Forum Post: Shutdown, "The Forgotten"
Posted 10 years ago on Oct. 3, 2013, 12:16 p.m. EST by cell81
(29)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Congress’s and the President’s failure to work together and resolve their issues, has reminded of how the “forgotten people” are left with the burdens of their inefficiencies. It is true that America deserves quality healthcare that everyone can afford, just like they deserve a job that will help them pay for it.
We helped Big Banks through stimulus that were taken from our tax dollars so they could resolve their incompetence throughout the Financial Crisis.
We have worked hard and helped America move into an economic recovery.
We have gone through disasters and wars that has helped America to become stronger.
Where are our bonuses?
Where are our means to a better life?
Where are our means of securing a better future for our children?
These are Congress’s and the President’s failures.
Here are some issues with the Affordable Care Act:
The power of the Federal government could become overwhelming and bloated. (The Federal Government must allow check and balances from the State thus allowing the State to have precedence over its own community) I f someone does not want to sign up, why should they be fined? (Liberty of choice should not penalized for the sake of what the government says is the good)
Health is a personal matter therefore the government has no clam over it. Only to educate and protect the well being as a whole.
Money cannot come before health therefore a fine is unjustifiable.
While people should contribute to the well being of all it should not come as a penalty. It should come from a regular commonwealth tax. Through a low level tax everyone should be entitled to emergency care of up to at about 70%.
The mandate’s inability to be implemented within the public effectively and for the public to be educated about it, is reason enough for it to be delayed as a beta. There should be no consequences for a full year.
The inability to cite authentic claims to the public and not to allow participation are both Congress’s and the President’s fault. Stop misplacing blame and work together for America and its people. Our forebears would be ashamed, remember them.
"Health is a personal matter therefore the government has no clam over it."Firstoff,eating clams not properly inspected by the government is a bad idea,and I don't think anyone really has the right to choose to eat contaminated shellfish.If you wrote clam instead of claim-your statement is...um-a lie.
thanks for the editorial... I meant claim.. Still you are stating protectionism matters not health matters... my statement is not a lie... What are you other than your health? Does the government establish who you are? Processed meats, junk food and other foods that we can find contaminated. Pass through government's hands all the time. What is better something the government has grown or I have grown?
[Removed]
For a cancer patient, the government shutdown may be a matter of life or death
http://news.yahoo.com/for-a-cancer-patient--the-government-shutdown-is-a-matter-of-life-or-death-211105936.html
Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News 20 hours ago
.
Leo Finn was diagnosed with a rare form of bile duct cancer in February. He tried chemotherapy, but the cancer quickly spread to his liver and into his bones.
Finn’s doctor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston suggested he try cabozantinib, a drug that had successfully treated thyroid cancer but had not yet been tested on other forms of cancer. The Buzzards Bay, Mass., resident and father of three had been scheduled to undergo tests this week to get the drug, as a part of a new clinical trial overseen by the National Institutes of Health. But the trial was put on hold Tuesday because of the government shutdown.
A website operated by NIH and the Food and Drug Administration where new patients must first enroll before receiving the drug had ceased operations because of the shutdown.
Finn is just one of potentially hundreds of patients around the country who have been turned away by NIH this week because of the shutdown. A spokeswoman for the agency estimated that about 200 patients a week enroll in current or new clinical trials held at NIH’s facility outside Washington. Thirty of those patients are children — and of those, about a third are kids suffering from cancer. And until the federal government is open again, they are all being turned away.
“I was shocked,” Finn, told the Patriot-Ledger. “How can they just close the doors?"
The stats expose the human toll of the government shutdown, which entered its third day on Thursday. For most Americans, the federal work stoppage so far has been little more than a minor inconvenience, but for those who depend on a federal paycheck or other government services, the shutdown has had more dire implications.
Between 800,000 and 1 million federal workers have been off the job since Tuesday and face the prospect of no salary for potentially weeks, as Congress remains deadlocked over the budget.
And there were countless other stories around the country of the human impact of the shutdown — from the cancellation of Head Start programs in multiple states to the potential disruption of nutritional programs for women and children.
The Associated Press reported that military commissaries, where service members and their families as well as veterans can buy inexpensive groceries tax-free closed Wednesday — likely making it harder for them to make ends meet.
The shutdown had been set to have a more tragic impact in Idaho, where National Park Service employees have been involved in a search for a hiker who went missing at Craters of the Moon National Monument. The Park Service at first said it would be forced to call off the search — as all of its 19 employees were to be furloughed because of the shutdown — but has since received approval to keep 10 employees on the clock to continue the search.
