SavetheTenth—yes, and, several hundred protesters have been arrested since, by sitting-in in insurance industery buildings all over the country. The MSM hardly covered it at all…there is still time to sign up for some demonstrations, and, not all of them are civil disobedience, if you cant afford to risk being arrested(you can donate for bail, help with lawyering and protest outside as support protesters) They met in St Louis last wkdn to discuss further strategies…
http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/

Yawn. We’ve heard all this high-profile grandstanding before, after which they will predictably cave. They, like Obama, talk a good game, but always capitulate to corupt power or undermine it behind the scenes. They cried wolf one too many times while the country slides down the drain.
  How anyone can continue to support any politician, and their promises, at this juncture-is beyond me. But then, hope springs eternal and partisan opposition and compartmentalization are the cornerstones of denial.

When Max Baucus goes in for his yearly physical and his doctor asks him to drop his pants and bend over and grab his ankles so that he can examine his prostate, Baucus will be as agile as a contortionist.  After all, how much practice has he had?

I suggest that ANY member of Congress who has received ANY money directly or indirectly from Pharma or health insurers should sit out the voting and the debate itself.  It would be an honorable act to recuse themselves from the process. 

The basic problem with this suggestion is that ALL their hands are filthy dirty - and “honor” ??????

The House bill does two things.

First is, it says no reform for 4 years.  Any reforms on the health insurance industry, like not letting them charge both an arm and a leg for pre-existing conditions, don’t take effect until 2013.

In effect, the bill is a love letter from the House to the insurance industry telling them that reform has been defeated for four years.  Everyone gets a free pass and is allowed to rip off the poor American citizen for the next four years, with the blessings of the Democratic party.

Second, the bill will make the insurance industry richer.  Mandatory customers and $500 billion bailout in tax credits flow their way. And we know that a portion of this money will then be recycled through bribes, uh contributions, and lobbying gifts and trips and more ‘independent’ political committee tv ads.

In other words, more of our money goes to the insurance industry, and then we’ll have to fight against our own money in the future to try to win any reform.

And of course, the two combine in prospects that the deferred and delayed reform can of course be pulled away if the insurance companies buy a new Congress more to their liking.

I’m so friggin happy that a rare minority of Senate fake-progressives has decided that this is enough and that they don’t need to make this bill even worse. 

So, there is a line out there that these fake progressives won’t cross?  The only problem is that the line is so close to putting the American citizen into total slavery to the big health corporations that they might as well be fitting us all for collars and chains.

“No more compromise” after the corporate Representatives have given away the store?  What else is there to compromise?  What has not already been given away?
“Americans tend to believe they have the best health care in the world, but in truth it is a second-rate system and destined to get a lot worse and much more expensive.”
(Donald Barlett and James Steele)
“U.S. health expenditures are by far the highest of any country in the world at 15 percent of GDP. No other country spends even 11 percent of GDP. The U.S. also spends much more in absolute dollars. U.S. citizens pay $5,440 on average for health coverage while Canadians, the fourth biggest spenders, shell out $2,927.
In the U.S., 75 million are without insurance at some point every two years while in Canada, government spending provides health coverage for everyone.
According to the International Journal of Health Services, “the average ranking for the United States on 16 health indicators in a 1998 comparative study of 13 countries by Starfield was 12th, second from the bottom.
Insurance companies, for-profit hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors-the historical linchpin of corporate medicine-oppose universal health insurance. They are powerful political players. According to Acumen Journal, “since late 1999 [U.S.] health care lobbying spending has consistently passed that of any other industry. In 2002, that amounted to expenditures of $264 million…the health care industry as a whole accounted for 15 percent of the $1.8 billion in lobbying spending for 2002.”
(Yves Engler)
“It is simply not possible to have a multi-billion-dollar, multi-year tax cut, a Pentagon budget that will top $500 billion by the end of this decade, a seemingly endless string of wars for “regime change” that are paid for through emergency appropriations over and above the Pentagon’s massive annual spending, plus massive new expenditures for intelligence and homeland security, and still expect the government to meet its traditional responsibilities in the areas of education, income security, transportation, health care, housing, environmental protection, and energy development.”
(William Hartung)
“To discredit the single-payer idea, insurers, HMOs, for-profit hospitals and other private interests play on Americans’ long-standing fears of Big Government. In truth, it is the private market that has created a massive bureaucracy, one that dwarfs the size and costs of Medicare, the most efficiently run health insurance program in the U.S. in terms of administrative costs. Medicare’s overhead averages about 2% a year.”
(Donald Barlett and James Steele)

