Outraged, September 10 at 1:10 am #

Re: ardee

AGAIN, These “hawks” hunt by day, as I’ve had several eye-witness accounts of these birds, which by the way CAN ONLY BE SEEN DURING THE DAY.

.................

Oh, and not to belabor the point but ,as the article explicitly states, these birds hunt at dawn and dusk, not during the day.

re: KDelphi

Sorry I did not see your link to the Taibbi article. I really think that everyone on Truthdig should read it.

Outraged, September 10 at 1:10 am

I am really sad for you, honestly I am. You are so consumed with rage and bitterness that you become a silly little irrelevancy.

I posted the information about that bird, one not named by me, because you stated that you failed to find said information. You always assume that anything contradictory or not in lock step with your own unique vision is an insult. Sad for you, annoying for all who come into contact with you I fear.

Re: ardee

AGAIN, These “hawks” hunt by day, as I’ve had several eye-witness accounts of these birds, which by the way CAN ONLY BE SEEN DURING THE DAY.

Amazing how you can read ALL the articles, all the comments AND still keep your eyes on the road. You are AMAZING “ardee”.  Night or day, rain or shine, “ardee’s” on it…... AND DRIVES A TRUCK TO BOOT!  Amazing…., don’t you beat all?  You certainly showed me….

Here is Matt Taibbi’s article on “heatlh care reform” at Cyrano’s Journal. It spells it out very well, for those who arent too wrapped up in green to listen.

http://www.bestcyrano.org/?p=3860&cpage=1#comment-452

“So what’s left? Well, the bills do keep alive the so-called employer mandate, requiring companies to provide insurance to their employees. A good idea — except that the Blue Dogs managed to exempt employers with annual payrolls below $500,000, meaning that 87 percent of all businesses will be allowed to opt out of the best and toughest reform measure left. Thanks to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, we can now be assured that the 19 or 20 employers in America with payrolls above $500,000 who do not already provide insurance will be required to offer good solid health coverage. Hurray!”

Hurray…....

No, what seems to be left out of the debate these days, is health care. Its not supposed to just be about MONEY. People are dying. 20-80,000 a year.

The bascics of life only conform to “market forces” in a Social Darwinian type of way. If you think its ok to let people die over money, then you probably think that war profiteering is a socially acceptable enterprise.

You are in a very strange moral universe to me, and I wish I didnt have to live in the same country as you.

I am sick to death of people like Eugene continually posturing how Pres. Obama was forced into the current situation. When will you people get it? Obama NEVER intended to have a single payer health care system. NEVER! This is all about the SHOW put on for the uninformed, weak minded, letting them think that there was a possibility of “Change”. It was a powerful vote getter. Obana’s “opinion” on health care was Bought long before he got elected by corporate interests. Every decision he has made so far, including his choice of cabinet appointees, has been made in line with his allegiance to Corporate thinking. He is their man not our man. Get over it. You’ve been duped by the slickest con man yet to take the oval office.

It strikes me that the Health Insurance Industry is really kind of a case of Reverse Capitalism.  Rather that competing for more sales and more customers as does traditional well functioning capitalism, health insurance companies compete for healthy customers who wont use their product and compete to cull sick individuals who will need health care from their roles.  The perversity is that they have built up a huge infrastructure to optimize this business model.  So your premium is going to support activities that may result in you being culled from their ranks should you need catastrophic care.  And in the end capitalistic competition in this case actually drives creation of a poorer product.

One more comment, all these polls showing people being satisfied with their health insurance are twisted.  Health insurance is not about yearly checkups and minor health issues.  Insurance is about protecting yourself from catastrophes.  So any poll that legitimately wants to probe customer satisfaction needs to poll only those people who actually needed the health insurance product (i.e. those who had a catastrophic health care need).  If someone could point me to such a poll I would appreciate it.

There are three groups involved in political shenanigans.

The first group is the smallest and is by far the richest, most powerful and least democratic: Big Business. Those CEOs with the power and influence of royalty.

The second group is the extreme and radical rightwing (dominated by Fox News propaganda) with an ideology that comes close to the Taliban’s.

The third group is by far the biggest group - the ordinary Americans, who believe in democracy, justice and the rights of all.

Obama’s difficulty is that he was elected by the third group, but is harassed by the first and second groups.

What is important here, is the true meaning of democracy – the people, the majority.

Does Obama listen to those that elected him, or those with the unscrupulous power and money to destroy him?

beerdoctor,

Yes, I won’t be doing any more writing to my government officials, since I don’t have a sack of cash to go along with it.  To Diane’s credit she was one of the few whose staff actually responded with even a canned email.  The other thing that pissed me off a bit is that my response email got bounced back (yeah, I should of known better ).

