Another Good Reason To Support Mark Warner

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/27/AR2005112700781.html

Warner, knowing that Medicaid is in dire straits, chaired a bipartisan committee of Governors to come up with recommendations as to how to avoid draconian, wholesale medicaid cuts for poor people, as has been witnessed in Tennessee and Missouri.

"Already, tens of thousands of people have been thrown off the Medicaid rolls in states such as Tennessee and Missouri, and governors have warned that those cuts will grow deeper if they do not have the flexibility to trim benefits more rationally."

Warner, Ed Rendell, Jennifer Granholm, Tom Vilsak, Janet Napolitano and Jim Doyle helped draft a proposal that would help states avoid having to cut poor women and children from the Medicaid rolls.

This partially achieved by "making it difficult for more affluent seniors to transfer their assets to relatives, then plead poverty to get Medicaid to pay for them to stay in nursing homes" and also partially achieved by "raising deductibles, co-payments and premiums" across the board - necessary higher fees to keep the disadvantaged from being cut from programs entirely.

People who oppose Warner and the other Governors on these measures, are, by their opposition to fixing the system, actually promoting draconian, wholesale Medicaid CUTS themselves and shamelessly using poor people as political pawns.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0112-37.htm

Sadly, in America today, the miracles of modern medicine are too often the province only of the wealthy. We need a new guarantee for the years ahead that the cost of these life-saving treatments and cures will not be beyond the reach of the vast majority of the American people.

An essential part of our progressive vision is an America where no citizen of any age fears the cost of health care, and no employer refuses to create new jobs or cuts back on current jobs because of the high cost of providing health insurance.

The answer is Medicare, whose 40th birthday we will celebrate in July. I propose that as a 40th birthday gift to the American people, we expand Medicare over the next decade to cover every citizen - from birth to the end of life.

It's no secret that America is still dearly in love with Medicare. Administrative costs are low. Patients' satisfaction is high. Unlike with many private insurers, they can still choose their doctor and their hospital.

For those who prefer private insurance, we will offer comparable coverage under the same range of private insurance plans already available to Congress. I can think of nothing more cynical or hypocritical than a Member of Congress who gives a speech denouncing health care for all, then goes to his doctor for a visit paid for by the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan.

I call this approach Medicare for All, because it will free all Americans from the fear of crippling medical expenses and enable them to seek the best possible care when illness strikes.

The battle to achieve Medicare for All will not be easy. Powerful interests will strongly oppose it, because they profit immensely from the status quo. Right wing forces will unleash false attack ads ranting against socialized medicine and government-run health care.

But those attacks are a generation out of date - retreads of the failed campaign that delayed Medicare in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, we are immunized against such attacks by the obvious success of Medicare. It is long past time to extend that success to all.

...big time!!!

A self-made mega millionaire, popular southern Democrat who can actually reel in the NASCAR vote!! --- Are you kidding me!?!?! :o

They want Hillary and Kerry ----- not a popular Governor with no senate record to trash.

It's gonna get ugly!!!

Minorities play a significant role in the primaries in urban BIG BLUE states and areas. NASCAR does not endorse the stars and bars, but it is flown there by fans of the sport. That definitely has been a major topic of conversation while NASCAR is trying to recruit minority fans.

Good points!

I'm just saying... it's going to be bizarre to have a Democratic candidate who even reels in NASCAR fans. :crazy:

"Start your engines" ~~~ http://www.radaronline.com/fresh-intelligence/2005/07/11/index.php

Just because they guy has a 70% approval rating in a red state and likes Nascar doesn't mean minorities are going to be running away from him.

About 90% of voting blacks voted for Clinton, Gore and Kerry. It has been very consistent. Where dems have been losing votes is amongst hispanics. We still get a majority of the votes but it has decreased a little every election.

If you embrace certain aspects of southern culture that are anathema to minorities, well that will show how much political savvy a candidate does or does not have. The candidates you mention were General election votes, not primary votes. Warner has to compete in the primaries in BIG BLUE states filled with minority voters. You know, the big BLUE states that have way more delegates in them filled with primary minority voters?

Or will he be colossally stupid and just run in red states?:shrug:

I'll be sure to talk to my hispanic family about the fact that I am "not getting the minority vote."

Remember, we are all on the same team here.
:hi:

a better record than Warner?

I certainly hope it is going to get ugly before this guy is the nominee, because if he is, for me it is going to be "anybody by GOP".

Let's get somebody who is not afraid of being a Democrat.

because he likes balanced budgets and paying bills and keeping a state's fiscal house in order?

Or are you just demagoguing?

type of Democrat as Landrieu or the two Nelsons, and that I dont feel too inclined to support him in a primary.

What does bother me is not fiscal discipline, it is how you reach it: by cutting services or by getting more revenues? (and it seems to me that, even though he had to increase taxes when he became governor (he did not exactly had a choice), he is more of the first type. I still may be wrong, though, but attacking other democrats or telling me that the Republicans do not want to see him run is not going to show me that I am wrong. It just confirms me what I already think: that what people who support him see in him is that he is a conservative Southern governor, and I am not convinced it is enough for me to support him.

