It's funny how the guys who supposedly support this Medicare bill can't tell you why... other than the republican's want it. Well most republican's there's 3 or 4 so far that are against it.
And if you follow the link above... Paul Krugman very clearly explains what he did for Enron. One Seminar... about world economic and trends.
He's good and alot of corporations were asking himt to give seminars on economic trends.
Why don't you go look up what Gillespie, the RNC Chairman, did for Enron.
*NEVERMIND*
Found it for ya.
Gillespie has worked to keep national energy policy in lockstep with the wishes of Enron and other energy giants. Quinn Gillespie earned $700,000 from Enron in 2001 alone to lobby the White House on the electricity crisis on the West Coast. The administration aggressively supported Enron?s position against re-regulating electricity markets. Gillespie also channeled money from DaimlerChrysler and Enron to his 21st Energy Project, which bought print and television ads in July 2001 to promote the administration?s energy plans, including blocking any increase in fuel-economy standards.
PricewaterhouseCoopers paid Quinn Gillespie $1.35 million from 2000 to 2002 to lobby against increased oversight of the accounting industry. PricewaterhouseCoopers ? which paid a $5 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2002 for repeated accounting irregularities, including improperly auditing millions in fees paid to its own consultants ? tried to limit restrictions on consulting and other services that an accounting firm could offer its clients. Effectively, Quinn Gillespie was trying to water down accounting reforms in the wake of an unprecedented wave of corporate fraud.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce paid Gillespie?s firm $860,000 from 2000 to 2002 to lobby for the so-called Class Action Fairness Act ? legislation that would benefit corporations by moving lawsuits from state to federal courts, where it is more difficult to certify class actions and delays result from large case backlogs. All told, the firm has collected at least $1.12 million to lobby for this anti-consumer bill.
After helping set up the Commerce Department as part of the Bush transition team, Gillespie returned to his practice and immediately began lobbying on behalf of clients with business before the department. Gillespie helped secure tariffs against foreign competition for the "Stand Up for Steel" coalition and USEC Inc., the country?s largest supplier of enriched uranium fuel to nuclear power plants.
"This is a good bill that will help every Medicare beneficiary," wrote Tom Scully, the Medicare administrator, in a letter to The New York Times defending the prescription drug bill. That's flatly untrue. (Are you surprised?) As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, the bill will force millions of beneficiaries to pay more for drugs, thanks to a provision that cuts off supplemental aid from Medicaid. Poorer recipients may find previously affordable drugs moving out of reach.
That's only one of a number of anti-retiree measures tucked away in the bill. It contains several Trojan horse provisions that are clearly intended to undermine Medicare over time ? it will allow private insurers to cherry-pick healthy clients in selected cities, and it will heavily subsidize private plans competing with traditional Medicare. Meanwhile, the bill prohibits Medicare from using its bargaining power to cut drug prices; drug company stocks have soared since the bill's details became public.
Yet the bill has a good chance of passing, thanks to an endorsement from AARP, the retiree advocacy organization, which has already begun an expensive advertising campaign on the bill's behalf. What's going on?
Let's step back a minute. This is a bill with huge implications for the future of Medicare. It's also, at best, highly controversial. One might therefore have expected an advocacy group for retired Americans to take its time in responding ? to make sure that major groups of retirees won't actually be hurt, and to poll its members to be sure that they are well informed about what the bill contains and don't object to it.
Instead, AARP has thrown its weight behind an effort to ram the bill through before Thanksgiving. And no, it's not urgent to get the bill passed so retirees can get immediate relief. The plan won't kick in until 2006 in any case, so no harm will be done if the nation takes some time to consider.
Many of AARP's members feel betrayed. The message boards at the organization's Web site have filled up with outraged posts. A number of those posts say something like this: "Now you're just an insurance company." Indeed, that may get to the heart of the matter.
Over the years AARP has become much more than an advocacy and service organization for older Americans. It receives more than $150 million each year in commissions on insurance, mutual funds and prescription drugs sold to its members.
