In the volitle political climate we live in today, if you were a company, would you like to be associated with pundits or entertainers who have been associated with making highly offensive and hateful remarks? That's the problem of Verizon Wireless sponsoring a pro-coal, anti-environment rally on Labor Day. Here's part of a statement made by an organization called Credo Action criticizing Verizon's participation:
Why is Verizon Wireless co-sponsoring a pro-coal, anti-environment rally on Labor Day? It's called the Friends of America Rally and over 25,000 people have already RSVPed to attend a political event to promote climate change denial and mountaintop removal mining. Massey Energy, a dirty coal company and the most egregious violator of the Clean Water Act in history, is the moving force behind the event. The rally features speeches by prominent global warming denier Lord Christopher Monckton and conservative pundit Sean Hannity. Ted Nugent will provide musical entertainment.
Hannity's involvement in the rally given the hateful rhetoric he has often used against President Obama and others is bad enough. What's even scarier is Verizon's association through this event with Ted Nugent who last year in a rant encouraged violent attacks against then-Democratic presidential candidates Obama and Hillary Clinton. Here's the video of the Nugent rant:
Is Verizon really sure it wants to associate itself with the hate speech of Ted Nugent? I suggest it disassociate itself with this event posthaste? The Credo Action piece continues:
Companies like Verizon Wireless may say they are not making a political statement when they participate in events like these. But it's never just about marketing. After all this is the same company that made a decision to block NARAL Pro-Choice America's text messages from its network. Verizon Wireless has choices. And once again, it's made a very poor one. Tell Lowell McAdam, President and CEO of Verizon Wireless to issue a public apology and immediately withdraw all support from this extremist, anti-environmental rally.
I've already let my feelings be known to Verizon Wireless. I hope you do too.
We've seen three distinct pages of the Republican playbook in play when it comes to the actions of three Texas congressmen. One part of the playbook-- When caught in a lie and you still don't want to answer tough questions, end the meeting-- was executed excellently by the Houston-area congressman, Rep. Pete Olson from Tom DeLay's old congressional district, during his townhall last week. Here's part of what the Huffington Post reported:
Olson told the story of Britney, a pregnant woman who couldn't find a doctor who would treat her unborn child's heart defect. After being turned away by several, she hunted down a specialist in Detroit who was willing to perform the procedure. Britney is convinced that her son would not have been born if there was a public option then, and she wouldn't have had the choices to find the doctor that she wants. Over applause, a number of audience members audibly groan. "Oh Jesus Crist, that's terrible," says one attendee. "That's not true," says another. "For those of you who say it's not true, don't talk to me, talk to Britney," Olson responded. "The insurance company turned her down, not the government," an audience member says. "The private insurance turned her down, not the government." Others shout back that if there was government-run insurance, she would have been turned away. As the meeting devolves into shouting back-and-forth, Olson just says, "I want to thank you all for coming."
Just like a little coward. He got caught in his lie, so he abruptly, like a little boy, takes his bat and ball and goes home instead of deal with his sin and apologize for it. The problem is, Olson IS the government, and his district, as Republican as it may be, deserves far better from its representative than what he delivered in his townhall. Here's the video of Olson in action:
Another part of the playbook-- When confronted with a hard question, change the subject-- was executed by my area's Tom DeLay gerrymandering-imposed congressman, "Taliban Pete" Sessions, during his recent townhall in Irving. Cool Onion, in his excellent blog, "Sessions Watch," provides a riviting transcript of Sessions' encounter with a constituent:
Constituent: Thank you for giving us an opportunity to discuss this issue. Sessions: Yes, ma’am. Constituent: And Congressman, I respect the fact that you have a family member with special needs, and you would do anything you can to make sure that that person in your family is taken care of. I want to tell you my story about someone in my family who I care deeply about, who’s falling through the cracks of our current system and why I think having a public option is so important. Can I do that? Sessions: Yes, ma’am. Absolutely. That’s why you’ve been invited down… Constituent: Thirteen years ago, my husband was diagnosed with liver failure. He was told he needed a transplant to live. Nine months later, he received his transplant. Now, if my story stopped there and was only about health care it would be a wonderful story about how our country is admired around the world for the type of health care we receive. However, my story is not about our health care. My story is about health coverage, pre-existing conditions, and falling through the cracks in the system as it stands. My husband’s a semiconductor engineer, he made six figures a year, we were as middle class as anybody wants to be. And last Fall, when the economy collapsed, he lost his job. Now, we had the choice of staying on COBRA, and at the time, as you recall, at that time was $1500.00 a month for our family. Sessions: Yes, ma’am. Constituent: Okay. His insurance just for him, if I took myself and my two children off, was going to be over $600.00. The medicine to keep a liver transplant alive, without insurance, was going to cost me $700 a month. Now, unemployment was only $1500 a month, and we still had rent, and food, and utilities and everything else. Now, when the new administration came in and the stimulus package came through, we were able to get our—for nine months—insurance reduced. But at the end of those nine months, we’re back up to $1500 and our unemployment is gonna run out. There are no jobs to be had, especially jobs with insurance. The only people that are hiring now are hiring contract labor. Contract labor, they’re not required to insure; it’s a loophole in the business system. Now, without the medication, my husband is going to die. We’re already lost our home, we had to sell our car, I’ve had to cut as many expenses as I can possibly cut, in order to keep my husband alive. Alive. It isn’t a matter of—y’know, people are saying, “Well, why don’t you just go get Medicare.” He doesn’t qualify for Medicare. He’s healthy! He’s been post transplant for almost— Sessions: He’s probably not old enough— Constituent: — fifteen years — Sessions: —for Medicare. Constituent: He’s 54 years old. He’s not old enough. So we are in this black hole where, y’know, without the public option, all this bill does is say everybody has to be covered. If there’s no cost savings on anybody from the…for the insurer, there’s no incentive to make the insurance companies cover us at the same rate that anybody else gets, and all I’m asking for—I’m not asking anybody to take their insurance away from them. I’m just saying I am an American citizen, I deserve the same amount of insurance that anybody else gets… (applause) …we pay taxes… Sessions: Thank you, and I think you’ve spoken very well. Constituent: And I truly would like to know, why aren’t you on this? Please. Sessions: I’ll tell you why I’m not on the bill. I’m not on the bill because people need to speak to the President when he goes around the country and to say, “Mr. President, let’s not do a trillion six hundred billion dollar. Let’s aim where the problem is, and let’s help people and let’s go…(audio drowned out by applause)…this President…this President was told that in thirteen days, he spent more money than George Bush spent in two wars for seven years, Katrina and New York City with 9-11…(cheers and applause)…and…that a person who is gonna be President has to be responsible for the national debt that is taking place that is killing jobs in this country…(unintelligible exchange between Sessions and Constituent, drowned out by applause)…and this President needs to hear from you and others so that he goes back and does something about the problem, not over everybody in here and ruining Medicare. (Cheers and applause from audience). And I—I as a member of Congress am trying to say, I have—I have open town hall meetings. I initiated the meeting with Eddie Bernice Johnson. I openly will say to anybody, including the President, “Mr. President, listen to people, go do something about the problem, don’t try to take over a government run health care plan…(cheers and applause)…I have great empathy. I really do. It doesn’t take a lot for me to figure out, and I started my career working as a paperboy. I worked every day, never missed a day of work when I worked in the private sector and I’ve gotta work for a living now, too. And I know all but for probably five genes that any of us have that are wrong it could be us that would be there, too. I, too, understand that. I’m not a mean, cold-hearted person. But the American public is also kind and generous, but don’t pick on everybody. (applause) Go and find the problem. So I would say that a group of people who were here from all the organizations need to go back and do a huddle with the President, and the President is a great salesman. But he is getting his clock cleaned (wild cheers and applause obscure audio)…dialogue with the President. And I’m very open to having dialogue with anybody here. Please aim for the problem. I would love to have you say to the President, “Mr. President, what we’re trying to sell is not working.” It’s not! You just can’t argue that case. But you still have needs, and we still have a problem, and Sessions agrees with that. Let’s solve the problem. Thank you very much.