“In retrospect, it was probably a mistake for Obama to allow the public option to become such a litmus test. A government-run program is not a prerequisite for universal health care, as nations such as Germany, France and Japan have demonstrated. But the only reasonable trade-off for dropping the public option, in my view, would be the ability to move health insurance coverage much closer to true universality. Instead, the Senate “Gang of Six” negotiators—those trying to somehow “meet in the middle”—seem to be moving in the opposite direction.”  Eugene Robinson

Obama has stated that the US is not mature enough to handle such a sweeping change as single payer even though millions of US citizens 65 or older are already on a single payer system, Medicare.

Tonight we’ll see just what kind of mush Obama is made of. Will he go for the Co-op idea and let the insurance companies starve them out, or will he opt for the trigger and say that if premiums are down by 2 percent of their projected rise in 5 years, well then, it is high time for a public option?

Here’s a man who danced his way to Columbia where he disappeared for two years.  Went to Harvard Law School where, it seems, a camera followed him around everywhere.  He was set up to run against Alan Keyes, a man who has made quite a living being a nut as a public personna.  Then he ran against an old crazy man with a screwball as a running mate, the least likely to attract voters, an old geezer and a crazy broad.
Now, the rubber has met the road.  What is he going to do?  I say he’s like a simple schizophrenic.  He’ll pick the path of least resistance. 
What’s startling to me is the realization that the past three Presidents have been from the baby boomer generation, Clinton, Bush II and now Obama.  Granted Obama is from late in the baby boomer generation but he exhibits the same behaviours—the urge to please his masters—as the previous two.

Let’s have the audacity to hope that independent media, i.e., Amy Goodman, Tom Hartmann, etc. can inform the next generation to avoid this carnival-like ride to Fascism at all cost.  My generation doesn’t seem to have the grapes.

re: glider

Reading Ms. Feinstein’s response to your inquiry, I simply marvel at the very glib but formal (if not downright embedded in stone) blowoff she invokes with that all important “However,”.
It also reminds me of the same cold dead response I received from Ohio’s Senator Brown, when I wrote to complain about the massacre in Gaza.
Yes, your Senators will thank you for contacting them, but in actuality, they are telling you to just sod off!

Outraged, September 9 at 1:24 am #

Try harder

Nighthawk or Bullbat:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Nighthawk/id

Congress worked out compromise after compromise to try to preserve slavery for over twenty years. In the end we had to fight the bloodiest war in our history to get rid of it. In the end it was worth it. Slavery had to be eliminated in order for our nation to progress. Now they’re trying to compromise to preserve medical insurance, which is also holding our country back. Fix bayonettes and start digging trenches…..

Nighthawk,
Your beating around the bush rather than answering my direct question.  I basically asked you how consumer demand can produce a better product in the health care insurance industry where the purchase is so disconnected from the promised product.  That is the essential basis of the benefit of the free market system.  You don’t address that question.  Does it make you uncomfortable?

To answer your various nefarious obfuscations:

1.  I have no problem with 3-4% profit margins.  I never made that objection.  You ignore the administrative expenses and perks I complained about.  While we are on this issue tell me how it benefits society to have part of your premium used to pay actuaries to weed out the sickly?

2. “Automobiles are a really bad example right now.  More likely: Over the last twenty or so years, but especially now.”

So you don’t think the automobile product has improved over the last 20 years?  But that the health insurance product has improved?  Please explain this to us.  Note that bad companies going out of business is a healthy part of the free market system and that recessions negatively affect even successful companies.  Health care is relatively recession resistant.  So what?  How is this a defense for the inefficient private health insurance system?

3.  “Apple is not spending about 60 cents on the dollar doing extra tests on your iPod to avoid lawsuits.”  I think this number is purposely exaggerated by you but I am for tort reform and wish it was in the bill.  That has nothing to do with whether capitalistic health insurance is a good means of paying for health care for citizens.  Legal expenses would remain largely the same regardless of whether we had Single Payer or the status quo unless there is specific reform in that area.  So what?  How is this a defense for the inefficient private health insurance system?

Re: Nighthawk

Your comment: “Sorry pal, it just ain’t so.”

Sure….sure…  I’m assuming you are alluding to your comments, or is it your label: “Nighthawk”?

I thought about this… and well, as it is… I happened to have lived in some VERY rural areas and that label “nighthawk”, just kind of… well, didn’t quite “sit right”, if you get my drift.

There AREN’T any “nighthawks” at least that I’m aware of.  From Wiki:

“More generally (especially in North America) to mean falcons or small to medium-sized members of the Accipitridae – the family which includes the “true hawks” (Accipiters) as well as eagles, kites, harriers and buzzards.

