Frist Confident About Medicare Bill - Democrats Gear for Filibuster

[cthrumatrix]

Frist Confident About Medicare Bill
Senate Expected to Decide Before Holiday; Democrats Gear for Filibuster
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A06


Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) expressed confidence yesterday that he has the votes to pass a landmark Medicare prescription drug package before the Senate heads home for the Thanksgiving holiday, perhaps as early as today.



But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and an eclectic band of rebel lawmakers began their effort to talk the bill to death, known formally as a filibuster. He was joined by the three Senate Democrats seeking the party's presidential nomination and Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who objects to the 10-year, $400 billion price tag.

"I make no apology for obstructing the massive benefits for the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry spread through this legislation," said Kennedy, who voted for creation of the Medicare program in 1965.

Gathered for an unusual Sunday session, lawmakers on the Senate floor weighed in yesterday on the 1,000-plus-page document.

"This bill makes it easier for big drug companies to gouge seniors and jack up health care costs so that top executives can make millions," said presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). He, like other liberal opponents, complained that the legislation does little to curb skyrocketing prescription costs, forces many seniors to spend more on medicine and includes too many sweeteners for the industries likely to receive millions of new customers.

snip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8558-2003Nov23.html

[0007]

1. Well, we got screwed again, 'eh where's the end to this crap?

[newsjunkie]

3. To hell with the freaky cat killer!

what an utter a-hole!

[gristy]

2. Go McCain! Go Kennedy! Go Kerry!

SCREW Frist!!!! :evilfrown:

[Old and In the Way]

4. Why is Frist even in this discussion?

Doesn't he have a clear conflict of interest on this issue? Why hasn't he recused himself on anything to do with public policy on Medicare and private health insurance? Totally disgusting that he can be leading this legislation, given his family's obvious financial windfall should he succeed in getting this passed.

[Judi Lynn]

5. We'll know more after 12:30 p.m., EST

From a Reuters article:

(snip) A Senate vote was set for 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT) on Monday on whether to halt a Democratic-led filibuster. (snip)

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=3880162

If there's any justice remaining anywhere, Democrats should get a chance to filibuster this monstrosity.

[catmandu57]

6. Trouble is too many dems support this monstrosity

It should be a no brain slam dunk that this bill wouldn't have a prayer of making it through the senate. From what I've read this morning three democratic senators Feinstein, Wyden, and Baucus(sp), have came out in support, guess the drug and insurance industries are calling in markers.

I don't know who else is throwing their weight behind this, but the very manner in which it was passed in the house ought to be a sign of its evilness.

I've spent the weekend writing emails against this turkey, looks like I'm going to get another bloody nose.

[Malva Zebrina]

7. this makes me nervous

there are billions of dollars hanging on this--people get violent when they see $$$$$$$$$$ :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: before their eyes, have it within an inch of their grimy little fingers, only to have it whisked away. Makes me nervous for Kennedy most of all.:scared:

It will be passed I have a feeling--I have a nauseating lump in my stomach----my country disintegrating before my eyes. Corporations in charge of the lives of seniors and my two senators all set to let it happen to me and other senios all throughout the state. Pigs.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Related article says there could be a backlash

November 24, 2003 E-mail story Print


NEWS ANALYSIS
Medicare Bill's Risky Politics

By Janet Hook, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — Republican leaders are touting their sweeping bill to expand and reshape Medicare as a political coup for their party and a significant domestic policy accomplishment for President Bush, challenging decades of Democratic charges that the GOP is hostile to the interests of seniors. (snip)

(snip) But the legislation, which is expected to go to a vote in the Senate today, also poses political risks for Bush and his Republican allies. Some Republicans see a potential backlash from senior citizens when they discover that the prescription drug benefit is far less than they expect, want or need.

By embracing this major expansion of a Great Society program, Bush also risks alienating his party's conservative base, which is already disheartened by the growth of government spending under Bush and by Republican leaders' failure to muscle conservative judicial nominations through the Senate.

"I worry that Republicans are stepping into a political minefield with this bill," said Steve Moore, head of Club for Growth, a conservative political group. As a result, he said, Republicans could lose seats in Congress in next year's elections.(snip)

(snip) But those cross-pressures underscore the problem facing members of both parties: The politics of the Medicare bill are almost as complicated and unfathomable as the bill itself. Polls have found that senior citizens overwhelmingly support the idea of expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs, but that the more they learn about the bill before Congress, the less they like it.

That raises unnerving memories of the political imbroglio that followed the 1988 enactment of a bill to provide catastrophic health insurance coverage for seniors. Like this year's Medicare bill, that one was endorsed by AARP, the powerful senior citizens lobby then known as the American Assn. of Retired Persons.

After the bill took effect, many seniors rebelled against the new fees and taxes they had to pay, and Congress was forced to repeal the law. The backlash was dramatized memorably when angry senior citizens in Chicago swarmed the car of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), then the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to protest the bill he sponsored.
(snip/...)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medpol24nov24,1,2594156.story?coll=la-home-headlines

(Free registration required)

[newyawker99]

12. Judilyn

Per DU copyright rules
please post only 4
paragraphs from the
news source.

Thank you.


NYer99
DU Moderator

[ewagner]

9. Just a note

to all my friends here at DU.

The Democrats supporting this monstrosity are doing so out of their instinct to survive. They evidently feel that there is enough support of this bill in their respective districts that a negative vote would be suicidal. In that sense they are opinion "followers" as opposed to opinion "leaders".

The DNC as well of the staff of the individual Senators should be out in front of this issue working specifically in those districts to educate and nform the constituency about just how bad this bill is. Instead, they are listening to the polls and pandering to the opinion instead of trying to change or influence the public perception about this bill.

Sorry. But this has been my recurring rant about the way some of our Senators conduct themselves in office. Their behavior is going to be costly.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Democrats certainly need better polling capabilities.

Part of the problem is the media distortion that cripples our message going out to the public as well as the message getting into our Representitives and Legislators. I'm convinced that many have lost the pulse because of the huge bias in the media and the message control that they have.

One area that the DNC must invest in is better polling capabilities and analysis. Without this, I don't know how our guys can get a clear understanding of the issues and what the constituents really think.

[terrisel]

10. I think we need to stand up for ourselves first and then others

I think we need to acknowledge that this bill and other Republican bills are taking from us personally and begin the fight on that basis. It makes a more compelling argument. We are being directly hurt, our money is being taken from us and given to corporations not entitled to it.

We need to focus on what each of us pays in Medicare payroll tax and speak the truth-we can't continue to pay it when the benefits are too meager for retiree medical care and when the money is being transferred to corporations instead of individuals.

The taxation needs to benefit us personally-now or in the future.

If you want start winning: Stop being theoretical!!! Take a good look at your payroll tax deductions, note the dollar amount and practice making some "I" statements. "I am paying X dollars out of every paycheck for medicare. I can't continue paying it because the benefits are no longer going to the health care of my parents, my grandparents, or myself in the future.
The Republicans are sending my payroll tax dollars to corporations that are not entitled to my money and I am going to be forced to pay much higher prices for medicine than Mexicans and Canadians are paying for the same products.
I can't afford it.