Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Politics / Woods Cooper Derides Colleagues as Hillbilly Dumbasses in the Washington Post
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 1:11 PM
Routinely. for example, a lot of my rural friends will say we can't recruit doctors to rural areas because Medicare pays too little. But Medicare pays pretty much market rate. Medicaid pays much less than that. So I'll say don't you mean Medicaid? Then they'll say that they're not on the Health Committee. But these are the most important programs in the country for their constituents!While this is doubtless true, does Cooper have to say it? This is the congressman who disdains pork-barrel spending so much that he'd rather watch Center Hill Dam collapse than vote for an earmark. That's standing on principle! This is also the guy who pissed on the legs of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi over the economic stimulus package. Remember that? Does he expect to do anything in Congress, um, maybe for us, his constituents? If so, then he sorta needs to shut his trap. Here's our question: Does Jim Cooper know the difference between a know-it-all smartass and an effective congressman?
Comments (13)
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Regardless of what Medicaid pays, the indisputable fact is that Medicare DOES pay less in rural areas than in urban ones like Nashville. The Medicare reimbursement formula assumes that costs in urban areas are higher; therefore, these hospitals get more for the same procedures under the complex reimbursement formula. Rural providers (Nashville's LifePoint Healthcare is among them) have been lobbying for years for CMS to adjust the formula because rural hospitals are having a very hard time breaking even these days. They won some modest adjustments a couple of years ago, but it hasn't been enough. Cooper, who knows the healthcare business as well as anyone in the House, surely understands all this, so it's a little puzzling why he would take this tack.
Of course, it's hard to dispute that around 75% of Cooper's House colleagues — rural, urban, Democrat, Republican — are moronic half-wits. Though some of his stories are obviously self-serving, it is nonetheless chilling to hear Cooper talk about how colleagues will approach him before a floor vote on a bill to get his insights into what the bill actually says. It appears that many of them haven't actually read the bill and simply take their cues from whatever lobbyists/interest groups with which they're most closely allied. The lobbyists read ALL the bills (and write a lot of them, too), so they know exactly what's in there and advise their Congressional representatives how to vote.
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You've got to be kidding me. You deride him for "pissing on" the stimulus bill, but completely ignore that he is the prime SPONSOR of the bill to begin taxing our health benefits.
Your views are far more insulting to sensibility than his have ever been, and I don't care for his policies in the least.
So, are you on the gravy list for an earmark, or are you waiting for the Village Voice to receive a bailout? And where is the part where he calls people "hillbillies" or "dumbasses?"
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/remember_a_few_years_ago_how_c.html
Since he stands up to criticism far better than you or your staff, you will probably censor me yet again.
While this is doubtless true, does Cooper have to say it?
Hell yeah he has to say it. We're in the middle of a major national debate about healthcare and the fact that members of Congress don't even know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid is pretty important.
So Lady Beale, how does it help the cause of national health care to call half of Congress nitwits?
Woods,
It helps the cause about as much as it does when you twist a casual comment from one of the best members in Congress and label him a "know-it-all smart-ass."
Henry, are you trying to wrangle an appointment out of Cooper? You are a blatant suckup. It's disgusting. I really don't think Pith can have much impact on the national health care debate. You don't think he's dissing his "rural friends" when he goes out of his way to tell the Washington Post that they don't know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid?
So Lady Beale, how does it help the cause of national health care to call half of Congress nitwits?
But he didn't call them nitwits, YOU did.
:-)
Sorry but I think you're wrong in this case. Congress critters are engaging the public on healthcare right now. It's helpful to know that they're as clueless about this issue as most of their constituents.
And one more thing: he didn't "go out of his way" to tell the Washington Post that his colleagues are uninformed. He's Vice Chairman of the Blue Dog Health Care Task Force. The Blue Dogs have been at odds with the President on the public option and now that Cooper has broken with the Blue Dogs on the "trigger" his phone has been ringing off the hook. He's in the thick of the healthcare debate and if he's needling his fellow Blue Dogs for being uninformed about the basics of our healthcare system, well, it makes perfect sense.
Thank you Mr Cooper. You has been verrry good to us & our very deserving HMO executives. Health care for the healthy!
Sincerely - Harry and Louise
The main difference between Medicare and Medicaid is that the former is a federal government program funded directly by federal taxapayers while the latter are nominally state programs (in reality mandated by the federal government) that are funded by state tax revenues.
With a bunch of the so-called federal "stimulus" money going to states to bail out their failing Medicare programs however, they are increasingly becoming direct federal taxpayer programs as well.
The one thing that both have in common is that the federal government never had any legitimate Constitutional authority to ever create or mandate either of them.
"While this is doubtless true, does Cooper have to say it?
Hell yeah he has to say it. We're in the middle of a major national debate about health care and the fact that members of Congress don't even know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid is pretty important."
You are right. It does need pointing out that most of the players don't even know what the hell that their even talking about. Most of them want to just vote "NO" on any kind of good health care reform. Hey, why should they worry? While we are being slowly murdered by insurance companies refusing treatment, or not being insures at all, congress has got the top medical care in the country. Paid for by YOU & ME!!
The comment should have referred to most
of congress rather than to point out urban
or rural, or to one section of the country
versus another. While I'm at it, the comment should have included Republicans and
Democrats either progressive, moderate, or
conservative!