And this Medicare bill is very friendly to insurance and drug companies. Senator John Breaux, one of only two Democrats who participated in negotiations over the bill, takes the controversy as a good sign: "No one got everything they wanted." But as Jonathan Cohn points out in The New Republic, drug and insurance companies got exactly what they wanted: no efforts to limit prices, generous subsidies and lots of additional business. For example, insurance companies that offer an alternative to Medicare will not only be able to pick and choose their customers, but will also get 30 percent more per client than the government spends on the average Medicare recipient.
So do AARP executives support this bill because they hope to share in the bounty? Maybe, but it probably runs deeper than that. Once an advocacy group becomes as much a business as a service organization, its executives are likely to start identifying more with industry interests than with the groups they are supposed to serve.
Thus it may seem odd on the surface that William Novelli, AARP's chief executive, wrote a glowing preface to Newt Gingrich's book on health care reform. After all, Mr. Gingrich has long advocated turning the administration of Medicare over to private companies ? an unpopular idea, and also an expensive one (forget the clichés about inefficient government: private companies have much higher overhead than Medicare). But what looks like wasted money to taxpayers and retirees looks like opportunity to private providers. Enough said.
Am I being too cynical? How could I be? In case you haven't noticed, we live in a golden age of pork: the other big piece of legislation marching through Congress, the energy bill, makes the Smoot-Hawley tariff look like a classic of good government.
So it should come as no surprise that Medicare "reform" appears likely to be another triumph for the coalition of the bought-off ? a coalition that, sadly, includes AARP.__
Please don't post entire articles like that. Just link them.
Again..this thread is not about how good or bad the bill is. It's about the political consequences of the currently weak Demcoratic party opposing one of their hallmarks in the public eye.
Like it or hate it, the bill will provide coverage. The Dems are going to have a hard time getting around that. They'll be seen as nothing but obstructionists with no alternative...jsut as they are seen regarding the war.
And btw, personally I oppose the bill. I oppose yet another massive federal entitlement....but that's not the point.
Mark my words, this could result in total disaster for the party.
I´ll try to paraphrase what you are saying: Its not the substance of the bill you care about here but the signal value and the strategic importance of opposing it.
Even if you feel the democrats make a mistake not to agree with this bill don´t you recognize the value of people sticking to their convictions?
If the democrats didn´t oppose this because from one point of view it could be used against them (even if it is in line with their convictions) you are on the way to a political system where politics don´t mean squat and everything is strategy.
"There is another theory which states that this has already happened"
Well if you had read the article you would notice that the very people you think will be pissed off at democrats... actually are pissed off at the AARP. People protesting at their headquarters and burning their membership cards.
Stopping the bill will be good for them. Plus it shows that they're not beholden to the AARP.
It's pretty obvious that AARP is now an advocacy group for insurance and drug companies.
I think the american public is beginning to understand... this administration says one thing... and then does the opposite. Compassionate conservatism is a ruse.
We're going to fix medicare = undermine it and try to privatise it
no kid child left
behind = an underfunded federally mandated program that attacks the public school system
tax cuts for a vast majority of the public = only if you're rich -60% of tax payers got nothing
fair energy bill = yeah whatever the utilities, automotive industry and oil companies want
The funny thing is that it was taken OFF the AARP site.. do you know why? Novelli's company was the one that came up with the ad. He's a whore for the drug companies.
Well if you had read the article you would notice that the very people you think will be pissed off at democrats... actually are pissed off at the AARP. People protesting at their headquarters and burning their membership cards.
Stopping the bill will be good for them. Plus it shows that they're not beholden to the AARP.
It's pretty obvious that AARP is now an advocacy group for insurance and drug companies.
I think the american public is beginning to understand... this administration says one thing... and then does the opposite. Compassionate conservatism is a ruse.
