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Showing posts with label public option for health insurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public option for health insurance. Show all posts

Dec 5, 2009

Ds call Rs' bluff on joining Public Option - video



Sometimes Capitol Hill Theater can be tres amusing!

Since senators and representatives have been on the public dole with their Cadillac health care all along, the ploy on Thursday (Dec 3) by Senators Coburn and Vitter to further gum up passage of health reform makes a lot of sense: all senators and reps must enroll in the public option program, "no other possibilities, no other choices," said Vitter to The Hill.

But the Rs weren't attempting to make sense, they were proposing an amendment that they assumed the Ds would oppose thus making Dem efforts for a public option seem hypocritical. (Memo to GOP: precious few of you in Congress need help with hypocrisy - you're past and present masters.)

As Senator Coburn said about the Rs' tricky amendment, "It's called leadership. If it's good enough for everybody else, we ought to be leading by example."

Hurrah! Now that would be a novelty on Capitol Hill - leading, and by example, too! Next thing you know, Congress will be retrieving its oversight duties and stepping up to our constitutional plate.

One-upsmanship: by unanimous consent vote, Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Al FRanken (D-MN), and other Ds have been added as co-sponsors of the Republican amendment. Now what do you think are the chances for reform passage with the public option for government reps attached? Nil? Or none?

Hey, wait a minute. If this amendment stands as the bill is ultimately voted up or down, will it be merely one of the reasons that health insurance reform crashes altogether? Hope not. But I think my total lack of trust in my 'elected' officials' good faith on our behalf is showing. Again.

Nov 17, 2009

Critical! Next 'Countdown' Free Clinic: Nov 21, Little Rock, AR

Bearing witness to America's health care shortcomings`

Give a listen to an eye witness account, if you missed it Monday evening:`



Video: Countdown with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, 11.16.09

Next "Countdown Free Clinic" -- Little Rock, AR. -- Saturday, November 21, 2009

The National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC) is the only nonprofit 501c(3) (ID# 56-2273242) organization whose mission is solely focused on the issues and needs of the more than 1,200 free clinics and the people they serve in the United States.

Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., the NAFC is an effective advocate for the issues and concerns of free clinics, their volunteer workforce of doctors, dentists, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, technicians and other health care professionals, and the patients served by free clinics in communities throughout the nation.

Vision: To be a national voice and essential partner for building a healthy America.

~:~

Okay, Capitol Hill politicians, we're down to Health 'Insurance' Reform and some of you are still bucking the idea of an America where decent, timely health care is available to all the nation's citizens at reasonable costs. Now I know many of you have stock portfolios that may suffer a bit if the health, pharma, and insurance industries have their paws slammed in the great cookie jar by new legislation that aids and empowers the common good by putting corporate profits at abeyance. You can afford lower returns on your investments in the health industry sector for you have other lucrative cookie jars at your disposals.

And with my very low opinion of your morals, I believe that population control is part of your plans as you underfeed and un-house millions, prevent lower classes from getting medical care they need (including those made ill from eating chemical-laced foods your other portfolio pals invented), and outsourcing, then failing, to create jobs with which we may attempt to decently support our families.

But putting that belief aside, I ask you now to step out of the way, put controls on health care costs, and repair the health care mess you've allowed and enabled. If you don't step out of the way, your lack of common decency and shriveled humanitarian instincts will continue to hang out like a street walker's frilly bra strap which seems okay by you, for your plans include being ready for the revolution you're working furiously to inspire.

The anti-public-option ruling class should be ashamed that Americans must resort to free clinics and that some patients' conditions are beyond medical intervention due to lack of timely care. To be ashamed indicates you have consciences, yet as many people have remarked in recent years, you apparently have none, only artful rationalizations for your greed and selfishness.

Therefore, you must be led to improve your own karma by those who do have conciences and common good standards, for you made it plain long ago that you consider yourselves above such mundane considerations as being your brother's keeper. There you mess with a Higher Power than your own!

Well, here's a standing question for you from an author whose novels exposed the horrid social conditions of his day, and who expressed himself much better than this gnat of a blogger ever could:

Is it altogether a Utopian dream, that once in history a ruling class might be willing to make the great surrender, and permit social change to come about without hatred, turmoil, and waste of human life?


- Upton Sinclair, socialist and Pulitzer Prize winner (1943) for his novel, Dragon's Teeth.

So how about it, Republicans and GOP handmaidens of the Democratic Party?

As you dawdle and mount political theatrics, human beings are suffering grievously while you meet in your exalted committees which are paid for by the good graces of US taxpayers - some of whom are being forced by painful circumstances to attend the next 'public option' free clinic - if they can find one.

Oct 29, 2009

Health reform promise of Barack Obama Aug 2008

Now I know that campaign promises are perilously easy to make and devilishly hard to keep once the Oval Office door shuts behind a new president but for some reason, this one mentioning C-SPAN sticks in my memory given the week's announcement on health insurance reform legislation - and in light of how excellent an idea I thought it was when he said it:

"I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies."

