Talking Points For Obama’s Political Operation Describe Public Option As “Small Part” Of Reform
This one is likely to irk public option fans: A new set of talking points being distributed on the state level by Obama’s political operation instructs organizers to describe the public option as “just one small part of health insurance reform.”
The talking points from Organizing for America — which do also reiterate Obama’s general commitment to the public option — were sent my way by a disgruntled source.
While Obama himself has made a similar point about the public option’s overall importance to reform, he took flak for that comment, and it may not sit well with some liberal supporters that his political operation is actively urging volunteers to describe the public option in these terms.
The talking points, which were distributed by OFA’s California communications director for OFA organizers to coach volunteers on how to discuss reform, tells them to emphasize the importance of getting the health care bill (the one that doesn’t have a public option) out of the Senate Finance Committee:
How to talk with your volunteers:
The Senate Finance Committee bill is only one of five bills on health insurance reform.
The Senate Finance Committee bill is not even out of committee yet, and it’s very important to get it out of committee to move the legislative process forward.
We’re going to be having the same debate in a couple of weeks on the Senate floor -– if we want the public option we can’t let the bill die in committee.
The other four bills in the process include a strong public option.
The public option is just one small part of health insurance reform.
There is still a lot of work to do on a final plan.
President Obama believes the final bill to come to his desk should have a public option.
Asked for comment, an OFA spokesperson said: “The President still believes that a public option is the best way to offer choice and hold down costs, as he’s said throughout the process.”
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Obama talks good about the PO but I would suspect he won’t go the mat for it. Shame on him.
I would love to be proven wrong.
I for one am not bound to the PO, so long as we still get a significant overhaul of the health care system. In the finance committee there is an amendment coming up to allow states to opt in to a public option if they wish. If this provision also allows state run POs to group together I think this could be a very workable and beneficial amendment. One that is tenable to conservative Dems and one that can still have strength and get stronger over time.
Paul-
I’m with you-especially after I read a recent piece in the New Republic. I want a public option because I would prefer for there to be something universal that didn’t rely on individual states, but recognize the political reality.
Paul W.
Do you realize that there are a bunch of Republican Governors currently trying to push throw legislation that will keep any health care reforms from affecting their state? And you think allowing states to opt in to a public option will help?! I guess maybe if you are lucky enough to live in a state with a real Democrat as Governor.
As for the messaging, the problem is that the White House keeps putting that talking point out which is counterproductive when the point they are trying to make, in my opinion, is a valid one.
We spend so much time talking about the public option that a lot of the other great, not good but actually great, stuff in the bill gets overlooked. If you tell some of the people in the middle who aren’t sure which way to go on health care reform that their health insurance company won’t be able to drop them if they get really sick and that they won’t be able to be denied coverage for prexisting conditions, that in and of itself can help sway them to being for health care reform. But a lot of the time we never even get to that part of the conversation because we are stuck on a big govt versus affordability argument over the public option.
So I get that they want more parts of the bill to be played up, but you dont get that done by appearing to sh*t on the public option when communicating with the people who are most for it. Instead of trying to make the argument that the public option can be sold as an extra benefit, the message that the White House sends to be sending instead people should say that its expendable and not all that important.
Whomever is over their messaging needs to fix that and fast.
Podesta at Center For American Progress ..
CAP President and CEO John Podesta. “The only way to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio and get it going in the right direction is to restrain domestic and defense spending, bend the curve on health care costs, and add new revenues.
As progressives we need to debate the policy merits and likelihood of enacting a range of options — including designing a small and more progressive value-added tax, changes to the corporate tax code, and taxing upper income earners beyond reversing the Bush tax cuts.”
One has every confidence that domestic spending will be restrained, correct? Get ready for a VAT. I’m sure that will make everyone enthusiastic about hiring, and increase GDP growth as well.
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/
well said, SG, thanks. that’s the key context here.
As far as I am concerned, a bill that does not provide a Robust Public Option, would be worthless, and actually make things worse than they are now.
It would make the Insurance Racketeers “too big to fail” and have them getting hundreds of billions in federal subsidies. Think about the irony of that situation folks. A self sustaining Public Option, with no tax money being used, would not be passed, but a bill that would have the Private Insurance Scammers, getting enormous sums of federal tax money, each year, for ever, would be passed.
Once we start giving them those subsidies, they will keep asking for more, and they will always get more, because they will play the local jobs game. They will set up offices in many congressional districts, and then ask for more funds, or they will be forced to kill hundreds of jobs in each district, by shutting down the offices. That is what is about to happen.
