Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

That is why I prefer the public option. What is a fair profit margin and who decides especially when insurance companies are exempt from antitrust regulations allowing them to fix prices?

If the final bill would have included the house provision to require insurance companies to pay out at least 85% of the premiums collected in benefits (currently 65%-80%), that would have made it better. However, since that provision didn't have a direct affect on the budget, it couldn't get into the final version. Also if the exchanges don't have all health insurance offers easily accessible to the consumer to easily compare prices, the health insurance companies may be able to easily raise the price to whatever they want.

I'm surprised the democrats didn't overturn the antitrust regulation. As long as they can fix prices, the CEOs can agree to increase profit margins and give themselves a nice pay raise (because profit margin are up) whenever they want.

Maybe these are two things the democrats will try to fix before the law becomes fully implemented.

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

I'm not surprised that they like each other and only play the game to win political points. What I am surprised is that he said that. It takes a lot of courage to say that in public.

My questions would be "Are the Tea Partiers possibly now going to run a candidate against him, the leaders of the party going to scold him, possibly bypass him when a chairmanship of a committee becomes available, or get beaten up by far right wing talk shows"? There doesn't seem to be any political advantage in saying that other than possibly picking up support from independents (not necessary in Oklahoma).

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

I believe the Dems have a majority currently in both houses, and the presidency.

If they wanted it, it would have been in.

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

Perhaps he was promised a shag?

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

Two more states joined in the lawsuit against health care reform. Both had democrats as attorney generals and republicans as governors so the governors signed an executive order to skirt the attorney generals power.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...h-care-reform/

Also apparently Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) apparently pressured Attorney General Caldwell (D-LA) to enter into the lawsuit or face additional departmental budgetary cuts.

One employee said Caldwell, in a candid admission, claimed that a deal was made with Jindal. Under terms of that agreement, the governor would not make additional cuts in the attorney general’s budget if Caldwell joined in the litigation. Caldwell agreed to be the “token Democrat,” he said, so that he might save additional job cuts by an administration whose state goal is to reduce the number of state employees by as much as 5,000 per year over three years.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/ar...e-care-act.php

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

Once they get into reconciliation, they are restricted what can be changed.

Now that they no longer have 60 votes in the senate, they can't do anything (except reconciliation) without at least one republican senator. That is why Bush did so much under reconciliation.

The only major legislation under Bush that wasn't reconciliation was the Medicare Health Care reform. The democrats didn't filibuster that bill but threaten to repeal "Medicare Advantage" and other provisions of the bill if they got into power. The democrats kept their promise to repeal "Medicare Advantage" but didn't repeal the provision that restricted negotiations with pharma over drug prices.

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

In the context of this thread, who is not scum? I would consider the guys running the insurance companies to be scum; the guys running Enron; the guys responsible for the recent catastrophic financial system collapse; and more. I don't hold any special dislike for politicians over and above all the others. In fact, thinking about it, they do at least do some good - like passing healthcare reform.

Was Churchill scum? Or do you only dislike current-day politicians?

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

Bankers, more than any, still get in my craw. I really could care less how much bonuses they pay as long as they don't put the taxpayer at risk. However that doesn't appear to be the case. In September 2009, the IMF estimated that US bank losses were projected to be about $1 trillion, UK bank losses to be $600 billion, and Euro Area losses to be $800 billion.

In the case of US banks, it would take 5 years of profits to cover the $1 trillion in losses if the banks have banner profit years, don't pay dividends, and don't pay excessive bonuses and stock options. The typical wall street bank makes between 2.0%-2.5% on deposits during a banner year.

Because of the large losses, much of the deposits are non performing and are just used to cover the banks losses. Over the past year, wall street has been raving that US banks have returned to stellar profits but nothing is further from the truth (except for a few banks).

The three largest US banks, JP Morgan, Bank Of America, and Citigroup each have about $2 trillion in deposits and each should be profiting about $40-$50 billion per year if they were healthy and having a banner year. None of them has exceeded an annual profit of $11.8 billion in 2009 (about 1/2% on deposits) but all have given out stellar bonuses.

In the case of JP Morgan, they earned $11.8 billion but awarded $9.3 billion in bonuses in January of the following year.

Bank of America earned $6.2 billion but awarded $4.4 billion in bonuses in January of the following year.

Citigroup lost $1.6 billion but awarded $5.3 billion in bonuses in January of the following year.

The three had a total earnings in 2009 of $16.4 billion but paid out $19 billion in bonuses in January of the following year. They are three sick puppies.

2009 and 2010 will likely be the best years for those banks since they are currently paying less than 1% on most deposits. By 2011 it is likely that interest rates will rise and profits will fall. It seems that there will be another round of the government bailing out the banks or just taking them over and recapitalizing the banks so they can be put back on the market. Either way, this will likely cost the taxpayer at least $400 billion (possibly much more if the IMF estimate is wrong).

Even when they have banner years making 2%-2.5% on deposits, it doesn't seem to make sense to pay such large bonuses for such a small profit on deposits. It doesn't seem like it would take a genius to make that much money on despots especially since the equity markets have increased over 50% in 2009.

http://www.businessinsider.com/imf-1...tedowns-2009-9

It seems the banks are still taking the taxpayer for a ride.

It seems that bankers think that they are privileged since bonuses are as high as ever even though profits are dismal. When I was working in the Silicon Valley and the company performed poorly, everyone in the company had their bonuses and pay increases reduced (sometimes even a reduction in base salary). In fact I don't think employee income (salaries, bonuses, and stock options) in the Silicon have yet to recover to the highs of 2000 before the tech bubble crash.

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

One of any banks biggest profit area are fees. They are out of control and without them, the banks would be in even deeper shit. Scary.

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

A fair question. I think not, but to what extent that view is shaped by my cultural upbringing is debatable.

I do think that current-day politicians are people of lower calibre than those of the past and I am particularly opposed to the idea of the career politician, as such a person is already captured by a system that I believe is too big, expensive and corrupt.

Yes, there are others who deserve the label "scum", but the difference is that, unlike politicians, they don't stand up and tell us that they have no agenda other than the good of all. It's kind of like the way a bent cop or lawyer is more reprehensible than an ordinary criminal - there's an additional element of betrayal.

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

I'm a firm believer in term limits. Problem is, Congress would need to vote for them. Fat chance. The other option is amending the Constitution. Fat chance there too, and a lengthy process if you try.

I also think an I.Q. test and a Psych exam would not be out of line. :lol: Too many crazy idiots in politics.

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

After doing a bit of fact finding, I've found that it were the Republicans who originally pushed for a mandate to purchase insurance :rolleyes: fighting their own idea.

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

Typical politics. You can never agree with the majority, even if it was your idea when you were in the majority. How could you ever get reelected if you went around saying the ins were doing the right thing? Ya gotta love it. :blink:

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

Definitely gotta love hypocrisy in politics. I tried looking at it from another angle, only reason I've found that connects the dots with Republicans wanting to defeat the mandate in court, and them coming up with the mandate idea first, is that they were probably banking on the courts ruling that the mandate was unconstitutional. So either they're pretty dumb, or they were playing Russian roulette with the public mandate

Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
 

Not only were they the first ones to push for a mandate, they also were the first to pass health care reform that had a mandate. If was Mitt Romney that got health care reform with a mandate for MA. He's is now in quite a pickle having to defend his health care reform but oppose the federal health care reform when they are near identical. I doubt he will be able to walk that tightrope and get the republican nomination for the presidency in the future.