Loosely, to mean almost any bird of prey outside of the order Strigiformes (owls).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawk

These “hawks” hunt by day, as I’ve had several eye-witness accounts of these birds, which by the way CAN ONLY BE SEEN DURING THE DAY.  So what’s with your “Nighthawk” label?  Are you a figment of our imaginations…?

Haven’t we already compromised?  I wanted a single payer system but that appeared to provoke a corporate revolution in the country.  Now a public option is at stake.

People need their freedom—freedom to change jobs, freedom to go bankrupt and start all over.  But the corporate constituency of the United States purchased enough legislators in congress to see to it that their huge profit base—the middle class peons—will remain chained to their desks, to their spouses, and to their debt until they die.  Wasn’t this once called indentured servitude?

Not only should there be a public option, but also the encouragement of non-profit health care.  What would it be like to go to a hospital and get care if you needed it. 

I tried to make an appt with a new dr today.  Preliminaries even more important than my medical condition or history is my supplying evidence that payment will happen.  It’s not enough to show your BS card—do you need pre=authorization? Do you have a co pay?  Have you met your deductible?  Oh, okay, I’ll research all this and hope I’ll still be able to arrange chemo in time for it to do some good.

Obama needs to go for it.  You were elected to dispense with those fools in Washington and that’s what you better do.

By glider, September 8 at 6:48 pm #

If the fact of a 3% margin bothers you, feel free to change it.  Say it is whatever you want it to be if it makes you feel better.  That’s what progressives do.  Truth is anything you want it to be.

That doesn’t keep it from being fact.  Simply put, you have been misled.

Now: A couple of problems with your premise.

First: Automobiles are a really bad example right now.  More likely: Over the last twenty or so years, but especially now.

“OK, so tell me how this works for selling health insurance.  The consumer is buying a promise to provide monetary coverage for a potential health problem in the future.  Compared to an iPod or a good deal at Costco how does the consumer judge the best deal?”

Doesn’t work.

-I’m not paying for your iPod if you can’t afford one for yourself or choose to not buy one for yourself.

-The guy that made your iPod is not paying about $250K for insurance to protect him from lawsuits if your iPod goes awry.

-Apple is not spending about 60 cents on the dollar doing extra tests on your iPod to avoid lawsuits.

-Tens of thousands of lawyers are not getting obscenely rich in iPod lawsuits.

-Tens of thousands of lawyers are not lobbying both parties to avoid true iPod reform. 

The answer is: It’s not a free market model now.
Health care is HEAVILY regulated.

Sure, I understand it’s not as rampant as the illegal gun control regulations.  We’re up to what, 22,000 now?

So, in the meantime we’re caught up in smoke and mirrors, pretending that free market capitalism failed, when what we have is not free market capitalism.

Sorry pal, it just ain’t so.

By TAO Walker, September 8 at 8:41 pm #

Turtle Island? 

Mackinac Island to the Ojibwe.  No.  Too expensive to live there.  Too many fudgies about too.

Native guidance? 

Not sure that’s what the Progressives here want.  What with the stagnation of culture and all.  Then of course there’s the tribal warfare, enslavement of folks from outside the tribe, and the out and out wiping out of tribes like the Erie.

In these enlightened days, we have overfishing that utterly empties fresh water lakes, and tribal councils held to eject members so the casino money can be divvied up amongst fewer people.

That plus the despair caused by refusing to assimilate and being given a new home when your old one falls down due to neglect.  Government is not doing Natives any favors by giving them what they want and “need”.

Sadly, I am talking about family here.

If the Obama administration’s subservience to the “powers” that wannabe was ‘buying’ theamericanpeople a little time to get ready for the ultimate “global” ecCONomic collapse, by getting the gangsters to put-off initiating same from right now until next year, maybe it’d be worth all the groveling.  If the President was using that time, and his position, and his supposed practical expertise to actively encourage genuine community ORGAN-ization, maybe people would be getting at-least a little something of substance in-exchange for selling their grandkids into perpetual wage/debt slavery.  Just ain’t happenin’, though.

So anybody here who thinks they’re really seeing any bonafide “upside” to the way things actually are (as differentiated from the way they’re endlessly and repetitively portrayed), on the other hand….well, hell, let’s not kid one another.  Here in the land of make-believe there’s just no ‘market’ for unfiltered perceptions, and a seemingly endlessly growing one for industrially denatured “commodities” of all kinds….“information” hardly least among ‘em.

When will it hit people like Eugene Robinson here that their “HOPE ‘n’ CHANGE” savior Barack Obama is every bit as lost in this mess as they are theirownselfs?  When will it dawn on the rest of you that without some Native Guidance americans are headed for CONditions of institutionalized degradation the severity of which will be no less devastating for its being relatively short-lived?

