Grassley Admits Health Care Proposal Has “Republican Input”
This seems very significant: Senator Chuck Grassley has now acknowledged that the health care bill being debated this week by the Senate Finance Committee was done with GOP input — an admission that will make it tougher for Republicans to claim Dems didn’t opt for a bipartisan approach on health care.
Grassley’s acknowledgment — which comes after he claimed for some time that he’d been getting pushed away from the negotiating table — comes towards the end of this Washington Post piece on Max Baucus’s latest efforts to revise the bill. Grassley told WaPo…
“This bill, except for the five to 10 things that weren’t resolved, has been put together with some Republican input,” Grassley said.
Grassley’s admission reflects the mixed messaging we’ve heard from Republicans lately: While some are acknowledging that Republicans do agree with much in the Dem health care proposals, others say the only way forward is to completely scrap the current proposals and start over again.
Grassley has gone a bit further here than merely claiming some agreement with Dems: He’s openly acknowledging that the GOP has had “input” into the bill, which Dems can point to in order to argue that they pursued bipartisanship in good faith, even if they were unable to reach bipartisan agreement.
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And you think that single sentence will stop Republican’s from claiming they were shut out?
You’re just flat out adoooooooorable!
Tell you what…the next time a Republican makes the claim that they are being steamrolled by Democrats on health care reform (and they will), please call them up and read them this quote. Ask them if they disagree with Chuck Grassley’s comments that Republicans DID have input on the bill, and why.
Well BBQ, at least they don’t have a leg to stand on and the statement is out there and can be pointed to.
What else can one do?
Close your robe and go back inside Gramps! This guy appears to be suffering from dementia! He’s a stupid, ignorant, crazy old man. He’s lost his marbles!
Who really cares…the Republicans are now a Southern rump party headed the way of the Whigs. I’ve lost respect for them…they produce nothing in the way of genuine ideas..other than greed is good.
Tena don’t kill me but I respect liberterians like Ron Paul far more than any Republican. Back in the day of Bush I there were still Repubs I could at least respect…I know..they were actually RINO’S.
Does this mean two votes so far? Grassley and Snowe?
I mean, they both come from states where an overwhelming majority favor a public option and most definitely support the plans in general being put forth. If they are voting to represent their constituents then you’d think they would both vote yea.
I wonder if any other Republicans will send any signals on if they are willing to flip and vote.
I could see Snowe as a up/up and Grassley as an up/down vote to be honest.
Pack your bags folks, parties over.
Get ready for the next big fight…climate change.
It’s the rational thought people that give a damn about the environment against the anti-science, pro-business at all costs, even if it means we all die in the process Palinites.
“Pack your bags folks, parties over.
Get ready for the next big fight…climate change.”
Ayup. We’re going to get a health care reform bill. On to climate change and that’s goimg to be another nasty fight.
“Tena don’t kill me but I respect liberterians like Ron Paul far more than any Republican. Back in the day of Bush I there were still Repubs I could at least respect…I know..they were actually RINO’S.”
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. I disagree with you about Libertarians – I absolutely cannot stand the childishness of their philosophy, but hey that doesn’t mean you have to agree with me.
I think the philosophy of libertarians is quite decent, but the way they package it, market it and apply it is pretty woeful. The best obstacle to libertarianism is often libertarians.
mixed messaging, Greg ? Nah, it’s outright lying, a pre-existing condition for all repugs.
“I think the philosophy of libertarians is quite decent,”
I disagree completely – I think their philosophy is indecent to the max.
Read Jeremy Bentham lately? Libertarians are in direct opposition to the ideas this country was founded on.
Grassley is a dead horse. Please stop flogging it.
Afghanistan.
When the dust settles, this may turn out to be the biggest mess that George Bush created, of all the many messes that he created, or facilitated.
We had to go after Al Qaeda. I still support getting those Barbarians. That was why we went into Afghanistan. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld clearly were not sincere about that mission, or they would have not taken their focus of it, shortly after it had begun.
