BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 09:28 PM

Note how you can present an argument in which both sides tell the truth:

as presented by D. Congressman Harpo Thetical from Brooklyn says...

First you must know what Private Health care is and what they produce and create for America.

They collect vast sums of money divide it thirds and keep one third to cover their costs. After huge sums for executives and The CEO class they claim 3.3% profit. What they make is money for themselves by denying a certain type and class of sick people who will make them the most money.

Time is on their side. The denied and ripped off payers die sonner or later. Sooner with no care.

Contrast this with Medicare in which no person has ever been denied coverage. Frankly, private health care insurance gives the most well off policy holders more choices. They cancel those who are unemplyed or can no longer pay which is an ultimate loss of health care choices.


THE FOX VERSION as presented by Rod Hardstaff of Freedom Works Lobbyists for hire.

The Goverment take over of your Health care will have paid goverment agents decide if you will be treated or not.

The Goverment is trying to take over our Health Care. They have taken over our banks and our auto industries and it does not end their. The Goverment FDIC has taken over 10 banks a month since Janyary 2009. There has even been a secret goverment take over of the entire US military, highway traffic control, huge Federal prisons and even positions on the Supream Court...

The Socialist Obama Health care program will make you a number that will have to wait its turn to either be treated or deleted.




-----------------------


Like frosting on a cake all the lobbyists need do is spread some huge whopper lie that is designed to cause the most fear and anger and thier work is done....for the private Insurance Moguls in thier fellatial, I mean their palacial estates.


Obama thought town hall meetings would educate people to the value of cheap affordable health care for all like he did as a community organizer. He did not take FOX and K Street seriously enough in his equation. He will need more spokesmen than himself to be heard.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 09:45 PM

If you take a look at the donkeylicious flow chart above (the second chart on the page, not the first), the "public option" looks like a small component (colored salmon/orange).

When they talk about abandoning the "public option," do they mean abandoning the new agencies and allowing all comers to the public option (regardless of income and with low income subsidized), while still expanding eligibility for an enhanced Medicaid program (??)

What do they mean by "unsubsidized individual insurance with new consumer protections"?? Do they mean they will be creating/encouraging some kind of new individual options that don't already exist?

Dumping the public option also means dumping the 8% solution, right? So if you lose you're job you also have to become poor before you get any help?

Ay yay ay

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:45 AM

Bobert, I think you would find Dennis Kucinich's latest statement on the health care situation interesting. Here it is, hot off the Kucinch website tonight:

The masquerade is over! The "public option" is ... dead.

Health care reform is now a private option: WHICH FOR PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANY DO YOU WANT? You have to choose. And you have to pay. If you have a low income, under HR3200 government will subsidize the private insurance companies and you will still have to pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles.

The Administration plan requires that everyone must have health insurance, so it is delivering tens of millions of new "customers" to the insurance companies. Health care? Not really. Insurance care! Absolutely. Cost controls? No chance.

You will next hear talk about "co-ops." The truth is that insurance company campaign contributions have co-opted the public interest.

I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true health care reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without breaking our nation's bank! Your contribution will empower our efforts to continue to fight for the single-payer, not-for-profit health care bill, HR676 "Medicare for All," which I co-authored with Rep. John Conyers. The bill now has 85 sponsors in the House.

The hotly-debated HR3200, the so-called "health care reform" bill, is nothing less than corporate welfare in the guise of social welfare and reform. It is a convoluted mess. The real debate which we should be having is not occurring.

Removing the "public option" from a public bill paid for by public money is not in the public interest. What is left is a "private option" paid for with public money. Why should public money be spent on a private option which does not guarantee 100% coverage nor have any cost controls? A true public option would provide 30% savings immediately which would then cover the 1/3rd of the population who presently have no health care.

Unfortunately, under HR3200, the Government is choosing winners and losers in the private sector; proposing to spend public funds on subsidizing insurance companies who make money not providing health care. This process will insure only the expansion of profits. Gone is the debate over cost.

