Discuss: Massachusetts Senate Race - Scott Brown (R) Beats Martha Coakley (D)
19 January 2010
43 Comments
From the AP: Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley in Mass. Senate race for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s seat. He will become 41st Republican in Senate.
Discuss. I smell another healthcare debate coming on.
[Link, Link, Link - note: it's the same link, I just figured I'd offer it thru a variety of sites based on your preference of where to read it.]
Related posts:
- Health Care Bill Must be Passed for the Sake of Humanity: Michael Kirschner I know I have invited debate in the past over...
- Will Miss you Teddy Kennedy: Debbie Nissim There’s a great loss today in America with the passing...
- Discuss: The 2010 State of the Union Address Let’s discuss America’s State of the Union address by...
- Discuss: “V” Episode 1.3: “A Bright New Day” Here’s an open discussion about the third episode of the...
- Discuss: “V” Episode 1.4: “It’s Only the Beginning” Here’s an open discussion about the final new episode...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
I know I may not win any fans with this but I, for one, am glad he won. I do not want that new health care bill passing at all.
Agreed!!!
Colleen, I totally agree with you! It also appears that so do a lot of people in Massachusetts…
This should send a message to the democrats in Washington that they need to listen to the people. If the blue state of Massachusetts has elected a republican senator then you know the people are not happy with the direction the democrats are leading us.
I am glad I was able to vote in this historic election.
And yes I voted for Scott brown.
I agree as well. It is deja vu back to Clinton’s first year in office. They tried to get healthcare through then too and it led to Republicans taking back Congress in 1994. I honestly don’t think the majority of the country want a government sponsored healthcare bill and Massachusetts is a microchasm that just happened to have an election today. November will be interesting.
She lost the election when she insulted Schilling and by extension Red Sox Nation.
Agreed Colleen. I am not saying that things couldn’t be better with the current healthcare system, but more government or government-run healthcare is not the answer IMHO.
Poll after poll shows that a large majority of the American people (and and even larger majority of Massachusetts residents) favor a public option for health care. This election was not a referendum on health care reform, or the job Democrats are doing in Washington.
The outcome was the result of a bumbling, gaffe-prone candidate who was an embarrassment to her party. The vast majority of Massachusetts voters are still Democrats, as evidenced by the fact that Coakley was ahead in the polls by 20 points as recently as mid-December. It was only after her several embarrassing misstatements that the polls started to change. Had the Dems nominated a more competent politician, that candidate would have won in a landslide.
Also, the candidate who won is a pro-choice, moderate Republican. Not exactly a sea-change in Massachusetts’s political leanings.
@manillaraf some people are stupid, who cares what se says about a sports team, my whole family are Red Sox fans but we are not as stupid as to make a political decision based on what a politician has said about a petty sports team, even though that might not have been the smartest thing to do. People are incredibly stupid and I am embarassed.
@bart apparantly you do not understand the reform that will be happening, there will be not all government health care system like Canada. There will be a hybrid and most people will keep their insurance, Aetna and Antham are not going anywhere they will instead be regulated so they can’t abuse patients and decide that some people who do not have enough money are not worth the investments. Some insane people will say that there will be death panels, but we currently have a board of death trustees. We have death panels under the current system! Reform needs to occur so we can save our humanity, deciding a poor person is not worth the investment? How can we call our country “Developed” when this is allowed to happen?
Agreed Colleen.
It’s flat out embarassing that the president goes up there to campain for her and MAKES IT WORSE. Wow. What an awful campaign. I don’t care about her dumb RedSox comments. It’s the elitist attitude that her and so many politicians that I am sick and tired of. How dumb is Sarah Palin? Well at least her campaign people never misspelled her state in an election year. But really I’m fed up with the elitism. If you’re conservative like me then you must be dumb. But if you’re in the elites of Washington that are for more and more and more and more government and more and more and more spending then you are a genius. Sick of the elitism crap and Brown seems like a breath of fresh air. Hope he can keep his promises to cut spending and help reduce the power of the federal government. If not and he goes up there like and turns on his conservative ideals like Bush did then I would be angry.
