LJL—I am not sure who you’re talking about when you say “the Left”.  If you mean those who these days call themselves “progressives”, wanted Single Payer, were against the current war, and so on, social democrat types, then I would say recent experience shows exactly the opposite of your proposition.  This “Left” did play well with others, and it got taken to the cleaners.  It voted in Mr. O and got exactly nothing in return.  It made one concession after another, like some poor abused wife, child or dog, and got hung out to dry.

So that is the phenomenon you have to explain.  At the moment, true, you’ll see a lot of purity talk in a venue like this, because the poor abused progs wish they had at least kept it along with their self-respect.  But they didn’t.  They wanted to play well with others, and the others kicked them in the face.

As to the larger question—why are things like they are?  It seems that Americans have become unusually passive, authoritarian, sycophantic, and fearful, but I don’t know why that is.  Their ancestors seem to have been quite different.

Tennessee-Socialist is probably the most sane and reasonable poster here.  Things are not going to be made better by complainers.  Things are not going to be made better by people who are too pure-minded to work with others despite differences.  Only collective action which means an ability to “work and play well with others” will produce real political gains.  You have to ask yourself why America alone of industrial democracies does not have a viable social democratic party.  Not all the blame goes to the repressive right wing because every country has its right wing.  But what America lacks is an effective, coherent left.  As I see it, the American left is incoherent because there is an insufficient number of people on the left who are willing to participate in real, practical politics.  Too many American leftists have a quasi-religious passion for progressivism that values political purity of thought over practical political advancement.  It is axiomatic that people who think politics is dirty are never going to succeed at it.  They will never achieve the political power necessary to change America for the better.

Force implies slavery, they cannot force you to give value to their fiat money.
People choose to give fiat money value because it is easy. Producing your own
food, water and energy is hard but it frees you from the bonds created by the
bankers. There are no real chains on the modern slaves, the linen chains are
quite sufficient.

By Anarcissie, March 18 at 5:17 pm #

On the other hand, there are a lot of not very well-off people who have
preferred not to go to the government for Welfare as a matter of pride and
self-respect.

Forget everyone in politics, you do not need leaders. Give anyone your power
and they will be corrupted. I am no more willing to live under the rule of your
list of criminals than I am willing to live under the thumb of the present
criminals. When you become an anarchist look me up and I will give you the
best job in the world, as long as you remain a slave I cannot help you.

By Tennessee-Socialist, March 17 at 12:40 am #

Let’s organize a large united front of low-wage americans and poor people
(without middle class citizens) and let’s try to make it an electoral option.  Just
forget about Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, if they want to stay in their
capitalist political traditional parties, its ok for them.  But just think about
dumping Republican Party and Democratic Party altogether.

The only solution i see for America is a United Popular Socialist Front as an
electoral option for 2012, or 2016 with leaders like Cindy Sheehan, Ralph
Nader, Cinthya Mckinney, Socialist Equality Party leaders, Noam Chomsky,
James Petras, Paul Craig Robert, Chris Hedges, Michael Moore, Christian-
socialist Pastors and other progressive leftist and humanists anti-war, anti-
zionism, 9-11 truthers, organizations of this country.

“Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.” Georges Santayana.

DEAR SOCIALIST FRIENDS: I THINK THAT WHAT WE NEED IS TO GO TO SOCIALIST PARTIES ON SATURDAYS.  WATCH THIS COOL VIDEO ABOUT SOCIALIST PARTIES, WITH PUBLIC FREE HEALTH CARE, WITH MONEY FOR ALL, NOT JUST FOR A FEW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAPSjO_Kqg0

.

DEAR SOCIALIST FRIENDS: WATCH THE LATEST JUDGEMENT BY NADER ABOUT THE CAPITALIST HEALTH CARE BILL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk-exbmE5gg&feature=channel

.

T-S—your caps key is stuck.

DONT BLAME DENNIS KUCINICH, BLAME THE WHOLE USA CAPITALIST STATE, IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET A SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE BILL FROM A CAPITALIST STATE

IT IS TIME FOR AMERICANS TO DUMP THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND TO IMITATE THE VENEZUELANS, AND TO LOOK TOWARD A SOCIALIST OPTION

WHAT USA NEEDS IS A UNITED SOCIALIST FRONT… Ver más

BECAUSE THERE IS NO LIFE FOR AMERICANS WITH THE REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS.

SOCIALISM OR DEATH

.

Here are a pair of optimists to balance my pessimism:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/18/dennis_kucinich_and_ralph_nader_a

Especially Nader.  It’s only a disaster!

ANAR

  I BEEN GETTIN IT !!!!!  BELIEVE WE ARE THERE.

Hollywood Russ, March 18 at 3:56 pm:
’... And if you can’t afford insurance, I think it’s great that there are provisions for the government to step in and help. ...’

On the other hand, there are a lot of not very well-off people who have preferred not to go to the government for Welfare as a matter of pride and self-respect.  Forcing these people to beg bureaucrats for a handout, humiliating them, may make them very, very angry.  Right-wing organizations will be there to organize that anger.  In the background are a meaningless war, a richly bailed-out financial aristocracy, 10% unemployment, and the possibility of raging inflation if all that funny money the rich were given leaks into the real economy.

Things are beginning to look more like Weimar every day.  And most of you don’t seem to get it.