As a result of current negotiations, the Medicare Part D rip-off will continue for another decade, further fleecing senior citizens. Drug importation has been dropped, so no inexpensive drugs can be accessed from other nations.

Instead we are told the pharmaceutical companies will accept a 2% cut in the growth rate of their profits - they call this cost control!

If the matter were not so serious, it would be farcical: The executive branch pretends that the proposed health care reforms are something they are not. The legislation is being attacked for something it is not. Congressional leadership and the White House defend the legislation, pretending it actually is the very proposal that is being attacked. But it is not.

A commonsense government health care reform policy would insure that every single American has full access to health care by expanding Medicare to cover everyone under a Single Payer System. We are already paying for a universal standard of care, it is just we are not getting it.

I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true health care reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without subsidizing insurance and pharmaceutical companies and breaking our nation's bank!

My voice in Congress will continue to challenge the special interests who do not want "single-payer" to succeed. I need you to join me in combating the special and corporate interests who spend millions to try to win this Congressional seat. With your help WE will win again. With your help I will continue to represent your concerns, be YOUR VOICE in the United States Congress, and be the voice for health care for all Americans!

Dennis Kucinich

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:12 AM

Kucinich, as so often, is right. With the public option removed the "reform" of healthcare is actually retrograde.

But one statement caught my eye above.

The "FAUX" list of undesirable things included "goverment take over of the entire US military".   You mean the US military is not controlled by the US government? That is really rather alarming.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 07:52 AM

Well, Dennis K is correct in his assessment... Where he misses the point, however, is thinking that the American people have to yet again reorganize... The centerpiece of Obama's campaign was health care reform and people knocked on millions and millions of doors to get him elected because they understood and agreed that health reform was a must... Now it seems that Obama and the pro-reformers want the progressives to mount yet another campaign, this time to get Obama to support what he said he would support from the beginning??? That ain't gonna happenh... Bad enough to have to wrestle with the liein'-righties but having to fight with Obama too is not something that is goin' to get progressives all that lathered up...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 01:26 PM

Empty campaign promise:

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008, then Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama said that he would hold negotiations on a health care bill on C-SPAN so that the choices being made for the bill would be open to public debate.

The discussion would be "right there in front of the American people," then Senator Obama said. However, the American people still await this C-SPAN telecast.

Mr. Obama also revealed that he would use the tactic of shaming Congress into passing his health care bill, saying that he "would not underestimate the degree to which shame is a healthy emotion."


Reality:

Time August 6, 2009

Shrewd politics--or cynical ones? In today's NYT, David Kirkpatrick shines a light on the secret deal that the Obama White House made with the pharmaceutical industry to keep it at the table in health reform negotiations. It turns out that even as they were applauding their deal to find $80 billion in savings, they weren't telling us that there was a second arrangement:

    In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul. The Obama administration had never spelled out the details of the agreement.

    "We were assured: 'We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal,' " Billy Tauzin, [Lobbyist. remember the empty "no lobbyist" promise?] the former Republican House member from Louisiana who now leads the pharmaceutical trade group, said Wednesday. "Who is ever going to go into a deal with the White House again if they don't keep their word? You are just going to duke it out instead."

    A deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina, confirmed Mr. Tauzin's account of the deal in an e-mail message on Wednesday night.

    "The president encouraged this approach," Mr. Messina wrote. "He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance reform."

The recent revelations that Mr. Obama has been holding dozens of secret negotiations with drug companies runs counter to Mr. Obama’s promise of "not negotiating behind close doors," made during the CNN Democratic debate in January 2008.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 01:29 PM

I have but one word to say: FUCKINGBASTARDASSHOLESONSUVBITCHES.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 01:54 PM

It becomes so hard to care after a while. But you can't stop.I don't know what the right approach is now. We gave the Democrats so much after the Republican betrayal.