You have forced your crippled selves on a land, Turtle Island, that has no place in its Living Arrangement for your idiotic ‘dominance’ paradigm.  Now you will learn what it is to be deprived, by something beyond your CONtrol, of all you’ve held ‘precious.’

You might still ‘buffer’ much of your suffering by surrendering unconditionally to The Tiyoshpaye Way.  Your allamericanway is, however, doomed in any case.

Hokahey!

The key to exploiting the public is too obfuscate key issues to a level of complexity beyond the comprehension of the average joe.  The Fed is one of the best examples of this truism and the quote by Alan Greenspan, “If you think you understand what I said, I probably misspoke…” is simply precious in that regard.

Witness the letter I received from Diane Feinstein when I sent her a letter to ask for her to support a strong public option.  Her political choice of obfuscation here is the term “federal deficit” which is a abstract evil term to most americans.  The truth about that is another matter.  Her complete lack of leadership and pandering is self evident

>>>
Dear Mr. xxx

Thank you for contacting me regarding health care reform and providing a public health care option. I appreciate the time you took to write and welcome the opportunity to respond.

I believe that there is much room for improvement in our nation’s healthcare system. However, I believe that health care reform should not increase the federal deficit. I am deeply concerned about the large number of individuals and families in our country who do not have access to quality healthcare. This is a problem that touches every community and must be addressed at many different levels, including the Federal, State and local government. This problem is especially acute in California, where nearly 7 million people are uninsured.

The escalating cost of some premiums continues to make obtaining health insurance difficult, if not impossible, for many Americans. I am working hard to remove existing barriers to health care so that all Americans have access to the services they require.

One of the many proposals being considered to reform our system is to create a health care plan that is publically operated. Please know that I am reviewing all health care reform options and I will keep your comments in mind as the Senate continues to work to improve health care for all Americans.

Again, thank you for writing. If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
      United States Senator
<<<

Somewhere along the way in the history of this country, the executive branch has assumed that it must be the ultimate protector of corporate capitalism, which clearly explains the actions initiated by President Obama. Just as when the Supreme Court decided that corporations have even greater rights than citizens, and that money and the political leverage that goes with it, is deemed to be free speech; Obama responds whenever the elite ownership caste of this society yanks his golden chain.
A true disengagement is required here. Consider Ghandi’s salt march, or the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. A peaceful, yet totally determined will that is completely resolved, by simply stating “your jive ass duck and cover is simply not good enough”. Tell the lamely elected that you will not support them, not in any way. Tell President Obama and the rest of the belt way clowns that you will not give any more money… not a single penny.
What do you call a TOTAL Boycott? Answer: a very good start.

Nighthawk,
Let me try in put this in a context you can relate to as a free market advocate (I am as well, when properly applied).  Capitalist competition, when it works well, produces incredible benefits for society in terms of technological advances (e.g. iPods, Moore’s Law, and wonderful automobiles) and price efficiencies (Walmart, Costco, etc).  In each of these cases the consumer drives the equation by purchasing the better product thereby stimulating the growth of the best producer. 

OK, so tell me how this works for selling health insurance.  The consumer is buying a promise to provide monetary coverage for a potential health problem in the future.  Compared to an iPod or a good deal at Costco how does the consumer judge the best deal?  I submit to you that he really can not.  Perhaps he will just buy what appears to be best on the surface in terms of price vs benefit.  But the trick here is that what is being sold is just a promise with about 10 pages of small print conditions that are not comprehended by the normal consumer.  So there is a disconnect and the free enterprise system fails and is as redundant as having free enterprise fire departments.  A great example was given by the ex CEO of UHC (if my memory serves me) who talked about a situation in which a health insurance companies medical loss ratio was too poor and its stock price trashed as a result.  They brought in a new CEO, who computerized client records and analyzed them to weed out the sickly.  He was able to significantly improve the companies medical loss ratio.  Now bear in mind this at the same time reduced the value of the insurance, but as he knew, the consumer would not be able to comprehend that loss because their product is abstract.  So I ask you, in this situation, is the directive of capitalist competition not misdirected?

And I just keep wondering which part of “the left” or “the activist base” is the 77% that the USA News poll from the last week or two say they strongly favor the “choice” of a public option.

Has that activist base grown that large in the past 9 months?

Similarly, Chuckie Krauthamer said in a op ed today that we should remember this is a center-right country. Is that 77% all center-right?

Thanks be to the script read to us endlessly by the Corporate Mass Media!