There continues to be growing concern about the economic impact of the shutdown, especially in cities where businesses have grown dependent on customers who are federal employees. In Washington, eateries all over the city were reportedly cutting back staff hours because their businesses were empty. Near Federal Plaza in New York, where many of the city’s estimated 50,000 government workers are based, the streets have been far emptier than usual.
Within the medical community, the biggest concern about the shutdown was its negative impact on patients like Finn for whom clinical trials after often last-chance efforts at survival. But officials also cited fears about what the shutdown could mean long-term for cancer research.
Among other things, the annual deadline to apply for a grant for medical research from NIH is next Monday. But if the government is still closed, the applications will not be processed until the shutdown is over — which could leave a gap in funding and halt crucial research projects.
“It is the long-term disruption to government services that could be even more devastating to research innovation and the overall health of the nation for decades to come,” said Clifford Hudis, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology — which represents thousands of cancer physicians around the country.
But it’s the short-term impact of the shutdown that is most devastating for Finn, who said he is unsure what to do next. His doctor has offered to put him back on chemotherapy until the shutdown is over — but he is concerned that could affect his ability to qualify for the clinical trial. He would have to be off chemo for four weeks in order to take the new drug.
He expressed frustration with the political stalemate in Washington.
“Don’t shut off medical procedures, stuff like that that affects people’s lives,” Finn told the Patriot Ledger. “It’s not like put a Band-Aid on it and walk away. This is cancer. This is something you can die from.”
As shutdown drags on, lawmakers focus on posturing, not solutions
http://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-focus-more-on-posturing-than-solutions-during-government-shutdown-215317237.html
Chris Moody, Yahoo! News 7 hours ago
Walking alone down a third-floor hallway of the Capitol Building, Nita Lowey, a Democrat from New York, sighed heavily.
“This place is a crazy house,” she said under her breath.
It would be funny if it were not so true.
The federal government is four days into its first shutdown in 17 years, and Capitol Hill is feeling stubborn and frustrated. Republicans refuse to fund operations unless a key part of the 2010 federal health care law is delayed and congressional staffers are stripped of health care subsidies. Democrats aren’t budging from a demand that the government be fully funded — no strings attached.
So in the meantime, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have resorted to devoting resources to making the other side look as bad as possible. In a time when middle class federal workers are being furloughed without pay and essential government services are suspended, lawmakers spend more time racking up gotcha points than ending the crisis.
It’s not that there aren’t enough votes to end the shutdown today: This could all be over now if House Republican leaders would hold a vote to fund the government on the floor, but they refuse. There are, at this moment, enough Republicans and Democrats in the House who are willing to pass it. On Wednesday night, House Democrats — who agreed to support a bill that would fund the government at sequestration levels — tried to force a vote procedurally, but Republicans rejected them at every turn.
Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, however, doesn’t think there are enough House Democrats who would agree to support a continuing resolution (CR) at sequestration levels, which is what Senate Democrats passed last week and what House Democratic leaders have said they would support.
“Ask the Democrats in this House whether they support a clean CR with sequester or not. This assumption that ... somehow there is unanimity on the Democratic side that they would support a CR at sequester level is an assumption that I question,” Cantor said Thursday. “We’re trying to find the thing that we can agree on.”
Cantor’s skepticism raises the question: If you don’t think it will pass, why not just hold a vote and let it fail? Because Republicans are confident they can win this thing without having to do it, and here’s how: House Republican leaders are spending this week holding votes on bills that would fund popular government services, like the National Institutes of Health, the National Military Reserves, National Parks and monuments. They know Democrats in the Senate won’t play along, which gives Republicans an opportunity to accuse them of refusing to fund services for sick children, veterans and military service members.
Republicans appear confident this will ultimately prove to be a winning strategy. In a memo sent to House Republicans Thursday, Cantor urged his colleagues to press forward with the strategy of putting pressure on Democrats to support the piecemeal approach and predicted that Democrats would eventually buckle.
“I firmly believe their position is untenable,” Cantor wrote in the memo, obtained by Yahoo News. “Because their position is unsustainable and because we are willing to negotiate to find a reasonable resolution, I believe it is critical that we continue to engage and offer meaningful solutions for the American people. … I am confident that if we keep advancing common-sense solutions to the problems created by the shutdown that Senate Democrats and President Obama will eventually agree to meaningful discussions that would allow us to ultimately resolve this impasse.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid inadvertently handed Republicans a gift on Wednesday, when he snapped at a CNN reporter during a press conference who asked him why he would not agree to fund cancer trials for the NIH. Senate Democratic leaders were pushing back against Republican efforts to fund some programs and not others, when CNN’s Dana Bash asked, "If you can help one child with cancer, why wouldn't you?"
