ardee, November 10 at 8:16 pm #

DieDaily, November 10 at 10:01 am

Or you could mind your own business.

*************************

Upon further reflection I withdraw the above comment. I am certain you did not mean them to be as pompous as they appear.

As my willingness to engage liars and slimebags ( outraged being the first certainly, if not the second) has made me the focus of attacks by mouthbreathers I admit to replying in kind. Perhaps I am even better at it than those without an actual brain.

But your point, however mean spirited, is taken. I will , in future, ignore them . I do hope though, that the gauntlet is taken up as they need to be refuted. A lie unchallenged, as Karl Rove and Dick Cheney proved, becomes as truth.

If you were a corporation, based in a country where only its citizens (sorry, I mean, “consumers”)were dumb enough to buy your crappy product and everyone starting getting laid off and couldnt afford your crappy product anymore, how would you force them to buy it? HR 3296, which is what was passed recently, We didnt even GET HR 3200. It was slightly better.

Now the senate will water it doewn further. The only amendment that would make it worthwhile is Sen Sanders, S.703

“...The Bill, the “American Health Security Act of 2009,” Senate Bill 703, is the first piece of single-payer legislation introduced in the Senate since the 2002 death of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone. Under its provisions, patients could seek care from a doctor or hospital of their choice under a federally funded plan administered by the states. Unlike reform proposals being floated by Senators Baucus and Kennedy, S. 703 would eliminate the role of private health insurance companies in healthcare delivery, producing administrative savings in excess of $400 billion per year.”So long as we remain dependent on private insurance companies,” said Senator Sanders, we’re never going to have quality, cost effective healthcare for all Americans.” S. 703 would also provide resources to train additional primary care physicians and fully fund community health centers, which many rural Vermont residents depend upon.”

http://sanders.senate.gov/

Otherwise, Dems had better hope that no one figures out the twists and turns of this bill before 2010…if the Senate Finance Comm bill passes, it will make things much worse.

truedigger3, November 9 at 8:19 pm #

You showed and proved to everyone how dumb asshole you are.
I cann’t believe you are for real. Are you a hired troll??
Report this
**********************************************

As spoken by someone who’s an expert on being a dumb asshole.

I wish I had a quarter for every time you’ve called or accused someone you don’t like of either being a troll or being another poster in disguise.

Talk about dumb assholes!  (and then TD3 will complain about ad hominem attacks!)

DieDaily, November 10 at 10:01 am

Or you could mind your own business.

ardee, with due respect, I’ve seen about a dozen
comments by you now that consist entirely of ad
hominem. Please try to bring some facts or even
opinions into the mix. As I mentioned, Outraged is
not making serious posts. But you are playing along
and it seems you do indeed do take him seriously.
Enough name calling. If 90% of your posts continue to
resort to name calling I would venture that someone
could invoke the site rules to get you turfed.
Pretend you are sitting with us around the dinner
table. Would you really be so crass and rude? Let’s
have a civil dialog and focus on the facts, okay?

Outraged, November 10 at 12:52 am #

Gee whiz guys, it almost sounds like you don’t like me.  You can’t imagine how that makes me feel….
*************************

Another childish statement from one bidding to be the King of such here. Get a life you jackass, or better still, quit posting lies to “prove” something you simply cannot do with the truth.

It actually warms my heart to see more and more standing up to this bully.

re: DaveZx3,

Thank you for your thoughtful insights. I too believe that the insurance industry has to be gone from the picture, if you are talking about a national health service. I say national health service because the convoluted language used in Washington, with all of its “public option” and “co-dependent payment” is simply proffered to keep alive the notion that making a profit from human suffering is morally defensible.
There are plenty of red herrings thrown out to keep this question out of focus: obesity, cosmetic surgery, irresponsible “lifestyle” choices, are all brought up to keep away from the fact that a person can, by accident, faint in a public place and, via medical intervention, made bankrupt by that intervention. As a house painter told Studs Terkel, in the book THE GREAT DIVIDE, “if I break my leg, I lose my house.”
This is the economic catastrophe that other intelligent western nations have taken steps to prevent their citizens from experiencing.
Consider this: when Great Britain established their national health service, it was a bomb battered nation that had recently abdicated its role as global power, in the aftermath of World War II. Yet despite their domestic economic hardships, they realized that a national health service was in the best interest of their citizens, because a nation at the mercy of yet more arbitrary and unnecessary forces is a weak, unstable nation.
Contrast that with what happened in the United States after WWII, where despite enormous economic prosperity, this nation could not muster the political will to establish a health service for its citizens, choosing instead to accept the idea of corporate paternalism, which of course was later used as a not-so-convenient scapegoat for corporate mismanagement, that placed the blame for company failures such as General Motors, on the shoulders of the workers and their “costly” health benefits.
So it is not surprising that the language of the Affordable Health Care Act resembles a convoluted insurance policy. With very rare exception, the elected politicians are subservient to the needs of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. An unpleasant fact that those elected work diligently to prevent the voters from ever realizing.

