President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
August 04, 2009 09:26 PM UTC
45 Comments
Libertad plans on immediately seeking the public option to reduce his short term cost exposure.
Do I expect a tax hike? You bet I do. Sure the costs will soar, but once I’m on the government tit there I’ll have some extra cash for those new long-term investments in mainland Chinese equities and bonds!
Once the public option exists all smaller businesses will leave to it, creating a vacuum of dependants on the MediObama plan (public option).
Just as with Medicaid/Medicare, the health industry will shift costs to the idiots stuck on large corporate or government plans.
State workers and large corporation employees will see rising costs to cover me, but hey capital seeks the best return and MediObama is it!
refer to themselves in the third person.
Did you forget your meds today, Libby?
… is get the best plan. If a private company can offer a better one than the public option, why wouldn’t everyone use that?
It seems to me your big worry is the feds will be so much more efficient than the private companies they’ll earn all the customers. But isn’t that how the free market is supposed to work?
Except that usually the gov’t isn’t supposed to compete- or do it well
The better comparison is utilities which are regulated. In this case, healthcare providers have demonstrated an amazing flexibility in avoiding regulation and a public option makes sense.
Some things shouldn’t be left to the free market- police, national security, most roads and bridges, water, etc. And some things can co-exist: schools.
Healthcare isn’t really a free market thing.
They will subsidize their own plan. The whole goal of the Obama administration is to put the private insurers out of business.
I’m no fan of the insurers or the current health insurance system in America, as I’ve stated often on this site, but get real.
Unless you are going to eliminate taxation on private insurance companies and guarantee not a single dime of money goes to subsidize the government option, the outcome is clear.
Short summary: what you’re saying is either a scare tact or comes from misinformation.
The following monies will be spent by the government in the health care reform: (1) startup costs for the various Exchanges, and (2) subsidies to poor people for health care – sent to the individual and available so that they can purchase any plan from the Exchange.
The bills all specifically note that the public option will be completely self-sustaining on its premiums, and subject to the same regulations and limitations as private plans.
Private insurance companies already get their money largely pre-tax, since employers do not pay taxes on health care premiums. They also only pay taxes on profit, so they’re not penalized for the costs of actually providing the insurance…
And, just in case you didn’t connect the dots, the public option will be entirely self-financed. That means no tax money to the public option. (Except, of course, the subsidy money for lower wage earners, which they can choose to spend on any plan in their state’s Exchange, public or private…)
Any free plan will attract hundreds of millions – its economics.
If you are saying the govt option will be more expensive or poorer, then why do it at all?
Bzzt, POTUS has burned up his capital and is now scaring Americans.
* It’s not a free plan
* It will be “competitive”. Perhaps it will pay more to providers for some services, and less for others, than a private insurance company. The reform brought by the public option is in the (lack of) overhead.
(More reform is brought about by the new regulations, which will affect all plans – no rescission, no pre-conditions, everyone within a plan in the same risk pool, limit rate changes based on age… Also helping – moving people from the ER to clinics which cost significantly less, by increasing the number of covered individuals.)
This is the right way to have a public effect on this debate. Both politically and practically.
I know for a fact that Bennet has reservations about the cost-saving aspects of the bill, but he doesn’t go out front and center and make that the primary focus of his comments. He’s writing talking points for Democrats, while Jared is writing talking points for Republicans.
Nice job Sen. Bennet.
a friend to me.
good one Senator Bennet
This is a good thing and the fact is, Bennet has the money support he needs to be the candidate in 2010. Maybe he will turn out to be a pretty good Senator. Progressive Dems certainly have to hope so.
Have heard several Blue Dogs on radio etc. in the last couple of days saying nice things about a public option as long as it is done right.
Heard Howard Dean making nice to them and saying they were actually improving the legislation he wants to see by working to cut costs. Maybe the Rs aren’t going to succeed in getting Dems to help them kill meaningful solid reform after all. One can only hope.
Cost containment is every bit as important as making health insurance ubiquitous. And the blue dogs are pushing to make sure we do address the cost side of the problem.
I think Congress may actually produce some effective legislation in this case.
And I agree cost containment is important. Too bad the most cost effective way to do healthcare, single payer, is just not going to happen. People just aren’t ready for that leap and that makes coming up with something that addresses the problems in a mixed system without initially adding boatloads of cost a lot more complicated. If the Blue Dogs can help get that done without killing the public option, fine by me.