And again (for at least the third time in this blog), here's the video of Sessions in action:
And if all that wasn't enough, a third Texas congressman (and the second from the Houston area)-- executed the GOP playbook as perfectly as you can get it-- when confronted with a question you don't want to answer and the interviewer persists with it, don't answer the question still. Blame the media instead. Here's Rep. John Culberson in action as he is interviewed by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell:
If you don't already know the Republican party's lack of concern toward average folks like me and complete lack of interest in passing real healthcare reform, all you have to do is watch all three of these video clips and you'll quickly get the picture.
Even if under the weak pretense of providing "balance," I cannot believe any legitimate news organization that gives any semblance of creedence to the hate-mongering extremists behind the website defending Glenn Beck's hate-talking on Fox and elsewhere. KingOneEye in a Daily Kos diary offers a riveting profile of a group called "The United States Justice Foundation" and its leader, Gary Kreep. Kreep, says KingOneEye,
...is the general counsel to the racist, anti-immigration group, The Minutemen. He has been affiliated with the radical and violent anti-choice group, Operation Rescue. He was a California delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1976 and 1980. Most recently Kreep has been a leader of the "birther" movement that seeks to nullify last November's election of the grounds that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. He has been one of the most vocal proponents of the birther myths going back to at least November 2008, when he tried to prevent California delegates to the Electoral College from casting their votes. He originally worked with birther queen, Orly Taitz, representing several clients, including Alan Keyes. He has since replaced Taitz as counsel to birther litigant "Rev." Wiley Drake. Drake is notable for publicly praying for the death of Obama. When a man like Drake selects you to represent him, over Orly Taitz, that is quite an endorsement.
That's bad enough. What's even worse, as KingOneEye points out, is the legitimacy the mainstream media is giving this nutcase and his new group in the name of providing counterbalance to the successful efforts of ColorOfChange to expose Beck's hate speech and dry up Beck's sponsor support to the point that he can no longer spouting his hate on the airwaves. Speaking of the website, "Defendglenn" that this nutball has created to fight back efforts to cause Beck's show to get pulled off the air, KingOneEye wrote:
DefendGlenn was created to instigate complaints directed at the companies who pulled their ads from Beck, and to thank his remaining advertisers. Instead, the site has become a repository of lies and disinformation, as well as a sycophantic center of blind adulation for Beck. It is impossible to gauge whether the site has any measurable influence, except to note that none of the companies boycotting Beck have reversed their positions, nor cited DefendBeck as motivation for their actions. However, the press has taken notice and is beginning to treat the site as the legitimate counterbalance to Color of Change. Consequently, whenever there is a mention of Color of Change, the media, in its misguided pursuit of balance, will mention DefendGlenn as well. This is another example of media laziness. Balance is not achieved by juxtaposing truth with lies. Color of Change documents its impact with letters from the companies they have solicited, and their leaders and staff are identified on their web site. But DefendGlenn provides no such documentation, and their leadership is a mystery to anyone who visits their site.
What part of this doesn't the mainstream media understand? There's nothing legitimate about a man with a right-wing nutjob background setting up a website defending another right-wing nutjob. This is no counterbalance. It's legitimizing hate. It's time the media stopped acting like a bunch of sissies and call this pro-Glenn Beck organization and the nut job behind it what he is-- a loon who doesn't deserve a mainstream forum.
This was perhaps the most touching moment of Ted Kennedy's burial service at Arlington National Cemetery. If you had any doubts about Ted Kennedy's long-standing commitment to healthcare reform, listen to these words as they ring out strong even as his body is laid to rest alongside his brothers John and Robert:
He was a giant in every way, and let's not let Ted Kennedy's valiant work to achieve significant healthcare reform go in vain.
Like Gene Autry once sung, I'm "Back In The Saddle Again." After a few days of battling the fever (I was at 102 degrees at one point Thursday night) I'm back up and around following a much needed day of rest to bring my body back to normal. And after watching as much of the tributes to Ted Kennedy as I could to go along with my doses of Texas (St)Rangers baseball and tonight's (Sorry)Boy game against the 49ers, I'm as loaded for bear as I could be. To start with, one cannot discuss Ted Kennedy without discussing what he said was "the cause of his life," namely national health insurance. Contrary to what naysaying Democrats, Republicans, and their friends in the Washington pundit class are saying, healthcare reform is not subject to compromise-- especially when it comes to the public option. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid is out of his tree when he says that a public option can be privately run, and another Democratic senator, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, needs a strong dose of reality juice for continue to press for the total watering down of any reform by pushing weak co-ops to stand in the place of a public option. What is there to be afraid of about the public option? There are already two single-payer government-run healthcare systems in this country, namely Medicare (for seniors) and the Veterans Administration, and both have been strong in delivering quality benefits for their participants. And how about this poppycock about a public option driving private insurers out of business? Have these people ever heard of FedEx and UPS? Both FedEx and UPS are privately-run delivery companies that have garnered large chunks of the national and international delivery businesses even with the availability of a strong public option, namely the U.S. Postal Service. If FedEx and UPS can win large chunks of the package delivery market by delivering quality service to their customers, why can't private insurers become just as inventive in producing quality products against a Medicare-like public option? Are these private for-profit insurance companies so lazy about becoming more inventive and customer-friendly that they'd rather spend millions to defeat healthcare reform instead of doing what it takes to provide better services even in the face of competition from a robust Medicare-like public option? America cannot afford anything less than robust healthcare reform with a real Medicare-style public option, and if lazy politicians like Harry Reid, Kent Conrad, and their ilk don't want to deliver it, they should step aside and allow those who really want to honor the memory of Ted Kennedy to step forward and ram this legislation directly to President Obama's desk even if it gets no Republican support.
When I was young and immature, I was anything but a Ted Kennedy fan (or a fan of any Kennedy), but as I have gotten older, I have learned to appreciate the legacy of all the Kennedy brothers, especially Ted, who died earlier in the day. Ted Kennedy was the senator from Massachusetts, but he might as well have been the senator who represented the entire United States. He championed just about every progressive cause that ever was hatched from the day he first walked onto the Senate floor to the day he died. Up to the end, Ted Kennedy was in the front lines of the fight for meaningful healthcare reform, and I wish Ted could have been there when this important legislation gets passed and then signed by President Obama. Ted Kennedy was a hero to me, and I'm DEFINITELY going to miss this Senate lion.
So much for United Healthcare being neutral on the healthcare reform battle when it arms employees with anti-reform talking points and links to right-wing sites fighting against any reform.
