But 1986 does seem to me to be the real moment when America socialized medicine – under Reagan! In a real Ron-Paul style free market in healthcare, where everyone has to buy their own insurance or not and deal with the consequences, chronically sick poor people must, in principle, be left, at some point, to suffer and die alone or bankrupted. Something in the American psyche does not want that to be America. Whatever part of the psyche that is, it sure isn’t inspired by Ayn Rand. It wants to put a floor under human suffering and sickness, to have a minimal baseline for care. We don’t want to see people dying in the streets.

via Emergency Care Isn’t Health Care, Ctd – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.

The ACA will reduce these emergency room visits which every insured health care user already pays for. The Republican party wants to enact policies that will make ER for neglected care trips or desperation moves like this, neccessary:

The Washington Post reports that, according to the inmates handbook, prisoners in North Carolina typically only have to pay a $5 to $7 co-payment for most visits or emergencies.

“However, no one will be denied access to healthcare whether they have money or not,” states the handbook. “You will not be charged for visits about life- or limb-threatening emergencies, referrals to specialty clinics, defined chronic disease such as TB, HIV, high blood pressure, diabetes, pregnancy care, vaccinations, and periodic health assessments.”

State prisoners in North Carolina absolutely have better health care then the average American.

The cost of health care for the average American in 2010? $8100/year according to the NIHCM report on health care spending. Also, 5% of the population is responsible for 50% of the health care spending as obesity becomes a greater cause of superfluous health care need. In 1997 health care spending was $4166/person. From 2005 to 2009 spending rose 18.4%.

More recently, he’s done plenty of things that should have earned him more scorn from progressive activists. He joined the GOP in filibustering financial reform because he thought it should’ve been tougher on banks. What eventually happened? Well, Democrats needed an additional vote to break the filibuster, so they got Scott Brown to turn against the filibuster in exchange for an $18 billion giveaway to banks, mostly in his state. The net effect of Feingold’s filibuster was giving $18 billion to banks. This is the sort of thing that anybody with more tactical sense than a popsicle would recognize and then go along with the bill.

via Donkeylicious: Russ Feingold, Good And Bad.

Bernie Sanders, who is to the left of Feingold, illustrated a way to properly legislate for a left of center politician in the majority party in their chamber of congress. Due to the fact that Health Care Reform did not have Public Option, he threatened to withhold his vote from the 60 vote majority and used that leverage to get $11B in funding for Community Health Centers to be built across the nation. Community Health Centers are key to providing primary care for the working class and poor and reducing the costs of providing primary care.

The Dodd-Frank bill — named after Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who ushered it through the House — passed by a vote of 60 to 39. Three Republican senators – Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine — joined 57 members of the Democratic caucus in support. Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin was the lone Democratic opponent, saying the measure didn’t go far enough.

via Congress passes financial reform bill.

To contrast, consider the nothing Feingold got us from opposing the Fin Reg bill. Feingold extracted no compromise. He just refused to vote for the Dodd-Frank Fin-Reg bill because it didn’t go far enough. Feingold could not bring himself to find any compromise or additional provision that would have made the bill worth supporting.  Scott Brown did. For his vote, Brown negotiated a removal of the $19 billion dollar fee to be charged banks to pre-fund the financial reforms without adding any money to the deficit. Instead Brown demanded that the costs of the Dodd-Frank finreg bill be offset by “spending cuts”.

Quite late in the committee’s negotiations, the Congressional Budget Office examined the near-final version of their bill and said that the bill contained about $19 billion in likely costs to taxpayers over time, and so under pay-go laws, that cost would have to be offset. Barney Frank inserted a tax on large banks and hedge funds to cover the cost. And this is what Brown opposes: A tax on banks to pay for the cost of a bill that regulates banks.

…

Instead, Brown is insisting that the committee find $19 billion in spending cuts to support the legislation. So the banks are getting a new regulatory structure meant to prevent another round of chaotic failures, but Brown doesn’t think they should have to pay for it. Instead, other programs and services should be cut.

via Ezra Klein – Scott Brown’s problems with FinReg.

That Scott Brown vote, had to be secured instead of Feingold’s. He could have taken the opportunity to negotiate something more progressive that wasn’t in the bill. Instead, he took his ball and went home and now the reform he didn’t  like, is now the unfunded reform he didn’t like. Here’s Feingold talking about the major things FinReg didn’t do.

Yes it wasn’t complete, yes it wouldn’t have stopped the crisis of 2008, but it helped to begin the roll back 40 years of supply side economics and deregulation. Our consumers are better of with the foundation laid in the Dodd-Frank bill. It was a start to reformating how our government can safely regulate the financial industry.

Feingold took a lot of stands, like voting against the Patriot Act and TARP that really didn’t amount to anything except principled protest. His primary job was to legislate. His all or nothing principles actually resulted in a less favorable bill for Democrats and the American public.

Ordering the "George Hamilton" 10% more expensive thanks to socialist Obama

He can be a spokesperson for the Americans victimized by the oh so brutal tan tax. Maybe he can have a Beck type rally for leathery “skinsecure” people everywhere.

Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum has resigned from the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, Frum announced on his Web site Thursday afternoon — a move which suggests the conservative movement has cut ties with Frum over the straight talk he has been providing all week.

via David Frum, AEI SPLIT: Conservative’s Position ‘Terminated’ By Major Think Tank.

A loyal GW Bush flack states quite logically that his party, while in the minority, is mistaken to demand that their elected officials remove themselves from any position to negotiate policy. Frum believes you get compromise through negotiation. A health care plan passes without any active Republican input, he says “I told you so“. This apparently is a fire-able offense at AEI.

There is no room for free thought, dissent or discussion in the GOP.

Progress as measured by VPs 2004 to 2010 (c/o Blame it on the Voices)

With the Senate working through an all-night session on a package of changes to the Democrats’ sweeping health care legislation, Republicans early Thursday morning identified parliamentary problems with at least two provisions that will require the measure to be sent back to the House for yet another vote, once the Senate adopts it.

via G.O.P. Forces New House Vote on Package of Health Bill Changes – NYTimes.com.

The legislation was added to the health care overhaul moving though Congress, and passed the House on Sunday night by a vote of 220-211. If passed by the Senate, it will eliminate the role of private lenders in originating federal student loans, a change that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will save the federal government between $6 billion and $7 billion per year. For more than 35 years, the government has paid private banks billions of dollars in subsidies to encourage them to lend to students, then guaranteed the loans anyway.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif. ), the chairman of the House committee that wrote the legislation, said that the bill is coming at no cost to tax payers because it is ending an existing federal subsidy. “Congress voted to stop wasting billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize big banks, and start investing that money directly in our students and families,” Miller said Sunday night.

via Student Loan Changes on the Way — What Does It Mean for You? — Politics Daily.

This will be one of the great parts of this bill if it survives the members of the Senate who rake in big bucks from community, regional or wall street banks.

President Barack Obama and Jon Favreau, head speechwriter, edit a speech on health care in the Oval Office, Sept. 9, 2009, in preparation for the president's address to a joint session of Congress. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) c/o FlickrPhotosAccount

February 18, 2010, Obama is an empty suit/celebrity meme (in the form of Obama = Captain Teleprompter) being bandied about by all hat no cattle conservatives was still worth mention.

The Conservative Political Action Conference opened Thursday morning in Washington, and one leitmotif has emerged as an early favorite: noting that President Obama likes to use a teleprompter when delivering a speech. It was mentioned by David Keene, the head of the American Conservative Union, in his introductory remarks; by Stephen Baldwin, of the famous Baldwin brothers, as part of an attack on Mr. Obama; and by Marco Rubio, the Tea Party-backed candidate who is challenging Gov. Charlie Crist for the Republican senatorial nomination in Florida. Mr. Rubio is clearly a star of the gathering here.

He offered a riff on why it was such a good thing that Washington was shut down by a snowstorm last week. “And the president couldn’t find anywhere to set up a teleprompter to announce new taxes,” he said to laughter.

via CPAC Speakers Mock Obama’s Teleprompter – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.

What was missed by most of the people at CPAC still have no substantial plan, inspiring rhyme or coherent reason to deal with the challenges our country faces. So Republicans ridicule Obama for using a teleprompter, like every President since they were invented. Republicans call certain Senate procedures “unprecedented” even when they know damn well they used the same methods to pass bills around slimmer majorities. Republicans also claim every policy Obama wants to implement is some ism related to tyrants of yesteryear, even though his policies like health care reform match GOP policy proposals of the last 20 years.

So while they talk in circles, this President works. In just over a year he has taken a huge first step towards strengthening Americas social contract with its citizens. If you listen to Republicans, they still say the sky is falling, but not many people want to visit the losing locker room.

House Republican Conference Chairman Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind, accompanied by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., discusses health care legislation during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 23, 2010.(AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

...one of finest of all time?

Yglesias believes the historic passing of Health care reform cements Obama’s place as one of the finest Presidents in history.

Now that it’s done, Barack Obama will go down in history as one of America’s finest presidents. It’s always possible of course that, like LBJ, he’ll get involved in some unrelated fiasco that mars his reputation. But fundamentally, he’s reshaped the policy landscape in a way that no progressive politician has done in decades.

via Matthew Yglesias » Perspective.

We have Afghanistan, Iraq, a teetering economy, climate change policy, immigration and Middle East initiatives still yet to be resolved. This establishes him as an important President, but there is too much to do to allege that he will revered for what may be 2 or 6 more years in White House.

At A March 18, 2010 press conference in the Capitol, Kim Moldofsky of Illinois (at Podium) talked about how she desires health insurance reform in front of House Majority Whip James Clyburn, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

photo credit: Speaker Pelosi

An honest conservative viewpoint regarding the political implications of  health care reform from David Frum (via Waterloo | FrumForum):

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

Frum has been against conservative politicians and talk radio screaming about “Death Panels” and saying that Democrats are intending to “kill grandma”. No one listened.