We're going to fix medicare = undermine it and try to privatise it
no kid child left
behind = an underfunded federally mandated program that attacks the public school system
tax cuts for a vast majority of the public = only if you're rich -60% of tax payers got nothing
fair energy bill = yeah whatever the utilities, automotive industry and oil companies want
compassionate conservatism= karl rove ruse
Excellent. Now we're back to attacking Bush.
1. I have seen no real evidence it will underminde medicare
2. The NCLBA has its problems. It also has some very strong points. I work in education. Whether teachers like it or not, the bill provides serious accountablity. The only real issue is the performance (%) targets.
The bill is solid overall and has done exactly what needs to be done...shkae up education and provide real accountability.
3. Your tax comment is bullshit. I make $40,000 a year and have seen real increases in my pay. Furthermore, the rich get the most cuts (dollar wise) because the rich PAY THE TAXES.
4. Energy--what would you have us do...what Clinton did? Yeah..that worked out great. Let's not let anyone build plants and refineries while at the same time banning offshore drilling and importing more oil from the most unstable portion of the world. Good idea.
I´ll try to paraphrase what you are saying: Its not the substance of the bill you care about here but the signal value and the strategic importance of opposing it.
Even if you feel the democrats make a mistake not to agree with this bill don´t you recognize the value of people sticking to their convictions?
If the democrats didn´t oppose this because from one point of view it could be used against them (even if it is in line with their convictions) you are on the way to a political system where politics don´t mean squat and everything is strategy.
"There is another theory which states that this has already happened"
It has happened. And somehow I doubt the Democratic leadership's convictions.
How weak is the Republican party for letting this go down to DEFEAT by 2 votes for over an hour, having to re-write House rules to keep bringing it to a vote, and then threaten their own representitives who said they would vote against the bill, or those who wished to abstain with dropping the backing of the national party for their re-election?
Face it, this is a bad bill, and even at the AARP debate in New Hampshire last week (that was on WNDS TV), the Democratic candidates for President really went against the bill, and against the AARP for supporting it. This does not show that the Democratic party is weak. On the contrary, they said that this would really hurt Medicare and that the elderly shouldn't have to 'settle' for a subpar bill.
Yes, Medicare was something that the Democrats championed, but that doesn't mean they should vote for a bill just because the Republicans will try and twist it around as if the Democrats are trying to take it away when in fact, this bill is doing a good job in hurting Medicare by itself.
Off topic, only one thing is definite: with threads like this attacking both parties, it's going to be a long 2004.
It's passed now and Republicans will beat the Dems over the head with it in 2004. It's not a perfect bill, but try explaining that to voters in a sound byte. Voters will see one thing: For or Against.
after this has been passed (and since it won't take effect until 2006) can it be changed?
if the Dems. or Reps. don't like parts in it, can they single them out and put them up for a vote?
you always walk a fine line between getting something done that has problems, but is completed, vs. waiting until you have the perfect solution.
good luck getting a massive medicare/prescription drug bill that everyone will agree on when you're debating 200 seperate points.
however, if you can get it through then start hammering out individual areas that you don't like, it might end up workable by the time it comes into play.
the thing you have to ask yourself is who really benefits from the passage of this bill? you and me? not really sure. insurance and pharmacuetical companies? you bet your ass that if they support it, they stand to make significant profits.
the thing you have to ask yourself is who really benefits from the passage of this bill? you and me? not really sure. insurance and pharmacuetical companies? you bet your ass that if they support it, they stand to make significant profits.
Plus, this bill doesn't kick in until 2006 until which seniors will have no idea if they like this program or not. It's only an election move to give Bush fuel to distort Democrats into anti-senior, anti-health care, anti-medicaid. Unfortunately, I fear, it will work.
Comments
Originally posted by Scott
Wasn't he an advisor for Enron? Do we care what he has to say?
We do if we know anything about economics.
Originally posted by ShawnJ
It's about time. The Democrats have been a spineless bunch for years.
Well we agree about that.
It would have been better for them to oppose the war full-out and support this.
And if you follow the link above... Paul Krugman very clearly explains what he did for Enron. One Seminar... about world economic and trends.
