The uninsured's Waterloo is more like it.

Again, Lawyers will ultimately make a killing on this BS debate.

How can the Government force anyone to buy Health Insurance? The mere concept of the Government forcing or ordering anyone to make a purchase is ludicrous.

The State Attorneys General are going to gum up Obama's Health Agenda well past his term. It will be interesting to see if this debacle makes it to the Supreme Court. Especially since the Court has an axe to grind with Obama.

With Obama's current ratings, appears he is going to be a one term wonder just like Carter was....... a useless and lame President.

Rethugs, foxthugs and teathugs will cry for few months, years and become
non existant

"Republicans are finished as a political force" - Guest.

Were it true.

Only idiots in San Francisco could think this is the GOP's waterloo. This bill is a complete f-ing disaster no matter which side of the health care issue you are on. This is going to be hell on the Democratic party despite the ineptitude of the Republicans. You do not know what you have unleashed.

Just like the Tea Baggers showed us the lunacy of the far right with their disgusting display of racism and bigotry on full view during the debate.

Passing the bill is a great thing and a first step towards total coverage in our nation. Frum is right too - the GOP bet it all on one hand and they lost - and now they've nowhere to go.

Dems will lose seats in Congress this year but that's more because they gained so many over the last four years than anything else. They won't lose control of either chamber and will score additional legislative victories before 2012 while the Republicans will continue to whither on the vine - their dead-end, no alternative agenda exposed for what it is.

With all the problems we as a country inherited from the previous Bush administrations -- problems which have profoundly impacted the entire planet -- I'll admit I was hoping for a little more out of President Barack "Jesus Christ" Obama during his first year in office. However, let's face it, politicians are spineless liars on both sides of the aisle.

But fuck, can we at least admit this is a step in the right direction? Would you rather see this country accomplish nothing? Instead of acknowledging every single fault in the bill (of which there are undoubtedly many), it would behoove you to acknowledge the progressive nature of the bill itself.

Bottom line, like it or not, healthcare is more affordable and easily accessible for millions of Americans. Will we as taxpayers have to pay for it? You bet! That's what we do; we pay taxes to gain benefits as a whole that we could not otherwise individually afford. Should we cut the millions spent a day on our two foreign wars to fund other progressive projects? Of course. But that's an entirely different matter altogether.

So to return to the original conversation here, is this the Republicans' Waterloo? Probably not. But if this recent Democratic victory is any indication of things to come, I for one welcome a long, fruitless future from the current minority party of petty, powerless fear-mongers. And from the other guys? Let's just hope Democrats will be encouraged to create further progress through more meaningful, essential legislation.

FYI.....below are two articles (one from 03.23.10 and one from 12.17.09) I found interesting:

March 23, 2010
Insurance Execs to Live High, While More Americans Die
Health Insurance Bonanza

By JOHN V. WALSH

Let there be no doubt about it. The health care “reform” bill voted into law Sunday in the House is a capitulation which will leave 30 million more Americans at the cruel mercies of the insurance companies – precisely what the single-payer movement had been battling against.

In the end the defenders of the legislation and those who signed on to it putting loyalty to themselves and their careers in the Democrat Party above principle, like the narcissistic twerp Dennis Kucinich, were left with only one real argument. How could anyone turn his/her back on the 30 million who would “benefit” from being brought under the control of the private insurers? The most succinct answer was given by Ralph Nader in a joint interview with him and the traitor Kucinich, who caved when his vote and a few others might have halted this legislative atrocity, conducted by Amy Goodman.

Thus, Nader:

“First of all, that (the legislation) won’t even begin until 2014, 180,000 dead Americans later (The number of unnecessary deaths over a three year period due to a lack of any insurance - jw). Second, there’s no guarantee of that. The insurance companies can game this system. The 2,500 pages is full of opportunities and ambiguities for the insurance companies to game the system and to make it even worse.

“And let’s say there are more people covered, right? Well, they’re being forced to buy junk insurance policies. There’s no regulation of insurance prices. There’s no regulation of the antitrust laws on this. Everything went down that Dennis was fighting for. There’s no regulation that prevents the insurance companies from taking this papier-mâché bill and lighting a fire to it and making a mockery of it. There’s no shift of power. There’s no facility to create a national consumer health organization, which we proposed and the Democrats ignored years ago, in order to give people a voice so they can have their own non-profit consumer lobby on Washington. …

“This is really a disaster.”

