Courtesy KDM
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Looks like the healthcare gloves are coming off.
President Barack Obama once promised that negotiations over his health care overhaul would be carried out openly, in front of TV cameras and microphones. Tell that to the White House now.
Republican congressional investigators got the brush-off this past week after pressing for details of meetings between White House officials and interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals that provided critical backing for Obama’s health insurance expansion.
It’s one more roadblock for Republicans who tapped into widespread anxiety about the scope and costs of the new health care law to regain control of the House in last fall’s elections.
So far, they’ve been unable to repeal the landmark legislation they dismiss as “Obamacare.” GOP efforts to deny administration agencies the money to carry out the law are running into unintended consequences, not to mention the sheer difficulty of tracking those dollars. Now it looks like oversight isn’t going to be easy either.
President George W. Bush’s administration beat back efforts to reveal the dealings between Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force and industry. President Bill Clinton’s administration successfully resisted demands for records of its failed push to remake the health care system, which was overseen by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Read the article for videos.
OH. I am so happy that there will be free healthcare for everybody. Isn’t that what Nancy Stretchface promised?
OH BOY. I can hardly wait to find out “what’s in it” now that it has passed….
Seriously, I am a couple of years from Medicare, and I expect to get it, since I paid into the government shithole for years and years and years.
Here’s an idea, lets make health care companies non public traded not for profit. They pay their staff but the majority of the money would go to actual health care and not to the filthy rich on Wall Street.
I cant wait until Obama care is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme court. Obama will then ignore the ruling and be found in contempt of court. The impeachment to follow will be great to see.
The change in name seems to be a popular strategy for conservatives after they trash the country with ridiculous economic policies that without fail leave huge debts and higher costs. Here in canada they have changed names 3 times and the taste of mulroney 20 years later is still bitter enough that they can only muster a minority. A turd is a turd is a turd and reeks just as badly by any other name.
#8–Ah Yea==STOP being a PUKE tool. You don’t think BushtheRetard should have been impeached for 10 different things we both could rattle off the top of our heads? How about BushtheRetards signing statements in the hundreds wherein he directs his Admin NOT TO FOLLOW THE LAW? It went almost without notice by anyone.
Which is more important: supporting constitutional rights, or individual laws that violate the constitution? Whether DOMA is or isn’t a violation of the Constitution can only be decided by a 5-4 decision of the USSC “but” it is entirely appropriate for the Pres, any Pres, to state his reasonable opinion that a given law is unconstitional and not enforce it while lawsuits are brought.
You are just a tool Ah Yea: blame BOTH parties for being corporate lackies NOT just one party or the other. And if you were “honest” you would also see and admit the PUKES are demonstrably worse than the DUMBOS when it comes to ruining this country.
Stupid Human.
Come to Canada where 30 % of Canadians have plum given up even looking for a GP
Americans you have not seen anything yet
That is except for the growth of federal departments
At least Canadians had an escape valve- that was to travel and transport themselves to the US
So, according you your (ill)logic, Bobbo, it’s OK for Obama to trample the constitution and our individual rights and freedoms 100X worse than Bush ever did because Bush got away with it?
Wasn’t our Lord and Savior Obama supposed to be better than that?
(PS, what form of insanity makes you think that Obama not inforcing the DOMA is constitutional or legal? Show me, SPECIFICALLY, where it is written that the President doesn’t have to enforce a law while the law is being disputed.
I can show you specifically where the President DOES have to enforce the law while the law is being disputed. It’s called the Oath of Office.
Bush complained about “that dammed piece of paper” while Obama simply tramples and ignores it.
And Liberal Morons -such as seen above- are Ok with this)
Ha, ha. Poor Ah Yea–you can only argue by making up straw men or totally misconstruing what is clearly said. Why do you use links at all? Said links are the only thing keeping you within long wave radio range of rationality.
Presidents swear to uphold the Constitution. If they determine a law violates the Constitution, how can you argue they are “trampling” the Constitution by upholding it? You make no sense at all. Sad, because you are capable of making sense. Just less and less as this blog has corrupted you by the asswetting support of TeaDude, do-ill, and others. You need to balance those kneejerk ditto heads with your own still detectable common sense.
But yes, Obama was supposed to be better than that and when he acts like BushtheRetard, he should indeed be impeached. I agree with you there.
I take it you agree BushtheRetard’s signing statements were impeachable offenses?
