Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

“Not ready for prime time” doesn’t begin to describe it

By

Really, Scott Brown should hole up with a media consultant for about a month before venturing onto the airwaves again.  It just gets sadder and sadder.  Via TPM:

“Inappropriate”?  What is that supposed to mean?  “Inappropriate” according to whom, or to what standard?  It’s the Republicans who are yowling about “repeal,” for God’s sake, so it’s perfectly “appropriate” for the President to dare them to actually try it.  In fact, having staked his presidency on getting this bill passed, it would be “inappropriate” for Obama not to welcome a debate over repeal.

And it’s even more absurd when Brown starts nattering on about the stuff he likes in the bill — which of course cannot be paid for without the stuff he doesn’t like.

Scott, you are in over your head.  Someone needs to throw you a lifeline right quick.

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  1. in Massachusetts is testimony to the notion that anybody, no matter how ignorant, stupid, or tone deaf, can get elected to any office in the land as long as that individual is eye candy.  

  2. I wish I had time for a post here but his two examples on the video, first backroom deals, David debunked that on an earlier post, reconciliation he voted AGAINST in the Senate removed those “backroom deals”.  Second, the medical devices, the reconciliation delayed the excise tax until 2013.

    <

    p>Scott Brown voted to KEEP the backroom deals and voted to have the medical device tax kick in IMMEDIATELY rather than the delay.

    <

    p>Someone might want to let him know before he makes an arse out of himself again on national tv.

  5. If he was so concerned about the “medical device taxes,” maybe he, like the rest of Republicans, should have got — oh, I don’t know — involved in the health care debate as honest brokers, instead of becoming “The Party of No.” Who wants to make a bet that if three or four Republicans would have voted for that bill if they got rid of that tax, that Democrats would have found a way to get rid of it. There were ways to save money in the bill that could have reduced or eliminated that kind of tax — such as allowing Medicare to negotiate with Big Pharma, which would have saved billions and billions over that secret backroom deal that was made and doesn’t have the force of law behind it.

    <

    p>A few votes could have tipped that balance, so we would have been able to include that majorly important reform that’s needed as part of HCR. But, no, the Republicans weren’t interested in becoming a part of the process — they were only interested in being the Party of No. They didn’t and don’t care about reforming health care, they care about winning elections and doing whatever they think will help them most to win those elections… to give sweetheart deals to their corporate friends.  

  6. … about the taxes paid by medical device makers, I think it’s cogent to look at the context around which we’re concluding that the taxes are too big a hit.  My understanding is that medical device makers have a pretty handsome profit margin (something like 20% or more).  In that context, I’m not sure we’re going to suffer much.

    • Listen, we have a free market in this country. If we didn’t hold the hand of big businesses, they wouldn’t be free to do whatever they want. It’s survival of the fittest out there. We can’t be too careful when it comes to coddling profit-makers.

    • Utah Medical Devices lists their profit margins on their home page for investors.

      <

      p>http://www.utahmed.com/

      <

      p>They claim 53.2% Gross Profit Margin and 24.1% Net Profit Margin for 2009. Whether this is representative or not of the industry nationwide or just in Utah, I don’t know, but it should give people a ballpark of what we are talking about.

      • … search yielded this:

        <

        p>

        In many ways, the reason for the sector’s high profits is structural. Small firms focus and excel at product development and design but lack the resources and experience to get their products to market. Thus, the system encourages larger companies that possess superior regulatory and marketing expertise to buy innovative, smaller companies. With fewer competitors, prices tend to be higher, and with more consolidation, larger companies can demand lower prices for new technologies, reducing the incentive for smaller companies to innovate.

        <

        p>and this“

        <

        p>

        Medical devices represent an $85B market with a 20% net profit margin. Medical device makers wishing to preserve that margin better be prepared to justify the utilization and cost of their products as scrutiny builds. As our population ages, more Americans will need joint replacements. In the past with an employer paying the bill, few americans paid attention to the costs of medical devices. That will not be the case prospectively given the higher deductibles and out of pocket expenses most Americans have today.

  7. …for Rachel Maddow to be his 2012 opponent too.  She’s denied interest, of course, but having a lot of fun with the story.  He better hope she doesn’t change her mind as she’d run circles around him.  As for the “inappropriate remarks”, I was actually hoping Obama would quote his predecessor directly and say, “Bring it on!”  Certainly the GOP can understand that!

    • on Topix boards, Obama might as well have said “Bring it on,” because that’s what the teaparteeners are quoting him as saying. Since passage of the HCR bills, there does seem to be more pushback there from people interested in actual facts, but there’s still a huge amount of falsehood being spread.

  8. Two to the NLRB. BAM! All your Labor support, Sen. Brown, get to have their beefcake and eat it, too.

    Craig Becker: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board
    Craig Becker currently serves as Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations.  He graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 1978 and received his J.D. in 1981 from Yale Law School where he was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school he clerked for the Honorable Donald P. Lay, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.  For the past 27 years, he has practiced and taught labor law.   He was a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law between 1989 and 1994 and has also taught at the University of Chicago and Georgetown Law Schools.  He has published numerous articles on labor and employment law in scholarly journals, including the Harvard Law Review and Chicago Law Review, and has argued labor and employment cases in virtually every federal court of appeals and before the United States Supreme Court.

    Mark Pearce: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board
    Mark Gaston Pearce has been a labor lawyer for his entire career.  He is one of the founding partners of the Buffalo, New York law firm of Creighton, Pearce, Johnsen & Giroux where he practices union side labor and employment law before state and federal courts and agencies including the N.Y.S. Public Employment Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the National Labor Relations Board. Pearce in 2008 was appointed by the NYS Governor to serve as a Board Member on the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals, an independent quasi-judicial agency responsible for review of certain rulings and compliance orders of the NYS Department of Labor in matters including wage and hour law.  Pearce has taught several courses in the labor studies program at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Labor Relations Extension.   He is a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.  Prior to 2002, Pearce practiced union side labor law and employment law at Lipsitz, Green, Fahringer, Roll, Salisbury & Cambria LLP.  From 1979 to 1994, he was an attorney and District Trial Specialist for the NLRB in Buffalo, NY.  Pearce received his J.D. from State University of New York, and his B.A. from Cornell University.

    <

    p>Bet ya, McCain wished he kept his mouth shut. His rant gave POTUS the political cover to go big on these recess appointments. LOL.

Archives