As far as I can tell, my disappointment in the medial bill as passed, is insurance companies still exist! So should I be holding up the sign in the picture?

Dr. Dawkins,
Your point about the flattening of the social hierarchy is so on point.  Now that we
“all” have healthcare what differentiates us other than our race and sexual
orientation and politics? Race is always the grand differentiator when class fails. I
am appalled by the behavior of our political leaders and everyday citizens, but
part of me is actually, ironically pleased.  It’s time folks got out of their hope and
change utopias and realize our unresolved the race, class, gender, sexual
orientation issues and begin to do something about them.

So, what should be done?

Whether you love it or hate it, the health insurance reform law is sorely in need of some additional consumer protections. 

Here is a short list of proposed countermeasures to help level the playing field for consumers who are now more than ever at the mercy of the insurance industry that necessitated reform in the first place:

1. Pass HR 4789, Medicare buy-in at cost (http://www.wewantmedicare.com).  Now that we have lost our most basic consumer freedom to opt out, it is not unreasonable to ask for a more competitive, and more cost-effective, menu of insurance options.

2. Prohibit federally mandated insurance purchase.  Let the private sector do their own marketing—that is not the proper role of government.  Selling insurance under color of authority is equally unethical as a patrolman pulling you over and trying to sell you tickets to a charity benefit.  Even if it benefits a worthy cause, it’s an abuse of power.

3. End anti-trust exemptions for the health insurance industry.

4. Allow drug re-importation.

5. Stipulate that any insurance subsidies may be spent only on public option not-for-profit insurance plans – so as to maximize the cost-effectiveness of those subsidies.

I don’t think that healthcare is the problem here; it’s the sight of an utter lack of education,  shown by the inane comments made by these individuals, that should worry the rest of American people.

Sounds like the Tea Party needs and is going to get some ‘Law & Order.’

Most know that Obama was bought by Wall Street and the GOP and being used as the puppet to clean up some of the mess the previous puppet made. Obama will only be allowed to go just so far. Some worry about medicare and Obama cuts of,—but forget Newt Gingrich when speaker of the house tried to force Clinton to make cuts and went so far as to shut down the federal government to bully clinton. The republicans forget Ronald Reagan was a socialist and hated social security, and the unions. To blame and hate Obama for whatever is hating the republicans who did and will do the same. The reason the GOP pushed to have him elected was knowing color would stir up the hate and Palin was the perfect one to stir it up. The Republicans slowly helped create the same to put our country in the mess it’s in,- just like in 1929-30’s The republicans have the most money and the power, and has had at least back since Prescott Bush held the strings. He also wanted to make our country a Fascist State with the backing of the American Liberty League, and the Tea Partiers intend to do just that. Prescott in 1933, the Tea Party movement in 2012. Prescott to oust FDR, Palin/Beck to have Obama. Palin’s wish is to dictate just like the leader of Germany did in 1930.

The Restore the Constitution rally is taking place on the 19th of April to commemorate the anniversary of the first shot of the American Revolution in 1775, NOT Waco or Oklahoma City.

@ republicanblack - I think your argument would have “some” merit if it were not the case that to even begin to make it you have to ignore precisely the things that Marcia is pointing out in her argument. You are, if I understand you correctly, attempting to argue that all of the anger is born of a “state’s rights” mentality and ‘really’ against an expansion of the role of government. What Marcia is pointing out is that the narratives that establish our understanding of the U.S. as a nation of individualists and libertarians are rife with presumptions about race, gender, and sexuality and that the re-shuffling of social capital that follows from health care reform not only re-shuffles the amount of control our government has over a ‘private industry’ and the obligations that citizens have vis-a-vis taxation, but also the color, gender, and sexual orientation of the ‘average American’ who pays those taxes and cedes that control to the Federal Government. I don’t think anyone (including President Obama - who today acknowledged that some concerns about the bill are legitimate) is suggesting that these protests are not about the health care bill at all. What is being suggested here and elsewhere is that these protests are also about the other things (race, gender, sexuality) and that it is intellectually dishonest to deny that they are. If they weren’t then why the racial and sexual epithets? Why the symbolic violence against a woman? How do those actions actually lead to a clearer understanding of the ‘legitimate concerns’? What we are seeing is an outpouring of adolescent (in the psychoanalytic sense) frustration and anxiety over perceived threats to the self (not just the political self - “citizen” - but the egos of these people . . . and the id stepping in to defend those egos from the threats). Separate the bill from the identity politics and I’ll listen to anything you want to argue about the bill’s merits. Insist on advancing your claims through hate speech, hyperbole, and histrionics and you limit the ethical choices that I have to choose from as responses to you. If forced to choose between deliberating on health care or defending individuals from inexcusable attacks on their identities, I will choose the latter and live with the escalation in your rhetoric that is likely to follow from that decision. Simply put - why insist on keeping the indefensible ‘crap’ in what might otherwise be a valid argument; unless that ‘crap’ has some psychic value to you that you aren’t willing to set aside?

