Mitch vs Cruz... FIGHT!

[frigidmagi]

Cruz, I totally didn't shut down the government, it was those pesky liberals! I'm totally ready to shut down the government again though yo.

The Texas Republican, who many Republicans and Democrats alike blame for triggering the confrontation that led to the shutdown, told “Politics Confidential” that the agreement that allowed the government to reopen late last week is “lousy.”

“The deal we got ... was a lousy deal,” Cruz said. “The Washington establishment sold the American people down the river. It provided no relief for the millions of people who were hurting because of Obamacare.”

Cruz faulted Senate Republicans for accepting the last-minute compromise that was struck between Senate leaders Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“The reason this deal -- the lousy deal -- was reached ... is because unfortunately Senate Republicans made the choice not to support House Republicans,” he said.

With another possible government shutdown looming on Jan. 15, 2014, if Republicans and Democrats fail to reach a long-term compromise on the budget, Cruz would not rule out the possibility of once again threatening a shutdown unless the Affordable Care Act is repealed.

“What I intend to do is continue standing with the American people to work to stop Obamacare, because it isn't working, it's costing people's jobs, and it's taking away their healthcare,” Cruz said.

Still, Cruz insisted that he never wanted a shutdown in the first place.

“Let me be very clear, I said throughout this, we shouldn't have a shutdown,” Cruz said. “I don't want a shutdown, I repeatedly voted to open the government.”

Instead, he said, the responsibility for the shutdown should be placed on Democrats for their unwillingness to compromise on funding for the Affordable Care Act.

“There never would have been a shutdown if Harry Reid and President Obama hadn't said ‘we will not compromise, we will not negotiate, shut the government down,’” he said.

Asked about the fact that he has faced public ridicule from his colleagues in Congress, including many members of his own party, Cruz said he’s only concerned with the opinions of his Texas constituents -- not his fellow senators.

“I'm not serving in office because I desperately needed 99 new friends in the U.S. Senate,” Cruz said. “Given the choice between being reviled in Washington, D.C., and appreciated in Texas, or reviled in Texas and appreciated in Washington, I would take the former 100 out of 100 times.”

For more of the interview with Ted Cruz, including his explanation about why he says Washington is broken, check out this episode of “Politics Confidential.”

Bitch we ain't doing this bullshit again.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who co-sponsored the bipartisan Senate bill that led to the end of the 16-day government shutdown, says the GOP will do anything to get rid of President Barack Obama's signature health care law — except shutting down the government.

"There won't be another government shutdown," McConnell said on CBS' "Face The Nation" Sunday. "You can count on that."

“Shutting down the government, in my view, is not conservative policy," McConnell continued. "I don't think a two-week paid vacation for federal employees is conservative policy. A number of us were saying in July that this strategy could not and would not work, and of course it didn't."

Instead, the Senate Minority Leader said his party is focused on securing more congressional seats in the 2014 midterm elections — and the big seat in the White House in 2016 — to thwart the Affordable Care Act.

“Obamacare is the worst piece of legislation passed in the last half century, the single biggest step in the direction of Europeanizing our country," McConnell said. "We need to get rid of it. If the American people will give us a majority in the Senate and a new president, that's exactly what we're going to do."

McConnell, who was criticized for the inclusion of a $2.9 billion provision in the bill for a dam project in his home state, said he supported the effort in the past, but denied he inserted the line that secured the funding.

Over on "Meet The Press," Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer suggested that to avoid another government shutdown, lawmakers ought to "implement the McConnell Rule, which says that Congress must disapprove, rather than approve, increases in the debt ceiling. If we were to do that, the chances of going up to the brink again, the chances of this kind of debacle, would decrease."

On ABC's "This Week," Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, said Republicans have to follow McConnell's lead and agree that "a shutdown was a bad thing all around."

"Everybody looks bad when something like this happens," Pelosi said. "I agree with the president. There are no winners in this. ... So either the Republicans didn't know or didn't care about those consequences. I believe they do care.

She added: "We have to have common sense as we go forward. We have to go to the table understanding that we cannot shut down and we cannot place in doubt the full faith and credit of the United States of America. But we do have to recognize that among those on the Republican side are those who are anti-government ideologues and they cannot wag this dog. And they cannot wag this dog. They cannot wag this dog."

So basically Mitch and Ted are telling the media two different things. Mitch is saying no more shutdowns, it was stupid and we won't do it again. Ted is saying, the shutdown wasn't my fault but I'm a gonna do it again! Ted had better hope the Tea Party wins the GOP civil war or else he's gonna find himself unable to do shit but moan and piss.

Also, fuck you Mitch, that was no paid vacation for the fed workers. It doesn't count as a paid vacation if you don't pay them until 3 weeks after the fact if they're lucky you pudding faced ass.

