Get that plate and go…
- Orrin Hatch: health care socialism bad, college football socialism good.
- Here’s Florida’s current two-deep chart. That secondary looks pretty frikkin’ stout.
- Factoid of the day #1, from Joe Schad’s Twitter feed: “How hard for some schools to CFB recruit? Only 43 of 120 FBS schools had a ESPN Top 25 class last 4 years”
- Marlon Brown wants to hear some cheers this season.
- Here’s another reason to expand March Madness.
- Factoid of the day #2: “The two worst seasons under coach Mark Richt were the two in which the Bulldogs threw the most interceptions and had the most turnovers.”
- Georgia wouldn’t mind if its quarterbacks were a little more mobile this year.
Get The Picture 
Not real sure the selection show viewership numbers matter in the scheme of things.
I will say this, after all of Thursdays upsets and watching NI beat KU, the expansion argument probably just got stronger. Those small schools with all their disciplined, fundamentally sound basketball gives those athletic teams fits sometimes.
LikeLike
I tell you one thing: I slept much better last night knowing that Kansas is not one of the best 16 teams in the country, based on settling it on the field. Also, I was happy Ohio, proved that, despite a losing reg season conf record, they have every right to prove that any team can get hot occassionally and distort the national championship picture.
LikeLike
It would serve the NCAA right if one of those middling teams like Northern Iowa or Ohio won the whole thing.
LikeLike
IF Kansas takes their eyes off the ball and thinks that they can coast for a game or two then they don’t have the mental make-up of a championship team nor did they have they athletic ability to over come their mental deficiency!
You guys would have no problem ruling Florida or Alabama or anyone else out of the national title picture in football if they dropped game number 7 of their regular season schedule to Florida Atlantic or UL Monroe or any other cupcake…so why the double standard when Kansas drops a game to a similar cupcake team with the same amount of games left on their schedule between themselves and a National Title Game?
LikeLike
Speaking only for myself, my comment was not anti Kansas or intended to demean UNI or Ohio U. It was intended to point out that the system in college BB is out of whack. Success or failure is now defined by how a team does in a single elimination tournament against opponents that are all pretty damn good. When the top teams all lose early, will TVs still be tuned to the “Big Dance?” The NCAA has created a monster and just might get eaten by it. And they want to expand the thing thereby increasing the number of games and the likelihood of upsets occurring. Maybe if they got a winner from a middling conference who did not even win that conference the NCAA might change its collective mind. As the senator is fond of saying, the extended playoffs marginalize the regular season. I, myself, am for shrinking the BB playoff back to 16 rather than expanding it.
LikeLike
First, if you look at the records of the tourney you would you would see what an absolutely rare occurrence it is that anyone outside of that top 16 before the tourney starts actually wins the whole thing…
Second, I wasn’t picking on Kansas either…could have been anyone. But if it had been Alabama or Texas that dropped some cupcake game along the way you would have gotten Cincy and/or TCU playing for the MNC. The Big East and the MWC in football aren’t any different from a mid-major in basketball.
“Success or failure is now defined by how a team does in a single elimination tournament …”
Isn’t this what the anti-playoffs side like to call the football regular season where every single game counts for so much?
LikeLike
My point was to show that an extended playoff, in the case of basketball, has rendered the regular season absolutely meaningless. Answer these questions with yes or no…
1 – Has every playoff in the history of playoffs expanded?
2 – Would the same people who run March Madness design a CFB playoff?
3 – Do those same people run I-AA FOOTBALL (yes, football, not basketball, football) playoff?
4 – Is the college basketball regular season irrelevant to the national championship picture, other than being a seeding exercise?
5 – Are you comfortable saying Kansas, after an unbelievable 33 game run and finally had an off night at the absolutely wrong time, is not a national title worthy team, but Northern Iowa is?
LikeLike
Secondary should be the strength of our defense this year actually.
Just like all your practice reports focus on fundamentals after your last season ours are going to focus on ZOMG LOOK HOW GOOD BRANTLEY IS.
LikeLike
Call me crazy but I have been saying all along that FLA may be better (particularly on offense) in 2010 than last year, just different, with more downfield passing. I do not see a dropoff in their D, either.
LikeLike
That would surprise me. I am hoping to see a more balanced offense. Tebow was great, but it seemed we relied too much on him to make plays. I think Brantley will see the field better and hopefully be able to spread the ball around a bit more.
Our defense will not be as good, though. We will likely struggle to put significant pressure on the QB, we’re replacing a 3 year starter AA at MLB, and a top 10 draft pick CB.
LikeLike
I hope I am wrong and that the Gators suck. I am just not counting on it.
LikeLike
+1 ” health care socialism bad, college football socialism good.”