They paid us back with horseshit on a platter.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:15 PM

Bobert, you remember back in the 2008 election when you were expressing the hope that Barack Obama would prove to be a "trojan horse" who would sneak past the ruling system (the very rich and the corporations) and that electing him would put a man in the White House who would really be a true representative of the American people and of progressive causes?

I hoped you were right. I liked Mr Obama's speeches, some of which were downright brilliant (like the talk he gave on race relations). I liked his conduct, his dignified and eloquent style, and his generally very positive attitude, and his ability to listen to others.

What I have seen, however, since January is a president who is serving the same old set of entrenched interests that his predecessors served. He has rewarded the irresponsible robber barons in the major banks with an unprecedented bailout instead of coming to the aid of the people genuinely in need....the public and the small business community. Who will pay the cost of that bailout? The public. Who has gotten rich off it? The banks.

He is now giving a huge gift to the private health insurance companies instead of giving the USA what it actually needs: a single payer public health plan.

I think he IS a trojan horse, Bobert. But he's a trojan horse for the other side. He's a trojan horse in the guise of a humanitarian "progressive" who is in truth working on behalf of the rich who run the ruling system. He's doing it with real style too. Many people who voted for him will go on believing in him even as their hopes for positive change are being dashed.

I'm very sorry to say it. I'm very disappointed. I think that you good people who voted for him have been led down the garden path.

And if you'd voted for McCain instead? Well, that wouldn't have helped at all. The $ySSTem is rigged. They will not put a candidate in front of you who does not compliantly serve the $ySStem once he's elected. NO chance of it. But if they can find one like Obama who looks and sounds like the kind of change you want...but isn't....well, they'll do that, because it's all just a show anyway. It's a drama like a WWF wrestling match, calculated to push all the right emotional buttons in the audience.

What you see is not what you get.

Only the few watchdogs like Dennis Kucinich will tell you what's really going on, and the $ySStem will never let one of those guys be president.

Those two huge parties...the Democrats and Republicans...can't help you. They are not representing you. They're representing the people who finance them on the largest scale...and that's people like banks, insurance companies, and major corporations. Those people are not progressives.

****

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:25 PM

Now it seems that Obama and the pro-reformers want the progressives to mount yet another campaign, this time to get Obama to support what he said he would support from the beginning??? That ain't gonna happen...

Surely the idea all along was supposed to be that the campaign to elect Obama was a movement rather than a campaign, meaning that, having won the election, ot would have to get down to work to give him the popular backing to deliver on the promises.   Winning an election is only the first step, in itself it's not that decisive.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:36 PM

If 50 million or so people began demonstrating in the streets, McGrath, and practicing civil disobedience, then the ruling system might blink, but I can't see that happening. An election is seen by the ruling people as a fait accompli once it's done. They elicit all the public's hopes, fears, and dreams to get them actively involved in the process and to raise money and get them to the voting booth...but the day after the vote the whole thing just starts rolling along exactly the way it did before the election. The engine of the $ySStem is still in command.

It would take a genuine popular revolution that mobilized millions of determined people to shake that system and make it truly change.

Winning an election is not decisive at all, because you cannot vote out the ruling system itself, you can just change the face on the mask it wears.

The Afghans are about to find that out too, I think. They may already realize it.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:38 PM

I am so mad right now I shouldn't be typing. But I agree with Bobert and Kucinich. First thing to do is throw down our spoons. Then we scream at Obama "Yes we can, even if you can't." And that's even if we can't. We may have to take it but we don't have to take it quietly.

Listening to him talk his way backwards out of this is going to be disgusting.

