‘Wrong again’ – sums up so much of the Republican era.

like they say “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

Delusional – sums up the Democratic Party

the problem is no longer the republicans – it’s the dems who are now blocking genuine health care reform. people want single payer and the dems won’t even permit a real discussion.

jane’s has an awesome post up just before this one that shows baucus as the dem getting more FIRE $$ (note: the I stands for Insurance) than another other on the list except lieberman and specter.

here’s part of a comment from the previous thread, as it really belongs here:

isn’t it interesting that baucus is number three on the list (after only the fake dems lieberman and specter – so i should really call him number one)… the very baucus who is being entrusted to come up with health care reform.

no surprise that all we’re getting from him is some fake kabuki about a so-called public option while making sure that the most popular option, single-payer, can not be mentioned let alone disturb the purity of the dems and the insurance industry’s public or secret negotiations.

btw, ralphbon has an awesome diary about his experience at the protest and lobbying day in dc yesterday, Return of the Baucus Thirteen:

Wednesday, Washington belonged to hundreds of “mighty mighty nurses” rallying for single payer legislation, as well as other critical issues such as legislated nurse-patient ratios and solidarity with individual nurse unionization struggles.

They were marching and lobbying in conjunction with groups active on single payer, including Progressive Democrats of America, Healthcare-Now, and Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). Plus me, just some guy.

Actor Mike Farrell, who recorded a set of PSAs supporting single payer, joined with some of the heroes of single-payer advocacy like Roseanne DeMoro, Exec Director of California Nurses Association, and Dr. Margaret Flowers of PNHP, who’d so eloquently laid out the issues on the Ed Schultz show a few days before. Bernie Sanders, who has a single-payer bill in the Senate (structurally distinct from John Conyers’ better known HR 676, but single payer nonetheless) spoke as well.

Dr. Flowers was one of the “Baucus Eight,” arrested after standing up and protesting the absence of single payer advocates at last week’s Senate Finance Committee roundtable on health care. Five other activists from this week’s follow-up roundtable brought the arrest total up to 13.

I wonder what the sample universe was for the NRO “poll” that led them to make this claim.

I’m guessing it consisted mainly of:
A) Republican Members of Congress
B) Republican Former Members of Congress
C) Big Pharma/Insurance company Lobbyists
D) “Fellows” from Heritage/Hoover Institute/AEI/CATO/etc

Is the photo supposed to by the typical Republicant or a typical American voter that is easily manipulated like a marionette by a corrupt and complict corporate media.

Sad, but true.

And I’d venture to say most people in the South were satisfied with slavery in the 1850’s too!!

What doesn’t the National Review understand about the MAJORITY of Americans voting for CHANGE?

They only voted for Obama because they were mad at the GOP for pork.

it really irks me when i hear dems say stuff like the NRO bs: people want to keep their current insurance, we need a uniquely american system (hello? what is medicare?)

they are doing waaaaaay too much of that nowadays.

Rs are still in the reality-creation business, I see.

On the last question about having taxes increased, it is important to remember that, when asked as it is, the flip-side that you will no longer be paying insurance premiums, or your employer will not, or your wages may go up, and other corollary points are never considered.

Imagine what the numbers would look like if it were asked like this, “If the cost of your health insurance no longer had to come out of your wages or your own pocket in premiums, would you be willing to pay higher taxes to insure your family and all Americans?”

Try that one!

Offering tax credits to individuals for whom employer-provided insurance is not available is a way to offer immediate relief to people locked out of the current system, and to move slowly toward a better one.

And I suppose the Payday loan places will start offering health insurance based on that tax refund check you’ll get in a year or so?

That photo doesn’t do justice to the absolute idiocy of these Republicans.

Excellent point.

Hey, NR, here’s another idea whose time has come: let’s turn the Social Security system over to the stock market. “Most people” want that!

Imagine the jobs that we could have gotten here if we had national health care, but instead, Toyota went to Canada because it was a huge savings for the employer.

i second BT – that’s an excellent point.

and this is all without any deep pocket campaign or political party support. it’s what the people want and have, even before the current economic troubles. here’s an oldie but goody (from more than 3 years ago):

david sirota: News Flash – America Wants a Single-Payer Health Care System

Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly takes the DLC to task for – shocker – not supporting the concept of a single-payer, government-sponsored health care system in America. Drum argues that Democrats have lacked the courage to stand up for such a proposal. He’s probably right – they fear the wrath of the health insurance companies. But make no mistake about it – the public would be with Democrats if they had the guts to push single-payer. As an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed in 2003, the majority of Americans support a single-payer, government-sponsored health care system, even when they hear the right-wing’s alarmist arguments.

and the poll sirota quotes is from 6 years ago!