It is all very well to pickup the bullhorn, on the 9/11 site, and declare that you are going to get those who ordered the 9/11 attacks, but when you then just go through the motions of going after them, and divert the vast majority of your military and intelligence resources to an unnecessary war of choice, elsewhere, then you were just lying to the American People about how you intended to hunt down Bin Laden and his gang of savages.
Bush/Cheney engaged in a symbiotic relationship with Ben Laden. They picked up the bullhorn, and amplified his message of terror, and they never stopped doing so. They had Tom Ridge raising terror alerts on a frequent basis, to keep the nation paralyzed with fear, in order to create the impression that we would all be doomed if we did not let them, Bush/Cheney, do what ever they wished. After all, they would be our only protection from the Barbarians, that they had stopped trying to hunt down.
So here we are, almost eight years later. The Taliban is resurgent. I was shocked to see what part of Afghanistan it was, where they hijacked those two fuel tankers, that NATO then hit with missiles. It was in the far north of the country. It was in an area where the Taliban was not even in control of on the day we first went into Afghanistan. Remember the Northern Alliance, that we worked with, when we launched our assault? The Taliban is now in the north, where they never used to be, because they are Pashtuns, from a different tribe and region of the country.
So what can be done now, to improve our chances of making the region more stable, and less hostile to us. I think that we missed our chance to do so, after we first went in there. That is why I say that this is probably the biggest mess that Bush/Cheney have created.
Our military is burned out, from all those frequent tours of Iraq. Their families are also burned out from having to go through all those tours of duty, with their loved ones.
Afghanistan is much larger, and much more difficult terrain, than Iraq was, and you saw how difficult it was for our Military there.
Furthermore, Afghanistan is a country in name only. It is a patchwork of very many tribes, local autonomous chiefs, plus drug and warlords. The recent corrupt election, has made a mockery of the notion of having a trustworthy central government, that can be relied on as a strong working partner.
For all those reasons, pulling out of there might have to be on the table.
However; if we do so, then Pakistan will be left to deal with the consequences of our withdrawal. Lately they have being doing much better at going after the Barbarians, in badlands on their side of the border. If we leave, will Pakistan feel that they will have to make accommodations with those people, just like their predecessors did? I think that there is a strong chance that they will, and there in lies the crux of the matter. Al Qaeda is in those border regions, and Pakistan has an arsenal of Nukes. They are not going to let us take custody of them, because they feel that is their best defense against India, a bordering Nuclear Weapons state.
So, how do we reduce our efforts in Afghanistan, because we are not going to be able to create a honestly governed functioning state there. It might have been in the cards, when we had the Taliban on the run, shortly after we invaded, but neglecting that central objective for the past seven years, has created condition there now, that we are simply not going to be able reverse. Yet we still have to hunt down and destroy Al Qaeda. That we must do, or else they will grow stronger, after our withdrawal, and in conjunction with the Taliban, they would stand a good chance of turning Pakistan into another Afghanistan, this time with a nuclear arsenal. That is the nightmare that must keep waking President Obama up at night.
I am just laying out the current situation, as I see it. I see no easy solutions. I see no way that we are going to be able to reverse how the Taliban were allowed, over the past seven years, to become even stronger than they were on 9/11/2001. So we have to accept that trying the surge approach there is not really possible. The country is too big, and too regionally autonomous, for us to be able to blanket the place with enough troops to smother the Taliban. We do not have enough troops to deploy for such a massive undertaking.
So, we must find someway to establish a regional base, from which we can pursue Al Qaeda, and keep Pakistan within our embrace, so that they continue to apply pressure on the bad guys in the tribal border regions.
Easier said than done, but before we can find a solution, we must first be aware of what we are now facing, and what we can realistically hope to accomplish. We can no longer hope to accomplish in Afghanistan, what we could have, if we had finished the job, right after we went in. We did not strike while the iron was hot, and the iron is now cold, and the Taliban now own both the forge and the anvil.