About limiting malpractice….Colorado has had a cap on malpractice awards for twenty years. Why don’t you talk about its impact on medical care in Colorado????
I mean you did know that Colorado has such a cap, right??
Between 600-1500 people are killed in Colorado hospitals every year (depends on the Study) due to Malpractice. Add the numbers of those injuries and you get to shockingly large number.
Most people want to believe their doctor and they expect their doctor to make things right when the doctor makes a mistake. Usually the doctor recognizes they made a mistake and contacts their insurance carrier before the patient (or family) even realizes the bad outcome was the result of error.
Three things really irk me. 1. Since the doctor usually know more than the patient about the situation and they know an error could have been made, the doctor gets the lawyer first even while the patient is still trying to work things out because they want to believe in the basic goodness of their doctor.
2. The only thing worse than putting a price on human life, is putting a low price on human life. A cap on damages is placing a price on life.
3. If there is no personal responsibility where is the accountability. The Board of medical examiners applies very few penalties, maybe 100 a year to doctors and less than half of those are for substandard practice of medicine. Of those only occasionally does someone lose their license. While suspension should only be used in extremis since even good doctors make mistakes, there should be more letters admonition (think of it like a speeding ticket as opposed to a license suspension).
Many doctors assume that medical mistakes happen, but that they personally never make them. I don’t think that doctors that make a mistake are necessarily a bad doctor–we all make mistakes.
Before I hear that doctors need a free pass to keep their med mal insurance rates down, take a look at Minnesota. They have the lowest medmal insurance rates, amongst the lowest cost healthcare, some of the highest quality outcomes and lowest malpractice rates despite having no caps on damages.
The problem with medical malpractice lawsuits is…. medical malpractice. We can wither allow the malpractice to continue and artificially lower the number of suits by removing personal accountability or we can change the medical culture to promote information exchange and quality checklists. In places this has been done, low and behold malpractice incidence goes down. Malpractice incidence go down and amazingly lawsuits go down. And when those few incidents that do occur happen we can compensate people, at least in financial way, for their destroyed lives.
I was injured from a very minor medical procedure that caused me major problems I will have to live with the rest of my life. The statute of limitations runs out on medical procedures in two years in Colorado no matter what. I didn’t even realize my problem was from the medical procedure until five years later. It was too late. But the really sad part about it is many other people are injured in the same way and suffer needlessly. The denial by the medical profession of this political illness is astounding. I went to 30+ doctors since the medical procedure but they kept telling me it was in my head or it’s a migraine. It took three near death experiences for me to be taken seriously but it was too late for me to be compensated. Doctors stick together and deny facts because they are not allowed to diagnose certain diseases. It’s pathetic and criminal.
Speaking as a physician who unfortunately knows too much about the medical liability issues, there are some points which need to be corrected.
First off, adverse patient outcome does not equal malpractice. The human body is complicated, and there is never a guarantee that an individual will respond the way research indicates the results of an intervention should trend. Patients expect perfect outcomes every time. Doctors realize these expectations and strive to deliver them.
Years of study and training to excel at what you do leads to the arrogance people perceive in doctors, which I would argue represents an expression of the internal drive to strive for perfection regardless of the liability climate. It’s personally offensive to me to think that doctors can only feel “personal responsibility” if they are under the threat of legal action. Behaving ethically means doing the right thing even if no-one is watching. You seem to tar doctors as inherently unethical.
Only a portion of patients who have an adverse outcome are the victims of malpractice. Only a portion of victims of malpratice sue. Only a portion of patients who sue are victims of malpractice. An ideal medical liability system identifies malpractice, compensates patients for their injuries, and re-educates or sanctions doctors who are practicing outside the standard of care resulting in patient injuries. The current tort system wherein complicated medical issues are adjudicated by a jury of your “peers” does not do this. Many medical groups in Colorado have attempted dialogue with the plaintiff’s bar to address reforming the liability system, including specialized medical courts, and have been met by an absence of negotiation and late bills attempting to bust the liability caps in the last two legislative sessions.