Correcting my typo above: “by NOT upholding an unconstitutional law.” I correct my error not for you Ah Yea but for others who wouldn’t see the error immediately.
I take it you agree BushtheRetard’s signing statements were impeachable offenses?
Yes, I do. Emphatically! Bush having gotten away with such atrocities only encouraged others to do likewise.
Ah Yea–that was a set up. I disagree. I don’t think merely “saying” you are going to violate/not enforce a law you have just signed is “enough.” But if later your admin is not following the law, then I would say the signing statement would be near sufficient evidence on its own that your admin is not following the law.
I had to google to find out Obama is sadly once again following BushtheRetard’s lead in this area of nincompoopery. Obama hardly acts like he studied/taught constitutional law. At least BushtheRetard as a Harvard Business Grad had half an excuse. There is NONE for Obama===just as there is none for you knowing how similar in violations of law and good policies these two are and yet you post as if the Dumbo’s are the worst party.
Why be a shill and then all too often post you know the difference? How much a PUKE tool are you?
I guess it is worse than I thought. I have always thought UNTIL JUST NOW that the PUKE voter was too stupid to know they were cutting their own throats by voting PUKE. But here you are Ah Yea: proud to knowingly cut your own throat.
Worse than a lemming. I have to think for a while. How can a sentient being vote PUKE? I’m baffled.
Ah Yea, why do you vote/support PUKE when you know they are bad for your self, your kiddies, your great grandkiddies?
Why?
#10, if you’re referring to Canadians wanting to move to the US, I don’t know any of my fellow Canucks who would want to move there. Visit, OK, move there? Not so much. Things may be bad here, but they’re WAY worse in the US.
Bobbo’s round the clock babble engine running full steam again.
Can anyone figure out Bobbo’s inane babbling in #15?
Truly insane.
Ah Yea, why do you vote/support PUKE when you know they are bad for your self, your kiddies, your great grandkiddies?
Why?
I think it’s absolutely, side splittingly funny to expect any of his promises to be fulfilled at this point! All he’s done is lie, cheat, and steal…LITERALLY! Obama is a true tyrant, who’s probably not even eligible to be President of the United States anyway! WTF?!?!
Amazingly, most of the talk here implies that people actually believe that Republicans have the slightest intention of repealing Obamacare. The people here who are R and D voters are part of the problem and they argue about how the deck chairs should be rearranged.
Pathetic. D and R voters are f’ing up the country I live in. How smart is someone who fouls his own nest?
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
— Albert Einstein —
#17 Ah_Yea Do you really expect anyone to try?
It’s pure Jabberwocky without any redeeming literary quality.
I guess not….
Bobbo you are full of contradictions. You criticize Bush’s signing statements and not following the law, yet you think it is OK for Obama to not follow the law.
A factual error that puts a hole in your logic: Obama hasn’t said he wouldn’t enforce DOMA, an action I am OK with. He said that he WOULD enforce DOMA, but would not defend it in court, because he feels it is unconstitutional. So now he is on the side of enforcing a law he feels is unconstitutional, not just unconstitutional but blatantly so with no arguments in its favor.
#4 Harry, just how much profit do you think these health insurance companies are making? Would you guess it is more or less than 1% of what Medicare spends in any year?
In # 10 Try Travelling to Canada said: Come to Canada where 30 % of Canadians have plum given up even looking for a GP.
As opposed to living
in Appalachia or
on a rez. anywhere, or
Montana (or in any of the fly-over states,)
or being one of this country’s 50,000,000 unemployed (that’s assuming that your employer isn’t small and exempt, or acting like Wal*Mart and throwing their sick employees on to the state’s uncovered medicare rolls,)?
Yes, tell me all about it… How wonderful the health care system is here in the states…
You poor deluded bastards who’re at most one pink slip and one illness away from being something shoved under a bus.
The health care system in the States is the finest money can buy, but its like owning a yacht, if you have to ask how much, you cant afford.
Do own a yacht? Because that’s the first thing you’ll be selling if you get cancer, or liver disease, or kidney disease, or A.I.D.S. or … or even if you take little blue pills for too long.
I’m laughing because I’m Canadian.
We don’t have the best health care that money can buy, but then again, we don’t have health care that can bankrupt us should we ever use it.
Its a question of balance, something Americans have never seemed to achieve.