We probably should try to make some arrangement with them, that they will not accommodate Al Qaeda, and if they do, we will make sure that none of their leaders will ever be able to feel safe in their sleep. In some ways, since Karzai is not worth bothering with, we might be better of to have the Taliban in charge. When in power, the have to set up offices, and those are much easier to take out with drones, than trying to find their leaders now.
Just some food for thought folks. This is a huge problem on President Obama’s plate, and thanks to Bush/Cheney lying to the American people, and not really hunting down the Barbarians, this President has to grapple with the current situation, where it would appear that he has to choose between a lot of bad options.
I am glad that he is taking his time, and not being rushed into upping the military ante. Generals always push for that option. The did in Vietnam, long after it was clear that there was no way that we could prevail there. We are seeing the same type of military decision making now, about Afghanistan. McChrystal reports that things are worse than ever there, and his only solution appears to be military escalation.
Just like in Vietnam, since we have only a very corrupt government partner,that lacks any semblance of a national military institution, then who would we fighting for?
I think this crisis needs some serious national debate. That is why I have posted the results of my pondering about the issue. We are at a crossroads here folks, and what we do, going forward will probably decide if Al Qaeda gets vanquished, or becomes stronger than ever.
That is why I intend to post these remarks, on a few threads, during the next few days. We have to engage the issue. The future of civilization may be in the balance.
The good thing about climate change is that the opposition has even LESS to stand on than the boogie man of health care reform. The oil/coal/dirty energy companies are a much easier target for the general public to understand than the health insurance industry. I agree that HCR is swinging towards the Left now that it is pretty much impossible to argue that people don’t want a PO in HCR.
“The oil/coal/dirty energy companies are a much easier target for the general public to understand than the health insurance industry.”
Well, yea and no, Ethan. I wish this was as true as it seems, but Joe Barton has spent his entire time in office – and he sits on the finance committee for the EPA – protecting cement plants that have polluted north Texas to the point now where in summer there is one ozone heavy day after another and people are warned to stay inside. And childhood asthma in north Texas is epidemic.
Barton was up for re-election in ‘06. He won again.
“He’s openly acknowledging that the GOP has had “input” into the bill, which Dems can point to in order to argue that they pursued bipartisanship in good faith, even if they were unable to reach bipartisan agreement.”
I’m afraid that I don’t understand the “big deal” here? Obama and the Dems have argued all along that they have sought and incorporated bipartisan input. How does this add to their argument?
Are the folks here contending that the Baucus version will pass the Senate and therefore be the baseline for a conference bill? If so, that should hardly be considered a major accomplishment – at least not for progressives. The Baucus bill is not progressive in the least. Or are folks here arguing that the Baucus bill is dead and we will be heading towards reconciliation? If so, be careful what you wish for – the ultimate bill will be swiss cheese.
Ethan
I agree that public opinion is beginning to swing left but I’m not convinced yet that we’re going to get a good bill. The reason Grassley said Repub’s had some input with the Baucus bill is because they did, along with the insurance industry. I noticed today that health industry stocks are down a bit, so maybe they’re not as cocky as they were last week, but we can’t take our eye off the ball yet. With over 500 ammendments and congressional repubs still saying no, no, no we haven’t achieved our goal.
Liam, I appreciate your perspective on Afghanistan and am currently reading as much as I can get my hands on to form an educated opinion. I agree that we have a huge problem there and I’m hoping Obama can come up with a realistic plan to get us out of there sooner rather than later without de-stabilizing the situation further.
sbj, the difference is between Obama and Dems saying it, and Grassley saying it, obviously…
“sbj, the difference is between Obama and Dems saying it, and Grassley saying it, obviously…”
Not only that, sbj is fronting with that naivete that nobody believes – he pretends to not understand what you are saying in order to pretend that what you are saying isn’t what you are saying.
The difference, sbj, as you know very well is that the GOP has been stomping around saying they haven’t been consulted, that they want more time to have more input and Grassley has admitted that they have had the input they keep whining about.
