Re: Brown Wins

It will be interesting to see what happens.

What, Obamacare not popular??? ....... in Ted Kennedy's home state no less???

Scott Brown just did the Democratic party a HUGE favor.  They now have been forewarned and may be able change course enough to avoid the calamity they were headed toward in Nov.

I wonder what happens to Obamacare now. Without that Senate majority some deals will have to be done.

This sure upset Keith Olbermann. He's now calling Massachusetts voters racist. Sad. Deluded. Desperate.

Things sure ain't looking rosy for Obama's anniversary!

Nick

Especially for us Brits, The London Times produced a handy 20 facts about Scott Brown - all of which make me think MA has elected a fairly level headed sort of guy. There's something wrong about political dynasties - about time Boston has a fresh start.

Hey Nate - did he get your vote?

All about Scott Brown

1 Mr Brown owns a truck, a 2005 GMC Canyon pick-up, with 200,000 miles on the clock.

2 At the age of 22, as a law student in Boston, he was named America's Sexiest Man by Cosmopolitan magazine. He posed naked as its centrefold in its June 1982 issue. He is now a practising real estate attorney.

3 He has two daughters: Ayla is a college basketball champion and former American Idol semi-finalist; Arianna is a pre-med student at Syracuse University.

4 Mr Brown is also a basketball player. At Tufts University he was known as Downtown Scotty Brown, possibly for his long-distance jumpshots.

5 At the age of 12 he was caught shoplifting but returned to the straight and narrow after a judge made him write a 1,500-word essay on why his brothers and sisters would not want to see him play basketball in jail.

6 He has been married for 23 years to Gail Huff, a reporter at WCBV-TV in Boston.

7 His parents divorced when he was a toddler; both have remarried three times.

8 Mr Brown joined the Massachusetts National Guard at the age of 19 and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel before he reached the mandatory retirement age of 50 in September last year.

9 He has served as a defence lawyer for the Guard and has also been deployed to Paraguay and Kazakhstan.

10 The Senate seat he won was occupied by John F. Kennedy, before he came president, and then, for almost 47 years, by his brother, Ted Kennedy.

11 He ran a web-savvy campaign, raising $1.3 million in a single day in an online "money bomb". Portraying himself as a hard-working, regular guy, he drove his truck everywhere during the campaign.

12 Barack Obama told voters in Massachusetts: "Anyone can own a truck."

13 Mr Brown first won public office in 1992. He was elected to the Massachusetts state senate in March 2004.

14 He is widely seen as a liberal Republican: he supports legalised abortion but opposes same-sex marriage.

15 In Massachusetts, he backed state healthcare reform. But he has promised to oppose Mr Obama's nationwide healthcare reforms because he says they would cost too much.

16 He is a champion triathlete, who gets up to train at 5am.

17 He worships at a Protestant chapel in Franklin but has raised over $5 million for an order of Cistercian nuns in Wrentham, Norfolk county.

18 He told his victory party: "I'm Scott Brown. I'm from Wrentham. I drive a truck. And I'm nobody's senator but yours."

19 He also decided to introduce his two daughters to his supporters and announced that they were "both available", but was quickly reminded that Arianna had a boyfriend. "Arianna's definitely not available but Ayla is," he added.

20 Mr Brown received a congratulatory phone call from Mr Obama after his victory. He said that he had offered to drive his truck up to Washington for a two-on-two game of basketball on the White House court.  

OOh, he owns a truck! I pray (but highly doubt) that anyone actually voted for him for that reason.

He did not get my vote, although I gave it serious consideration.

The Daily Show did a fantastic recap the night before the election.

I really think this was more about Coakley losing the election than Brown winning it. She almost NEVER campaigned and seemed to act like it was an assumed victory. As a registered Independent, I received about 10 calls for Brown and 1 for Coakley, and the Providence (RI) channels seemed to have the same ratio of ads. She just didn't really try, at all.

Nate said: "I really think this was more about Coakley losing the election than Brown winning it"

That is certainly not what the exit interviews at the polls concluded. Overwhelming 72% was a vote against Health care and Obama fiscal policy. Coakley had that noose of Health Care around her neck.  

