please liberals stop swallowing Thomas Frank’s smug bullshit.

CLOBBERING TIME

dawkins - got you…

who’s the WINGNUT?

http://richarddawkins.net/videos/579240-the-truth-about-the-lunatic-religious-right-in-america?page=1

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION - JAN 1, 2011

OMENS OF DEATH:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/302169

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7776949-5000-black-birds-fell-from-sky-due-to-flu

http://starseedshaman.info/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/redwing.jpg

the end of atheism - only the blind and deaf can deny it…

an example and warning of the fate of those who try to divide people….

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1176-serves-em-right.html

At least we’re on the same page…

Serves Em Right, eh, Randi….

Just for you, little traitors…

WHAT IS *WRONG* WITH HENRY?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YgdmtkTwO8&feature=related

we’re this far from nuking all of you….

the X-MAS vacuum cleaner for the atheists….

shermer, randi, myers, pz, dawkins, harris

http://thecoolgadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/henry-desktop-vacuum1.jpg

______________________________________

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4R0GHfM-Y&

why does everyone always want to PUNCH you, shermer?

______________________________

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxrWz9XVvls&

take your meds, you little fckers…

http://image.spreadshirt.com/image-server/image/composition/4006595/view/1/producttypecolor/1/type/png/width/378/height/378/e-mc2_design.png

now we are going to bury you…

And the lesson from all of this? DOUBLE!
____________________________

What do you want, you little ****ers?

more of these idiots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4C5yzFmC80

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_of_the_paranormal

HOW N WON ALL THE PARANORMAL PRIZES!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus

pz myers does not exist…

http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/543672-inhertitance-of-acquired-behaviour-adaptions-and-brain-gene-expression-in-chickens

atheists, we’re gonna cut off your heads…

CLOBBERING TIME

the end of atheism

THE HIGH PRICE OF REVOLUTION

http://www.youtube.com/user/xviolatex?feature=mhum

Ahead of the vote Wednesday, House Republican leaders pressed a new line of attack, accusing Democrats of thwarting the will of the people by not committing to give the bill an up-or-down vote in the Senate…...

A bill stalls in the Senate because a majority are against it = TYRANNY!!!!

A bill stalls in the Senate because a minority are against it = IT’S IN THE CONSTITUSHUN SOMEWHERE EVEN THOUGH I CAN’T FIND IT AND IF YOU TAKE IT OUT IT’S TYRANNY!!!

I would just like to point out that the CBO predicts that repealing health care reform would increase the deficit.

I caught part of Hannity’s radio show this afternoon, and he was whining about how the CBO’s figures only say that because the Democrats gave the CBO the numbers.

He then started yammering about how a different set of numbers from the CBO proved the GOp right about something, with no indication whatsoever that he knew he was contradicting his own arguments.

Here’s what Harry Reid should offer: the new House sends everything that the old House sent that didn’t get through the Senate over the past two years, and the Senate gets to have an up-or-down vote on all those bills and the Job-Killing-Repeal-of-Baby-Death-Panel*-Obamacare-Government-Takeover-Palooza bill as well.  It would allow the Republicans to keep their all-important campaign promise, so what would be the problem?

*See Chuck Norris’ latest proof of his stupidity for an explanation, if you’re masochistic enough

When is this tired cliche going to be put to rest. Please do stop promoting the nonsensical bullshit that is “republicans don’t really deliver to the base”. The precise, exact opposite is ture.

Seriously, seriously, NO ONE gets what they want from their politicans like conservative assholes. The fact that they also believe nonsensical bullshit about trickle down theory is of course the bonus, but make no mistake, the conservative movement gets major payout for their complicity in destroying the middle class.

Okay, you’re right to a large extent. I’ll admit that the “Republicans never deliver on their promises” thing was a bit of a kneejerk.

That said, Republicans primarily deliver on their promises to rich people. The point of all the abortion/gay marriage/socialism hand-wringing is that you don’t win elections by promising to repeal the estate tax. (Of course, these days it’s gotten to the point where even lower- and middle-class conservatives sympathize with the rich so much that you CAN base an election bid at least in part on relieving the poor, overtaxed upper class. But historically this hasn’t always been the case.)

But yeah, I guess there is sot of a cognitive dissonance that can take hold on the left where liberals will turn one way and say “oh Republicans never actually do any of their regressive shit” and then turn the other way and say “oh look how fucked up this country is thanks to the Republicans.”

But I would still argue that Republicans have a vested interest in delivering minor victories on their base’s pet issues while deliberately avoiding ever actually delivering a permanent win. Because like I said, if the abortion issue goes away, what will they rile their base up with? Don’t get me wrong, they’ll find something, and pretty easily, too. But they’re going to milk the cow they have as long as possible before they start shopping for a new one.