At last I am learning what I never understood before: How it is that the British could have so much outrage at someone with the charm and poise and eloquence of Tony Blair.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:38 PM

Fill hospital with bodies, live bodies. Let the cops arrest 50,000,000 people.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:39 PM

I found this piece written immediately after teh elctiin making the same point I did in that last post Shifting Gears: Transforming Obama's Campaign into a Movement for Change:

"...Americans are hungry for hope and ready for reform. But it will require Obama to use all his rhetorical, organizing and political skills to shape public opinion, encourage Americans to mobilize, and re-invent the spirit and momentum of his campaign into a grassroots movement to move the country in a new direction."

You don't get a revolution, or even a reformist one, by voting and then going to sleep for the next four years.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 02:55 PM

Bruce,
   Thanks for that article. I'm glad that Mr. Potter, after 20 years,
finally grew a conscience. Better late than never. Anyone who stands against universal health coverage is a Social Darwinist. Isn't it ironic to hear Social Darwinists throwing the Nazi canard at people who disagree with them.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 03:15 PM

Obama at a Town Hall meeting on Aug. 21, 2008, in Chester, Va:

To achieve health care reform, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."


Reality: Associated Press July 23, 2009:

Washington - President Obama's administration began holding private meetings with health industry executives and lobbyists at the White House a few weeks after he took office, a visitor list released Wednesday night by the White House shows.

Richard Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Assn., was at the White House on Feb. 4 and has been back at least half a dozen times since, most recently May 22. Other industry executives making February visits included health insurance company chief executives Angela Braly of WellPoint Inc. and Jay Gellert of Health Net Inc.

Gellert, a $500 donor to Obama's presidential campaign, was there Feb. 10, twice in March and on May 11. Braly visited on Feb. 13.

Obama released a list of White House visits by healthcare executives after a government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, announced that it would sue to try to get White House visitor logs. So far, the Obama administration is following a Bush administration policy of refusing to release the logs, which are maintained by the Secret Service.

In recent weeks, the White House has announced agreements under which hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry promised cost savings in return for an expanded base of insured patients.

During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to hold lobbyists at arm's length and make his administration the most transparent in history.

Obama was asked at a news conference Wednesday night about his administration's refusal to say who had been to the White House to discuss a national healthcare overhaul.

"On the list of healthcare executives who visited us, most of [the] time you guys have been in there taking pictures, so it hasn't been a secret," he said. "And my understanding is we just sent a letter out providing a full list of all the executives."

"The actual visitor records likely would indicate with whom each official met, the administration official who requested clearance for the visitor, the time of the meeting, the duration of the meeting and, in some cases, the purpose of the meeting. In addition, no information was provided regarding any visits to the vice president's residence," the group said in a written statement.

Other healthcare industry representatives named in the White House list include:

* Registered lobbyist W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, a former Louisiana congressman who heads the drug industry lobby the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA.

* Registered lobbyist Karen Ignagni, president and chief executive of America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade association.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 03:17 PM

Howard Dean started the online and local meet-up grassroots movement called Democracy for America during his campaign that continued on through the last election for the Democrats. He is still continuing to work on Democracy for America and encouraging people to stay as involved as they did during the election campaigns.

Here is a link to democracyforamerica.com

http://democracyforamerica.com/


You can also add your name to wewantthepublicoption.com click here

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 03:31 PM

heric - I am SO delighted to see another lawyer who realises that revolution may become essential!

God (if any) save America. It has decided not to save itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 03:54 PM

Politics is more like buying a guitar than buying a cake or a pair oid trousers. Get a cake off the shelf, you go home and eat it. But a pair of trousers off a hanger, you go home and put them on and that's it. But buy a guitar and you've got to get it in tune, and keep it in tune, and play it in, and even learn how to play it. And you might even have to do stuff like adjust the action till it sounds and feels right.

We joke about the idea of saying "but it was in tune when I bought it" - but that's no sillier than saying of a politician "he said all the right things while he was running for election".

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:04 PM

THAT was an excellent analogy, McG of H.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:34 PM

Yeah, LH... The hope that Obama might be this Trojan Horse seems to be meltin' before the progressive's collective eyes... I am still hoping that Obama will come to his senses but don't hold much optomisim right now... I'll hold off judgement until the "fat lady sings"...