So are exit polls reliable? Because if so, Kerry won Ohio in the 2004 election, right?

Coakley simply didn't run a campaign. She spent her whole time in DC and took it for granted that she was going to win. Give Brown credit, he ran a heck of a campaign, but had Coakley actually run a campaign, she would have won.

I'd like to see the R's take the House or the Senate.  That way, we're almost guaranteed absolute gridlock in D.C.   Our government is least dangerous in this type of environment.  Both parties have demonstrated they are totally FUBAR and I get very nervous when one or the other runs amok unchecked.

Its a cynical view, I know, but I'm afraid that is the reality as I see it.

And now we learn that Obama and Brown are related:

www.npr.org/.../story.php

I agree grid lock is a very good thing for the economy. When you have grid lock you can predict what Washington will do and make a living.

I don't care if repubs take majority in any house, all I know is they will capture enough in both houses  to grid lock WS.

natescape

OOh, he owns a truck! I pray (but highly doubt) that anyone actually voted for him for that reason.

Actually,I bet a LOT of people voted for him specifically for that reason. Well, sort of. In the sense that the public is stupid, and easily duped. Brown confirmed what we already knew - that a person who has lead a life of priviledge can easily dupe the public into thinking they are an average joe by driving a truck, clearing brush, etc.. Brown's only "ideas" displayed during the campaing seemed to be to just oppose everything Obama has proposed (and never propose anything of his own of how to fix the mess 8 years of Republican rule got us in). Instead, Brown's campaign seemed to rely entirely on portraying himself as an average Joe. Thus, his campaign slogan - "I'm Scott Brown, I drive a truck".

Of course, he is very wealthy. His second home is up here in Rye, NH, a very expensive place to live. The local newspaper (which leans heavily Republican) did a big front page story about the local auto detailing shop that got the honor of detailing his famous truck while his family was on vacation at their Rye home. Sure, hundreds of thousands are dead in Haiti, we're in two wars, our economy is only slowly pulling back from the brink. But, what gets the top of the front page, and the longest story of the day? "I got to detail Scott Brown's truck!". Pathetic.

I really think this was more about Coakley losing the election than Brown winning it. She almost NEVER campaigned and seemed to act like it was an assumed victory. As a registered Independent, I received about 10 calls for Brown and 1 for Coakley, and the Providence (RI) channels seemed to have the same ratio of ads. She just didn't really try, at all.

True, that was a big issue. Not to mention that Coakley did an excellent job of irritating people whenever she would try to say anything non-political (like referring to Curt Schilling as a Yankee's fan).

..... or maybe they just thought Obama's attempt at healthcrare reform was total crap .....

That would be a reasonable assumption, if

a.) THe public had a reasonable understanding of what Obama's health care reform actually is. Most people clearly have no clue - all they know is what their favorite political talking heads tell them, which generally has only a sliver of truth in it, if that. And the more vocal someone is about health care, the less they seem to know about what the bill actually contains (i.e. see all of the people at "Tea Party" events still saying things like "Obama lies, Grandma dies", etc., who think it creates death panels, blah blah blah).

b.) Brown had campaigned on an alternative way of fixing health care in this country. His campaign was "I'm Scott Brown, I drive a truck". And that was about it. Oh, and of course blaming Obama for our bad economy, massive deficit, and the other problems that his predecessor was responsible for.

I'm all for abolishing both parties.  It's obvious that neither actually votes the way their constituents wants, only what their party wants.

Wouldn't be a wonderful thing to actually have politicians that listened to the people that put them in office in the first place?

We could start by taking away all the big salaries they make....making them an "average Joe", then take away that sweet government healthcare plan they all have...  see if they don't  ALL vote for change then.

Make them represent the people not the party gets my vote.

I disagree with several points here.

a) I know several people who work as private contractors and don't have health insurance.  They make enough not to be eligable for subsidies ounder Obamacare, yet would be subject to the mandate to purchase health insurance themselves.  As you know, to do that is veryexpensive.  This bill contains no public option alternative, so these individuals would have no alternative and would be forced to pony up.

I know several people in this situation who are indeed informed, and livid at the admin for supporting a bill with mandates, but no public alternative.   IMO Scott Brown just did the Democrats a HUGE favor by killing(likely) Obamacare.

