It’s not. It’s just Bunning being an asshole. He’s almost alone in his opposition to the bill, and if he hadn’t stopped it, it would have passed unanimously yesterday.
I’d like to propose to the OP a friendly amendment to this pitting, extending it to include the various idiot teabaggers and their demagogue blowhards in the hysterical-right media who have suddenly discovered (after years of drooling complacency about massive deficit spending by a Republican administration) that OMG DEFISITS IS TEH EVUL!!1!1!! AND IT WIL KIL ARE CHILDURN!!!1!
Look, assholes, when you refuse to spend public money on the social safety net in emergency circumstances out of respect for your newfound hard-on for balanced budgets, real people undergo real suffering. You and your anti-deficit hysteria are what makes it possible for choads like Bunning to do what they do.
If you want to cut government spending and reduce deficits, do it the way Clinton did it; start from a position of relative economic strength and cut costs by improving efficiency and streamlining and reforming government programs. Don’t wait until after your conservative idols have driven the economy into a ditch, and then start screaming about the cost of the tow truck to pull it out and the first aid to help the passengers.
I like how you wish to volunteer the op’s savings to do this. How about you dip into your own savings and contact him/her to make up for that 1%.
I’m sorry but a doctors practice is very much like every other necessary business in the country. They still need to pay bills too. The failure here is on the part of the government. The doctor should have every right to make a living doing his/her job.
If a city fails to pass a budget for the public works do you put plumbers on the hook to cover the cost of the water supply?
The lack of treatment to any patents due to doctors not getting paid is on the government for this one. Mainly Bunning, but I find fault in the other senators for leaving early as well. The way government has been running lately leaving a single aspect in which a republicans can gum up the works is just stupid. If they want to get anything done they need to account for any and all obstructionist tactics that can be used.
Correct me if I’m wrong - I may be reading the articles on this incorrectly - but isn’t this really just a stall? From what I’m seeing, the benefits will expire on Monday, they’ll vote on this sometime next week, and it’ll pass because Bunning is the only one opposed to it. The CNN article I read said that because of the way Medicare pays out, no change will actually be felt. There will be a weekend of stressing out about it, but in the end, the bill will go through.
As far as I can tell, all this amounts to is ineffectual political theater.
Did you forget the million or so people on extended unemployment who simply won’t get a check for a week or two? Remember, these people are already out of work, and rent is typically due the first day of the month. WTF are they supposed to do? I don’t know about you, but my landlord wants money, not an explanation that some jackass fucked Congress. Ditto for banks and mortgages.
I don’t know - is this delay going to cause that to happen? Listen, I think this guy is a complete dick, I think this jobs bill should have been already passed, I think the people getting federal unemployment benefits (and the other things this bill provides for) should get all the help they need. I’m just wondering exactly what the real-life consequences to Bunnings actions are going to be.
This is from CNN:
Well, Mr. Bunning’s actions’ll probably kill fewer Americans than bin Laden, but who’s counting? After all, there are taxcuts at stake here!
Funny how Bunning voted against Paygo just a couple weeks ago, isn’t it? He must have a very nuanced position on the deficit that us ordinary Americans cannot fathom.
That makes it sound like someone has forgotten how to call for a cloture vote, then. I am an advocate of using the real (as opposed to mathematical) filibuster if merited, but once someone has made his point the Senate should have the tools to move on.
This isn’t a filibuster. Senator Durbin wanted a voice vote on the bill, which Bunning objected to. Since it only takes one objection to put a vote on hold, that’s where we are. The Senators are also now at home, so it’s not like they can vote on it this weekend. The soonest it’ll be voted on is next week.
Wow. This is just . . . something else entirely. The bare fact that Bob has more money than Tom does not give Tom a valid claim on Bob’s money.
BigT, let’s assume that your boss tells you that his grandma got sick, so he decided to use your paycheck that month to pay her medical bills. I guess you’d be A-OK with that?
IMHO Senator B is doing more to reform the Senate’s antique rules of filibuster than anyone else.
But Medicare is SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!
I thought all Republicans were against SOCIALIZED medicine!
Whenever I hear that congress or senate in the US have difficulties agreeing on the budget - any budget - and therefore, tens of thousands of govt. workers have to go without pay for weeks on end, or, in this case, hundreds of thousands of people who desperatley need money will get it later - then I wonder why you let this continue year after year, instead of simply adding a sentence that the old budget will remain in effect until the new budget has been approved of and passed at the end of clause where it says “budget will run out on 28th of Feb. 2010” or whenever.
I mean, that’s the way halfway organized countries do this. Is it too socalized or too foreign or too modern (against the traditions of the Holy Founding Fathers) to apply something like this?
That sounds like an invitation to run more and more of the Federal government off-budget, like Republicans did with the war on terror for so many years; before deciding that pretending to be deficit hawks served their interests better under a Democrat president.
Paying for shit as you go along is the way to go, not grandstanding like Bunning, or engaging in stupid tricks that will be gamed.
Something tells me that you haven’t a clue as to what this means and aren’t aware that it isn’t an enforceable law or maxim that clearly delineates right and wrong.
It’s an ethical concept used by physicians to remind themselves of the potential unintended consequences inherent in medicine and how they need to be weighed against the predicted benefits. One could argue quite convincingly that ensuring the economic viability of a practice and continuity of care for the majority of the patient roster is what’s necessary to “Do No Harm”.
This.
What a scumbag.
Well, that’s just ridiculous. Why don’t they just go to their church or their family or a charity? And plus, they’re probably all Democrats anyway.
Please tell me that ^ is sarcasm.
Of course!
OK, I’ll laugh now, see -> 
Just a little thin skinned, being in dire economic straits myself. (I no longer qualify for any form of unemployment coverage, thus, I am all too familiar with what these people will be facing)