Gee whiz guys, it almost sounds like you don’t like me.  You can’t imagine how that makes me feel….

Re: By DieDaily, November 9 at 7:45 pm #

Excellent post. I agree with you 100%.

Re: By Outraged, November 9 at 2:16 pm #

Outraged,

You showed and proved to everyone how dumb asshole you are.
I cann’t believe you are for real. Are you a hired troll??

ardee, Outraged is not to be taken seriously. The
insurance companies did craft this bill. When the
fines and prison sentences for failing to purchase
private insurance were removed from the bill they
went up in arms and “threatened to pull out”. How
telling. This bill is a privatization of health care
that will net about $70 billion per year extra for
the insurance companies. The “right” was duped into
thinking the single-payer public option was communism
and once fired up the state single-payer option was
removed AT THE REQUEST OF THE WHITE HOUSE, as though
this were some sort of concession. In fact, it was
never intended to be allowed to remain, as it would
cost the insurance companies everything. Outraged is
trapped in the illusion that the Democrats and
Republicans are sovereign, distinct entities. He’s
being played like a fiddle. He needs to fancy that
there are two sides squaring off for a meaningful
battle. He thinks this is football.

What is dumb, outrageously stupid, is your belief that you actually know things.

When Honig was Superintendant of Schools for the State of California he mandated an across the board reduction in staff of 15%. I accomplished said reduction ,in part, by eliminating my own position.

You are a complete and utter jackass. I still await proof of either lie you now spin; that I claimed European birth or that KDelphi “found me” on a socialist site. You do so embarrass yourself, oh spineless slime trail leaving, under rock dweller.

Re: ardee

Your comment: “my sister is a doctor, married to a surgeon. While they are both assholes”

I’m not a doctor but you wouldn’t need a medical degree to see that asshole"itis” runs in your family.

Your comment:  “Now I suggest you go back to pushing your broom shithead.”,

Didn’t Kdephi say she found you on a Socialist Site, I’m certain that was the case.  This broom you speak of ..... would that be a “socialist broom”?

Pres. Obama:  “We don’t want somebody sitting back saying, ‘You’re not holding the mop(broom) the right way.’ Why don’t you grab a mop(broom), why don’t you help clean up,” the president said.

‘You’re not mopping(sweeping) fast enough, that’s a socialist mop,’ ” the president mocked critics as complaining.” 
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/10/democrats_hits.html

LOL.  Isn’t Pres. Obama great..!
(btw, “ardee” that socialism you endorse…. is that by any chance National Socialism, you know fascism.)  Your comments bear NO RESEMBLANCE AT ALL to democratic socialism.  Such as:

Your comment:  “Post the reduction force that enabled me to streamline that Data Processing Dept , add two Sun Microsystem computers and reduce staff by 15% including my own position I started a small trucking company. I had obtained a class A license while working my way through college and my good fortune at being in the Silicon Valley had brought me enough economic freedom to do what I wanted rather than what I had to.

Dumb. dumb. dumb.

thebeerdoctor, November 8 at 8:26 pm

“This is what was voted for. From HR3200, page 1612-1613:”

That looks very similar to the type of language that was quoted to me as the reason my homeowners insurance company denied my claim for water damage to the east side of my house. 

I can’t understand either one.  But that is the purpose, isn’t it? 

Insurance is a rotten way to deal with healthcare.  It escalates cost, if for no other reason than you need to hire millions of people just to deal with the language. 

Think about all the people who are needed to process and service your insurance policy.  The number is huge and would drop you to your knees in disbelief. 