As far as I am concerned, we should have a Robust, Public Option, and no Tax money should ever be paid to the Insurance Scammers.
If we can not pass a Public Option, then the Senate Democrats should filibuster, and kill the bill. Better no bill, than one that will only entrench the Private Insurance Racketeers, even more, and have them feeding at the public trough, without any really pressure being applied to bring down costs.
If costs are out of control now, how is handing over almost a trillion dollars of our taxes to the Insurance Companies, going to control costs. Wouldn’t it just be rewarding them for their past larcenous behavior.
It’s a source of unceasing amazement to me how mere inferences that can be drawn from the word choice of every mid to lower level functionary in the government and in the Democratic Party political apparatus become official statements of policy personally approved, and probably even personally written, by Obama, yet George W. Bush somehow eluded responsiblity for even his own words.
@sgwhite: “Instead of trying to make the argument that the public option can be sold as an extra benefit, the message that the White House sends to be sending instead people should say that its expendable and not all that important.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but you earlier said that reform without the robust public option would be worthless? Are you now changing your tune because you can read the writing on the wall?
I’m looking at this as something that will need to be revised eventually no matter what we do, see MA. For the record, I’m from Texas and we have one of the worst insurance rates in the country and our current governor is mostly likely to be one of those trying to not let the a bill apply to his state. So I stand to be hit quite badly if there is not a federally regulated PO.
However, when I look at this as an issue of proving the *concept* of a public option then I think that allowing states that want to go ahead to group their various POs together so that they can better set prices could be a great way to then take the by state PO to a federal one and at a point in time when GOP influence is even lower than now and we have a public less skeptical of such plans.
A quick word on “political realities”
When Bush wanted to push through his tax cuts one of his biggest critics was a member of his own party, John McCain. Here was a war hero taking to the floor of the Senate to warn against cutting taxes and thus revenues in the middle of two wars. And to that Bush gave him the middle finger salute and pushed it through anyway. A public option is as politically viable as Democratic leaders want it to be. If Pres Obama, Harry Reid, and the DNC put pressure, and I mean real pressure, on the Democrats in the Senate to all vote for cloture on a final bill with a public option, it would get done. Period.
.
Don’t let these idiots on Tee Vee convince you that we have to settle for less because of “political realities”. Its simply not true.
BREAKING (Greg, head’s up):
A federal judge says the FBI must publicly reveal much of its interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative.
The FBI interviewed Cheney in June 2004 as it was investigating the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity after her husband criticized the Bush administration. Both the Bush and Obama administrations said they wanted to keep the interview confidential because future vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if it became public.
But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled Thursday that there is no justification to withhold the entire interview since the investigation has concluded. He said that limited parts could be withheld to protect national security or personal privacy.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_go_ot/us_cheney_cia_leak
@sbj
You really can’t read can you?
sg:
If you tell some of the people in the middle who aren’t sure which way to go on health care reform that their health insurance company won’t be able to drop them if they get really sick and that they won’t be able to be denied coverage for prexisting conditions, that in and of itself can help sway them to being for health care reform.
Perhaps. But if that is what you want, you better be sure to hide from them the fact that those very provisions must necessarily lead to higher insurance costs. because if they know the full truth, they may not be quite so swayed.
This is a primary problem with Dem promises. They are mutually exclusive. One cannot decrease costs while at the same time provide more and better service to more (sick) people.
All of this freaking out reminds me of the campaign. Everybody questioned Obama’s strategy and thought they could run Obama’s campaign better than Obama and his team. Rahm made it clear months ago that Obama just wanted to get something out of the finance committee and that it would need a lot of improvement. Rahm also said the WH would exert a lot of influence with reconciliation. Once it passes the 60 vote hurdle in the Senate and goes through reconciliation, the bill only needs 51 votes in the Senate. I am actually heartened by the last statement about Obama signing the final bill with the public option. That shows the White House believes that is possible.
Greg
Was emphasis added by you or by them?
I don’t really see any change in the messaging. He’s been hedging on the PO for months. It’s fine if he wants to just pass insurance reform but it doesn’t bend the cost curve.
I don’t see how they can mandate insurance coverage without an alternative to private insurance. The government will end up paying larger subsidies to people who can’t afford the cost. I’ll take reform though.
This should raise some hackles from our conservative friends. Guess where I’m going this weekend? Camp Obama!! They’re going to teach me how to be a grassroots organizer. JK.