Now healthcare will never pass and I will surely get to hear more and more whining from the whining left. But what I said for a year now is I hope that it passed with the public option and taxpayers funding abortion clinics and every single thing that they originally wanted. Just go ahead and LET IT PASS so we can all find out how wonderful it is. FDR couldn’t get it done, Clinton gave up on it, now Obama can’t even get it done. But just go ahead and pass it with every thing they wanted in it from the beginning so our 14 trillion dollar deficit would continue to skyrocket, the value of a dollar would continue to decrease, and OH YES who would pay for it? Me the taxpayer. Keep raising and raising my taxes to pay for the illegal immigrants and the aborition clinics please. Now that it didn’t pass it’s just going to be more whining and whining about hanging chads, swiftboaters, tea party goers fed up with the power of the BIG federal government just all that whining that you always get from the left.
Last point. The is MASSACHUSETTES! The bluest of the bluest states. Kyle from Kentucky didn’t get to vote in the election this is 65% of independants and even 25% of democrats voting for Brown. I think Barack is a good man but this senate seat reflects on his policies quite a bit.
what did the previous poster say?
“we are not as stupid to make political decisions based on what a politician has said based on a petty sports team.”
Translation: People that vote for Brown are stupid and my family is going to vote Democrat no matter what.
“people are incredibly stupid and I am embarassed”
Translation - I have Bush Derangement Syndrome.
“Reform will be happening”
Translation - Bush lied. People died.
OK I am completely exaggerating here but here is what I have to say about all that.
Death Panels - There are no death panels. However, healthcare for everyone that the feds determine who gets what makes it very likely that older people in very bad shape that will be expensive to help out may well not get everything they need because of the high costs.
Voting on the Red Sox thing - Any voter in Mass. that voted against her because of her comment is ignorant. Vote on issues. Vote on policies. Do not vote based on sports teams.
Regulated insurance coverage - If the fed seized control of the healthcare market what do you think they would do to Anthem? Bail them out? Make sure they charge cheap insurance? No they would drive them out of business. Gee I don’t want to have to pay this premium to keep my child’s dental plan it’s just too durn expensive. I’ll take the good ol free government care. Well crap now there are no more choices and the free market is non existent so I have to pay more than ever for this federal government insurance. that sucks.
PEOPLE THAT ARE POOR ARE ABUSED BY INSURANCE - yes by a leather whip. The emergency room is open to anyone at any time no one can possibly be turned away. I drove myself to the emergency room last summer because of something and the care I got was excellent. Yet all I ever hear from liberals that want things given to them is how awful the ER is. Not so. Quit whining.
Yes the United States isn’t developed. We really should look to Cuba and Raul Castro and their wonderful healthcare system. Of course they are broke, don’t have freedom of press, speech, religion, or anything else but they can wait in line for 5 hours for salt tablets. Now that is a developed country.
I feel for the poor I really do. But that is why I donate money to charities that I trust. I also believe in tax refunds for the lower 20% wage earners in this country so they can live better. Government taking over everything and controlling everything and spending us into oblivion will destroy the free market system and put us in a hole we may never get out.
I hope that President Obama who I completely believe is a wonderful person will take this Mass. vote as a wake up call and start to govern more moderately because that is what is best for our country. Bill Clinton did the same thing after the 94 elections and he governed much more moderately and the economy and the job markets were great.
13 days.
I would like to secede from the Union now… Does Mass already have a health care system in place or am I incorrect. As far as fake conservatives from “Red States”, this has nothing to do with you or your subsidized State. This was about a really bad candidate thinking she deserved the seat and not doing enough ground work to win the election. Also to pretend Mass has never voted for a republican is just wrong. They have had sever republican governors, and like most of the “elitist” States we vote for who we think is going to do the best job for us, not the candidate who thumps their bible loudest and talks folksy.
Yes MA has “Mass Health” everyone has to have insurance in this state and we even need a special form for our state taxes to prove that we do. I have some friends that use it. While it has some problems it is better than nothing.
Scott Brown won because he got the independent vote.
