Damn.

Obama represents the American People.

Not the power structure.

Wow, just wow.

Cough.

Lots of “now” and “this year,” but unfortunately the last word was “eventually.”

I hope that wasn’t a signal to Darth Odious, President Nelson, and the others in the Gang of Six that their request for delay was heard. We really can’t afford to let the Congress leave in August without passing a public plan.

Let’s send little baskets of nuts to the Blue Dogs, as the rubber stamps were sent to the Bush House?

The throwbacks from the do nothing congress hang on.

Obama wants to give you what you want.

You must push him.

As FDR said.

Good thing there weren’t any Afghan women around to tell McAuliffe to get lost.

Incidentally, Lieberman was part of the 1994 reform-killing effort, too. From the NYT, August 6, 1994:

… two moderate Democrats voiced opposition to Mr. Mitchell.

One of them, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, said he would vote for a motion to delete the employer mandate from the Mitchell bill. The other, Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, said he would oppose the Mitchell bill, although he might change his mind if it was amended to reduce the role of the Federal Government.

During Mr. Kerrey’s losing bid for the 1992 Democratic Presidential nomination, he campaigned for a universal health-insurance plan in which the Federal Government would pay most of the bills. He said today that President Clinton should meet with Republican moderates and make a deal with them.

Do blue dogs have blue balls.

I sent an e-mail plea to everyone I know today… laying out the methods of the profit-driven corrupt healthcare system… and I told them the time is NOW to call our reps… and to call them EVERY DAY til this legislation is passed. And I asked them to send it on to all their friends and families… this is what we have to do to get the word out… it is now or never.

Also… someone earlier posted this link to Rep Courtney’s opening statement to the House HELP committee… clearly laying out that Congres and the military already HAVE govt run healthcare… and that it is much better coverage than the citizens have… he lays it out in very clear terms.

I hope KO, Shuster, Rachel can pick this up and cover it… frankly, it should be made into a TV ad… it shoots down all the gooper talking points about socialism, bureaucrats etc…. must see TV…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBEj-L-n2A

deluded.

Obama wants to pass a compromise of a compromise of a compromise and call it a resounding success.

just because Republican know-nothings oppose it doesn’t mean its going to be any good.

I love this idea.

Is it wrong to hope we can send nuts to the blue dogs that were processed at the Peanut Corporation of America, Blakley, GA plant?

Whaddaya mean? Repuglitards oppose all healthcare reform for the good of their party. Just watch the GOP grow…

RTFO, Swopa, RTFO

Obama wants to pass a compromise of a compromise of a compromise and call it a resounding success.

Yes, this is the real problem. If Obama were exercising real leadership, he would be doing so by promoting single payer. As it is, he is backing a giveaway to insurance companies, BigPharma, and the medical industry with an as yet undefined public option that won’t even be available until 2013, if it even manages to stay in the bill.

Barack Obama needs to use his bully pulpit the way FDR did and say THIS IS WHAT we have to do. FDR also tried to forge a messy bipartisan coalition at first but realized that politics is nitty-gritty. Hoover was a brilliant man who understood exactly the problems of the US at that time, but he would not stick his neck out. Is Obama waiting until his second term? He may not get one if he’s unwilling to gently, but fatherly, order the American people around. Is he scared they won’t listen to a nonwhite president? There’s plenty of racism left. But this is Obama’s moment, a tipping point for him and the world. Let’s hope he chooses the correct path. http://crush.typepad.com (emasculation-blues)
http://apocalypse-blues.typepad.com/

This time I’d like the health care reform to be covered in partisan spit.

Then the voters in the R and DINO districts will be reminded over and over of the question “What have YOU done for me lately”?

Especially at their next election.

Great job.

Unlike physicians, physician assistants, nurses, allied health professionals, hospitals, Big Pharma, and medical device providers, health insurance companies no longer add value to patients. Health insurance industry has evolved into a leech on health care. Administrative costs connected with Medicare are 3%. Administrative costs of private health insurance are around 20%.

Today, private health insurers don’t provide “insurance.” They simply deny/overcharge everyone except those who are least likely to actually need benefits. They already push everyone else onto Medicare and Medicaid. Keep the gravy, leave the rest for the taxpayers, is not a business plan, it’s stealing.