Are you going to cough up all the dough you’ve worked all your life to build while you’re coughing up a lung for an extra six months of crap life in a hospital, lying on your back, hooked up to extremely expensive machines that go ping?
You know what kiled Terry Schievo?
Her insurance wasn’t going to pay anymore…
They just pulled her plug and screw Terry Schiavo.
#10, most people I know who’ve tried (and failed) to get a doctor here in Canada attempted to do so for all of 10 minutes. I live in a place where there are very few to no doctors accepting new patients, but after a bit of legwork I was able to find one. And I’ve never paid a penny for all the doctor and hospital visits I’ve ever had. How many Americans can say the same?
#23–MikeN==as usual: YOU LIE! I never said what was wrong for BushtheRetard to do was OK for Obama to do. I apply the same rules to everyone, or find a distinction that matters.
such is the case with DOMA. Once again, you instruct me with your additional facts. I will walk out onto thin ice and accept what you say is true. If true, THAT is a very interesting distinction you say that Obama is drawing. He will enforce the law/application of DOMA but will not defend its constitutionality in court?
Isn’t that actually the “same” thing? DOMA is not “followed” except by enforcing it in court? More to the point: DOMA is about states applying their laws regarding marriage, the ONLY way the Feds get involved is when a married couple sue a State to have DOMA held unconstitutional? So, its the STATES that apply/enforce DOMA and the only role of the Feds is to fight/or not its legality when sued? I can imagine federals laws that can be enforced as you suggest: like collecting a tax for instance. Doesn’t seem to apply here.
So–treat BushtheRetard and FecklessObama exactly the same. Obama “sounds” better but it is by our actions that we are known.
Like Ah Yea not being able to back up his assertions and NextLie trying to dogpile onto slippery entrails.
Literary is the standard????
Ha, ha. Can’t even properly insult someone. PUKE tools both.
#25–PeaPod==I hate disagreeing with an anti-USA healthcare rant but Schiavo’s corpse got unplugged when her designated consent giver finally got a court order to have it done. There was no “they” and there was no issue about no more insurance coverage==all to the best of my memory.
Are you going on memory, or do you have a link to bolster your imagination?
The Obama-haters still just go completely bonkers every time he keeps doing those things they find repugnant — like all that constant breathing in, out, in, out, in, out, day after day.
Oh, and also being Black.
Obama is cutting off the Teabagger’s balls (I mean, ball). In reality, he should have run over the GOP in the beginning instead of negotiating. He blew an opportunity to steamroll those GOP speedbumps which is his biggest presidential blunder.
Now that the economy is recovering (as I predicted), the challenge is to keep the Teabaggers from sabotaging the recovery.
Yea, I have no idea what it would mean to enforce or not enforce DOMA in practice. They said they would enforce it, while simultaneously saying it is unconstitutional and would not defend it.
The comparison to Bush and Obama is clear. You say for Bush to make a signing statement and then following through and not enforcing a law is invalid. Yet for Obama to do the same thing, it’s OK, and justified. Perhaps you are not aware that the signing statements are statements by the President that portions of a law are unconstitutional in his judgment.
“most transparent administration in history” except for when it’ll expose our backdoor deals with unions and special interest
Try Travelling to Canada,
Why would I have to transplant myself to the US when I can just pass through the TSA to get a free physical? Much like the one I can get by going to a walk in clinic here.
You claim that 30% of us can’t find a GP. I doubt that number is even close to accurate but I’m willing to be that number is lower that the % of Americans who can’t AFFORD to see a GP.
#33, Lyin’ Mike,
Perhaps you are not aware that the signing statements are statements by the President that portions of a law are unconstitutional in his judgment.
If the law is unconstitutional, then Bush should not have signed it. Instead, ALL the signing statements were because Bush didn’t want the entire law for philosophical reasons.
What Obama has done is state he believes the DOMA is unconstitutional BUT, by law, he is forced to continue to implement it. His comment of not defending it is an open invitation for anyone to challenge the law as it stands. Obama is barred from challenging it. An admission from the DoJ that they believe any law to be unconstitutional carries a lot of weight with a Judge.
In the mean time, all effected government departments must still enforce the provisions of the law. Obama does NOT get to remake the law or unilaterally change the law. That is the difference between what Bush did and what Obama is doing.
See Goldwater v Carter to the President’s power to make political decisions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_v._Carter