LikeLike
If it were socialism in college football than every single one of the Div1, Div 2, Div3, (plus any team from Mexico that wants to sneak across the border into El Paso, Laredo, or McAllen to play) teams would have a chance of winning the NC through a playoff system. Limiting the number of entrants makes it more akin to a meritocracy…oligarchy…or plutacracy….depending on your view of how the invites are going to be awarded
So…ANALOGY FAIL
LikeLike
Psst… the health care reform package on the table isn’t socialism, either.
“ANALOGY FAIL” FAIL 😉
LikeLike
I know…but some of us aren’t fooled by the by the rhetoric about this not including a single payer (government run) system and getting control of insurance premiums and making insurance available to everyone. Right now the package offered up is merely the slippery slope toward a government run socialized medicine plan. Right now it is simply unconstitutional
LikeLike
Ahhh… judicial activism: it’s not just for liberals any more! 😉
LikeLike
As the Constitution states in regards to the federal courts:
Article III, Section 2: “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States…”
If that is not clear enough, James Wilson specifically addressed the power of the Courts to review laws made by the legislature and deem them in accordance with the Constitution at the Pennsylvania Convention in December of 1787:
“For it is possible that the legislature, when acting in that capacity, may transgress the bounds assigned to it, and an act may pass, in the usual mode, notwithstanding that transgression: but when it comes to be discussed before the judges – when they consider its principles, and find it to be incompatible with the superior power of the constitution, it is their duty to pronounce it void…”
But is you want to mischaracterize that as ‘judicial activism’ …
LikeLike
It’s never judicial activism when it’s your own side seeking redress – just when the other side does. 😉
The only reason I would give any credence to the bill being declared unconstitutional is because of the Roberts Court itself. Even then, what they would have to rip up in terms of established Commerce Clause rulings is substantial and I’m not anywhere near convinced that the five are willing to go that far (would Scalia overturn his own ruling in Raich?).
If you’re looking for a quick summary of why the constitutional arguments I’ve seen most commonly mentioned are likely to fall short, here’s a good one.
LikeLike
Detmining the ‘constituionality’ of a law is a specific duty of the Courts, not judical activism.
Subsequent rulings based on previous rulings rather than the Constitution itself would be classified as judicial activism since the judges are citing as support for their rulings the works of their peers rather than the Constitution.
I am willing to guess that you agree that the Dred Scott ruling was rightly overturned. So, Senator, you only like over turning established case law when it aligns with your politics?
LikeLike
You lost me here… Dred Scott wasn’t overturned by the Court, but by the 13th and 14th Amendments.
LikeLike
Exactly…you want to give congress the power to compell one private citizen to purchase something from another private citizen than pass an amendment stating such…don’t rely on juducial activism to do your dirty work.
And don’t get upset if any particular judge changes his legal opinion based on the arguements brought forward in a differnt case.
LikeLike
They’re not relying on judicial activism. They passed a bill in the Senate with a super-majority (where is that in the Constitution, by the way), in the House and the President will sign it into law. The law’s opponents intend to challenge that in the courts. I can recall many, many Republican complaints back when they were in the majority about liberals using the courts to overturn the intent of the legislature. My only point here is that the shoe is now on the other foot.
All of this hand-wringing reminds me of what I used to ask my Republican friends back in the heady days of ’03-’05, when the majority was busy ripping personal privacy and federalism to shreds. “What,” I asked, “would you think about doing that if Hilary Clinton were President?” Every time I got the same answer – the permanent Republican majority that Karl Rove was fashioning meant that wasn’t a concern. Well, here we are.
There is no small government party between the Democrats and the Republicans. There are just different big government issues.
LikeLike
“They’re not relying on judicial activism. They passed a bill… ”
And it is the Courts job to rule as to whether the bill that was passed is in accordance with the Constitution or not. Just this past January the Supreme Court struck down provisions in a the “McCain-Feingold” bill that passed Congress just a few scant years ago. It is well within their power to do so again.
“My only point here is that the shoe is now on the other foot.”
Likewise, if a person didn’t support it then, why now?
“There is no small government party between the Democrats and the Republicans. There are just different big government issues.”
This, unfortunately, is more true than people want to believe. (The only difference being only one party claims to be a ‘small government’ party)
LikeLike
Well, as to your last point, talk is cheap.
LikeLike
And those representative’s conduct over the last decade certainly puts them at odds with their professed political beliefs. Such are the foundations of political upheaveal and third party movements.
LikeLike
[reply to Phocion @1:30]
Right. That’s why we saw so many familiar faces from the Schiavo debacle piously intoning about government interference last night. And why the same Democrats who were whining (and suing!) about deem and pass when the Republicans used it were willing to embrace it for health care until it became politically messy.