[Lys]

This whole government shut down over health care thing reminded me of an debate that was had years ago on another board, I think maybe before Obama was even elected. It was about health care in the US, and the tenor was such that a lot of Americans who would nominally support health care reform even to the point of adopting a single payer system were arguing against it on the grounds that it would become a cluster fuck even worse than the current situation. On the other side of the discussion were mostly non-Americans, and they weren't buying. It seemed like the most ridiculous sort of self-defeating arrogance. There was no disagreement that things were fucked, only on whether they could be fixed, and when it was pointed out that better health care worked fine on the rest of the developed world, it always came back to the same thing: America's different.

Eventually one guy, a Canadian, got exasperated and said something like this, "So what you're telling me is that socialized health care won't work in the US because it's full of selfish ass holes. Is that it?"

And yes, that was it, but nobody had the balls to own up to it. I think the closest anyone got was some weasel worded explanation of how the GOP would water down any such legislation into uselessness. These last three weeks have shown the grounds for their fears, even if they didn't state them explicitly. There in fact are people in out political establishment who will do everything in their power to sabotage any such effort, we've seen them in action, we've seen that they're willing to shut down the entire government just to prevent even the most limp-wristed and half-assed reform from being implemented. Some state legislatures have actually opted to actively lose money rather than work with the Federal government on the matter.

Still, I don't believe that means reform is impossible, and I don't believe what's happened shows we can't do better than this. I think we can, and I think we will, but it's plainly evident that making it work has never been a simple matter of getting enough votes to ram it through. I expect the GOP will continue to try and sabotage the Affordable Care Act even after it has been fully implemented, just like they've tried to sabotage all manner of government programs they don't like. Eventually, though, social change shall overtake the people who elect the like of Ted Cruz, and his ilk won't be found in Congress any more.

[frigidmagi]

Bluntly if they want to maintain political power, the Republicans have to destroy Obamacare. They've spent so long fighting it, burning capitial and resources like it was going out of style that if it works even half as well as intended... They're fucked.

The Republicans will stand as the guys who were desperate to fuck up your health care.

That said, while I think a UHC system of some sort could work in the US... Bluntly, yes we're different from all of you. We are vastly different in terms of population density, distribution and economic variance. We're different from the vast majority of European nations (although not so different from say... Canada or Australia) in terms of population make up, we are less homogeneous then say... Finland, or Holland, or even France and Germany. Fuck we're more different then the UK, only 13% of their population is non-white and only 8% of it's population is foreign born for example. Although I don't know what the BNP is sniveling about, the people who are foreign born in the UK tend to be from Germany, Ireland and Poland before they're from Pakistan or Africa, hell the 8th largest group of foreign born people in England are Americans. Terrified of American immigrants coming to enforce the 2 party system are we? Side note, in the US has 33 million foreign born individuals in it's borders (about the same as the total population of Canada), almost 12% of it's population. Canada and Australia also have large numbers (percentage wise) of foreign born persons both citizen and noncitizen.

So yes... We are fucking different. No, that doesn't mean that UHC is impossible or that we shouldn't try... I just think that the model that is used in continental Europe is not applicable to us. That doesn't make it impossible, just difficult. But so was going to the fucking moon.

[Lys]

That America really is different is the point I was making. In that old discussion people from outside the United States - and some within it - were so unwilling to accept that difference, and finally here we have it in stark relief, just as predicted. It's made all the more striking when one considers that all this hullaboo isn't even over true socialized healthcare, but merely some mild reform to the existing system!

In Canada and Europe there wasn't this sort of resistance to their own health care reform because they're not the United States, and they didn't have a demographic as ideologically invested in the things that the Republican base and the Tea Party are invested in. One could put this in terms of American having more selfish assholes, or one could be more fair and say that Americans simply prioritize different things because they're a different people.

In terms of health care systems, I think what's best for America is something along the lines of the Australian hybrid system. There's government funded universal health care, but there is also private for profit health insurance. It's set up so that people who can afford it are encouraged to take out private insurance plans to supplement the government system, but at the same time not screw over people with low means. Ideally the United States would adopt something similar but tailored to the specific needs of its people and population, but frankly just copying the Australian system wholesale would vastly improve on the present situation. Systems like those in Canada, Britain, or France could be made to work in the US, but I think they are poor fit.

Incidentally, did you know President Nixon was drafting a socialized health care plan and getting ready to have it presented before Congress when Watergate brought him down? We could have saved ourselves a lot of grief if Nixon had only gotten away with it!

[frigidmagi]

Extra irony, one of the young staffer/volunteer types who did the leg work to line votes up for Nixon's deserved impeachment (he resigned first, for various reasons) Hillary Clinton (well Rodham at this point). She would late claim that she wanted to use the Nixon reforms as a model for her own healthcare reforms (aka Hillarycare... Man we need more creativity in this stuff).

And Lightening round irony. The fall of Nixon finally opened the way for Reagan to take over and run for President.

[Josh]

Given the sheer scope and size of our system, as well as its federalist nature, there's no way that any sort of overhaul of the health care system would be anything but a complicated clusterfuck even if everyone was onboard. When you have active, ongoing attempts to sabotage it and serious corporate interest in compromising it, well, that's what we get.

However, it is a foot in the door. I'm on record for hating the system as it's constituted and I stand by it, but it did have to start somewhere.