This bill is a bonanza for the Insurance Industry, which has therefore been uncharacteristically quiet during this so-called debate on health care. Or as Obama, ever the lackey for vested interests especially the ever expanding finance sectors of the economy, put it, the bill extends “our system of private insurance” to more people. Put another way, some more people may be covered with lousy policies with lots of fine print, but even to do that the insurance companies must be guaranteed their take. And to do that, the taxpayers along with the purchasers of the “insurance” will be billed.

There are three essential features of private, for-profit health insurance that make it despicable and inhumane. First, the insurers use their premiums “to enforce inequality in health care,” as Dr. David Himmelstein likes to put it. That is the system is fundamentally non-egalitarian, so that one’s health is not a right but depends ever more on one’s wealth. Second, the insurers work to maximize their profits and so that the Insurance bosses can live like kings. Thus these parasites refer to minimizing the dreaded “loss ratio,” as they call it, which is the fraction of the premiums given over to actual care. To them that is just a “loss”! And finally, the law basically caves in to what is a protection racket or a blackmailing racket by the insurers. That is, if you want health care you must pay off the insurers for doing nothing but denying you some care. That is “our system” of private insurance as Obama calls it. And it is increasingly characteristic of our economy where the ever growing giant parasite which is finance capital demands a take for essential needs – whether it be health care or pensions or education or housing or a decent life for our dependents should our life be suddenly terminated. Thus a nation like ours which such wealth leaves so many without essentials for a decent life.

And not only did Obama foist this on us, but those supposed “crusaders” for single payer succumbed in to pressure from their Party. And thus did Dennis Kucinich cave to another atrocity just as he did when he backed the prowar Kerry in 2004 and the prowar Obama in 2008. There can be no more powerful evidence that the Democratic Party is a worthless vehicle for change than the performance of Obama, the dream candidate of the progressives, and his Congress on the issue of health care. And when push comes to shove the Kuciniches, there to make the Party look like it has a sliver of decency, always cave in. After all what could be more important than the careers of these narcissists? To adapt a slogan from the 70s, Insurers and Congressmen live high while sick Americans die.

--------------------

December 17, 2009
An Insurance Company's Dream
Abort the Democratic Health Care Bill

By DAVE LINDORFF

Give credit to Howard Dean. This still practicing physician, former governor of Vermont, former chair of the Democratic Party and former Democratic presidential candidate has called for progressive members of Congress [Sam's Editorial: progressive members of congress? Who are THEY?] in both houses to join their Republican colleagues in killing what he rightly says has become "an insurance company's dream."

Those namby-pamby, self-described "progressives" in the Democratic Party who claim that the health bill can still be saved with the inclusion of a fake, carefully circumscribed and thoroughly emasculated "public option" government insurance plan that at best would only be able to offer lousy coverage at high rates to a small number of self-employed poor people are wrong. This supposed attempt at reforming the US health care system--the costliest and least effective in the developed world--is simply past saving.

The only appropriate place for the bill at this point is a dumpster.

What could have been a transformational moment in American politics--an end to decades of corporate health care and the creation of a system in which all Americans were guaranteed affordable, quality care as a basic right of citizenship, the way people are in Canada, in all the countries of Europe, in Japan, in Taiwan, in Cuba and much of the rest of the world, has been squandered.

It has been squandered by President Obama, who was too gutless to take a leadership role, and left matters to Congress, and who then slithered up to the major players in the medical-industrial complex and cut secret deals with all of them--doctors, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and the hospital industry--in return for their "support."

It has been squandered by many leading members of Congress in both houses, especially those who call themselves the Blue Dogs, but also by many who call themselves "liberals," who accepted the tainted coin of those industries (and their lobbyists have been flooding Congress over the past year with contributions in unprecedented amounts), and who have transformed the legislation into a huge gift for those industries, producing a bill that will leave employers as the main agency for providing health coverage (though not for paying for it--that will be the employees' responsibility), require those without coverage to buy it themselves, guaranteeing a vast new market of mostly health young people for the insurance industry, and that will do almost nothing to control costs.

Doctors will get richer under this "reform." Insurance companies will get vastly richer under this "reform". Pharmaceutical companies will get richer under this "reform". But there will still be millions of people left with no access to health care. There will still be tens of millions of people who will get substandard or even pathetically trashy health care. And the cost of medical care, both for individuals and for society as a whole, already the highest in the world, will continue to soar. To make matters worse, taxes will also go up dramatically, by at least $100 billion a year. For extra laughs, while these costs would start hitting the public right away, the "benefits" of the bill wouldn't go into effect until 2013, meaning that a likely resurgent Republican Party, ousting Obama from the White House, and the Democrats from the majority in Congress in 2012, would simply undo the whole thing anyhow.

