Update [2009-9-10 8:9:14 by Steven D]: Did you know Republican Representative (and former surgeon) Charles Boustany who gave the Republican response to Obama’s speech was sued three times for malpractice? And each time the patient was awarded money for the level of treatment he provided to them? Or that he defended the birthers? Neither did I. Until now, that is. Perfect guy to give the GOP response, don’t you think?
The short version of Republican Representative Boustany’s response to Obama’s speech:
Obama wants to force government run health care down your poor little throats. It will cost you a fortune! And it would cut Medicare benefits by half a trillion dollars! If only those nasty Democrats would work with us nice, friendly, caring Republicans (who think you all are too fat, by the way, which is the real reason health care costs so much, so lose some weight you slackers).
Who’s lying now?
Medicare would be cut FIVE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS? Uh, not exactly:
Myth: Health care reform will hurt Medicare.
Fact: None of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress would cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs for Medicare services.
Fact: Health care reform will lower prescription drug costs for people in the Medicare Part D coverage gap or “doughnut hole” so they can get better afford the drugs they need.
Fact: Health care reform will protect seniors’ access to their doctors and reduce the cost of preventive services so patients stay healthier.
Fact: Health care reform will reduce costly, preventable hospital readmissions, saving patients and Medicare money.
Fact: Rather than weaken Medicare, health care reform will strengthen the financial status of the Medicare program.
Bottom Line: For people in Medicare, health care reform is about lowering prescription drug costs for people in the “doughnut hole”, keeping the doctor of your choice, improving the quality of care, and eliminating billions in waste that is causing poor care and medical errors. [AARP, accessed 9/9/09]
Well that’s just the AARP, a known communist front organization, right?
So let’s look at who else thinks thinks that the pants of Repubilcans, like Rep. Boustany, who make this claim, are on fire:
The House bill would trim projected increases in payments for hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and others, including home health care providers and suppliers of motor-driven wheelchairs. But it also proposes what CBO estimates is a $245 billion increase in spending for doctors, by canceling a scheduled 21 percent cut in physician payments. None of the “savings” or “cuts” (whichever you prefer) come from reducing current or future benefit levels for seniors.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of HR 3200, among other changes to the Medicare payment structure, the legislation “provides for a 5% payment bonus, effective January 1, 2011, for evaluation and management services and other services associated with ensuring accessible, continuous, coordinated, and comprehensive care when provided by a physician or other practitioner who specializes in family medicine, general internal medicine, general pediatrics or geriatrics.”
“A related myth is that health-care reform will be financed through $500 billion in Medicare cuts. This refers to proposed decreases in Medicare increases. That is, spending is on track to reach $803 billion in 2019 from today’s $422 billion, and that would be dialed back. Even the $560 billion in reductions (which would be spread over 10 years and come from reducing payments to private Medicare advantage plans, reducing annual increases in payments to hospitals and other providers, and improving care so seniors are not readmitted to a hospital) is misleading: the House bill also gives Medicare $340 billion more over a decade. The money would pay docs more for office visits, eliminate copays and deductibles for preventive care, and help close the ‘doughnut hole’ in the Medicare drug benefit, explains Medicare expert Tricia Neuman of the Kaiser Family Foundation.”
Lucky for Rep. Boustany, none of those thuggish bands of roaming socialist fascist gangs from ACORN and the unions were able to interrupt his speech by heckling him and calling him a liar. But come to think of it, I can’t recall when a Republican President has been called a liar to his face while addressing Congress. I guess the Republicans got confused and thought they were members of the British Parliament. Well, Obama brought it on himself, I suppose. He is after all a Halfrican (according the the acknowledged Leader of the Confederate States of America Republican party). He should have been more discerning in the choice of his parents.
Bonus History Lesson: Who was it that beat a Northern abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of the Senate? Why a slave owning Congressman from South Carolina, that’s who!
(cont.)
One southerner, Preston Brooks, a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina, was particularly incensed. Not only had the fiery Sumner ridiculed his home state, but Brooks was the nephew of Andrew Butler, one of Sumner’s targets.
In the mind of Brooks, Sumner had violated some code of honor which should be avenged by fighting a duel. But Brooks felt that Sumner, by attacking Butler when he was home recuperating and not present in the Senate, had shown himself not to be a gentlemen deserving of the honor of dueling. Brooks thus reasoned that the proper response was for Sumner to be beaten, with a whip or a cane. […]
The following day, May 22, proved fateful. After trying to find Sumner outside the Capitol, Brooks entered the building and walked into the Senate chamber. Sumner sat at his desk, writing letters. […]
Brooks hesitated before approaching Sumner, as several women were present in the Senate gallery. After the women left, Brooks walked to Sumner’s desk, and reportedly said: “You have libeled my state and slandered my relation, who is aged and absent. And I feel it to be my duty to punish you.”
