Join the debate
Jump in the Crossfire by using #Crossfire on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Jump in the Crossfire by using #Crossfire
on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
September 20th, 2013
08:33 PM ET
Cutter: Obamacare won't be defunded
Stephanie Cutter says it's crazy for the GOP to keep fighting Obamacare because a majority of Americans are OK with it.
Gingrich: Obamacare is 'incompetent'
CNN's Newt Gingrich makes his case for defunding Obamacare and says the U.S. needs a real debate on health care.
|
|
Posted by Crossfire staff Filed under: Debates • economy • Health care • Matt Kibbe • Neera Tanden • Newt Gingrich • Stephanie Cutter |
Meet the Hosts
Author, documentary filmmaker, historian, Speaker of the House (1995-1999), and 2012 Republican presidential candidate
Fmr. Obama Deputy Campaign Mgr. and W.H. Sr. Adviser, founder of Precision Strategies, fmr. Sr. Adviser to Maj. Leader Reid and Sen. Kennedy
Conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, commentator and author
Former Special Adviser for Green Jobs under President Obama, co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, author and attorney
Just finished watching SE and Stephanie with Nader and Fiorina on ACA. Thank goodness for Nader's willingness to look critically at the good and bad in this law. Clearly, this is a starting point in response to Public Health professionals', Drs', nurses', and allied health workers' concerns about the current state of health care for the most vulnerable and groups with major disparities. As a Latina with a developmental disability I suppose I could choose to take Carly Fiorina's advice from tonight and get myself on Medicaide. Thank you Stephanie for calling that suggestion out as a completely ridiculous solution! I have always gotten health care through my employers. Now, as a consultant building my own practice, I shouldn't be forced to choose between $800 premiums with $3000 deductibles or Medicaide. Yet I know several highly educated professionals in the same situation. Ms. Fiorina is clearly out of touch with the realities of insurance coverage in California. Clearly she is also out of touch with the needs of small business. As I recall the ACA subsidizes small businesses who provide health care plans to their employees. However, I think her understanding of free markets could be better used to support meaningful change. I appreciate the willingness of your team to clarify the implementations we will see beginning in January!
People should be able to opt out of either government mandated insurance or with paying the penalty. Its just like most of the states where you have to show financial responsibility to register your car if you do not have auto insurance. The people opting out should either sign a "Living Will" that "no care should be provided to them until someone can deposit money for care; or have a bond to cover the expenses; or deposit $1000 with fire department for ambulance, deposit money for few hours of emergency care with the hospital, etc..." You get the point. The "Living Will" should also state that they or anyone on their behalf will not be allowed to sue if any care is not given due to lack of funds. Since they make this decision why should the tax payers be responsible for their care if they are not able to pay for the care.
I could listen to Gingrich talk forever. I don't always agree with him but he is so articulate and intelligent it is a pleasure to watch his wheels turn as he asks and answers questions. Great move CNN.
high-5 lady! you tell him!
can republicans offer up some REAL solutions for once instead of always just simply disagreeing with the pres... oh i forgot this bill was originally a repub idea.
I guess nobody remembers or has had a family member who got sick, only to be dropped from their insurance company because of a pre-existing condition. In the past, the insurance were responsible to their stock holders for maximun profits. They had a whole department for no other purpose but to find reasons do disqualify claims. If people can't see this is the lobblist paying tons of money to buy your minds to keep things the way they were, your blind. Under the ACA, insurance companies mast pay out 80% of the money it takes in to claims, and can only keep 20% for operating and profit. If there is money left over, it must be returned to the policy holders. Imagine how this must upset the rich people in this country that they have one less way to exploit money from the middle class and poor people from this country. Yes, this is a battle the rich wnt to win very badly.
very well put. that's why they (repubs) haven't offered any alternatives to fix our broken healthcare system – for them its not broke.
then there are those who loose employment (along with the health benefits that come along with it) – they are then left with either no ins or cobra for $400 a month!
$400 a month for cobra wouldn't be awful – however, 5 years ago I changed jobs and had to pay $2000. A month for cobra coverage for just myself and husband!
Obama is the most radical, destructive and worst President in history. He is arrogant, a pot head, lazy (maybe works 10am to 4pm) incompetent, lawless, a fraud, never had a real job, aloof and a COMMUNIST. Obama and the Democrat party are continuing to destroy the great US economy. In almost five years they have; deficit spent $6.9 trillion (most of any Pres.) with nothing to show for it, increased national debt to $16.9 trillion and counting, real unemployment rate of 18%, no job growth, 8.5 million lost jobs, 24 million underemployed, black/hispanic unemployment over 20%, they hate oil/coal industries, fossil fuels, military, private sector, success, constitution, right to bear arms, over 1,808 soldiers killed in Iraq/Afgn since Obama became Pres., one in five people in poverty (highest ever), pushed through Obamacare that was not wanted by majority of people and has already increased insurance rates 40%, is largest tax increase in history, will further destroy jobs and the economy and now costs $2.8 trillion, wasted billions of taxpayer funds on scam clean energy deals like Solyndra and Ener1 to campaign donors, foreign policy of cowardice and appeasement that has allowed at least two terrorist attacks, Benghazi and Boston, supports worst Ex Sec. of State in history, Hillary Clinton, who is responsible for the murder of Libyan ambassador and three staffers in Benghazi, supports worst AG in history Eric Holder, who is responsible for killing a border agent and the AP scandal, 48 million on food stamps and increased business killing govt regulation/employment more than any other Pres. Obama should be impeached.