Here is a link to where federal dollars go by state per dollar of federal revenue generated by the state. Notice the states at the top and the ones at the bottom. Now, who are the real fiscal conservatives.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fedspend_per_taxesbystate-20071009.pdf
@Michael - I took what Manillaraf said as a joke
Also, from what my understanding of this new bill is - and it’s quite interesting that everyone has a “understanding” of it but no one actually knows *all* the details - that it’s not exactly what you’re saying it is either. The public healthcare option is all but dead and now we’ll all be stuck buying into private insurance whether we want to or not. Premiums are going to go through the roof - they’ve already started going up; my deductible was $500 in 2009 and this year, it went up to $2,000! The president himself said this wasn’t the bill he had in mind but he was going to sign whatever came across his desk. What does that tell you? There’s been a lot of lobbying and special deals and buy-outs that were made to get this bill as far as it has gotten now. Kyle, isn’t the House version of the bill a little more strict on the public financing abortion, etc? Call me stupid for this opinion, but I’m not okay with having my money go to that. And please don’t cite cases of rape or incest, because those are different and not what I refer to.
Can I ask you what exactly makes people who are not in favor of this bill stupid? And can you please clarify why the election results make American “undeveloped”?
Oh, my last comment went to the other Michael, not you Renmiked - I started typing it at work like an hour ago so I didn’t even see all the new comments til after I refreshed, haha.
@Carol - What exactly does Mass Health entail? I don’t really know a whole lot about it, to be honest…
@Colleen I agree that there are reasonable debates on the Health Care issue but not every state election is about that. In NJ Corzine lost because the people felt he did a bad job and didn’t curb corruption. It had zero to do with Obama but in the media it was as if Obama were the Gov of NJ. I think the same is being done here. As far as health care, a personal note. My father who has worked fulltime since he was 17 and currently still puts in 60 hours a week and has employer provide health coverage had to pay more than $3000 for an issue with kidney stones. He works for the proverbial small business and is middle class so 3k out of pocket is a very significant sum. This is the problem with our current health care. People with coverage not having enough coverage for relatively routine proccedures. People who bring up “illegals” and other talking points. IMO, are not serious about the debate and just repeat talking points. Also, someone being against government involvement does not make them stupid. I see how the govt, fed and state, works on a daily basis and it could be better. So I definitely understand the concerns of taxpayers wanting less involvement. The thing that ticks me off is when people from states that suck up federal dollars like milkshakes, all of a sudden don’t want the government in their lives. Has the govt run USPS stopped fedex and ups from becoming massive entities? So why would a govt option put insurers out of business? I’m for good ideas not matter what part of the spectrum they are from but for the people who had complete control of DC for 8 years and only made health care more expensive to the taxpayer (Medicare drug benefit) while doing nothing to fix the system to complain and whine and worst of all lie about killing old and disabled people makes me sick.
Also the federal funding of abortion has been ILLEGAL for at least 30 years.
THE LAST 8 YEARS
I love when i hear or see this comment. It’s all Bush’s fault
Ok here’s the thing. Democratic president. Major majority in the house and Senate.
Quit whining about how Bush is Satan and do something about healthcare. When the president went up to Mass and tried to rally support and it didn’t work the next day the white house said that this wasn’t anger focused on the democrats in power but an anger that’s been in this country for several years. Translation: It’s Bush’s fault not ours.
Who said the majority of people wanted the public option in several poll? HA! Is that the Keith Olbermann poll?? Check your facts.
@Kyle. Please quote the comment where Bush was mentioned I must have missed it. As far as the rest of you last comment I enjoyed how you compared the health systems of Canada and France to our own employer based system and laying the pros and cons of both. Also I found your proposed solution thoughtful and insightful. I feel I have a much greater understanding of the health care debate now.
If the dems fail to reform the health insurance system then they are to blame. Just as republicans who were in congress over the last decade and did absolutely nothing to fix the problem are to blame for their failings. This is NOT a presidential issue ( except with Clinton because he hired his wife to write the bill), it is a congressional issue. Personally I don’t think either party has competent enough leadership to do what is good for the country. All I know is this, you cannot just say “we are the best” over and over and make it so. The employer based system is seriously flawed and needs to be fixed. I do not think there is one correct solution but it would be nice to try something instead of dragging our feet for an eternity. I’d rather learn from implementing a bad solution than stand still hoping some utopian leader will come along and give the perfect answer.
Back to the election… Could someone from Mass tell me if maybe this was a partly a backlash for one party/person holding the seat for so long that it felt like the people had no choice?
