Pat Oliphant for January 20, 2010

Sad, funny, but true.

The rest of the year is shot, the Republicans will block everything, and the Democrats, as they always do, will stand back and let them.

With or without lube, Ken?

Why Coakley failed. Let’s recap, shall we? According to the Massachusetts secretary of state, and Rasmussen independent polling within the state, voter registration breaks down as follows: There are 1.6 million registered Democrats, 490,000 registered Republicans and 2.1 million Independents or registered voters who don’t affiliate with either party.

The fact that independents now outnumber Democrats and Republicans combined should serve as a starburst of information to partisan operatives that Massachusetts is no longer reliably Democratic in any way, shape or form. It is most reliably independent. And while President Obama won the state in ‘08, his support among independents is the voting bloc that is deserting him more quickly than any other. That’s for two reasons: independents tell pollsters they don’t like his massive spending and they don’t support the Democratic approach to health care reform.

Massachusetts has had its own version of health care reform in place for four years. Residents have a much greater sense of what is to come if the Democratic-controlled Congress enacts a similar plan for the nation. While the reaction among Massachusetts residents to health care reform is mixed, there are enough citizens unhappy with Massachusetts’ version to influence a sizable proportion of independents to shy away from voting for a Democrat who supports nationwide reform.

Obama is looking to Massachussets as his ideal model, and even though Massachusetts law requires everyone to buy health insurance and makes sure there are so-called affordable plans for all, some small percentage of state residents remain uninsured. Many more are unhappy with the requirement to buy insurance. Another starburst to Democrats: If they push through national health care reform similar to the plan in Massachusetts, they stand to lose the independent support that is key to national victory.

Also, there are several predictable problems with Massachusetts health care reform that are sure to be repeated on a national scale if the Democratic Congress and President Obama succeed in pushing through their version. As state reps for the AMA have indicated in the past month, the Massachusetts plan has become unaffordable for the state and is just about bankrupt. The state has had to trim hospital reimbursements to remain in business. It has also eliminated coverage for the 30,000 legal immigrants in the state (that’s LEGAL, not illegal.)

One cannot expand coverage for so many more people, most of them indigent, without raising taxes on everybody else. It’s impossible, though congressional Democrats and the president tell us it is not. Their claim is simply untrue.

Hospitals are fighting Massachusetts’ cuts in reimbursement rates. Boston Medical sued the state back in July, as recounted by The New York Times:

“According to the suit, Massachusetts is now reimbursing Boston Medical only 64 cents for every dollar it spends treating the poor. About 10 percent of the hospital’s patients are uninsured – down from about 20 percent before the law’s passage in 2006. But many more are on Medicaid or Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized insurance program for low-income residents.”

There are other, more commonly noted reasons why Martha Coakley lost: She is not as charismatic as her GOP rival. She or her advisers made the inept strategic decision not to campaign heavily over the holidays. Her opponent did and gained a lot of ground as a result. Once she started campaigning heavily, she had to go on the attack, which made her look angry and nasty instead of helpful and compassionate.

But if Democrats ignore the message Massachusetts voters have sent them on health care reform and push it through anyway, they do so at their own peril. That the Kennedy Senate seat is in Republican hands should signal a new era to Democrats in Washington. The message of Tuesday’s election is this: Camelot is over, and Sen. Kennedy was behind the times in making universal health care his signature issue.

Unfortunately the democratic health care plan “they were trying to push through” was not their first choice, but an emasculated version after special interests, insurance companies, and some politicians were bought off to get support. First choice, and true reform, would have been a single payer plan, or at least a plan with a government option. The single payer plan would have eliminated the insurance companies and saved about 30% in health care costs, which is what the insurance companies take off the top but provides nothing toward actual health care.

I would like to think a good share of the reasons Coakley isn’t doing well has to do with her handling of the day school witch hunt and the way she treated the obviously innocent family whose lives she demolished for political reasons. She should be ridden out of Boston on a rail.

Once more: Mr Obama, whom I supporteed whole heartedly up til now, should sleep unsoundly for supporting an obviouly cold hearted dragon like Coakley. He certainly does not need people like her on his agenda if he hopes to maintain his shaky integrity with the likes of myself.

The irony on Capt Jay’s comments is that Scott Brown campaigned saying that Massachusetts health care worked so well that we shouldn’t be forced to pay twice into a national system.

Coakley’s aloofness, poor campaigning, and missteps (calling Curt Shilling a Yankees fan?) drove at least as many voters away as Tea Partiers.

