Wall St liking this abominable bill should tell us all we need to know to get it killed.

Except of course, that the folks needed to kill this bill are all in Wall St’s pockets

The corruption of the Democrats in power took DAYS only after the inauguration…

We, the people, need to act to protect ourselves from CORPORATE GREED JOINING FORCES WITH POLITICAL POWER.

Obama and the so-called progressives in Congress have failed– and worse.

Progressives must get behind the Arizona Health Care Freedom Act (also being looked at in 24 other states!).

It says simply- NO MANDATES — to paraphrase Jane the “IRS SHALL NOT ACT AS COLLECTION AGENCY FOR PRIVATE HEALTH INSURERS”

and LEGAL HEALTH CARE SHALL ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE EVEN IF A CORRUPT PRIVATE COMPANY EMPLOYEE OR CORRUPT FEDERAL EMPLOYEE TRIES TO BLOCK YOU FROM GETTING IT.

we NEED to show our support at http://www.azhealthcarefreedom.com

…are you saying this bill will be fixed later?

That is the key point, isn’t it? And when is later?

And the scenario Jane lays out is an excellent point.

Altogether, the best Jane has done yet. And that’s saying something.

Those here at FDL who advocate “killing the bill”, have never provided (to my knowledge) an answer to the question of what is to be done after the bill is killed. I have asked this question of both Jane and Noelle in various threads and both of them have given me non-answers and then ignored follow up questions. 45,000 people a year are dying for lack of medical care because they do not have insurance. As bad as this bill is many of them will be able to get coverage on day one with the passage of this bill. If the bill is killed these people will continue dying.

The question is a simple one: You advocate killing the bill. What is your proposal for achieving Health Care Reform after the bill has been killed?

Jane becomes more and more spectacular with each frigging interview

there she is appealing to all sides of the political landscape and she’s doing it with information, passion and decisive language

Morning all. And now Miss Lindsey in on the Today Show declaring how Ted Kennedy would be so unhappy with leaving all the Repubs in the ditch.

(Go Jane!!!)

off topic

raw story is reporting that goldman sacs new building us funded with tax break, living off the middle class tit at times we are decreasing services and laying off workers

wonderful

Good Morning, Sue.

link

Taxpayers to help with the rent at Goldman’s new office tower

By Raw Story
Monday, December 21st, 2009 — 3:31 pm

As if billions in cash and government guarantees wasn’t enough, it turns out investment bank Goldman Sachs will also be sucking on the taxpayers’ teat when employees move into their slick new digs at the corner of West and Vesey in Manhattan next year.

The New Goldman Sachs World Headquarters — a 43-story office tower next to the World Trade Center site — is being built with the help of millions of dollars from taxpayers, Bloomberg news service reports.

Say what you will, Obama and his people certainly know how to control the optics:
Spread across 4 columns at the top of p. A-3 in the dead tree edition of the local Gannett rag:

Senate Bill Packs Political Pork

I had not heard it put in those terms before.

Reports on this site brought up the 45,000 number when they were in favor of a Bill.

Are they not so important now?

The bill stinks… it is as unbelievable a display of corruption as we ever saw under Bush.

1. basics: pass simple, short bill with the good insurance reforms like lifetime limits, recissions
2. House PROGRESSIVES should say no public option, no bill.
3. Obama should actually get out there and make a real case for something
4. We should not throw 35 years of women’s right to choose under the bus to please Aetna and United Health Care.

There’s a second bill out there, the House bill. Unless you define health care exclusively as “give Joe Lieberman everything he wants right now for a plan that doesn’t kick in until 2014,” doing it right and using reconciliation makes a lot more sense.

Here are several posts we’ve done on the subject, but more are easily found using Google:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/11/23/its-harry-reids-choice-reconciliation-majority-rule/

Fascism is corporate ownership of the govt. Since US tax payers are propping up the banks’ financial problems over criminal activity.

The govt is going to require citizens to prop up health care/insurance companies?

What is the problem with saying the word?

DKos has recently shown what will happen. Certain ones will get very very angry. It could be a weeding out process. DLC has got to go.

Providing health care to 45,000 people is a good thing. Forcing 45,000 people to buy junk insurance they don’t want, with no cost controls and no anti-trust limits placed on the insurance companies, is not.

just as important… but it implies that this bill addresses it…
it does not

1. 45,000 can die per year for the next 4 years — oh well
2. does anyone other than the deluded Dems in Congress think that forcing people to pay for insurance will (a) mean they actually get care (b) might not be giving up other critical things like food and housing to comply?

How about their kids education or new clothes?