Dr. Dean is right. This is indeed a bad bill. But it's not just a bad bill. It is a morally outrageous, politically disgusting and economically dangerous bill. It moves the country in exactly the wrong direction--not towards the socialism that the right has been decrying, but towards an increasingly costly corporatist system that will be even harder to reform down the road.

There is only one hope, and that is that enough liberal members of House and Senate will recognize that nothing is better than something in this case, and that for the sake of their constituents they will refuse to support this legislative monstrosity.

The Health Insurance Enrichment Act of 2009 must be killed in the congressional womb before it can emerge to become the monster it has become.

The only positive thing I can see in this debacle is that perhaps if President Obama is slapped down by his own most ardent backers on what he has claimed is his number one legislative goal, he and his too-clever-by-half advisers will realize that they need to do a U-turn and rethink how they are trying to govern.

More likely, however, this defeat will be the beginning of the end of the Obama administration, which has now been revealed as devoid of principle, incapable of leadership, and in thrall to the most cynical and greedy corporate interests.

He's for nothing and against everything. Essentially he's gone so far left he's run smack dab into the Tea Party right - they and Sam Troll have A LOT more in common than either wish to admit.

obama is a total jackass of a president... The government has no right to force be to purchase health insurance. I am afforded three fundamental rights above all else. 'LIFE, LIBERTY AND PROPERTY' If I cannot choose for myself they have violated the law of the land by denying me LIBERTY. GO FUCK YOURSELF OBAMA!

Why does the spam filter now kick in whenever I try to post a comment and prevent me from doing so?

See his post above singing the praises of the 13 ultra right wing Republican AGs who are suing to allow insurance companies to reimpose pre-existing conditions and boot young adults off their parent's insurance policies.

Sam Troll supports Republican policies to deny sick children insurance. Sam Troll is a Republican and the post above proves it.

FYI:

Update from my previous comment on this topic. It's now 14 states:

Attorneys general in 14 states sue to block healthcare reform law.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in Florida includes 13 states and charges that the new healthcare reform law is unconstitutional. Virginia's attorney general filed a separate lawsuit. (13 Republicans and 1 Democrat.)

Miami — State attorneys general wasted no time filing legal challenges to President Obama’s healthcare reform law, swinging into action with legal filings in Florida and Virginia within minutes of the White House signing ceremony on Tuesday.

In Tallahassee, Fla., 12 attorneys general joined Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum in a 22-page complaint filed in federal court, charging that the new healthcare reform package exceeds Congress’s powers to regulate commerce, violates 10th Amendment protections of state sovereignty, and imposes an unconstitutional direct tax.

“This lawsuit should put the federal government on notice that Florida will not permit the constitutional rights of our citizens and the sovereignty of our state to be ignored or disregarded,” Attorney General McCollum said.

A second suit in Virginia

Virginia filed a similar lawsuit simultaneously in federal court in Richmond. That suit is slightly different in that it focuses in part on the clash between a recently enacted state law protecting the right of Virginia residents to refuse unwanted health insurance and the new federal law that imposes penalties on anyone who seeks to defy the national government’s command to purchase health insurance.

“Congress lacks the political will to fund comprehensive health care … because taxes above those already provided [in federal healthcare programs] would produce too much opposition,” the Virginia lawsuit says.

“The alternative, which was also a centerpiece of the failed Clinton administration health care proposal, is to fund universal health care in part by making healthy young adults and other rationally uninsured individuals cross-subsidize older and less healthy citizens,” the suit says.

The seven-page lawsuit presents a straightforward challenge to Congress’s decision to rely on its power to regulate interstate commerce to justify the federal mandate that every individual must have health insurance or pay a penalty.

“It has never been held that the Commerce Clause [of the Constitution] … can be used to require citizens to buy goods and services,” the suit says. “To depart from that history to permit the national government to require the purchase of goods and services would deprive the Commerce Clause of any effective limits.”
Aiming for the US Supreme Court.

At a press conference in Florida, McCollum said his lawsuit is intended to move through the courts to the US Supreme Court. “I am confident the court is going to declare the new healthcare law unconstitutional,” he said.