This fine article gave a glimps into the world of the miserable and desperate poor, whose ranks are growing by leaps and bounds. A flawed bill is better than nothing. Eisenhower signed two extremely flawed civil rights bills back in the Fifties because his handlers wanted ammunition (propaganda) to answer the Commies on the “negro problem.” How ironic that our first Black President is doing his darndest to address this issue which is a national disgrace and an embarassment compared to the rest of the world. So many people live on a hope and a prayer that they don’t get sick. It’s like the Puritans are still running the show. Illness is a sign of God’s displeasure with you. There are many provisions in this bill that take effect immediately. All that b.s. about waiting years for the bill to do anything is Teabagger propaganda. And if you can’t afford insurance, I think it’s great that there are provisions for the government to step in and help. “C’mon people! Smile on your brother. Everybody get together right now. Right now!” A healthy nation is a strong nation. And as the population continues to age, when need a system in place that will help them. To the critic who tried to split hairs by saying health insurance reform is separate from health care reform, you clearly have a poor understanding of the issue at hand. It’s 2010. The insurance industry runs the system. When you call a doctor’s or dentist’s office, what is the first question they ask you? “Do you have insurance?” If the answer is no, then you are screwed. Period.

I’ve lived in Canada.  Generally, I’d say that Canadians have (or had) a different social contract from Americans, which might well affect the way in which medical care and insurance would be best carried out in each country.  The American way is much more “dog eat dog and devil take the hindmost”, for instance, which might lead to more advanced cheating on the part of insurers, providers and bureaucrats.  Also, many Americans seem to feel that other kinds of Americans are not quite human (and here I’m not just talking about the White Man).  While Canada is certainly divided by region, class, religion and ethnicity, it does not seem to be as riven as the United States.

However, the current clown show in Washington is not solving the problems but exacerbating them.  As I’ve said uselessly before, I think the only hope, at least for working- and middle-class Americans, is to set up user-owned cooperative medical insurance and medical care institutions.  As should be obvious by now, the Federal government has become a plutocracy and its every movement serves only the rich. 

But we are so far from this sort of autonomy, and getting further every day, that writing about it is only going to depress me further.

Hey PT!  You’re wasting your time. LJL keeps avoiding the facts so he can cling to
a narrative of his being superior to “Americans”. Over and over he echoes the
meme that we’re to stupid or lack the “mind-set” to enact REAL HC reform. And
what evidence does he cite? Nothing, except that HE has lived in Europe and we
(he presumes, also w/o evidence) haven’t. What counter-argument could we
possibly muster against such solid logic? Umm… maybe every single poll taken
over the last year, including the Wall St. Journal’s, that showed 62%-72% support
for a strong public option? Meaning that the Obama sell-out is rooted not in
dealing with the ugly reality of the ignorant masses but instead with the
corruption of the DLC puppets whose boots LJL lives to lick… Move on PT.
Sometimes “winning” a argument is knowing when further discussion is useless.

“Simply put, you are full of opinions, but you don’t know what what [sic] the hell you’re talking about.  You only know what your theories say.”

That’s like being called ugly by an iguana.

P.T.
Simply put, you are full of opinions, but you don’t know what what the hell you’re talking about.  You only know what your theories say.  You have never lived or worked in a country with universal health care, never used it or paid for it. I have lived and worked in America and in Europe, and I tell you Americans have neither the social morality or intellect to accept universal single-payer health insurance.  Why?  Because it is not simply a change in accounting procedures.  European social security requires a whole set of social and moral attitudes that elevates community and society values alongside and perhaps ahead of individual interests.  And this clashes with your American frontiersman individualism that makes the individual number one.  One mindset may not ultimately be any better than the other.  However, the differences dictate which way America and (northwestern and central) Europe will organize their societies.  America will find an American solution to health care, just as Europe has chosen its solution.  But, P.T., try as hard as you can, you will never turn America into a European society.  And you never will make the Americans accept European style health care solutions. The bright side is that America is on the road to finding an American solution to its health care crisis with the HCR that President Obama is guiding through Congress.

According to Jane Hamsher (of Firedoglake.com), the Obama administration plan was to try to get a Republican vote in the Senate to hide behind.  That way the claim could be made that the public option had to be dropped in order to get a Republican vote.  Things went haywire went not a single Republican would sign on.  The administration lost its cover story.

Obushbama strikes again!  God knows what he had on Kucinich to flip him, or how he was threatened.

NY Times Reporter Confirms Obama Made Deal to Kill Public Option

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html

The seeming lack of principles of liberals has long puzzled me.  Obama and the media knew from the outset that the 60 liberals who backed a public option would cave in and not be a problem.  How did they know?  I think it is because liberals’ “principles” and self-interests often collide, and, when push comes to shove, the liberals come down on the side of self-interests.

I first took note of the phenomenon during the Vietnam War, when liberals would talk against the war and then vote to continue it.

LJL,

Neither Walter Mondale nor George H. W. Bush proposed single payer or any taxes to pay for it.  And the taxes, except at less cost, to pay for single payer can be distributed to approximate the sources that pay for health insurance currently.  The resistance to single payer comes from the health insurance industry.

Kucinich has given in.  I held out hope for this man; in vain.  The notions, that “every man has his price,” and “party before principle,” have won the day.  Now, with this last betrayal from Kucinich, I can sever, completely, my relationship with the dems.

Amazing how key points get lost:

Where could the money to pay for full public healthcare come from?  Take it out of the war machine.  How many hospitals could be built and staffed and operated by the costs of one week of the Af/Pak slaughter?

Who could make that shift?  The people of America.

Why don’t they?

Amazing how key points get lost:

Where could the money to pay for full public healthcare come from?  Take it out of the war machine.  How many hospitals could be built and staffed and operated by the costs of one week of the Af/Pak slaughter?

Who could make that shift?  The people of America.

Why don’t they?

Don’t tax the rich and with ‘their’ money feed, clothe and take care of the ‘poor’.
Poverty is manufactured. So are the wars! Instead of taxing the rich, don’t allow them to get rich in the first place.

For one can get rich only under a rich person’s laws; i.e., they get by legally stealing!