LikeLike
At what point do you, as an individual voter, say enough?
LikeLike
[reply to Phocion @ 12:13]
This is such a good elucidation of my shoe-on-the-other-foot comment that I had to share.
LikeLike
+10.
LikeLike
Also, Raich doesn’t necessarily speak to the point at hand. In the cited case a citizen chose not to purcahse a good but rather produce what is otherwise an illegal substance himself (in this case ‘medical’ marijuna).
A citizen that does not choose to purchase insurance is not actively commiting an act, economic or not. Good luck in convincing the Court that non-participation is tantamount to participation and thus under governments’ auspices to regulate…and compell action.
LikeLike
Participation is not the standard. Indeed, in the seminal Wickard case, the plaintiff didn’t sell any of his product, but kept it all for his consumption.
This was the key in Raich:
Like I said, nothing the Roberts Court might do would surprise me, but there’s a long line of precedent it would have to overrule to get there. At least if it’s going to be honest about that.
LikeLike
Again, there is no competing product to be produced. Either a citizen buys a product or he doesn’t. Electing to not enter the marketplace is not the same thing as entering it only by producing for oneself.
LikeLike
[reply to Phocion @1:24]
You make it sound as if “electing not to enter the marketplace” is a permanent decision when it comes to the insurance pool. It’s not. If you don’t require a mandate and you eliminate pre-existing conditions as a bar to coverage, you allow consumers to jump in and out of the pool based on their health status. That would bankrupt the insurance industry overnight.
In the vernacular of constitutional law, that would be a “rational basis” for regulation.
LikeLike
But it is for some people…if you have the financial means to pay for your medical requirements why should you be compelled by the United States government to buying something that you neither want nor need?
And why is it the Government’s business to dictate to a private company what products they may offer. If an insurance company wants to elect not to offer coverage from pre-existing conditions that is their business decision to make.
But, you have hit on the real point of the legislation…government wants control of an industry and a 6th of the economy all for itself. They have every intention of bankrupting the medical insurance industry.
LikeLike
Indeed. Along the same lines, why should you have to pay for fire or police protection, or national defense, or the environment? Or public education, for that matter?
It’s because we live in a democratic polity and there are social costs associated with that. Adam Smith recognized that there are certain types of economic activities that the government has to step in and regulate because of a lack of unwillingness by the individual to participate in the free market. Sometimes the government is more efficient than the free market because of human psychology.
I’m a libertarian, but I find the idea that classical liberalism is supposed to boil down to some sort of economic Darwinianism distasteful in the extreme. You can be a firm supporter of freedom and free markets without resorting to anarchy to justify them.
LikeLike
Doesn’t the tenth amendment apply? Should not states have the expressed right to meet the needs of their citizens, just as they do with “fire protection” and driving privileges?
At what point did simply being alive place us all under the commerce clause? If this cc argument is not successfully challenged, isn’t the 10th amendment rendered mute?
I am really enjoying the exchange between the two of you.
LikeLike
The 10th died a long time ago. Both parties have shoveled dirt on its grave. There’s no way the states win on that argument today.
Your Commerce Clause question is a good one. Go read Raich for the depressing answer.
LikeLike
Could not a talented lawyer argue that people have certain rights that are not provided to plants?
Is living deemed a government sanctioned privileged subject to license fees, taxes and insurance requirements?
Senator, when we get past all of the high-brow legal arguments, this health care bill is another confiscatory example of income redistribution.
New taxes are not required to further regulate insurance companies. A stroke of the pen and all of the immediate effects of this bill could have been enacted without one dime of new government money.
This is a new entitlement to a dependent voting bloc to be payed for by the hard work of other citizens, with the side benefit of expanding the dependent voting bloc.
LikeLike
If it’s that easy, how come the Republicans – who also admit that the system is in need of reform – didn’t fix things when they had the (six-year) opportunity?
LikeLike
For the same reason Dodd and Frank allowed Freddie and Fannie to collapse. Both parties are far more beholden to their special interest than to the country’s interest.
LikeLike
“Adam Smith recognized that there are certain types of economic activities that the government has to step in and regulate because of a lack of unwillingness by the individual to participate in the free market.”
Georgia has compulsory auto insurance laws. Have you any idea how that is working out? Here’s a hint: not very well. If one state government cannot control a mandate, how is an enitre federal government going to make it work? Here’s a hint: they won’t.
LikeLike
My rebuttal to that: how many people really want to do away with Medicare?
LikeLike
What will the people on your side do when Medicare is bankrupt? Print more money? raise more taxes?
When the majority are net consumers and the minority are net contributors the system dies.