What sells in VA may not sell across the country. At this point, I've decided he isn't for me. I can only hope others see through this routine of his too. How can they even consider him a leader? He is an opportunist wanting to be President for his own self fulfillment.

enough.

for the wealthy.

The part about transferring assets has a rather disturbing tone to me. This refers to affluent, but many times regular ordinary people do this.

I have a beautiful paid for home, but you know what? If we get really really sick, it won't matter. We think we have enough retirement for a degree of nursing home care, but that is iffy even among high average folks.

Many people transfer assets so their home won't be lost entirely.

Sometimes there are two sides to things.

These Medicaid cuts would NOT be happening if our Democrats had not given Bush his huge tax cuts for the wealthy.

Florida has privatized it already, and many mentally ill patients are not getting their medication and care.

who RAISED taxes on the wealthy in Va. and has never voted for a tax cut in the House or the Senate, as he has never been a member of either body.

Maybe I should read that again?

"Warner, Ed Rendell, Jennifer Granholm, Tom Vilsak, Janet Napolitano and Jim Doyle helped draft a proposal that would help states avoid having to cut poor women and children from the Medicaid rolls.

This partially achieved by "making it difficult for more affluent seniors to transfer their assets to relatives, then plead poverty to get Medicaid to pay for them to stay in nursing homes" and also partially achieved by "raising deductibles, co-payments and premiums" across the board - necessary higher fees to keep the disadvantaged from being cut from programs entirely."

That will NOT just affect the "affluent". That will hurt so many people. There are already laws in place.

These guys seem heartless to me.

This proposal (which is all it is, as Governors have no federal powers) must be voted on in Congress. All the Governors did was propose methods by which they could help save the program, so that the states wouldn't have to throw scores of people off the Medicaid rolls. They made recommendations to Congress.

Warner has put none of this in place in Virginia, as it is not law yet.

Let's not play word games.

You're evidently not tracking the discussion here. My original post to you was in response to your poast about TAXES. Go back and reread it.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1129563,00.html

Many seniors on low fixed incomes have paid-for homes. That does not make them wealthy.

are middle class, not wealthy. Requiring comfortable but far from wealthy, middle-class seniors to spend every last cent before becoming eligible for Medicaid for serious illnesses will hurt their children. This is a horrible idea. Those whose parents die young or suddenly will inherit from their parents. But those children whose parents die slow deaths and require costly medical services, will not inherit once cent from their parents. This will further diminish the middle class. Are we such a poor nation that we can't afford a middle class any more?

I don't think they think too much about ordinary Americans.

not for fixing the current system of Medicaid.

If the governors had not helped propose this, many states would have been forced to make draconian cuts in Medicaid.

I'm all for overhauling the entire healthcare system, as I think it's broken. But that's not the purview of governors.

That's the purview of Congress and a new President.

They are pretty tough already. In fact our kids and I have looked into it. Not viable for us at this time.

This is just dead wrong....homes and seniors should be off the table.

there won't be anybody to take the virginia seat

06 is still not a guarantee given the recent political tides, so we're still gonna have to think about who runs and for what. virginia would be an important seat to be able to nab in 06. 08 is far less important. Warner for Senate!

Then, virgina will have TWO Warners as their senators :shrug:

WaPo editorial.

Like Warner if you want - Dont be dishonest.

BTW, there were plenty Dems in the Senate who disagreed with Warner and were proposing more extensive Medicaid packages with help by the federal governemnt. Do they support Medicaid cuts as well or do they try to fix the system rather than accepting what the GOP wants?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2278131

Which had completely, intentionally distorted the debate. This was setting the record straight.

And the WaPo piece was a news story, not an "editorial". Try to get your facts straight before you bash someone.

you are out of your mind.

Successful, moderate southern governor, knows how to win elections, running against a discredited and incompetent repuke regime... sounds like 1992 to me.

He does need to fill his foreign policy hole by picking someone like Wes Clark as his running mate.

I have heard more than one chimp voter in my office say that they could be able to support someone like Warner.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28277588.htm

Democrat Gov. Warner rejects Iraq withdrawal date
28 Nov 2005 21:53:38 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Daniel Trotta

<snip>

NEW YORK, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The United States needs to set milestones for progress, not a firm withdrawal date, before it can leave Iraq, Virginia governor and prospective Democratic presidential candidate Mark Warner said on Monday.

"This Democrat doesn't think we need to re-fight how we got into (the Iraq war). I think we need to focus more on how to finish it," Warner said.

"To set an arbitrary deadline or specific date is not appropriate," he said. "... It is incumbent on the president to set milestones for what he believes will be the conclusion."

I don't like the sound of this at all:

"This Democrat doesn't think we need to re-fight how we got into (the Iraq war). I think we need to focus more on how to finish it," Warner said.


"Re-fight?" There was no fight, that's how this debacle came into being. Now that we are in this hole thanks to the lies and clever methods of getting a nation to swallow those lies, it is time to expose those lies.

I have no horse in this race but my money will be on one with less neo-con friendly things to say.

Julie

to a serious matter. Warner deserves no more credit than any of the other Governors for this. So what, he can get along with other politicians and compromise. I see no real vision there. Yeah,I want him to lead me to the mediocre middle.

Sorry, but this Warner mania so reeks of propaganda it's not even funny!