It’s basically a strategy meeting going forward on the health care debate so I’ll be interested to see their position re: the above talking points. I’m only going for one of the two days since I just can’t give up my whole weekend even for Obama. I’ll bring back whatever I can glean from the dialogue and share it with all of you on Monday.
They’re also busy setting up phone banks over the next few weeks to push HCR. I do quite a bit of local organizing so I’m curious to see what their approach is. I’ll try not to get brainwashed qb.
The public option is a “small part” of reform. A “large part” is the fact that the health insurance industry’s bottom line will not be harmed.
# sbj | October 1st, 2009 at 11:16 am
@sgwhite: “Instead of trying to make the argument that the public option can be sold as an extra benefit, the message that the White House sends to be sending instead people should say that its expendable and not all that important.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but you earlier said that reform without the robust public option would be worthless? Are you now changing your tune because you can read the writing on the wall?
………………………
@sgwhite
Ignore him until he explains what he meant, when he said he was against “the g@y agenda” even though he is a g@y man.
SBJ is always asking others to explain what they mean, but he refuses to to explain what he means.
Until he explains himself, just ignore him.
Scott C.
Do you have ANY concept of how insurance works? Of course you don’t. Here is a hint, the mandates will necessarily make sure the costs don’t HAVE to go any higher. They probably will however without a public option because health insurance companies don’t give a d@mn about anything but profit. Something which I am sure you are fine with, right up until you have a family member witha serious illness who gets their insurance dropped or their coverage denied. Have fun in your blissful ignorance until then.
>>>One cannot decrease costs while at the same time provide more and better service to more (sick) people.<<<
Scott C. You are a liar who supports the party of domestic terrorism and fearmongering. You have destroyed this country far enough, pathetic shill.
@sg: When you wrote, “Instead of trying to make the argument that the public option can be sold as an EXTRA benefit,” it left me with the impression that you now feel that the robust PO is expendable so long as we have mandates and health insurance reform.
If true, that was not what you were earlier advocating.
Eight years under Reagan, four under Bush One, and eight under Bush 2. Twenty years total. The Republicans never tried to provide universal health care.
Eight years under Clinton, and now 9 months under Obama, the Republicans have campaigned against providing universal health care.
For the past Twenty Eight years, and nine months, The Republicans have done nothing about providing universal health care, even though more that forty thousand die each year, because of not having such health care available to them.
It matters not to those hundreds of thousands of dead people, what the motives of the Republicans were, when they let them die.
Republicans have made no attempt to prevent it from continuing to happen. I do not care what is in their hearts, because for the past twenty eight years, the Republicans made sure that more than a million Americans died, that did not have to die.
Right to lifers, MY ARSE!
sg:
Do you have ANY concept of how insurance works?
Yes, I do. I now wonder whether you do.
Consider: Suppose there is an insured risk pool of 100 people, wherein each person has a 1% chance of having an event which will cost $100. So the expected cost, for the entire pool is $100, and each person must therefore pay $1 to cover the expected costs. Now suppose, however, that due to a pre-existing condition, 1 of those 99 people has a 50% chance of having the event, while everyone else remains at 1%. Now the expected cost across the pool is $149….(.5X100 plus .01X99). In order to cover this expected cost, everyone will have to now pay $1.49. $1.49 is greater than $1.00.
Sure, the cost to the person with a pre-existing condition is less than what it should be, but that is because everyone else is paying, er, more. Like I said, if insurance companies are forced to insure people with pre-existing conditions at the same cost as everyone else, then necessarily the cost of insurance will rise. It is quite simple.
@sbj
I have nothing to do with you and your impressions. What I wrote was self explanatory and I have never, not ever, not been consistent on this issue. So much in politics isn’t about policy but about messaging and I just so happen to understand how to play that game. Now go bother somebody else, you already know I don’t fall for your bullsh*t
@scott: But sg is supposing the risk poll increases from 100 to ???
Re; political realities-
The political reality I see right now is that there doesn’t seem to be real spine for the PO. I hope that changes, of course. So when I say that I recognize the “reality”, its with chagrin and certainly not approval.
@sg: Okay! Sorry to bother…I’ll assume that you are still for a robust PO that is tied to Medicare and that you will consider anything less in the final bill to be a complete failure. I’ll not address anything at all to you in the future.
The risk pool is going to be covered with massive Federal Tax Dollar subsidies to the Private Insurance Racketeers. Out of which they will skim up to 30% off the top, just like they do off the top of the premiums they collect.