Jesus, or person who put the words in his mouth, We shall always have poor among us was the greatest lie ever told! And over which the rich always bitch! tnx

This is a great article. Just put down your red pencils everybody. Bill Boyarsky is giving you a snapshot into the lives of the desperate poor, whose ranks are growing by leaps and bounds. Health care (it really is two words) is a human right, especially in a society as wealthy as America’s. Under Reagan, the middle class bought into the cynical notion, “I’ve got mine, you get yours,” and stopped caring about the less fortunate. Now our ranks are shrinking. If America decides it wants to be a two-tiered society with just the rich versus the poor, then it is the duty of the rich to take care of the poor. Feed them. Clothe them. Shelter them. And for God’s sake, give them access to decent health care. Simple equation. Tax the rich and feed the poor. What could be more simple?

“Health care, as Roosevelt said, is a human right”...which may be fine for Roosevelt to say but not for zionist militant Boyarsky! Who is this world class hypocrite Boyarsky to be dissembling about human rights??!! This is the same savage scribbler that was exulting in the human rights catastrophe in Gaza last year, cheering on his beloved, goose-stepping IDF stormtroopers as they cheerfully murdered and maimed innocent Palestinians with sadistic glee, making a mockery of any concept remotely resembling human rights! Boyarsky, you’re enough to make anyone sick! It’s true, Americans can’t wait for a better Bill - than Bill Boyarsky.

P.T.  You asked for a source proving that Americans will not vote to double their taxes.  You’ve got to be kidding.  Mondale loss in ‘84, he wanted to raise taxes.  Bush One loss G.O.P. electoral support because he broke his ‘no new taxes pledge’. The only way American politicians can overtly manage to raise taxes is by promising it will only hit the rich.  I’m not against soaking the rich, in fact, I think we’ve got to go back to the 90% marginal tax rate as the only way to straighten out America.  Unfortunately, this is a minority view and single-payer or European style universal health care is going to raise the taxes even on the working class.  Get the Americans to politically support raising their taxes by 100% with their bodies and you will be a political messiah.

The proposed pieces of legislation being considered will NOT make much of a difference for people in this situation. It will however provide huge profits for the healthcare cartel (like they need more) The government also plans to tax us for this so-called benefit, fine us if we don’t take part in it and women will lose their right to abortion.

Doesn’t sound like much of “reform” to me. So I fail to see how we are going to lose anything if it doesn’t pass! As to those who say that Obama’s demise is imminent if the bill doesn’t pass, I say he brought on his own demise. His positions on the wars, healthcare, jobs, the environment, bringing Bush to justice amongst other reasons will guarantee him a loss in 2012.

LIFE IN THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM IS A DEPRESSIVE HELL HOLE FOR ALL AMERICANS

The american people whose lives, day in and day out, pass in a monotony of boredom and hopelessness are the majority; they are the mainstay of the american society. The alarm of mobilization breaks into their lives like a promise; the familiar and long-hated is overthrown, and the new and unusual reigns in its place. Changes still more incredible are in store for them in the future. For better or worse? For the better, of course because what can seem worse to the american than the conditions that they live in this capitalist hell of suffering and pain?

And the world that great numbers of people know and experience on a daily basis: the world of work, or lack of work, the vast and complicated series of everyday social relationships, the startling changes in life in recent decades, the enormous inequalities and iniquities, the slipping into the social abyss of so many, the struggle to keep one’s head above water that characterizes the lives of tens of millions in the USA and billions worldwide… and the emotional conditions, the drama, tragedy and comedy associated with all that

.

There is no Democrat worth supporting.  Ralph Nader is right about them.  Nader in 2012!

” . . . the only point I was trying to make was that the American people will not vote to double their taxes no matter how good of a deal is.”

Source?

Dogdiva, the only point I was trying to make was that the American people will not vote to double their taxes no matter how good of a deal is.  It seems you really don’t have an argument with me for pointing out the cost of single payer insurance.  I come from a country with universal health care, which by the the way costs nearly 11% of my gross income, but it covers practically everything with paltry co-pays and I know better than you do that it is a great deal compared to what I get in America.

We will need a civil disobedience movement of people who refuse to buy private health insurance until they get sick and who cancel when they get well.  The penalty for most people for not buying insurance is far less than the cost of insurance.  And, with the ban on barring people with preexisting conditions, one can wait until getting sick.  Keith Olbermann has said he will refuse to buy the private insurance.

Apparently Kucinich caved. He inevitably does. Notice those Blue Dogs and DINOs never cave and they are never pressured to do so. So much for electing in progressives, huh?
  What was particularly nauseating was how Kucinich characterized his view as demonstarating “compassion” for Obama because it is hard for a man in his spot to make decisions.
  What? How about some compassion for the citizens screwed by this insurance corp windfall? And if Obama can’t take the heat than what the hell did he run for president for? Honestly, it is like all he can do is perform the rhetoric and all he wants and thinks he has to do is play the role for TV.

ocjim, March 16 at 5:02 pm:
‘Anarcissie, have you not been watching the news. Republicans are united against it. The fact that we must settle for an extremely flawed bill….’

If you watch the news, that is, get your news from television, you will not find anything out.  You will get propaganda.  Here is where the figure of 44,000 deaths comes from: ‘A new study published online today in the American Journal of Public Health. The findings show that uninsured Americans—between the ages of 17 and 64—have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have private insurance. (Those enrolled in government insurance programs, such as Medicaid and Department of Veterans Affairs insurance, were excluded from the study.)’ (Scientific American).

Here is the trick:  poor people have worse health than rich people, for obvious reasons.  They also tend to not buy insurance.  To do an honest comparison between having insurance and not having insurance as regards life expectancy, you would have to compare populations of equal income, equal age, equal ancestry, and so on.  This is elementary in the use of statistics.  The study did just the opposite: it excluded poor people who did have health insurance, thus filtering and skewing the sample populations, thus generating a spurious figure of 40% higher probability of death among the uninsured than among the insured.

