What? A Potential Blow to Health Care Reform?!?!?

[Crabcake Johnny]

My theory is there's a club house mentality at these high levels - you either play ball or sit out.

But I don't think everyone's like Blago. Regardless of the job you think he's doing Schwarzenegger doesn't strike me as someone's who's cutting shady back room deal. He seems to pay by the rules.

Maybe we need Ventura for president.

 

[Ron Van D]

Is Tom Daschle a tool for not paying taxes, or for making big money since leaving office? A heck of lot of politicians "consult" after they leave office. Democrats & republicans. Look at Dick Cheney with Haliburton before becoming VP. They even had him in their shirt pocket while he was VP. Remember the "no bid contracts" they get? Wow, thats good use of our tax dollars! But its like John Melencamp sings, "Ain't that Americia,

Obama's picks are fine. They are not the worst in history.

Not that I would expect any sort of research to be done or critical thinking from an Obama voter, but aren't "no-bid" contracts the norm when only one company can do what they need done (as with the Halliburton situation)?

 

[Winter_123]

Obama's picks are fine. They are not the worst in history.

Yeh but you have to admit that if Richardson ends out in the big house that that would have made it difficult to oversee the Department of Commerce. I am not saying that would have made him the worst in history but it does sort of challenge Obama's bullcrap where he and his press secretary say that the real problem is that Obamas standards are so high.

El crocko.
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Maybe I'm cynical, but does anyone believe that any governor that gets to appoint a US Senator honestly tries to pick one simply for the good of his or her state? I'm not sure that is a grammatically correct sentence. Here I go again...

I believe that anytime a governor gets to appoint a US Senator he or she does it for personal gain without regard to his or her state.

You have just outlined the essence of Blago's defense. Good luck to him with that.

No one questions that politics is a business of scratching someone else's back so that they will scratch yours. However, when a governor gets caught on tape talking to his brother and the brother is updating about a lobbyist buying the governors support on a bill and the aforementioned governor says the funds "have to be in the account by the end of the year" then that is a little problem he is going to have to splain to the jury as he did to the Legislature which ousted him.

You cant take payments into your account or your campaigns account for your public duties. If he didnt do that, then fine, tell it to the judge. But lets not say that this is just politics as usual. Maybe for Illinois it is. Lots of states still try to lock you up for it. Maybe he is innocent. Go for it Blago. You da man. You aint da governor man anymore though.

 

[Norwayguy]

We may be in business after all!! How about this?

"As part of his proposed state budget, Gov. Patterson has proposed $770 million in new taxes on health insurance.

Included is a $1 tax on health insurance claims over $20 for self-insured plans. This is in addition to increases in the Covered Lives Assessment and the Patient Services Assessment that self-insured plans already pay, along with fully-insured plans."

This type of thing is not new. In Maine when Dirigio came out they decided as part of the way to pay for there subsidized coverage was to charge a 4% surchage on other health insurance plans....excuse me?

So client A has insurance that is expensive to them but manages to keep up with his $600/month payment Dirigio comes out with the stated purpose of providing health coverage to those that can't afford it and suddenly he is paying $624? this also happened on group coverage so say business is currently paying $15,000 a month now its goes up by another $600 a month....oh by the way Dirigio in Maine is a total failure it was projected to cover 30,000 people by the end of the year and cover the remaining 140,000 mainers or so by the end of the 3rd year...I believe we are in year 5 and highest enrollment was 14,000 and is now hovering around 10,000 not open to any new enrollment and the majority already had coverage via mainecare or high deductible policies oh and it cost about $70 million a year to run....I am not hopeful of national healthcare politicians can't seem to run anything right

 

[motoxxx]

Not that I would expect any sort of research to be done or critical thinking from an Obama voter, but aren't "no-bid" contracts the norm when only one company can do what they need done (as with the Halliburton situation)?

Great point about Halliburton. Another thing about that company is that they were the only ones with the tooling to put out the fires that Sadaam Husein had set to the oil wells in Kuwait. Really, how many companies in the world are equipped to do that sort of thing? It just makes them an easy, slow moving target for people that don't get it (ie Obama voters)

 

[armydad]

Ron Van D, perhaps you could google Haliburton competitors. There are other companies that do what Haliburton does. Cheney just happens to own a bunch of stock in haliburton.

motoxxx, ever heard of a company named Bechtel? They put out the fires in Kuwait back in 1991.

Haliburton's subsidiary, Brown & Root build and manage military bases. No other American company could do that?

If a democrat president had done the "no bid contracts" republicans would be screaming bloody murder. Give me a break.