Actually I thought I he has done very well considering he's up against a wall working with guys like you and all the problems he faces in so many areas, may be the most any president has ever faced. I don't think Obamacare can be stopped at this point and a shutdown will not work for that. Most of the opponents to it do not really care about the benefits people will see from it but mostly are concerned with stopping another government project from being started. Most of the people it helps will not even be polled on it, being bad for stats and all.
i agree
You watch way to much Fox News
So find somewhere else in the industrialized world to live if you hate it so much. Doubt you'll find anything better. Stop your whining, nobody has time to pay attention to your un-informed comments. That's just this arrogant PhD's thought on an argument that doesn't have any supporting evidence. I may not always agree with the right but at least SE and Newt make reasoned arguments, and for that, I commend them!
Health vs War. We only have so much money. I say health.
The Republicans continue to say that americans do not want Affordable Health Care. Well, yes, actually we really want nothing to change so we can continue to get "unaffordable health care"!! We want to go backwards and not have preconditioned insurance coverage or an opportunity to insure our children until they can afford health care on their own. We want the uninsured to continue to get health care for free! Yes, and we also want the racist republicans to fight this "Affordable Health Care Act" to prove to all of us how immature they are instead of growing up and working together toward a greater cause!
Most people know by now that those so opposed to Obamacare don't know the truth about it because Republicans have spent so much time and money selling one lie after another. They are all deposed as the lies they are, but a bit of research is required to determine that.
The thing that seems curiuosly absent from this debate is the statistics from 2 studies that place the number of Americans who die from the lack of adequate healthcare at between 30,000 and 50,000 per year. Having known 3 such people in the last few years, personally, I have no reason to doubt those statistics.
To advocate killing Obamacare is to advocate killing people - whether you want to think of it that way or not. Hitler preferred to use "the final solution" rather than "mass murder" or "genocide". I wonder what term the republicans have in mind.
The GOP has done a wonderful job of misleading the sheeple about the true costs and impact of ACA (Obamacare). Their if_you_repeat_the_lie_often_enough_it_becomes_the_truth approach about he "majority of Americans" supporting repeal is comletely bogus. The fact is the majority of Americans are completely CLUELESS about ACA and it's contents and the GOP wants it to remain that way.
The GOP also doesn't want you to know that ACA is actually 95% a Republican health plan, which makes their opposition all that more hypocritical. It was hatch from that bastion of liberal ideology – the Heritage Foundation – up to and inclusive of the "individual mandate" (which the GOP took to the SCOTUS and failed) and the dissolution of Medicare, implemented with HUGE success in MA (Romneycare) and implemented by Obama at the National level.
Somehow this whole plan is now pure evil incarnate and will bankrupt the nation.. Get a clue folks.. all the examples of how bad ACA is are extreme cases being used by the GOP.. if you are employed at a company with more than 50 people, NOTHING CHANGES. If you are under 50, then you are not part of the law. If you are self-employed then you get to go to the pools, where it has been shown (look up California's results) that prices are SIGNIFICANTLY lower than pre ACA open market costs. ACA is doing its job.
Instead of behaving like 4-yrs olds on a 5-yr long hissy fit, perhaps it's time for the GOP and extremists like Paul and Cruz to work toward improving ACA's deficiencies.
Absolutely! If it weren't for the PC clause, I wouldn't be insured at this point, since I'm a consultant...
well put. yes. they've only talked about how much costs would go up and not about the lives that will be saved.
What I do not understand, the law is passed the Supreme Court agreed, so the Republicans are not working with a law that was passed, but stupidty knows no bouds with them. They do not know what the American People want, we have discussions in associations I belong to, and when you mention the Repubicans everyone laughs. They think the Republican party is a joke.
This ended up longer than I meant it to, but just here me out please.
I don't mean to start an argument, but it sounds to me as if they ARE reading different polls. Shouldn't we all be getting the same facts? How can one... (I'm not going to try and argue which has the right facts because I don't have a primary source to go off of and even if I did would it be the truth?)... Now how can one person be getting facts saying a majority vote went for this, when the other guy got a totally different set of numbers. It just feels like a whole bunch of lies that they think we will accept just because they are capable of speaking, and on TV! I don't know who's telling the truth anymore. I can trust my family and most of my neighborhood. But on a larger scale, I think our country is separating... and if the US falls, if we fall, the world will look for a new standard. And I don't want to be alive when that happens.
