BACKBONE: Howard Dean says: Vote the Senate health-care 'reform' DOWN

POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Sunday, September 14, 2025 23:09
VIEWED: 6438
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Money is a problem, an important one, because it restricts the educated middle class from running for office and gives all the advantage to rich local business men (who are likely to just use their new power to help other rich friends. I suspect this is what's really behind a lot of stupid development ideas that get approved) or local rich family dynasties (the aristocracy, with obvious problems and consequences).

I think the bigger problem may be WHO is running for office. I'm not sure if these people just have natural inclinations for ambition, power, and corruption, or if they gain a taste for it through their party affiliations, but either way the result is people who don't have the interests of the public at heart.

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Originally posted by JKiddo:
Jong, you hard-bitten realist, you... you're prolly right about the bill.

I'd like to add a "however" tho, about term limits: IMHO they've do more harm than good. Look at California- we've had Legislator term limits since 1990... that's a LONG time to see changes (if any). From my humble citizen's standpoint, California is an even bigger clusterf*ck than before. But it was interesting to see tis written about it:

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The authors find that term limits altered—but did not revolutionize—the type of legislator who comes to Sacramento. Specifically, Proposition 140 accelerated trends of increasing female and minority representation that were already under way in California. Rather than representing a new breed of “citizen legislator,” however, new members after term limits behave a great deal like their precursors. Many have local government experience and run for another office—for an Assembly or a Senate seat—when their terms expire. Careerism remains a constant in California politics.

The effects on Sacramento’s policymaking processes have been more profound. In both houses, committees now screen out fewer bills assigned to them and are more likely to see their work rewritten at later stages. The practice of “hijacking” Assembly bills—gutting their contents and amending them thoroughly in the Senate—has increased sharply. As a body, the Legislature is less likely to alter the Governor’s Budget, and its own budget process neither encourages fiscal discipline nor links legislators’ requests to overall spending goals. In addition, legislative oversight of the executive branch has declined significantly. The authors’ interviews with members and their staff revealed a widespread sense in Sacramento that something needs to be done soon to provide more stability and expertise to the Legislature’s policymaking process. Yet there are continuities in the Legislature’s internal operations as well. For example, leaders remain central to the process, and term limits cannot be blamed for Sacramento’s intensifying partisan polarization.

Term limits have had a mixed effect on the Legislature’s policy products. The authors find no effect on the breadth and complexity of bills passed into law, although this continuity may be the result of the Senate’s increased propensity to amend Assembly bills. Using simple measures of legislative performance, they also find that recently instituted programs to train members and staff do not appear to improve a legislator’s “batting average”—that is, his or her chances of passing a bill or seeing it signed into law —although legislators who receive that training tend to write shorter bills that change more code sections...

Many veteran legislators and staff members regret Proposition 140’s effects, which include a decline in the Legislature’s research capacity. (The Legislative Analyst’s Office, for example, lost a large portion of its staff, with the sharpest drop coming immediately in the wake of Proposition 140.) Even the measure’s major proponent, former Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, recently voiced his discontent with the results

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With less research capacity, Legislators are more likely to simply take a lobbyist's proposal and write it into law.

Term limits SOUND great, but it doesn't do what supporters hope it will do. IMHO the only way to get legislators to represent the will of the people is to remove MONEY from the equation of running for office, because MONEY is the sieve through which candidates must pass. That includes barring legislators (termed-out ones) from taking jobs with companies they "represented" during their term. (Example, Lieberman getting a cushy job with a big insurance company.)

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This so-called hard-bitten realist has never been more messed up than on this subject of Govt healthcare. I've been on both sides of the issue, flip-flopping from week to week like Sunday pancakes. At this current moment in time I guess I feel that eith

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
This so-called hard-bitten realist has never been more messed up than on this subject of Govt healthcare. I've been on both sides of the issue, flip-flopping from week to week like Sunday pancakes.

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I'm flopping too. More of another crisis of faith than anything else, as in if it doesn't pass then there will be nothing, again, which means INSURANCE wins big, and Obama's effectiveness as a President will be forever damaged. Another version of this bill will not happen if he's a lame duck prez as mentioned.

If it does pass, as sorry a piece of shite as it is, it at least has a chance of being upgraded in the next version, and any hope that O. will be effective making ANY positive changes remains a *possibility,* however remote that may feel now.

