Democrats lock the GOP out

[motojunkie101]

How low is this? I mean seriously, these are people who we are supposed to trust...what a blankety blank blankin joke.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/21/committee-chairman-towns-locks-republicans-dispute/

The Democratic chairman of the House committee responsible for government oversight has indefinitely locked Republican members out of the hearing room, following a dispute over a mortgage loan controversy.

Kurt Bardella, spokesman for ranking Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., had the locks on the Republican entrance changed Tuesday.

The move was apparently was in retaliation for Issa's efforts to subpoena records on Countrywide's so-called VIP loan program and for a video Issa's staff recorded of Democrats darting from their chambers a week ago in the face of a vote.

"They say we will have access to the hearing room when the general public does," Bardella told Foxnews.com. "I'm embarrassed for them."

Bardella jokingly toyed with the idea of "TP"-ing the hearing room in response. "We can play at the second-grade level just like anybody else can," he said.

A representative from Towns's office could not be reached for comment.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee apparently was miffed over a video the Republicans took last Thursday and posted on the minority Web site.

At the meeting, Issa had threatened to demand a vote on subpoenaing Bank of America for records of the Countrywide loan program, through which prominent members of Congress and officials are accused of receiving VIP loans. Democrats cancelled the meeting, though, citing a conflict with another committee.

Issa's office posted a Web video, under the title "Hit the Road, Jack," showing empty Democratic seats in the hearing room, followed by footage of Democrats leaving their chambers.

Bardella said his boss won't stop bringing up the Countrywide issue.

"We're going to bring this up at every opportunity possible until we have an up-or-down vote," he said.

 

[Ollie]

This is getting to be WAY too common under the obamanation.
Strong arm tactics, abuse of power, they are so out of touch it is unreal.
I am seriously getting worried they might actually succeed in passing obamacare and the rest of his radical agenda.
If that happens, I don't know if it will be possible to ever recover.

 

[Wolfrun]

What REALLY pisses me off about this is for all the last six years the stupid republicans had control of both houses, they never ever acted like they had really won. Bs Bo's outfit sure does.

 

[Ollie]

That's easy to do when the press gives you a free pass on everything you want to do.
If the republicans had tried 1/10th the stuff bo and company are doing right now they would have been crucified by the press.

 

[Wolfrun]

I know one thing for true, Sooner or later what goes around comes around.

 

[Squirrelchaser]

I hope it comes around soon!!!!!! These SOBs need to be hung for what they have done, and what they thought they were going to do. Where has the honor that was once present in this county gone.

 

[Wolfrun]

Never fear, the Dems are setting them selves up for a fall. I hope they keep it up.

 

[jscanga]

I think I saw it on a bumper sticker, probably on SW...

"It takes a Carter to get a Reagan"

We have a Carter x 1,000 in the house now, hopefully we can get a Reagan x 10 in 2012!

God Bless (and have Mercy on) the U.S.A.

 

[Ollie]

Never fear, the Dems are setting them selves up for a fall. I hope they keep it up.

The dems learned from the Carter term.
They held majorities in both house.
They tried to push thru their liberal agenda a little at a time.
Come the midterm elections they lost big time and it took them 30 years to recover (or 30 years for the conservatives to blow it).

Now they have a second chance.
THey are pushing with everything they have to try and get their agenda thru before the mid term elections and they get their colective azzes handed to them.

 

[Wolfrun]

When will they learn, this just isn't a liberal country? It is at least center right. They need to run a few more polls, LOL

 

[maluchm]

I'm glad I don't have any children that will have to live with the aftermath of what happens with this administration. I'm starting to wonder if there's anything in my line of work up in Canada

 

[ski-doo junkie]

I just emailed one of my state politicians regarding this matter.
I let him know what I thought of this behavior.
Acting like a bunch of little children.

 

[V-Man]

I am seriously getting worried they might actually succeed in passing obamacare and the rest of his radical agenda.
If that happens, I don't know if it will be possible to ever recover.

I give Obamacare a +90% chance of passing. It's is going to include a public option in some form and will probably cover illegals. It won't include tort reform or open competition across state lines.

The dems will loose majority in the next election cycle, but the GOP won't have the numbers to even think of repealing all the garbage they pass now.

I'm embarrassed by this country. How could we elect these fools and let them walk all over us with complete disregard for what we want. The whole world is laughing at us.

 

[ruffryder]

The whole world is laughing at us.

They have been laughing for a while..... mostly because of how ignorant we seem to be about things...

So what is your solution to health care?

What percentage of all health care costs are due to tort cases?