"Why pit one against the other?" New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said, prompting Reid to add: "Why would we want to do that? I have 1,100 people at Nellis Air Force base that are sitting home. They have a few problems of their own."
Reid, in his own cantankerous style, went on: “To have someone of your intelligence to suggest such a thing maybe means you’re irresponsible and reckless.”
Republicans and conservative media seized on Reid’s “why would we want to do that?” sound bite and accused him of not wanting to help sick children.
It was a classic gaffe: Reid’s remark sounded horrible, but it was clear that he was talking about giving one program priority over another in funding.
Still, the charge was powerful, and opportunistic politicians were happy not to give him the benefit of the doubt. On Thursday, a group of House Republicans, including Cantor, held a press conference next to a giant poster board that had a blurry screenshot of Reid’s press conference where he made the comment.
Joining Cantor were seven House Republicans with medical backgrounds dressed in white lab coats. Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist from Baltimore, even brought along his stethoscope, which hung around his neck. Surrounded by the white coats, Cantor touted the passage of a House bill to fund the NIH, and called on Reid to accept it. A few hours later, at his own press conference, Reid and other Senate Democrats reiterated their opposition to picking and choosing programs to fund.
The push to fund critical services while keeping the rest of the government shut down comes after lawmakers spent an entire day highlighting that the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., an open space on the National Mall, had been closed off to veterans who flew thousands of miles to visit the site. On Tuesday, hundreds of intrepid wheelchair-bound veterans tore down the barricades around the memorial and rolled in, despite the closure. Sensing a sure photo opportunity, many lawmakers sped to the memorial and made sure to position themselves in front of television crews and reporters who were documenting the veterans’ civil disobedience.
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of House Republicans held an outdoor press conference on the West Terrace of the Capitol Building, which overlooks the National Mall and the monuments, and demanded the site be made available to visitors. Little did they know that during their press conference, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters that the president was making an exception for visiting veterans. (Although the monuments are still technically closed, the veterans could visit under what the federal government calls a “First Amendment” exemption.)
For a brief time Thursday, all of the posturing — the press conferences, the stunts, the photo opps, the messaging — felt small when there were reports of a shooting outside the Capitol Building in the afternoon. It turned out that the gunshots were fired by a Capitol Police officer to stop a driver who police determined posed a threat to government facilities. But the incident did calm down the rhetoric for the afternoon. South Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Sanford, who had invited media and supporters to join him between popular memorials closed down in the city, canceled his plans.
Still, little that was public and substantive was done this week to reach a deal to fully fund the government. And just about everyone — including the Senate chaplain — is frustrated about it.
In his prayer to open Thursday’s congressional session, the Rev. Barry Black described recent events in the nation’s capital as “madness” and begged for mercy from on high.
"Have mercy on us, oh God, and save us from the madness,” Black prayed from the Senate floor. “We acknowledge our transgressions, our shortcomings, our smugness and our pride.”
He continued: "Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable. Remove the burdens of those who are the collateral damage of this government shutdown. Transforming negatives into positives as you work for the good of those who love you. We pray, in your merciful name, amen.”
Republican senators caught on hot mic
http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0SO8ypkAU9S_HEACYhXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzajluaWJ2BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDMwNV8x/SIG=13a1pr67s/EXP=1380938212/**http%3a//politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/03/republican-senators-caught-on-hot-mic/
Posted by CNN's Gabe LaMonica
Washington (CNN) – A conversation between two Republican senators caught on an open microphone Wednesday provided a candid look into their thoughts about the politics surrounding the government shutdown.
Talking about the Democrats' stance of refusing to negotiate a compromise to the shutdown stalemate, Senator Rand Paul told fellow Senator Mitch McConnell:
"It's awful for them to say that," Sen. Rand Paul told fellow Senator Mitch McConnell, in regards to the Democrats' stance of refusing to negotiate a compromise to end the shutdown stalemate.
"I don't think they poll tested 'we won't negotiate,'" Paul said.
Paul was coming off an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett, and he told McConnell, who's microphone was switched on for an interview with CNBC, that he has been saying over and over again that "we're willing to compromise, we're willing to negotiate."
Earlier, speaking to Burnett on her show "Out Front," Paul said "I would think you have to negotiate, which to me means discussing your differences and trying to get in the middle between the two. So we've been offering some compromises. I think that's what the American people want."