The attitude of the Republican party toward those who are suffering because of our broken healthcare system can best be described by that oft-quoted Marie Antoinette line: "Let them eat cake." My area's congressman, "Taliban" Pete Sessions (TX-32) might as well have given that answer as he refused to give a direct answer to a woman's concern about her situation that has been brought on by our healthcare crisis during a townhall last week at Irving's Ranchview High School. Another Republican, this one from across the Red River, Sen. Tom Coburn (Oklahoma), showed the same callousness toward another constituent during another townhall. Coburn's heartlessness was correctly exposed by CNN's Rick Sanchez. Here's that clip:
Coburn might as well have flipped the bird at the woman or have told his listeners, "Let her eat cake!" That's as mean as that response was. Now, let's hear Sessions change the subject to the cheers of heartless supporters as a woman queries him about her healthcare concerns:
The Republican party has rightfully been called the party of no by many. With heartless and unconcerned senators and congressmen like Sessions and Coburn, there's little reason to think that that image is going to change anytime soon. It's time for the Obama Administration to stop its efforts to negotiate with these callous critters and pass healthcare reform down their throats the same way these same Republicans when they controlled the Congress and White House railroaded morally irresponsible tax cuts for the richest 1 percent at the expense of the rest of us down our throats.
It's been 16 years now since my wife and I moved from California into first Oklahoma and then Texas, but I still haven't gotten over my time in the Los Angeles area. I followed just about every sports team there was in Los Angeles, especially the Dodgers and Lakers. I also followed both UCLA and USC sports. Lately, I have marveled about the work Pete Carroll has done. No, it's not about the two national championships and tons of Pac-10 football titles he has won in his years with the Trojans, it's his work in the community near USC that deserves more than just mere kudos. His work in the Los Angeles inner city near USC is well-documented on his web site, but what really got my attention as well is his work with a young man named Ricky Rosas. Rosas may never wear the cardinal-and-gold of USC as a player, or even take a class in the shadows of the Tommy Trojan statue located at the center of the school, but you cannot overlook the effect this young has had with Carroll and his players through the past few years. Here's a segment that was done about Rosas on the NBC Nightly News:
After seeing that, you can't help but fall in love with young Rosas. At the same time, you can't help but respect the job Carroll has done working with those who live in the immediate areas around USC and giving folks like Rosas a chance.
What a liar this Pete Sessions is. He claims the president is "getting his clock cleaned" on healthcare reform, but how can he say that when 77 percent of the American people support the public option? And when a woman came forward during his townhall last week to express her healthcare concerns, "Taliban Pete" (R-TX-32) didn't respond directly. All he did was change the subject and once again misappropriating blame for the current economic crisis we're in. Someone forgot to tell Pete that the mess was created largely during the six years that Sessions and his Republican friends controlled the Congress and George W. Bush was president. Anyway, here's the tape of Pete's exchange with the woman:
Our district deserves better from their congressman than one who doesn't answer a constituent's concerns and instead changes the subject while making things up in the process (Sessions' claim about Obama "getting his clock cleaned.") As a resident of Sessions' district, I deserve FAR better, and I hope some solid Democrat will challenge this fool next year and ask the questions that Sessions wants to duck like that posed by the woman in this video.
This is HUGE! Here's what's being reported in Firedoglake:
U.S. Senator Max Baucus has finally broken his silence regarding his personal position on including a public option in health care reform legislation. Last Monday night (8/17), in an unprecedented conference call to Montana Democratic central committee chairs, the powerful leader of the Senate Finance Committee told his strongest supporters that he supported a public option. While discussing the obstacles to getting a public option through the Senate, he assured his forty listeners, "I want a public option too!" The conference call was groundbreaking in that none of the recipients could ever remember this kind of call ever happening before. The teleconference was set up seemingly in reaction to rising discontent among the local Democratic leaders with the Senator's failure to take a clear position on the issue. The discussion, which became contentious and rancorous at times, also touched upon the wisdom of creating insurance cooperatives as an alternative to a public option. When several of the county chairs objected, commenting that they did not trust the health insurance companies to police themselves and limit their outrageous corporate profits, Baucus commented, "Neither do I." In the aftermath of the teleconference, a coalition of eighteen Montana counties in the Senator's home state decided to move forward with their plan to issue a Unified Statement accompanied by a joint press release. The statement sends a loud and clear message to their Senator: Any health care reform package coming out of his Senate Finance Committee must contain, at a minimum, a provision for a strong public option.
Now let's see how another senator, "co-op" Kent Conrad, handles similar pressure when confronted with a strong push for a public option. (NOTE: In all the stories I'm seeing about the public option in the mainstream media (particularly the Los Angeles Times), I haven't seen a word about polling that shows 77 PERCENT SUPPORT for a public option. So much for us losing the battle).
If anyone thought the boycott against Glenn Beck was going to die down after the Fox "news" channel took him off the air for just a week, they are mistaken big time. Reports the Huffington Post:
Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel after a vacation on Monday with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist. A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Walmart, CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.
Hate speech has no place in our airwaves, and what Beck and others on the right, especially on Fox, have been peddling is hate speech. It has nothing to do with encouraging free debate on issues critical to society.
Slinkerwink in Daily Kos presented another excellent diary today on the fight for meaningful health care reform, this one on pending legislation in the Senate Finance Committee that would force patients to pay as much as 35 percent of their healthcare costs. The diary quotes a section of a story that appears in the Los Angeles Times that contends that health insurance interests have "gained the upper hand" in the battle. Here's part of what the Times reported about what's being hatched in the Senate Finance Committee:
"It's a bonanza," said Robert Laszewski, a health insurance executive for 20 years who now tracks reform legislation as president of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates Inc. Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled down to a single word: "Hallelujah!" The insurers' success so far can be explained in part by their lobbying efforts in the nation's capital and the districts of key lawmakers.
The L.A. Times piece continues:
"The insurers are going to do quite well," said Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. "They are going to have this very stable pool, they're going to have people getting subsidies to help them buy coverage and . . . they will be paid the full costs of the benefits that they provide -- plus their administrative costs."
Any bill that requires patients to pay as much as 35 percent of the bill is totally unacceptable. In fact, the bill wouldn't even be reform at all. Slinkerwink continues:
And you know what's egregiously bad about this? Private insurance companies currently pay about 80% of insurance policy claims, and in the Senate Finance Bill, the requirement for them will be lowered to 65%! That means you'd be required to pick up 35% of your medical bills. See? You get covered, but you're forced to pay 35% of your bills. That's why I keep saying that universal coverage does not equate affordability.
The American people can't afford to pay 35 percent of their healthbills. How can the Senate Finance Committee explain that this would be desirable legislation to those like me who struggle to make ends meet? Maximum pressure must be applied to right-wing Democrats in name only that this bill is unacceptable and no reform would be far better than what these so-called conservatives are hatching. And maximum publicity must be exposed on the fraud of a campaign being waged by opponents who claim that they represent the best interests of the American people but in fact really don't. As Slinkerwink writes:
Where's the affordability really for the middle-class in this crappy Senate Finance Bill? I don't see it, especially not with a community rating of 7:1 in that bill, which means you could pay seven times what a young adult pays especially if you're an adult in your 50s or 60s.
