ObamaCare: Okay, this one is just plain funny
[Posted by Karl]
The latest potential obstacle to the Democrats’ attempted takeover of the US healthcare system is the man holding Pres. Obama’s old seat, Sen. Roland Burris:
The Illinois Democrat, appointed by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says he’ll only vote for a bill to provide health care to millions more Americans as long as it allows the government to sell insurance in competition with private insurers.
And he says he won’t compromise.
***
No, he says, he will not vote for any version of a government-run plan circulating in the Senate, other than the full-blown one from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
He won’t vote, for example, for Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe’s idea to use the threat of a public option to force insurers to lower premiums by certain deadlines. He hasn’t seen the details of another idea, proposed by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., that would allow each state to decide whether to offer public coverage to compete with private insurers. The health committee’s proposal, he says, must be in the final bill to earn his vote.
To grasp just how uncompromising that is, consider that Burris has just taken a more hardcore position on the HELP version of the “public option” than HELP Chairman Tom Harkin.
Burris would not say if he’d vote against cloture on a bill that leaves out the public plan, a possibility that could stall debate on the legislation.
Of course, if push comes to shove, Burris will receive the appropriate parting gift from the very Democrats who opposed seating him — but then flip-flopped, because they needed another Democrat in the Senate. So this headache is probably a smaller one than the possibility of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) doing in ObamaCare. But that doesn’t make the story any less funny.
–Karl
Considering his expected inane response to the ACORN scandal, this is fairly unsurprising.
Dmac (5ddc52) — 10/20/2009 @ 7:19 amIt is still amazing how much of a pass this clown got when it seems apparent that people on his behalf were willing to buy the Senate seat for him. And even more amazing is the complete pass Teh One got in all of that.
JD (eab431) — 10/20/2009 @ 7:23 amHe gets a pass because in a few months, we start the process of replacing him. There’s no point in going after him for being an idiot, because he’s out of the senate in 2010.
Scott Jacobs (766b04) — 10/20/2009 @ 7:43 amDo you Illinois boys hear Lincoln rotating in his grave like a meat spit on overdrive?
PCD (1d8b6d) — 10/20/2009 @ 8:07 amI can hear Old Abe spinning all the way from Kollyfoahneah.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 10/20/2009 @ 8:14 amNope. Abe passed out and passed on around the election season, after all of the Barcky is like Lincoln comparisons.
JD (a2ecee) — 10/20/2009 @ 8:20 amThose of here in Illinois expect anything at this point, including Blago appearing on Celebrity Apprentice. No doubt, after Burris is ousted, he can start making the rounds of reality and game shows for has-beens as well.
Rochf (ae9c58) — 10/20/2009 @ 8:27 amWell, JD, Honest Abe never won a Nobel Peace Prize.
Just sayin’… ;-|
BJTexs (a2cb5a) — 10/20/2009 @ 8:28 amMy mother is in ICU with a subdural hematoma and other head injuries. She has one-on-one nursing and her doctor is married to her niece. Still, from the care I see being given to her, what I want Obama to do is line up every health care worker, from Nobel laureate doctors to candystripers, and machine-gun them all down.
nk (df76d4) — 10/20/2009 @ 9:17 amOur system sucks, these days. In a different way maybe from the others we talk about, such as the Canadian and British, but it still sucks.
nk (df76d4) — 10/20/2009 @ 9:19 amnk, I’ve felt the same way before. It’s easy to accept, as human nature, all the little hassles and dumb ideas in health care… until someone you love is counting on health care.
Sucks to be you.
I think the answer to these problems is more advanced methods and medicine. Sure, there will hassle, discomfort, rude arrogant professionals, etc, but you came for the technology. That’s what scares me about today’s ‘mandate’ to cut profits that feed this technology’s growth. People see profits as a bad thing.
Dustin (bb61e3) — 10/20/2009 @ 9:26 amLincoln’s death – 1865
first Nobel Peace Prizes awarded – 1901
Abe never had a shot. 🙂
Myron (712b1e) — 10/20/2009 @ 9:27 amHar, har, har, har. (giggle), lower premiums! Well, I for one am delighted that somebody has kept their sense of humor intact. Even if I can’t quite figure out who–Snowe? Burris? Baucus?