More competition doesn't seem to be the answer either... all you get is a bunch of little insurance guys with no power to bargain against the hospitals..

 

[V-Man]

They have been laughing for a while..... mostly because of how ignorant we seem to be about things...

So true. When will we wake up and go back to the fundamentals that this country was founded on? We are a laughing stock.

So what is your solution to health care?

I'm not going to claim that I have all the answers and details worked out, but it is very clear that they are not tackling the problems the cause our health care to be so expensive. What we are seeing today is a power grab and redistribution of wealth. If they really wanted to solve the problem they would focus on the costs, not the companies that have to pay the costs. Do you really think the insurance companies are laughing all the way to bank and ripping us all off? Their profit margins are in the 3% range. My company just reported our earnings last night and ours are 22%!! Man, my CEO should be thrown in jail making that much money! Why are we not working with all the doctors and hospitals, looking at their books, and seeing where the costs really are?

I bet their insurance premiums are way up there, to cover their butts from frivolous law suits.

Illegals and uninsured. Another big drain on the system.

Medicare underpayments that are covered by private insurers. Entering retirement my parents had to leave their life long doctor because he refused to take medicare. They only pay 60% of what it costs him to provide services.

Doctors and hospitals must have massive administration overhead fighting with insurance companies and medicare/medicade to pay them. When the doctor wipes your nose, why are we submitting that to an insurance company? Give him $5 from your own wallet and call it even.

I would venture to say that individual insurance premiums are so high because the doctors have to practice defensive medicine to prevent from being sued and they have to pay for all those tests.

US mentality that health insurance is an entitlement is a huge issue. Insurance is to protect your assets in the event of an unforeseen expense. In my opinion, health insurance should be like car insurance. We own it, not our employers. We pay for incidentals, like oil changes for our cars. Insurance covers major medical issues and based on your policy you can determine what dollar level that may be. In my professional career to date, between me and my employer, roughly $150k has been paid for my medical coverage. Hmmm... I've claimed maybe $6k total, half a year’s insurance premiums. Insane. Why should a guy in his 20’s and 30’s pay that much?

If we owned our own insurance then pre-existing conditions wouldn’t be an issue. You shouldn’t be afraid to leave your job because you’ll miss out on the heath coverage. Who says the coverage they provide is what I want? You can’t force insurance companies to provide insurance at the same rate to someone with major health issues. No one would get insurance until they got sick and we’d be even worse off. That’s like wrecking your car then getting insurance the day after.

What percentage of all health care costs are due to tort cases?

I believe it is higher than many think. It just isn’t the legal fees, it’s everything else that the threats of lawsuits stimulate. That is a very hard number to determine. During his campaign, even our fearless leader said he wanted health care reform to keep doctors from being pressured into performing unnecessary tests.

More competition doesn't seem to be the answer either... all you get is a bunch of little insurance guys with no power to bargain against the hospitals..

I do think competition along with insurance de-coupled from your employer is a great start in an overall different approach to health coverage leading to more personal responsibility. I should get a better rate than my coworker that is 100lbs over weight and smokes a pack of cigs a day. Once he realizes his costs will be cut in half maybe he’d take better care of himself, maybe not, but that is his choice.

No policy is going to fix the problem right out of the gate and what this crazy administration is proposing is going to destroy the system we already have. I’m dumbfounded how anyone can think the gov will run healthcare better than private industry. The idea that the government option will introduce competition is ridiculous. Just like medicare, they’ll underpay the doctors and the private insurers will have to make up the difference. When they are bankrupt, like ever other gov program, they’ll raise taxes on you. They have a horrible track record thus far. Lets take logical baby steps, not throw the whole system out. This is going to take time to fix, longer than one president’s term.

That’s a lot to digest. I could go on for hours more, but I’ll spare anyone who made it this far! Maybe we should discuss down at the NBBG over a beer. Cheers!

 

[V-Man]

BTW, sorry for the hijack w/ healthcare discussion.

On the original topic, I'd love to see a list of the congressmen who got those VIP loans. I'm sure they are shaking in their boots. Once you open your eyes, the level of corruption is astonishing.

 

[Ollie]

So what is your solution to health care?

More competition doesn't seem to be the answer either... all you get is a bunch of little insurance guys with no power to bargain against the hospitals..

Solution to health care costs.

1. tort reform. It was done in texas.
http://docisinblog.com/index.php/2009/07/27/texas-tort-reform/

Quick look at the results.