Dems, on health care, have become the Soviets who would claim that they are withdrawing from Afghanistan after winning.

Robert Gibbs is sounding more like “Baghdad Bob” when he talks about health care every day.

Yeah there’s no shortage of people using Ted Kennedy’s memory to reinforce very contradictory positions.

Sangemon @ 4 (reply didn’t work) there is still the House version of an HCR. Those senators such as nelson, joeLIE, and others seem to be saying that in order for anything to be passed, the House must simply follow the Senate or nothing gets done. Passing the Senate version would simply mean that the worst version gains the upper hand because going to reconciliation it may or may not get to a real compromise. obama’s earlier stance was health care reform, but that has morphed into many more people covered at tremendous cost to the American people. If the Senate bill is defeated, obama has a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of his base who are deserting him and his weak ways. A better Senate bill and real leadership might get what he promised.

That is hilarious.

Great interview Jane. You are a true heroine of the people of this nation.

There is no rush to get a piece of crap. Kill the bill… waste the lobyists ries and start again and put all the issues on the table.

We need to have health car as a right, not as a sham where people are forced to fork over money to corporations.

We need a tax payers’ revolt.

And this is going into effect for years… so there is plenty of time to get this right.

Kill a bad bill… get a simple one

Medicare for all…

I don’t like Joe Lieberman any more than you do, and I can’t stand the idea that he was able to get away with what he got away with, but it doesn’t sound as if you’ve completely thought through your position. A bill can only be passed by reconciliation of there is a bill to pass. I take it you are advocating tabling the House bill (which stinks only slightly less than the Senate bill) and waiting for the Senate to pass a better HCR bill through reconciliation. Is that what you are suggesting?

If the current Senate bill is killed, as you are advocating be done, what bill are you suggesting be passed using reconciliation?

Mornin’, BT, pups

Verizon is acting up again. Now I have intertoobz, now I don’t. Shoulda spent that money on equipment upgrades instead of executive bonuses. Years ago we paid for fiber optic but Verizon changed its mind and just kept our money.

The Senate is gonna try to screw us on Xmas Eve. And we won’t even get a kiss behind the ear during the process.

obama’s earlier stance was health care reform

I agree. If I thought obama would actually push for health care reform I’d be in favor. But he wimped out once already. The day he changed his language from “health care reform” to “health insurance reform” he gave up.

Health care reform includes bringing down the cost of doctor visits and hospital stays. And as some have pointed out, collage tuition is going up as fast as health care, why doesn’t anyone talk about price controls on doctor and nursing education.

No, Universities get a free pass.

Health care is 60% doctors and hospitals, and 15% drugs and insurance overhead. Attack health care where the savings can be had.

There’s never any mistletoe around when you need it.

Forcing 45,000 people to buy junk insurance they don’t want

This is not an accurate statement.

Jane, I love you, but you don’t make your case effectively when you don’t come from a truthful position. I know you know this.

There is no problem with killing the bill and starting over OR simply using the House version as it stands as the new template.

See, 80% of the public STILL strongly believes that healthcare reform is needed. A minority now support the bill that is presented by the corporate shills in the senate.

If the bill is killed, it will NOT kill healthcare reform. People will NOT simply go on and quietly continue accepting bankruptcy as the price for LIVING. They will NOT simply sit back for the “40 years” mentioned by liar Biden and other fearmonger LIARS that this is the last best hope for reform for generations. BULLSHIT.

WIth the VAST majority of the country in favor of reform, killing this bill will not in any way, shape, or form, be the end of healthcare reform.

You just came in here and said:

Those here at FDL who advocate “killing the bill”, have never provided (to my knowledge) an answer to the question of what is to be done after the bill is killed

We write about the “alternative” on a daily basis. It’s a completely spurious claim.

Yes, I do believe it, and it’s quite amusing to be called “untruthful” on the heels of that.

Jane seems to be making her case quite effectively, IMO. You’re quibbling about semantics, sangemon, it’s cheap.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4,371

US KIA Afghanistan: 936

US MBS 2009: 44,020

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

I will correct Jane — it is not 45,000 (using your number, which is why she used it)… try 45,000,000.

You simply do not understand that it is not what we think we are GETTING when the bill says “pay your money to Aetna”, it is that you have signed on to the rules, regulations, and restrictions…

You do remember the mortgage crisis, and the obscene predatory lending (I have a friend who just lost her house because her loan- mortgage- jumped to 17%… and the bank would not work with her at all)?

We are not living in a vacuum… the reality is that the biggest corps have rigged all the rules with the consent and blessing of Congress and the President — and now Democrats are poised to hand over the keys, and the deed to the house, to Aetna and United Health Care.

