Anyone serious about single-payer health care?

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday January 27, 2007 · 1:01 PM PST

2007/01/27 · 13:01

Yesterday, I suggested that some (many?) supporters of single-payer healthcare are in thrall to a fantasy, and unwilling to fact hard facts.

Let me offer one or two such hard facts.

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday January 07, 2007 · 9:01 AM PST

2007/01/07 · 09:01

Something (amongst other things!) that Nancy wrote got me thinking: she was talking about the new House rules in H Res 6 and had linked the temporary PDF (because THOMAS hadn't yet caught up); and she then copied some parts of H Res 6

In case some are scared off by the pdf.

Now, I don't want to come as patronising (Oops, too late. Ed) but I got to wondering how much MyDDers and Kossacks were into the nuts and bolts of finding out stuff about Congress online.

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday January 02, 2007 · 3:58 PM PST

2007/01/02 · 15:58

I've suggested how difficult I think it will be for UHC for the US to get enacted in this universe.

But - no time like the present to make a start, on the planning, at least.

Let's consider the 08 Dem prez candidates.

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday December 11, 2006 · 6:45 AM PST

2006/12/11 · 06:45

I really hope that the Pelosi and the rest of the House leadership have been working out the angles for weeks.

This is what I've managed in the space of a day or two:

Last time we saw a CBC/Pelosi confrontation, it was the dog that didn't bark. Pelosi passed on Hastings for HIC, and the CBC seemed to suck it up.

Uh oh.

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday November 26, 2006 · 11:17 AM PST

2006/11/26 · 11:17

Last Wednesday, I looked at the innovative but rather high-risk tactics that are apparently under consideration within the Dem House leadership for dealing on the floor with the ethics bill in the first days of the 110th Congress.

Another key element in Pelosi's 100 Hour program is a hike in the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.

On the face of it, this is a rather simpler legislative exercise: a short bill, a couple of sections, raising the rate in one or two increments, according to the leadership's choice. Closed rule, bish, bash, bosh - and punt it over to the Senate side.

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday November 22, 2006 · 3:07 PM PST

2006/11/22 · 15:07

If you were to poll Kossacks, I'd be pretty certainly that almost all would support a system of universal healthcare for the US. (There'd no doubt be differences on salience and the type of plan to choose, but the principle would be generally accepted in the group - I'm surmising.)

But the difficulties that any campaign to legislate for US UHC would face are such that success would most likely come (if at all) after a long period of attritional fighting.

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 17, 2006 · 5:09 AM PST

2006/11/17 · 05:09

In case you were short of a candidate for Sickest American Healthcare Practice (as if!) -

AP brightens your day:

In an unprecedented crackdown on a practice experts say is shamefully common around the country, prosecutors accused a major hospital chain Thursday of ridding itself of a homeless patient by dumping her on crime-plagued Skid Row.
A surveillance camera at a rescue mission recorded the demented 63-year-old woman wandering around the streets in a hospital gown and slippers last March.

Morning in America... Read More

Rangel backs Hoyer; Pelosi loses plot

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday November 14, 2006 · 2:47 AM PST

2006/11/14 · 02:47

Having slept on my previous effort at parsing the Signora's extraordinary strategy, I wake up to find that things have, indeed, exceeded my worst expectations (to date).

Not only has she got the Blue Dogs howling, but she's even provoked lefty sphere heartthrob Charlie Rangel into publicly criticizing her:

"My kind of politics is, if you do your job, you are supposed to be rewarded," Mr. Rangel, who was one of 105 co-sponsors of Mr. Murtha's resolution to redeploy American troops in the Middle East in 2005, said. "I think Steny has done his job. I cannot think of any reason why this is happening."

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday November 09, 2006 · 6:59 AM PST

2006/11/09 · 06:59

So much goodness, so little time!

For the leadership positions, the key man is, of course, Rahmbo. He needs one, and there's no room - unless he bumps someone.

As I mentioned yesterday, prime candidate for bumpee is Clyburn for the Whip spot.

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday November 04, 2006 · 9:57 AM PST

2006/11/04 · 09:57

One of the reasons, perhaps, why lefty bloggers are painted as wet behind the ears is the impression sometimes given that they expect the millennium tomorrow. Or, at the very latest, the first day of the next Congress.

Perhaps it's today's 24/7 world, perhaps it was ever thus. (Old(er) guy talking!)

My perspective: I look for glacial progress, picking up in time to something like a snakes's slither. Read More

Pelosi is safe - CBC not so much - in leadership stakes

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday November 02, 2006 · 3:01 PM PST

2006/11/02 · 15:01

There's been fair amount of imaginative talk (as here, for instance) based on the Chuck Todd morning line on the Dem leadership-to-be.

Let's leave aside the clearly delusional notion that, under his Scenario II, a narrow Dem House win, the netroots will step forth to champion a Rahmbo bid for the Speakership. (That he put forward the notion might be thought to invalidate everything else he says. But, like I said...)

Shorn of the netroots nonsense, Todd's offering is this:

Will, say, 220 House Democrats stay united and elect Pelosi speaker, or will enough conservative House Democrats break and elect a compromise Democrat as speaker? Even the threat of Democrats peeling off and working in collaboration with the Republicans to do so might be enough to encourage a serious challenge to Pelosi inside the Democratic caucus.

skeptic06

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday October 31, 2006 · 9:10 AM PST

2006/10/31 · 09:10

I've been writing a fair amount recently about the alignment of forces in the House that look poised for conflict after the (we're supposing) Dem win next week.

The kerfuffle over the remarks of Ellen Tauscher a day or two back and other noises off suggesting that the Blue Dogs will be making their presence felt have added to the expectancy.

Today, we get the Post suggesting not only that it'll shortly be seconds out in the Hoyer/Murtha fight for Majority Whip, but that Rahmbo is supposedly contemplating trying to take down Caucus chairman Clyburn.

Newer
Older

RSS

Anyone serious about single-payer health care?

Keys to online material on the Congress

Universal Health Care: the 08 Dem prez candidates

Jefferson: Pelosi has to act now

Minimum wage hike: Dem tactics in House

Universal Health Care: where do we start?

Kaiser hospital dumps dementia patient on Skid Row

Rangel backs Hoyer; Pelosi loses plot

Leadership elections: it's a madhouse!

The long haul - do the netroots have the patience?

Pelosi is safe - CBC not so much - in leadership stakes

Dem House leadership: hot times ahead