Also, the POTUS promised transparency in the negotion of his reform package, yet most of the decisions were made behind closed doors with llittle public input.    If some people are uninformed about the bill, well, its not too surprising.  Even the senate itself was not given a chance to thouroughly study the bill before they voted out of the leadership's fear the more details that became public, the more opposition to it would grow.  They wanted it passed ASAP.

People were also very put off by the way the process was handled, with basically bribing some Senators like Bill Nelson and Mary Landriue just to get them to sign on.  That made an unpopular piece of legislation radioactive, yet the powers that be were still determined to ram it down our throats.

b) Given the above, Brown did not need to offer any alternative in order to win over voters.  His main campaign promise of killing Obamacare was plenty sufficient .

For me as a small biz owner   ,I LIKE OBAMA CARE PLAN.

It will allow me to drop my employees health care coverage as the fines are much less expensive. I can give my employees a raise, drop their coverage, pay the fines, and still come out way ahead. I will just let the public option take care of that expense. Oops I mean let you pay for it. Not my problem or responsibility anymore. Lot less paperwork and expense for me.

SmokeStack

I disagree with several points here.

a) I know several people who work as private contractors and don't have health insurance.  They make enough not to be eligable for subsidies ounder Obamacare, yet would be subject to the mandate to purchase health insurance themselves.  As you know, to do that is veryexpensive.  This bill contains no public option alternative, so these individuals would have no alternative and would be forced to pony up.

1. The bill would create a national health care "exchange", allowing individuals in that position (or any position) to pool their buying power together with other people from all over the country to get lower rates - which would be far, far cheaper than the current cost of buying health insurance as a sole individual. The Republicans keep saying that we should fix health care by allowing people to "shop across state lines" - the exchange allows people to do that, but goes even further, by allowing the pooling of buying power from private individuals. Currently, people without health insurance go to emergency rooms for treatment, and get massive bills to pay for it. Most of them skip on the bills, since they can't afford it - and hospitals then jack up the prices for everyone else to cover the free treatment of uninsured people.

Creating the national exchange would allow private contractors (or anyone) to pool their buying power to buy health insurance *affordably*. Doing so would also reduce the number of people using emergency rooms for any health needs, freeing them up for actual emergencies, and decreasing hospital costs (several of my relatives work in the ER - based on what they all say, this would be a HUGE improvement).

2. DO you like the idea of not allowing insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions? If so, then that HAS to come with a mandate requiring everyone to be insured. Without that mandate, most people who are healthy would opt to not have health insurance, and then just get it whenever they actually need it due to injury or illness, since the insurance companies would have to allow them to buy in. The result would be that the pool of people paying for health insurance would drastically drop - only the sick would be paying for insurance. Since their care is expensive since they already have some health problem, the cost of insurance would skyrocket. Health Insurance is essentially the healthy people subsidizing the care of sick/injured people, who do so since the risk of themselves getting sick or injured, combined with the potential cost of that care, makes it economically worthwhile. If we make it illegal to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions, but don't require everyone to have health care, the whole system collapses.

These are things that everyone SHOULD support. Of course, you don't actually hear the whole issues explained - instead, you just get people claiming Obama is going to create death panels, or only giving half the story ("he's going to require you to buy health care!" - but no explanation of WHY that is necessary to deal with the issue of health care insurers denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions - a problem everyone agrees should be fixed. Nor do critics point out how the exchange will make it far more affordable for private contractors to get insurance through pooling of buying power. Instead, they say "we should instead allow people to buy insurance across state lines!" - as if the exchange DOESN'T do that?)

I know several people in this situation who are indeed informed, and livid at the admin for supporting a bill with mandates, but no public alternative. 

If they are informed, they would not be livid. The exchange would allow far cheaper options for private contractors, small businesses, self-employed, etc.. The administration is not the one who killed the public alternative - Republicans and a handful of democrats did (i.e. Lieberman).

Also, the POTUS promised transparency in the negotion of his reform package, yet most of the decisions were made behind closed doors with llittle public input. 

