LBJ to Ted Kennedy: don't talk about the cost of Medicare

[question everything]

if they knew the cost, it would never pass.

I think that we need to grab whatever we can and then tweak and change and modify it. Once the voters get used to some form of affordable health insurance for more, and the elimination of pre existing conditions, they may not storm town hall meetings.

And Dick Armey is till talking about "Tyranny of Medicare?"

[Uzybone]

1. Where did you get that quote?

I agree with your OP. These numbnuts are too dumb to know that a strong public option will eventually become single Payer, but the insurance companies know that. So they fight tooth and nail.

[question everything]

2. From CBS Sunday Morning

"We have some wonderful telephone tapes in which Johnson described to a newly elected Ted Kennedy how to get Medicare passed," Marone said. "He said, 'Don't let 'em cost it out. Don't let 'em project the costs down the line. It'll kill you.' He thought that if people knew the full costs of Medicare it would never have passed, and he kept trying to lowball the estimates. And this was before the Office of Management and Budget. But we believe - we say in the book - that if we knew the costs, Medicare, one of the two most popular programs in America never would have passed."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/16/sunday/main5245198.shtml?tag=contentBody;featuredPost-PE

[TheKentuckian]

3. There was no 24 hour news cycle and spin in 5 different flavors in LBJ's time

pretending you can do the same things all the time is a stretch. You'll talk about money if the M$M is interested in knowing or they'll just make up shit. Same goes in any area, if they ask then speculation is full on.

[question everything]

4. No, you cannot. Not just the media cycle but LBJ himself

he was a bully, and a towering one. And... he spent years in the Senate and knew where all the secrets were buried an knew how to lean on Senators.

This is why I suggest that we grab whatever we can, now and then, slowly, start tweaking and modifying the rules. Give members of Congress some breathing room where, by the time they are up for re election, their vote on health care reform would be one of many and, perhaps, time will show that the roof did not fall.

[alsame]

5. I'm hoping that VP Biden, with all his years in the Senate, is able

to do some leaning of his own.

[question everything]

6. Biden is nice, but he is not a bully

I doubt that he'd ever considered anyone's "pecker to be in my pocket."

LBJ kept score, he would lean on other law makers not so much through persuasion but also through fear and intimidation. Of course, in those days there were a lot more skeletons in the closets to be exposed than now..

[alsame]

7. True, but I still hope Biden can have some influence in his

own Joe-ish way.

I was a child during the LBJ years - too bad, I think I would have really enjoyed the stories as they unfolded!

[trayfoot]

8. LBJ was an "SOB", for sure! BUT.....he was OUR SOB!!!

[avaistheone1]

9. Thumbs up!

[alsame]

10. I'm still amazed at how much progressive domestic legislation

passed during his presidency. :thumbsup:

[dflprincess]

11. If he hadn't gotten bogged down in Vietnam and could have run again in '68

to push more of his domestic agenda he would have gone down as one of the greatest presidents.

We never learn and continue to let war trump progressive change.

[alsame]

12. So true and so sad for us. What I mostly remember from that

time (I was a kid) was the "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" chants and war protests on the news. And his announcement that he wouldn't run in '68.

It was only when I was older that I learned what he did domestically and had an appreciation for how much he moved this country forward.

[SoCalDem]

13. Exactly.. We always approach things incorrectly

You define a need, and then you figure out how to pay for it. Otherwise you get bupkiss.. Do we buy houses with cash?..Nope we find the house we want, and then we pay for it over a long period of time.

We start wars "before" we have the cash-in-hand to pay for them.

We have children before we have that quarter of a million bucks "they" say it costs to raise each little critter.

We are a society.
Supposedly we are all "equal".
Humans ALL get sick, at some point.
We ALL need health care
Not everyone can "afford" insurance
"Insurance" is an IDIOTIC way to deliver health care
(insurance is to protect you from UNLIKELY events..EVERYONE uses their "insurance" as soon as they get sick)

A tax should be levied against ALL of us (by income/ability to pay) so that ALL of us have true health care. If other countries can do it, why can't we?