We need more representatives like Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) who really go to bat for average folks like me in Congress. We need folks like her who are willing to take on powerful interests to pass real healthcare reform with a public option.
Our president gets one point-- you have to keep repeating the same points over and over again to get things done in Washington. No one ever said it was going to be easy to pass healthcare reform in this country, and, like in the past, insurance companies and their Republican allies are fighting tooth and nail to keep the current corrupt system in place. But at least our president keeps fighting (albeit not as strongly as I think he should), and that's to his credit. Here's the tape of his latest weekly message:
While the president repeats the answers that have been most frequently given to the myths about "death panels" (or the "pulling the plug on Grandma" argument) and how it would lead to a "government takeover" of healthcare, he makes this additional statement about the public option:
Now, the source of a lot of these fears about government-run health care is confusion over what’s called the public option. This is one idea among many to provide more competition and choice, especially in the many places around the country where just one insurer thoroughly dominates the marketplace. This alternative would have to operate as any other insurer, on the basis of the premiums it collects. And let me repeat – it would be just an option; those who prefer their private insurer would be under no obligation to shift to a public plan.
So what kind of a "public plan" are we talking about, a Medicare-style government-run one or a weak "co-op" plan that Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is pushing? It is disturbing that our president doesn't define this further, and it is even more disturbing that he isn't using any harsher language about those who have been spreading outrageous lies about his proposal. I wish he would call spades spades and call his Republican, insurance company, and right-wing talk show critics who spread the lies exactly what they are, liars, and do it forcefully and with conviction. I appreciate that he is using his extensive "political capital" to pass this important measure, and it is also impressive that he has said that he is willing to be just a one-term president if that's what it takes to achieve healthcare reform. But on this public option, he must define it sharply and specifically, not leave any door open for any weak-kneed substitute like the co-op idea that Conrad and others are advancing. Is there any room for co-ops in any healthcare reform program? Here's what thebagofhealthandpolitics has said about that:
A co-op that operates under a national framework can be successful. This non-profit model is successful in many western European countries. But it is not the lame, state-based co-ops of Kent Conrad’s dreams; Conrad’s state-base co-ops wouldn’t have a large enough pool to alter the market, reduce costs and increase access. The end game is upon us, but for our side to be successful, we need the House to pass a strong bill with stringent regulations on the insurance industry and a strong public option, administered by the federal government.
So what is the use of dealing with those who want to defeat or weaken any healthcare legislation? I haven't heard our president give an answer to that question. We need to see much more fight from this president than he's shown, espcially when calling out his lying critics, and pressure must be placed on Democrats, both real and "blue dogs," to pass legislation that has a strong, not weak or in name only, public option that is not watered down by those with stakes in preserving what is wrong.
Just as Rick Scott's so-called "Conservatives for Patients Rights" put out an ad attacking President Obama's healthcare plan, Scott himself came under more scrutiny in another segment on Rick Sanchez's television show on CNN. Notice how Scott tries to weasel out of answering Sanchez's questions about the $1.7 million his hospital group had to pay in fines for activities that happened while he was heading the group. Here's the clip:
Sanchez's Scott piece didn't go without notice. Wrote Jason Linkins in the Huffington Post:
On Friday, Rick Sanchez went after Conservatives For Patient's Rights, another one of these groups that likes to pretend to want "real reform" when what they really want is a big ol' dollop of status quo. Rick Scott, who heads up the organization, is a real piece of work, the kind of guy you cross the street to avoid. His Hospital Corporation of America bilked the government by fraudulently "upcoding" Medicare billing codes, and it ended up paying $1.7 billion in penalties for stealing from American taxpayers. You might also recall that when Health Care For America Now called Scott out in an advertisement, CPR and Scott manufactured a phony controversy that took me about five minutes to debunk. Scott has hobbies, too, among them "sitting on the board of a company used by Saudi Arabia and Iran to suppress Internet access." All you guys out there with green-tinted Twitter avatars should take note!
Trusting Rick Scott to be a leading spokesman for patients' needs and rights is like trusting Bernie Madoff to be a leading advocate of financial responsibility. As Rick The Thief and his crew travel to Martha's Vineyard to hound our president and falsely claim that his anti-reform position represents the will of the American people, I hope those AT Martha's Vineyard are ready to expose the real Rick Scott everywhere he goes. Maybe that'll make him think twice before continuing to con the American people against their own interests and against real healthcare reform.
Mark this date-- September 13. That's the day marches are planned to dramatize support for the public option in any healthcare reform legislation. The bullies and deceivers on the right may think they have us on the ropes, but this year is not 1993. This year, we're going to turn out in force and show these idiots that we're not going to stand for their lies and disinformation. This year, we're going to stand up and be counted and the opinion makers will have no choice but watch, take notice, and vote FOR real healthcare reform that DOES have a public option.
Watch all the cherry picking that will be done by those in the media looking for trends against healthcare reform. On the heels of a SurveyUSA Poll indicating 77 percent support for the choice of a public option, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows an erosion of support for not only the public option, but President Obama himself and how poorly he and those around him have handled the battle for healthcare reform. Here's an exerpt from the Washington Post story on the ABC News/WaPo poll:
Disapproval of Obama's handling of the health-care issue reached 50 percent in the new poll, the highest of his presidency, and 42 percent of those surveyed say they now "strongly disapprove" of the way he is dealing with his main domestic priority. Views of the president's actions on reform have dropped most sharply among seniors and independents.
The story then goes to discuss its public option findings:
The poll was completed just as a new debate about a public health insurance option erupted after administration officials appeared to signal their willingness to jettison the proposal as part of an eventual compromise. White House officials later insisted that there had been no change in their support for the public option as they sought to reassure Democrats furious about what they regarded as an administration cave-in. In the survey, 52 percent of Americans said they favor the government's creation of a new health insurance plan to compete with private insurers, while 46 percent are opposed. That is a big shift from late June, when 62 percent backed the notion and 33 percent opposed it. The drop in support for the public option has been particularly steep among political independents, the closely watched group so critical to the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and Obama's victory last year. Two months ago, independents supported the public option by a 2 to 1 ratio. Now, 50 percent are in favor, and 47 percent are opposed. Seniors have also become decidedly negative toward the proposal: In June, seniors were evenly split on the plan, but now a majority strongly oppose the idea.
There is one BIG problem with the ABC News/Washington Post poll: It fails to deal with the REASONS for the opposition to healthcare reform. It also fails to check into WHERE those surveyed got their health insurance reform information from. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal expanded on that, as Rachel Maddow so brilliantly reported earlier in the week:
And King One Eye in Daily Kos expanded on Maddow's report further:
new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll featured on the Rachel Maddow show included questions centered on the recent health care debate. What made this poll unique was that four of the questions sought to ascertain whether the respondents believed statements that were known to be untrue. Here are the results broken out by which news sources the respondents favored:
On Health Care Reform, Those Who Believe That It Will... MSNBC/CNN Viewers Fox News Viewers Give Coverage To Illegal Immigrants: 41% 72% Lead To A Government Takeover: 39% 79% Pay For Abortions: 40% 69% Stop Care To The Elderly: 30% 75%
Let me repeat: These are statements that are known to be untrue, yet Fox News viewers believe them in overwhelming numbers. It's bad enough that approximately 40% of MSNBC/CNN viewers believe these myths, but clearly Fox is producing an audience of vastly misinformed, cultural illiterates. The problem with having a national news organization that is polluting the population with lies about critical public issues is that it makes democracy impossible. And that, of course, may be the goal of Fox and its corporate overseers. Democracy is such a messy affair, what with all the people voting and stuff. If your objective is to manipulate government, you can't get very far if voters are actually familiar with the issues and are capable of making sound judgments. So Fox News found it necessary to invent a platform of fake agendas to create fear and then purposefully indoctrinate their predominantly Republican and southern viewers to believe in them.