Last year, TLR commissioned a study by The Perryman Group to figure out the impact of these reforms (the above are excerpted from that report). Here are the economic impact findings of that study:

$112.5 billion increase in annual spending
$51.2 billion increase in annual output – goods and services produced in Texas
$2.6 billion increase in annual state tax revenue
$468.9 million in annual benefits from safer products
$15.2 billion in annual net benefits of enhanced innovation
499,000 permanent jobs
430,000 additional Texans have health insurance today as a result of the medical liability reforms

The complete Perryman Group report is here.

As these numbers show, tort reform can have a substantial impact on economic growth and wealth creation, and a huge impact on the healthcare system in particular. Any serious national healthcare reform must include comprehensive tort reform to reduce the practice of defensive medicine and other perverse incentives.

Which is why I do not consider the current proposals from the Obama Administration to be serious (other than being seriously flawed).

2. Allow people and companies to form co-ops and shop for insurance all over the country. This will increase competition and allow smaller groups to band together to get better rates.

3. Allow pharmacies to import drugs from out of country. Why should we pay for a drug in the U.S. when we can get the EXACT same drug from (Say) Canada for much cheaper.

4. No illegal shall be given any medical care except emergency care. After the illegal is healed up enough. Deport them.

5. Anyone not carrying health insurance will pay the bill themselves.

6. Reform medicaid, medicare and Social Security. One of the leading reasons those three have gone thru the roof (when talking about medical bills) is because there is no competition. A wheel chair paid for by medicare will cost 1100 dollars. A privately purchased wheelchair (exact same chair) costs 700 dollars. I know this because we just got my mother in law that wheel chair. Why does it cost more. Because of all the BS and the fact they can charge more because there is no competition.

Put a cap on the coverage. That is to say, if you make more than 300k a year, you don't need Social Security, medicaid or medicare.
Allow people to opt out of all three and return any and all monies they paid into the system.

We have to end the welfare program completely. It is hugely costly and covers perfectly healthy people that are just too lazy to work. There are multiple state programs to cover those that medically or mentally can't work.

Anyone on public assistance works for the local government or they don't get a check. No more free rides.

Put before the U.S. Supreme court any and all current federal programs and find which ones infringe on the states 10th amendment rights and return control of those programs to the states (and stop taking federal taxes to cover those programs).

Do all that and we are fine.

 

[ruffryder]

Solution to health care costs.

1. tort reform. It was done in texas.
http://docisinblog.com/index.php/2009/07/27/texas-tort-reform/

Quick look at the results.

Last year, TLR commissioned a study by The Perryman Group to figure out the impact of these reforms (the above are excerpted from that report). Here are the economic impact findings of that study:

$112.5 billion increase in annual spending
$51.2 billion increase in annual output – goods and services produced in Texas
$2.6 billion increase in annual state tax revenue
$468.9 million in annual benefits from safer products
$15.2 billion in annual net benefits of enhanced innovation
499,000 permanent jobs
430,000 additional Texans have health insurance today as a result of the medical liability reforms

umm... Rates have not decreased in Texas, nor have the numbers of uninsured.

Where did all these supposed savings go?

 

[Wolfrun]

The thing about tort reform in Wyoming is that if they don't stop the lawyers very soon there won't be any doctors, period, never mind the costs. All the good doctors are getting out while the getting is good. Hard to run health care that way. No baby docs now.

 

[Ollie]

umm... Rates have not decreased in Texas, nor have the numbers of uninsured.

Where did all these supposed savings go?

The peoples pocket where it belongs.
Tort reform is only 1 part of a solution.
As for the uninsured, why is it my job to buy someone elses insurance??

Obamacare -

Americans without government-deemed-acceptable health insurance will face a 2.5 percent income tax up to the national average price for a health insurance premium. This is commonly known as an Individual Mandate.

Over 17 million Americans earn over $50,000 per year and do not have health insurance. Many of them do not want insurance but can afford it. Those Americans will face higher taxes or have to purchase insurance, even if they do not want it.


________________________________________________
According to bo.
"Nearly 46 million Americans don't have health insurance coverage today."
Barack Obama on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 in a town hall meeting

You keep hearing about 46 million without insurance.
Of those 12 million are here illegal and shouldn't get free care. Period.

That leaves 34 million.
17 million earn over 50k and just don't want it.


That leaves 17 million.
Of those, how many are young and healthy and just don't want to pay for it?

But, lets say it really is 46 million.
Bo says it will cost under 900 billion to cover all those 46 million.
That would be 19 thousand dollars per person.
I don't know about you, but it sure as heck doesn't cost 19 thousand dollars for my health insurance.

now if you take out the illegals and those that don't want it.
That would leave 17 million.
That's over 52k per person.
Only in washington.