Rep. Jim Cooper, who helped kill Clinton’s health care reform in 1993, just popped up on HuffingtonPost with more of his lies about how bipartisanship is much more important than passing actual health care reform. Here’s a sampling of his odious lies below:
Let me repeat that: health care reform should be Congress’s top priority. We are not here to slow it down. That’s the Senate’s job. So don’t believe the phony talking points that are being circulated that we’re trying to “slow down the process.” The process is already creaking under its own weight and we haven’t even seen full bill text yet. Don’t take my word for it; just read your own publications.
…
Here’s why what’s happening in the Senate worries me so much. If reform gets bogged down, it will have to go through the Senate’s reconciliation process. This is not good news for supporters of health care reform. In fact, it’s awful news.
Reconciliation is just what the trillion dollars of vested interests who want to kill health care reform are hoping for. That’s because they know something that few people in Washington have figured out: the Senate’s very restrictive reconciliation rules will prevent a true health care reform bill from passing.
Actually, Rep. Cooper, we’ll get a stronger health care bill with a strong, robust Medicare-like public option in it if it goes through reconciliation in the Senate. If we pursue the almighty grail of bipartisanship to weaken down legislation for the benefit of Republican votes, then that’s NOT the kind of health care reform we need. Remember, the Republicans voted against Medicare, which is one of the most popular programs ever. Well, I think you’d even vote against Medicare today because you’re a good little Blue Dog, aren’t you?
And you’re so wrong about it being a good thing that that so-called bipartisan proposal was released by bought-and-paid-for health care lobbyists like Daschle and his former Senate buddies:
Something major happened yesterday. Democrats and Republicans, working together, unveiled a bipartisan comprehensive health care reform plan. Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and Howard Baker did what Congress is failing to do. They met all of President Obama’s goals, and they fully financed their proposal.
And the White House released a statement praising this bipartisan leadership. In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, we are explicitly told not to work with Republicans.
You know why you’re not supposed to work with Republicans? THEY DON’T HAVE THE BEST INTERESTS OF AMERICANS! THEY’RE IN THE MINORITY! WE VOTED YOU GUYS IN TO GIVE US THE SUPERMAJORITY FOR ACTUAL CHANGE in health care reform!
Get off your duff, Rep. Cooper, or else we’ll put you out of office in the next election. Think you’re sitting pretty now? Just ’til you wait until the next election. You don’t represent actual residents of Nashville, just the corporate health insurance lobbyists there.
And we know it. We’re not as stupid as you think we are, Rep. Cooper.
While I agree that Republicans like John Duncan (clueless, no position at all) and Lamar Alexander (lying, distorting the Obama plan, using every Frank Luntz talking point) are not working in our best interests, I think there is a bigger point – the point is that we would rather have a reform plan that doesn’t go to the Byrd Rule, because the Byrd Rule would force us to be budget neutral and would tie our hands on the revenue/debt side of things.
Can you please take a serious look at the Healthy Americans Act and share specifics about why it’s not a workable plan?
I took a quick look at it and I don’t like it. The health insurance industry does not need to be in the equation. Why pay a middle man if you don’t have to? It makes no sense what so ever. Our government pays our teachers, runs our libraries, police, fire department…. The insurance industry has proven over and over that they are merciless. Even NOW they refuse to commit to canceling sick policy holders (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=14069) Read this list of health insurance industry abuses (http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=91952919350&h=BsrQp&u=A_SyV&ref=nf) Get them the hell out of here! I’ve had enough!
I hope you’ve called your Senators, the White House, and your Congressmember in the House in support of a strong, robust Medicare-like public option or singlepayer.
I’d just say, Autumn, that even President Obama is writing off a single-payer plan. The insurance companies aren’t going away. We’ll have to out-compete them by having lower admin costs and better products.
What Healthy Americans Act does is push the insurance cos to have universal accessibility – i.e., they can’t deny people coverage if they have pre-existing condidtions. There’s also greater portability – what HIPAA was supposed to do but didn’t.
I’ll take a look at that.
Go get ‘em!
My mantra is, “we can no longer afford for our health care dollars to pay for Insurance agents’ lake homes.”
Thousands of industrial jobs in this country have been lost to affordability. It’s time for the white collar types to understand they need to undergo the same painful lessons the rest of us have suffered to learn.
[...] by slinkerwink in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment I wrote a while ago about Jim Cooper’s lies on health care reform, and his lack of support for the public option. [...]