This is not to say that insurance is worthless and doesn’t affect longevity at all; I’m just pointing out why getting your information from television is a waste of time.  The mass media, the government, political organizations and special interest groups constantly emit spurious, propagandistic statements which have little or no basis in fact, and ‘44,000’ is one of them.

As for the present so-called Health Care Reform bill, its enactment may well cause an increase in deaths because the mandated payments, when inflicted on the poor, will have to be taken away from other crucial things like food, housing, clothes, auto repair, and so on, which serve the prolong life.

If the populist Left does not come out visibly against this travesty, I assure you the populist Right will, and they will go a long way with it.

LJL,
I pay $720 a month for $10,000 deductible in addition to my taxes?  Are you telling me that universal health care will cost me more than that?  Do your figures take into account the real cost of insurance or just what the employee’s pay who’s employer subsidizes most of their insurance and then takes a big tax cut because they do?  Do your figures take into account what a business charges me for a product that is priced to include the cost of their employee’s health care?

Personally I don’t have any worries about Americans being willing to do single payer universal health care…ain’t gonna happen.  I’ve moved on to hoping we eventually spring for government ‘clinics’ (a la Soylent Green)where the uninsured can go when things have run their course.  Come to think of it, nobody would agree to pay for that either.

BarbieQue, March 17 at 4:50 am:
‘Kids! Have some fun with supporters of the Great Insurance Company Handout of 2010! You can irritate these hapless intellectually bankrupt cheerleaders easily. Just ask them where the Federal Government finds the authority to mandate the purchase of Health Insurance! ...’

I’ve pointed out before that the mandates are unconstitutional, but no one cares.  They are probably right, because the Supreme Court almost always decides in favor of the rich, and mandated payments to insurance companies certainly favor the rich people who own and operate them.

Thank You Bill,

And I do not mean the current Insurance-Care Bill.

No civilized person wants any other human being to be without medical care, but most human beings with any sense of enlightenment, would reject the idea that health insurance is healthcare, or you could not have one without the other.

The mandate will enshrine this false necessity and duality, and allow for the wolf(insurance) in sheep’s clothing(the pretense of citizen’s medical care availability, to disguise a willful lack of it) haunting the well-being of a nation’s vulnerable into further submission to Wall Street.

In the end, the mandate is a horrid substitute for not cutting the military budget, and represents a clever means of further financing the status quo.

The people lost this one.  And many hero’s were lost to the people this week..

Rhuen Phreed
11 Marlborough Street, #22
Boston, Ma 02116

Kids! Have some fun with supporters of the Great Insurance Company Handout of 2010! You can irritate these hapless intellectually bankrupt cheerleaders easily. Just ask them where the Federal Government finds the authority to mandate the purchase of Health Insurance!

You can probably even make money betting that they don’t spout the same nonsense as Queen Pelosi’s Spokestool!
(What? You haven’t heard what that is? wow…)
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55971

And Bonus points for finding and identifying those that think the Feds can do anything they want with 61 votes!

Crispy, I have lived and worked in two countries with universal health care (one with single payer health care and the other with universal private insurance).  I have filled out my tax forms and paid my taxes in those two countries.  I have worked and paid taxes in America too.  Of course, Europe is more efficient, human and intelligent than America.  But taxes there (partly because of health care and other social services) are well more than twice as high as America. Succinctly stated, universal health care takes about 10% out of the workers’ pre-tax income.  Americans right now are paying on average between 12 and 14 % of adjusted income for taxes. (But because American taxes are calculated on adjusted income, Americans are in fact paying something more like 8 to 10% taxes on their income.) So you can see that even if America achieved European style of medical efficiency that health care will more than double taxes.  Moreover all countries with universal health care make up shortfalls from general revenues, partly funded by double digit V.A.T.  This is the reality that no amount of wishful thinking is going to wipe away.  And all I am telling you is that the American public will never accept a more than doubling of their taxes no matter how reasonable and eventually cost saving it is.  Myself, I prefer both France and Germany to America.  And, Crispy, you should go to a country with universal health care, work there, pay taxes there for a year or two, get sick and go to hospital you’ll like it but you’ll find it isn’t as cheap as you think it is, nonetheless, you’ll discover that it really is a wonderful bargain.

DEAR FRIENDS: WHY SO MUCH SPENDING OF ENERGIES ABOUT SOMETHING THAT WILL NEVER WORK FOR THE LOW-WAGE WORKERS AND POORS?

Let’s organize a large united front of low-wage americans and poor people (without middle class citizens) and let’s try to make it an electoral option.  Just forget about Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, if they want to stay in their capitalist political traditional parties, its ok for them.  But just think about dumping Republican Party and Democratic Party altogether.

The only solution i see for America is a United Popular Socialist Front as an electoral option for 2012, or 2016 with leaders like Cindy Sheehan, Ralph Nader, Cinthya Mckinney, Socialist Equality Party leaders, Noam Chomsky, James Petras, Paul Craig Robert, Chris Hedges, Michael Moore, Christian-socialist Pastors and other progressive leftist and humanists anti-war, anti-zionism, 9-11 truthers, organizations of this country.

.

WATCH THIS VIDEO BY THE WORKERS-WORLD PARTY OF USA ABOUT THE FAKE-CAPITALIST RECOVERY AND THE COMING CUT OF ALL SOCIAL-SERVICES IN THE USA INCLUDING FOOD-STAMPS, MEDICARE AND MEDICAID !!

http://workers.blip.tv/file/3345574/

Things are looking pretty bad, Fred Goldstein in this video said that many americans are even selling their food-stamps, giving up eating, and use the money to buy books, and school supplies for their kids or other stuff like medicine

USA is turning into a fourth world nation, we are doomed if we dont vote for a Socialist Party to power.