When the majority can vote to confiscate from the minority to meet their ever escalating needs, at some point there will not be enough contributors to pay the professional voters.
Perhaps, like our congress, there should be some type of binary voting system, like shares of stock. On one side each person gets a vote, on the other side each person gets a vote basked upon their taxes paid.
Taxpayers deserve protection from the tax consumers, where would we be without them?
LikeLike
Funny, I was asking these questions when we were dealing with two massive tax cuts and two wars, all of which were funded by borrowing. Where were you?
I’m not sure who you’re referring to when you say “your side”, but in the Democrats’ defense, you might note that there’s a pretty consistent pattern running from Carter through W: the Democrats balanced the budgets and the Republicans ran deficits. Let’s not forget Mr. Cheney’s infamous assertion that deficits don’t matter.
I suspect your irritation is more over what the deficits are being spent on than the deficits themselves. That’s where you and I differ.
LikeLike
First, I agree with you on many criticisms of the previous administration.
I was/am against the patriot act and Iraq war. I might have been for the Iraq war if it’s goal was to colonize the oil fields, at least that would have been honest and in our national interests. kidding.
I have great issues with deficit spending period unless there is a clear and present danger to be addressed. And no, Wall Street, in my mind was not a clear and present danger. Allowing AIG to collapse would have been bad, but the recovery would have been much quicker than our current Japan style solution.
LikeLike
Mike, I appreciate your intellectual consistency.
The bailout didn’t bother me nearly as much as the failure to extract some serious changes out of Wall Street and the banks at a time of maximum leverage did. That’s what comes of having a Goldman Sachs man as your Secretary of the Treasury.
LikeLike
I totally agree. We do more to regulate Las Vegas gambling than we do dark pool investing. Bookies don’t even take bets they can not afford to pay out.
But, if bookies could buy Senators on both sides of the aisle, and have tax payers socialize their losses, they would.
LikeLike
Presidents sign budgets, the House creates them.
Clinton’s balanced budget was actually Newt’s.
LikeLike
You’re forgetting about Clinton’s ’93 tax bill.
LikeLike
all revenue projections were missed. Not until spending cuts were enacted did the budget balance in reality.
Never do tax increases bring in the revenues anticipated.
Funny thing, tax cuts spur activity and do produce increased revenue as did Bush’s. Unfortunately, spending increases out ran revenue increases, just as in the Reagan years.
LikeLike
Ok. This is way off topic…..but reading through that Hatch article, where he criticizes Holder for saying Osama bin Ladin isn’t likely to be captured alive….maybe I am dense….but what is wrong with Holder saying that? I mean….the guy is either going to get killed by us or get killed by his own folks….and everyone knows it….I am so confused…..
Also, definite +1 on the “socialism” title…..
LikeLike
“Orrin Hatch: health care socialism bad, college football socialism good.”
Maybe because part of the point of sports is to have a level playing field?
LikeLike
Sorry, I wasn’t all that impressed with FL’s depth chart. Looks young and heavy on players in new positions. I’m sure they’ll be tough, but will be closer to the 08 squad than the 07 or 09 teams.
LikeLike
I can appreciate a young man having his dreams and setting his goals high, but if Marlon Brown thought he would walk into Athens and make major contributions immmediately he was very unrealistic. Wanting more is worthy and good; being frustrated is a negative. He played in a low classification in a state with sub-par HS football, he not only had to start well behind the experienced players, he was behind the freshman receivers like Orson Charles who had starred at a much higher level.
Personally, if he wasn’t going to be used much I would have kept the RS on him. I have hopes he will contribute some this year, and hope he is ready to shine in 2011. Wish him well but I don’t understand him expressing frustration for 2009. Enjoy your time young man and be ready when your time comes, we will need you soon enough.
LikeLike
I’ve been avoiding this debate as best I can because I don’t have the eloquent speaking ways of the lawyer people, but Phocion hit on a point I thought was completely ignored in this fiasco of a bill they crammed down our throats to achieve a political agenda and paint themselves as martyrs rather than address what would be beneficial for the American people.
“If an insurance company wants to elect not to offer coverage from pre-existing conditions that is their business decision to make.”
If the evil insurance companies are making such HUGE profit margins, as the democrats would have you believe, then why does not another company come in and set their profit margin lower and undercut the big boys. That is a fundamental principle our country was founded on: competition. Along the same lines, why does the property & casualty side of insurance work so well. Commercial insurance is going through one of the softest markets in its history. If you watch the news you hear about “insurance giant AIG” when in fact the insurance arm of AIG is perfectly financially sound and the fianancial products arm that caused the problems actually tried to borrow money from the insurance side.