Democratic leaders have downplayed any potential legal problems with the healthcare reform package. Many legal analysts agree with them. Others suggest the issue is open and could produce a landmark decision if the high court decides to take it up.

In addition to Florida, participating plaintiffs in the lawsuit include attorneys general from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington State, Idaho, and South Dakota. The suing attorneys general are Republicans except James "Buddy" Caldwell of Louisiana, who is a Democrat.

The Florida-filed lawsuit identifies two victims. It says the new law infringes the liberty of individual state residents to choose for themselves whether to have health insurance. It also says the states themselves are victims of a federal power grab by leaders in Washington.

Worries about bigger Medicaid rolls

The new structure of the Medicaid portion of the healthcare bill – which deals with low-income Americans – leaves Florida with an offer it can’t refuse. The state can either opt out of Medicaid and leave millions of its most vulnerable residents uninsured, or opt in and surrender its authority to set priorities and run programs to an increasingly powerful national government.

Currently, Medicaid costs account for 26 percent of Florida’s annual budget. That is $18 billion for 2.7 million Medicaid recipients.

The suit says that, under the new law, Medicaid rolls in Florida are expected to increase dramatically. The corresponding soaring costs will fall increasingly on the Florida treasury, but state officials will have less authority to set priorities.

“[Florida] employees will be conscripted and forced to administer what now is essentially a federal Medicaid program for which Florida must bear a substantial cost,” the suit says.

Estimates are that the new law will impose additional costs on Florida ranging from $149 million in 2014 to more than a $1 billion by 2019.

The lawsuit says this amounts to an unconstitutional exercise of federal power that violates principles of federalism protected in the 10th Amendment. It says the healthcare reform bill commandeers the states and their employees as agents of the federal government’s regulatory scheme, and that it does so at the state’s own cost.

Another beef: an unconstitutional direct tax

The suit also says the tax penalty for noncompliance with the individual mandate to buy health insurance “constitutes a capitation and a direct tax that is not apportioned among the states according to census data, thereby injuring the sovereign interests of [the states].”

The tax penalty is unrelated to any taxable event or activity, the suit says. “It is to be levied upon persons for their failure or refusal to do anything other than to exist and reside in the United States,” the suit says.

This doesn’t just injure individuals who have a right to make healthcare decisions without government inference, the suit says. It also injures state governments who are forced to pay for the higher number of individuals coerced into enrolling in Medicaid.

Like the Virginia lawsuit, the Florida-filed suit also argues that Congress does not have the authority under the US Constitution to compel citizens to buy health insurance or punish them if they do not. An individual’s choice not to have health insurance is not “commerce” and thus does not fall within Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, the suit says.
A third lawsuit, in Michigan

In addition to the two state lawsuits, the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., filed a lawsuit in Michigan. It is filed on behalf of four individuals in southeastern Michigan who object to being forced to purchase healthcare coverage and who object to being forced to pay for abortions, contrary to their religious beliefs.

“Our Founding Fathers envisioned a limited form of government. The purpose of our Constitution and this lawsuit is to insure that it stays that way,” said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the law center, in a statement.

“Let’s face it, if Congress has the power to force individuals to purchase health insurance coverage or pay a federal penalty merely because they live in America, then it has the unconstrained power to mandate that every American family buy a General Motors vehicle to help the economy or pay a federal penalty.”

[Source: Christian Science Monitor]

.................and..............

Also, the bill hit a parliamentary snag in the senate and appears likely to be headed back to the house for a final vote.

To the person who mentioned Canada's healthcare system: please note that Canadians pay for that through taxes in a system that sees providing care as a social responsibility, a point the "no more taxes, la la la-la" crowd don't seem to get.

Amazing how the liberals are so OK with the IRS monitoring them on their health care insurance...Liberals are such self haters..not content until everyone is as miserable as they are. Thanks for now cutting my Mom's medical benefits so you could try to save Obama's presidency. I hate libs..Republicans will be back with a vengeance. I will do everything legal to get the Dems out of power.

To the last commenter, go a thousand miles south of the US border to Costa Rica, which does have a higher standard of living than the US.

Rigorously enforced laws against illegal immigrants and by law, no standing army.

To the rest of you, yes, the government can compel you to buy health insurance and started doing so less than 30 years into the nation's founding, in 1798!

This yammering about "sam the troll" is nonsense, from my perspective--at least he sounds like he lives in SF. The rest of the complainers sound like under or unemployed dittohead bums that spend their lives scouring message boards to spam imbecile talking points. Really, get your own lives!

Dude