Blue Dogs blocking health care reform

National, Politics 1 Minute

According to this AP article (via PilotOnline), the Democratic Blue Dog coalition has put the breaks brakes on health care reform in the House of Representatives.

The Blue Dog Democrats’ list of demands came on the eve of House Democratic leaders’ planned unveiling of their final bill Friday. The bill release was pushed back to Monday at the earliest and Democratic leaders agreed to devote Friday to meetings with the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs to work through their concerns

The size of the coalition – 52 members, of which my own Congressman, Glenn Nye, is a member – makes it almost impossible for the bill to get out of the House without significant changes.

Their letter can be read here (pdf).

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11 thoughts on “Blue Dogs blocking health care reform”

  1. yay for Bluedogs! this could easily become the largest expansion of govt since Social Security so asking questions of what it will do to our deficit and economy are excellent questions to ask and get honest answers on.

  3. Perhaps these members of Congress could underscore their point by renouncing their own government health care, and refusing to use it.

    If Congress derails health care reform once again, there will be hell to pay.

  4. The great GnOP argument one hears is “keep the government our of my Medicare, Tricare and VA health system.”

    Blue Dogs may have some legitimate concerns that should be addressed, but doing nothing is what is killing jobs, economic growth and creating the deficit Doing nothing is a abject failure of leadership. Doing nothing is the GnOP solution to all crisis.

    1. Quite the opposite, NND. Government spending kills jobs and economic growth, and increases the deficit.

      Taxes must be collected, which wastes the efforts and talents of people such as our hostess, and then allocated and spent and tracked, which wastes yet more effort and talent. The fewer levels of government the money has to go through, the less waste there is. That’s why conservatives prefer taxes and spending to be as local as possible.

      Furthermore, the States have the authority to establish their own health care systems, such as TennCare and MassHealth. The federal government does not.

  5. I agree with you Spotter.

    Newport, I agree the GOP doesn’t have any true alternatives for making healthcare better. some of my ideas are:

    # Removing mandates from health insurance enabling wider array of options to more people to include many uninsured young people who end up in the emergency room because they cannot afford basic coverage.
    # Shifting tax credits from the employer to the citizen to create a true Free Market for coverage and enable employees to switch jobs without the fear of losing coverage for pre-existing conditions.
    # Tort reform to prevent trial lawyers from suing for obscene amounts which do not benefit the patient and raise costs for everyone
    # Getting rid of the inept FDA approval process for life saving drugs and instead enforce transparency on drug trial results.

    I would like to see all of these done because there is not silver bullet and even these together won’t solve 100% of the problem. my full posting at: http://bearingdrift.com/2009/07/11/multiple-choice/

    1. I missed that. I drafted this post a couple of days ago and didn’t proof it before posting. (Which is why the permalink has 2 i’s in it – because I screwed up spelling blocking.)

  7. Which has been a success story, in terms of bring increasing value at lower costs, your cell phone or FEMA?

    The private sector delivers the things we need and want best if we let it. Our problems in health care (speaking as someone who has made a life of delivering health care) are the result of government intrusions, beginning during WW2, which have disrupted the market mechanisms which have provided so well for us in other portions of the economy.

    Libertarians have offered alternatives to the major party approaches, and you can read them, if you want to understand the problems and solutions better, at Heartland.org or at Tidewater Liberty at http://tinyurl.com/hc-choose-one

    Both are not short reads, but health care reform will not fit on a bumper sticker. We have spent 70 years messing this up, and it will take a while, and some careful untangling of the mess, to set it right. But turning the whole industry over to bureaucrats is not going to help.

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