The problem is the factors that drive prices in health insurance were not addressed in this bill. The evil insurance companies charge more money because they are PAYING OUT more money. They HAVE to charge more money. If they are charging too much, and no other factors (trial lawyers, defensive medicine, morale hazard) come into play, somebody else would come in and eat their lunch. Why wasn’t the pharms, with their 23% prfit margins, addressed in this bill? None of the price driving factors I mention above were addressed with this legislation, which means costs won’t come down.
I used to watch Fox because I consider myself a conservative (Olberman and Madcow make me want to puke), but I wanted a fair and balanced picture, so now I watch CSPAN, and it is frustrating as hell to see how partisan that process was. That will bear itself come November.
I apologize to others on this blog for my rant but I felt it was fair game.
LikeLike
Three things in response:
1. I don’t get the “crammed down our throats” bit. These were duly elected officials who passed the bill. The bill passed by a supermajority in the Senate. The President ran on a platform of health care reform, received more votes than any other candidate running for the office and won a substantial majority. What happened to the whole “elections have consequences” rationale?
2. The problem with competition and the insurance industry is that it happens to be one of the most heavily regulated segments of the economy, with enormous barriers of entry. Competition under those circumstances is a lot easier said than done. That being said, one of the parts of the law that I do like very much are the exchanges. If the Republicans were smart, they’d jump on that and push to make them even better (for example, by moving people out of Medicaid into the exchanges as fast as possible). Unfortunately, I’m not holding my breath on that one.
3. You are spot on about cost controls. That’s the worst part of the reform bill, in my opinion. It’s not the insurance companies that are behind the rising costs. Big pharma, the doctors and the hospitals are. And the bill does little to address any of that. Like it or not, Congress and the President are going to have to revisit that sooner rather than later.
Actually, make it four points: sorry to disagree with you, but down the road, nobody is going to care about the process. If people did, the abomination that was the drug bill would have been repealed a long time ago.
LikeLike
1. The only reason this bill passed in the House is because the Pres made an empty promise to Bart Stupak and he caved. Now Stupak will have something to wipe his ass with when he’s out on the street after the next election.
Also, Pres BO made pulling the troops out of Iraq a key platform and MANY voted for him based on that without truly considering healthcare, seeing as it has NEVER had any true traction in our country before.
2. Insurance indeed is regulated… ON A STATE LEVEL. Just about anything the federal govt touches eventually turns to shit. See: public housing, finance industry, job creation, social security, medicare, medicaid.
The Repubs will be fine in November without latching onto ANY part of this bill. It will be a disaster. (but I do agree they should still try to work hand in hand with the dems once they get the majority back in November.
3. To me, it should have been about costs, but instead it was about protecting those that put you into office. And no, I am not talking about constituents. I’m talking about the big guys that stroke the big checks to campaign funds. This was purely political jockeying and not a solution for the people.
4. You conveniently use the President’s platform in point 1 above, yet you don’t care to mention his promise for change and transparency here ? People DO care about the process. I care about the process and I am a person. Does the hypocrisy not iritate you at all? You saw my linked youtube video a week ago, right? And before you tell me the GOP has reconciled before, remember the scope of this bill.
LikeLike
Let me see if I’ve got this straight… because the President had to cut a deal with some recalcitrant members of Congress, that invalidates the results of the election. And if it’s not that, it’s that a bunch of people didn’t take him seriously when he said he’d reform health care during the campaign. (That probably lets John McCain off the hook, too, now that I think about it.)
As for the hypocrisy… are you serious? You think Obama had a monopoly on that? You think he was even the worst player on that front throughout the process? Before you answer, go take a look at how the Republicans demagogued Medicare.
I’m not a huge fan of the bill, but I’m honest enough to admit it has some good features. What I’m not gonna do – and what I didn’t do during the Bush years, despite any number of policies then I found abhorrent – is question the legitimacy of the process. What happened with the health care bill is not any worse than what’s gone on for over 200 years in this country. You (in the larger sense of enough people) go down that road far enough with that kind of poison and you’re gonna wind up doing far more damage to this country than the health care bill will.
LikeLike
I promised myself when I started following this site I would never debate SB because he is a master debater.
That said, Obama’s campaign slogan was “Change.” People were tired of politicians and their tactics and the GOP had the majority and thus took the brunt of the criticism (rightfully so). But to let Obama off the hook because people before him have practiced shady politics is assinine. This was the man that was going to bring us transparency. How many sweetheart deals (read: unconstituional bribes) were voted into law last night? How many democrats arms were twisted? That is more of the same lousy practice that pissed off the American people in the first place. If the bill is so good and is what the people wanted, why was it met with so much opposition?
LikeLike
The Bismarck quote (he didn’t really say it, but it’s been attributed to him so much, the heck with it) seems appropriate: “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.”
