Why do you think the best-known “Medicare for All” bill (complete with unconstitutional refusal to compensate for lost profits when forced conversion to non-profit medicine would take effect) keeps the providers (nominally) private? It’s not just to fool the stupid supporters. It leaves the providers open to lawsuits.

If we ever had that, get ready next for mandatory malpractice insurance with (generous-to-lawyers) minimum protection (payoff) levels.

Honestly, doesn’t this whole thing read like something from The Onion?

No, not the whole thing. (except in the case of press conferences) That’s where delusion or prejudice (and obvious pre-conclusion) comes into play. Despite what you may think, not everything that goes wrong here (much less elsewhere in the world) is Bush’s fault.

As for the spelling, I figure you checked what I said elsewhere before making the changes you made.

No Republican wrote or inserted that provision. Did you miss that part? The provision would let trial attorneys enrich themselves at the cost of the US taxpayer and the people of Iraq. Did you miss that part? It could set back reconstruction in Iraq by years. Did you miss…oh wait, was that the part you were rooting for?

Lautenberg tried to pay off his buddies in the tort bar. He got caught at it. The secondary effects were apparently of no concern to him–and that’s the most generous interpretation. I’ll be generous, and just assume he was utterly ignorant of the possibilities.

The level of naivety in this comment is truly stunning.

I’m surprised to see you saying such things about yourself, however valid the criticism.

The president gets to write bills for Congress, Shaun? Even with the Dems in the majority?

No. The Republican minority with the ability to filibuster any appropriation ignores their party leader and strikes out on their own almost every time. Just as they did as the majority for the past 7 years.

The bill was not forwarded to the White House until ten days ago. The subtitle list alone is several dozen pages long.

And OMB was completely oblivious to it. Yeah…. that’s the ticket!

The level of naivety in this comment is truly stunning. It’s freaking amazing what the 26%’ers are willing to swallow these days.

The president gets to write bills for Congress, Shaun? Even with the Dems in the majority? Wow, that imperial takeover thing has gone farther than I thought! With that kinda power he doesn’t even need to cancel the elections, he can just dictate from Texas.

The provision in question was quietly inserted into the bill by Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), staunch friend and ally of the plaintiff’s bar. The White House’s representation of what it could be used to do is 100% accurate. Most of the funding that could be locked up and taken from Iraqi reconstruction by tort lawyers originated with the American taxpayers. Big payday for the tort bar, US taxpayers and Iraq get the shaft to pay for Saddam’s crimes. Good by you? Even if the suits filed were losers and were thrown out, that money would still be locked up in the meantime instead of being used for reconstruction. Hmmm, whose political interests would that serve?

Soldiers are denied a pay raise.

Soldiers would miss out on an additional 0.5% raise IF Congress doesn’t patch the bill and re-submit. The previous raise of 3% for 2008 was in a different bill, already passed.

The administration was unable to explain why it had not acted earlier to object to the provision

The bill was not forwarded to the White House until ten days ago. The subtitle list alone is several dozen pages long. The bill itself is over six hundred pages. Gee, what took them so long?

I may not be a good schpeller (thank you for noting the error), but I know a richly ironic story when I see one: The president vetoes his own bill to prevent an attack on the homeland by litigious plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Honestly, doesn’t this whole thing read like something from The Onion?

Also, in Pelosi had delivered on her promise to work harder, Congress would have had all of the appropriation bills on President Bush’s desk back in September like what was originally designed into the Constitution. Maybe Congress was to busy having hearings on NFL pension or busy trying to avoid hearings on immigration instead of doing the mandated work of actually passing a budget.

Oh be still my heart

I bet it will be pounding on Inauguration Day 2009.

Oh[,] be still[,] my heart!

Would that mean less Bush-bashing and BDS on here, or would others assume the mantle you are holding currently? (If a tree were to fall in a deep Siberian forest, that would be Bush’s fault, too…)

So the real danger is not terrorism in Iraq but rapacious American plaintiffs’ attorneys.

I’ll be nice once again and let the illogical part slide by and note aloud: the problem is with junk lawsuits.

If you prefer Bush-bashing that approaches BDS: it’s a deliberately engineered coverup of the earlier Bush and Reagan administration activities on behalf of Hussein (and of the Iranians) in the 1980s.

* * *

By the way, when Bush, a pirate in the Caribbean, or anyone else laughs, it’s “hee, hee,” with two Es.

And when did you discover this well known 4 year old fact Shaun?

Oh be still my heart!

Soldiers are denied a pay raise. The materiel pipeline to Iraq is disrupted. Veterans’ care lapses. All because of the threat of junk lawsuits.

So the real danger is not terrorism in Iraq but rapacious American plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Good one. How rich!