Nighthawk,
>>Certainly we should begrudge them their sub-3% profit.  Certainly they’re not as greedy as Big Oil, which is running at something like 7%<<

Are you really this stupid or just a corporate shill?  You ignore the massive benefits these businesses shower on themselves and measure their greed only through what they pass on to shareholders.  So the massively exhibitant corporate headquarters, the big salaries, the benefits, and the stock options etc. get factored out of your deliberate sleazy narrow “analysis”.  Why do you present the situation this way?  All corporate greed is only measured as shareholder profits in your little world.  Have you ever compared your so-called greedy “Education System” professors salary and office space to one of your low profit “Corporate System” executives?  You are either a fool or are completely disingenuous or both.  Either way your opinion is crap.

Here is BaucASS’ new plan: (I they go with it, I would suggest that they just leave it the f*ck alone)

http://www.openleft.com/diary/14972/baucus-circulates-health-care-plan

No “public option” (which was a scam anyway). Co-ops—if I have to tell you that those dont work, never mind. Not a real “trigger” (scam anyway). More covered, with even crappier insurance. (Industry bonanaza, and, bonanza for Senators running in 2010). Cuts to Medicare, and reduced subsidies for those who cant afford to buy. But, everyone BUYS! That is what is crucial to the Dems and their campaign donors!

Great, Dems. Fuck you, Baucass.

People like Eugene babble on about Obama’s promise of “almost univerasal”—this kindve talk is so unbearable to me these days that my response would be unprintable.

He hasnt supported universal coverage since 2003. But, this is even worse than the Massachusetts “plan”. Robinson is similarly disengenuous in his noting that Japan and European countries dont have ‘govt run” plans…but they do have govt CONTROLLED plans and this controls the industry not one iota.

thebeerdr—“I want a health insurance system that works as well for the American people as it does for the insurance industry. They should be free to make a profit. But they also have to be fair. They also have to be accountable.”

I heard this yesterday , too, and it jumped out at me—so much so that I said, right in front of “in-law guests”, “Obama I dont give a fuck about the insurance industry!” Amd I dont—well, I wish their CEOs would all die. They have no right to exist and wtf is the govt doing subsidizing their profits?? What do they think that are—BANKS or something or big oil or big agri-business?
I agree with samson “Submission is not an alternative.  Which makes getting control of our political system again an imperative.”

I feel like a broken record but it is a moral question, not a monetary one…for gawd’s sake…

Bounce them out!

The reply wil be “oh, but the Republicans wil win..!!” So?? What would be different??? What do you like most about the Dems? NAFTA? Welfare reform? The “credit card bill of rights”? More troops into Af-Pak or drone murders? Bank bailouts or failure to regulate?

What is the BEST thing that theyve done since taking the majorities?

Hell, I have to take a train all the way to Colombia Presbytarian this week to have my sister pay for an opinion on surgery to my brain because Medicaid wont cover a board certified dr here in Ohio—-HOW does that save money? How is that humane? How do Dems sleep at night?

What about those that do NOT have a sister with a friend at Colombia Pres?? Think that that keeps BaucASS up at night? Or Obama? It should.

They should not only atttend troops’ funerals, but also the funerals of the 20-80,000 who will die this year because of their cowardice. We can afford drones and DynaCorp parties but not health care.Shame on Dems! Shame on the uS!

By thebeerdoctor, September 8 at 9:32 am #
“This has nothing to do with health care, but everything to do with assuring that the insurance industry continues to make profits.”

Proof that Obama is in tight with the Medical Insurance Industry? 

Certainly we should begrudge them their sub-3% profit.  Certainly they’re not as greedy as Big Oil, which is running at something like 7%.  God forbid we go after the higher education., which is taking about 30%.

On a positive note: Big Pharma has it’s hands in Obama’s pockets, and vice versa.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_consultants

Oh no, you folks don’t have your priorities skewed.

By so left i am wrong, September 8 at 5:07 am #
“boolean not binary “

Actually, “boolean” is no more correct in this context than ”binary”.

By Russian Paul, September 8 at 2:12 am #
“I think the Obama administration had this planned from the beginning.”

Yep.  Pretty much just another Democrat shell game.

By SaveTheTenth, September 8 at 1:42 am #
“I’m wondering how much of this passion would exist if the media did it’s job and reported ……………….”

If the “Mainstream” Media did it’s job, this “reform” plan would have been shot down quick.
As it is, we have to depend on other media and true grass roots word of mouth to inform the public to the point where corrupt Democrat politicians feel the heat.

This is evidenced in Obama’s recent backflip on his public school speech and on the part of Democrats when they removed the “death panel” provision of Health Care Nationalization.  Of course, this is after they called Palin a liar for telling the public about it.