Contrary to what you feel, a great deal of this process has been out in the open. That’s why it’s generated so much disgust.
I don’t think it’s a matter of letting Obama off the hook, but once the Republicans decided to make this a battle over tactics more than policy, what did you expect him to do, give up?
You know what the roots of Obamacare are? Heritage Foundation proposals made in 1993 to counter Hilarycare. Yeah, that Heritage Foundation. So what are you supposed to do with a plan that’s essentially Republican-based in the face of cries of “socialism”? Whom do you negotiate with and how do you do it, remembering that you’re the guy who won?
This is how American politics are played.
LikeLike
“What I’m not gonna do – and what I didn’t do during the Bush years, despite any number of policies then I found abhorrent – is question the legitimacy of the process. ”
The Courts are part of “the process”…so let them play their part as well.
LikeLike
Just what is it that you think I intend to do?
LikeLike
“…but once the Republicans decided to make this a battle over tactics more than policy…”
You obviously did not watch this debated live on the floor yesterday. They had plenty of valid things to say about policy and none of it was successfully rebutted nor taken seriously by their colleagues on the other side.
And this whole process did not become a battle over tactics until Obama and Pelosi began talking about reconciliation, at which point the GOP called them out on it. And reconciliation wouldn’t have even been considered if the events that transpired in MA and VA had not occurred. But the people in those states obviously spoke out where it matters the most – at the polls – thereby killing healthcare momentum each time.
LikeLike
Puff, this has been about tactics since the get go.
There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, except that I think McConnell misread the tea leaves quite badly on this. All he wound up doing in the end was uniting a divided party on Obama’s signature initiative. A far smarter move would have been to meet the Democratic moderates in the Senate somewhere in the middle to come up with a stronger bill on cost saving. The President would have jumped on that – he gave strong hints about that early on – and it would have had the added benefit of knee-capping the progressives and splitting the party.
Reconciliation has happened for one reason: the Republican filibuster. If there had been an up and down vote in the Senate at the start, this would have been over before Scott Brown was a gleam in anybody’s eye.
LikeLike
Very nice. I told you I didn’t want to debate you!
However, the article does not address my assertion that the GOP had many valid things to say on the floor Sunday and were never properly rebutted. Instead, the democrat approach was an emotional appeal rather than factual debate, accusing the GOP of “trying to block healthcare for 30 million Americans.” It was completely generic, but by then Stupak and co. had sold their souls and they knew they had the votes.
While I agree with you that McConnell could’ve and should’ve taken the approach of lobbying moderate dems, I don’t think we are getting the entire story there. The problem was at that point, not a single democrat wanted anything to do with the GOP based on 2008 election results. I don’t think the GOP sat on their ass for 16 months just saying no, no, no. And I applaud McConnell for trying to mount any opposition at all, being as outnumbered as he was (refer back to my comments on why the GOP lost so much ground in 2008 election). This spending is incredulous, and SOMEBODY in Washington had to make a stand or else we would now be called China West.
Re: Scott Brown – When Obamacare actually got a little momentum and people started to take it serious, what did the American people do the first time they actually had a chance to truly speak – AT THE POLLS? Do you remember what Brown campaigned on? Do you realize how long that seat has been occupied by somebody whose life work was public healthcare? Doesn’t that say a lot to you?
Nobody will “win” this debate for sure as we are set in our political views, and I do appreciate your “center” approach, but I will tell you that this bill was more of the same from a left dominated Congress that is going to spend our country into so much debt that we’ll be paying dearly for years.
LikeLike
A floor debate? Talk is cheap. You want to fight about policy, you do it the old-fashioned way – in negotiations.
Here’s an example: the very first time Obama met with the Republicans about health care, he put malpractice reform on the table and asked for a concession from the other side. Know what he got in response? Silence.
Not a single Democrat wanted anything to do with Republicans? I assume you mean outside of the Gang of Six, right?
Why does Scott Brown’s election invalidate the results of the last presidential election? I don’t get that. If public opinion trumps all, how come it didn’t for the last three years of the Bush regime with regard to Iraq policy?
In the end, all of this boils down to partisan considerations. Again, that’s fine. From where I sit with my libertarian hat on, both Democrats and Republicans have shed enough crocodile tears to float a fleet of battleships. And if this is a shitty bill, that’s as much the Republicans’ fault as anybody’s. Obama wouldn’t even be President right now if Bush has governed as a true believer in small government. Where were the tea parties then?
LikeLike
Asking to slow down the process is not the same as discussing policy.
Did not Scott Brown’s election, which focused solely on healthcare and healthcare alone, show that people were scared of what was on the table? Or do you think it was merely coincidence he was elected? Obama was elected on many different issues. Granted, healthcare reform was a large one, but so were Iraq, “Change” (whatever that meant), and a general distaste (rightfully so) for the GOP at the time of that election. But support can and does change.
