When the ship is finally righted and this administration is nothing but a horrible memory, I hope that people like Olbermann and Alter are not let off the hook.

Things may get really bad between now and then, but when they are better I want accountability!

"Look, the Republicans at this point are basically irrelevant to the
process," Alter said. "I know that sounds like a harsh and definitive
thing to say, but they've taken a hard right off the main highway of
American politics, and Democrats don't need their votes. And whatever
noise they make is ambient noise. It's not really relevant to how any
of this shakes out."

He's right.   Dems don't need one single GOP vote.   So what is the problem....?    It is the height of dishonesty to blame the stalling of that legislation on people who cannot possibly stop it.      It's Democrats who are stopping it.

He lies.

" if Republicans are able to stop Barack Obama on health care, 'it will be his Waterloo, it will break him...."  -Sen. Jim DeMint

Oh that Olbie...he's a regular laugh riot.

By the way..in the words of DeMint...I hope OCare is his Waterloo too...along with a heck of a lot of other congress-critters.

'Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea'~Breitbart

"There is a Harvard study that's come out that says 4,500 Americans each year are now dying because they don't have health insurance," Olbermann said.

Meanwhile, the system has been doing better in recent years - on many fronts:

USA Today. April 19, 2006: USA records largest drop in annual deaths in at least 60 years Better treatments and improved access to health care are among the possible contributors to the decline.

It's important to remember that in the face of massive population growth in the United states over the past 10 years, the number of uninusred folks (per their definition) was about the same when President Bush left office as it was back in 1998.

Uninsured: 34 mil in 1988, 44-45 million in 1998, 46 mil in 2008

Big rise in Clinton years - only the temporary hiring frenzy during the dot.com bubble stopped the number from hiting 48 million.

Did Bush stop the rapid rise in the number of uninsured.. and during a pretty tough economic era?

(;~/ gary

"There is a Harvard study that's come out that says 4,500 Americans each year are now dying because they don't have health insurance"

A few years ago, a local TV report proclaimed statistics about how many people died of "trauma," and why we needed a new trauma treatment center. They pointed to the case of a homeless man who had been bludgeoned; the hospital was unable to save him. The TV reporter asserted with conviction that the man died because we didn't have a trauma center.

The blows to his head from a baseball bat were apparently considered coincidences.

To make it plain: not having health insurance, by itself, is not fatal. Young people who choose not to buy health insurance because it is statistically less likely for them to suffer catastrophic illness are taking a calculated risk. You can dispute the wisdom of the risk, but it's their risk to take. For the record, as young Jesuits, we never had insurance; for us, the calculation worked.

Don't believe the myth that when young people take that risk and lose (i.e., they need hospital treatment) that it's passed to the rest of us. When a hospital performs treatment, they bill for the treatment. It's true that hospitals write it off when they don't expect a poor person to pay, but they don't write it off when the patient can pay. The patient still gets a bill, and the hospital still expects the patient to pay. (I speak from experience here.)

What's really going on here? The liberals want to impose a universal mandate to buy insurance. But healthy young people understand that they're being forced to contribute to a system they won't use. Their premiums will be used to benefit others. The liberals want their money to fund other people's treatment. The liberals counter that by trying to frighten people to accept the policy of having a universal mandate to buy insurance. By claiming that lack of insurance is fatal all by itself is textbook fear-mongering. It's rhetoric running wild.

But, it's typical MSNBC.

Jonathan Alter.. well, let's discuss a bit of what you are suggesting when you tried this on:  "..remember .. when Bush was proposing to reform Social Security a few years back..."

Look Johnathan. Perhaps you don't remember what occurred when President Bush proposed SS reform. What happened was that the Democrats in Congress and the entire national media instantly adopted the "mob mentality" and went 24/7 attacking the Bush administration on the issue in a successful effort in stopping the reform.

What about Bush Medicare Rx fix? Same (except he managed to get it thru).

What about Bush's energy bill? Same.

What about Bush's No Child Left Behind? Same.

What about Bush's early efforts in the Middle East? Same

What about Bush's 6-party talks with North Korea? Same

What about Immigration reform? Same - and you guys celebrated the protest marches every time they happened.

(;~/ gary

This is so f'd up. Olbermann misquoted the data from the defective study. The actual fake number is 45,000, not 4,500. He can't even quote fake data correctly. He did get the five per hour fake data correct; 8,760 hrs/yr X 5/hr = 43,800.

Re the 45,000 fake study, here's your handy link to the debunking of the '45,000' lie if you have lost it:

Junk Science Expert Sounds Alarm on Insurance Study: http://washingtontimes.com

For example:

"They interviewed 9,000 people between 1988 and 1994 and asked, 'Do you have health insurance?' and if you die at some point in the future, they ASSUME your death was caused by the fact you didn’t have insurance during that time you were interviewed."

This doesn't even deserve to be called a 'study', it's complete horsecrap. The people that did it should lose their jobs.

As Olbermann, the good Leftist asked, why does DeMint hate American sick people...................a couple days ago, a lib asked me, as the email discussion got too much for her, the ever popular "why don't you want people to have healthcare?"

Nice try, libs.  I could ask "Why don't you want people to be free?" and then we'd both be asking stupid things.

The same lib asked me, when the $787 billion stimulus passed, and after some back and forth....."why are you against job creation?"

Their predictability is great. 

Here is proof that Keith Olbermann and the Liberals are hypocrites.

Hypocrite Keith Olbermann!

Keith Olbermann Is a Sleazy Hypocrite!

Democrat Hypocrisy!

John Gibson Deconstructs Keith Olbermann!

Liberal Media Hypocrisy Test.

Thursday, September 24, 2008, 8 p.m.

O'Reilly  -  3,487,000 viewers

Olberwomann  -  1,061,000 viewers

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_thursday_september_24_136904.asp#more

Does that mean I'm going to die before the end of the year?

We "won" the health care debate?

News to me.

Actually, there is no debate except in our minds.

One of the 34% who thinks George W. Bush was a great President. One of the 86% who wants to bring back the stock and pillory.