It sure makes you wonder about the validity of the negative ABC News/Washington Post findings on the public option since that survey did not delve into what folks believed or didn't believe about the proposal. The ABC News/Washington Post poll also failed to take into account discontent with Obama because of his failure (and especially that of those around him) to enunciate a clear vision of what they wanted from the start and sticking to it. Notice also the timing of the ABC News/Washington Post poll-- it was taken when both Obama and his HHS secretary-- Kathleen Sebelius-- were giving signals that they were willing to ditch the public option if that's what it took to pass healthcare reform. That would make anyone, including me, wonder about the commitment of someone to stand by his principles and fight for them even if it meant costing them legislation or popularity points. Given also the findings of the NBC News/WSJ poll, it's a big mystery why the ABC News/Washington Post surveyers didn't ask their respondents what they believed about the president's healthcare reform proposal and how they'd feel once they were explained what the proposal really was. In the light of something I've heard Chuck Todd of NBC said, that once folks were explained what the Obama proposal really was (with the public option), 53 percent would support it, it's a mystery why the ABC/Washington Post poll didn't do the same. The corporatists opposing healthcare reform may be gleeful about the poll, but I wonder what they'll feel when their house of lies is fully exposed and the American people revolt against them because of how they've been misled. And when that reality hits, watch the flimsy house of lies crash before us.
Even when confronted with polls showing 77 percent support for a public option in any healthcare reform bill, failed health industry executive and head of the so-called "Conservatives for Patients Rights," Rick Scott, continues on in his make believe world that his side against any reform is winning the battle. According to Greg Sargent, Scott's organization is planning a new series of ads and other activities designed to defeat the measure (and healthcare reform in general). Here's part of what Sargent reported:
In a clear sign that conservatives are worried that the public option could still survive, an internal memo from a top anti-health care reform group claims that “rumors of its death” have been “greatly exaggerated,” discusses plans to run new ads targeting it, and vows to redouble efforts to foment opposition to it at town hall meetings.
The Sargent piece continued:
The internal memo, which I (Sargent)obtained from a source, was created by staffers at Conservatives for Patients Rights, the well-funded group run by controversial former hospital exec Rick Scott, who reform proponents see as public enemy number one. The memo discusses a “Martha’s Vineyard ad strategy” that’s set to kick in next week. According to a source familiar with the group’s plans, this is a reference to a planned national ad targeting the public option that will reference the President’s vacation.
You can see the complete memo from Scott after clinking on this link. Another thing. Whenever you read or hear of any story about Rick Scott and his orgainzaition, look no forward to his checkered past in the healthcare industry To hear more about who Rick Scott is and what he represents, check out this video:
...and this video in which Scott is unable (or unwilling) to give straight answers about his checkered past in the health insurance industry:
You would think the anti-healthcare reform advocates would find a better advocate for its cause than Rick Scott, especially after one hears about his past and how he answers questions about it.
If the health insurance companies and their friends among Republicans, the religious right, and right-wing talk show hosts thought they could scare folks against real healthcare reform, they are badly mistaken. How badly? Try more than three of every four Americans. That's what SurveyUSA is reporting in a national poll sponsored by Moveon.org. Here's the key survey question:
Question: In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance--extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?
Extremely important....58% Quite important........19% Not that important..... 7% Not at all important...15% Not sure............... 1%
Get that: Those who think it's extremely or quite important add up to be 77 percent. How big has the public option become? Here's Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she won’t be able to pass health-care legislation in her chamber if the measure doesn’t include a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers. “There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said at a press conference in San Francisco today.
Now let's get real healthcare reform WITH a robust public option passed!
After hearing about how both the Fox "news" channel and CNN Headline News run segments defending a woman who likened President Obama with Adolf Hitler during Rep. Barney Frank's townhall, I felt like the Peter Finch character in "Network," who urged his listeners to climb on their rooftops and proclaim, "I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore." It is totally disgusting that the two above-stated news organizations ran segments trying to make the anti-Semitic questioner look like a hero with Frank being cast as the villain. I don't mind constructive debate and even strong criticism of President Obama's healthcare proposal based on accurate information. What I do mind is anti-Semitism and the refusal of those who encourage its propagation to condemn it. For those who haven't seen the clip, here it is:
For those who are wondering what the Fox propagandists said in defense of the anti-Semitic questioning, Keith Olbermann was spot-on tonight in his "Worst Person in the World" segment:
And finally, a Daily Kos diarist, Griffin459, reported about his rightful disgust toward a CNN Headline News piece also defending the anti-Semitic questioner. Here's part of what he reported:
Just a few minutes ago while changing channels, I saw CNN Headline News show a segment of Barney Frank's Town Hall meeting from last night. BUT, it was edited to show Representative Frank picking on her!! I immediately sent an e-mail to CNN Headline News to complain about this outrageous editing of an important story. Here is my e-mail:
Approx 10 min ago you had a short story about Barney Frank's Town Hall meeting. Before the clip, the CNN Anchor said that at times it got down right disrespectful. You then showed the clip of a woman saying to Rep Frank, " why do you support this policy?". You then played segments of Rep, Frank saying "what planet are you from? and "talking to you is like talking to my dining room table." A logical assumption from your report was that Rep. Frank was Disrespectful. Your report did not show that the woman was carrying a sign that had Obama drawn like Hitler and your report did not show the woman comparing Obama's policies to Nazis. I think that this is a mistake that should be corrected IMMEDIATELY. Thank you!
I simply do not understand how this was a simple mistake, the editing was purposely done to make the woman who was attacking Obama in a sympathetic light...
There can be no respect given to anyone who portrays our president as Adolf Hitler or anyone pertaining to the Nazis who murdered 6 million Jews during World War II. There can never be any place in our airwaves for personalities who defend the bringing up of such slime during their shows. And there can never be any place in our democracy for those who'd rather carry inflammatory pictures depicting Obama as Hitler or any other matter of personal attack or lie against our president. At the very minimum, I demand that CNN Headline News not only apologize for the anti-Semitic defense, but those responsible for putting together the report be severely disciplined. In addition, in the light of their actions in enabling the inflammatory attackers of both Obama personally and the spreading of lies about his health care proposal, more than a mere apology is needed to start repairing the grotesque wrong the Fox "news" channel continues to perpetrate. What's needed is to hit the Fox channel where it hurts the most-- in the wallet. I praise those waging the continuing campaign for accountability against Fox personality Glenn Beck for his inflammatory remarks calling Obama a racist. I feel now it must be taken a step further. In addition to calling on advertisers to pull their ads off Beck's show, I feel maximum pressure must be placed on cable networks that carry the Fox channel. Regardless of whatever bribe those running Fox may bring the cable networks, pressure must be brought on the networks to end the anti-Semitic and inflammatory slime Fox has propagated by pulling the channel off their networks. It's time Fox is brought down to its knees and put out of business. It's bad enough that it hasn't acted like a real news channel for many years, but this latest defense of a questioner's anti-Semitism should raise questions about whether it belongs on anyone's cable lineup.
