He makes the Republican’s look like extremist.

This is why Ted Kennedy had regrets when he fought the plan all those years ago. Alas, hindsight is 20/20.

Good point, PS. Nixon is demonized a lot for Watergate – and rightly so, but what’s ignored by the (new generation of) liberals today is that many of the liberal laws on health, environment etc. were signed by Nixon. I was surprised to find that out when I decided to go beyond what the mainstream media regularly shouts about him. Whether he did that of his own initiative or because of a strong Congress is irrelevant when it comes to the positive consequences of all such laws he passed.
And can you imagine that the Democrats would come up with such a plan today? Sadly, they are in the pockets of big businesses and corrupt, just like the Republicans.

Nixon’s health care plan is better than what the Democrats are proposing today! Nixon wanted to embraced tighter regulation of insurers, calling on states to approve specific plans, oversee rates, ensure adequate disclosure, require an annual audit and take other appropriate measures to insure a better health care system for all Americans. Can anyone imagine one Republican coming up with a plan like this today?

We can sit here all day going back and forth about reforming health care, the bottom line is the special interest have already got what they wanted. We are going to be throwing good money after bad.

Polls while they are an overview are also not giving us the whole picture. That said, I say this as an Obama supporter who is not going too vote for him when he runs again in 2012.

One thing is for sure he is spending his political capital real fast.

As an independent I’m not happy at all with the Democrats. That said I loath the Republicans as they seemed to have done a lot of damage to this country. For me it’s a matter of picking the lesser of two evils or just not voting.

Which is starting too look like a real good option.

It seem the real issue is how dysfunctional government is in general.

Take the whole financial crisis. Well it started with deregulation under Reagen and then Clinton did the worse thing by allowing Default Swaps to be legal. Something that was not until 2000. The deregulation’s were also championed by Alan Greenspan who had way to much power and is a Libertarian so his free market ideas were put into play. We are paying the price for all this, the Great Recession. Plenty of blame to go around here.

My question is what kind of society do we want?
Not too many seem to want to answer this.
It’s easier to scream and yell and call Obama a socialist and call his health care ideas a government take over then ask some real hard questions on how move forward with health care in this country.
Health care is at a crisis now, not 10 years down the road, but now. If we don’t fix this then we are doomed here. The insurance and pharmaceutical corporations are not interested in our well being, they are interested in their profits.

Health care in this country needs to rebuilt from the ground up. Anything less is a lot joke and it will not do a thing too change how things are done.
Personally I don’t care if have a single payer or a system like they have in Switzerland, but I just want this mess cleaned up.

Indeed. They have to do better than that. In fairness, Republicans were handed control of the entire government and yet, it did not become smaller, spending was not reduced, foreign policy did not become any more effective, the government’s involvement in personal lives of Americans has increased. Seems to be a recurring theme nowadays. It is a very fair comment by Louise.

Posted by Louise, on August 29th

Louise, thanks for this. As with many great Americans -Democrats and Republicans – he wasn’t perfect, but he loved our state and this country and served it for many years in the best way he knew how.

We need to change the law in Mass. regarding giving the governor the power to appoint an interim senator that will not be allowed to run for the seat, as the Senator requested. Can’t we also add that the governor would be required to appoint someone that is of the same party as the person that has vacated the seat? i.e., if a Democrat was voted in and dies/vacates the seat, another Democrat would need to be appointed as interim, and,the opposite would also be true. I’m going to call all my reps this week, as well as Deleo and Murray, and put my two cents in. MA deserves to have two votes, and as someone that voted for Teddy, I want someone to replace him of the same ideology.

here, here, aj!
right on, Michael!
thanks, Louise!

Linda

A report by the Commonwealth Fund also ranks the U.S. highest in total cost of care and last among industrialized countries “in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care.” In a recent FRONTLINE report comparing the health care systems of five other capitalist democracies, “Sick Around the World,” WASHINGTON POST reporter T.R. Reid notes that, “The World Health Organization says the U.S. health care system rates 37th in the world in terms of quality and fairness. All the other rich countries do better than we do, and yet they spend a heck of a lot less.”

I did not know that doctors can threaten too sue patents who refuse treatment, this is a new one.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08282009/profile.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Hzn3AvOXA

Or When Republican wail about keeping government out of their lives, unless it’s a woman’s body i.e. abortion, gay rights, smoking weed,stem cells research, what is moral based on there beliefs, or pushing religions in schools i.e. creationism as opposed to evolution,

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-education/2009/03/30/texas-schools-face-the-evolution-debate.html

Republican cry out how government is so bad,yet believe all court systems, and police don’t abuse there powers than get elected into office and as we have seen mismanaged, starve or attempt to all public programs, except defense, and military spending in which there always tons of unaccounted waste.

A republicans thinking “is as if there had a car for years and didn’t what to repair anything on there car and with run it to the ground than when finally they take it in to the shop the repair bill is in the thousands and cant understand why” And this is the thinking of the republicans to starve government in a attempt to make it small, yet when the repair bill comes in for say infrastructure, state, local governments, they can’t understand why it cost so much.

So therefore republican logic

starve your neighbor, starve your friends, starve your customers, starve the consumers, starve the homeowner, starve your government, starve the poor, starve the weak,starve the sick, but overfed the police and military for when the crap hits the fan which of course it will since orders, power and money trumps social injustices( not always).

And than state that they did everything for themselves and everybody should do the same, yet in reality they had help and support from friends, family, mentors or believe that the selfish made this country great not the ones who sacrifice their lives for our freedoms (not just soldiers, but civil rights leaders,political leaders people in government who work hard to help the U.S. in a whole and anyone fighting for others that cannot).

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0127/dailyUpdate.html

Don’t forget outsourcing Military, CIA, jobs to third parties with immunity to U.S. laws along with iraqi,a afghan.(guess this is how republicans are strong in national defense when they try to outsource our U.S. military, CIA jobs to mercenaries) along with overpaying for that on top of that. For a party who states there the pro military its odd that there would outsource military jobs and work to third parties such as black water.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124511068419617063.html

Or how Republicans allowed and promoted hedge funds managers pay less than 25 percent on there income, and promote a idea it was fine to deny health care to make a profit, even when one is paying for health care.(i guess that the social aspect of the Republican party ration health care as long as it is the private market doing such)Dont forget the people who were bailed out on wall street started with President Bush,before that S&L by bush the first(who made great risk with our money and received all the gains but when it failed the taxes payers flipped the bill)