So now that we agree it is a shitty bill, why the urgency to pass it? Why not go back to the drawing board and work around what you’ve got? Whether you are republican or democrat or somwhere in the middle, this bill did not adequately address the underlying problems.
LikeLike
There’s no way Scott Brown’s election – hell, anybody’s election right now – is solely about health care when the economy is in the shape it’s in.
As for support changing, does that mean that if a few months from now, public support for the bill is much higher than it was when Brown was elected, his platform of issues is suddenly invalid?
I think my exact words were “if this is a shitty bill”. I wasn’t agreeing with you, I was (I thought) expressing your attitude. My attitude is that it’s the best we could get under the circumstances, it has more good than bad in it and the status quo is unsustainable. That probably translates into a “C”.
I don’t know what you mean by “urgency” either. They’ve been at this for the better part of fourteen months. They made a decision to invade Iraq a lot faster than that.
I’m curious as to what kind of bill you think they could pass that would be acceptable to the more rabid part of the Republican base and the majority of Democrats in Congress. Because that would be the only reason to go back to the drawing board, as the Gang of Six couldn’t reach an meeting of the minds.
LikeLike
Nobody is denying the status quo is not acceptable. But the point is that this bill did not address the problems that created the current status quo in the first place, so what’s the point of passing it, other than, as my colleague from South Georgia, the gentleman from Valdosta, so elloquently and precisely put it, “…making it more expensive for one group in order to make it more affordable for another?”
See Mike, you and I can agree on something, you playoff-loving son of a gun!!
LikeLike
Based on this, I think Scott Brown should support the reconciliation fix. 😉
LikeLike
Deficit spending? Who needs it?
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/19/republican-budget-hypocrisy-health-care-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
LikeLike
“Along the same lines, why should you have to pay for fire or police protection, or national defense, or the environment? Or public education, for that matter?”
Fire and police protection are realms of the state…covered by 10th Amendment of the constitution. These are State and Local government activities…not federal.
National defense as a responsibility of the federal government is quite clearly spelled out in the Constitution Article I, Section 8:
Congress shall have the power…To raise and support Armies…(and)…To provide and maintain a Navy.
You have to be more specific on the ‘environnment’.
As for public education, as far as I know, the are no federal public schools, only federal guidelines. You can go to a state public school, a parochial school, a private school, or be homeschooled so long as the federal guidelines are met.
As for government being more efficient – you’re kidding, right? Name the area where the government is more efficient than the public sector alternative! And, the government you speak of that is above ‘human psychology’ is made of just those same humans and their weaknessess. Read Federalist #10 for a reasoning as to how the Framers addressed just those types of human weaknesses in there constuction of our federal government.
And, lack of government control does not lead to social anarchy; certainly not when it has to do with health care.
LikeLike
Sorry, I didn’t realize you were limiting this to the feds (Adam Smith, obviously, wasn’t breaking things down between state and national government). But even with that, there’s plenty of specific federal examples.
Fire and police: Park Service, National Guard, Secret Service, ATF, FBI, Coast Guard
Environment: national parks, Corps of Engineers, EPA
Public Education: service academies
As for national defense, the Constitution doesn’t mandate, it just gives Congress the authority. I don’t recommend the strategy, but we sure haven’t been shy about utilizing private security (or mercenaries, if you prefer the term) in our two current wars.
NASA and the Postal Service fit in there somewhere, too.
My point is not to say whether any of these entities are well run – everybody’s mileage will certainly vary on that. But they are all examples of what Smith was discussing.
LikeLike
I’m ready to argue about Hinton’s playoff piece today.
I think we are all pretty entrenched on our political/civic views.
I’d rather beat my head against the BCS wall.
LikeLike
I’ve got a post on that, the underlying post from Adelson and Spencer’s post on the subject coming in the morning.
I will serve no whine before it’s time. 😉
LikeLike
The problem I have with any bill and ideas to try to “fix” healthcare is that not one of the ideas actually gets at the biggest problems. ER visits by non-emergent patients is one of the biggest drains on the system. Many people would argue that is because people that don’t have health insurance use the ER. However the facts are that people with medicaid are more than twice as likely to come to the ER for primary care than those who are not insured at all. 50% of the newly “covered” by this bill will be covered by medicaid. Many doctors these days do not take medicaid because it does not cover the cost of treatment. Also part of the reason this bill is seen as nationally reducing the deficit is because it will be passing these costs onto the states after 2014. So the federal government will be spending less on something it is forcing states to do but the states will be paying out more. Pelosi’s home state of Califonia where they have done such a great job with all of their social programs is the state that will have the most new people covered. Califonia has roughly 10% of the nations population but 25% of its unisured. 8 million of the 32 million unisured in the country come from one state. Also with the new rules allowing patients with pre-existing conditions to join in at any time what is to stop me, who is relatively young and healthy from just paying the penalities, carrying no insurance and pocketing the difference until such time that I do need treatment then going to an insurance company and laughing at them as I say you have to cover me now that my expenses far exceed my premiums. This is an honest consideration for many people under the new bill. Do we need reforms in healthcare, yes, is this bill going to fix much of what the underlying problems are, not from what I can see as as person who works in the healthcare profession.