“Most people want to believe their doctor and they expect their doctor to make things right when the doctor makes a mistake. Usually the doctor recognizes they made a mistake and contacts their insurance carrier before the patient (or family) even realizes the bad outcome was the result of error…
“Three things really irk me. 1. Since the doctor usually know more than the patient about the situation and they know an error could have been made, the doctor gets the lawyer first even while the patient is still trying to work things out because they want to believe in the basic goodness of their doctor.”
A complication that is recognized as a potential outcome of an intervention may not be outside the standard of care, but is always an opportunity to sue. COPIC, who insures ~85% of docs in CO has a “3Rs” which compensates patients for legitimate economic consequences of adverse outcomes. It does not require that the patient relinquish their right to sue, and does not require that COPIC determine the adverse outcome was due to malpractice. Contacting COPIC and telling your patient about the 3R program is responsible behavior, and does not equal “lawyering up.”
“2. The only thing worse than putting a price on human life, is putting a low price on human life. A cap on damages is placing a price on life.”
This totally mis-represents the state of Colorado medical liability law. The economic cap can be pierced when the preciding judge determines that extraordinary costs warrant it. The non-economic cap (“pain and suffering”) attempts to value an intangible quality. Non-economic damages vary greatly between jurisdictions for similar injuries. The explosion in liability awards has been in the area of subjective, difficult to quantify non-economic damages.
Again as for the current system lacking “personal accountability”, and doctors getting a “free pass” I can only state that you demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of what it feels like to have someone’s life in your hands, and feel that there is crowd looking over your shoulder waiting to jump in and second guess your every move should things not go as planned despite your every best intention.
You bring up a lot of good points. But you are very self-centered in your outlook. To take one specific.
The fact that your intentions are good is irrelevant. The question is did you do an excellent job as measured by the present state of the art & knowledge in the medical profession.
That is why there does need to be a system that does review your mistakes to see if they are merely in the category of no one is perfect or… if they fall in the category of you are doing a sub-standard job.
“…despite your every best intention and exemplary care.”
IOW sometimes you do everything right but “shit happens” and if it does you know you are going to be blamed for it.
I’m not defending sub-standard care, I’m explaining what motivates doctors to do a good job. When soemone implies that without fear of legal action doctors will be under no pressure to give good care, I find it personally insulting.
To you that makes me “self-centered.” Again, what’s missing is empathy for what it feels like to have an expectation of perfection that seems like you have a target on your back at all times should circumstances outside your control lead to an unexpected outcome.
I am in no way defending the practice of defensive medicine, which I personally find odious. One of my partners practices to prevent getting sued, and I would wager the costs she generates in excessive testing are 1/3 higher than mine. Keep in mind that the goal of reducing medical spending will require changing doctors prescribing and test ordering practices.
“That is why there does need to be a system that does review your mistakes to see if they are merely in the category of no one is perfect or… if they fall in the category of you are doing a sub-standard job.”
I would re-phrase that as “review your adverse outcomes.” Most mistakes are harmless, and many adverse outcomes are not the product of mistakes.
And I made no argument against a system of review, and even mentioned an alternative which has thus far been quashed by the CTLA. Doctors are in favor of optimizing outcomes.
Many professions face an expectation of perfection. And as we’re all human beings, that is not going to occur. Doctors, cops, pilots, etc. have it worse in many ways because mistakes in those professions can lead to serious injury or death.
So yes, it’s rough in that respect. But I also think it’s reasonable for people to demand that – because people’s lives are at stake.
Aren’t you competing against CBMS? Considering the horror stories I’ve heard about it, it’s probably been responsible for several deaths or injuries by now…
You have the brain trusts at OIT hiring the wrong company to implement it. Then when that didn’t work, they hired an identical company to fix it.
Bad programming can kill people, but in most cases where a software project fails it’s due to how the project was managed.
“Between 600-1500 people are killed in Colorado hospitals every year (depends on the Study) due to Malpractice.”
Really? Show me one. The numbers that claim that 100K people are killed by medical errors every year is greatly inflated actuarial calculation, not based in evidence. Furthermore it counts critically ill patients whose death is hastened though not ultimately caused by the error, and those errors are not all made by doctors.
If your numbers were true, the courts would be packed, not just with malpractice cases, but wrongful death lawsuits.
I call bull.
Its based on the CO/Utah hospital malpractice.