.

.

No, what the President did was manipulate Dennis Kucinich. Then he used a sick woman to manipulate Kucinich, the only noteworthy one on the verge of taking a principled stand over the long haul. Howard Fineman reported this evening that tomorrow Kucinich will announce a change of mind, which is seriously too bad. (But I’m picturing Moulitas jumping up and down for joy atop his mattress in his PJs.)

The bill is a bummer, Bill. It’s not going to help people in long lines in South-Central (now called, “South”) or elsewhere, only further impoverish them over years to come. (Heaven forbid they find themselves employed and then mandated to pay up. They’ll need Medicaid more then than when unemployed.) Currently, Medicaid is available. What Boyarsky is pointing at is also a serious shortage of facilities in post-Prop 13 California, LA in particular. (Well then, repeal Prop 13, gov & crew! How do we like long dead and gone Jarvis now? There are a thousand guys like him in California no one’s ever heard of or about, all manipulative if not so good at that as the President.)

Indeed, Medicaid ought be expanded in the meantime, as much as necessary, obviously. Facilities too, both without having to resort to fraud. Kucinich would vote for expansion of existing programs. As he would for certain other provisions in the proposed, otherwise fraudulent, bill.

Obama along with his party in Congress began with: How can we provide healthcare to more while at the same time seeing to maintaining (or increasing) obscene profits for our sponsors, the insurance industry? Obama has turned out slicker than slick Willie ever was or ever could be. He knows how to talk a line. Even I get to believing him from time to time, though not for long.

All that Boyarsky rightly asks on behalf of those doing without might be readily provided at a far, far lower cost via a single-payer plan, as opposed to this bit of trickery that maintains employer-based healthcare provision (as stupid an idea as ever came down the ole pike) at the same time as it provides so handsomely for the insurance industry and various subsidiaries.

What we have here is class war bared, the real deal. Any with a serious interest in seeing to victory ought oppose this dismal bipartisan disaster that will also serve to forestall any serious reform until all but for shareholders and politicians (who enjoy the benefits of socialism) are flat busted. Even doctors and dentists will go bankrupt. This deal does nothing to rein in costs, let alone lower costs.

Kucinich was the one about to stand up to the industry and its lackeys in the White House and Congress. The same lackeys who need to be sent back to studying until they learn enough to render themselves into actual human beings, and only then regaled by people in media hell-bent, for some reason, on seeing to passage of Profiteering Act.

Not that Kucinich could lead many to an actual victory in the ongoing class war; no way. I’d like to think those stuck in lines might lead that way—first by organizing. If a pack of moronic tea partiers can do it one would think an entire working (and lately and still unemployed) class could do it. Not, apparently, so long as steeped in free-market doctrine more potent than any religious dogma. Same as the tea partiers.

But in this case, the world teems with ready examples of how to do it—anything but the “American way,” Mr. Obama. Switzerland trashed its “free-market” healthcare scam overnight without apology, and sensibly enough.

Healthcare provision is not difficult, except when made to appear difficult because those who’d see to it cannot admit to being bought by the industry that benefits by exploitation of illness and injury to human beings.

I hope Kucinich reconsiders to say his own, “No way,” and then people might reconsider for themselves whether or not he’s presidential material. If Obama is, certainly Kucinich is.

Although they have significantly different perspectives, Kucinich appears to be to the Democratic Party what Ron Paul appears to be to the Republican Party—someone who stands on principle regardless of whether he is is likely to accomplish anything useful by doing so. 

Of course the HCR bill is a sellout to the insurance companies and drug companies, just as any financial reform bill that actually gets passed is likely to be a sellout to Wall Street.  That’s because they and their large corporate brethren own not only Congress but also the White House, and they have owned them both at least since the time of the Reagan presidency. 

However, for all of those who posted comments supportive of Kucinich, you should take some time to remember and consider the fact that Kucinich ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in both 2004 and 2008, and he didn’t even come close to winning.  That means that Kucinich’s approach to the issues wasn’t even favored by a majority of the more “liberal” of the two parties that have shared the rule of this country since the Civil War.  In other words, the vast majority of those who bother to vote are insufficiently “enlightened” to recognize their own best interests.  Unless and until that changes, Kucinich, Nader, McKinney et al. will continue to be on the political fringe.  Therefore, even if Boyarsky is wrong about whether the HCR bill will accomplish anything worthwhile, it’s probably true that this lousy bill is the best we are going to get.

“A family of four earning “about” $30,000 a year
  would be eligible for Medicaid.  But the provision
  wouldn’t kick in until 2014…..”

  It speaks for itself…“about”,  who knows?
  family of four…..what about three?

  What happens if they get sick before 2014 ???

It is at least satisfying to see most on here see what
a shill the writer is and what a sham the bill is !!!!

LJL           Boy, I really respect the intellect of someone who sneers “light all
the candles you want to Saint Kucinich” and then tells me not to “[think] like a
petulant child”. At least there’s evidence I’m thinking rather than echoing sound
bites from the DLC. Your nonsense about “incremental change” was addressed
in my original post, but if that’s too long for your attention span, try this; “Pass
NAFTA, flawed as it is, we can reform it later”. That was over a decade ago.
Further, single payer would be infinitely cheaper and “MediCare-E” (anyone can
buy in at any age) wouldn’t raise anyone’s taxes since the poorest could use
(cheaper) clinics to get (cheaper) preventative care instead of the tax-funded
emergency rooms for now serious conditions they now use, we now pay for.
HR 4789, 3 pages long, would do it but it wouldn’t be the windfall the DLC
promised to their paymasters. But I’m wasting my time w/you. People who
repeat sound bites about “half a loaf” and ‘it’s a start” have shown no ability to
address the real objections to an indefensibly flawed bill. I am a bottom 1/5th
income earner. After they found they couldn’t squeeze me for a corporate plan
they’d give me a taxpayer funded policy with a policy limit and deductibles and
co-pays so high I could never use it. And who’d profit? Not me, I’d still be, in
the real world, w/o coverage. Not the taxpayer who’d be paying for a fantasy
policy. Just the HC Industry, who, oddly enough, were some of BHO’s top
campaign financiers. But, like I said, you’ll respond with more vacuous
prerecorded memes, not address any substantive argument.  PS. Heyerdahl
crossed the ocean on an inherently stable RAFT, not a tip-prone canoe… as if
it mattered.