LikeLike
I agree with a lot of what you say here. This bill is certainly not the final step to a solution.
The sad fact, though, is that you really couldn’t expect any more when one party was completely unserious about participating in the process.
LikeLike
The political discussion above proves what I have always believed about intellectual liberals, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Some of the very dumbest, and worst executives I ever encountered were Harvard MBAs. They could recite all critical facts from a one hour presentation but have no idea how those ideas would play in the marketplace. Very impressive ability to soak up information, completely lost in what it really meant as a business application. Lot of sizzle, no steak.
There are many folks with high IQs who endorse the so-called healthcare legislation being proposed/enacted this week, but not one can answer questions about how they will add 30 million new people without choking the system with the same number of doctors, how it will actually be paid for (no, not the political funny math), why highly successful doctors, best of the best, will allow the government to dictate lowering salaries/fees and not walk away, why people who cannot afford to provide for themselves now will suddenly begin paying insurance premiums, nor what single justification there is for providing free healthcare for the tens of millions of illegal aliens who pay not one cent into the United States Treasury. There are many more significant questions without satisfactory answers, but these are among the most obvious deficiencies. It doesn’t get into the problems with unequal support for citizens, Feds intrusiveness into private banking matters, or medical records, nor competency of the government to administer. Supporters of this bill are either naive, flakes, or damned fools, imo. Like no other piece of legislation before it, this bill will cause more damage and deeply divide this country. If enacted and upheld, it will either tear us apart, or bring finacial ruin.
I know this is a sports forum, and a very good one, so I am not going to waste time debating with those who don’t see the problems ahead. My energy needs to be spent on preparing for myself and my family and talking with those who also see the problems coming and have ideas on how to best prepare for what is coming our way. I fully recognize others feel differently, I only respond this once on this subject because others have already given their opinion. It isn’t to change their minds, they have their own reasons, but rather to say to those who feel as I do that drastic changes are ahead: “You ain’t alone brother, there are millions of us who aren’t drinking the kool-aid”.
LikeLike
Well said, Mac. It was funny to me, watching CSPAN on Sunday, that every time the GOP raised a valid point in debate, the dems only retort, and it was uttered many times by many different offenders, was, “You are just trying to block 30 million people from getting healthcare.” That’s right, a general blanket statement meant to incite the emotions of people rather than offering a valid rebuttal or a solution.
It is a great conceptual idea. But it is unrealistic to expect to pay for healthcare for all these people without spending more money. Raising taxes on the rich man cannot possibly be the solution to every problem. Eventually the rich man will quit spending money and quit hiring people… oh wait, that’s already happening.
LikeLike
Pardon me, Senator, but I do not see how your “libertarian hat” fits with these policies. If not a flat out takeover, this is government regulation of 1/6 of the economy by the federal government. It does not provide equal protection, as states are treated differently. It forces individuals to buy a product simply because they are alive.
I see no libertarian principles in here at all.
This is not about freedom, it is about dependence for many and tyranny for the rest.
LikeLike
Mike, about that “government regulation of 1/6 of the economy” thing? That horse left the barn 45 years ago. When there’s the political will to abandon Medicare, then we can talk about libertarian principles.
Right now, you deal with the reality you have, not the one you idealize. Health care costs are going to kill this country if we don’t get a handle on them in the next decade. And with regard to that, this bill could have been made much, much stronger if we could have ditched all the socialist talk.
LikeLike
Aside from cutting medicare reimbursements, which will be added back in a later “doctor-fix which is going to bust the budget, what does this bill do to control costs?
There is no tort reform. There is no competition across state lines. Sure, there will be a govt managed marketplace full of one-size-fits-all options, but that does nothing to lower costs.
All they are doing is making it more expensive for one group in order to make it more affordable for another. There is no bending of the cost curve.
LikeLike
From the keep your hands off this guy’s Social Security Disability check…
http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/Health-Care-Reform-Leads-to-Threats/TAZWZcNqz0aapIAGYDut-A.cspx
to the anti-Blind Side HCR c’est la vie…
LikeLike