I believe they did it in conjunction with Robert Woods Johnson.
All studies are based on statistics. Your argument against the National 100k numbers is shows a basic lack of understanding of scientific methods.
BTW “I didn’t kill you because you were sick already, isn’t really a defense to malpractice”
You can call bull if you like, but it is your study.
As to the court not having enough malpractice suits, based on the amount of malpractice committed: Ok I’ll concede that, based on the amount malpractice, there should be more lawsuits.
…Why don’t I remember writing it?
It took you a week, and you came up with nothing.
COPIC has a website, but you can’t provide a link, just insults about what I don’t understand, with no demonstration that YOU have any understanding.
It took 0.14 seconds for me to Google up a quick refutation, and with a little more time I could find more.
http://www.apsf.org/resource_c…
“Fatal Flaws?
Finally, even if the study were justified and the findings were of value, the methods by which the data were obtained and analyzed have serious, and I believe, “fatal,” flaws:
a) The sample was not representative: it was a convenience sample of elderly veterans from seven participating VA hospitals. Not a population from which to extrapolate to national estimates!
b) The sample was very small. The conclusions in this report are based on multiple reviews. (That was one point of the report – that with multiple reviews you get closer to the truth.) But reviews were only multiple for 62 patients (not 111 as the abstract indicates). Fifty-nine patients had only one review, and 33 had two reviews (the number used in the Medical Practice Study (MPS)), so only 29 patients had more reviews than in previous studies. Therefore, conclusions were made about the universe of patients who die in hospitals based on a variable number of reviews of 62 nonrepresentative patients.
c) Actually, the major finding that only 0.5% would have lived three months in the absence of an error is based on the evaluation of only seven patients! The authors found that 6% of patients probably would have survived with optimal care. With a total sample of 111, that equals 7 patients. (The low confidence limits reflect the large number of reviews. Get enough judgments and it gets very low – but it is still based on just seven patients!)
d) The multiple reviews were not done randomly. Why would anyone design a study to assess inter-rater reliability in this way?
e) The statistical methods were inappropriate. I am not qualified to independently judge this, so I asked the two best statisticians I know at Harvard. They identified several maneuvers that they felt led to false (low) conclusions, including the use of back transformation by means of inverse log-odds transformation and lack of true randomization of reviewers. The immense variation [one-14] in reviews suggests it was an assignment of convenience. The use of inappropriate confidence intervals does not reflect the sampling variability of records and reviewers. I call it “tortured” statistics, which some have found offensive. At the very least, I think a fair reading is that there are serious methodological questions that should give anyone pause in extrapolating these results. ”
Care to try again?
Your “refutation” was an op ed. Could it be self serving?
The study I was referring to as “yours” was a CMS COPIC Study, I think this is the one.
Negligent Care and Malpractice Claiming Behavior in Utah and Colorado
Author(s): David M. Studdert, Eric J. Thomas, Helen R. Burstin, Brett I. W. Zbar, E. John
Orav, Troyen A. Brennan
Source: Medical Care, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Mar., 2000), pp. 250-260
Published by: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/37…
These numbers fall right in line with the range of numbers produced by the Institute of Medicine’s “to err is Human” from whence the 100k deaths a year from medical error comes.
Of the patients who suffered negligent injury in our study sample, 97% did not sue.
I know you want special protections, but I believe doctors are people and should be responsible for their accidents just like I would be if I killed someone while driving a car.
Accidents happen and when they do you should take responsibility and try to restore the person you hurt. Before you mention the 3Rs please note it caps out (if I remember correctly) $30k in unreimbursed medical bills (how far does that go) and $100 a day in lost wages up to a max of 50 days. I don’t know how much you make doctor, but that doesn’t sound like restitution to me.
Know one likes being wrong, and it is unfortunate that the stakes are so high in your profession, but that’s why you are required to have insurance. The harms that result from your errors are catastrophic, and should be acknowledged as such: when you artificially try to protect doctors you hurt people precisely when they are at their most vulnerable.
BTW your refutation is just an OP-Ed. They can be self serving, I remember Cheney penning a few for the Wall Street Journal.
…I’ll tell you that you argue like a punk (because “bitch” is misogynist.)
“I know you want special protections,”
Really? Where did I write that?
“but I believe doctors are people and should be responsible for their accidents ”
And I’ve claimed they shouldn’t be?