This whole health care debate has been nothing but a dog and pony show.  There was never even an intention of passing a bill with a public option (As Obama repeatedly promised during the election)  What ever happened to the option have “as good of health insurance as the members of congress”  I remember those remarks. 

Before they made all sorts of concessions to the grumbles of the right, such as dropping the public option and the medicare buy in.  This was all done to secure the 60 votes they said they needed.  They never got the sixty vote and now they are doing it without 60 votes, but the concessions to the right stay.  Why is that?  They only wanted to present the illusion of real reform.  They needed to make it seem like a fight. 

As someone else said that since Obama and the democrats have decided to make the final fight with Kucinich, it shows what side they were always on.

This isn’t about getting our foot in the door so better changes can be made.  This isn’t about a rush to help the needy.  This farce of a reform won’t even go into effect for another 4 years, and it will take at least a decade after that for politicians to clue in that it isn’t working.  Maybe a decade after that they might start to do something about it.  This bill is going to be a roadblock to real reform for many years into the future. 

If the point is just to get in the door, get things improving now, how about just passing a small bill that actually fixes a few things and goes into effect immediately, instead of pretending to fix all things and actually make them worse?

Kucinich is in the right and on the side of the American people, strange how no politicians are rushing to give in with concessions.

Kucinich’s reasoning

But nonetheless, Rudyspeaks1, in 1947 Thor Heyerdahl proved the Pacific could be crossed in a canoe. What are your arguments against the current HCR?  Object to paying premiums to capitalists. Well,unless you are one of the rare few who’s living completely off the grid, you are giving a fair amount of your money to capitalists already.  Do you want single-payer? You ain’t going to get it in this country during your life time because Americans will never vote to more than doubling their taxes.  Rudy, stop thinking like a petulant child and realize that you live in a crazy capitalist country where change is going to come gradually and hard if it comes at all.  You can light all the candles you want to Saint Kucinich but it’s not going to change reality.  The Senate’s Health Care Bill is going to do more good for more people than all the moralizing hot air comes out of Kucinich’s mouth.

Anarcissie, have you not been watching the news. Republicans are united against it. The fact that we must settle for an extremely flawed bill rather than a one-payer non-profit system indicates opposition by the health care industry and paid congressmen and lukewarm support from an ignorant and disengaged public. Even the flawed bill will insure tens of millions and perhaps save the lives of 44,000 who now die each year. The bill is also flawed in that it doesn’t implement immediately.

On the failure of the Massachusetts health model, click on http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/february/massachusetts_is_no_.php

ocjim, March 16 at 3:51 pm:
‘One can only assume that the outlandish opposition to health care reform….’

What opposition?  Everybody’s for it.  Especially the insurance companies who can’t get any more money out of people without having the government coerce them.

It’s a head tax, too.  You pay whether you have the money or not, and then if you’re broke you go to government bureaucrats on your knees and plead for help.

There is going to be hell to pay.

One can only assume that the outlandish opposition to health care reform, along with the disengaged populace’s seemingly lukewarm support shows a lack of concern for our brothers and sisters in distress. Again this highlights the hypocrisy of so many calling themselves Christians and the bares the narcissism of too many others.

The smarmy, self-righteous crap vomited up by LJL and gerard fails even to
engage, let alone answer, any of the articulate objections posted here to this “HC”
bill. While my earlier reference to Orwell’s observation (about swallowing canned
media talking points and then repeating them back, believing all the while that
they are products of your own thinking process) should be sufficient, let me add
one more “Media-think” meme; don’t let “perfect” stand in the way of “good”.
Yeah, let’s cross the Pacific ocean in a canoe! It’s not a seaworthy boat but…

The doom-sayers who think that the mandate is going to bomb, ignore Massachusetts where the mandatory health insurance plan is liked by nearly 80% of the people.  And those who want a single-payer system are likewise going to be disappointed.  It is not that a single-payer system isn’t really the best solution to the health insurance crisis in America, because single-payer is the best solution.  But, the big ‘but’ is that the American people will fight it because it will cause a minimum doubling (directly or indirectly) of taxes, and Americans hate paying all taxes.  The fact is American taxes are criminally low, and that is why America is in such a mess.

I think the part about forcing people to buy something they don’t want and can’t afford is going to have, shall we say, interesting political consequences.  Because of the passivity of most of the Left, still hypnotized by Obama, I suppose they’ll be right-wing and maybe fascistic consequences.  They may well make the Tea Parties look like, well, tea parties. 

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Barack Obama’s solution to the skyrocketing price of private health insurance is to force people to buy it.  That’ll work. 

“Americans who can’t wait for a better bill”...call them “insurance companies”.

The sad point in Obama healthcare, is it is doomed to failure. The reason, Big Insurance. What the plan does is funnel public money to insurance CEOs and Wall Street investers. There is nothing to change the status quo. Healthcare costs will continue to esculate while coverage and co-pays increase.

We need a single payer National HealthCare program. Those who wish to opt out for private for profit plans may do so.

As it stands this is a boon and a wet dream come true (pun excused) for private healthcare middle men.

