Will Obamacare Destroy the Democrats?

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Today, Andrew Romano notes that:

Quote:

Writing in today's Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard editor and FOX News contributor [Fred Barnes] boldly declares that "The Health Care Wars Are Only Beginning." "Passage wouldn't end the health-care debate," Barnes predicts. "Rather, it would perpetuate Obamacare as the dominant issue for decades to come, reshape politics, create an annual funding crisis in Congress, and generate a spate of angry lawsuits." The effect, he says, will be like "a political explosion," "preoccupy[ing] the president, Congress and millions of average Americans for the foreseeable future"and then some."

He asks:

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But is his prognostication true? Will Obamacare decimate the Democratic Party in November and consume Washington for millennia to come?

What follows is a riposte well worth reading.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 14 • Views: 8,899 • Replies: 103

@nimh,

The national political situation is highly unstable, it is impossible to say what will happen years out. Clearly the DEMS assume that the fact that the purchased benefits kick in before Nov, long before the american people will be faced with the tab for payment, will get them through the next election. IDK, Americans are pissed off and paying attention and are not as easy to buy off as we normally are. It will be interesting to see of the Dems guessed right.

We still need to see if the insurance companies obscenely jack up rates and drop people before the law takes effect. Banks certainly did that before the credit card protection law went into effect. The Dems might still get tarred for introducing all of this turmoil into the great recession when it did not have to happen.

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Health Care will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Social Security did (and for the same reasons).

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@ebrown p,

sarcasm I assume...SS ran massive surpluses for years because of the nature of the program. With healthcare we are paying for services long before we attempt to collect payment, and no one thinks that this program is even remotely planned to pay for itself. I grant you that there are still a good number of fools running around who think that the charge card is available to pay for all of this, but it is not. we are trying to charge a lot of other programs too, and the banks are getting ready to up our rates at least, and probably start limited what they will lend.

It does not matter how worthy the program, we can not afford it without cutting someplace else, and without getting our cash flow situation fixed. The Dems long term could come out proving themselves to be irresponsible, and thus not fit to survive the rebellion,

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I see the Dems getting destroyed right now by HCR. However, I don't think it is for supporting it. I think they are getting killed for showing weak spines to push it through. This took waaaaaaaaaay too long. They let the GOP turn this into a circus.

Obama put it best in the SOTU. The dems have the biggest majority in years. People expect them to accomplish things not run for the hills. For those that are running for the hills, good riddance. I'll take a minority with good leaders willing to take chances for important bills over a majority with leaders that are perpetually campaigning.

I'm really not worried about the GOP. They are marching themselves toward obscurity. At one point for survival, they'll have to shed off the ideas which sink them.

T
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the democrats are perfectly capable of destroying themselves and need no outside help.

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@ebrown p,

Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Social Security did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Medicare did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Workmen's Compensation did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Medicaid did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Federal Unemployment Compensation did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Labor Reform did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that passage of the Civil Rights Laws did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Voting Rights Act did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Desegregation of Schools did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that Ending the Draft did (and for the same reasons).
Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that the establishment of the EPA, OSHA, The Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Education, Public Television/Radio and your right as to an attorney in a trial did (and for the same reasons).

Health Care Reform will destroy the Democrats... the same way that every progressive proposal, decried and derided by the GOP as everything from Socialism to infernal works of the Devil, has (and for the same reasons).

Joe(no wonder we ignore their fearmongering)Nation

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Anti-Healthcare Reform rally today here in DC. It was also the DC marathon. Apparently, the rally folk kept crossing the marathon course and getting in runners way. I think they are obvious in more than one way to the world around them. On the Metro ride out to the finish line, I got to here a bunch of baby boomer tea party types rattle on about socialism while they comfortably rode on a public owned transit system. Later after the race, they didn't seem very interested in giving up their seat to runners who were exhausted either.

Say I'm reading into this too much, but I think this demonstrated a certain unspoken selfishness about tea party types that is hard to put into words otherwise.

