Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Congress / Woods Jim Cooper: 'We're Doing Double Back Flips to Help the Uninsured'
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 7:29 AM
Of the 100 congressional districts with the highest rates of uninsured people, 53 are represented either by Republican lawmakers or by Blue Dogs, according to helpful new data from the Census Bureau. A lot of these same lawmakers oppose health care reform, and Blue Dogs hate the public option. Meanwhile, the Blue Dogs' PAC has raked in $301,500 so far this year from health care and health insurance PACs.
NPR suspects a quid pro quo here, but Cooper denies it:
"The chief impetus of this whole effort is to help the uninsured. It's unquestionably true in politics that powerful interests have probably a disproportionate voice, but we're doing double back flips to help the uninsured."
But while the Blue Dogs may be trying to help the uninsured, as one person in the NPR article points out, they're also trying really hard not to hurt the insurance industry too much in the process.
Comments (6)
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Meaningless when they're doing triple lutz frontflips with 8 1/2 twists & a blowjob to protect the healthcare industry.
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The Long, Strange Trip of Congressman Jim Cooper -
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/20/784510/-The-Long,-Strange-Trip-of-Congressman-Jim-Cooper
'The question, though, is how many other Democrats could find themselves in jeopardy if Cooper and his ideological allies get their way.
Health care reform completely stifled by internecine warfare among Democrats and unified opposition among Republicans?
As a result, an energized GOP base, having successfully smothered "evil socialism" in the crib?
Conversely, a depressed Democratic base, having twice in their recent lifetimes watched their efforts to elect Democratic presidents and huge Congressional majorities be for naught?
Somehow, it seems that we have all seen this movie before.'
I think it's wrong to characterize that "NPR suspects a quid pro quo here"(even if I personally do suspect it).
Peter Overby, the NPR reporter who wrote the story, would probably say his report is making no claims that he suspects anything, that he is merely laying out pertinent facts. Fortunately, that's the way I read the story, without any overt claim of "suspicion" of anything, which would seem to me to be unprofessional.
On a side note, Overby seems to be a good reporter, but is sometimes hard to take seriously on the air because he sounds too much like David Sedaris.
You guys missed a great opportunity to animate that "blue dog" graphic on this post. If any post cries out for GIF animation, this one does.'
http://www.mindspring.com/~joelmoses/blue_dog_rolls.gif
Embrace the cheese!
You can still support reducing the uninsured and not support the public option. Massachusetts did that with their healthcare expansion program. I don't see why the PO has to be included from the get go. It seems like a trigger action would be the best way.