new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll featured on the Rachel Maddow show included questions centered on the recent health care debate. What made this poll unique was that four of the questions sought to ascertain whether the respondents believed statements that were known to be untrue. Here are the results broken out by which news sources the respondents favored:
On Health Care Reform, Those Who Believe That It Will... MSNBC/CNN Viewers Fox News Viewers Give Coverage To Illegal Immigrants: 41% 72% Lead To A Government Takeover: 39% 79% Pay For Abortions: 40% 69% Stop Care To The Elderly: 30% 75%
Let me repeat: These are statements that are known to be untrue, yet Fox News viewers believe them in overwhelming numbers. It's bad enough that approximately 40% of MSNBC/CNN viewers believe these myths, but clearly Fox is producing an audience of vastly misinformed, cultural illiterates. The problem with having a national news organization that is polluting the population with lies about critical public issues is that it makes democracy impossible. And that, of course, may be the goal of Fox and its corporate overseers. Democracy is such a messy affair, what with all the people voting and stuff. If your objective is to manipulate government, you can't get very far if voters are actually familiar with the issues and are capable of making sound judgments. So Fox News found it necessary to invent a platform of fake agendas to create fear and then purposefully indoctrinate their predominantly Republican and southern viewers to believe in them.
I wonder what would happen if you really opened the eyes of the Fox viewers and told them that what that network has fed them is lies. Do you think there wouldn't be an erosion of support for the OPPOSITION of health care reform? I also wonder when the Obama administration will stop playing cutie with Republicans in their vain attempt for so-called "bi-partisan support" and really begin to call them and their insurance company/Fox "news" supporters what they really are-- liars-- and repeat it time and again.
Why are some in the White House so anxious to make a deal with a Republican party that has no interest in passing any real healthcare reform. That's what I'm wondering after seeing this Daily Kos diary quoting an Obama aide as backing away from pronouncements last night that Democrats in Congress were going to press for healthcare reform without Republican support. From the New York Times earlier today:
Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks. Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed. “The Republican leadership,” Mr. Emanuel said, “has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day.”
Now here's what the Daily Kos diarist is reporting:
The Hill is reporting that this morning Robert Gibbs said the NY Times article about the Dems going it alone on health care is wrong. He actually gave credit to Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee for working in good faith on reform. I wish this administration would get its story straight. My head is spinning. Bottom line: we're going to have to fight harder than ever before to make this happen.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration remains committed to drawing Republican support for the bill, particularly in the Senate. "I don't know why we would short-circuit that now," Gibbs told reporters. He said the White House believes some Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee "are still working in a constructive way to get reform through the Senate and ultimately to the president's desk."
I hate to go comical on this, but these two seemingly contradictory stories are making me think there's a real Abbott and Costello game going on here with the question being "Who's on first?" when it comes to who is really speaking for the Obama administration on what is becoming an increasingly messy issue for them. I'd love to know which Republicans have really been working to get a real health insurance bill through Congress since one of them that had been cited by President Obama-- lying Sen. Chuck (pull the plug on Grandma) Grassley-- has been spreading lies and disinformation against the bill. I'd also like to know what sorts of behind the scenes negotiations are taking place between the White House and anti-healthcare reform Republicans to get a real bill past Congress and onto the president's desk. I can't say it enough. Healthcare reform isn't healthcare reform without a real public option.
If you didn't know before that there are elements on the right that don't want a constructive debate on healthcare reform, look no further than this. To make a long story short, a Jewish man extols the virtues of the Israeli health care system, to which a woman responds with "Heil Hitler!" The right-wing that makes such outbursts possible have really no real alternative of their own when it comes to our healthcare crisis. All they've been able to do is to spread outright lies about our president wanting to "pull the plug on Grandma," then likening our president with Adolf Hitler, and spreading all other manner of disinformation and ridicule designed to defeat any real healthcare reform. Well, guess what? We're fighting back, and we're not going to stand silent while right-wing hooligans egged on by inflammatory talk show hosts and opportunistic GOP politicians try to shut down any real debate and (to borrow an oft-quoted phrase, "slow walk" health care reform to death. We're not going to let them do that, and we're not going to let the mainstream media give these nitwits dominance over the debate. Having said it, here's the video of what the Jewish man said and the anti-Semitic remark that followed:
As the Huffington Post reports:
As ThinkProgress points out today, "Conservatives have strenuously denied that there is any anti-Semitism on display by anti-health reform protesters at town hall meetings nationwide." Those denials are no longer tenable, are they?
I'm so glad to see a lot of fightback now against the GOP's lying efforts to defeat healthcare reform. I'm glad these phony Democrats are being spotlighted in the ads in no flattering terms. Here's part of the Daily Kos diary reporting on the ads:
The ads focus on Senators Chuck Grassley (IA), Max Baucus (MT), Kent Conrad (ND), and Blanche Lincoln (AR). The Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA) and a coalition of Unions representing almost 2 million workers are planning to run these ads through the end of Congress's August recess. The SMWIA is diverting the political funds it would regularly use for donations to purchase time for these ads, rather than to padding the campaign coffers of the Democrats targeted in them. The Union suspended all financial and intangible campaign donations to political candidates to focus on efforts to pass real health care and labor law reform. Other Unions are considering similar action. These ads are part of an effort to cut through the noise and highlight the truth about the broken healthcare system the insurance industry, Republicans in Congress and some Democrats are fighting to protect.
The only thing I can say is "Yea!" Let the real fight begin.
Man, do these Texas (St)Rangers know how to get pennant insurance, if there was such a thing. I don't know if their re-acquisition of Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez from the Houston Astros is going to give them the AL wild card bid (or even help them overtake the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the AL West), but already, there are some who are thinking that the old (St)Ranger ways of winning that happened the last time Rodriguez played here are coming back. There is one big problem-- both times the (St)Rangers advanced to the playoffs, they lost to those dreaded Yankees in the first postseason round. At least there's a bit more excitement now that Rodriguez is back.
After hearing this healthcare forum in which Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX-30) and "Taliban Pete" Sessions (R-TX-32) spoke, I am more persuaded than ever that: 1. "Taliban Pete" doesn't give a rat's a-- about achieving real healthcare reform and... 2. He's very vulnerable when he states in the most heated exchange of the debate that the President's healthcare proposal is "socialized medicine." In his opening statement, he cried about how the President's proposal would "cut into Medicare." Is Sessions even aware that Medicare is a single payer insurance program? If he really thinks the President's proposal is "socialized medicine," why is he so protective of Medicare? And since he was so willing to call the president's proposal "socialized medicine," is he also against the Veterans' Administration, a government-run medical program for veterans. If he's against socialized medicine, why isn't he against the VA? See how "Taliban Pete's" logic flunks the test? At least twice (as far as I could count), Johnson pointed out the burdens property taxpayers like myself have to endure as Parkland Hospital is forced to handle many uninsured folks through its emergency room care. Both times, Sessions tried to change the subject and instead speak about his party's oft-stated proposal of reforming healthcare through tax cuts. As if tax cuts would prevent discrimination due to pre-existing careers and as if they could prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to anyone through "rescission." I hope Sessions gets severely pressed on this glaring flaw in his faulty thinking during tomorrow's townhall at Ranchview High in Irving that starts at 7 p.m.
