Go Trumka! Go Tula!

The politician need to recognize they WILL pay a price on core issues.

Union!

Richard Trumka is great. I almost always tune out Alison Stewart but stayed for Trumka. He did a really great job in what must be a very challenging environment: being interviewed by Alison Stewart.

If Rachel is still “under the weather” today, I fear Alison will re-cap the boy-not-in-balloon story for the entire hour.

Haha, Alison Stewart isnt that bad is she? She’s cute but I agree she is no Rachel. At least we got the point across…We need the Public Option, period..

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Alison is a pretty good fill-in. She doesn’t pretend to know what she doesn’t know, which is very admirable trait among anchors who regularly pretend to be all-knowing even though they have no expertise on a subject. Let’s face it. There is only one Rachel. Trumka is great. He is firm, yet cordial and delivers his message exceedingly well. We should all be working the reps. It’s great that the unions are fighting the fight, but we can’t let up on the pressure either.

Respect and appreciate Trumka and the unions’ leadership on this issue.

Next, would they please take on huge problem of credit default swaps, as well as the structural rot in the banking system that is impacting American small businesses.

But as a prelude and warmup, it’s wonderful to see them take a stand on the problem of anticompetitive health insurance shakedown that is currently hampering the US economy.

Goooooo unions!
(And trust me, I never dreamed that I would have so much respect for unions…)

the good thing is that I think a wider audience – even segments of MSM beyond our favorite two progressives and members of Congress are finally starting to understanding that reform without competitive cost containment – hopefully offered by the PO – is no reform at all. A robust PO is not only something desirable but rather it’s something critical to the viability of the entire bill, irrespective of the Rahmspin to the contrary. It’s not PO or No. It’s PO or fail.

Balloon boy was in the attic.

Still puzzles me that Trumka seems to be the only clear leading union voice on this matter.

rose ann demoro and the california nurses association / national nurses organizing committee (cna/nnoc). they are a part of the afl-cio.

http://www.calnurse.org/

and they are big time activists for single payer, hr 676, expanded and improved medicare for all:

http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/

i love, love, love them. very progressive union.

That’s good.

His family, apparently a bit “odd”, is now experiencing trial by media with a huge “jury pool” of their “peers” judging just what “consequences” should befall the odd, or eccentric. Especially, if they chase after storms and are often surrounded by thunder and lightning.

Should we curmudgeons, Raven, be concerned?

DW

tula, one of the improvements needed to any health insurance reform bill is the kucinich amendment that will allow states to go experiment with single payer.

from cna: RNs Praise House Vote to Permit State Single-Payer Laws

The nation’s largest union and professional association of registered nurses today hailed passage of a key amendment in the House Education and Labor Committee to the national healthcare reform bill this morning that would enable individual states to go a step farther and adopt single-payer, Medicare-for-All style reforms.

Introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the amendment would remove potential legal impediments for states to pass single-payer bills by waiving federal exemptions that apply to employer-sponsored health plans.

Nah

It is interesting that Trumka said that Rahm had NOT pressured the union(s) to cease and desist …

And even more interesting that he said that the union(s) and the Obama administration are treating each other with respect.

I draw no conclusions concerning these statements, I merely find them “interesting”.

It is good to know that not everyone has been told to “take of their pajamas … and get serious”.

Not that I’m at all certain what that means.

Maybe it has to do with the naked truth, and the fact that the new emperor wishes us to “dress” as well as he does, and in the same style …

Usually when someone invites you to take off yer jammies, they have got something else in mind.

You know, something like: “Hey! Get up and get dressed! Somebody has got to take the blankety-blank dog out. Right now!”

The big question, the one that ties this meandering comment all together, is: Do you wear union made pj’s?

The question is, of course, purely rhetorical.

The mandate should be tied to the medical loss ratio: Unless consumers in an area have a choice of a plan that pays out 95% of premiums collected in direct medical reimbursements, there will be NO purchase mandate. Of course, there would also need to be some control so that an insurance company did not also have a financial interest in the provider who is being reimbursed.

I always suspected that “take off your jammies” had more to do with “bend over and take it.”

You think so …?

;~D

DW

It is interesting that Trumka said that Rahm had NOT pressured the union(s) to cease and desist …

here’s what sara robinson said (on ian masters 9/22, my rough transcript):

sara: …he [obama] went to left wing activists and said, “don’t you push for single payer and don’t go leaning on the blue dogs. and if you do, we’re going to go to your funders and have your funding cut. he went to all the liberal think tanks and media outlets and they said we hold your purse strings and if you cross us on this, if you don’t come over to the center with us on this, we’re going to cut your funding. that was horrifying, i work for couple of those left wing think tanks.

but it was a sign that rather than let their left flank take the edge of the window and drag it all the way over and talk about really radical things like single payer. and then obama could cut a deal that was somewhat to the right of that but not very far and get a lot more. we were a strong negotiating thing that he had going on and they cut us off on at the face [i'm not sure about this sentence, hard to hear --s]. jane hamsher has written about this.

ian: i was going to say just to follow up on the fdr analogy, fdr said to the liberal activists, “make me do it.”

sara: obama says, “get out of my way.”

she only mentions think tanks and media. maybe unions were not included (i find that hard to believe, but who knows?).