One of the major problems in US healthcare, in my opinion, is that we use such a laborious insurance system to pay for a lot of routine expenses, such as sore throats, earaches, etc.you know what I mean.

Using such a system to pay these small expenses easily adds about 30% to the cost.  Who do you suppose is paying that extra 30%? 

How much do you think an oil change for your car would cost if you filtered the money through an insurance company?

The lie that insurance companies have made people believe is that insurance is a good mechanism for paying regular expenses, like road service. 

Do the math for crying out loud.  100 people pay 30 bucks a year for road servivce insurance, and the rate of road service requirement is, let’s say 1 out of 100.  That means one of the hundred puts in a claim for road service that year.  The actual cost for the one road service is, lets say, $100.  The premiums collected were $3,000.  Who made out on that deal? 

The best remedy or method for paying normal expenses is to have a job that pays you adequately so you have the ability to pay expenses when they show up.  Also, you must be able to save a reasonable amount for the purpose of paying unexpected expenses.

Insurance has branched out into the insuring of normal expenses because it is the most profitable area they have. 

The idea that filtering the money through insurance saves you money is a myth.  Insurance is the mechanism/remedy of last resort, when no other possible remedy exists.  It is a pure sharing of risk which cannot be dealt with in any other way. 

This is only one area which was not dealt with in this bill.  They kept insurance company lingo, insurance company organization and insurance company inflated cost.  And don’t delude yourself that if it was somehow made into a “public option” or “single payor” cost would go down.  They all will operate the same and the costs will be relatively the same.

Any reform coming from this bill is the same as the celebrations in the House, phony, phony and phony.
Nothing will change, except they will need to hire thousands more people to interpet the language.  But trust us, cost will go down and services will go up.

Outraged, November 9 at 1:33 am

You fail to see how you bring harm upon your own repute with this childish garbage. You are a nasty little fellow to be certain. My resume is not at question here, though what I intimated about my career and my associations are accurate, while you are nothing less than an immature blowhard.

Data Processing Manager, in fact, overseeing fourteen school district.

Prior to that I was International Tech Support for a computer manufacturer

Post the reduction force that enabled me to streamline that Data Processing Dept , add two Sun Microsystem computers and reduce staff by 15% including my own position I started a small trucking company. I had obtained a class A license while working my way through college and my good fortune at being in the Silicon Valley had brought me enough economic freedom to do what I wanted rather than what I had to.

As to my familiarity with the medical profession; my sister is a doctor, married to a surgeon. While they are both assholes they fail to match your level of sheer arrogance and ignorance.

Now I suggest you go back to pushing your broom shithead.

Here we go AGAIN…. lol.  Not only was “ardee” some type of “in charge of data-processor” for several schools and supposedly left this to drive a utility truck…..NOW (according to “ardee”).... quote:

”I know, from first hand experience that many doctors work twelve and fourteen hour days, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in malpractice insurance alone and very few abuse the practice of medicine.

Damn that “ardee” gets around (kinda makes you wonder what “ardee” moonlights as)....  Keep your eyes on the road there “ardee”.  REMEMBER, currently.... you supposedly “drive a utility truck”.  BTW, how’s the widow…?

Re: DieDaily

Your comment:  “I so wish that the insurance
companies hated this bill. Sadly, they wrote it.”

Really….. why do I think that your next apparition will be that we should “all vote against the dems”.....?  Back in the day, I thought Halloween only came ONCE a year.  It appears however, that as far as POLITICS is concerned, it’s a daily event.

Re: ITW

Absolutely ITW, I agree.

Your comment: “The health insurance industry HATES this bill, hates it with a passion.  They are going “all in” to fund a GOP filibuster effort in the Senate to block it.  Expect to see nothing but ads on TV showing how “bad” this bill is. 

What they REALLY hate is they won’t be able to cherry-pick for healthy members, won’t be able to reject people with pre-existing conditions, and won’t be able to drop people for getting sick.  Furthermore, they will LOSE their Anti-Trust exemption.”

Seriously….. you don’t need to be the sharpest tool in the shed to see this BLAZING REALITY!  They hired lobbiests against it, these same PAID people to disrupt town hall meetings….. etc.  And now, the hacks ARE AMONGST US, wolves in sheeps clothes…..