With that, Brooks struck the seated Sumner across the head with his heavy cane. Sumner, who was quite tall, could not get to his feet as his legs were trapped under his Senate desk, which was bolted to the floor. Brooks continued raining blows with the cane upon Sumner, who tried to fend them off with his arms. Sumner finally was able to break the desk free with his thighs, and staggered down the aisle of the Senate.
Brooks followed him, breaking the cane over Sumner’s head and continuing to strike him with pieces of the cane. The entire attack probably lasted for a full minute, and left Sumner dazed and bleeding. Carried into a Capitol anteroom, Sumner was attended by a doctor, who administered stitches to close wounds on his head. […]
Southern newspapers published editorials lauding Brooks, claiming that the attack was a justified defense of the south and slavery. Supporters sent Brooks new canes, and Brooks claimed that people wanted pieces of the cane he used to beat Sumner as “holy relics.”
South Carolina politicians: First in boorish, ugly nasty behavior for over 150 years. So you see, Obama got off easy by the standard set by prior South Carolinian Congressmen. At least he didn’t have to be hospitalized. And hey, Rep. Joe “Big Mouth Bass” Wilson even apologized (though Our Lady of the Concentration Camps’ lackey, Allahpundit, thinks he shouldn’t have).
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/10/779804/-Public-Option-does-not-need-senate-approval
Allahpundit chose quite the name considering their feelings about Muslims.
Interesting fact this. Within 12 hours of making his remark, Rep. Addison “Joe” Wilson’s Democratic opponent in 2010 had received $72,000 is donations through ActBlue.
I don’t think that South Carolina has a monopoly on boorish, ugly behavior of their politicians. Texas and Louisiana have remained quite competitive. And certain parts of North Carolina, Minnesota, Ohio, and California have offered they own boorishness.
The NYT photo of Wilson on the floor is, quite unconsciously and quite literally, a snapshot of why the Republicans, as presently constituted, instantly alienate half of America. When America sees the Republicans, this is what they see: 15 old white men.
And now they’re heckling someone who’s not in their club. That’s a winning strategy. I hope they keep it up.
When growing up in SC in the late ’60s we were taught that Brooks was a native hero second only to John C. Calhoun.
And while on the topic of obnoxious South Carolina politicians, it’s still hard to beat running for president as a defender of Jim Crow while quietly paying off your black daughter. South Carolinians were so impressed they kept him in the Senate for another half century.
And it turns out Wilson is a former intern of Thurmond. All in the family.
Well, when Thurmond went to the GOP, SC-2 Congressman Albert Watson crossed over too. And the district includes Thurmond’s home in Edgefield.
What was Wilson’s relationship with Watson? Was he an intern? He was a Floyd Spence staffer; that’s in the Wikipedia page on Wilson.
I had SC History twice (1958-1960-the school district changed the grade that offered it), and never heard of Brooks until American History in high school (1963).
But there is a contrary strand that South Carolinians rarely celebrate. Consider the first Reconstruction goverors – Benjamin Franklin Perry and James Lawrence Orr. Both were from areas that are now rock-ribbed conservative, Perry from Greenville and Orr from Anderson. Both were unionist Democrats before the Civil War. Both were effective governors in a time of rapid change (and military occupation). In the first election by popular vote, Orr beat Wade Hampton by 600 votes. He was governor when the 1868 Constitution was adopted, probably the most democratic constitution the state had. (The current constitution of South Carolina is the much amended Jim Crow constitution of 1895.) And then there are Fritz Hollings, Bob McNair, Richard Riley. That is the strain of politics that needs to be restored in South Carolina. Self-proclaimed “progressive” governors, in the generic not the ideological sense.
Wilson was a Thurmond intern before he went to Spence’s staff. That was in the AP story in the NYT.
To be fair, I should explain that I was in a private, all-white Christian “academy” set up specifically to avoid desegregation. I suspect the history we got was a bit more chauvinistic (in the CSA sense) than what was taught in the public schools.
And we were also taught that Reconstruction was, basically, when the Union illegally occupied Dixie, and we don’t talk about such times in polite company.