I am concerned about the media, however, that seems hell-bent on creating the news... I was listening to NPR this afterno9on at work and several callers called in to say that they had attended "town meetings" and that with the minor exception of a couple righties showing their asses that the meetings were informative and peacefull... That isn't what the media wants us to think and in their attempts to create news where this is none they are hurting the democratic process...

Meanwhile, the media keeps asking "where are the liberals"... Maybe the media just doesn't wnat to see liberals unless they show up at these emeting dressed as clowns or packin' heat... Maybe the left needs to act like trailer trash??? I donno???

Oh well...

Speaking of meetings, I'm in the library and need t6o change clothes and get to one... Maybe I act like a loonie and see how it goes over??? LOL...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:05 PM

Oh, I should have credited InOBU too.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:19 PM

It does my old heart good to see so many Progressives finally discovering what we Conservatives spotted immediately. Obama is just another politician. A Chicago type politician at that.

Bobert: You think the centerpiece of Obama's campaign was health care reform? I would say he had so many centerpieces he lost count of them. The main reason he wanted to get a health care bill out of congress before the recess, is didn't want the congress folk types to have to go back home and face what they have faced in the Town Halls. I think the centerpiece of his campaign was to get elected. And he would say or do anything to do that.

McGrath: Obama HASN'T stopped running for the office yet!

Heric: "Revolution?" You better hope not because Conservatives in the US outnumber Progressive/Liberals in this country by a fairly large margin.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:30 PM

"But back to our storyline. Everyone makes a mistake or flubs a line when asked questions on the spot, including the president of the United States. We can overlook run-on sentences, subject and verb tense disagreement, even a memory lapse when it comes to facts and figures.

The proliferation of Obama's gaffes and non sequiturs on health care has exceeded the allowable limit. He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money). He has failed to explain why increased demand for medical services without a concomitant increase in supply won't lead to rationing by government bureaucrats as opposed to the market. And he has failed to explain why a Medicare-like model is desirable when Medicare itself is going broke.

The public is left with one of two unsettling conclusions: Either the president doesn't understand the health-insurance reform plans working their way through Congress, or he understands both the plans and the implications and is being untruthful about the impact. "

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aJ01reSCujDQ

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: gnu
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:34 PM

$65 bucks for the first visit to physio... $55 each visit after that. I start tomorrow. Fuck private health care.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:38 PM

Yes, Doug, Obama is a politician but not quite as corrupt or vicious as Bush, who is
a rich spoiled white man who has a limited intellectual capacity and is an apparatchik for Republican spin.

Obama has made a serious mistake in abandoning public health care. Unlike Bush, however at least he had the human compassion to consider it as an option. Sociopathic Bush would never have done that.

Conservatives are now in a house divided. Many, like Specter are considering their
affiliation with a shipwrecked political party. The Republican Party is the new Titanic.

Unfortunately the Democratic Party faces a similar fate through these so-called "blue dogs" who in my estimation should be called "yellow dogs".

From a historical perspective, it needs to be mentioned that Thomas Jefferson recanted
his statement about "The tree of Liberty" later in his career. He never advocated packing heat to political rallies, however.

I don't think Obama is afraid of the pseudo-town hall crazies. It is clear that Barney
Frank and Arlen Specter are not afraid of them because they know just how phony they are.

As for talk of armed revolution, the US still has a chance to keep from becoming another Honduras or Pinochet's Chile. To acknowledge Ben Franklin, I hope we can keep our democracy.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:41 PM

To get back to your original post, Doug, I would really be interested to know: How you would rate your health care system? Excellent? Good? Poor?

So now you know. And as post after post from the UK indicateed, we like it - not perfect, nothing in this life is perfect, but pretty good.