Do not be blind to the “the public will like it once they see it” theme — sounds way too much like “she said no, but she really meant yes”…

To put a blunt statement — progressives, no the whole country, is being date raped by the Democrats in Congress.

Oh yeah? Where’s your information? Don’t spout Obama’s talking points on this, talk objective factual statements.

I do NOT want the shit the senate is going to try to force us into. The people currently NOT covered will sing a new hateful tune when they find out the indulgences handed out by the senate with their new coverage.

The bill does NOTHING about costs. There is NOTHING in the bill to stop the FACT that the insurance companies WILL do what they’ve done in Massechussetts and jack deductables and co-pays to the Saturn. People WILL have insurance, but no healthcare because they wont be able to afford it. Just like in Mass.

I don’t want the shit the senate is shoveling.

How will we live with ourselves if we dissappoint Vicky Kennedy, and Berni Sanders, and Tom Harken? Guess we should all sell grandma and the kids so they won’t lose face.

The only saving grace in the CURRENT senate bill (they could “fix” the saving grace in conference to make the situation worse) is that the mandate calls for you to directly support CEO bonuses and shareholder dividend payouts under force of law and, if you refuse, the IRS will demand you cough up 2% of your income. However, the bill specifically bars any consequences if you say NO to the mandate and NO to the tax penalty. The bill CURRENTLY makes the IRS penalty totally voluntary. They cannot subject you to liens, they cannot seize assets, they cannot do anything except send a strongly worded letter.

This was pointed out in a DKos diary yesterday. Of course, this is likely to be changed in a totally unacceptable conference bill but as it now stands, I suggest that if the bill passes, we ALL refuse to pay private insurance profits AND refuse to pay the tax penalty. Disobey and vote ALL the bastards out.

sangemon thinks through his/her position:

If we don’t give away the farm right now, we’ll never be able to ask for a little garden plot later.

This farce of a health bill just enforces the truth about corporations actually running this country. I’ve been a Democrat all my life and I’ve never seen such wimp-assed Dems in congress. This is what really PISSES me off. The bastards I’ve voted for all my life have become weak cowards. Enough is enough. I’m with Jane. Kill this worthless piece of shit bill and start over.

There’s a reason the insurance/healthcare lobby spent $1.4 million per day to lobby against a public option/single payer–they would not benefit and would most likely lose big time in profits.

If we are mandated to purchase insurance that does not have a ceiling on premiums, does not guarantee a certain level of care, then the healthcare industry will profit quite nicely and they, in turn, will use those profits to continue to lobby against any kind of meaningful reform.

Then we will have people who still get sick, still are rejected for care or receive poor care, and are made even poorer by paying forced premiums.

That would be HELLthcare for All.

Come on, Jane, that statement was not accurate.

The 45,000 number that I used in my original comment is the number of people that are dying every year because they do not have health insurance coverage. This number comes from a Harvard University study made famous by Rep. Alan Grayson. You know this. You also know that as bad as this bill is it will cover many of those people and it will save lives. If you are saying they will be “forced to buy junk insurance they don’t want”, then this means that their lives will be saved, which is a good thing, wouldn’t you say?

I am not OK with the Senate bill. I can’t stand what Lieberman and the so-called “Conservadems” have done to this bill. But we can not just maintain the staus quo, and I do not see a way to go forward with Health Care Reform if this bill does not pass. The Republican Wet Dream is for this bill to fail. They have said this over and over. Why are you casting your lot with them? HCR will not be brought up again any time soon if this bill does not pas and the Republicans will use it to devastate the Democratic majority next year. Do you think that a Republican majority will give us Health Care Reform? No? I don’t either.

So how are we going to save those peoples lives if this bill is killed? The people who would have lived had it passed?

45,000 are not dying because they don’t have health insurance coverage, they are dying because the health care industry has shut them out of health CARE. To claim the government will cure this by policing the same heartless industry with its toothless, incompetent, and historically impotent ability to enforce any substantial regulation on ANY industry during my lifetime, is the real dishonesty.

The wolves are not just at the door here, they are in the house and going for the kids.

Who starts over?

And you are absolutely right about corporate control of our culture. I wrote a whole piece about it last weekend.

Sangemon says (to paraphrase), This is the best you’re going to get. If you don’t settle for giving it all away to the monsters who got us here in the first place, more people will die.
Sounds like the mafia.

I agree. Corporate oligarchy sucks.

But it still doesn’t answer the question.

The bill is now dead. It didn’t pass. Who starts over. How does HCR happen then?

Cute.