Needless to say, I’m not a featured alum. 🙂
Oddly enough, I’m OK with Thurmond. He represented his constituents wishes, but when the laws changed he pivoted and went right on along with the times. From what I understand he had a number of Blacks on his staff in DC and in SC, and considering his party and heritage, he was actually a rather decent fellow, all things considered.
Jesse Helms, on the other hand, can rot in hell…
Well, it did take Thurmond about 15-20 years to pivot after the laws changed (and changed despite his best efforts). So that’s 40 years of representing some of his constituents – the white ones – and 20 or so years of being more fully accountable. But he did, in fact, change over time (on race, anyway – his attitudes toward women never did evolve much), and he does deserve credit for that.
And even in his worst years I don’t think Thurmond was ever as personally or politically malicious as Helms.
In the 1970s, one of his staffers was James Meredith, who desegregated the University of Mississippi under court order.
I met Thurmond as a kid in the 1950s; he was your standard issue gladhanding Southern politician. He got elected on a write-in campaign in which he campaigned that if South Carolinians could write “J. Strom Thurmond” the rest of the country could no longer call them illiterate. For some folks of that generation, that and their name was the extent of their literacy.
This would have been a much more compelling post without the gratuitous swipe at the South.
And yeah, yeah, I know, we Southern liberals aren’t like other Southerners. We’re a credit to our section. It’s a privilege to be able to sit here with our Northern colleagues whose 19th century industrial greatness was built not on the backs of slaves, but on the basis of taxes on goods produced by slaves conveniently located elsewhere. Oh, and by forcing a full twenty percent of their children into the industrial workforce, and using both paramilitaries and the regular army against peaceful striking workers. And opening access to the vast mineral wealth of the west to feed the factories by the systematic genocide of the American Indian. Shall we go on to the armed exploitation of Central America and the Philippines, or can we deal with the present day instead of revisiting every incident of the blood-drenched, premeditated, multigenerational murder and theft, both North and South, upon which this fine nation of ours was built?
Refight the Civil War to your heart’s content, by all means. I have little substantial disagreement with your telling of American history. If this is the greatest country on earth, Earth is a piss-poor place for countries.
History is not the problem some of us have with the South, however. Here’s the question about right now: Take a look at the members of Congress. Would the country be better off, worse off, or the same if they magically disappeared? I know what I think. What do you think?
Let me see. Who would disappear?
Jim Webb, Mark Warner
Glenn Nye, Bobby Scott, Tom Periello, Jim Moran, Rick Boucher, Gerry Connolly
Kay Hagan
Mel Watt, David Price, Larry Kissell, Mike McIntyre, G.K. Butterfield, Heath Shuler
John Spratt, Jim Clyburn
Sanford Bishop, Hank Johnson, John Lewis, Jim Marshall, John Barrow, David Scott
Bill Nelson
Allen Boyd, Corrine Brown, Alan Grayson, Kathy Castor, Kendrick Meek, Robert Wexler, Debby Wasserman-Schultz, Ron Klein, Alcee Hastings, Suzanne Kosmas
Bobby Bright, Parker Griffith, Artur Davis
Lincoln Davis, Jim Cooper, Bart Gordon, John Tanner, Steve Cohen
Travis Childers, Bennie Thompson, Gene Taylor
Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor
Marion Berry, Vic Snyder, Mike Ross
Mary Landrieu
Charlie Melancon
Al Green, Ruben Hinojosa, Silvestre Reyes, Chet Edwards, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Charlie Gonzalez, Ciro Rodriguez, Lloyd Doggett, Solomon Ortiz, Henry Cuellar, Gene Green, Eddie Bernice Johnson
And then all of the Republicans in the eleven Southern states.
Considering the list, I think the country would be worse off.
And we’d still have Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Jean Schmidt, Michelle Bachmann, Mike Enzi, John Kyl, Orrin Hatch, John Barrasso, Tom Coburn, Todd Tiahrt,…
It was a swipe at South Carolina politicians. Having been born in North Carolina, and having been raised in Colorado (land of the Sand Creek Massacre) I try to make no gratuitous swipes at any region of the country. However considering the history of South Carolina’s politics old and new (Calhoun, who constantly threatened to take S Carolina out of the union over the issue of slavery, the first state legislature to secede after Lincoln’s election, the caning incident, and the trail hiking Argentinian loving Governor Sanford, etc.) I think a swipe at their politicians over Wilson’s behavior is more than fair. Methinks thou dost protest too much.