Is an M$M group that is scared of Bernie and the people.

At Least Bernie wants progress. We may not get it, but is sure beats being told NO.

WAPO never did like any Democrat plans, but they sure loved barking about republican's voting to exterminate Obamacare.

Funny in that the only attack you have left is a M$M nit picking.

Goes to show Bernie is making people nervous because he is so good, and he won a huge moral victory in Iowa.

But you continue to show that you and the M$M have nothing but false accusations and a personal bias, proving there is no substantial argument against Bernie's campaign.

The nasty tone of their recent smiling editorial makes it clear that they want to skunk Bernie.

Mr. Bezos does not like politicians standing up for workers. He'd rather be able to continue to abuse them.

or perhaps to Clinton Corp. (TM)

establishment and in the tank for corporations and the wealthy.

I know your remarks are bullshit, but at least you are expressing some reality instead of pure bullshit.

on what facts are you basing your doubt/disagreement ... besides, of course, that the media/establishment is scared of Bernie and the people? (which isn't a fact)

He was a senator when the bill came around.

He voted for Obama care as a senator.

Unlike any of us, he did help.

It's so simple I find that anyone questioning the idea to just be looking for worms and finding one crawling from their own mouth; like politicrrp has.

Joe "Public Option Killer" Lieberman was a Senator that voted for ObamaCare.

And, I would say, based on your criteria, he has an equal, or greater, though negative, claim to authorship, as Bernie.

He withheld his vote and used it as leverage to push for funding for free community clinics.

That was an important part of writing the final bill.

At the very least, why would Sanders decline to throw his support behind a bill until near the end if he helped craft it?

Silly argument Sanders followers are making.

"...he sat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (or HELP) Committee -- one of the two committees charged with pulling together the legislation. And he championed not-insignificant provisions like expanded funding for community health centers and providing an option for states to experiment with their own systems.

On the other hand, his relentless push for the single-payer model made passing the bill more complicated, some staffers working on the legislation at the time told TPM, and to say he was behind the core elements -- the exchanges, mandates, and the Medicaid expansion --- would be an exaggeration.

At the end of the day, vetting his claim depends on your definition of “write.”

“Was he involved in the creation? He was deeply involved in a variety of ways. He got some important things in there,” said John McDonough, a Harvard public health professor who wrote the 2011 book "Inside National Health Reform."

“If you take it more narrowly, were his staff people in the room writing what the exchange provisions looked like and so forth? The answer to that is, in a stricter sense, no. So it’s subject to interpretation and not worth contesting, because he was highly involved in it and was part of the creation process,” McDonough told TPM.

If there was an inner circle of the senators and staff writing the core pieces of the legislation, Sanders was in the next level out.

“For somebody who is not in the inner, inner circle involved in the structuring or the minute drafting, he was about as active and engaged as any member of the Senate,”

Still, some former staffers involved in crafting the ACA dismissed the credit Sanders is trying to take now.

“He played a very, very small part in the Affordable Care Act,” said another former Democratic aide. “He was mostly a gadfly in negotiations. He was very difficult to deal with.”

“Was he involved in the creation? He was deeply involved in a variety of ways. He got some important things in there,” said John McDonough, a Harvard public health professor who wrote the 2011 book "Inside National Health Reform."

<snip>

Former Sen. Jeff Bingaman (NM) was the one Democrat who sat on both committees working on the ACA at the time. He was also a member of Baucus' Gang of Six.

“As a regular member of the committee on the Democratic side -- we were the ones who were writing the bill because Republicans were opposing everything,” Bingaman told TPM last week. “So was very much involved like the rest of us.”

"...he sat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (or HELP) Committee -- one of the two committees charged with pulling together the legislation. And he championed not-insignificant provisions like expanded funding for community health centers and providing an option for states to experiment with their own systems.

On the other hand, his relentless push for the single-payer model made passing the bill more complicated, some staffers working on the legislation at the time told TPM, and to say he was behind the core elements -- the exchanges, mandates, and the Medicaid expansion --- would be an exaggeration.

At the end of the day, vetting his claim depends on your definition of “write.”