He told Burnett that the original Republican position was that they didn't want any Obamacare. "That is what we truly believe," said Paul, "we think it's bad for the country." Paul argued for a compromise to end the stalemate. "The president wants all of it, a 100 percent," he told CNN.
Yesterday senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said, "what we're not for is negotiating with people who have a bomb strapped to their chest." And both of the Republicans from Kentucky agreed that that kind of Democratic stance will be bad for the Democrats.
In the candid moment caught on tape, McConnell told Paul that "after a two hour meeting" with Congressional Democrats, he found that the left side of the aisle is espousing "basically the same view privately as it was publicly."
"I know we don't want to be here," Paul told his fellow Republican from Kentucky, but "we're gonna win this I think."
Thanks for all of this... I hope this ends soon.
I doubt it will go beyond two weeks.
[Removed]
"This is something you can die from"
You say that as if the GOP wasn't aware that this would happen.
They knew full well.
But don't worry, as they always do, they will lie about this too.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/10/eric-cantor-were-are-really-in-an-unprecedented-place-pres-obama-is-refusing-to-actively-engage.html
"The mandate’s inability to be implemented within the public effectively and for the public to be educated about it, is reason enough for it to be delayed as a beta. There should be no consequences for a full year."
No comment on how the (R)epelican'ts made this so?
Some further information, not informed by the Koch's lie machine.
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18235-conason-republican-extremists-shredding-principle
The (R)epelican't lie machine, is of course gearing up.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/10/eric-cantor-were-are-really-in-an-unprecedented-place-pres-obama-is-refusing-to-actively-engage.html
And out there, in the background, are the libe(R)tarians who are determined to dismantle democracy.
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/libertarian-billionaire-agenda-propelling-tea-party-monster-has-shut-down
By the way, what you are saying is that disease outbreaks are OK, when people take the personal "choice" of refusing to get their kids vaccinated, because Alex Jones, or some silly religion told them not to.
No I was not commanding anyone for the shutdown. I was just telling people don't get distracted by onesided media the democrats and the president have fault in this too. Misplace blame will just allow politics to continue things like this. They should be talking about ways of not allowing this to happen again. This should of been discussed last year when it almost happen or prior when everyone was saying it was going to happen. The Republicans will not accept the proper channels and the president will not do change anything. Laws can be changed all the time. Just open the government.
You must have certainly been asleep for the last 6 years or so.
You should wake up now and follow and read the links I provided.
Here's some more.
http://mediamatters.org/
Had you been paying attention, you would know that the (R)epelican'ts are now known as the party of no.
In my State, (remember those?), the teabagge(R)s have completely ignored the voters and done whatever the Koch's, et al have told them to do.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/10/forced-birth-group-right-to-life-of-michigan-succeeds-in-bypassing-voters-to-enact-plan-ahead-for-your-abortion-law.html
They will stop at nothing to get their way.
What state do you live in?
i'm living in thailand right now, close past 3 years. thanks will do:)
And politics is of course, either perfect, or beyond reproach in Thailand, of course.
Or is it simply incomprehensible?
incomprehensible
Then it obviously needs your undivided attention.
It would be interesting to learn of your understanding of it.
It's not like you've shown any comprehension of what's going on in the US.
The power of the Federal government could become overwhelming and bloated. (The Federal Government must allow check and balances from the State thus allowing the State to have precedence over its own community) I f someone does not want to sign up, why should they be fined? (Liberty of choice should not penalized for the sake of what the government says is the good)
Health is a personal matter therefore the government has no clam over it. Only to educate and protect the well being as a whole.
That's about the dumbest shit written to date. It is willful ignorance.
What is ignorant about it? You want things taken without a return.. What do you get if you do not pay into the ACA. I have not found anything. You are taxed or penlized but where does this money go? Your right I do not know, but it is not socialized so you don't get emergency care.
Republicans are licking their lips at the thought of what they can do when they regain a majority in the government, with the new found power to force the population to purchase from corporations.
Dont be fooled by their media nonsense, the ones pulling their strings are already planning what to do when that opportunity comes.
Perhaps forcing SS payments to wall st, with no opt out without a fine will be the first step.
Well there is that excessive profit law in the act that could derail that idea. Health should not be about profit
Hiding profits is something these people are professionals at. If the law was about the individual's premiums paid vs total care received, and not about the company, we would be onto something that could result in refunds for those that didnt use it.
Counting on their accountants to not get the expense side under that level is something we probably shouldnt hold our breath on :)
True... We can only push for better transparencies and harsh consequences
"....better transparencies and harsh consequences" is a must going forward.
[Removed]
I think they are all insane. I just don't want the forgotten people get stuck with the burdens left from their insanity