If you haven’t gotten that from what has been going on, how the hell do you get across a busy street without getting run over by the obvious big damn bus?
1) re: Tena, Barton is just another GOP shill in the pocket of big oil. Texas is a disaster thanks to people like him and is a state that is trending bluer.
2) re: lmsinca, I’m not convinced yet that we are going to get as strong a HCR bill as I would like, it might happen, but I AM convinced that we are going to get a bill that I think is good. Not only that, I think the whip effort in the progressive caucus is the real firewall against a bad bill. As much as I disagree with some of FDL’s efforts, I think that in general Jane Hamsher has done our country a tremendous service by whipping the progressive caucus. The fact that the progressives are enabled on HCR gives me, in my mind at least, a little more allowance to look down the road at moving on other issues, especially cap/trade.
Ethan and lmsinca: You might be interested in reading a speech that Obama made in march 2009 where he laid out his new strategy for Afghanistan. The goal is fairly straightforward: to defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan prevent their return in the future.
“So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/us/politics/27obama-text.html?pagewanted=1
And just a few weeks ago Obama gad this to say:
“This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is a — this is fundamental to the defense of our people.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-the-Veterans-of-Foreign-Wars-convention/
(Stolen from The Corner)
@Greg: “sbj, the difference is between Obama and Dems saying it, and Grassley saying it, obviously…”
Oh c’mon, Greg! The group of six have been working on this for months now. Of course the Repubs have been involved – they’ve simply been losing the battle. This Grassley statement is of virtually no importance whatsoever.
@tena: Unless you strike a more civil tone in your responses to me I’ll not engage further. (”Screw you guys, I’m going home.”)
Yes, the Repubs have been saying they were not consulted – but this is largely true in the House. Yes the Repubs HAVE been consulted – in one committee in the Senate with three Republicans only. The Dems can call this true bipartisanship and reaching out, and the Repubs can call it much less than that. That’s politics, for cryin’ out loud! This latest statement from Chuck means virtually nothing and changes not a thing. Bipartisanship will be measured in the final vote.
sbj – LOL! Civil? What wasn’t civil, that I made you look as foolish as that comment was?
Don’t engage me – that’s no skin off my nose.
@Greg: And Greg, you’ve recently posted poll results showing (a) that the public doesn’t feel the Repubs have been operating in good faith and (b) but they STILL want Obama to work with them. I just don’t see where one Grassley statement changes anything.
grassley sinking – desmoines register
Grassley, a Republican standing for re-election next year, has fallen further faster than Harkin, a Democrat re-elected last year.
Approval for Grassley dipped to 57 percent in the survey taken last week, having stood at 75 percent in the Register’s January poll and 66 percent in April.
The poll of 803 Iowans 18 and older was conducted Monday through Wednesday by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines.
It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Grassley is the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. His decline in approval follows months of close involvement in committee negotiations on health care legislation.
It also comes on the heels of criticism that he was fearmongering last month when he suggested people were justified in worrying that a Democrat-backed health care bill in the U.S. House would involve the federal government in life and death decisions
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090919/NEWS/90919018/1001&theme=/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=NEWS
No wonder he is singing a different tune now.
@amk: Interesting stuff in that article:
“Harkin’s approval, 55 percent in the new poll, has fallen 15 percentage points since January and 4 since April. It is his lowest since he joined the Senate in 1985…Grassley’s approval among Iowa Republicans has risen 10 percentage points, although he took big hits from Democrats, whose approval dropped 24 percentage points since April, and independents, whose approval fell by 11 percentage points in the same span.”
sbj – More interesting is this
Grassley, a Republican standing for re-election next year, has fallen further faster than Harkin, a Democrat re-elected last year.
Nice try, but no cigar… Again.
And sbj – Harkin doesn’t have the beast of election looming over him unlike you know who.
I have some thoughts on what a Health Care Reform bill, without a Public Option, would or would not accomplish.
I have laid out my current thoughts on Afghanistan, and I will return to that very important issue, again. Now on to health care reform.