Dumb little Dennis and his foolish followers have all the compassion and humanity of George W Bush with whom they share a my-way-or-the-highway arrogance.  I just hope Dennis comes to me when he or his wife falls sick.  And of course I will refuse to treat him until medicine becomes perfect.  It might take four, ten, or twenty years before we get a perfect treatment for whatever he has, but I know he would agree that it is better to withhold treatment until we get a perfect treatment for what’s ailing him.  Moreover, if you or yours get sick I hope you find a doctor who stands on principles and refuses to treat you until the medicine is perfected.  Of course, it sounds cruel if someone wouldn’t give you health care when you need it, but you and your idiot Kucinich are getting a slap happy moralistic high denying health care to the poor and disadvantaged in America.

Boyarsky you should be required by your editor to identify which parts of the lousy, for profit entrenching bill would actually help those people you saw in line.  I mean specifically.  What good will it do to force them to pay for a crappy insurance policy with huge deductibles and copayments they can’t afford?  They will be no better off than they are now, but the insurance companies will receive hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that they will turn into profits because the poor people won’t be able to afford to go to the doctor any more than they can now.

Get a translator.  A lot of people speak Spanish.

Ask a starving child if a piece of bread is better than nothing.  Ask yourself if offering a starving child a piece of bread is enough.  Ask yourself why any child should be made to suffer because his parent can’t afford time off to see a doctor.  Ask yourself .... yes, that’s the most important person to ask.  Then tell yourself how you would feel if…
what you would need if ... how you would get what you need if you had no job ... Write down what you owe other people just in order to keep the human race from descending into savagery.  Ask yourself.  Don’t duck out on me now.  Write your answers down in longhand on a sheet of 8 1/2” x 11” and take it to the nearest Republican Party office.  Or better yet, hand it to the editor of your local paper or radio talk show host or to your Congressperson.

This bill entrenches the immoral for profit insurance industry.  Sadly, it should not pass.  I respect Representative Kucinich’s stand and his refusal to vote for a bill that will only make things worse.

Without price controls or a public option the clause that prohibits exclusion for pre-existing conditions is meaningless. 

This bill would force people to purchase those terrible plans that have $5000 deductibles and $2000 copayments.  I just canceled a plan like that.  I could not afford to go $7000 out of pocket.  I was in a serious automobile accident in September 2008 and was far from recovered when I had to drop out of my rehabilitation program on January 1, 2009 because I couldn’t afford ANOTHER $7000.

When Blue Shield raised my premium from $265 to $359, a 35% increase, last summer I decided to buy a BMW with the $359 a month and drive a nice car myself instead of buying one for an insurance executive.  If I had had the BMW with all its safety features when I ran off the road in remote rural Utah avoiding a deer I would probably not have been injured in the first place. 

Also at that point it was obvious that the insurance companies were thwarting health care reform through buying the airwaves and I found that scenario so repugnant it was like my conscientious objector refusal to cooperate with the draft during Viet Nam. 

I found the entire system repugnant and immoral and I can no longer cooperate with it.  Period!

Dennis wring everything you can out of those pigs and collaborators and if it isn’t enough - VOTE NO!

This “It’s a start” slogan is completely untrue.  American healthcare is already heavily funded by the government, about 60 percent if you include the cost of the tax deductions for private insurance plans.  So this is not a “start” to government-run universal healthcare,  Rather, the Obama/Senate/lobbyist healthcare plan is a permanent validation of our perverted system of providing taxpayer-funded subsidies to consumers who are getting fleeced by insurance companies, monopoly hospitals, private clinics, and the monopolistic drug companies. 
Mr. Boyarsky, you obviously do not really care about healthcare.  Like so many clueless Democrats, you cannot think beyond partisan politics.  You are groping for false justifications for this awful plan so you will be able to claim a political victory when this deceptive and corrupt bill passes.  The truth is that no one should support a plan that will not change anything, much less one that condemns us forever to the worst of all possible healthcare systems: a publicly-subsidized plan with no spending limits or oversight on monopolistic private providers.

rfiddler,
Annent validity-fairness of laws one can note how-when-where-why they had been written.
In US the set of laws, known as the constitution, had been written by plutocrats; including slave owners.

That slavery existed while these laws were put together alone suffices to conclude that those socalled laws were tyranny.

I suggest that we’ve never had, until very recently, laws in recorded history, but always THEIR laws against us the unwashed!

Precisely, why pols et al proclaim US is governed by laws; and i suggest the laws written by ogrish THEM against meekish us.

For how else to explain hiroshima, slavery, terror against blacks after civil war [which, btw, the ‘sacred’ US laws cld not prevent]180 wars, extirpation of indigenes, enormous dsiparity in wealth, present killings of innocent children and criminal wars against iraq, afpak, somalia, and palestine.

This can happen only in a strong heterogeneous ‘democracy’ but not in a militarily-weak homogeneous and a more timocratic society like finland, norway, et al.

What u guyz have in US is the best asocialist and biocidal democracy in the world; in which a prez is a godhead when dealing with ‘aliens’.
Welcome back to the days of sargon: the akkadian king-god; he, too, cld do no wrong!

