What Are Congressional Democrats So Afraid Of?

[babylonsister]

http://samuel-warde.com/2013/11/congressional-democrats-afraid/

What Are Congressional Democrats So Afraid Of?
November 29, 2013
Ann Werner


Once again, Democrats in Congress are showing their yellow-bellied undersides by distancing themselves from the president because of the poor rollout of the Affordable Care Act. It is patently pathetic.

snip//

Now, I will be the first person to tell you that I think we should have universal healthcare. No buying from insurance companies, no middleman. Just add it into the taxes we pay and be done with it. Other countries have been doing it for decades and they are healthier than we are, live longer than we do and they LOVE IT! That would truly be the best in cost saving measures coupled with delivery of quality care. But that isn’t what we got. What we did get was a plan that:

Removes lifetime caps.
Imposes a ceiling on deductibles and out of pocket expenses.
Requires insurers to spend 80 percent of their revenues on patient care and if that is not met, refunding the difference to plan holders.
Increases coverage for preventative services like mammograms and yearly checkups.
Expands prescription coverage in Medicare (closing the donut hole).
Prohibits denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
Prohibits throwing you off a plan because you get sick.
Allows your children to stay on your plan until they reach 26 years of age.
Expands Medicaid (fully funded for 3 years by the federal government and funded 90 percent thereafter (this is also a huge job creating mechanism for states).
Provides financial assistance and tax credits for individuals and small businesses to help pay for insurance.

Additionally, the so-called penalty for not purchasing insurance has no teeth, as there is no instrument in the ACA to fine individuals. Justice John Roberts wrote: “The Affordable Care Act does not require that the penalty for failing to comply with the individual mandate be treated as a tax for the purpose of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act therefore does not apply to this suit, and we may proceed to the merits.” That means the IRS can’t go after you and deduct the fine from your tax refund, nor can the IRS attach your paycheck or any of your personal property to pay the fine because it is a fine and NOT A TAX.

So what’s not to like? Does anyone really want to keep an expensive policy that has a $10,000 deductible, no prescription coverage, no office visit coverage, a lifetime cap etc., when the ACA stipulates that ACA deductibles cannot exceed $6,250 for single coverage and $12,500 for family coverage and offers doctor’s office visits with small co-pays and things like free flu shots and free yearly checkups for the same cost or less? And those are the bare bones plans.

But Republicans and some Democrats are fighting to make damned sure that those substandard policies stay on the market and you and your families continue to be gouged.

So I guess it is up to us. If our representatives won’t do it and our president actually apologizes to people for saying something that made perfect sense to me “If you like your plan, you can keep it” (see aforementioned garbage insurance that no one would want to keep given a better, more affordable option), then it is up to us to go out there and beat the drum to let our right leaning brethren know that they are cutting off their own noses to spite their faces. It might help if you throw in the FACT that the ACA is modeled after a plan first proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

How about this for a slogan? Obamacare: You may not like the man, but you’ll love the plan.

[DonCoquixote]

1. Losing their gravy train

For years, the Pelosis and company could count on us shoveling paychecks to them, because they knew they would never ever have to govern and fight the GOP. When Obama came, the first order of buisness was to cut him off at the knees, ranging from "impeachment is off the table" to the fights against Obamacare. They are waiting for CC, or for Hillary, so that they know they can go back to being the false team.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. Hillary being on the board of Wallfuckthe workers is a dealbreaker for me.

Will I vote for her? If I have too but I have already accepted the fact that corporations run this country and Hillary will only make it slightly worse than Jeb or whatever asshole the repukes put up. Watching all the kerfuffel of ignorant assholes shopping on Thanksgiving just re inforces for me that the American people are, by and large, stupid and I hold out no hope that it will get better.

[WowSeriously]

10. You never HAVE TO vote for someone you don't support.

You OUGHT TO vote for someone who shares your values and goals.

The lesser of two merely teaches the Democratic candidate be lesser.

[babylonsister]

3. You must have missed this...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pelosi-2014-elections-should-not-be-focus-for-dems-right-now

Pelosi: Congress Should Focus On Making Obamacare Work, Not Elections

[DonCoquixote]

4. You think I trust Pelosi?

Please, when the next prez gets in, it will be all peagantry and bullshit, the default setting.

[babylonsister]

8. Well, she's earned my trust...

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/425315/nancy_pelosi%3A_the_most_effective_speaker_of_the_house_in_history

Nancy Pelosi: The Most Effective Speaker of the House in History

[cheapdate]

16. It's cool to be a nihilist.

Nancy Pelosi and the 111th Congress offered scores of legislative proposals to address this country's most serious problems. She offered strong bills to address our trade imbalance with China, to stop rewarding US companies for offshoring American jobs, to strengthen our social safety net, etc., etc., etc.

[babylonsister]

20. Heh. Not to me. Thanks for support! nt

[truedelphi]

7. I'm sorry to be so cynical, but often these leaders like Pelosi

Make these totally supportive statements, but they usually have waited until after the inevitable is going to occur, to make them.

Sort of like how Hillary Clinton came out against the Keystone XL Pipeline, but only after it was obvious the newly elected R's would be making the decision to put it through.

[babylonsister]

21. Google Pelosi and get back to me, and stop

bashing her without something specific. Or anyone for that matter. You know better.

[Cha]

5. It really is Unbelieveable! WTF? Don't they have any

vision or educated knowledge of how good it is and this is only a friggin bump in the road!?

And, the reason you "don't like the man" is because you're freakin' brainwashed. Oh, we're not suppose to say that!