Health Care Reform, Without A Public Option.
How will the Private Insurance Companies get paid for covering every person, regardless of their past, current, or future medical conditions?
Is the government going to subsidize them, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, for keeping all high risk patients on their rolls?
If so, then why is that not the Government collecting taxes from people to distribute to major corporations, with a built in profit margin for them, which would make it more expensive for tax payers, than a non profit private option would?
The Insurance companies favor the private non profit Co-Ops form of competition, to a government administered Public Option competition. That should tell folks how much of a joke those phantom Co-Ops really are. The Insurance Companies want them, but they say that they can not compete against a public option. What is the difference. They are both supposed to be non-profit operations, that would rely on membership premiums to cover the bills.
How would a bill, without a public option, put any pressure on Private Insurance, to contain costs? Surely the bill will not set any overhead, salaries, bonuses, and profit margin limits on those Insurance Companies, so where does the pressure come from, to force them to contain costs.
Without the public option, they will also be receiving huge federal subsidies from government, and will have no pressure applied to contains costs and profit margins, or the percentage of collected money, they skim out of the pool.
Here is one thing that I have learned about laws that are written to make Companies and their Lobbyists conform to new regulations and restrictions. They game the new system. That is what they do. The first thing they do is look for a way around the new regulations, instead of looking to abide by them.
I may be missing something, so I want people to spell out how they see a Health Care Reform bill, with a Public Option, will actually force Private Insurance Providers to contain costs, and end up reducing premiums for businesses and individuals.
How will such a bill force them to do so?
I may be missing something, so I want people to spell out how they see a Health Care Reform bill, without a Public Option, will actually force Private Insurance Providers to contain costs, and end up reducing premiums for businesses and individuals.
How will such a bill force them to do so?
“How will such a bill force them to do so?”
It doesn’t have the same coercive force; and I don’t think anyone says differently. Theoretically, however, I can see how a pool for private coverage can lower costs – because it does now. It puts the bargaining power of a group behind you and the insurance company can level the risk among the whole group.
@amk: “Grassley, a Republican standing for re-election next year, has fallen further faster than Harkin, a Democrat re-elected last year.”
Yes, you wrote that twice.
@sbj, and yet you pretended not to ignore it. BTW, did you see the bold words ? Jus’ saying.
But, at the same time, the bill would force the Insurance Companies to cover all those millions of people who the refuse to do so now, because they are too risky, and more expensive to cover, so those people will offset any pool size efficiencies that might be at play.
Also, without a Public Option, why is the bill projected to cost the Government 900 Billion dollars in payouts. Payout to whom? Since they would not be in the coverage business, are they going to pay that 900 billion the Private Insurance Companies, who will take around 300 billion of it, for operating costs, Salaries, bonuses, advertising and high profit margins.
Why would those who oppose the Public Option, because the want government to stay out of health care coverage, want to support a bill that would pay hundreds of billions of tax dollars to Private Insurance Companies, to keep, and not apply to medical care for anyone?
If the government is supposed to keep out of Medical Insurance coverage, then they should not be allowed to pay any money to any Insurance provider.
@amk: I pretended not to ignore it? Geez, dude. I didn’t try to mislead in any way.
Harkin from 70 to 55. Grassley from 75 to 57. Grassley higher than Harkin, and Grassley gaining among Republicans.
Grassley may be tap dancing but this past Sunday on MTP the Ted Knight of politics John Boehner was almost in tears over the fact that he hasn’t been invited to the WH since April.
Imsinca could probably pull out a Gilda Radner moment for us here…the Repubs will scream and yell and claim the Dems forced it down their throat…if it suceeds like other republican fought programs such as Social Security and Medicare we’ll get who was Radner character Imsinca who always argued until she was proven wrong and then reponded sheepishly…”That’s OK”
Once the bill gets passed there will be a muffled “That’s OK.” Except for Mikey Steele who will take credit much as he amazingly tried to do when he talked about the R’s protecting Medicare.