The biggest problem with the healthcare reform

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

It was a bit of playful hyperbole to make a point.



Um, no, I haven't. Or have you already forgotten this scatterplot I showed you just a week ago? There is a clear trend against this bill. I also noted back then that there's a distinct difference in polling between this bill, and a bill--a difference you apparently failed to notice when you posted that Gallup link.

Wait- so you are taking the position that a Gallup poll from January 12, taken within days of an expected final vote on the merging of the House and Senate health care bills, and which expresses support of health care reform 49%-46%, reflected voter opinion on passage of a bill but not on the bills which were actually being considered and very close to final passage? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Your scatterplot is also helpful to make my case. Note how many blue dots there are above 50% (representing approval). Why not look at those polls, if that's what you care about? Sure, we can average all those polls and come up with a trend, but that isn't necessarily right either. Each poll has phrased the question slightly differently, has a varying sample size, a varying margin of error, differences in technique (including live questioner versus robocall), etc. The one poll which has no margin of error is the one taken in 2008.

If the polls were very bad for the health care bill, I could accept an argument that the bill isn't representative of what people want, but with about 40% supporting the bill and another 13% opposing it because it isn't liberal enough, I feel pretty good in saying this bill is splitting the difference about right.

No idea. But if you're going to re-architect 1/6 of the American economy, you'd better damn well have some level of consensus on how to do it, rather than pounding it through with parliamentary tricks.

Language language.

Your consensus comment is addressed above.

Where were your objections with Medicare Part D, which had no funding mechanism whatsoever, has cost us well over $1 trillion, and passed only because Republicans kept the vote open until about 5:00 in the morning, several hours after the vote was scheduled to end, and refused to allow House members to leave (they literally posted "guards" at the doors to intimidate Republican House members to stay until they changed their vote)? Was reconciliation a "parliamentary trick" when it was used to pass the Bush tax cuts in 2001?

Then you would be wrong, as usual.

That's just not polite.

It's hard to fault politicians who are listening to popular opinion. That's what they're there for. Indeed, I don't blame Obama and the Dems for wanting to tackle health care (their poor timing notwithstanding), since "generic" health care reform gets popular support. But this bill is a disaster. The American people know it, have communicated it in numerous ways, and the thick skulls in DC refuse to listen.

If you think pursuing health care reform will be devastating for Democrats, wouldn't you favor them pursuing health care reform? If, as you seem to suggest, they aren't required to follow the polls then there is nothing wrong with them taking a different approach- they may just be punished for it on election day. I am fine with that.

Then as I said at the beginning, stop whining about it.

I am holding out hope that my repeated mention of your refusal to answer questions will one day result in you answering questions more consistently, which is a better result for me.