I apologize for this being a bit off topic, but I couldn’t believe this when I saw it. Rep. Franks actually claims that Obama called Wilson a liar first, and that Wilson was just responding. Here is the video.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2914

A worthless sham.

What a fucking surprise.

Thanks EW. Gee, who would-a thunk it?! sigh.

Let’s see.. a private insurance scam at rates I know I cannot afford, so I don’t even try.. or a co-op private junk insurance scam with force of law saying I must purchase it whether I can afford it or not.

That would be my clinical opinion, yes.

No one could have predicted.

Senator Wyden’s staff used exactly your numbers on the Baucus mess on Hardball, EW.

Family making $66,000…

I mean Wyden used your numbers, his staff must be reading.

Excellent work all around the web — EW’s place particularly — rooting out the many many devious and not-immediately obvious ways in which the draft bill screws us. But dollars to donuts, BadMax hasn’t the slightest idea how many ways the fix is in in his bill. General idea, yes, but that text sprang forth fully formed from somewhere else, bearing its bad bad bad gifts. Max is not the source. Totally culpable for his role, yes, but not the architect.

I will guarantee you that if we are succesful in getting enough D’s to block this thing, some R’s are going to suddenly appear. This is nothing but an insurance industry profit enhancer, and the Republicans want it too. But they are feeding their base by “opposing Obama.” But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts, if it gets close, they’ll pick one or two to “sacrifice” and piss the base off and support.

This shit has GOT to be stopped.

LOL, two “dollars to donuts” references in a row.

We win a prize for that??? Dozen donuts maybe?

(IIUC, the etiquette is that we now have to offer each other a choice of donuts…)

Like to see the ‘assumptions’; “before I get into what CBO’s assumptions(are)”.

Isn’t amazing that Baucus wouldn’t even trot his plan before the CBO before rolling it given all the hoopla about a ‘expensive,new government program’ and the quibbling over $100B?

Program Note: There appear to be two versions of this post, one in Ew and one in FDL, with separate/independent comments threads. Just in case anyone else gets confused.

Well you have to admit that when the health insurance industry bought Baucus they got their money’s worth and then some. It won’t be long before these health insurance CEOs get hired to run Bank of America and Citibank since they know how to purchase the right Democratic legislators at a reasonable price.

That’s what I call a CEO who knows how to add value to the bottom line.

Insureropoly, the most popular game on Capitol Hill.

Ain’t passed yet. Not likely to either, from the reactions today.

Sounds as if it’s DOA and deserves to be.

Let’s hope this is one of life’s occasional small favors for which we can and should be thankful. That said, we still need to stand vigilant against any zombielike reanimation attempts, and I expect there to be quite a few. Also, it’s key that we not let this obviously extremist bill move the Overton window, HCR policy-wise. Therefore, we need to ostracize this bill as unworthy of consideration, beyond the pale, unclean, anathema. And shame Baucus as he so richly deserves. Frankly I’m outraged he would take their money and deliver this piece of worship — so brazen, so craven. Insulting to all Americans.

“The Baucus proposal would impose, starting in 2013, a 35 percent excise tax on insurance companies for “high-cost plans” — defined as those above $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for family plans.”

So lets see…the costs for this would be passed down to the consumer so that would mean that the “tax” actually begins at a plan valued at around $5200 for individuals and $14,000 for families.

It could create a “gap” in plan coverage…since one could get a policy without the tax for a plan offered at $7900…but the tax would hit in full force at $8000. No one would buy a plan until it covered in value more than $8000 in services, which means the plan would cost a little under $13000 (less -$4550; 35% tax). So you’d either get a $7950 plan…or something above $13000…but nothing in between.

He was too dumb to cover his ass.

Strikes me as more like the W “Who cares what you think?” attitude. Even more galling coming from a D(INO).

Well this pile of baucus shit has really hit the fan. I steeled myself for a run thru viewing of the MSM talking potatos, and even the potato consensus is that baucus gang o’ 6 couldnt have done worse (might have done better)if they’d stood on the negoshee-atin table and took a group shit, which is basically what they did. Only a severe lack of fiber can explain why it took months for them to unload this dung-prodigy… well done, senate of the united states of america! to you mr. president!

But it’s BadMax all on his lonesome, isn’t it? The other 5 took a hike a while ago.

There are those who have suggested and continue to suggest an American Single Payer/Medicare For All would be too disruptive. Too difficult to legislate. Just too damn hard to do don’cha kno?

So what Senator Baucus has unwrapped here is not disruptive? Not difficult to do? Not just way too worthless,complicated,ineffective or off the targeted premise of this so called “reform”? Not gross loop de loop three steps this way and then take five that way legislating here?…no sirreee….