“Accidents happen and when they do you should take responsibility and try to restore the person you hurt.”
Why are you making this personal? “A doctor should”, or “the person one hurt”
makes your point without the insult. And I have not asserted the contrary of your position.
“Know one likes being wrong,”
And sadly not all errors can be caught by spellcheck.
“The harms that result from your errors are catastrophic, and should be acknowledged as such:”
And I’ve denied that? Of course you ignore minor injuries from clear malpractice that aren’t worth enough for a lawyer to take the case, which are currently ignored by the tort system
“when you artificially try to protect doctors”
I wasn’t aware that the tort system was “natural.”
As for the actual substance of disagreement, you don’t refute my source, only add an ad hominem attack. What’s wrong with the reasoning?
As for lack of understanding, the IOM report is clear that many preventable patient deaths are not the result of individual malpractice, but system errors, so your statement “These numbers fall right in line with the range of numbers produced by the Institute of Medicine’s “to err is Human” from whence the 100k deaths a year from medical error comes” is hogwash even if I accept your citation at face value. I have trouble doing so, as it is only an abstract, which mentions NOTHING about how their chart review determined what constituted a “negligent adverse event.”
That flaw makes it impossible for me to judge your claim, but I will point out that >75% of the patients who sued in this study had no legitimate basis for a claim.
If this is the system you defend, it’s pretty weak. If you think this sytem needs improvement, I’d like to hear how.
I haven’t even begun to search for a better refutation of the IOM study, but Iknow it’s out there. I’m not sure you’d buy it if I cited it…
A recent Institute of Medicine report that states that medical errors had a major impact on death rate is overstated, according to a new analysis of the data which formed the basis of the report. The IOM report relies heavily on an observational study without a control group to make exaggerated claims about large numbers of preventable deaths according to an article published in the July 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Analyzing available comparison data, the authors of the letter found that adverse events in the original study of 31,429 patients had no estimable effect on the death rate. Adverse events are defined in the IOM study as injuries caused by medical management.
The JAMA letter, written by Clement McDonald, M.D., Michael Weiner, M.D., and Siu Hui, Ph.D. of the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care and the Indiana University School of Medicine, says that the IOM report overemphasized and overdramatized data from a 1984 study of New York hospital admissions. They write that this report did not isolate a critical determinant of death – the fact that the patients studied were already quite ill.
“Patients admitted to hospitals have high risks before they even enter the hospital. Although some hospital deaths are clearly preventable, most will occur no matter how many ‘accidents’ we avoid. This base-line death risk has to be known and factored out before we draw any conclusions about the real effect of adverse reactions on death rates preventable or otherwise,” says Drs. McDonald, Weiner and Hui.
The authors point out that the IOM report’s assertion that the 13.6 percent death rate is caused by medical errors is tantamount to saying that the death rate would be zero among equally sick hospital patients who had a similar baseline death risk but avoided an adverse event. “Common experience tells us that this could not be true,” they say.
I know, this one is suspect because it’s a press release
But I sense from this release that the conclusion is “you can’t commit malpractice on a sick person, because they would have died anyway.”
A woman told me that is basically what the doctors told her when they left a towel in her sister’s abdomen after surgery.
…who alleges that I don’t understand how to read a study, you completely missed the point that without a control group to measure how many patients would have died regardless, the numbers are meaningless. You also ignored my assertion that the IOM study was more about system errors than personal malpractice.
You biases are quite apparent, as you think doctors are a bunch of killers on the loose who have no accountability short of getting sued. As far as I’m concerned, you started with the insults. If you had any factual assertions to make you’d have done so by now, but you haven’t. Waaahhh!!!
I indicated I would read the study when I found it (I have not discovered any study yet).
As to “system error:” due to changes in the law pushed by COPIC, a patient can’t seek restitution from the “system.” If you want to bring back joint and several liability and make the corporations that doctors and hospitals operate under responsible for their “systems,” be my guest, it is likely I would support that.
As to my opinion of doctors: I don’t think you are a bunch of killers, I think you are human beings who make errors and sometimes those errors kill, maim or torture people. I don’t believe that doctors who make errors are bad people or even necessarily even bad doctors.
