Let me get this straighrt. A man who represents less than a million people will decide health care.

Sen, Bacus from Montana, a mostly rural state with a population for around 960,000. It only has one Congressman. Queens, NY where I live has three times the population. But this DINO from this empty state (which, by the way, has close to an Insurance monopoly with Blue Cross) is going to decide what the 20,000,000 people in the NY area will get in health care reform.
Do I have that right?

is headed after the Senate finally decides on something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_conference_committee

United States congressional conference committee

A conference committee is a committee of the Congress appointed by the House of Representatives and Senate to resolve disagreements on a particular bill. The conference committee is usually composed of the senior Members of the standing committees of each House that originally considered the legislation.

what they should have if the US was an actual democracy.

But the republic(an) set-up has given the yokels veto power over the majority of the population.

Another argument for either (a) breaking up the country into smaller units or (b) eliminating the Senate and its unrepresentative nature.

Democrats and 10 Republicans. They are to draft one of the 5 bills on HCR.


Democrats
MAX BAUCUS, MT
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV
KENT CONRAD, ND
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM
JOHN F. KERRY, MA
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR
RON WYDEN, OR
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI
MARIA CANTWELL, WA
BILL NELSON, FL
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ
THOMAS CARPER, DE

Republicans
CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA
ORRIN G. HATCH, UT
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME
JON KYL, AZ
JIM BUNNING, KY
MIKE CRAPO, ID
PAT ROBERTS, KS
JOHN ENSIGN, NV
MIKE ENZI, WY
JOHN CORNYN, TX

Populations. Red States rule. Why did we ever bother with
elections.

Who determined these six would be the deciders?

What is wrong with other Democrats on the Hill that they would
permit this??? I have been yipping about this all along.

to sit on this committee? Health care is too important to too many people to trust someone with ties to the health industry to make decisions about what's best. Baucus has taken in tons of money from health care, and he should have stepped down, stating there was a conflict of interest.

Democrats in Congress should have DEMANDED Baucus step down.

This is why things are so screwed up in this country. We need new people in Congress, the old ones are all compromised it seems.

they do not hold 50% of the Senate seats? I'm sick of these people forgetting that elections have consequences.

5% of his political contributions come from Montana. The other 95% are the ones he works for.

The House had 3 committees draft bills and Senate will have 2 when Finance gets done. There will be committee votes and a group to merge the things into a bill that will go to the floor of the House and Senate for final votes.

Someone from Montana could say that some city slicker liberal from San Francisco is going to decide how people in rural America, who know how to take care of their own, have to live.

Works both ways.

We do not have a mob rule government.

when you call rule by the majority mob rule? This is code talk for those people can't be trusted to govern wisely, so we'll make sure they don't.

Those people can be Northerners, city people, welfare recipients, Easterners, immigrants, Latinas, Blacks, whatever, take your pick.

Majority rule IS mob rule, that is why we elect representatives to represent our views and protect our rights in DC.
And its not about not trusting people to govern wisely, its about the FACT that San Fran liberals have no idea what is best for the people in Montana or what the people in Montana should believe in and want. And YES, it goes both ways.

and a local government for local issues. The debate is what is national and what is local. But hey, if the price of single payer is letting Montana and the other Mountain states opt out, I'm all for it.

in order for President Obama to get the healthcare reform HE wants.

"I'm going to hold my breathe until I turn blue if I don't get my way!"

Is there a meme or image or something that we could link this 'hold my breath and turn blue' to the blue dogs? I mean it would be appropriate since they seem intent on holding almost everything up.

sure is working great for gay rights, isn't it.

and we're still working on it. Considering where gay rights were only 20 years ago, I'd say we're moving right along. Things ain't right, but we're moving. The mob can be pretty smart once you get its attention.

We just don't. That's it. That's all. We have two Senators per state and until somebody starts a movement to abolish the Senate, this is the way it's going to be. And the reason is exactly what I stated, to make sure everybody in the country has an opportunity to be represented.

Change Minds. Change Votes. There are states that need educating and until we find a way to bring information to them in a way that they can hear, we're going to be in the mess we're in with health care.

It most assuredly does not 'work both ways.'


5% of the campaign contributions that were of Montana citizens (95% out of state) went to elect a guy that was picked by less than a 350,000 people who will now sit on a 6 person committee that he is heading to iron out bills affecting over 300 million of us.

Our representatives do not get a voice in this process and Max has ensured that the republicans will get equal representation on this little board he has assembled.

Even if he chose Ted Kennedy and the ghost of Paul Wellstone we would still be stuck with 4-2 vote agaisnt public option, single payer, and substantial reform that cut against the scummy tactics of insurance companies.

This isn't democracy and it isn't a republic it is plutocracy where the money bought the result so save me the friggin fairy tales already.

The Democratic voters from 4 states, in 2 primaries and 2 caucuses, narrowed the choices in the primaries for 44 other states down to two centrist/corporatist/3rd/way/"new dem" candidates.

It's possible that Baucus is just following orders from Emanuel.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6352983

:dem:

-Laelth

...and NOT the fault of the Democratic Party Leadership and other Senators who PUT these Corporate shills in their positions of POWER.

It gives corrupt Democratic Senators from "Blue" states cover when they sell out their constituents and collect their corporate pay offs.

weren't the "up with people" humanitarians we'd always imagined.

Our Constitution is massively flawed, and the outsized influence of tiny states, due to the undemocratic nature of our Congress, as well as the ginned up primary process both parties use, gives us the least functional country in the developed world. They don't tolerate the endless wars and corporate handouts in true (parliamentary) democracies.