He's good and alot of corporations were asking himt to give seminars on economic trends.
Why don't you go look up what Gillespie, the RNC Chairman, did for Enron.
*NEVERMIND*
Found it for ya.
Gillespie has worked to keep national energy policy in lockstep with the wishes of Enron and other energy giants. Quinn Gillespie earned $700,000 from Enron in 2001 alone to lobby the White House on the electricity crisis on the West Coast. The administration aggressively supported Enron?s position against re-regulating electricity markets. Gillespie also channeled money from DaimlerChrysler and Enron to his 21st Energy Project, which bought print and television ads in July 2001 to promote the administration?s energy plans, including blocking any increase in fuel-economy standards.
PricewaterhouseCoopers paid Quinn Gillespie $1.35 million from 2000 to 2002 to lobby against increased oversight of the accounting industry. PricewaterhouseCoopers ? which paid a $5 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2002 for repeated accounting irregularities, including improperly auditing millions in fees paid to its own consultants ? tried to limit restrictions on consulting and other services that an accounting firm could offer its clients. Effectively, Quinn Gillespie was trying to water down accounting reforms in the wake of an unprecedented wave of corporate fraud.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce paid Gillespie?s firm $860,000 from 2000 to 2002 to lobby for the so-called Class Action Fairness Act ? legislation that would benefit corporations by moving lawsuits from state to federal courts, where it is more difficult to certify class actions and delays result from large case backlogs. All told, the firm has collected at least $1.12 million to lobby for this anti-consumer bill.
After helping set up the Commerce Department as part of the Bush transition team, Gillespie returned to his practice and immediately began lobbying on behalf of clients with business before the department. Gillespie helped secure tariffs against foreign competition for the "Stand Up for Steel" coalition and USEC Inc., the country?s largest supplier of enriched uranium fuel to nuclear power plants.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/opinion/21KRUG.html
"This is a good bill that will help every Medicare beneficiary," wrote Tom Scully, the Medicare administrator, in a letter to The New York Times defending the prescription drug bill. That's flatly untrue. (Are you surprised?) As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, the bill will force millions of beneficiaries to pay more for drugs, thanks to a provision that cuts off supplemental aid from Medicaid. Poorer recipients may find previously affordable drugs moving out of reach.
That's only one of a number of anti-retiree measures tucked away in the bill. It contains several Trojan horse provisions that are clearly intended to undermine Medicare over time ? it will allow private insurers to cherry-pick healthy clients in selected cities, and it will heavily subsidize private plans competing with traditional Medicare. Meanwhile, the bill prohibits Medicare from using its bargaining power to cut drug prices; drug company stocks have soared since the bill's details became public.
Yet the bill has a good chance of passing, thanks to an endorsement from AARP, the retiree advocacy organization, which has already begun an expensive advertising campaign on the bill's behalf. What's going on?
Let's step back a minute. This is a bill with huge implications for the future of Medicare. It's also, at best, highly controversial. One might therefore have expected an advocacy group for retired Americans to take its time in responding ? to make sure that major groups of retirees won't actually be hurt, and to poll its members to be sure that they are well informed about what the bill contains and don't object to it.
Instead, AARP has thrown its weight behind an effort to ram the bill through before Thanksgiving. And no, it's not urgent to get the bill passed so retirees can get immediate relief. The plan won't kick in until 2006 in any case, so no harm will be done if the nation takes some time to consider.
Many of AARP's members feel betrayed. The message boards at the organization's Web site have filled up with outraged posts. A number of those posts say something like this: "Now you're just an insurance company." Indeed, that may get to the heart of the matter.
Over the years AARP has become much more than an advocacy and service organization for older Americans. It receives more than $150 million each year in commissions on insurance, mutual funds and prescription drugs sold to its members.