[freshwest]

6. They're afraid of what we should be afraid of: The MSM is lying brazenly. They have no voice.

And they represent a shitload of people who take their cues from Fox, Rush, Beck and hate radio. Our tiny, but embattled corners at DU, twitter and elsewhere, can't overcome that crap and they know how the world views things, from the media.

Their voters are just like posters on political boards, trapped by the group think and visceral reactions installed by the reichwing. Damn, but they know us so well, and use every psychological trick there is.

Dem pols know better; but they can't get through to the dead. I'd say half this nation is brain dead regarding civic education and how the world works, for good or ill, the complexity of politics, or even basic logic.

The public's brains are subsumed by the constant flashing neon lights of sensationalism. DU is supposed to be a 'go to' place for information, and we can't suppress The Idiocracy here some days.

I don't blame those who don't know any better. They are in a poisoned ocean of information and are not being taught. It takes years to understand what the hell is going on and who is on your side when the MSM lies nonstop. And it can't be picked up from CT radio and youtube, either, with their Koch funded reality.

These Democrats see the reality face to face on a scale we never will, most of us. They have to share floor space and brain space with these goons. And they get little support from a population that expects instant gratification and thinks that life is like a movie, with high and low drama and nothing boring. Law is boring. Democracy is boring. Chaos and talking tough is fun and exciting!

It's easy for a pundit who isn't facing these dingbats daily in person while trying to keep the safety net and all other things in line. And when PBO does the right thing, does he ever get credit in MSM or here most of the time?

Until you face the troglodytes up close for years, you don't know what fear and loathing is. This is another article repeating the same reichwing mantra that all of the Democrats are spineless.

Those mantras are a comfort zone, like backhanded 'compliments' about Obama. It's a comfort zone because we are surrounded by the reichwing shit and don't want to stand out from the crowd. This is the voting public. We should not assume Dems in office are such egomaniacs that they haven't noticed the degradation of the voting pool.

No offense, but Meh to this guy.

[WowSeriously]

12. Perhaps we should stop bein afraid.

[freshwest]

15. I dispute the fear. I have seen The Idiocracy. We're not spineless. We're fighting them.

But we'll never hear about it anywhere from reichwing media. It's like the riddle, if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, etc.

The question is a fallacy. The air molecules are displaced, the impact shakes the ground. Just because it's not reported by a human being, doesn't mean it did not happen.

I've seen my representatives lives threatened and they don't go on TV and talk trash, which is what is expected now. When I said 'afraid' I meant of what is happening to this country through media. The people are turning into drooling idiots. at least those who parrot the talking points of media. Like this pundit, paid to repeat things in the simple language of the schoolyard.

They just keep on doing the job, day in and day out. They are not afraid or spineless. They show up and keep working.

This bullshit from media is dishonest and slanted. It's a cheap shot at real people. I'm not buying it.

[WowSeriously]

18. I agree with all of what you have just said.

However, I do sometimes believe that we fear taking action when we throw in the what ifs that may or may not occur in some unknown future. I'd rather we take action.

[freshwest]

19. The people I know *are* taking action. But it's not reported.

As far as media is concerned, many of us are invisible. The millions signing up for the ACA, the millions who voted in 2012, they acted as if they were surprised.

They'll obsfuscate as much as they can to weaken progressives and liberals by calling them weak to make the public give up and not vote in 2014. That's what all this negativity is about.

They oppose any kind of democratic governance success in order to pave the way for stealing the Commons. They are doing the bidding of the billionaires who own the media and give them scripts to read.

That goes for pundits who write a lot of the sturm and drang we get all the time or the mealy mouthed whining and complaints. They know it gets attention, so they will use it through 2014.

If anything good goes on, they will not report it. I remember the horror on MSM when PBO won the election last year. They thought those of us they want to be invisible bought their sales pitch. The actions that are going on right now are not going to be reported.

Nice talking with you. See you later.

[ReRe]

9. K&R

2014!

For decades I have been wishing that people would get into the effing party they belong in. I'm sick to death of Republicrats, DINOs, whatever you like to call them. Look it... we know who they are. And what we need to do when getting out the vote is to know who is who. We need to work on getting ALL wingers out of Congress, even the ones who call themselves "Democrats."

[SheilaT]

11. I honestly think the underlying problem is that once a person is elected,

their main focus is on being re-elected.

I've been hanging out with party politics for about a decade now, and I've seen it in action. I've seen the staff of a Representative explain to that Rep to vote a particular way on an issue because of re-election considerations. I've watched good candidates give up because they just can't handle the long hours in a small room begging for contributions.

I think that a lot of elected people start out sincerely wanting to do what they think is best, and then being overwhelmed by the entire need to be re-elected.

I honestly see no way out of this. At least not under our current system, which doesn't allow for someone to go into office, serve for a short time and then go back home.

Even though I can think of certain long serving politicians I think have been wonderful, I don't think a career in politics is a very good idea. I'm not sure I completely support term limits, but we've completely lost sight of the idea of a citizen-legislator.

[babylonsister]

14. Good post, and I agree for the most part.

Some good ones slip through, like Sherrod Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse, to name two off the cuff who have made a difference and are relatively young.

[WowSeriously]

13. They fear their shadows, of course.

[dflprincess]

17. Actually it's the max out of pocket that cannot exceed $6,350 for single coverage and $12,700/family

How much of that amount is the deductible will depend on the plan chosen. The rest of the out of pocket could be made up of co-pays and coinsurance costs.

Though, the max out of pocket allowed will increase annually - no doubt at rates higher than most incomes increase.