Clearly Obama is too much the centrist. (!)

Regarding Samson’s intriquing and perceptive comments:

What happens if in the 2010 congressional elections if the left were to target the 40 or 50 most vulnerable Democratic House members and run a strong progressive, pro-single-payer, anti-war 3rd party campaign in those districts.  The left may not be able to win such seats themselves.  But, the one thing the left can do is to make the Democrats lose.  A strong 3rd party campaign that pulls votes away from some corporate, pro-insurance-company, pro-war Democrat can be the margin that costs that Democrat their seat.

You don’t get nothing in American politics without political power.  The left’s blind support for the pro-corporate, pro-war Democrats has left them with basically zero political power today.  Yet, the left can regain political power very quickly by threatening the Democrats hold on power.

I thought Id get in before that poster gets savaged by those who will call him an agent of the devil or some such as that. I think this a great strategy indeed, and a necessary one if Progressives wish to see their agendas advanced in Congress.

My question would be what organisations are there capable of mounting such an action? One might think our (moribund seeming) Green Party an ideal vehicle for such as this. Where the hell are they anyway?

One thing to watch within the Democratic party over the next few months is the fields in the upcoming congressional primary races.

Its possible that you might see within the Democratic party a wave of primary challenges from pro-single-payer candidates in the Dem primaries.  If you see the pro-insurance-company Dems being challenged by pro-single-payer candidates in primaries, then there’s some life left in the Democrats.

But, those sorts of primary challenges to sitting pro-corporate, pro-war Dems have been very rare in the last few years.  There were only a handful in 2004 and 2006, and virtually none at all in 2008.

Of course, when there is such a rare challenge, what you usually get is a glimpse at what a rigged game a Dem primary is.  The rules are set to benefit big money.  And if there’s a strong challenge, you’ll see all the Dem ‘leadership’ and big money flow into that race to help defend the pro-insurance-company Democrat.

If there aren’t or can’t be challenges within the Democratic party, then what’s left is to run independent candidates that support and serve people instead of insurance companies.

The only other option is submission, which means poverty and death on this issue.  A hint from the 50 year old ... everyone eventually gets old.  Which means everyone eventually needs health care.  Do you want a system where either it costs you all your savings to get it, or where’s its unavailable leaving people to die?

Submission is not an alternative.  Which makes getting control of our political system again an imperative.

“But what’s the point of making concessions to Republicans who, in the end, aren’t going to vote for the legislation anyway?”

You don’t get it, do you?  If you accept the premise that politicians lie (and how any sane person not) then you look at what they do and not what they say.  Then you don’t end up ask questions that seem to be so perplexing.  The Dem politician “yes buts” that put up a host of excuses for not enacting effective health care reform (e.g. bipartisanship, too big a deficit, blah blah blah), plain and simple, do not want effective health care reform.  It is that simple. 

My answer will be to not listen to any of this flack.  Their actual promotion of single payer and a very strong public plan will be a litmus test for my future votes.  It is that simple.

There must be a special place in Dante’s circles of hell for those in the American health care ‘industry’.  Hopefully torments where they are in eternal pain, and offered a chance at ending that pain, but first they have to fill out these forms and sit over there and wait, in pain, for the ‘doctor’.  Of course, the doctor never arrives, only a representative of Satan, in his familiar guise as an employee of a ‘health insurance’ company (doesn’t that sound like the mafia?) with more forms to fill out.

What America calls health care is incredibly evil and immoral.  What could be more immoral than making a profit from other people’s illness and pain?  Is there anything more evil than a bunch of leeches living in mansions and driving porsches which they got from sucking all the money from any who are unfortunate to fall ill?

Profit should never be a consideration when someone is sick.  That its the only consideration in America is just wrong, immoral and incredibly evil.

You know, I’ve been hearing this bull about Democrat ‘mistakes’ for twenty years now.  Since the DLC takeover of the party in the late 80’s, the Democrats ALWAYS act to please the big corporations.  Then, in order to cover their rears with their progressive base that the con into electing them, they always produce bs articles like this one that talk about the ‘mistakes’ the Democrats made that resulted in corporate America getting what it wanted and the rest of us just getting screwed.

Face it, its not a mistake.  Obama sat down with all the big health insurance companies early in this process.  Obama never met with anyone supporting single-payer.  Obama’s real priorities have always been clear.  Don’t listen to his words, as they are designed to fool and mislead.  Watch who Obama meets with, watch who gives the Democrats big bucks.  Watch who gets legislation to their benefit out of a Congress with a veto-proof Dem Senate and a big Dem majority in the House and a Dem President.

hint ... it ain’t the American citizens who will benefit from this.  And its never a ‘mistake’.