And this Medicare bill is very friendly to insurance and drug companies. Senator John Breaux, one of only two Democrats who participated in negotiations over the bill, takes the controversy as a good sign: "No one got everything they wanted." But as Jonathan Cohn points out in The New Republic, drug and insurance companies got exactly what they wanted: no efforts to limit prices, generous subsidies and lots of additional business. For example, insurance companies that offer an alternative to Medicare will not only be able to pick and choose their customers, but will also get 30 percent more per client than the government spends on the average Medicare recipient.
So do AARP executives support this bill because they hope to share in the bounty? Maybe, but it probably runs deeper than that. Once an advocacy group becomes as much a business as a service organization, its executives are likely to start identifying more with industry interests than with the groups they are supposed to serve.
Thus it may seem odd on the surface that William Novelli, AARP's chief executive, wrote a glowing preface to Newt Gingrich's book on health care reform. After all, Mr. Gingrich has long advocated turning the administration of Medicare over to private companies ? an unpopular idea, and also an expensive one (forget the clichés about inefficient government: private companies have much higher overhead than Medicare). But what looks like wasted money to taxpayers and retirees looks like opportunity to private providers. Enough said.
Am I being too cynical? How could I be? In case you haven't noticed, we live in a golden age of pork: the other big piece of legislation marching through Congress, the energy bill, makes the Smoot-Hawley tariff look like a classic of good government.
So it should come as no surprise that Medicare "reform" appears likely to be another triumph for the coalition of the bought-off ? a coalition that, sadly, includes AARP.__
Again..this thread is not about how good or bad the bill is. It's about the political consequences of the currently weak Demcoratic party opposing one of their hallmarks in the public eye.
Like it or hate it, the bill will provide coverage. The Dems are going to have a hard time getting around that. They'll be seen as nothing but obstructionists with no alternative...jsut as they are seen regarding the war.
And btw, personally I oppose the bill. I oppose yet another massive federal entitlement....but that's not the point.
Mark my words, this could result in total disaster for the party.
I´ll try to paraphrase what you are saying: Its not the substance of the bill you care about here but the signal value and the strategic importance of opposing it.
Even if you feel the democrats make a mistake not to agree with this bill don´t you recognize the value of people sticking to their convictions?
If the democrats didn´t oppose this because from one point of view it could be used against them (even if it is in line with their convictions) you are on the way to a political system where politics don´t mean squat and everything is strategy.
"There is another theory which states that this has already happened"
Stopping the bill will be good for them. Plus it shows that they're not beholden to the AARP.
It's pretty obvious that AARP is now an advocacy group for insurance and drug companies.
I think the american public is beginning to understand... this administration says one thing... and then does the opposite. Compassionate conservatism is a ruse.
We're going to fix medicare = undermine it and try to privatise it
no kid child left
behind = an underfunded federally mandated program that attacks the public school system
tax cuts for a vast majority of the public = only if you're rich -60% of tax payers got nothing
fair energy bill = yeah whatever the utilities, automotive industry and oil companies want
compassionate conservatism= karl rove ruse
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8
The funny thing is that it was taken OFF the AARP site.. do you know why? Novelli's company was the one that came up with the ad. He's a whore for the drug companies.
http://www.porternovelli.com/PNWebSi...Document&Tab=1
This was a fun topic!
Originally posted by chu_bakka
Well if you had read the article you would notice that the very people you think will be pissed off at democrats... actually are pissed off at the AARP. People protesting at their headquarters and burning their membership cards.
Stopping the bill will be good for them. Plus it shows that they're not beholden to the AARP.
It's pretty obvious that AARP is now an advocacy group for insurance and drug companies.
I think the american public is beginning to understand... this administration says one thing... and then does the opposite. Compassionate conservatism is a ruse.
We're going to fix medicare = undermine it and try to privatise it
no kid child left
behind = an underfunded federally mandated program that attacks the public school system
tax cuts for a vast majority of the public = only if you're rich -60% of tax payers got nothing
fair energy bill = yeah whatever the utilities, automotive industry and oil companies want
compassionate conservatism= karl rove ruse
Excellent. Now we're back to attacking Bush.