Inherit the Wind…I so wish that the insurance
companies hated this bill. Sadly, they wrote it. It’s
understandable that you are parroting the line that
they were against it. That was the official story on
all the MSM channels. I recommend you not take
everything on FOX as gospel. The tiniest, tiniest
amount of research is required to determine that in
fact the insurance companies are the writers,
benefactors, and ultimately the profiteers of this
bill.

This is what was voted for. From HR3200, page 1612-1613:

”  (1) INTERIM POLICY.—
      (A) IN GENERAL.—with respect to a readmission to an applicable hospital or a critical access hospital (as described in section 1814(1) of the Social Security Act) from a post-acute care provider (as defined in paragraph (3) and such a readmission is not governed by section 412,531 of title 42, Code of Federal Regulations, if the claim submitted by such a post-acute care provider under title XVIII of the Social Security Act indicates that the individual was readmitted to a hospital from such a post-acute care provider or admitted from home and under the care of a home health agency within 30 days of an initial discharge from an applicable hospital or critical access hospital, the payment under such title on claim shall be the applicable percent specified in subparagraph (B) of the payment that would otherwise be made under the respective payment system under such title for such post-acute care provider if this subsection did not apply.”

Did you get that? Are we clear now?

whyzowl1, November 8 at 5:06 am #

How are we as Americans supposed to rationalize this? Well, yes, admittedly, it’s a very bad bill… True, it’s real purpose seems to be to stuff more countless billions of dollars into the bottomless maw of the venal parasites in the Health Insurance Industry, rather than actually to provide a high quality of health care to all citizens at a reasonable cost…
************************************************

Excuse me but your assertion is false, totally false (so naturally TD3 buys into it…figures).

The health insurance industry HATES this bill, hates it with a passion.  They are going “all in” to fund a GOP filibuster effort in the Senate to block it.  Expect to see nothing but ads on TV showing how “bad” this bill is.

What they REALLY hate is they won’t be able to cherry-pick for healthy members, won’t be able to reject people with pre-existing conditions, and won’t be able to drop people for getting sick.  Furthermore, they will LOSE their Anti-Trust exemption.
**************************
Certainly the H.E.I. (or some elements within it) would much prefer no regulation at all to any regulation, no matter how feeble. While they won’t be able to reject people for pre-existing conditions, there are no limitations on how much they can charge a person with a pre-existing condition for coverage. Look for a strong “economic disincentive” for such persons to aquire said coverage.

While they technically (we think) can’t “drop people for getting sick,” they can screen people out, or jack up the cost of their coverage into the stratosphere, who have precursor conditions to “pre-existing conditions” before the “reforms” take effect in 2013. Why, after all, are we waiting three years to implement reforms that were urgently needed decades ago? The game will be thoroughly fixed long before the kick off. Trust me on that one.

Broadly, the House Plan is based on the Massachusetts Plan which is already proving to be a complete failure. I live in Massachusetts so I know a bit about it. Care and premium costs continue to skyrocket, and the ranks of the uninsured are growing steadily.

An individual earning 30 to $35,000 a year in Mass. pays $4,000 a year in premiums, with a $2,000 dollar deductible. They’re then responsible to pay for 20% of any further costs. 

So, they’re paying $6,000 out-of-pocket before their “insurance” even kicks in! God forbid! And God forbid because it’s easy to imagine their out-of-pocket health care costs in a given year running up to $10,000 or more. It’s TOTALLY UNAFFORDABLE.

And the “individual mandate” is a nice, little capper to the whole scam. It effectively allows the state to punish people financially for not committing economic suicide in the first place.

Like I said, this is a very, very sick society; and that sickness has nothing to do with individuals’ health problems and everything to do with Profits over People.

The insurance industry takes 30% right off of the top for what…that is the answer. The civilized answer.

NABNYC, November 8 at 4:43 pm

While I certainly concur that our health care system is prohibitively expensive, exclusionary and in need of real reform I would ask you to understand something important. The problem is not, by and large, with the Doctors but with the Insurance Industry.

I know, from first hand experience that many doctors work twelve and fourteen hour days, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in malpractice insurance alone and very few abuse the practice of medicine.

As to this comment:

For example, in infant mortality, the US ranks 40th or 41st—just after Cuba. 

In reality we rank thirteenth in infant mortality, 37th in the world in overall care.Bad enough I think. Cuba, by the by, is 39th.