“Was he involved in the creation? He was deeply involved in a variety of ways. He got some important things in there,” said John McDonough, a Harvard public health professor who wrote the 2011 book "Inside National Health Reform."

“If you take it more narrowly, were his staff people in the room writing what the exchange provisions looked like and so forth? The answer to that is, in a stricter sense, no. So it’s subject to interpretation and not worth contesting, because he was highly involved in it and was part of the creation process,” McDonough told TPM.

If there was an inner circle of the senators and staff writing the core pieces of the legislation, Sanders was in the next level out.

“For somebody who is not in the inner, inner circle involved in the structuring or the minute drafting, he was about as active and engaged as any member of the Senate,”

Still, some former staffers involved in crafting the ACA dismissed the credit Sanders is trying to take now.

“He played a very, very small part in the Affordable Care Act,” said another former Democratic aide. “He was mostly a gadfly in negotiations. He was very difficult to deal with.”

and still does. No duh.

Also, even politifact has to admit: "He deserves credit for one provision of it -- worth a not-insignificant $11 billion"

If this ^ is not "helping to write" it, I don't know what is. What are they smoking at Politifact these daze?

the actual stenographer, then it is mostly false.

By pushing hard for certain provisions, Bernie was definitely helping to shape the final bill even as concessions had to be made. I'd say that means he helped the ACA become the law we know today. But did he draft the actual text? Apparently not. And I guess that's what naysayser and critics are going to hold on to: the black-n-white definition of "write."



Anyways, I thought Congressional staffers wrote the actual text of a bill. At least, that's my familiarity with how it works at the state level: they monitor bills, analyse and research bills, draft the verbiage, etc.

======================

He's still trusted by far more Americans.

"Still, when Sanders says he "helped write" the bill, it would be reasonable to imagine that Sanders was an integral player in the crafting of the bill over a long period of time -- an insider in the process. And that’s not the reality."

If he said he was one of the principal authors of the bill, that assumption would be reasonable. As it stands, his statement is absolutely true...

that you largely oppose (because it doesn't go far enough); but, it gets through the committee despite your opposition ... how do you, then, get to claim authorship?

Would you get to claim that you helped write it? Or must you have edited the textbook, or written 5 or more chapters?

Just curious. Bill Clinton deserves a hell of a lot more credit for that one than Bernie Sanders.

While President Bill Clinton signed The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that opened the wall street casino and nearly brought do the global economy ... the question remains, did Bernie vote for it, or did he not?

This is a lot like Bernie's (fans) holding HRC responsible (via her husband) for the mass incarceration of Black people, because of his signing the Omnibus Crime Bill; but, neglect to mention, and hold Bernie blameless, despite his voting FOR the bill.

Strange times we live in.

Hillary takes zero credit for anything in the Clinton administration? I've seen her do the exact opposite on a lot of occasions. Bill even said while running in 1992 that it was "two for the price of one." She was the most politically involved First Lady in the history of the country.

The bottom line though is that the bill was tucked by Clinton administration people into an omnibus package to prevent a government shutdown. Blackmail by the bankster-owned advisers of Bill Clinton.

Yes, Bernie was very involved with the drafting of the ACA
Without Bernie there wouldn't have been 11 billion in the ACA CHCs. He made his vote for it contingent on that. And yes, he fought for single payer and the public option. The following is from the pro Hillary TPM.

ut interviews with various congressional staff involved with the reform effort as well as outside experts reveal that Sanders' role in the creation of 2010's Affordable Care Act is a complicated one.

On one hand, he sat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (or HELP) Committee -- one of the two committees charged with pulling together the legislation. And he championed not-insignificant provisions like expanded funding for community health centers and providing an option for states to experiment with their own systems.

On the other hand, his relentless push for the single-payer model made passing the bill more complicated, some staffers working on the legislation at the time told TPM, and to say he was behind the core elements -- the exchanges, mandates, and the Medicaid expansion --- would be an exaggeration.

At the end of the day, vetting his claim depends on your definition of “write.”

“Was he involved in the creation? He was deeply involved in a variety of ways. He got some important things in there,” said John McDonough, a Harvard public health professor who wrote the 2011 book "Inside National Health Reform."

