So how do we know which group of snakes we can deal with?

Put all of the lobbyists in one room and have them fight it out..meanwhile in another lobby free area have a progressive universal health-care program (bill) created and make sure it does not include fascist/corporate ideas. Put saving lives above saving money. Good progressive health-care makes us a stronger more productive nation.

Obama’s healthcare policies are not about delivering good healthcare to all Americans. They are about how the pie will be divvied up between players like BigPharma and BigInsurance. This is about two pigs slopping at the trough, nothing more.

It would be an interesting exercise to track down the actors who played Harry and Louise and see how they feel about their health care costs now. Assuming they have health insurance.

“when I had cancer, Blue Cross refused to cover many that I needed — cost me a fortune”—sharing how you dealt with the financial harship would be helpful to others.

If Obama is able to pass substantial health care reform- it will be the hallmark of his presidency. He will need all the allies he can get- and that will create some compromises. This won’t be a masterpiece- but it will be the first real breakthrough on healthcare in our history. I sincerely hope Obama is successful and I will support him in any way I can.

Obama’s strategy appears to be to isolate the insurance companies- if the docs, hospitals, health care workers, and drug companies are not on their side, the insurance companies may realize that they don’t have the juice to defeat this thing and will try instead to get a deal that allows them to survive. Not a bad strategy for Obama.

thank you, thank you, thank you.

that just can not be said enough. and it’s obvious if one looks at the list of participants (small pdf)… it is most certainly not a list of policy experts.

Among other things, they need to allow doctors to decide which meds are needed. My insurance company notified me last week that they will not pay for a certain drug until I have used another drug for 4 months and it doesn’t work. What are insurance companies doing deciding which drug I need? Makes me so angry. I have tried the drug they insist that I use for 4 months and it didn’t work. The drug I need to take is now up to $173.00 for a month’s supply.

the fundamental problem is fucked up patent law. we could use some reform there – and it wouldn’t cost the taxpayer a cent either.

How do you know your doc knows, instead of being bribed by his pharma rep?

the a fundamental problem is fucked up patent law

Editorial suggestion. There are too many fundamental problems to count.

Such an important post Jane thanks!!
Dugg courtesy of OliverWolcott!! Please Digg this Pups as this needs to be discussed by both the young and the not so young(thats me)!!

thank you for the correction. i agree.

Thanks for the pdf; AHIP and pHarma are there and Blue Cross has been charged with overcharging for COBRA payments in CA, so I fail to see the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy referenced by RWCole.

But it is ‘patent law’ that so many companies -especially multinationals- depend on for revenue(see IBM,Intel,MSoft,etc.) and is a key provision in all ‘free trade agreements’. *G*
And you might want to jump back to Siun’s posting about Clinton for a second.

as far as i can see the “divide” bit is to ignore anyone who might argue for single payer. this is a problem not just because it’s wrong to to exclude allies, but also because just about anyone who really studies the issue has concluded that single payer is what makes sense policy wise (even many people who’s pro-market ideology is against it). as a result the people who know the subject matter best are excluded.

it’s like excluding all the climatologist who think human induced global warming is real from discussions of energy and environmental policy.

stupid, stupid, stupid.

A pattern is emerging. Everyone who really knows about the policy at hand is excluded from Obama’s deliberations.

yeah. anyone who uses the term “free trade” about trade agreements that include TRIPS might as well announce they don’t know what they are talking about since TRIPS is all about restricting trade and making is less “free.”

re: going there now….

yes. and it reminds me, in ways i don’t like to think about, of the war on science.

or as gore put it, “the assault on reason.”

If Obama keeps the focus on health care delivery, he can avoid the insurance industry’s framing of every change, every necessary reduction in its income, as a dollar lost to health care delivery. He needs to leap on this or he’ll lose the battle before it begins.

The opposite would be nearer the truth. The government’s reforms ought to bee diverting tax revenue from insurers to service providers and ultimately patients. Health insurance and health care have not been synonymous since the 1980’s. It may be a zero sum game for insurers, but it need not be for patients.

“There has been a lot of speculation over which sides of the health care debate will be present when the Obama White House hosts a summit on the topic this Thursday. Included in that has been concern among advocates of a single-payer system that their voices would not be included at the table.

An administration official put that unease to rest on Wednesday night, telling the Huffington Post that, “single payer advocates will be represented at the forum tomorrow.”

Another source with knowledge of the event says: “Rep. John Conyers, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a known single payer advocate, and at least one group advocating single payer, will be there as well.”

The inclusion of Conyers and at least one other group or individual should quiet, for the moment, the growing chorus of voices who have been openly pressing the White House to be more open-minded to a single-payer system.”

Huffington

Nice wedge there between the Drug Boys and the Insurance Racketeers.

They are all crooks, though. Soon enough, they’ll find common ground ripping off American patients and taxpayers.

Can we say that, on a scale of 1 (terrible) to 3 (teriffic), W’s a 1 and Obama’s a 2?

Thanks for saying this. Health insurance is the problem. The only way insurance companies can be part of the solution is for them to be eliminated from health care.

lol. can’t believe i’m finally going to say this…. but i think it’s too soon to tell.

i’m not making an overall judgement about obama. just calling them like i see them as i see them.

well said thanks.

Undecided is a perfectly respectable category.

Either Obama is devilishly clever in a political sense, or the Rs are complete morons. They are really in a deep deep hole. I suspect it’s some of both.

that fucking hilarious. thanks.

cool, then i’m respectable today. *g*

i’m not undecided about individual actions, but give me a few years (less if he starts a war with iran or something) to opine generally on obama’s presidency.

and i can’t help being mindful of how much we all need him to succeed, so i’m hoping for better.

If Obama was really serious about reform, he would have put Howard Dean in charge of it.
Remember when he said that we should get the same level of care that senators and reps get?
The entire system has to be changed and it won’t work by mere tweakings.
Everything, from the way the number of physicians and nurses are restricted to keep up wages, to the pharmas who are allowed to charge whatever they want for new drugs.
The call is “Do you want the government to decide your treatment?”
Wise up! As Jane has found, it’s your insurance company that decides now and they are in it for the profit, not your health.

conyers? isn’t conyers very busy with other matters?

Yup. Getting the docs on his side was key. Remember, the AMA was lobbying hard for the defeat of Hillarycare back in the first years of Clinton’s time in office.

The Republicans have been stupid for some time — they’ve just had enough money (and a bought-off media) to insulate themselves from the consequences of their own actions.

But now they’re in a situation where even their media shills can’t help them.

Ken Star testifying before CA on Prop 8. live here.

Very clever. Obama has put together a game of musical chairs, and is now letting the children fight out who’s not got a chair.

Very divide and conquer. Very clever.

I think they’re getting stupider by the hour. I’ve never see them utter such nonsense over such meaningless shit, and then to reverse themselves the next day. The only thing close was when Gingrich shut down the govt, but that was about an issue of substance (kinda sorta), whereas today’s spats are about whether it’s OK to diss Limbaugh.

OMG. I just noticed that edit is back!

the AMA is not the same thing as “the docs” – take a look at the survey data.

Conyers has for years sponsored a House resolution that would expand Medicare to all.

Haven’t seen much coverage of yesterday’s SCOTUS opinion on the issue of FDA pre-emption, but it is a landmark ruling on consumer/patient rights vis a vis Big Pharma.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03…..cotus.html

(Sorry, but can’t seem to get the linkage option to work right.)