I ended up a little off topic, but please stop feeding us these confusing half-truths. They make me personally, feel like I am worthless in the long run; like my opinion is only important once I've been convinced to think how they want me to think, and do what they want me to do. I thought this was a free country? Do our leaders remember what they were taught before any of the politics they devote themselves to know? About the ABCs, and good penmanship, and sharing, and integrity? I love our country, I truly do. The other day we were discussing some stuff in our US Gov & Cit class and the question came up: "Do you think The United States of America is still the greatest country in the world?" I was sitting in the front row and raised my hand for good ol' America only to realize that I was the only one. I was questioned why I thought what I did. I could not give an adequate response at that very moment, but I went home and thought. I thought about the Viscencios who live down the street form me. A couple who moved here from Guatemala some forty or so years ago. They are old and dying now, but I am positive that they would have raised their hand with me. I am not alone. I pondered deeper and thought, "If not America, then where? Where else would be the greatest nation in the world?" I could not answer this, for I know in my heart what we represent. What we stand for. It is not for money (We are in debt beyond repair), It is not for global domination, or world police, or any other term we might be labeled with. But I do believe it is on a lower level, a more humble level, a level that we all can relate to in one way or another, whether we are poor or rich or that awkward middle class area. That level which I speak of is the relationship we establish, not oversees through facebook or twitter, but in the homes of our neighbors. In the streets of our communities. In the friends and acquaintances we see every week. And most importantly in the families we grow up in. If we can't come together on a small level, we will not succeed on a large level. And you can ask any successful large scale company this. It is the small teams, working together, that brings prosperity to the whole.
Give this whole affordable care act 5 years into implementation and then talk to me. I don't see how the majority of working people who have been the back bone on this nation won't be forced to give up more of their income to pay for this. There is just no way our Nation can continue on the liberal spending course it has. The amount of subsidies that will be granted under this plan is going to put a huge burden on those who aren't getting subsidies. OUr nation nation is becoming the War and Welfare nation and it's not something we should be proud of.
i think obama has done good for this cuntry and i am behind 100 him percent obamacare has helped a lot of people here in the us. how does the repoblicans no what the people wants when they dont even talk to the people like obama does
Wow...pretty sad.
I wish the moderator of Crossfire exercised some authority to prevent people from talking at the same time. It is impossible to understand what they are saying and it is quite unnerving. I turned it off yesterday. Crossfire should be a debate, not a shouting competition.
Democracy is a dynamic process with important checks and balances. Continous opposition is important and needed.
Guys, Crossfire needs better guests. I tried to watch it tonight (Friday night, September 20th) but I just couldn't because, and I mean no offense by this, but Stephanie Cutter and Neera Tanden's voices were just SHRILL! My goodness, their voices were like nails on a chalkboard! If you need some women to argue the liberal point of view, get some women like Christiane Amanpour or Gloria Borger. They have really good voices and they speak with such gravitas. Don't get women who, when they get excited or impassioned, their vocal pitch goes through the roof. It's just too annoying. In fact, just go ahead and replace Stephanie Cutter with Christiane Amanpour or Gloria Borger. And also, Crossfire needs some kind of moderator. Watching 4 people constantly interrupting each other and talking over each other is just annoying. It's too hard to follow all the points that are being made. I think that's why Wolf Blitzer did better in that time-slot...because at least people were able to understand what was being said.
Friday night with Neera Tanden was much better than the earlier evening with Michelle Bachman and Charlie Rangel. Bachman won't let anyone else talk. Stephanie and Newt did a better job than Van Jones and SE Cupp (either that or their guest were better than the Bachman.), The crossfire hosts need to do better moderation than this. I admire Candie Crowley.
I won't be watching anymore until Newt is gone.
If I hear another ' the american people' I will scream.
The President was elected on policies clearly delineated.
The subsequent laws passed, based on those policies should be respected.
That is the fundamental principle of democratic government.
Aston, are you paying any attention to the outcry against Obamacare? Secondly, the bill that was voted on is nothing like the bill they are forcing on the American people, waivers, changes, all done without a vote by Congress. And finally, we are a Republic, not a democracy.
One, most of the outcry you are hearing is confirmation bias. Second, Congress does not usually vote on the implementation of laws, but rather the passage. Those are decisions usually made by executive agencies. And lastly, a Republic is a form of democracy. Anyway Aston did not state we were a pure Democracy, but a democratic government, you know, a Republic.
I would agree with you on the basis on your argument but you aren't taking it far enough. The House and the Senate were also elected by their constituents to do the jobs they were selected to do. There are elected officials who ran on 'Derail the ACA by any means possible.' Being the law of the land lends no authority or make something right. For instance, Segregation laws from back in the '60s. I wouldn't agree with them now or then but they were the law of the land.
This is the process, while we might all agree it is insanity, this is how it works.