Former Sen. Hagel: GOP being 'irresponsible' on healthcare »
Posted By Progressive 2 months ago in Political OpinionFormer Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) chided some of his former colleagues who have suggested that halting healthcare reform would be politically beneficial to the GOP.
"If your attitude is wrong, if your intention is to use healthcare to destroy the other party, or to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama, then it's very unlikely you're going to find much consensus from people who want to use healthcare," Hagel said earlier this month in a speech at the University of Michigan, video of which was only made available recently.
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Progressive
There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. -- Oscar Wilde
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tadair9192 months ago
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see also, Democrats saying that "if we support Obama on this, and we drive this legislation through, and we win, that will drive a stake through the GOP opposition," ....
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the 'irresponsibility' goes both ways.
on that note, hagel was wise not to support mccain during the campaign. i can't see how any pro-peace and conscientious person could ever endorse that war-hawk. at least obama lied about his pro-war tendencies. mccain straight up embraced the pro-war line like it was his teddy bear, and tried to pull in unapologetic voters who didn't want to feel indicted for being wrong about war this entire time.-
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NoWayMan1 month, 4 weeks ago
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"the 'irresponsibility' goes both ways."
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wrong.
simply because there are a lot easier ways to score poltical points against the GOP if thats all the dems are trying to do. you don't take up a really difficult fight while occupying the seat of power just to gain some political points. everyone knows that.
time to deal with the fact that the dems (well, most of them anyway) just might have america's best interst at heart when it comes to the health care debate.
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Endoscopy2 months ago
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The shear gall of this person. There are quite a few Republican proposals in congress. The Democrats ignore them and act like they do not exist. Now they have gone into a Democrat caucus like they did on the stimulus package. They will get the same result again. Then they lie and say the Republicans are only saying no. It is the Democrats that say no to anything Republican.
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sinophil492 months ago
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endo - "There are quite a few Republican proposals in congress."
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Really? The only Republican health care proposal I know was the one introduced a few months ago where the public option was eliminated, AND THE TAX BREAK FOR CORPORATIONS THAT OFFERED HEALTH INSURANCE FOR EMPLOYEES. This alone would be enough to completely kill off the perk of company-offered health care insurance.
Instead, it offered tax breaks for individuals and families to sign up with private insurers. I believe the tax breaks came up to a fraction of the real cost of the insurance policies (I'm thinking ?half?).
What a joke! Most families could not afford even half of the policy premiums to come out of their own pockets.
Then what an open invitation for insurers to rig or manipulate the cost structure of policies across the land! These companies loved it! They would have seen their profits soar even higher than it traditionally has been (2nd most profitable industry in the country).
Please enlighten us on what those "quite a few Republican proposals" in Congress are??
I know that Obama incorporated over 160 of Republican proposals into his health care insurance reform, only to have Republicans turn down the entire package and accuse the president of ignoring Republicans. A clear case of wanting to eat your cake and have it too. -
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mesodude1 month, 4 weeks ago
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"There are quite a few Republican proposals in congress."
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--No there aren't. There are quite a few ideas which center far more on maximizing insurance company profits (tort reform my @ss) than they do in making sure all Americans have health insurance. The GOP needs to stop lying. If they had any ideas, they wouldn't have waited until they were out of power to try to do something about the problem. The fact is, they don't even think there IS a problem.
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noahjw122 months ago
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Endoscopy, you may be right that their are quite a few Republican proposals for health care in congress, but it is the conservatives own fault if these are being ignored amidst the irrational and downright hysterical statements of fear coming from the right. The media - and this includes Fox News, lest you cry - 'liberal media bias' - has shown conservatives calling Obama Hitler, the Democrats 'communists' and the Obama health care plan as having a Death-panel (this by a ranking Republican politician). Until a large number of conservatives get sane and stop overreacting to what is simply a proposed solution to a real problem (not a 'far left Armaggedon that will end American freedom) than the Republicans and their supporters will have to get used to being cast as the extremists and as the side of 'NO'. They have earned the distinction
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Radiofreeeuropa2 months ago
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Actually Obama told them his door was always open to discuss any serious health care proposal. Were there any takers?
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Not one.
They claim to have proposals but the only one that emerged for scrutiny was an old one that literally did nothing but eliminate regulations on the insurance industry. Nice.
Incidentally I Always liked Chuck Hagel.
He was never part of the looney cult that has emerged as the face of the GOP.
I guess that's why he decided not to run again.
I think every reasonable republican retired in the last cycle.
Leaving only the loons. -
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Endoscopy1 month, 4 weeks ago
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You apparently do not understand what is really taking place in congress. In the house the Republicans get to have their short speeches along with the rest of the house but that is it. Any amendments are mostly ignored and the 32 bills they brought to the table are ignored. At present Pelosie has gont to a Democrat caucus to revamp their bill. If they do what happened with the failed stimulus package The will have only an up or down vote shortly after bringing it out with no chance to read the bill.
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In the senate it is harder to shut down the opposition but the amendments mostly fail and after a lot of political back and forth the Finance Committee concept bill was snatched by Reid and is being combined by him with another bill. What Republican ideas do you think are going to come out of that?
At present they are pushing in the senate for the reconciliation tactic that only then allows an up or down vote by simple majority and does not need the 60 votes normally required for this kind of bill. Reid is scared he can't get 60 votes.
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LOLbama2 months ago
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Can't drop this fast enough. The discussion of healthcare is fine. It should be discussed. IMO this former senator is simply lookin for a lil face time. Does anyone think there would be any kind of story if he spouted the party line? Same reason Snowe got a fresh 15 minutes. neg
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Wolfie20071 month, 4 weeks ago
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Dragging up remarks and comments from Hagel who is a RINO at best and liberal progressive in reality does nothing to make this story legit. The GOP have had no say in the negations of the pending health care debacle. The GOP have been ignored and even locked out of the room where the democrats are cobbling together the bill. Hagel was out of touch when he was in office and things haven't changed for him since he left.
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mesodude1 month, 4 weeks ago
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Ruh-roh...Hagel was already a target by the right wing attack machine for having the cajones to actually advocate oversight for Bush. They'll really go after him now. The sad thing is that THIS is the very type of Republican who could rescue the GOP from the brink of oblivion. I don't agree with him much ideologically (mostly on social issues) but he is one of the smarter Republicans I've observed in my life time.;-0
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