He didn't write the bill - Congress wrote it. He told them what he wanted in there, quite openly (through a public address - can't get more transparent than that). He can't require Congressmen to do everything in the open (COngress could pass a law requiring that). He can TRY to make things more open, but his power is limited.

If some people are uninformed about the bill, well, its not too surprising.  Even the senate itself was not given a chance to thouroughly study the bill before they voted out of the leadership's fear the more details that became public, the more opposition to it would grow.  They wanted it passed ASAP.

IMO it was more out of fear that the fear-mongering that was going on would continue to gain more traction.

People were also very put off by the way the process was handled, with basically bribing some Senators like Bill Nelson and Mary Landriue just to get them to sign on. 

Unfortunately, that is the way virtually ALL legislation gets passed in this country. EVERY congressman loves to come home to his state/district and brag about how much federal dollars he was able to direct his way (which happens due to this buying/selling of votes, and being on a committee where you can slide stuff like that in). Of course, to every other state/district, it is pork spending - but the idiots in each individual state/district just love to see more money coming to their own region.

b) Given the above, Brown did not need to offer any alternative in order to win over voters.  His main campaign promise of killing Obamacare was plenty sufficient .

Sure, to people who don't bother to learn how the exchange works, why we need health insurance mandates, etc..

dereckbc

For me as a small biz owner   ,I LIKE OBAMA CARE PLAN.

It will allow me to drop my employees health care coverage as the fines are much less expensive. I can give my employees a raise, drop their coverage, pay the fines, and still come out way ahead. I will just let the public option take care of that expense. Oops I mean let you pay for it. Not my problem or responsibility anymore. Lot less paperwork and expense for me.

It would work better for your employees, since the collective buying power they could tap into through the national exchange would be far greater than you have as a small business - so they should be able to get a much better price through the exchange than you would be able to get for them. So, you would come out ahead by dropping their coverage and giving them a raise to pay their cost through the exchange.

Mike while I respect your POV you seem to be missing something. I will not be giving a large enough raise for employees to go out and buy government insurance. They will only be getting a small fraction of the $700 per month it cost me. Most of my employees are young and healthy and will just pay the fine and have no insurance. If they get hurt or major medical they will just have the Government pay for their care in a public hospital or clinic.

The insurance you speak of will be government subsidized. IMO no more entitlements period.

dereckbc

Mike while I respect your POV you seem to be missing something. I will not be giving a large enough raise for employees to go out and buy government insurance. They will only be getting a small fraction of the $700 per month it cost me. Most of my employees are young and healthy and will just pay the fine and have no insurance. If they get hurt or major medical they will just have the Government pay for their care in a public hospital or clinic.

The insurance you speak of will be government subsidized. IMO no more entitlements period.

If that is the way it works out, then to me that means the fines need to be considerably higher. The overall approach is a good one. We should make it illegal to allow companies to drop or deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions - which requires the mandate for coverage. That part is fine (exactly what the fines should be though is debatable).

I personally don't see a reason we should have a fine for companies that don't provide health insurance. Providing health insurance or not should just be part of the process of trying to recruit better employees.

I think the exchange system is a good approach for allowing private contractors and small businesses to get much better prices on health care. Right now it may cost you $700/month, but through the exchange, you should be able to get prices as good as or better than large companies get - which would be a significant drop from that $700/month.

IMO HOSPITALS also need to fix how they do ER business. If a person shows up at the ER for care, yes, you have to treat them. But, if a person doesn't pay their bill - go after them. Don't just drop the issue and pass the cost on to everyone else. The problem is that right now, there are young people who can afford health insurance, but choose not to get it, since they can instead just go to the ER and skip on the bills if they get injured. If they do that though, the hospital should go after them until their credit rating completely tanks (or they pay up). That is something hospitals need to fix, not the government.

It is not government that foots the bill when people go to the ER without insurance (whether a public hospital or otherwise) - it is everyone with insurance. Hospitals don't go after the people who skip on their bills, instead just raising their prices for everything else - which is a significant reason why hospital care is so expensive. Talk to people who work in the ER, it is a HUGE problem (not only for economics, but it is also why people with legitimate emergencies get stuck waiting for hours at the ER, because of all the uninsured people who use it as primary care). That HAS To be fixed.