xentryk and gerard,
  Yes to both.
I like the way one of the founders of http://www.pnhp.org put it: Rewrite the legislation; start over for singlepayer/medicare for all.  (Last week or the week before, on http://www.democracynow.org)

bwahahaha. Good lord, what’s left to compromise? One thing is evident: if you’re going to buy a new car you do not want the Democratic leadership along to help you negotiate. They’ll start the negotiations with the price they’re actually willing to pay (if not higher to show that they’re bargaining in good faith) and work from there.

Or you could read it as, “This bill is already shitty enough to become the law of the land, there’s no reason to make it even shittier.”

I probably shouldn’t feel sorry for progressives, but, I mean, really. Who sincerely thought health care legislation beneficial to the American people instead of the oligarchy could possibly emanate from that domed whorehouse up on Capitol Hill?

Who ever thought that “if we can just elect enough Democrats to take back the House, Senate and White House, good things will happen for ordinary Americans?”

Who ever thought that Barack Obama—though he gave nothing but a wavering, jellified, rhetorical indication he held any such sentiments during the election campaign—was a “real” progressive?

Who ever thought the Democratic Party is, by any stretch of the imagination, a “left” party?

Who?

Only people who are kidding themselves, that’s who.

My personal favorite is those progressive commentators—and they are legion—who pretend to be oh, so much smarter than the congressional, administration, Pentagon, State Department or etc. officials they’re criticizing. Their line of argument usually runs something like this. “Hey, what’s wrong with these people? What are they, too STUPID to KNOW that when they say this or do that or propose this or that policy, that it’s the EXACT OPPOSITE of what all good progressives most fervently desire and KNOW is the ONLY RIGHT THING TO DO?”

Hey, Stupido, THEY KNOW. Believe me, THEY KNOW.

I really wish those progressives would drop their annoying poses and openly recognize that they’re at ground zero of a twenty to forty year effort to turn this country in a solidly progressive direction. There is no instant karma; and I’m tired of all the make-believe.

To gerard, November 17 at 1:23 am

Not a stupid question at all. When it comes to this outrageous assault on our Constitution there are no stupid questions, although many would have you believe so.

You ask: “Did the doctors’, nurses’ and professional public health organizations ever talk face to face with the insurance big-wigs who opposed Mediacre for all and tell them their viewpoint and why?”

Some tried, and Max Baucus had them arrested.

You read that correctly. They were *arrested*

BREAKING: 5 More RNs, MDs Arrested at Baucus Finance Cmte. in Florence Nightingale Protest
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/national_nurses_movement/2009/05/breaking-5-more-rns-mds-arrest.php

“...five more were arrested today and dozens of other nurses stood before the committee in a dramatic silent protest.
Today’s action—the second in a week that led to 8 arrests—coincided with the anniversary of the birth of Nightingale….”

http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=690
Make it the Baucus 13.
Five more people were arrested at the Senate Finance Committee this morning.
They are advocates of a single payer health care system.

And they were protesting the fact that Committee chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) continues to exclude single payer advocates from a series of hearings on health care reform…”
—

Once the headlines disappeared, so did the outrage.

It’s outrageous.

“it was more or less a political charade” Yes. You are right on the money, so to speak.