This is Politics, this is why I despise them: sometimes the best choice is what sucks the least.

I wonder if people think that this group of Browncoats, if opposing sides were equal, would do a better job?

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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"... something needs to be done soon to provide more stability and expertise ..."

On a limited scale, as a former (dropped out last year) long-term union steward and contract negotiator (we got good ones in hard times, I do have to say) I have seen this in action.

It takes a while to learn the ropes: You have to know what to expect in a given situation. You have to develop some expertise on the players. You have to be aware of your resource limitations and judge where best to spend them. Even WITH the best intentions, without these tools forged from experience, you will be floundering at best, sucker punched at worst.

As a result of the inevitable learning curve of everyone, the most organized and experienced players - generally private business - will win.

I don't know WHAT people were thinking with term limits. Shuffling people through faster is not a way to screen them up front to make sure they are better. It just puts those who are able to get the most money quickest in front. In fact, AT THE TIME, the most cogent argument AGAINST term limits was that it would make the influence of money on elections even more pronounced.

And IF you are by some chance lucky enough that those in power have good intentions, they are less likely to be able to carry them out.

Putting people in a position to not be able to carry through a plan, and then expecting things to go better is simply the most stupid idea around.

If you want to guarantee better results, get rid of terms limits - but YES ! remove the corrosive effects of money on who gets the job in the first place.

And then let the VOTE decide if people are happy with the results. After all, isn't that what it's there for ?

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Silence is consent.

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Jong- I flip-flop in terms of my support for the various versions making their way thru the Senate and House. It's not me that's changing tho, it's the bills. You may be flip-flopping for the same reason. I don't think of it as flip-flopping. I think of it as "responding to a changing situation".

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I've been avoiding the whole topic as much as possible. It's too painful to watch.

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Silence is consent.

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I don't have a lot of time, but I just hadda chime in here. I often think, these days, that Americans actually want a dictator for Pres. Last I checked it was the congress that made laws and the exec. that enforced 'em. Seems to me, Obama is doing his job, as far as that goes. Oh yes, I know, y'all want the Pres. to wrangle the several hundred cats in congress to do HIS (and by our fascist logic, OUR) bidding--twist arms, hold men and women's carreers over their heads, back room intimidations, you name it, all in the name of "the people." Oh, the fuck, well. Next time elect Idi Amin.

No one's argument gains any credibility with this talk of Obama being a "lame duck." Hello, the guy's barely been in office a year. He still has 3, no matter what. "Lame duck" is reserved for the guy's last month after an election he loses. If all the fight goes out of Obama after his first difficult year, then he's in the wrong line o' work.

I think losing this p.o.s. bill would be very good for Obama's Presidency. We all want Obama to stop playing and start fighting, and I see the failure of this particular process as quite possibly doing just that.

Am I the only one here who thinks so?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Right with ya, HK.

My issues right now are with Senate Dems and Joe (Insurance Man) Lieberman. I think Joe needs a huge bitch-slap, and he needs to be tagged with the reform failure. I know that he's not running next year, which nearly eliminates any leverage the Dems have over him, but maybe they can twist his arm over some favorite program or funding.

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Long thread, so didn't get through it. Besides, I'm sick to death of the assininity around the public option/healthcare reform being the most discussed item on the news and in politics. It's been such a ping-pong game and so many games have gone on, that I stopped listening.

So maybe someone else has said what I feel...INDIVIDUAL MANDATE BUT NO PUBLIC OPTION, NO BILL! It's what I wrote to my representatives. The fuss about the public option, while nobody has been talking about the individual mandate, has sickened me no end. Without SOME form of control, the individual mandate is an incredible gimme to the insurance companies/pharma. I'm hearing it more now that the public option/Medicare buy-in is a dead duck, and I want to hear MORE of it.

I actually have less problem with the bill if they pulled the individual mandate. It has SOME valid aspects, puts SOME curbs on the ins. cos. and it would be a starting point at least. Nothing at all speaks to total failure, and if we made a start, maybe we could go somewhere from there. "Nothing" means a loooong time before anyone gets the guts to try again, I think. Given the Clinton failure, another such dramatic failure would have to scare the pants off anyone trying to do it again.

But if it's passed WITH the individual mandate, it's far, far worse than nothing at all! And asshole Lieberman should take a VERY long walk off a VERY short pier, may he rot in hell.

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