It is NOT “easy” to be cynical about this, Scheer—-after waiting all these years for the promised Dem majority, it is decidedly difficult. Especially if you probably will be dead before its enacted.

We’re going to “cut costs” and “expand coverage” by “eliminating waste fraud and abuse”—you have to be really naive to believe that one!

The other day Obama promised that a bill would cut “some” “waste , fraud and abuse” from Pentagon contractors—why just “some”? You want to allow “some” “waste , fraud and abuse”?? Why??

The bill is bullshit. At least its something? Is that what we have come to? Its not “something” for millions of people , and 45,000 who will still die this year. Shame om the Dems.

The medical industrial complex Masters (AHIP) have already promised to raise rates at least 25% for those buying individually (only 2-6% will be “allowed” in the poor peoples’ exchange camps and it will expand Medicaid to those making 150% of poverty, paying for it for 2 yrs, then dumping it on brokes states), but they wont “go up astronomicaly”—oh ,good! Cause they are already well above the reach of 50 million!

http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=1691

The Senate will give the medical industrial complex more money and they will give back and you can just go f*ck yourself…if you dont hear them saying that, you aint listening!

To me, it’s sickening to see the Democrats pretending that this represents anything other than yet another crime, misuse of their position of trust to benefit themselves and their corporate friends, and screw the public. 

There is nothing in this law which will help the majority of the American people.  Yes, there are a few people who may be helped, but damned few.  Big press conference about some guy with MS can get coverage now, but all around the country thousands of women will die from breast cancer because they can’t afford their premiums.

The problem with healthcare in this country is that the Medical Industry, at every level, charges way too much for what they do.  I calculated that the doctor who owns my mammogram office makes well over $1.5 million, after expenses, for working a few hours a day.  Technicians do the mammograms, a low-paid receptionist/billing clerk does the clerical, and the doc comes in at the end of the day and reads the X-rays. 

I just went through a course of physical therapy, and the doctor that runs that facility charges $150 per 20 minutes for a physical therapist.  He has four working for him, and works some himself (he’s gone a lot on vacations).  He also has 3 aides, two front-office clerical/billing people.  I figure his yearly expenses at $50,000/year per PT (which may be high), $30,000 per assistant, $25,000 per clerical, $60,000 for office space, for a total of $400,000 in expenses vs. income of around $3.5 million.  This guy with an office in a strip mall is making around $3.0 million per year.  That’s the essence of the problem.  Doctors charge too much.  Drug companies charge too much.  Hospitals charge too much.

I just had outpatient surgery.  I sat on a metal gurney and waited in line because a hip replacement in front of me went long.  I had a broken ankle, a relatively simple procedure.  The surgery was 1.5 hours, pre-op .5 hours, post-op 2 hours, then I went home.  I paid the doctors separately.  The hospital’s charge (excluding the doctors) was $26,000 for my being present there for 4 hours. 

What does this House bill do to address the core issue, the central problem, the reason people cannot afford healthcare?  Nothing.  Not a thing.

Instead, it rewards those who have gouged and bankrupt us by leaving them free to raise rates as much as they want. 

It’s a corporate giveaway. It’s a spit in the face to the public.  We’re supposed to cheer, but we should be crying because the Democrats have refused to do anything at all to help us.  What did that one representative say?  Die quickly.

DaveZ finds people celebrating this bill sickening; I find it frightening as well.  How do we know what’s in it?  Beerdoctor has stated that it is so opaque that most people can’t undersand it.  And complication is traditionally used to decieve the population. 

What we do know doesn’t sound encouraging.  The provisions don’t kick in until 2013?  Why?  You are required to buy insurace from private insurers or be fined by the governement?  This is a step forward?  And this bill mandates nothing whatever; it will be watered down by the Senate if it passes at all.  What people are cheering is illusion of Victory rather than reality, as Dave says.

And, as Dihey has stated, Obama has taken advantage of this ‘Victory’ to announce escalating the Afpak war with thirty + thousand troops, definitively emplacing the new Vietnam war for Obama’s coming years. At a time when the US is in a depression with 20% real unemployment, and wasting enormous sums of money on these wars leaves no money for the population.