Barack Obama, August, 2008

Perhaps the table was too big on camera?

President Obama's natal 8th house (Shared Resources and Finances, Transformation and Death Matters) is being traversed of late by value-loving Venus indicating more intensity in relationships and in contacts with others. Saturn has been traversing his 8th house for a while now indicating disagreements with others over values and resources, and a need to take more responsibility for 8th house issues, so his honoring just after midnight of the 18 fallen Americans arriving from Afghanistan fits well the requirements of Saturn through 8th house.

His willingness to pay respect in this manner for the value of life pleases Old Man Saturn.

And concerning the above campaign promise matter my intuition is that his statement as noted above could well have been only a candidate's attempt to protect his position in some way, on some issue.

Well, Mr. Obama is a politician after all which was visibly displayed again on his recent trip to NYC to ask for mega-buck campaign donations from the very banking titans who now pay themselves bonuses with our tax money gifted them by Congress.

As I've groused here for years: they're all in it together - against we-the-people.

Oct 28, 2009

On Lieberman and his public option threat

My Gather friend, Prima Donna, has posted an excellent article on Joe Lieberman and the public option which is replete with links for those who wish to read more on the issues of health reform legislation and on Joe's turncoat ways.

Joe says he'll filibuster with the GOP to force a retraction of the public option - and, I suppose, to collapse the entire reform bill!

ThinkProgress gave permission for use for her article which includes a graph you may be interested in seeing so I thought I'd pass along Prima Donna's work to you.

Lierberman's stance on the public option reminds me of Jon Stewart's funny a few years ago (perhaps when Lieberman was taped in Congress whispering into George Bush's ear): "I knew it was You, Lieberman." Well, I hope it isn't 'him' this time because Americans need a public option which, if fraud isn't baked right in to the bill, will save money not spend more of it.

Last evening I was watching C-SPAN's House of Representatives live coverage and was amazed at Republicans on the floor complaining about Dems' recent closed door meetings and how proud they are of what comes out of them concerning health insurance reform. Since both parties tend to do this when in power, the Republicans on display last evening certainly have very very short memories - and think we do.

Or are they just posturing and pretending in order to drive us all mad?

Update 10.28.09 8:30 pm edt: Robert Scheer has written an article on Leiberman twisting the knife.

Oct 6, 2009

WellPoint sues Maine, Evan and Susan Bayh richer

Susan Bayh, who is on the board of Wellpoint and is also the wife of public option naysayer, Senator Evan Bayh (D), can explain what's going on at the company that has made her a very rich woman.

WellPoint sued an ENTIRE STATE to increase profits.

Netting $2.5 billion in profits last year wasn't enough for WellPoint, the nation's largest insurance company.

Now, WellPoint's affiliate, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, is suing the state of Maine for refusing to guarantee it a profit margin in the midst of a painful recession.

As if Mainers didn't have enough to worry about just struggling to put food on the table, WellPoint is intent on forcing them to cough up 18.5% higher premiums on their insurance policies.

While WellPoint lobbies against granting Americans the right to affordable coverage, it's claiming that it has the right to a guaranteed profit margin, paid for by struggling working families. Mainers are outraged, and they're fighting back.

Yours,

Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Films team

Read more: sickforprofit.com.


If Insurance Companies Win - You Lose

This heads-up from Alex at Modern Astrology.

~:~

Make ya mad yet?

jc

Oct 2, 2009

Jon Stewart on how the Dem majority is doing - video

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Democratic Super Majority
www.thedailyshow.com
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This video posting looks a bit squirrelly in draft form but I'm posting it any way in case you missed Jon's coverage of the Democrat majority's work on health insurance reform and the much-needed public option that Capitol Hillers are finagling so hard to leave out of the legislation.

And it doesn't sound to me as if health care co-ops are anything more than a bait and switch tactic, Senator Conrad, and an all-around lame proposal according to those with co-op experience.

So the tiresome political theater continues as Washington politicians, their staff, and Hill employees get the best 'public option' health care than anyone in the nation - financed primarily by US tax payers.

That they continue to support. You and me? Not so much.

Aug 17, 2009

Howard Dean and 'public option' health insurance

'DR. NANCY SNYDERMAN: If we took a public option and retooled it somewhat, why not make the case to the American public that we will allow people below the age of 65 to buy into Medicare even if there's some trimming that has to be done out of that budget too?

DR. HOWARD DEAN: That's all I want. If you allowed people to buy into Medicare who are below 65 years old, that's a public option, and that's what we need.'


You've probably read or heard about Howard Dean's solution for the 'public option' maze of cross purposes we're being treated to while support for any reform melts away like a polar ice cap, exposing Atlantis' library of scrolls underneath...

So I'm passing on this snippet of his interview here as my way of saying, Listen to the doctor on this one. It's worth a try.

Now. Wonder what exactly he means by, "buy into"?