Democratic apologists like Mr. Robinson (where’s Dustin Hoffman and Mrs. Robinson right now?), will always churn out these ‘mistake’ articles in yet another attempt to convince fools to elect the pro-corporate Democrats in the next election.  But, it never was a ‘mistake’.

Samson, you’ve got it right. The problem with the Democrats is that they won’t lose any money, just power. Actually, the blue dogs will be rewarded because Republican Presidents will bribe them more than a Democratic president.

What the left needs to understand, and what they need to teach and remind the Democrats, is that the Democrats can not hold power without the left.

What happens if in the 2010 congressional elections if the left were to target the 40 or 50 most vulnerable Democratic House members and run a strong progressive, pro-single-payer, anti-war 3rd party campaign in those districts.  The left may not be able to win such seats themselves.  But, the one thing the left can do is to make the Democrats lose.  A strong 3rd party campaign that pulls votes away from some corporate, pro-insurance-company, pro-war Democrat can be the margin that costs that Democrat their seat.

In other words, the left can take away the Democratic majority in the House in 2010.

And, in 2012, the left can make Obama a one-term president by mounting a strong, unified, 3rd party campaigns that takes votes and key states from Obama.

You don’t get nothing in American politics without political power.  The left’s blind support for the pro-corporate, pro-war Democrats has left them with basically zero political power today.  Yet, the left can regain political power very quickly by threatening the Democrats hold on power.

We might not be able to win outright.  But, the left can hold a veto on whether or not the Democrats hold power.  And the left can use that to force the Democrats to act a little less like the Republicans they really are.

Again, I feel like a broken phonograph record (remember them?) check out what our president said yesterday at the labor day picnic in Cincinnati’s Coney Island:
“I want a health insurance system that works as well for the American people as it does for the insurance industry. They should be free to make a profit. But they also have to be fair. They also have to be accountable.”

This has nothing to do with health care, but everything to do with assuring that the insurance industry continues to make profits. I love that line “They also have to be accountable.” Who is President Obama referring to? The insurance company stock holders?

When Obama visited Yellowstone, I’m hoping someone mentioned the
supervolcano that resides beneath it.  Forget healthcare and security and the rest:
if that thing goes, we’re all screwed.

Any health industry, not care, reform will result in windfall profits for the health insurance industry. This country really doesn’t have a health care industry it has a health insurance industry which employ’s health care professionals. President Obushama hasn’t shown any leadership on this matter, although he does have other matters to deal with. When he started to campaign for the presidency the total corruption and incompetence of the Bush gang wasn’t fully realized until well into his 2008 campaign. However, Obushama has surrounded himself with Clitonites, Clitonista’s whom are the Democratic Party branch of the Republican Party.

Mr. Robinson writes as if the motivation in Washington is to get a real health care reform effort launched. It isnt.

Despite the fact that 36 industrialized nations have better and much less expensive health coverage than does the USA, and many of those have cradle to grave coverage for all, our legislators act as if this is an impossible task equivocating it to Sisyphean impossibility.

Barack Obama, seeming to be pushing that rock up that hill, is actually the creator of his own disaster. The way to get “revolutionary” reform through Congress is not by stepping out of the way but by taking charge and insisting upon such changes.

From the first he has demonstrated an inability to lead, instead walking proudly , if stupidly, into the swamp of bipartisanship. When first the propaganda began to appear about the so-called dangers of “socialized health care” he and every democrat should have spoken loudly and clearly against such distortions. But, concerned no doubt with the continued flow of campaign funding from the health care industries they did not. Now it is probably too late.

The democratic party is just too broad to develop any coherent strategy about health care, the environment or energy.  How can a party that spans radical progressives to soft conservatives every find compromise?  Some Dems are actually more conservative than liberal Repubs.  Clinton’s moving the party to the center gave them the votes to get elected but made them ineffective as leaders.

On another point, Robinson is right.  A binary (or boolean ... doesn’t matter as both have only 2 states) issue cannot be taken to the center.  Obama is foolish if he believes progressives have no place else to go so they will keep voting for him no matter what he does.  If he consistently tacks to the center, we will eventually abandon him and create our own party.  Then the Dems will find themselves in the mushy center of politics and that is not a good place to be.

boolean not binary

Re: LostHills

Your comment: “Sometimes you have to choose sides, Mr. President. Sometimes you have to know what you stand for and act with determination and integrity. Sometimes compromise is for losers.”

Well put, thank you.  Many simply hate the fact that I think Pres. Obama not only has it in him…. but is a person of integrity and WILL DO what needs to be done, along with His Admin.

Could I be wrong…. sure.  On the other hand, I don’t think I am.  With a loud voice America, let our President and our representatives KNOW WHAT IT IS WE WANT.