Surely, selise, you do not imagine that Mr. Trumka was less than completely honest with Allison and the rest of us?

Mr. Trumka is a politician, of sorts, after all …

I find it hard to believe as well.

And those who know, for certain, are all politicians …

It ultimately comes down to a question of trust.

And then, how much is deserved?

How did Bill Clinton put it?

Something about” …what is the meaning of is?”

I think the sum total of my “trust” could be transported in a teaspoon, with room to spare …

Always good to “see” you, selise, btw.

DW

i don’t know anything about trumka, so i might be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. but imo he’d be an idiot to out rahm if he is trying to negotiate the best case for the union members right now so i’m not putting my money were my mouth is on it. *g*

one thing i will say though is that the talk of market competition is just nonsense and trumka of all people ought to know it. it’s one of those neoliberal fallacies that market competition always leads to good outcomes and not a race to the bottom. but health insurance, like “free trade,” in weakly regulated markets are examples of where market competition race to the bottom.

good to see you too, dwbartoo!

she only mentions think tanks and media. maybe unions were not included (i find that hard to believe, but who knows?).

The AFL-CIO convention endorsed single-payer and called the Baucus bill bullshit but Trumka only works for/publicly endorses the Pyrrhic Option.

Something’s behind that discrepancy …

Three out of four Doctors recommend the Public Option.

Remember all the commercials that started “Three out of four doctors recommend…” or “Four our of five Dentists recommend…”? Well, three out of four Doctors DO recommend the Public Option, so why haven’t some of these 75 percent of doctors run a commercial stating their support for the Public Option?

We trust Doctors when they make a medical diagnosis and prescribe, often-lifesaving, treatment and medication, so why are 75 percent of U.S. Doctors suddenly NOT trusted when they diagnose that our current healthcare system is ill, injured, needs repairing, needs reform? Why?

Think of the current U.S. healthcare system as a body, a body with a diseased heart -caused by health insurance and pharmaceutical company greed- and with both legs cutoff below the knees -representing the missing uninsured/underinsured/preexisting condition citizens.

And three out of four American Doctors are prescribing a Public Option heart transplant, replacing the diseased for-profit heart with a Public Option heart that will at least give American citizens a choice and give some legs to our healthcare system.

“Three out of four Doctors recommend the Public Option.”

You are a fool or a liar if you believe these numbers. Only the kool-aid drinkers on this site believe this… This blog is comical to read. It is a great source of entertainment… It reminds me of Jon Lovitz’ character on SNL when he was telling outlandish lies. The only difference is that you dumb@sses on this blog gobble it all up.

Might want to check teh google before you start calling folks a fool and a liar.

Survey says

A new study finds that a majority of physicians support the creation of a public health care option.
A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) study published in Monday’s New England Journal of Medicine shows that 63 percent of physicians support a health reform proposal that includes both a public option and traditional private insurance. If the additional 10 percent of doctors who support an entirely public health system are included, then approximately three out of four physicians nationwide support inclusion of a public option. Only 27 percent support a private-only reform that would provide subsidies for low-income individuals to purchase private insurance.

The “Pyrrhic Option”.

Now that, slowereastside, approaches the sublime.

Unfortunately, post Bush, it is far too nuanced to become the catch-word term it deserves to be.

DW

Witness the scintillating wit and devastating grasp evidenced by wee frederic @ 23 and there you have it.

Whether arrogant ignorance or ignorant arrogance, it is ubiquitous throughout the land.

Unpleasant, dim-witted little piss-ants, fortified with vitriol and encouraged by those who use them to their own ends, are happily, if mindlessly, spreading their “good cheer” in places where they haven’t a clue but imagine that they are destroying equanimity and good will, when all they really accomplish is to convince any who encounter their spew that the quality of the trollish set is rapidly going downhill …

The dustbin of history awaits.

I think you’re right, but what if you aren’t?

The public option is a bit of a fail safe. If we are right and it works, insurance companies will lose out only because it is such a good deal for consumers. I don’t see that as bad. If we are wrong, the public option will fail and no harm will be done.

Frankly, much of the opposition to the public option strikes me as self-contradictory.