Huge, massive differences between then and now. Obviously, the Internet helps tremendously, but this is even more significant in my opinion…Obama developing and encouraging community organizing in absolutely every nook and cranny of America for over 2 years. Clinton’s people actually showed disdain for us and made no efforts to keep the citizenry engaged.

This is what will be the difference this time, and Organizing for America is launching a massive campaign for public option healthcare in all 50 states this weekend. Chuck Grassley called The President’s speech about healthcare today “a waste of time.” I really hope he and other Repub continue to think that, since it was a rallying call to the organizers across America, and the Repubs won’t know what hit ‘em. Just like in election with the Clinton/DLC machine and the Repubs.

My opinion is based on being very active on the ground about this exact issue in 1994 and now. It’s showtime, boys and girls!

Sporkovat,

You don’t have the correct spirit.

If a leader calls upon you to march forward, you must do it.

Famously, the general (Anthony McAuliffe) sent a one-word reply: “Nuts!”

I’m fairly certain that McAuliffe actually sent a more adult reply along the lines of “fuck off” — and it was cleaned up for public consumption.

Ya know, it’s totally cool for y’all, the same people day after day, saying the exact same things over and over and over and over again, filling up 95% of every thread here for months/years on end, never offering anything new or of value, and ignoring the massive changes that are happening right before your eyes. It concerned me for a while since I was worried about the demoralizing effect of this and the “divide and conquer” result, but seeing what Jane and friends have been doing recently, along with organizers around the country, and Obama himself, we’re hitting the Corportists from all angles and they don’t know how to handle it.

Seriously, no worries. We’re going to get a public option without you. And, because of the structures that have been put in place to keep people active, coupled with amendments allowing states to start single-payer and the “Canada-style” boogeyman taken away from the Repubs, we’ll then be able to get a much stronger public plan, or possibly single-payer before Obama leaves office. We don’t need you to get it done.

Mock away, champ!

The bill that has emerged from the House is very much like the policy that Obama ran on.

When people who voted for him grasp that fact, the momentum will accelerate.

I have been pleasantly surprised with how the House Democrats have held together on this, so far. Energy and Commerce yet to have their chance for Blue Dogs to derail it, but Education and Labor and Ways and Means shoved it through in quick order with no amendments that threaten the strong public option.

Bonkers,

You are so right.

I’m so god-damned tired of this fucking country. Let’s call it as it is, the problem is corruption and greed. Plain and simple, corruption and greed have ruined this once great nation. Every freeking advanced nation in the world gives healthcare to its citizens but somehow, the (former) richest nation in the world can’t get it done. Fuck them.
Take John Edwards’ advice, take away their freeking health ins until they give every American decent healthcare.

I wish I shared your optimism. Me, I feel like I’m being screwed.

bonkers is right.

Believe in your government.

Trust your government to make the right decision.

Don’t deride bonkers.

He is right.

The chic juvenile sarcasm becomes you.

temporarily screwed. The political wind is at our back.

Thank you, SouthernDragon.

You call what I say sarcasm.

I call what I say fact.

This, I believe, is true. We probably all would have been in the streets by now but for the antidepressants many are on. Makes you accept the unacceptable. But the corporations and their blow job boys and girls have gone too far even for apathetic Americans. I don’t believe that we will stand by and just watch as our health dollars were handed over to the banksters. Reform will happen one way or another.

I agree completely with your sentiments (well, maybe not the Edwards part…).

But I guess that’s why I’m so excited right now. More movement is being made to correct these ills you accurately described than at any point in my lifetime. So, let’s speed it up! It’s up to us (okay, all of us except ART45).

If the public option is such a massive corporate giveaway, as our single-payer diehards continue to lament here, why are the insurance companies and health care juggernauts spending $1.4 million dollars EVERY DAY to stop it?

Good point.

Bonkers,

It’s 1971. We’re in Bien Hoa Army Base, in South Viet Nam.

I’d get along with you.

We’d have a common goal — surviving.

There was some Insurance industry memo leaked (forgot where I saw it earlier today), that said to pull out all stops and money was not an object to stop even this watered-down bill.

I think they realize that this will open the flood gates. People will realize the gubnint-run health insurance isn’t so bad. The will realize all the fear-mongering about the Canadian system is mostly lies. And, they’ll realize that it’s a huge improvement over how things were, and best of all for future battles over other issues, they’ll realize it was brought to them by Liberals.