Additionally your comment, “Sometimes compromise is for losers.  I agree.  Certainly “sometimes” compromise is the best way to go, but other times…... “compromise is for losers”.

Quote: “But as this sour and unsettled summer ends, the political center looks like the white line running down the middle of a busy street—a foolish place to stand, and an excellent place to get run over.”

Standing in the midst of a busy street is stupid.  If we RETURN the “goal posts” to their rightful place regarding “the center”, it would not be necessary to be standing in the “middle of a busy street”.  The goal posts have been moved…. because of this we have only the illusion of “a busy street”.  If we reset the goal-posts to their rightful place, the “center” will be found safely beyond the curb.

Wouldn’t engaging the “Knucklehead” faction regarding healthcare reform be akin to seeing if the local slave owners endorsed abolition…? (How “necessary” is it to take the opinion of abusers seriously…?) From Salon, a word on Baucus, and other KNUCKLEHEADS: (btw, there’s a whole list… good stuff.)

“Which may be why the American Prospect dubbed him “Bad Max,” and the Nation singled him out as “K Street’s Favorite Democrat.” He helped pass George W. Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, standing behind the president when he signed them into law (though he did wind up voting against the 2003 version). He went along with the GOP’s attempt to ram a Medicare prescription drug bill through Congress in 2003, even though Republicans barred then-Democratic leader Tom Daschle, also a Finance Committee member, from the negotiations to reconcile different House and Senate versions of the legislation.”
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/08/knuckleheads/index1.html

Quote: “Much of the energy, passion and anger on display at the health care town-hall meetings was irrational and based on ridiculous misinformation. But the emotion was real, and it reflects the fact that the far right is essentially taking an obdurate, rejectionist stance toward anything Obama tries to do.”

I don’t know about the “real” emotion here Eugene, all due respect.  I would gauge it more concisely as a “liars abuse ignorance” campaign, run by degenerates.  Sure… that works.  (Let’s scare the fuck out of the elderly…heh..heh…heh, think Beavis and Butthead)

Quote: “Democrats are right to believe that they have to pass some kind of health care bill or be accused—justly, I’d say—of stunning incompetence. But what’s the point of making concessions to Republicans who, in the end, aren’t going to vote for the legislation anyway?”

Absolutely.  The whole idea is contrary to common sense…. even politically.  But I came across a better analogy of our highly disreputable congressional REPUBLICANS, @ Salon.  Anyone remember “Goofus and Gallant”....lol, check it out:
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/09/08/tomo/

Everyone understands the healthcare situation is dire and needs to be reformed, except of course “the knuckleheads”.  I won’t speak for anyone else but, I don’t take the “advice” of knuckleheads to be succintly valuable nor cognizant….. but sure, they’ll continue to “enlighten us” with ignorance, but hey…. what else have they GOT!

I think the Obama administration had this planned from the beginning. Get
single-payer off the table, offer a watered down public-option plan, and then let
it get compromised away into oblivion. The constant distraction from the right
about death panels, birth certificates, etc and the responding indignation from the
left obfuscates the REAL meat of this debate and so the American people don’t
know what the fuck is going on. And this is what Obama planned from the
beginning.

Robinson writes:
“Much of the energy, passion and anger on display at the health care town-hall meetings was irrational and based on ridiculous misinformation.”

This couldn’t be because of a lack of information, could it. There isn’t even a single bill with concrete proposals. This is what happens when ideas trump details. Should everyone just “trust” the latest politician? Sure…

and “...underestimate the passion for health care reform among their party’s activist base.”

I’m wondering how much of this passion would exist if the media did it’s job and reported that all of the bills under consideration placed the administration of the “health insurance reform” under the IRS? If you’re late on paying the latest interest on our debt will your “health insurance” lapse? Hmmm…

Leaving out some details in the hopes the hapless proles won’t wake up until it’s too late.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Health-care-reform-means-more-power-for-the-IRS-56781377.html

Compromise on this issue will Obama’s and the Democrat’s biggest possible mistake. Something is not better than nothing. The public option is a litmus test and rightfully so. Nothing else will keep the insurance companies under control. Compromise is win/win for the Republicans, and lose/lose for Obama. Republican voters hate Obama and they are going to hate him no matter what he does. The liberal base of the Democratic party has already lost faith in Obama and if he caves on this issue they are going to abandon him. Compromise doesn’t work on every issue. It didn’t work on slavery, and it won’t work on health care reform. Obama abandons his base at his peril and at his party’s peril. Sometimes you have to choose sides, Mr. President. Sometimes you have to know what you stand for and act with determination and integrity. Sometimes compromise is for losers.