@Michael
“Personally I don’t think either party has competent enough leadership to do what is good for the country”
Now THAT is something I agree with 100%.
@MichaelKirschner: Colleen was correct, my prior post was an attempt at levity
@KyleFromKentucky: Emergency Care is open to all and ER/ED treatment should be exemplary in most hospitals. However, that’s just for emergent cases such as trauma, heart attacks, strokes, high fever, etc. There are a lot of diseases that many Americans have that can’t be treatable thru ER visits.
Hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia. One of my family members has these three and gets regular checkups and meds that are covered by insurance. Another gets regular physical therapy due to injuries suffered in Iraq that are covered by the gov’t/Marines. While ER visits can & will help people in emergencies, they can’t provide the consistent care that a lot of people may need.
Look I’m all for the little guy. If someone works hard gets laid off can’t get a new job and has no insurance deserves help from the government. I have empathy for these kinds of people. There’s just way too many citizens who would take advantage of universal healthcare and help bankrupt the system. But I am all for the little guy.
When it comes to France and Canada maybe their healthcare works maybe it is unsuccessful I don’t know I don’t live there. The difference between the US and those countries is population.
France’s population - 65.5 million
Canada’s population is slightly less than 10 million.
The US has 300 million people. Clearly it is economically easier to cover those populations than huge populations for the government. Bush+Obama= out of control spending. We have no money. I say focus on the deficit. I am cool with paying more in taxes if it means financial stability for the country and a lot of people should be because we have to pay it period. Unless you want to sell Alaska to China? Whoever’s fault it is just stabalize the economy and pay the deficit I say. If that happens and the people wanted to try universal healthcare go for it. Do whatever it takes to help out the poor sick people. It’s just not a good time right now. Obama lowers the deficit and creates jobs even through higher taxation I would vote for him in 12. I pay $300 a month for healthcare and I’m definitely not crazy about it. I just believe that more spending is a bad idea now.
@Kyle: I agree 100% with everything you just wrote, right down to the concerns about the stability of Universal Healthcare for 300 million people and stabilizing the economy and focusing on the deficit.
However the problem that ensues about putting this off until later is that the average cost of healthcare for Americans is forecasted to continue to rise for the foreseeable future if nothing is done. So something needs to be done now, or sooner rather than later.
I disagree a tad with what you and Michael stated earlier. It’s not a matter of competence. It’s just that members of both parties are too busy grandstanding to their base and worrying about the next election to get things done.
Yes costs are going up and regulation is in order. But an overhaul of the entire system by the government is not something that will be successful right now. Something does need to be done though.
As far as the election goes, anytime the people’s vote upsets the bureaucrats in Washington, it lets me know that democracy still exists in this country.
and that makes me smile =)
You know, I posted this under the other discussion too but what I don’t think I’ve read on here is that there is no public option on the bill right now. Why does it keep coming back to an option that is so far NOT an option? My reasoning for not wanting it to pass is because i don’t like that everyone would be required to buy into a private insurance. My deductible went up from $500 in 2009 to $2,000 in 2010 and my premium went up like $20/month. That’ll just keep going up if this bill passes. We need to go back to the drawing board and really figure out what works best for America because I honestly don’t think that is it.
Here are the two articles I’ve read which reference there’s no public option, in case anyone is wondering where I got my intel from (they’re both from yesterday) : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/dear-president-obama-time_b_429649.html and http://elections.firedoglake.com/2010/01/20/ny-01-bishop-47-altschuler-45-adding-public-option-makes-mandate-26-more-popular-with-republicans/
Yea the bill that passed in the Senate was watered down from what Obama probably wanted. And the first thing they scrapped was the public option. If they write into law what is on the table now it basically penalizes anyone that doesn’t have any type of insurance. You would have to pay a fee everytime you got any medical service and didn’t buy into Obamacare.
Um what part of either the House or Senate bill has Obama written? If anything he’s been hands off. I realize Obamacare is a catchy slogan and the current day GOP likes to be as simplistic as possible for their base but it makes no sense based on the actual bills. Anytime I see slogans I assume there is no real basis for argument.
Jeez…Obviously presidents do not write bills they simply sign them into law or veto them. But to imply that he has no say in what should be put in the bill is hilarious. That would be like you saying that Cheney did not want to invade Iraq. Obamacare is a better slogan than Pelosicare or big government gets bigger shitfest or screw the deficit the American taxpayer should have to pay for illegal alien criminals program.