It’s not just health care dollars. Our whole economy is based on creative people convincing you that you can’t possibly live without this or that. How many people actually sat down and asked themselves, “Do we really need a [fill in your favourite big ticket fantasy here]?” Our economy is based on debt, the borrowing of money to fulfill the great “American dream.” Many will live out their lives making a monthly payment to at least 1 credit card company. We drink water fish can’t live in. We eat food that probably kills lab animals. We eat at Mickey D’s because, why?, it’s convenient and we’re too busy trying to kill ourselves convincing the Joneses that we’ve made it to prepare healthy meals at home? Does Mickey D’s take credit cards?

Damn straight … this will eventually lead to Single Payer !

Agreed.

Tommy Douglas comes to America? Could it be?

What a Great Canuck he was !

I have no doubt that this public option will be strong if for no other reason than its failure will commit the Dems to 20 years as a fringe party …

Eventually, and sooner rather than later. I’ve no doubt Congress will fuck this up this time; the Dems just don’t have the political will. We’ll have to throw some more out of office before they begin to get the message that the status quo is no longer acceptable. That said, many want so many things done in such a short period of time. Hard to undo 30 years of repression and stifling corruption overnight.

it’s the mandate that is the massive (and additional) corporate giveaway, teddy. i’m not sure about the public option yet — depends on the details (which is why i’ve been asking for months, “what public option?”

as for why the insurance companies are fighting a public option, i think it’s because if they don’t fight it they will be fighting single payer instead. also, by not pre-compromising, they can get more of what they want (again, the details are going to be critical down to things like how risk adjustment is regulated and enforced). here’s a bit from yesterday’s democracy now! interview:

AMY GOODMAN: And what are those talking points? What is the game plan of the health insurance industry?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, the game plan is based on scare tactics. And, of course, the thing they fear most is that the country will at some point gravitate toward a single-payer plan. That’s the ultimate fear that they have. But currently—and they know that right now that is not something that’s on the legislative table. And they’ve been very successful in making sure that it isn’t. They fear even the public insurance option that’s being proposed, that was part of President Obama’s campaign platform, his healthcare platform. And they’ll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that.

And they’ll be working with their ideological allies, with the business community, with conservative pundits and editorial writers, to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead us down the slippery—excuse me, slippery slope toward socialism and that you will be, in essence, putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. That is—you know, they’ve used those talking points for years, and in years past they’ve always worked.

i’d love to discuss weedy policy details and why i’m a single payer extremist, but maybe in another thread where it is more on topic?

i don’t share your optimism — but i’m hoping to be wrong!

Selise !

I hope millions of Americans are like you and will fight for this until it is realized.

We’ve got the tiger by both ears. There isn’t any letting go. *g*

there have been people working (mostly volunteers!) for years organizing, researching, agitating and educating so that we can have a rational healthcare system. i’m not one of them, but i’ve met some of them and they are the awesome (they never gave up after the clinton healthcare reform effort died — just kept at it year after year, making slow but steady progress). the least we can do is to try to support them and their work!

see, for example, the heros at physicians for a national health program:

http://www.pnhp.org/

Namaste SD !

Obama smells victory and he’s just starting to campaign for this. The OFA ad is devastating to opponents of a strong public option.

Thanks ! Lots of heroes fighting for this cause, for years on end.

Thanks, we appreciate it.

Ding!

Marcy Winograd recently addressed Teddy’s question as follows, as subsequently supported by Wendell Potter in his Moyers and DN! interviews:

[W]hy is the health insurance industry pushing back if the public option would be such a bonanza? Is it because the insurance industry is scared of the unknown or is it because the industry would prefer to narrow the debate to two choices: the public option or business as usual? I would argue the industry’s biggest fear is a frank and open discussion about the merits of single payer – a system that would put health insurers out of business. Hence, the insurance industry, in Academy-award winning style, paints the public option as the false boogie man and bores in for the kill – the death of anything public.

Not just NUTZ! FUCKING NUTZ!!! *G*

Watch Ron Christie make an outrageous statement about being more concerned about cost of health care reform, and less concerned about people dying.

This is insane.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2194

Congress has no appetite for single payer. And last I checked, there were still three branches of government: Legislative, Executive and Judicial. True, this was easy to forget in the Bush years, when the GOP congress marched in lockstep with him and the Dems were too spooked by 9/11 to raise much objection (plus it didn’t help that we lost Wellstone, although some people no doubt think he was just as bad as Jesse Helms).