My area's Tom DeLay gerrymandering-imposed congressman, "Taliban Pete" Sessions (R-TX-32) and the congressperson who represented our area before DeLay railroaded his gerrymandering scheme, Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX-30) co-hosted a healthcare forum today in Dallas. Here's the link to the meeting that's on the web site of our area's CBS affiliate. I just saw a clip from the meeting that was broadcast during the 4 p.m. news, and "Taliban Pete" looked stunned when Johnson disputed him on Sessions' oft-propagated lie that the president's healthcare proposal amounted to "socialized medicine." Is Sessions also against Medicare? Is he also against the VA? If he's so much against socialized medicine, why doesn't he oppose the above two programs? (It's the same question that Lawrence O'Donnell posed to another Texas Republican congressman Friday, and the congressman couldn't answer the question).
Here's some more valuable information to bring with you at Ranchview High in Irving, TX on Wednesday that could help you during "Taliban" Pete Sessions' townhall meeting that starts at 7 p.m. Here are some more talking points you can use when questioning "Taliban Pete:"
The Ten Health Care Talking Points EVERY PUBLIC OPTION SUPPORTER SHOULD KNOW --When you need life-saving care, private insurance companies only profit by denying you and letting you die. If you have paid your premiums on time all your life, you're as likely to be dropped by your private insurance company when you need life-saving care as you are to get treated. A public option gives you a lifeline. --Private insurance companies are spending over a million dollars a day to kill the public option by inventing phony citizen groups, and trying to scare the elderly about euthanasia and pro-lifers with abortion; they know the only way to kill reform is to get people of good conscience fighting each other over misinformation, while they laugh all the way to the bank. They don't think very highly of our intelligence. --We pay more than any other country to be 24th in life expectancy: while the average Canadian family spends less than $2000 a year on health care with no waiting periods for life-saving care, the average American family spends $16,800 a year, waiting for private insurance companies to approve life-saving treatments. --Fourteen thousand Americans lose their health insurance every day; over forty-six million are currently uninsured. --Eighteen thousand Americans DIE each year due to lack of health care: THAT'S 50 A DAY. --Nearly two-thirds of American personal bankruptcies are related to health care costs. --Businesses - particularly small businesses - cannot afford to provide health insurance for their employees under the current employer based private insurance system, and will be forced to either drop their coverage or go out of business unless a public option is passed. --One-sixth of all our government spending is on health care, twice as much as any other country spends out of its budget. Our nation pays $2.5 trillion for care costing $912 billion. --Every independent estimate says the public option will save us money, from saving 150 billion dollars (CBO) to saving 265 billion dollars (Commonwealth). The Congressional Budget Office estimates the current bill in the House would actually leave a 6 billion dollar surplus --So - if you'd rather spend more taxpayer money, bankrupt businesses, AND pay $16,800 a year for your family's private insurance coverage in exchange for a policy that can be dumped the second you actually need it, then the current system is great for you. If you'd rather spend less, wait less, have less of a chance of dying, and want to remove the corporate bureaucrat from between you and your doctor, then a public option is the way to go. Right now, even if you're lucky enough not to be dropped by your provider when you need urgent medical care, your private insurance company can overrule your doctor's advice for life-saving treatment and only offer to cover something cheaper; a public option would remove that middleman and leave these decisions where they belong, between the patient and doctor.
A man was spotted Monday afternoon carrying a semi-automatic assault rifle and a pistol at a pro-health care reform rally next to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Arizona where President Obama was speaking. The local paper The Arizona Republic reported: A man, who decided not to give his name, was walking around the pro-health care reform rally at 3rd and Washington streets, with a pistol on his hip, and an AR-15 (a semi-automatic assault rifle) on a strap over his shoulder. "Because I can do it," he said when asked why he was armed. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms."
This is stunning! Where anyone gets the idea that Sen. Kent Conrad's effort at not even half-baked health insurance reform through weak-kneed co-ops is an acceptable substitute is beyond me-- especially after reading this:
The health care reform compromise that centrist Democrats and several Republicans have indicated they'd support has shown an inability to effectively lower premiums for consumers, a newly resurfaced government study shows.
The Huffington Post piece continues:
The U.S. General Accounting Office produced a report on cooperatives in March 2000 that was mostly sour on the idea. Using five different co-ops as examples, the study concluded that on the key function -- lowering the cost of insurance -- these non-profit insurance pools came up well short. "The cooperatives' potential to reduce overall premiums is limited because (1) they lack sufficient leverage as a result of their limited market share; (2) the cooperatives have not been able to produce administrative cost savings for insurers; or (3) their state laws and regulations already restrict to differing degrees the amount insurers can vary the premiums charged different groups purchasing the same health plan."
Let's demand the killing of this cockamanie idea and demand that our legislators pass real healthcare reform and not this doesn't-come-close-to-being-second-rate-idea that Conrad and other so-called "moderates" are pushing.
Whenever I've heard anyone talk about co-ops as a healthcare solution, All I've thought about is the weak-kneed, jelly-boned model advocated by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D) that really does nothing to achieve real healthcare reform. Here's an interesting post that shows how co-ops could work even in the most ideal conditions. According to the piece by The bagofhealthandpolitics, who has written some excellent stuff on health care reform in a number of blogs:
If the health care reform bill creates an insurance exchange with minimum standards for benefits, payments, and (most importantly) medical losses, who administers the plan is basically irrelevant. Controlling artificial manipulation of the insurance industry's medical loss ratio is important because it would prevent many of the outrageous abuses which currently plague our system.
The piece continues:
HR 3200 would essentially end artificial manipulation of the medical loss ratio in order to make a quick buck and please investors. HR 3200 includes a provision which requires all insurers on the national insurance exchange to meet a minimum medical loss ratio. This provision would provide teeth to the bill's prohibition of discrimination against Americans with pre-existing conditions, and the bill's ban on the absurd practice of rescission. If a public option, or even a national non-profit co-op, is abiding by a minimum medical loss ratio, which can't be arbitrarily altered to beat Wall Street's expectations by throwing cancer patients on the street, health care reform will work very well. If we put patients before profits, we will have better outcomes and spend less money. Over time, a reduction in health care costs will make us more competitive with the Europeans when it comes to manufacturing goods. The resulting system would be a hybrid of the Dutch and German systems. Like the health care system in Holland, there would still be for-profit insurers. However, the existence of a private, non-profit co-op which has to follow the payment schedule and medical loss ratio negotiated by the HHS Secretary would add a bit of the German system to create a uniquely American mixing pot health insurance system. In Germany, a large contingent of private, not-for-profit insurers administer a health insurance framework which is set by the federal government.
I couldn't agree more with the author's conclusion:
A co-op that operates under a national framework can be successful. This non-profit model is successful in many western European countries. But it is not the lame, state-based co-ops of Kent Conrad's dreams; Conrad's state-base co-ops wouldn't have a large enough pool to alter the market, reduce costs and increase access. The end game is upon us, but for our side to be successful, we need the House to pass a strong bill with stringent regulations on the insurance industry and a strong public option, administered by the federal government. That's why you should call your congressperson and tell them to support HR 3200.