<snip>

Former Sen. Jeff Bingaman (NM) was the one Democrat who sat on both committees working on the ACA at the time. He was also a member of Baucus' Gang of Six.

“As a regular member of the committee on the Democratic side -- we were the ones who were writing the bill because Republicans were opposing everything,” Bingaman told TPM last week. “So was very much involved like the rest of us.”

Bingaman remembered specifically Sanders’ community health center provision, but said that “he was a strong advocate for other parts of it, too."

Legislative staffers on the HELP Committee from that time contend that Sanders’ various contributions were meaningful ones.

“I think it is an absolutely fair claim for him to make,” said one former Democratic aide. “I would say, unequivocally, he was very involved in putting his mark on the bill.”

<snip>
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/sanders-role-in-the-affordable-care-act

"...he sat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (or HELP) Committee -- one of the two committees charged with pulling together the legislation. And he championed not-insignificant provisions like expanded funding for community health centers and providing an option for states to experiment with their own systems.

On the other hand, his relentless push for the single-payer model made passing the bill more complicated, some staffers working on the legislation at the time told TPM, and to say he was behind the core elements -- the exchanges, mandates, and the Medicaid expansion --- would be an exaggeration.

At the end of the day, vetting his claim depends on your definition of “write.”

“Was he involved in the creation? He was deeply involved in a variety of ways. He got some important things in there,” said John McDonough, a Harvard public health professor who wrote the 2011 book "Inside National Health Reform."

“If you take it more narrowly, were his staff people in the room writing what the exchange provisions looked like and so forth? The answer to that is, in a stricter sense, no. So it’s subject to interpretation and not worth contesting, because he was highly involved in it and was part of the creation process,” McDonough told TPM.

If there was an inner circle of the senators and staff writing the core pieces of the legislation, Sanders was in the next level out.

“For somebody who is not in the inner, inner circle involved in the structuring or the minute drafting, he was about as active and engaged as any member of the Senate,”

Still, some former staffers involved in crafting the ACA dismissed the credit Sanders is trying to take now.

“He played a very, very small part in the Affordable Care Act,” said another former Democratic aide. “He was mostly a gadfly in negotiations. He was very difficult to deal with.”

Something closer to single payer?



Thank you Politifact!!

SMH

Sid

Since I followed this closely at the time and desperately wanted them to include the public option, or medicare buy-in, both of which got screwed, I know that the most significant and progressive thing added to obamacare was the money for community clinics. Which is credited to Sanders. And when Sanders said he helped write Obamacare, this is what I immediately thought about.

Not sure he'd want to be given credit for the other crap, like no Medicare buy in, (killed by good ol lieberman), the give aways to the the pharmaceutical industries, and enshrining health insurance as a profit making business.

So even as the media is desperately trying to frame sanders as a liar/exaggerator to push back against his strength as a truth teller, he still ends up looking good for getting credit for a piece of the legislation that is the least controversial and most well liked. Imagine if he'd been given the opportunity to do more!

Taken as a whole he had very little to do with it. Some contend he was even a hindrance. He wouldn't even commit to vote for it until late in the game.

Amazing that he later called it a Republican bill and now he wants to take credit for it.

I don't get mealy mouthed dems who don't understand that not commiting to vote for something is how one gets shit you want included.

Yes, the corporate dems led by Baucus considered him a hindrance...a hindrance to further selling out the average American. Did you even read TPM's summary? Everything he fought for was to make it better for the average American to afford and get access.

now defending them. I will be consistent. Bernie helped write the bill is more true than they are giving him credit for though I think not 100 percent true.

that seems to be the basis for this argument. Sort of like depends on what your definition of "is" is.

We have an actual name of someone detailing that his involvement was significant. Then we have some "anonymous" staffer saying otherwise. Gee . . . nothing funny about that is there?

No he didn't actually WRITE the bill. He just sat on the committee to iron out the details - pushed for $11 billion to fund health clinics across the country. By Politifact's criteria - President Obama and the Pharmaceutical and Insurance Industries are the ones who WROTE the bill.