Also, just as importantly, Republicans do work hard to impede progress on those pet issues as well, which is a major reason things like abortion access are in such a sorry state. Because, as you well know, anytime a bill aimed at improving abortion access is introduced to Congress, the GOP is going to either kill it before it hits the floor, or, if they need to score some electoral points, raise a loud, public shitfit about it.

The will of the people is being thwarted now?  How about the will of the people being thwarted when 72% of Americans supported the original plan for reform, which included some kind of public option?  How about the will being thwarted then?  I don’t see support for this repeal in the form of 72% of the electorate.

Would love a source of Obama gaming those numbers, Libertarian. That would be awful if he did that! As a student of mathematics I hate to see number abuse!

Increase deficit AND make more people die.  Repealing health care reform is a wet dream for Libertarians.

Triplanetary: the other thing about delivering a win on a major hot-button issue is that it’s one sure way to energize the rest of the country. You saw that to an extent in 2006.

“Let’s have an up and down vote on the merits in the Senate, without all the backroom
deals and bribes, to see who wants to keep it and who doesn’t.  Then the voters will
know and take that into consideration in 2012.”

If you can get honest politicians into office without “all the backroom deals and bribes” then I’d agree. 

However, with 75-90%+ of the current members of the senate living in the pockets of the big insurance co’s — who rake in the cash for delivering no services by keeping the system just as fucked up as it’s been for the last few decades — we’d be lucky if the senate left anybody who has an income less than 250k/year with more than a cent on an “up or down vote”, after they got done passing the “Give all Your Income to Big Insurance Act of 2011”.

Besides, how naive do you have to be to believe that if they “repeal” healthcare reform they wouldn’t keep the mandatory insurance purchase part, while losing the parts limiting rescissions?  That’s the best of all worlds for Big Insurance: make sure everybody has to buy their product, and let Big Insurance do anything they can to avoid paying for anybody’s actual healthcare.

It’s a win/win for everybody!  Except for those of us who might need healthcare.

But in your little Ayn-Randian nightmare world, since nobody ever gets sick, except the moochers who are nothing but a drain on our Galtian Overlords anyway, who the hell needs healthcare?  (...except plastic surgery — got to make sure all those Stepford-style trophy wives have all the face-lifts and plastic tits they need to keep John Galt - and Little John Galt - happy…)

There’s no mystery about this. They do it because they know they can get away with it. And they can get away with it because the corporate media have zero interest in doing honest political reporting.

I’m just amused by the total lack of self-awareness necessary for a libertarian to accuse someone else of lying.

Anyways,

conservatives in Congress should be proposing health care reform that actually lowers the cost curve,

I mean this in all sincerity: why?  Conservatism is devoted to destroying public health so that private actors can provide worse service for more money.  That’s the point of conservatism in general, to loot the public sector for well-connected private actors.

I mean this in all sincerity: why?

Well, (s)he presumably meant that conservatives should do that if they want to be consistent and honest. We already know they don’t, of course. I mean, we already know that the conservative project is to shift the wealth upwards, which in a democracy necessitates lots and lots of lying.

“That’s the point of conservatism in general, to loot the public sector for well-connected private actors.”

...very true (look at what we’ve seen them do over the last four decades), but in Libertarian’s world, what we call “looting” they call the actions of the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace — which has a rigidly erect middle finger prominently displayed for everyone who isn’t in the Top 1%.

Never forget the Conservative Healthcare Plan:  Don’t get sick.  But if you’re crass enough to get sick, have the decency to die quickly before it costs the wealthy any money…

Congress should be proposing health care reform that actually lowers the cost curve, something we still don’t have, largely a consequence of politicians on both sides being unwilling to stand up to hospitals’ and doctors.

Comment #10: TonyWu

Good to see that there’s no middle-man in between patient and hospital/doctors skimming 30%+ off the top then dropping people when they actually need the service they’ve been paying for.

Also good to know there’s no large private regulatory committee blocking the expansion of the total pool of medically trained people from increasing.

And of course everyone knows that congress never attempted to use it’s buying power to reduce the cost to consumers.

Libertarian:

The “back room deal” meme is a blatant and shameless lie, and you are a lying motherfucking asshole for parading it around in front of people who know better.

corwin, consider that many folks come to this country from all over the world to get the best medical care on the planet,  but that we pay twice as much per capita for medical care and get the same outcomes as other countries that have national health care systems like Britain, France, Germany, you know, socialist hellholes.

Shorter Corwin: because delivering medical care cost-effectively is slightly cheaper than not delivering it at all.

Hmmm. Now why would you need an office visit for a statin increase…let me think. Is it possibly because statins can do a serious number on your liver, among other fairly nasty effects, and making extra sure you’re tolerating your current dose well before upping it might be a good idea - doctors really not liking killing their patients (leads to lawsuits you know)?

Naw. Must just be greed.