When asked where the Constitution allows the Feds to mandate the purchase of a “service” from a for profit company, Nancy Pelosi said: “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question”. Yep, she said it twice.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55971
(audio available at link)

Billions for war, mandates for “Health Insurance Reform”.

http://costofwar.com/

What a bunch of bullshit.

NOW, Brown is going to support a “pubic option” with a state OUT OUT??! Go on home for the Holidays , Brown, and save us years of trying to fix the mess..here is the letter I finally recieved from the “progressive” Brown, who thinks that we “dont need to cave ANYNMORE THAN WE ALREADY HAVE”...I just do not understand how they can pretend that we are asking for something exceptional, by just asking to expand Medicare to All.

gerard—You got it. I watched every hearing I could find—including the ones where BaucASS and Kerry had 8 doctors and nurses arrested for protesing that they wanted a Nationa lHealth INsurance Plan….I knew then, that , what every industrialized country has, the US would not get, in my lifetime…I’m going to “opt out” of voting for Democrats, myself…

“...Thank you for expressing your concerns about the state of the American health care system.

The Senate is currently examining many issues relating to health care reform in the 111th Congress. I appreciate the input I have received from Ohioans on this issue.

The increasingly fragmented and inefficient health care system in the U.S. is a major concern. While premiums mount for those with health care plans, nearly 50 million Americans remain uninsured and millions more are underinsured. And despite staggeringly high health care costs, our nation lags behind other developed countries across a spectrum of health indicators.

I support legislation that would establish a single coverage system modeled after Medicare. Whether the measure is cost, access, or quality, our nation would be better off establishing Medicare for all than continuing to rely on an uneven patchwork health insurance system. However, securing Medicare for all remains an uphill battle and it should not be pursued to the exclusion of more immediate coverage expansion strategies. I support efforts to establish a public insurance option plan to compete against the private insurance systems coupled with strengthened Medicare and Medicaid programs.

I appreciate hearing your views. As work on health care form continues in Congress, I will be sure to keep your views in mind. Thank you again for getting in touch with me. “

Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown
United States Senator

If the Dems had pursued Natl Health Care , instead of wasting Capital on a stupid Stimulus or more bank bailouts, it would have been done by now. Dont let them fool you. If they wanted it, they would have it done by now.

Of course, questioning whether we should be spending about 100x more on war is not even a valid question…

These “Progressives” should have taken a stance weeks ago. NOW they are going to “hold the line”?

My heroes!

This may be stupid, naive questions, but:  Did the doctors’, nurses’ and professional public health organizations ever talk face to face with the insurance big-wigs who opposed Mediacre for all and tell them their viewpoint and why?  Did they ever talk directly to the corporate managers from Big Pharma?  Was there ever a powerful citizens’ lobby formed to talk face to face with the insurance companies and/or pharma in a public forum where opposing views would get national coverage?
  Or was the entire deal done by politicians bargaining for campaign funding behind closed doors?  Who represented the people’s interests directly in discussions with insurance and pharma interests—anybody who had no campaign fund interests? 
  How much opposition were insurance and pharma forced to deal with?  Who kept personal notes on exactly who said what in what context, and are the notes available to the public?  Did the Senate and House proponents of the public option ever get a chance to talk face to face with anybody with clout from the other side?  If not, why not? 
  It does sound like all this was a bit on the cozy side with nobody really challenging anybody else and the power all went with the money for campaign funds, which means it was more or less a political charade, and the result is not going to be of much benefit to a public crucially in need of more adequate coverage but largely excluded from the argument—which means that both sides betrayed the best interests of the country as a whole.

I think the Democrats are already on the ‘wrong side of history’. The Public [read: voters] want Health Care Reform that gets rid of the 3rd party, aka Insurance Companies, and provides Universal Health Care.

Instead of that, we got a Camel designed by Elephants and a bunch of Asses - Oops, I mean Donkeys.

No bill is better than this debacle: The country cannot afford the mandatory payments to the Corporate Medical Industry that this abortion calls for.