Ah, yes, i forgot, a prez can be wrong only if he cheats on his wife, but only if caught at it. tnx

Orwell’s “Language and Politics” essay should be read by every moron posting
here who bleats back that crap about “it’s a start”, “we can improve it later”.
None of you came up with those thoughts, you echoed them. “Implants”, as
Harrison Ford said in “Blade Runner”, “you’re talking about memories!”
[implanted memories the replicants THOUGHT were their own] You go to a
restaurant with 15 people to celebrate “Bob’s” birthday. The doorman says, “I
hate Bob and I’m not letting him in!”. Do you go in anyway, without Bob,
thinking “it’s a start, maybe we can get him in later”? Not if you’re thinking
clearly. The doorman (monied interests who control the Dem/Rep party)
doesn’t want Bob (real reform) in at any cost, can exclude him now, and will
exclude him later. All he’ll admit are the other 14 (window-dressing “reforms”
and mandated unusable policies). Boyarsky, a consistent shill for DLC policies,
calls this article “Americans who can’t wait for a better bill”, then visits a clinic
where, in his own words “Most were immigrants from Mexico or Central
America” who would receive NO coverage from this bill! It is NOT better than
nothing! It IS nothing! It’s what Hillary did in 1992; offer a Rube Goldberg
nothingburger so indefensible that it killed HC reform for the next 18 years,
just what BHO and the rest of the DLC whores want to deliver to their corporate
paymasters. And all that the narcotized zombies can chant back is “it’s a start.”
Sheesh…

balkas:
“Doesn’t BHO know that US is governed solely by laws; i.e., the system;not by people”

Isn’t that a GOOD thing, balkas? Would you want the US governed by say, Pinochet, Preval, the Shah, Batista, Hitler, Mussolini? They all had “the people” behind them at the beginning.

Every effective essay contains a clear thesis statement or central thought. Often
it’s in the first or second paragraph. This one puts it in the penultimate
paragraph: “The reform bill is a start to ending this evil.”

I couldn’t agree more. Nice going, Bill Boyarsky.

I know this is the only bill we’re going to get.  That’s just a fact.  Even though I felt this coming early on, I still think when it’s over there will be enormous grief from those who know the only reasonable solution to rising costs was single payer or insurance as utility that is in other countries.  Like others, I knew this wasn’t going to save me.  There are millions who never were going to be helped until they hit poverty level and got Medicaid.  There will be no real saving people from falling into poverty because of medical bankruptcy.  No saving what’s left of people’s IRA’s or keeping them from foreclosure.  There’s a lot to grieve if you needed help now or in the next 4 years.  There are real benefits for children and the elderly.  I hope funding for community health centers will be substantial, since so many more of us will end up there if one even exists where you live.  It is undeniably better than nothing, but it would be nice if someone would recognize the enormous pain it will leave many of us with.  What I know isn’t recognized by the general population or by politicians is the awful sinking feeling when you realize you are one accident or one illness away from losing everything you have.  You realize how invisible we become when we are no longer earning or spending.  I believe we need a national grief counselor.  “We took a vote, and YOU are out.” 

Michael Moore said something last night on Countdown that I’ve been saying for a long time.  It would be easier to accept if the President and Congress would admit what is most decidedly isn’t there.  That woman in Ohio is screwed.  Those people they tell stories about are already sunk.  If this bill would help them, they won’t be viable when it finally kicks in.  Thousands will have already lost everything or even died before this goes into effect.  Just an admission would go a long way.  Just say “This is the best we could get and it’s a drop in the bucket. If your sick now…if you’re struggling now…this doesn’t apply to you.”

I don’t have to read this to know that it is just another willing dupe more than agreeable to dispense talking points so they can crawl across the floor for access.
  It’s true—Americans can’t wait for a better bill—so why to force this piece of crap windfall for the Insurance corps down their throats?
  Want a better bill? Whip the usual suspect DINOs and force them—threaten to withold funding, run primary candidates against them, refuse them plum committee appointments, instead of catering and allowing them to run the show and set the terms. You know why they get to call the shots? Because it is the White House’s position they represent—they are behind the scenes pulling the strings & the reason the administration can’t come out in the open and show their face is because they know how unpopular their agenda is. They can’t afford to put their true colors on display—instead they bully Kucinich—and send all their salesman out to pitch their snake oil. Amazing how the Right—either Republican or Democrat isn’t challenged—and the reason that is—is because they represent the White House’s interests—and the White House does not represent a better plan for the people. Kucinich does and he is hounded and the fools that vowed to “hold their feet to the fire” and whine about “spineless Democrats” join in and echo this scam when a Democrat actually does truly stand his ground in the interests of a better bill. Bet the Democratic Party hack on MSNBC last night got nervous when Michael Moore, instead of joining the chorus denouncing Kucinich, said “Thank you” instead..

It is the system, stupid. It denies americans other basic human rights and not just the right to receive medical treatments.

It is the set of laws, commonly known as constitution, that denies americans right to live or to be informed.

Change the system, changes america for better. However, it is heartening, to read that boyarski, clinton, nixon, BHO say receiving medical care is a right.

But are they sincere or just looking for votes? BHO has said: no single payer insurance. Has he ever said during campaign for presidency that receiving medical treatment is a right?

Doesn’t BHO know that US is governed solely by laws; i.e., the system;not by people and certainly not by majority of people! tnx

Mr. Boyarsky is a well known apologist for the Democratic Party, thus his insistence that a Bill that ensures profit but not treatment is the way to go. I cannot help but think him more than a bit smarmy using the plight of the desperate to push an agenda that fails to really help them.

By the by, not that it matters, excepting for the power of fact, but in 2005, the last year stats are available, teh USA ranked 30th in infant mortality.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm

It’s a start.  Get over the wall of having a Federal Health Care program.  Once “The Rubicon” is crossed, anything is possible.  We SHOULD be getting a single-payer Medicare-type program, but too many fat cats think it’s better to keep things as they are, until millions can’t even get care at ERs, no matter HOW long they wait.

Is it any wonder we rank around 40th in the world in preventing infant mortality?  Where are all those baby-saving “Right-to-Lifers” on THIS?

How is this bill beneficial? It doesn’t kick in until 2014, it forces everyone to become clients of private healthcare companies, and all this talk of “this could be the beginning” is ridiculous considering the capitalist-based system of greed will still be in place before and after the bill is voted on.