President Obama? American Single Payer would be too disruptive?

Compared to what? This Baucus Hocus Pocus?

Sheesh.

Mz. Wheeler, there’s NO doubt in my mind that the progressive/liberal efforts from the Obama campaign to now have significantly impacted the playing field.

Two or three years ago, a Baucas Bill as a sell out to insurance/med/pharm would ram thru and we’d be dead meat.

All the work you and FDL and the other bloggers and their followers have exposed a LOT of the snakes and insects under the rocks. And the daylight is beginning to kill some of them.

The Baucas Bill is being repudiated across the media board as far as I can tell, and dems themselves are calling it crapola, along with the co-op idiocy.

Thanks for all you’ve done, do and will do, and thanks to all the others.

Is there a pretext of hope amongst this insanity from today’s sad and failed release by Baucas and the Gang Of 6? *G*

Damn it hurts to hope . . . ;-)

mary, sorry to hear about the divorce, but congrats on your front paging Huffpo.

You’ve fucking GOT to be kiddin me.

Right?

You post this as a joke, right?

You don’t BELIEVE this, right?

Right?

It’s part and parcel his staff member, whose name I can’t recall, Fowler? Used to be a VP with Wellpoint, I think?

Mary Mc!!! Nice piece at HuffPo, thanks for sharing all your lives with the masses, I hope it GETS to some folks.

Best to you both . . . .

I even heard McCain say that co-ops are a bad idea. He said co-ops are legal now. There’s nothing stopping people from setting them up, other than that there is not enough benefit to be had. There is no rationale any co-op supporter can point to, as evidence that this could be a success. You can’t reasonably point to agricultural co-ops & say that healthcare co-ops would be very similar.

And I can’t believe Baucus and even Obama are still saying that savings in Medicare waste & fraud will pay for the new system, whatever that system is. We all know there are billions in Medicare waste/fraud, but every president since Reagan has said he’d uncover waste/fraud & save money. None of them have done it. Why? I think it’s because of the most common reason we hear about for anything – money. Special interests benefit from that waste/fraud, & they hire lobbyists…

Carol Lam was on it, but the Bush DOJ canned her.

Let’s just hope that the Montana voters blame it on him and don’t forget by the time he is up for reelection. Baucus has GOT to GO!

The Congress is back in session and doing the dirty work for the Medical Industrial Complex.

mcconnell $3.3M, hatch $2.9M, baucus $2.8M, grassley $2.7M,
lieberman $2.6M, burr $2.4M, ensign $2.4M, cornyn $2.2M, kyl $2.1M,
conrad $2.1M, cantor $1.8M boehner $1.7M, coburn $1.2M, j wilson 800K
were paid by the Medical Industrial Complex to kill Health Care Reform.

12 Million Americans were denied health care coverage by the Medical Industrial Complex because they had a pre-existing medical condition. 12K Americans are denied insurance coverage everyday by a for-profit Insurance bureaucrat. (Source: WaPo Article 05′ by Harvard Prof. E. Warren)

More than 22K Americans between the ages 24-64 die each year because they don’t have adequate health insurance coverage. (Source: Chu, M.C. & J. Rhoades, The Uninsured in America, 96′-07′)

Medical malpractice lawsuits are a hot topic but, are they? Tort Reform is such a “red herring” and is easily disproved. I know repubs love to quote the CBO well here’s a quote, ” A 2004 report by the Congressional Budget Office said medical malpractice makes up only 2 percent of U.S. health spending. Even “significant reductions” would do little to curb health-care expenses, it concluded.”

Citizens for Tax Justice pointed this out. The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 will cost $2.48 trillion over the 2001-2010 period. This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed. Over the upcoming decade (2010-2019), the costs of the health care proposals approved by three committees in the U.S. House of Representatives are projected to be around $1 trillion and deficit neutral(that means they’re paid for). In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts are finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits will go to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers. The Bush tax cuts were deficit-financed, which increased the national debt and resulted in greater interest payments on that debt. They never even tried to pay for their tax-cuts. So, for the price of bush’s tax-cuts for the wealthiest 5%, we could have had Health Care for every American. Instead Americans got bupkus and cheney/bush’s republican buddies got filthy rich off of the Blood Money from No-Bid, Cost-Plus Federal Contracts.

Follow the Money: Link

Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All!

Sign Single-Payer Petition: Link

Don’t let the Medical Industrial Complex steal your Health Care from you and your family by donating huge sums of money to Crooked Politicians in order to maintain the Status Quo. Keep up the good fight.

SEMPER FI!

Baucus has attempted to Kill Health care a pay off to the insurance companies who paid him. Now is the time for the other Dem Senators on his committee to KILL THIS BILL