Maybe we could elect a president who works for change.

I suggest that if the bill passes, we ALL refuse to pay private insurance profits AND refuse to pay the tax penalty. Disobey and vote ALL the bastards out.

That’s all well and good, and I agree. Corporate oligarchy sucks.
But the question was what do you do when the bill DOESN’T pass.

OK. You get your way. The bill is now dead. It didn’t pass. Who starts over. How does HCR happen then?

You suggest we do nothing until 2012 about health care and then elect a better President?

Does that really sound like a better idea than passing this bill and then working to improve it?

Your logic is so screwed up. If the house is on fire, you don’t ask yourself, “Well, all we’ve got is this can of gasoline, we gotta throw it on. What else can we do?”

Set ourselves back, in order to move improbably forward?

Sheesh. I already TOLD you.

80% of the people favor healthcare reform. Generically. 80%!!! That is NOT going to change when this bill flames out and dies as it must die. 80% or more will STILL favor and demand REAL healthcare reform. It will NOT be 40 years as liar Biden says. It will be immediately. It will be part of the winning campaigns of the next round of new politicians and those who survive 2010 trying to save their sorry ass careers.

This is NOT the end all be all of reform. It is a VERY flawed (fatally so) attempt to steal from the poor and give to the rich. Again.

One does NOT reward or cheer such behavior, one punishes and screams against this behavior.

It really isn’t hard to understand.

The Democratic stooges who control a majority in both Houses and have the Presidency can only come up with a wonder deal for the crooks robbing people blind and they expect us to believe promises they’ll “make it better later?!”

Laugh (or Cry) OL

Yes. It is viable. Why? BECAUSE THE CURRENT BILL WONT EVEN START KICKING IN UNTIL 2014, AFTER then next Presidential. This was intentional because they (the loser Dems) wanted to save Obama from feeling the electoral effects of his perfidy during the 2012 election. The better very small parts of the bill will be magically in effect by 2012 (oddly enough…imagine that!) while the nastiest of the nasty will hit in 2014 when it is too late to punish Obama because, so HE thinks, he will be in his 2nd and last term. He will be totally free to let out his inner neoliberal for the world to suck at.

Screw that. Obama needs to enjoy the fruits of his “labors” in 2012. Healthcare as written up in the senate must DIE and with it Obama’s political career. HE tied his horse to this cart, HE sold us out, HE needs to eat the shit that comes of it along with his fellow travelers in the House and Senate.

Those people’s illness is being used to funnel tax revenues to insurance companies. That is it’s purpose. That is not acceptable no matter how you cry your little tears for your talking point 45K. The solution is a public option, which will NEVER HAPPEN once the senate bill’s system becomes entrenched. You are aguing for this. Look at the big picture.

We start again.

Sangemon,

Here’s a more realistic question than the “who’s going to save the 45,000 people dying from the insurance industry’s inadequacy, unless you cave to their demands?” canard:

Who’s going to oversee them and ensure people aren’t taken advantage of? The same entity that protects them from the banksters, the Enrons, and the Maddoffs?

Do not forget the short term benefits as the HC reform to continue the Wall St. recovery, Obama’s only tangible plan for economic recovery health and welfare of the securities economy. Jobless recovery to be continued…

Not an answer to the question.

So are you saying that the will of the people will win out over corporate power and make it happen?

the corruption of the Dims took place years ago… and really rose to prominence in 2006 when, after the Dims scored victory in the mid-terms, Emmanuel (who is credited with orchestrating that victory) OPENLY announced that he was going to plug the Dims into the K Street Lobby (everyone should remember that group of criminals because for the past nearly 20 years, the Repugs were plugged into that money machine and the Dims were excoriating them as the whores they were)… NOW the Dims are the whores and are being revealed as such…

when you have a corporate lawyer in the white house, a multi-millionaire investment banker as his CoS, and hundreds of politicians clamouring for money for re-election (or other purposes), you get the corruption we’re witnessing now…

meet the new boss, same as the old boss…

Obama needs to enjoy the fruits of his “labors” in 2012. Healthcare as written up in the senate must DIE and with it Obama’s political career.

This is a joke, right? What then? President Palin?

The answer is pretty much, your question is not legitimate. You need to answer how this plan will save 45,000 people when it most probably will disaffect more. Claiming success for a non-existant mess of an industry give-away program is disengenuous.

I invite you to answer the one posited @54.

Who starts again?

Good goin, Jane.

What you say is true, and will become readily apparent as people get sucked into this scam.