As things now stand, in the US Senate, The Federal Government will be turning Federal Tax Revenues into hundreds of billions in profits, executive compensation packages, and bonus, plus processing fees, for Private Insurance Companies, every year, for ever.
Liam-
Bingo! They had plenty of chances to try and make comprehensive reform and all I hear are crickets. Then, when the Democrats actually get within striking distance, you can’t get a damn one of them to support it. We’ll see if any of them vote for it in the end and if they get anywhere near the numbers Medicare (Soc Sec Act of 1965) got: House (307-116) and Senate (70-24).
sbj:
But sg is supposing the risk poll increases from 100 to ???</b.
Sure, but where is this increase in the risk pool going to come from? If it is due to legislation that forces insurance companies to insure people they currently do not want to insure due to their increased risks, the situation is even worse than I described. The pool might grow from 100 people to 125 people. But those added 25 people will all have a risk profile greater than 1% and will hence push costs higher. Only if you force people with lower risk profiles into the pool at the same time as higher risk profiles might you be able to offset the increased cost. But even then, you are necessarily raising the cost to those low risk people forced into the pool.
Sorry…missed a >
I know how to take the risk out of it for Insurance Companies.
Provide a self Sustaining Public Option, and let the Insurance Companies continue to operate like they do now.
That is all we need. They will not be forced to take any risks they do not wish to, and people will be free to keep their current insurance, if they wish.
Very simple. Then we can work on reforming actual health care practices, and billing practices. We can also reform how doctors and hospitals cover up their mistakes, and seal all records.
When I can go online and check out the history of a doctor or hospital, before I pick one, then I will be all for Tort reform, but until the medical care industry stops protecting their bad practitioners, I will not support Tort reform.
If we can look up the records of which doctors have made repeat mistakes, then we can avoid them. At that stage, we could set up a government malpractice pool, similar to how it is done with bank problems.
The doctors and hospitals can pay premiums to the pool, and a panel can set the damage rewards levels for those patients who have been maltreated.
If it has caused them to be disabled, then the pool can provide life long support, and lesser compensation levels for more minor mistakes.
That will get rid of the lawsuits, but it can only happen if the medical field is willing to become transparent, and willing to expose who the bad eggs are, so they can be shunned by patients.
“Only if you force people with lower risk profiles into the pool at the same time as higher risk profiles might you be able to offset the increased cost.”
and ‘they’ do by forcing all healthy young adults to purchase insurance.
Liam:
Provide a self Sustaining Public Option…
If it were self-sustaining, there would be no need for it to be “public”. The only reason to have it sponsored by the government is so that it can be subsidized by tax dollars. Which by definition means it is not self-sustaining.
sbj:
and ‘they’ do by forcing all healthy young adults to purchase insurance.
True enough. But still, it is not clear that added low-risk buyers will be enough to fully offset the added cost of the high-risk buyers. Even if it is, this does not represent a lowering of health care costs. It represents, as I have been saying all along, a mere transfer of costs, to young, healthy people.
And, of course, it represents more profits for the insurance insdustry, with more people buying its product. How ironic for the dems.
A Public Option, with no federal dollars is what President Obama has called for.
If you are going to start lying about that, then I have no more time for you Scott C.
All the Republicans have to do, to call President Obama, on what he asked for, is to support a Public Option that must be self sustaining from premiums, and will have no more than a 5% processing overhead.
At the same time, they must also include in the bill, a ban on all Federal Subsidies to all coverage, be it the Public Option or Private Insurance.
I notice how dishonest spin doctors, like Scott C. keep wanting to avoid the fact, that it is actually the Private Insurance Racketeers who are slated to get massive amounts of federal subsidies, and the Public Option is slated to get not a single federal dollar in subsidies.
We can not have an honest discussion about the topic with such a bunch of lying and distorting weasels, who pushed the death panel claims,hard, and defended Sarah Palin’s lies, but now claim to have their feelings hurt, because a freshman congressman pointed out that they have done nothing to prevent over a million people from dying, since Reagan took office, because the Republicans never tried to provide universal health care for all.
A Public Option, with no federal dollars is what President Obama has called for.
If you are going to start lying about that, then I have no more time for you Scott C.
I won’t speak for Scott. For myself, agree that you correctly state what Obama and others have called for. I simply do not believe that is what will happen.
Assume a Public Option – essentially a national, non-profit, insurance company which after the $6 billion start-up cost, receives no further money from the Feds.