T
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@Diest TKO,

Quote:

I think this demonstrated a certain unspoken selfishness about tea party types that is hard to put into words otherwise.

everything they do is permeated with cynicism to outright dismissal of the idea of cooperative effort. Ya, our government does suck but they have taken this to confirm their nutty belief that working together is not a requirement to making a better life, or even surviving.

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@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

I think they are obvious in more than one way to the world around them.

oblivious ;-)

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
I think this demonstrated a certain unspoken selfishness about tea party types that is hard to put into words otherwise.

everything they do is permeated with cynicism to outright dismissal of the idea of cooperative effort. Ya, our government does suck but they have taken this to confirm their nutty belief that working together is not a requirement to making a better life, or even surviving.

This is essentially correct.

I believe that modern 'conservatism' stems from an incomplete emotional maturation; the common thread that I have noticed links many Conservatives is a lack of empathy for one's fellow man, and a heightened self-interest. Every issue, at the end of the day, comes down to them insisting that they should keep more stuff, and they simply don't care about the plights of others at all.

Cycloptichorn

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@nimh,

Yes. Thank you Nimh. I did mean oblivious.

T
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@Diest TKO,

They could have been "obvious" to the world around them.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
I think this demonstrated a certain unspoken selfishness about tea party types that is hard to put into words otherwise.

everything they do is permeated with cynicism to outright dismissal of the idea of cooperative effort. Ya, our government does suck but they have taken this to confirm their nutty belief that working together is not a requirement to making a better life, or even surviving.

This is essentially correct.

I believe that modern 'conservatism' stems from an incomplete emotional maturation; the common thread that I have noticed links many Conservatives is a lack of empathy for one's fellow man, and a heightened self-interest. Every issue, at the end of the day, comes down to them insisting that they should keep more stuff, and they simply don't care about the plights of others at all.

Cycloptichorn

I'm going to disagree with myself here. I see the conservatives as capable of empathy, I think the developmental difference is the paranoid suspicion is that they think everyone envys them and wishes them ill.

The tea party people in my mind are not a good barometer for conservatives as much as what happens to conservatives in a culture of extreme political cyncism.

I know many empathic conservatives, and with them I find that they simply think their way is better. I disagree, but at least there is a dialog there that is not about anti-American this or that.

T
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@Diest TKO,

Quote:

I'm going to disagree with myself here. I see the conservatives as capable of empathy, I think the developmental difference is the paranoid suspicion is that they think everyone envys them and wishes them ill.

This internal dialogue is interesting!

The idea that 'everyone envies them' is a projection of greed, the heightened-self interest I mentioned earlier. We've come across this many times on A2K when discussing things with Conservatives; they cannot fathom the reasons why people would do or feel things other then a baseline of greed, because that is the only motivator THEY understand.

About the empathy thing... I dunno. I'll believe it when I see it. I think they are capable of and display sympathy - ie, 'oh man it would suck to be in that situation,' but empathy is something more - it's feeling what someone else would be feeling and having it affect you enough to take actions that do not benefit you personally. This certainly isn't a hallmark of modern Conservatism, and if you take a look at their leaders (both in the media and in government) they promote to the top those who have the absolute least empathy and the most naked self-interest on display.

Cycloptichorn

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Which one of us Tyler Durden?

Good point about the actual nature of empathy. I'll take some time to review many of my past interactions and try to favor that in. I'd add in that conservatives (like liberals) are more than their leaders and icons. This could be better or worse. I agree that the conservative politicians certainly don't seem very capable to experience empathy. I'll just separate this from the body of conservatives at large.

My Metro ride this morning does speak to this. A bunch of fat comfy entitled tea party types adamantly declaring their victimhood.

Tyler Durden
K
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http://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/toles-another-mouth-to-feed.gif

Cycloptichorn

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Quote:

My, my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah, and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself

Waterloo - I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo - Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo

My, my, I tried to hold you back but you were stronger
Oh yeah, and now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight
And how could I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose

Waterloo - I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo - Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo

So how could I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose -

Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo

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with any luck obamacare will destroy both parties

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@djjd62,

What party would you prefer?

There is no difference between a zero party system and one party system.

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Will Obamacare Destroy the Democrats?

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