This is going to take real struggle and direct action by people. The Bachus 8 are the only way to get this in the media and get these SOBs to stop their lying and denying.

We need a bachus 80,000 down in DC

it’s now the baucus 13.

The drive to drown big gubmint in a bathtub is relentless. At least that part of big gubmint that doesn’t provide massive subsidies to big bidness.

Sometimes I think there is a bottomless pit of stupid.

The bottomless pit is corruption, not stupidity.

DO NOT expect progress to come from elected officials on ANY level in government.

The only real change and progress will come from the direct agitation and demands of the people.

STRUGGLE IS THE ONLY WAY.

Get informed and get involved and probably get arrested.

Sure there are a handful of principled representative in gov. But this is never enough and they are essentially pissing into the wind.

Even when an important issue for the people comes up – economic reform, health care reform you can see where the elected officials go and who they answer to and who their constituency is – IT”S NOT YOU.

Once they get your vote you have no role to play.

Once they get your vote you have no role to play.

Now *there’s* fraud I can believe in!

Single Payer Saving, based on Wellpoint’s 2007 Annual Report

http:www.synoia.comSingle_PayerUniversal_Health_care.htm

and we don’t want this?

….you will no longer be paying insurance premiums, or your employer will not, or your wages may go up….

I have used this with my ditto-head boss. Got him thinking.

Thanks for these up-to-date poll data, BT; powerful ammunition.

I think the Blue Dog and Yellow Puddle Democrats are leveraging specious Rethuglican socialist-baiting to make themselves look like battle-worn heroes for offering the private-insurance-friendly crap that they’re peddling…and that they would still be peddling even if Republicans didn’t exist.

How tragic that single-payer advocates have to squander energy and treasure to deflect double-talk not merely from right-wingers but from Democratic connivers (Schumer/Baucus) and capitulators (Moveon/Dr. Dean), hell bent on creating a “level playing field” between private insurance and a “public option.”

Anyone confused about what I mean by the above can click on over to Oxdown here, here, here, and (thanks, selise), here.

Offering tax credits to individuals for whom employer-provided insurance is not available is a way to offer immediate relief to people locked out of the current system, and to move slowly toward a better one.

If any of the Trad Media had the wherewithal to grasp a sniff of the real lives of Americans, they could easily refute the above non-talking point by pointing out the fact that most of the people “locked out of the current system” could not afford to buy, as individuals, health insurance.

Unless of course the GOP proposes giving these folks 12-13,000 per year tax cuts (per person, more for families, plus much much more of a tax cut (like, say, no taxes at all) for anyone with pre-existing health conditions (if available for such folks in the first place).

Actually, its worse that that. Many of us that are locked out wouldn’t waste our money buyng insurance because the very reason we NEED insurance will still be a pre-existing condition, so it and the prescriptions to treat it will never be covered (either with or without tax credits). The only hope many of us have is to prohibit exclusions of pre-existing conditions.

Furthermore, I’m a contract employee. Even if my employer offered health insurance, I wouldn’t be eligible (again either with or without tax credits). I have to depend on my spouse’s ability to hold a shitty little crap-ass job so we can have insurance at something approaching an affordable rate (usually over half of what she makes goes towards insurance). To top it all off, if we allow it to lapse, the pre-existing condition clause that most insurers put into their policies kicks in and we’re toast.

No, Universal Coverage/Single Payer is the only real solution. Everything else is just tinkering with a piss-poor broke-dick system that depends on denying coverage to make money for the insurance companies (those @^%(!&% leaches!) who are the primary contributors of the massive increase in healthcare costs over the last forty-fifty years, and when combined with big Pharma just bleed us dry.

They (insurance & pharma) have to be stopped, and WE THE PEOPLE are the only ones who can make it happen.

/rant

a lucky group? heh

That’s the reason when OECD and economists look at health care costs they look at costs in terms of GDP or cost per person IN TOTAL, not just what you pay in taxes for health care or in co-pays or whatever.

For more responses to Republican talking points, I have a good collection about rationing, waiting times, us-world comparisons, anecdotes, etc. on my Health Care Reform Debate Blog at http://cmhmd.blogspot.com

Cheers,