Absolutely. Keep even the progressives' feet under the fire until real healthcare reform with a robust public option is passed.
This is NOT how politics should be played. Instead of burying the admission, this MUST get top billing since Republicans besides Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) have used this lie to spread fears about President Obama's healthcare proposal. I demand that the mainstream media live up to its responsibilities and give Grassley's admission as much prominence as the original lie got. The practice Greg Sargent describes in which the mainstream media buries admissions of lies is totally unacceptable. It must change. Real Healthcare Reform MUST NOT be defeated because of the barrage of lies that have been hurled against it by Grassley and other Republicans. They MUST be held accountable!
O.K. folks, there are two days away from the "Taliban Pete" Sessions (TX-32) townhall now scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Ranchview High School, 8401 Valley Ranch Parkway, Irving, TX 75063 (it's been moved from Irving City Hall to accommodated a larger expected crowd). There is already a template for making things rather uncomfortable for Pete as he defends his position in opposing any real healthcare reform. Remember Lawrence O'Donnell's brilliant interview of another Texas Republican congressman on "Hardball" last Friday? In case you haven't seen it, here it is:
Is "Taliban Pete" also opposed to two already-established government-run health care programs-- the Veterans Administration (for veterans) and Medicare (for seniors) since he thinks that a "public option" will lead to a government takeover of health care? As for the oft-propagated myth "Taliban Pete" continues to peddle about a public option leading to a government takeover of the health industry, he leaves out the fact that a "public option" (the U.S. Postal Service) sure hasn't taken UPS or FedEx out of the package delivery business. Both FedEx and UPS (private entities) have garnered massive chunks of the national and international package delivery market even with competition from a public option. If a "public option" can work so well in the world of package deliveries, why can't it work when it comes to providing top-rate and affordable healthcare without leaving people out. I suspect that's something neither "Taliban Pete" nor his Republican and insurance company friends contemplated when they began to irresponsibly oppose any kind of real healthcare reform that includes a public option. I hope someone at Ranchview High really presses "Taliban Pete" on this and see how he tries to evade the issue the way another Texas Republican tried and failed to do so on "Hardball" last week.
I'm sick and tired of politicians both Democratic and Republican who'd rather do what's right for corrupt for-profit insurance companies rather than what's right for the American people. What's really got my ire right now is the efforts of North Dakota Democratic U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad to con us into thinking that anything with a public option won't pass Congress and perhaps his plan to promote "health insurance reform" with co-ops perhaps will. Perhaps Conrad didn't think we'd bother to look up information on whether co-ops will really provide quality insurance for those who can't afford it and prevent insurance companies from denying care due to pre-existing conditions or some "rescission" decision an insurance company may arbitrarily make. If Conrad really thought his cop-out of an idea won't be scrutinized, he's dead wrong. The headline of a recent USA Today editorial should make anyone think twice about enacting Sen. Conrad's pipe dream:
Our view on Health care: Health co-ops emerge as weak substitute Alternatives to ‘public option’ lack clout to rein in medical spending.
That should be enough to cause anyone to think twice about this co-op idea Conrad is trying to push instead of real healthcare reform. As if we didn't need any more convincing about whether the Conrad co-op idea is a winner, the USA Today editorial continues:
There's nothing wrong with co-ops, per se. Their appeal is that they'd be a sort of kinder and gentler version of private insurance. But press some co-op enthusiasts for details, and there's a lack of clarity about how they'd get started, how much the start-up would cost, how long it would take, how they'd grow big enough to compete with private insurers, how they'd significantly differ from the original state Blue Cross/Blue Shield organizations and, most importantly, how they could save serious money. History is not encouraging. Hundreds of health co-ops were formed after the Depression to provide medical care in rural areas, and nearly all of them failed. Even the one considered most successful — Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound in Washington state — took more than 60 years to reach the roughly 600,000 members it has today. (Conrad says a co-op needs at least 500,000 members to have market clout; private WellPoint insures more than 30 million.) Nor does Group Health have a stellar record of holding down costs; since 2000, its annual premium increases for individuals have averaged 12.3%, less than many private insurers but still about four times the rate of inflation.
Higher premiums. Folks still not being able to afford health insurance. Is this really the picture of health insurance co-ops that Conrad wants to impose on us. Based on all this, I say h--- no! Contrary to the so-called conventional wisdom of Beltway pundits who never gave a rat's a-- about folks like me, there's no acceptable substitute for a viable and robust public option that will force insurance companies to deal with us honestly and at a cost everyone can afford. More from the USA Today editorial:
The primary attraction of health co-ops seems to be that they're more politically palatable than the public option, not that they're a better idea. In fact, there are plenty of reasons for skepticism. The simplest public option is to let people without employer-provided health insurance to buy into Medicare, or a similar program, at cost. It would pay doctors and hospitals rates close to what Medicare pays, and it could be a powerful engine for holding down costs. Since it could build in part on the existing Medicare system, it could be up and running at the national level reasonably quickly. Not surprisingly, private insurers aren't keen on the public option, and there's furious opposition from Republicans and some Democrats who recoil at the thought of "government-run" health care — even though they have little or no objection to Medicare, the government-run plan that already covers about 45 million people.
What's there to be afraid of in a public option? Why have insurance companies and their Republican allies employed scare tactics and spread outright lies about President Obama's health care plan while at the same time providing instructions about how to disrupt meetings that even delve into the subject? Did these misleaders and liars who oppose healthcare reform ever think that those supporting it would find an outstanding example of an industry that has done very well with two private entities competing against a public one? Yes, that's the case when it comes to the package delivery business. Two private entities-- FedEx and UPS-- both have gained huge chunks of the domestic and international package delivery market even in competition against the public entity-- the U.S. Postal Service. If two private entities like FedEx and UPS can do well against a public entity, why can't private insurance concerns do the same and present products that really help consumers get quality health care at an affordable cost for all without any discrimination due to pre-existing conditions or anything else? That should the real question the mainstram media should be asking. To me, passing the Kent Conrad co-op idea is like trying to feed a dead horse oats or make a skunk smell good. It's been tried in the past and failed. It's time it gets tossed in the scrap heap so real healthcare reform with a robust public option can pass.
After hearing all the rumors about possible waivering in the Obama Administration for a robust public option in any healthcare legislation, we now read this from our president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, on the subject:
Speaking to CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs emphasized that President Barack Obama still supports having a "public option" for health care, which the White House believes will introduce additional competition and lower prices in the insurance market.
I'm amazed that the White House hasn't pressed perhaps one of the strongest arguments for a public option-- it sure hasn't led to a government takeover of the package delivery business (just ask two private companies, FedEx and UPS, when it comes to gaining a large chunk of the package delivery business even with competition from the U.S. Postal Service). If FedEx and UPS can compete effectively against the USPS, why can't private insurers if they really think they have an effective, customer-friendly, and affordable product to sell? I sure hope we hear that argument more.
Nancy Pelosi Hands Katy Tur Her Ass
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Former Speaker of the House and all around badass had no time for Katy
Tur's bullshit today. She joined her for a polite in studio interview at
MSNBC and...
Texas ActBlue on the Move
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Great news from the ActBlue team.
Well done!!! Now that we've crossed $5k in funds for our work in Texas
we're full speed ahead.
Will keep you up to date...