I had to laugh when Markos vacillated as Larry O’Donnell asked him last night to gauge whether “the Left” would walk in the 2010 elections. (so meaningless now in a Party thoroughly colluding with the GOP and an OFA that is little more than microtargeting easy marks for money or ginning up extras for visibility) That’s already a done deal FFS. I can speak to what happened here in New Jersey among the more solid GOTV activists once reliable for the Party. Our paradigm for “the Left” (really old FDR Dems ideologically) flat out abandoned Corzine in New Jersey. Took a powder. Totally Screwed is, afterall, well, Total in its Totally Screwitude-i-ness. And are none worse for the wear. Most of us have at least a few dollars and some vacation time left by not blowing it on our great ” Progressive”‘Democratic” Governor from Goldman Sachs.

And Regardless of the political costs or benefits, We look FORWARD to Christie’s new AG and his old co-workers in the DoJ actually prosecuting the busloads of Democratic thieves we’ve had here in Jersey. Could care less where the chips fall.

There’s people waiting a month to get Food Stamps while Corzine was spending millions and Obama flying in to LIE about how responsive and Progressive Corzine and Obama and the Democratic Brand was. Well like the majority in New Jersey, all I could say was – FUHHHCK THEMMMM.

There’s Larry O’Donnells answer.
Sitttin right in the middle of the Jersey returns.

Hopefully an entirely different class of freshmen and women.

Great job Jane. Thank you for your efforts.

“Look how much we’ve done for you. It’s not easy capitulating your incomes and rights away over lunch with those pushy lobbiests. If you don’t lie down and spread ‘em wide, we’ll lose all progress and we might not ever have again all the leverage we have now. Now make yourself pretty and tidy up the bedroom while I go and settle on the price. I’ll buy you some ice-cream later.”

Jane, you were absolutely brilliant. Concise on the fundamental points. Great appearance. Keep it up–you’ve got a ton of support out here.

I’m for the House Bill as the least worst option available anywhere. But I don’t know how, in this reality, we get to it. I hear commenters invoking ‘the will of the people’ and getting rid of Obama, but like Sangemon, I don’t hear any real answers.

How do we get to the House Bill from here, really? I’m sure Jane knows, but a lot of you others sound like you’re just whistling past the graveyard.

i like that

wtf does that mean? we go on, grateful that we narrowly doged a bullet.This bill does more harm than good. avoiding doing harm to others, last time i checked, is a good of itself.

So your answer is do nothing? Let things just go on as they are?

Sounds to me like you’ve just joined the Party of NO.

sounds like someones more worried about political jobbies.

what kind of a fucking retard, cant undserstand, that given the choice of doing nothing, and doing harm, doing nothing is both more ethical, and the safest course?! again. sounds like someone has some narrow self interest in play

[Modnote: please find another word than "retard" as that is very hurtful]

That’s helpful.

You call me a fucking retard and then have the gall to try and make a point?

How old are you?

Is that supposed to mean something?

In 2010, you work to elect real progressives and pass a better bill.

otherwise, continue to say we have to support dems or get repubs and the dems just continue to fool you into thinking they are not already bought and paid for by the corporations.

What no one is saying is that this whole legislative fiasco should be killed right now…………..then, *don’t wait for the next election*, begin *immediately* making all the right noises, protests, actions, sit-ins, letters………in far greater intensity. That will set the stage *right now* for the change we want…….waiting for the next election will let the issue go fallow…….of course, finding and promoting the right candidates is key, but the noise machine needs to re-double its efforts

I believe Jane is sincere and as honest as she can be. I don’t doubt her one bit. But…

Isn’t it clear that Joe “60th vote” Lieberman and his pals have killed the Medicare-for-all idea? Jane really can oppose this bill all she wants, but to get reform without going through that wall of opposition requires compromises she isn’t willing to make.

So, what do the 45,000 do if Joe says no to Medicare-for-all?

We fight for the public option and get this legislation passed.

I agree totally and have mentioned this a few times, although I felt that refusing the mandate would definitely incur a fine.

By declaring our intention to not obey the mandate you also in effect halt the whole current HCR in its tracks. That is because the provision that is placed on insurers to accept all comers and to cease rescinding will become untenable for them. In effect they would need to insure a large group of very costly sick people, relying only on their premiums and subsidies.

The outcry from private insurers would be heard loud and clear by a compliant WH and Congress, but it would suit our purpose of defeating this horrid so called reform.

I think non-compliance with the mandate is an excellent strategy to pursue by the left and all attempts to carry this out now should be undetaken. If this were chess we would be using our pieces to godd effect. We should make this intention public and forcefully now.

chalk up another “w” for that appearance!
Jane, you must be enemy number one by now.