And the idea of having to worry about money when illness or accident strikes me or my family or my neighbours, or my friends or total strangers for that matter - it just doesn't bear thinking about. I couldn't sleep at night if it were like that here.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:59 PM

...to have to go back home and face what they have faced in the Town Halls.

What they have faced in the town halls are lies, bullshit and unreasoning,ignorant hysteria whipped up by Republican operatives even slimier than the "SwiftBoat" scum.

No-one should have to put up with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:59 PM

"He has failed repeatedly to explain..." etc....

No he hasn't...you just don't like the explanations. When the explanations are analyzed, they indicate that institutions supported by Republicans (like BIG insurance and drug companies) will no longer have a stranglehold on the money pipeline. To avoid this, they will make any claims and propound any misinformation about 1)the plan, 2)their own good ideas and 3)their good-faith 'negotiations'. It all comes down to: "If change involving YOUR benefits interferes with MY historical business model, we will kill it in any way possible."

I see their reasoning, but that doesn't mean I appreciate it.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 06:19 PM

A friendly comment, Doug. ;-) You said "I think the centerpiece of his (Obama's) campaign was to get elected"

Well, yeah! That is the centerpiece of EVERY politician's campaign. They will say and do absolutely ANYTHING as long as it gets them elected. Obama's campaign was brilliantly handled in that respect, while McCain's was handled quite clumsily (but he was set up to lose anyway).

The reason you "saw through" Obama, Doug, was simple. He's a Democrat. ;-) You're not nearly as good at seeing through Republicans.

******

And to Bearded Bruce...who said: "He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money)."

Dead simple, Bruce! just change it to a single payer government-run universal health plan exactly like we already have in Canada. Canada pays about 1/3 less government money per capita for health care than the USA does, and Canada covers every citizen at no up-front charge, and our average national health levels are better than in the USA. This is also true of a number of other western democracies in Europe. The USA is way behind other developed nations when it comes to providing its citizens with quality health care...and it pays MORE to do it! Why? Because profit-seeking entities are running the show in the USA.

Because the US government is in thrall to profit-seeking privately owned health insurance interests, Big Pharma, and the professional medical organizations which are milking the public cow for all they can get.

You have a rather poor national health system as they go, the worst among the developed western democracies...and one of the most expensive per capita too...and a third of your people aren't covered!

You also have a citizenry many of whom are so utterly ignorant about the real situation that they will happily support the corporate vampires who are sucking their blood while hyperventiating over the supposed dangers of "socialism". It's incredible to watch. The slaves are fighting to keep themselves enslaved, the robbed are fighting to protect the ones who rob them...and all in the name of "liberty" and "free enterprise"! Talk about living in denial.

If Obama really tried to change this situation in any radical way so as to benefit the general public, he'd be a marked man. If he quietly serves the real corporate bosses, however, who are the profit-seeking private entities who run the show, then they will get what they want and he will go on being the presidential figurehead for at least a whole four years. Maybe even 8 years. We'll see. It depends how unpopular pursuing the corporate agenda makes him in the next 4.

Someday not too far off, though, the Republicans will come riding to the rescue as the supposed "White Knights" to "kick out the rascals" in Washington, and the whole farce will move into its next predictable stage. What a sickening thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 06:27 PM

On YouTube I've watched both Arlen Specter and Barney Frank in action. Both have had nasties there but I agree - neither of the Senators appears to be fearful or even intimidated. My guess is that both of them do wonder what kind of nation we have created.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 07:03 PM

I don't see it the way you do BillD. I see the insurers keeping a stranglehold on the money pipeline.

To repeat:
"The proliferation of Obama's gaffes and non sequiturs on health care has exceeded the allowable limit. He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money). He has failed to explain why increased demand for medical services without a concomitant increase in supply won't lead to [a reduction in services.] And he has failed to explain why a Medicare-like model is desirable when Medicare itself is going broke."