I have yet to see any health care reform deniers address any of the basic facts - we spend about double per person what other developed nations do and we fall behind on most every metric of collective success (infant mortality, life expectancy, etc). We’re even behind the much decried Canadians and British in that regard.

I’ve had to wait 3 months or more for a doctor’s appointment for years. The insurance companies have dictated what doctors I can see and on what terms as long as I’ve had insurance.

How is our current system such a marvel of efficiency?

Republicans: Party of No.

Democrats: Party of Can’t.

Cpt. Jay, WOW! You Mass. people have so much to which to react. Now all you need is principle. So far you’ve managed to turn your problems into one big “cluster-screw” for the rest of us!!!

And I’m happy to report that the NAACP and other activist-defamation groups are charging the system with discrimination in Mass. and threatening suit just as the hospitals are. It is a botched social experiment. I’m actually a reverse carpetbagger, Hasty, and, hey, never piss off Curt Schilling or Sox fans, lol. That Christopher Meyer article was right on the money, oldlegodad! The lesson for Obama: A year has passed and it’s still the economy, stupid.

It isn’t a model of efficiency, but believe me, meinthemiddle, look what this egalitarian state plan is doing to legal minorities in Mass: Latinos and Chinese primarily. 30K have been dropped and they are filing suit through various organizations.

Medicare for all and pay for it by ending the wars (how many billion/week) and revoking the tax cuts for the rich. Job done and probably with money left over to gee – maybe fix the roads.

“More Sousaphone!”

— Christopher Walken

Hear, hear!

Some interesting detail in how, and by whom/what those MA votes were counted; from BlackBoxVoting.org. Hand counts different (and faster) than ES&S and Diebold’s secret machines; guess which way?

Or, as Uncle Joe Stalin used to say, “It’s not who you vote for that counts, it’s who counts those votes!”

2sh*t’s vote: She cant run a political race, beautiful loser wing of demo party( see algore race) is “we hold the correct views, and are entitled yadda yadda, and the fact she and the msandre locked up all the fathers, brothers, uncles there.. leaves a angry male backlash that rallied into ” i drive a truck” THAT IS ALL IT TOOK”I drive a truck” as tho that is a qualification for the U.S. Senate.

The trick is to get the voters to move against the their OWN interests, like arnold did in California, the working women( state employees) voted him in to cut their own jobs. pass the baby oil for arnolds gay vote, appointed a gay Chief of staff to do the deeds- cut the disabled and the retired benefits-dental optical, create a toothless/blind class of citizens. (wat hitler called “useless eaters”

Without BIG govenment pay the EYE/Dental docs are now doing the reverse ca/okie dance and leaving in mass–fear not-the slumlords of CA still get their hated big government”sec 8 subsidies and will rent to those with degrees now thrown out of work…forget homeownership, you got tricked into that dream. while der anorld goes on TV with million Dollar ads to get people to visit CA- CA highway patrol is checking ALL out of state L. Plates, welcome to the Police state! You MUST have yr papers like some old natzi movie- cept its 2010.

History has a way of repeating ..attack the unions, the elderly, create the police state- that can not support itself, lock up all the Men, to create a short term economic boom, (90% of all college degrees in criminal just-us”)then eat yrself and yr own middle classes, busting them out of home ownership, and federal loans–You-all voted for this. now reap the war mongering taxes, and pay and pay for the police state.

I live in Massachusetts. I know people here. Captain Jay, you are simply using the loss to make your own point. Coakley lost it, Brown didn’t win it. It was a vote against someone who did a cr@p job showing her strengths and who lacked charisma, not a vote for Brown. It was also a vote against poor performance of the remaining Democrats in the Senate – Kennedy would have been re-elected in a landslide. Again. And lest we forget, Brown ranks as more liberal than two-thirds of Massachusetts Republicans. (See 538.com for details). The GOP closed ranks behind him and piled on money out of a very practical consideration: the propaganda benefits of taking Ted Kennedy’s seat.

“Coakley lost it, Brown didn’t win it”, you say. Well, one man’s defeat is another man’s victory, magus, and a vote against someone who did a “cr@p job” is still a vote in someone else’s favor, I’d say, lest you wish to split semantic hairs. And since he’s so liberal, as you contend, that should please you, no doubt.

A Haiku.

Scott Brown elected Teddy would turn in his grave But he is too fat!

wake up ! we need a robin hood not a kenedy , gert robin working here rob from the rich and give to the poor not visaversa.