But apparently the American people can still be manipulated by the grossest sort of delusive political theater.  No matter how they are swindled, they want to give authorized power the benifit of the doubt.  On blind faith, or Hope, since we don’t know what’s really in this bill.  It may, or may not, be worse than what we have now, that is, worse than nothing.  But instead of a wary wait-and-see, the Dems are celebrating, since they, at least, have Won.

But the people haven’t, not so far.

Good ahead and take a look at the text of HR3200. Franz Kafka comes to mind, but more to the point, Charles Dickens’ BLEAK HOUSE. This monster (I mean pound for pound in pages) resembles the arcane minutia found in a company’s annual stockholders report, where obscurity for the sake of being totally opaque, is clearly the point.
Then there is all this talk about a “pilot program” which, with all of its if and and or buts, makes IRS guidelines appear streamlined by comparison!
How to describe HR3200? Maybe it should be seen as a living and breathing piece of unrelenting sausage.

We are starting to come to our senses in the USA.  Finally we are on the road to universal healthcare for everyone is visible.  I am amazed that we have come so far.  The Republicans had to be overwhelmed to get Social Security and Medicare and now most of them rely on it when they retire.  Again liberals have to lead the way out of the darkness.

To watch these people clapping and smiling like they have accomplished something is absolutely sickening. 

They have created an illusion of accomplishment, rain clouds without water, another Nobel prize for trying. 

It really does get more sick by the moment, not Obama, specifically, our whole damn government.

Hallelujah… Finally, the USA acknowledges the Value of ALL citizens, not just the Rich and Powerful or Well Connected! Yes, there were too many cooks in the kitchen, our Health Care Menu is an overdone, complicated mess… but at least we have one. Now, the competent and qualified can fine tune the recipes and make it a success.

We will need stronger voices in Washington to protect the right of states to enact single-payer.  Though the current health insurance reform bill will cover an additional 36 million Americans, one has to wonder why health insurance company stocks have picked up since the “robust” public option was scrapped - and why the Kucinich amendment was left out of the House bill, even though the amendment passed in committee. In the future, we need progressives in Congress to consolidate their power to protect our rights in the states to enact the most economical approach—single-payer - and “transition” health insurance employees to a more productive industry.  Please join me in this effort.  Donate and support my campaign to replace Blue Dog corporate Democrat Jane Harman with a real progressive.  Contribute at winograd4congress.com Thank you, Marcy Winograd, founder of Progressive Democrats of America’s LA chapter

We of course need single-payer.

But, what this whole awful process has really shown us is that we need Clean Election laws that take money out of politics.

Should our great American free elections really just be an exercise in which corporate group can buy their members of Congress for the next term?

Or, should we have elections that create what was really intended?  That is elections that elect Representatives who will go to Congress and actually represent the people from their district?

This whole debacle has shown very clearly that today we have the best Congress that corporate money can buy.  As a nation, as a people, we have to fix that.

I wonder if Cuba would give me health care?

Is that why the other headline I’ve seen this morning is “more Democrats come out in favor of travel restrictions to Cuba”?

If you read the fine print, the few parts of this bill that aren’t just a paen to the health insurance industry, such as limiting or banning pre-existing conditions, are DELAYED until 2013.

My guess is that I’ll be dead or bankrupt by the time that occurs.  Wonder how many will join me?

The Democrats, the people who figure out who gets shafted in order to protect health insurance company profits.  Because of course, those are untouchable.  Its ok to leave people without insurance completely, or to delay the parts of the bill that actually help.  Just so long as the insurance companies keep making profits.

The fact that the insurance companies are greedy SOBs and want more, more, more is not an argument in favor of this awful bill. 

But its a great argument for why we need to toss the Democrats out on their ear and then elect people who will pass single-payer.

whyzowl1, November 8 at 5:06 am #

How are we as Americans supposed to rationalize this? Well, yes, admittedly, it’s a very bad bill… True, it’s real purpose seems to be to stuff more countless billions of dollars into the bottomless maw of the venal parasites in the Health Insurance Industry, rather than actually to provide a high quality of health care to all citizens at a reasonable cost…
************************************************

Excuse me but your assertion is false, totally false (so naturally TD3 buys into it…figures). 

The health insurance industry HATES this bill, hates it with a passion.  They are going “all in” to fund a GOP filibuster effort in the Senate to block it.  Expect to see nothing but ads on TV showing how “bad” this bill is. 