Dear Ms. Dawkins,  The blog waves are filled with silliness, vanity and non-sensical arguments.  Please advocate for the plight of the non-insured terminally ill man, woman or child who cannot receive a hospice placement in this country without money to pay. 
As a provider in Riverside County (CA), I can only get a visiting nurse to provide advice telephonically for a stranded family and ill family member. 
Most often as the condition deteriorates, an ambulance is called and without an advance health care directive, the terminally ill patient will get a code blue, a life support machine, expensive stay in the ICU with round-the-clock treatments, consultations, advanced pharmacy and a host of others rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  After the patient dies of his natural disease process, who pays the bill for this fool’s errand?  The hospital and the US government do. 
The false choice is expensive: either we sanely provide immediate hospice placement for the uninsured terminally ill so a visiting nurse can manage the patient at home, or, we insanely wait till he deteriorates and send him off to the ICU where an inappropriate fool’s errand begins. 
Please contact our foundation at soonerorlaterbook.com to learn more.  Please Ms. Dawkins, interview nurses and physicians.  Why are we still spending 25-30% of our health care dollar on treatments that are futile?  Why are these blogs filled with nonsense that have nothing to do with reality?
Damiano Iocovozzi MSN FNP CNS
The Thomas Edwin Walls Foundation
Palm Springs

Neither the Dems nor the GOP has been honest about the potential impact free trade agreements like the GATS are having on their policies or especially HEALTH REFORM.

There is a very real danger that the American people are walking into a trap designed to prevent our ever being able to change to a single payer or public plan in the future. That trap would come from provisions in the GATS free trade agreement on services. (Link is to a Public Citizen report on how GATS culd derail health care- needs the new data from US Antigua- implications are serious)

Do some research on the impact of GATS on single payer here, PLEASE. (may need to turn OFF javascript on this page to see all the text- this link is to work by Nick Skala, a PNHP.org staffer who died last year)

The so called “ratchet effect” is much more of an imminent threat than many people think, after the lessons of te US-Antigua online gambling case. GATS is the REAL reason they are privatizing everything!! (link is .Doc format- but please read! short, concise)

Great article.  It’s nice to see a balanced and educated view on this issue.
 
As a Brit living in the States, I have been appalled by the blatant lies told by the GOP AND the Media while trying to block this important legislation.  Remember the comment about Steven Hawkins, stating he’d be dead if he lived in the UK (??  But he has done all his life!! ). 

It is also disturbing that so many Americans don’t appear to question flawed statistics or require their Politicians to adequately justify their puerile rhetoric.  These lies have aggravated and fuelled the Public anger against this most desperately needed reform.  Interestingly, those fighting against Healthcare Reform purport to be Christian.  How Christian is it to deny healthcare to those in need?

These voices were empowered, in part, because the Democrats did not act
boldly enough in terms of a public option, at the very least, not to mention
single payer.  Americans have so overwhelmingly shown their support for both,
but when representatives sold out (as usual) to the corporations, they alienated
a lot of their support for reform, thereby also empowering these lunatics. 
Many on the “left” have thus found themselves in a difficult position - - as
more and more progressive representatives in Congress—culminating with
Dennis Kucinich—and more progressives media voices—culminating with
even Michael Moore—put their support behind this sorry piece of health
reform advancement that gives the health insurance corporations 30 million
new customers, insufficiently controls costs, and fines and penalizes the very
people who need health care if they don’t cough up mandates.  Still, as we
know, the bill expands the safety net with Medicaid and subsidies and takes
the [sarcasm] tremendously bold step [/sarcasm] of outlawing preexisting
conditions and ending lifetime caps on coverage.  Meanwhile the rest of the
civilized world goes about enjoying their single payer, socialized medicine, and
other forms of universal health care which we still don’t have.  One giant step
forward for Congress, one very, very, very small step for humankind (and much
of that step not even taken yet).  Was it worth all this hoopla, Congress?  For all
this hoola, we could have had single payer and a lot more people behind them,
and they might all be home watching t.v. or going hunting for moose.

Now would I sound crazy if I said the people who were against integration were staunch state’s rights individuals instead of people who genuinely had a problem with mixing races? Just as the tea partiers are people who really are upset about taxing and the health care law, rather than something else? The difference between yesterday and today is what is socially acceptable. If integration was to happen today these people would be out here screaming, but since prejudicial statements are not acceptable what do you think they would say. Everyone should know by at least April 15th they got a tax cut well at least if you make less than 200k….

http://bit.ly/teapartyhistory