I do believe there is little accountability since the BME sanctions around 100 doctors a year and less than half of those are for substandard practice of medicine (the rest are for things like substance abuse and “boundary issues”).
BTW I have countered with link to a study that supports my positions, I have even attempted to find the studies you cite to.
http://courses.mbl.edu/mi/2008…
It was followed by an oped from a Dr. from Harvard Medical School who believes there were flaws in the study that grossly underestimated the amount of malpractice.
This is why I like looking at the raw studies and multiple data sets if I can.
I apologize for my spelling, I make errors (particularly in spelling).
There is a new study out there that actually puts the number of deaths at 200k, but I don’t cite it because there are numerous studies that put the number near 100K and I believe in using a best estimate number based on multiple data points. Please feel free to cite any studies that posit a lower number of people killed by doctors.
While refutations of a single IOM study have value, I would prefer to see what IOM opponents think the number of deaths are.
I will check back to see if you post any study links, but other than that I think I am done since you have decided to start calling me names.
CA put one in place in the early 70’s. Costs kept right on going up. Why? Because malpractice is but 1% of our national medical bill. That includes jury awards and settlements. To my knowledge, it does not include insurance premiums, which for the most part are fees that the insurance companies pull out of their ass, how deep depending how scared they are or what they think they can get away with.
Only with the passage of Prop 104 (??) when insurers were forced to open their books did medical insurance rates go down.
Only a strong insurance regulator will control out of control premiums. Truth is the insurance cycle and the investment cycle drives premiums more than anything else.
A couple of years ago when I was looking for auto rate quotes for my Jeep in Englewood, I decided to plug in the info for where I used to live in the San Fernando Valley.
Although it was sort of hard to compare kumquats and walnuts, I tried to get things as close as I could.
The rates in the SFV were not much more than in CO, and considering inflation, are probably cheaper than when I was there in the 80’s. I would credit 103 for that.
BTW, my premium dropped $200 a year after I moved from Denver near Manual High to Englewood. That was about 20%!
If you want to reduce insurance rates, enforce transparency and accountability in the insurance industry. Insurance companies shouldn’t be allowed to cost-shift their bad investments and bad doctors onto good ones.
And yes, caps devalue human life. When caps reduce you to your earnings value in the eyes of the law, it penalizes a whole bunch of people who have no “economic” value – seniors, minorities, stay at home moms, and most notably, kids. If a child dies from medical negligence in this state – or others with caps – good luck taking the responsible party to court. Or if a senior dies from neglect or abuse in a nursing home, same thing.
What is a life lost worth?
Unfortunately, our system sees only earnings potential.
What about lower income Joe Six Pack working in the mill that raises his kids to be good parents, good citizens, and compassionate members of the community.
Oh, never mind.
I worried about whether or not he’d support a public option. Seeing him on board is heartening.
The teabaggers married to the Big Insurance interests don’t seem to understand that an industry with double digit inflating costs, the bulk of which are tied up in paperwork and administrative overhead designed to deny care, that there really isn’t “competition” in the insurance “market.” To understand why, these folks should go back and read about Roosevelt…Teddy, that is.
A market is broken when — whether by simple function or by design — it doesn’t meet its core purpose of provision. When the attendant costs to that are passed on to the taxpayers and the creditors of those forced into bankruptcy because of a failed system, for right-wing activists to double down and defend failure is simply an act of self abuse.
Good for Senator Bennet for not caving in to the astroturfers and the special interests.
please take note.
I just finished listening to Polis trying to explain the evils of the clash for clunkers to Mario on 760.
He in effect said he would have rather given 2 billion to the steel industry than overpay customers for their trade ins. He definately wasn’t backpeddaling about his remark that the program represented the worst of the 2 parties’ ideas.
When Mario flat confronted him about the fact that he didn’t sign on to the progressives in the house, but is with the blue dogs, he flatlined. His mish-mush answer was really disappointing.
Is this guy a republican?
Millions for corporations, not a penny for consumers.
Speaking of “the worst of the 2 parties’ ideas,” I think we’ve managed to find a single douche who somehow manages to espouse them all.
In Polis’ view, the “cash for clunkers” is a failure precisely because it’s a success. You can’t demonstrate to people that government can help them in any material way. They should believe that only benevolent entrepreneurs can help them.
Otherwise, who’d give a shit about Polis?