1. I have seen no real evidence it will underminde medicare
2. The NCLBA has its problems. It also has some very strong points. I work in education. Whether teachers like it or not, the bill provides serious accountablity. The only real issue is the performance (%) targets.
The bill is solid overall and has done exactly what needs to be done...shkae up education and provide real accountability.
3. Your tax comment is bullshit. I make $40,000 a year and have seen real increases in my pay. Furthermore, the rich get the most cuts (dollar wise) because the rich PAY THE TAXES.
4. Energy--what would you have us do...what Clinton did? Yeah..that worked out great. Let's not let anyone build plants and refineries while at the same time banning offshore drilling and importing more oil from the most unstable portion of the world. Good idea.
Originally posted by Anders
Funny way to look at it SDW.
I´ll try to paraphrase what you are saying: Its not the substance of the bill you care about here but the signal value and the strategic importance of opposing it.
Even if you feel the democrats make a mistake not to agree with this bill don´t you recognize the value of people sticking to their convictions?
If the democrats didn´t oppose this because from one point of view it could be used against them (even if it is in line with their convictions) you are on the way to a political system where politics don´t mean squat and everything is strategy.
"There is another theory which states that this has already happened"
It has happened. And somehow I doubt the Democratic leadership's convictions.
How weak is the Republican party for letting this go down to DEFEAT by 2 votes for over an hour, having to re-write House rules to keep bringing it to a vote, and then threaten their own representitives who said they would vote against the bill, or those who wished to abstain with dropping the backing of the national party for their re-election?
Face it, this is a bad bill, and even at the AARP debate in New Hampshire last week (that was on WNDS TV), the Democratic candidates for President really went against the bill, and against the AARP for supporting it. This does not show that the Democratic party is weak. On the contrary, they said that this would really hurt Medicare and that the elderly shouldn't have to 'settle' for a subpar bill.
Yes, Medicare was something that the Democrats championed, but that doesn't mean they should vote for a bill just because the Republicans will try and twist it around as if the Democrats are trying to take it away when in fact, this bill is doing a good job in hurting Medicare by itself.
Off topic, only one thing is definite: with threads like this attacking both parties, it's going to be a long 2004.
Of course it was going to come back around and be about Bush.
The tax structure needs to be MORE progressive not less.
http://www.detnews.com/2003/politics...ics-331979.htm
Originally posted by chu_bakka
I'm just sayin'...
http://www.detnews.com/2003/politics...ics-331979.htm
Whatever. Leave it to you.
It's passed now and Republicans will beat the Dems over the head with it in 2004. It's not a perfect bill, but try explaining that to voters in a sound byte. Voters will see one thing: For or Against.
after this has been passed (and since it won't take effect until 2006) can it be changed?
if the Dems. or Reps. don't like parts in it, can they single them out and put them up for a vote?
you always walk a fine line between getting something done that has problems, but is completed, vs. waiting until you have the perfect solution.
good luck getting a massive medicare/prescription drug bill that everyone will agree on when you're debating 200 seperate points.
however, if you can get it through then start hammering out individual areas that you don't like, it might end up workable by the time it comes into play.
And they have the opportunity now to pick it apart.
Originally posted by running with scissors
the thing you have to ask yourself is who really benefits from the passage of this bill? you and me? not really sure. insurance and pharmacuetical companies? you bet your ass that if they support it, they stand to make significant profits.
Plus, this bill doesn't kick in until 2006 until which seniors will have no idea if they like this program or not. It's only an election move to give Bush fuel to distort Democrats into anti-senior, anti-health care, anti-medicaid. Unfortunately, I fear, it will work.
Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook
Fellows
Not that this is apropos of anything, but Enron held the naming rights to Houston's ball park - now called Minute Maid field.
Thoth
Originally posted by ShawnJ
According to Paul Krugman...
Well, enough said on that one. Krugman opposes it, so I'll have to be FOR IT. He's a moron. Worse, a biased and transparent moron.