Have you even added anything to the argument or do you just like to sit back and snipe? SHOCK a liberal with a chip on his shoulder on a blog of all things. What’s next? Cop eatin a doughnut? Doctor playing golf? It’s BUSH’S FAULT AAAAHHHH!!! so predictable
Yawn
@Kyle you are the only one who has netioned Bush. Also military decisions are very different than the establishment of new laws. You can blame the POTUS for the way they use the military because there is less congressional involvement. Look Chemey is a draft dodger who loves war but he was VP and the responsibilty no matter whose idea it was or is goes to the POTUS. Just like the Dec attempted falls on Obama, 9/11 falls on Bush. That’s the job. I look at all of these people as EMPLOYEES of the people and am beholden to none. If you hate big govt why don’t you do something about your state which consumes many more federal dollars than it contributes. That would truly be on line with fiscal conservatism.
I try. There’s too many liberals in my state that do nothing and expect everything handed to them by the gov’t.
So I guess South Carolina, Alaska, Mississippi, etc are all liberal states too. You should double check the list I provided earlier in the comments. It’s the so called blue states that foot the bill for the rest of the nation.
The United States pays more for Health Care than any other country in the world, yet is ranked number 34 in quality of health care. We pay more money because we give the corporations to much control and the government to little regulation. If the government regulated health care the cost of care would go down, the little guy would pay less and that would help fix the economy. Health care is not taking priority over the economy because health care is the economy.
@Kirschner Could you provide some sources for your info? Most stats I have seen are way slanted to prove your point. For instance, one person I was debating threw a stat at me about infant survival rates and the US was behind Cuba, something like 1.5 more infants a year die in the US than in Cuba in their first year of life. This is misleading because it doesn’t take into account accidental deaths and neglect that have nothing to do with health care.
As for government regulation, here’s my problem with that. The government provides protections to corporations so that individuals within the big evil corporation cannot be personally sued for their evil doings. So then when these corporations grow to be so big under the government’s wing people scream “AH! We need government regulation!” When the reason they became so big and bureaucratic is because of the government protections. Part of the solution to our health care issues is that the government REMOVE these protections so that no company is too big to fail, and the true little guy (that is the small business owner) can compete.
In my opinion, the answer is not more government regulations. Regulations are what have killed the job market in this country. Like I posted in your thread, keep our taxes low, let us vote with our dollar, so that we can better give to those who cannot take care of themselves.
When you take away regulation you get companies like Enron who were able to create a higher demand for energy by lowering the supply, remember the so called California Energy Crisis?
Enron got to be where it was because of politicians who’s only concern was padding their own nests. What I’m saying is that if government protections are taken away from corporations, regulations won’t be necessary. If board members themselves can be sued out of house and home and be held accountable for their actions, the playing field would be leveled. When we have a bloated bureaucratic government where most people in congress makes way more than they are worth in the free market, it’s easy to see why the government would protect big corporations. More tax revenue.
Also, site some sources if you don’t mind. I really am interested in researching all sides of this debate.
Health Care costs are spiraling out of control. This means costs for individual citizens, and also costs for the federal government. As these costs continue to spiral upwards, more and more people will become uninsured, more and more people will be bankrupted, and the federal government (and programs like Medicare) will go bankrupt too.
This really is a problem that cannot wait to be solved. If we put off true reform for another 10 years, then it will be a disaster.
Sadly our political system barely allows for any reform to take place. Too many powerful lobbies exert way too much influence on lawmakers and ultimately even on the electorate.
Sorry Colleen, haven’t gotten back to read this. Here is a link to Mass Health. A big complaint I have heard is that there are lots of forms involved and it is difficult to get anybody on the phone at Mass Health.
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=eohhs2subtopic&L=5&L0=Home&L1=Consumer&L2=Insurance+(including+MassHealth)&L3=MassHealth+Coverage+Types&L4=Applicants+and+Members+Under+Age+65+and+Families&sid=Eeohhs2
To be honest I don’t know much about it since we have health insurance through work.
Leave your response!
Categories
Popular Posts
Recent Comments
Archives