They hire people, runs adds to get clients, receive, and administer claims – i.e. compete on a level playing field. They don’t turn away anyone, never deny claims, pay Medicare rates to providers (first 2 years in Senate bill) or negotiated rates.
Hey, it just like Amtrack!
After a while, people complain that insurance costs too much and covers too little. Congress tells them too bad, right? No, Congress mandates lower costs, and better coverage, and makes up the difference with subsidies to Public Option. After a few years, the private guys go out of business, which is really what most of the Democrats wanted anyway.
I think the probability of things playing out this way is verging on 100%.
Hence, the current “no Federal dollars” discussion is beside the point. What matters is what happens later on, and as you have so forcefully pointed out, one can only expect reevaluations when things are found to be different later on.
@scottC: “It represents, as I have been saying all along, a mere transfer of costs, to young, healthy people.”
Thank goodness I am middle-aged and frail!
Amtrak was a private operation that was going out of business.The Government took over the running of Amtrak, to maintain vital public transportation. Try to stop playing games, if you want to be taking seriously.
I said that the Republicans can lock in a ban on the use of Government funds, but instead you want to stop it, by use the strawman argument, about what it might become in the future.
Deal with what the President is proposing. No one can deal with what your imagination is concocting.
Liam:
A Public Option, with no federal dollars is what President Obama has called for.
He can call for an increase in the population of American unicorns, if he wants. Calling for something doesn’t make it possible, and if Obama is as smart as his acolytes give him credit for, he knows that what he “calls for” (more like promises) cannot be achieved.
I ask you…what is the difference between a self-sufficient, non-profit insurance company that is not backed by a tax-payer guarantee, and your precious public option?
If you are going to start lying about that…
I am not lying about anything.
sbj:
Thank goodness I am middle-aged and frail!
Congratulations, you’re a winner!
If we are going to end up spending up to a trillon dollars to subsidize health care for all. then why would it be wrong for the government to pay it directly to doctors and hospitals, but be right for them to just give all that money to the middle man Insurance Racketeers, who will skim about thirty percent of of it, and only pay out 70% percent of what the government gave them? Hmmmmm
Strange how all those Right Wing posters keep ducking that key fact.
They are worried about how a Public Option, that is not asking for any federal funds, might just one day, ask for them, so they are against a non funded Public Option now, but they are not against a Private Insurance plan that will be paid up to a trillion dollars in public funding now.
Very strange indeed. Smells like industry shills have been stomping through here.
Scott C. Now you repeated your big lie. I am done with you, so you can stop with your extractions and comments directed toward me. I now know you to be just another lying weasel.
@scottc: “I’m a winner!”
On the other hand, my partner and I are the lucky recipients of so-called gold-plated coverage so we are likely looking at increased taxes.
Not only that:
“The Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support, and signed by a Democratic president — Bill Clinton — prohibits the extension of domestic partner healthcare benefits and denies recognition of any same-*** relationship. Indeed, even the Obama administration admitted that this legislation would bar the extension of domestic partner healthcare benefits.
“The left’s demand for government-run healthcare, the so-called “public option,” will leave gay and lesbian families completely and totally out. ****, who currently are able to secure health insurance that provides for domestic partner benefits for their families, will find no such options when it comes to government-run healthcare. Worst, low-income gay and lesbian families, who can’t afford private insurance and will be forced by federal mandate into government-run healthcare, will be hit the hardest.”
****" rel="nofollow">http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/60041-expanding-government-run-health-insurance-means-expanding-discrimination-against-****
Liam:
I said that the Republicans can lock in a ban on the use of Government funds…
You can “say” what you want. Intelligent people, however, can draw more realistic conclusions for themselves.
10 years from now, when the Federal National Insurance Association (sound familiar?) is going bust because it charged too little, offered too much coverage, and never denied a claim, millions of people covered by FNIA, many of them already catastrophically sick, will face the prospect of losing their insurance. And the government is going to say “Sorry, there’s this clause in the legislation establishing FNIA which doesn’t allow federal tax dollars to flow to FNIA, so you guys are out of luck”?
You can believe that if you want (although I’m sure you don’t), but no sensible person would.
sbj:
Not only that:…
Wow. So a winner, not so much.
Another example of the private market providing solutions that the government, because of politics, cannot offer.
Freehold:
I won’t speak for Scott.
But you could have. I second everything you said.
From Reagan to the present day, the Republicans have never presented a bill to provide universal health care, or a bill to clean the air and water, and end our dependence on OPEC.