What they REALLY hate is they won’t be able to cherry-pick for healthy members, won’t be able to reject people with pre-existing conditions, and won’t be able to drop people for getting sick.  Furthermore, they will LOSE their Anti-Trust exemption.

The American health insurance system is a total failure. While it costs at least DOUBLE what other advanced nations pay, it doesn’t work.  For example, in infant mortality, the US ranks 40th or 41st—just after Cuba.  And 50 million Americans have no health care coverage at all, relying on ERs at hospitals who are forced to take them.  The hospital companies and the pharma companies are at odds with health insurance companies and support this bill (or some facsimile of it).

Another theatrics and make-believe bullshitting from Team Obama!!
This bill is nothing but a give-away to Insurance/Pharma/Medical industial complex.
Who knows what inside those 2000 pages. It is joke.
What should have been a single payer system like a slightly modified Medicare has mushroomed to 2000 pages??!!
They say the bill has a “public option” but there is a talk that the public option will cost more than private insurance??!!  Go figure.
And hey, the bill didn’t pass the Senate yet!!
What a sickening farce!!

At the same time the White House leaked the news that Obama had decided to send 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Good comments all, and I raise a glass to the Beerdoctor and give the award for succinctness to Ouroborous.

We have a bad bill, and one that still faces a Senate stalled on deliberations over its own version. There is no telling what version, if any, will ultimately pass and be sent to the President for his signature. The one thing we do know is that our government does not truly represent us.

HOUSE PASSES HEALTH CARE BILL;

LOL; which one?

If it isn’t single payer, then one more time, the North
American people are given shit.

There are at least 2 ways to look at this. First, as reality, or at least as its check point: who actually has read this monster sized piece of legislation? Even on the Internet, the sheer volume of the text, even puts strain on a pdf file. People who have actually looked at the thing, such as Matt Taibbi, have discovered all kinds of convenient corporate goodies embedded in the bill, to make sure that Big Pharma and Big Insurance, get on board, so to speak.
But another way to look at this is in the realm of political theater, where the democrats’ neoliberal shoveling operation prevails over the nasty republican vision, that seems by all accounts to simply pine for the nostalgic days when white people were totally in charge and big business always knew what was best.
The democrats of course, are also devotees to big business, but the cosmetic nature of neoliberalism requires that altruism and empathy be a part of their political showcase, along with the recognition that this IS a multi-ethnic society. But one thing is for sure, the moneyed interests stay firmly in place holding on, ever so tightly, to their beloved horde of cash. The insurance industry will get even more money. The pharmaceutical industry will see their profits increase yet further, by inventing drugs to combat recently discovered ailments. Miseries that are also found, in their newly insurance mandated patients.
As simply spectacle, this House vote reminds me of some of the recent squeaker endings in college football. Somehow Team Obama was able to prevail. I know that mean seem superfluous, but considering how few have actually read the text of this bill that has been passed, including the people who voted on it… a superficial analogy may not be out of order after all.

How are we as Americans supposed to rationalize this? Well, yes, admittedly, it’s a very bad bill… True, it’s real purpose seems to be to stuff more countless billions of dollars into the bottomless maw of the venal parasites in the Health Insurance Industry, rather than actually to provide a high quality of health care to all citizens at a reasonable cost… And, you’re right, it will force the working poor (a large and ever-growing segment of the population) to pay exorbitant costs out-of-pocket for really, really crappy insurance…

But at least it’s something!

I’m underwhelmed.

This is a very sick country; and it’s proving to be somewhere between difficult and impossible to eradicate the raging disease that is ravaging its health and welfare: capitalism.

Happy to step over your dead body in my Gucci loafers to make another buck! Y’know, this really is the greatest country in the nation!

Being forced to give money to immoral private insurance companies who make money off of suffering is no victory, except for the wall street investment banks which own those companies.  This a grave betrayal.

Great! Now we can dismantle Medicare and save hundreds
of billions by denying all sorts of services while we
mandate every tax payer to buy into this or face fines
and jail! Yay! The insurance companies win! Good job
Obama, it was really cool how you didn’t even give 72
hours for people to read the final draft!

By the skin of our teeth.  Barack.  Not a small accomplishment.  In the face of so
much towering opposition.  Thank you.