It would be comedy gold to see these members of The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body put groceries away in the kitchen. “Gallon of milk, hmmm, that’s kept cold, so into the oven. I’m cooking these hamburger patties for dinner tonight, so into the freezer they go. Box of Cheerios, store ’em in the microwave…”
Push legislation that creates a Death Spiral for the insured’s policies, then try to keep a straight face as you talk about lowering costs. He, he, he, too funny.
AMac (c822c9) — 10/20/2009 @ 9:52 amDoesn’t this sort of thing run afoul of the Hobbs Act (18 U.S.C. § 201) ?
Neo (7830e6) — 10/20/2009 @ 10:14 amI think I’m off to Douglas’ tomb after all these Lincoln comments. I’ll ask him what he thinks.
carlitos (831ee5) — 10/20/2009 @ 10:15 amI noticed the story about Burris last night. I thought it went well with this story: Shocker! Government healthcare doesn’t make it cheaper.
SomeOtherSteve (1931c8) — 10/20/2009 @ 10:52 amMyron, why couldn’t they give Lincoln a peace prize? They give people peace prizes for things they did years ago, all the time. In fact, they gave someone this year’s peace prize for things they intend to do in years to come.
They didn’t give Lincoln a peace prize for the same reason they didn’t give Ghandi a peace prize… they are stupid.
Dustin (bb61e3) — 10/20/2009 @ 11:09 amBTW, I have had the same sort of thoughts as nk almost every time a family member is hospitalized.
However, the issue on the table, is whether — or how — any of that would be changed by passing some flavor of ObamaCare.
Karl (f07e38) — 10/20/2009 @ 11:23 amAll of this underscores the essential falsity of the little president man’s dirty socialist lie that economic recovery depends on his dirty socialist goof-ass takeover of health cares.
Evidently Burris isn’t buying that argument. Evidently Burris thinks the little president man is a stupid lying stupidhead what lies.
I tend to agree.
happyfeet (f62c43) — 10/20/2009 @ 11:30 amnk, I don’t know where your family member is hospitalized but I do know that I would not want to be a patient in New York City where all the docs live in Connecticut. There was an article years ago about a general surgeon who had a heart attack and the adventures he had trying to get care from a fellow doc but one who was a big wheel in a teaching hospital and not available on weekends.
The other negative for anyone with a head injury is dealing with neurosurgeons. That’s another story.
Here’s hope for the best.
Mike K (2cf494) — 10/20/2009 @ 11:55 amYes, Burris is an idiot; but in this case, if he votes against the compromise bill he then becomes a useful idiot.
Icy Texan (43c637) — 10/20/2009 @ 12:05 pmHappyfeet–trust me–Burris doesn’t think the President is a liar or anything else bad–he isn’t supporting the current legislation because it doesn’t go far enough. He fully supports ACORN because he thinks they do good things. I don’t think he’s a socialist, just another one of the politicians of which we seem to have a surplus here in Illinois–the old what’s in it for me school. He won’t be re-elected so he’s trying to figure out what he can get before he’s ejected from the SEnate.
Rochf (ae9c58) — 10/20/2009 @ 12:37 pmHey! If they have to pay off Burris, this is perfect: he’s African-American, he’s Senator from Illinois, and he’s a public embarrassment. He can be Carol Mosely Brown Memorial Ambassador to New Zealand!
Mahon (5e03e9) — 10/20/2009 @ 3:38 pmIt’s the protocols, Mike K.
There’s a subdural hematoma, but it’s small and there’s no shift. And I have no problem with an overnight observation.
And then there’s swallowing. The respiratory therapist does not like it. But our caregiver has been dealing with it for four years. Yeah, aspiration pneumonia is what we have avoided for four years. With spoon feeding at the rate of four hundered Calories per hour. But these assholes at ICU only know NPO, IV, and feeding tube.
nk (df76d4) — 10/20/2009 @ 4:43 pmThe one thing these Obamatrons and communists never answer is if the health care monstrosity is so good then why has Congress exempted itself from it?
cubanbob (409ac2) — 10/20/2009 @ 5:28 pm