OBSTRUCTION IS NOT A SOURCE FOR SOLUTIONS.
REPUBLICANS PRETEND THAT IT IS.
What the hell is SBJ, The G@Y Republican, complaining about now. First he says he against “the G@y Agenda” and now he is whining about how he is being treated unfairly because of his sexual orientation.
He is a G@Y Rooster Standing on his Republican Dung Heap, crowing the praises of the Republican Foxes, who have been trying to kill him for years, and yet he agrees with them that their is a “gay agenda” that must be stopped.
What an addled Maroon!
mmm mmm mmm
Liam,
Are you under the impression that the current Congress can bind a future Congress? I think its pretty well settled that is not the case.
I brought up Amtrak an yet another example of a “temporary” government subsidy that seems to be perpetual, simply to illustrate the political forces that will almost certainly come into play. If you think its off point, OK.
Another more direct indicator of political reality – Congress has repeatedly passed legislation to prevent scheduled reductions in payments to health care providers under Medicare:
The Medicare law requires CMS to adjust the MPFS payment rates annually based on an update formula, which includes application of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) that was adopted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The formula has yielded negative updates every year since 2002, although CMS took administrative steps to avert a reduction in 2003 and Congress has taken action to prevent reductions every year since then.
Based on current data, CMS is projecting a rate reduction of 21.5 percent for CY 2010.
http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/cms-proposes-payment-policy-changes-physicians%E2%80%99-services-medicare-beneficiaries
Why you think pointing these things out makes me a shill for the insurance companies (”associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer”) is not clear to me.
Your Amtrak example is specious. They did not establish Amtrak. The private sector ran passenger trains, and could not make a profit, so they gave up them.
How come you guys never complain about tax subsidies for big business, and agra business? Industries blackmail states all the time, for subsidies, by threatening to move to another state, or overseas.
Your selective outrage against your own future projection about the PO, while remaining silent about the massive subsidies that are being slated for Private Insurance, and subsidies that are give away, all the time to big corporations, reveal you to be very selective in your partisan outrage. Your projected potential future PO scenario gets your knickers in a bunch, but the current massive subsidies going to corporations, and those which are slated to go to Private Insurance, find you silent, and therefore approving of.
Spare us your selective outrage about the use of Federal funds.
Future Congresses are still answerable to those who elected them. You are arguing that we should not pass a Self Sustaining PO option now, because if we did, a future Congress would be have to give it federal tax support.
That is a specious argument, and without merit. A Future Congress might just as easily actually kill the Public Option, as expand it with Public funding.
Your whole objection is your own imagined worse case scenario.
It reads like Condi’s looming mushroom cloud rational, for doing the wrong thing now.
For some reason I first read “smart part” – sigh.
Liam:
How come you guys never complain about tax subsidies for big business, and agra business?
Getting a handout (a subisidy) and having someone take less of what you already have (a tax “subsidy”) are two different things.
Industries blackmail states all the time, for subsidies, by threatening to move to another state, or overseas.
Would you call it blackmail if someone tells their landlord that they will move if he doesn’t lower the rent? Very strange.
Your selective outrage against your own future projection about the PO, while remaining silent about the massive subsidies that are being slated for Private Insurance, and subsidies that are give away, all the time to big corporations, reveal you to be very selective in your partisan outrage.
A briefer version of which: “Your selective outrage…reveals you to be very selective in your partisan outrage.” Who can argue with that!
A Future Congress might just as easily actually kill the Public Option, as expand it with Public funding.
Yeah…50-50 chance, right?
So you admit that you have no problem when Private Corps. are the ones raiding the Federal Treasury. Therefore, you really do not care if Government money is used. You just do not want it spent directly for the benefit of individuals. You want the Robber Barons to get their claws on it.
Good to know where you stand, so you can now cease all your sanctimonious caterwauling about how tax dollars might be going to waste.
Scott C.
I told you earlier, and I repeat. I find you to be completely dishonest, so I do not want you even quoting me, let alone trying to engage me in debate. I am through with you, because you are just a very dishonest shill.
Liam:
…so I do not want you even quoting me let alone trying to engage me in debate.
Then don’t post. As long as you do, I will feel free to quote you and respond as and when I see fit. Get over it.
…
You are a parasite. You just feed off of other people’s comments.
BUSTED! Government Healthcare Advocate Admits Public Option is Trojan Horse!
http://02e56fa.netsolhost.com/blog1/index.php/2009/09/21/first-post-of-the-new-era-pickle-1-advoc