Yup.

Indeed. People are finally starting to call in large enough numbers to seriously scare the congresscritters. Enough, perhaps, to counter for the dead-weight cynicism (laziness?) of those who are looking for reasons not to act.

@54 – ah, more savvy…

BILL MOYERS: One of the subjects not in the debate over health care reform is single-payer. And contrary to what many people think about it being a far left proposal, the polls show that it has substantial support among a large swath of the American people. Many of whom would not call themselves far left.

But Senator Baucus said, its not in the discussion because we’ve gone too far now to go back and consider single-payer. There it seems to me is a very good example of how a legitimate idea gets delegitimated in the debate between the powers that be.

JAY ROSEN: I think it’s a classic example of the real religion of the Washington press, which is savviness. And from a problem-solving point of view, we would certainly want to consider single-payer, because it’s an important option in a debate. But from a savvy point of view, the inside players know that single-payer is never going to be the answer. And they’re already factoring that into their political calculations about what’s likely to result.

Which in a way cuts off the debate that we need to have. And so, the inside players in Washington are able to kind of contain the debate by anticipating the outcome, and then talking about the things that are most likely within that set of assumptions. And this is a normal process in Washington that goes on all the time. And it’s one of the ways that journalists shape the terms of debate.

Works for me, Mrs. T.!

That doesn’t contradict anything I said. Yes, the American people might want it, but Congress has no appetite for it. And unlike from 2001 to 2008, when Karl Rove advocated going after Trent Lott over his Strom Thurmond remarks as a way to remove Lott as Majority Leader and replace him with the far more pliable Bill Frist (Lott, you see, actually believed that the US Senate didn’t necessarily exist to do even a Republican president’s bidding), the Executive branch doesn’t exert the sort of ironfisted control needed to undo decades of insurance-industry lobbying (in either party) against single payer.

and to dovetail on what you said…

yes, most of us around here are quite aware of the savvy and how harmful it is. I’ve even contributed to that process for years in various jobs I’ve had within BigMedia. Got it.

So as I often do around here, I’m trying to focus on how to overcome these parameters that have been set by previous generations of crooks, and perpetuated by our current gatekeepers.

To me, the best way to overcome the the savvy is getting more of the public active and organized, which is precisely what Obama has been doing since day one. This has to happen first and foremost to Change the cesspool. They aren’t (for the most part) going to change themselves, especially the people who have been there forever and have “seniority” in the system.

Considering President Obama has never wavered from his commitment to organizing the public at levels I’ve never seen before, which BigMoney has actively tried to stifle forever, I trust Obama’s intentions so far. No matter what the issue is, including single-payer, an organized and active public is a necessity. This is at the core of why I’m excited right now, and why I even step back sometimes and try to learn from America’s first melanin-enhanced President. He might know a few things.

People should oppose the whole thing because of the central medical records data load that will have ALL our personal medical history in a database available for pawing over, abuse and worse.

Think of the abuses with the IRS and centalized police records.

This is none of the government’s business.

Another amazing thing I read about ‘fruit’ was that many nuts, if not all, actually categorize as fruit. The ones which grow on trees obviously are a fruit of the tree in the most generic sense. But, also the peanut is considered a fruit and it doesn’t fall from a tree.

Even a walnut is considered a fruit. Amazing, huh?

Of course, the Village has lots of fruits and nuts, but that’s another discussion.

Incidentally, Lieberman was part of the 1994 reform-killing effort, too. From the NYT, August 6, 1994:

… two moderate Democrats voiced opposition to Mr. Mitchell.

…

During Mr. Kerrey’s … He said today that President Clinton should meet with Republican moderates and make a deal with them.

We’ve not found many moderates and so after that ‘meeting’ we decided to defeat them in elections. Now we have more Democrats and we shall move forward on the reform. It may have taken a long time, but now we can proceed.

Oddly enough it appears most Republicans in Congress would also like to spit on it and see it pass. Then they can rail against it in the next elections. I think the reform will pass and improve things and Republicans will just be all hot air as usual.

If reform fails, the public anger is going to be extreme. But the **** will not stick to Obama, it will adhere to the Gang of Six, the Blue Dogs, and the private insurance companies.