But it's worse. He has failed to explain why he allowed people to believe a Medicare model was even a substantial part of the proposals, when it wasn't, and failed to explain that increasing employer mandates and increasing insurer mandates funnels far more money to the providers so that costs rocket without ensuring full coverage - just more people ignorantly enslaved to the employer "benefits" industry that separates them from cost and true competition (choice). Worse, he has failed to explain how it can possibly be that "the public option" isn't essential when it was the only backstop for people falling out of their employer coverage, the only substantial mechanism to reduce the irrational cost-shifting, and the only mechanism to spur cost containment and competition by insurers and providers.

Look again at the 8% solution. That was the one ingenious (if risky) idea but it is irrelevant without the public option being available.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 07:17 PM

The 8% solution was going to populate the public option only with people who want or need to be there, protect the people who face bankruptcy or similar hardship when falling out of the employer-based system, provide competition to private insurers, force premiums out of the voluntary uninsured, and afford universal access.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:07 PM

Access to medical insurance should not be provided through one's employer. It should be provided as a basic civil right to everyone through the government, and it is so provided in most of the developed world. It's asinine to have a situation where people get medical insurance primarily through their employers, because it is the unemployed who are the ones who most desperately need it...they have less money to spend when an emergency comes along. But everyone actually needs it and everyone should have it...equal access to all citizens...no extra fees to anyone.

We do that in Canada, and it costs 1/3 less to do it than public health costs per capita do in the USA. And there is no rationing. I've had several friends who needed treatment for serious illnesses, and no one faced rationing. Everyone got treatment when they needed it, without delay.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:07 PM

Stringsinger: Bush corrupt? Vicious? Obviously you have a right to your opinion, but that's all it is ...opinion.

You may not remember, but Bush did try to improve the health care system by establishing health savings accounts. An excellent idea that was shot down by the Democrats in Congress ...not enough government control with health savings accounts.

Your comment about Specter is a bit puzzling. You seem to be under the impression that Specter is a Republican. Perhaps you didn't hear that he abandoned his post in the Senate when polls showed he could not win re-election as a Republican in 2010. Better not to lose his seat even if it meant abandoning his principles, so he made a deal with Harry Reid. Now Specter is a Democrat.

Heric: Are you the one who thinks the Republican Party is shipwrecked? This whole health care debacle Obama authored has renewed and united the Party like nothing else could. Obama awakened the "sleeping giant", as one patriot who attended a Specter Town Hall so informed the senator. Democrats in Congress are running scared and the turnover in seats in 2010 is going to be a site to see!

Kevin: Yes, it's obvious that those of you from countries that have a single payer system are very satisfied. Perhaps it will come to the U.S. someday. I don't think it will happen at this time. I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?

Ebbie: Nice to know that you admire Congressman Frank and Senator Specter's "handling" of people who do not agree with their point of view. Perhaps, however, they should be reminded that they are "handling" constituents, not just "anybody" and both stand for re-eletion in 2010. Some people have long memories.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:13 PM

(No, it wasn't me - not recently anyway. I did think that.)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:21 PM

Another link regarding the lies being told about the health care proposals:

Setting The Record Straight

"Enough is enough.

It seems like a new lie about health insurance reform crops up each day. These lies create fear and anger – and we're seeing the results around the country.

It's time to work together to set the record straight and expose the special interests and partisan attack groups who deliberately spread these rumors and lies in a desperate attempt to preserve the status quo."

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:22 PM

"I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?"

I can recall hardship caused by inability to pay for medical services for my mom, Grandmum (when Grampy died), my sister and me. I have thought for decades that Tommy Douglas shoud be sanctified--but I guess he already is in the hearts of most Canadians.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:28 PM

Tom paraphrase Congressman Frank: What the fu$k planet does Douggie live on?

His grip on reality is getting more tenuous by the post.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:34 PM

DougR - "I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?"

That is precisely the problem with Americans, Doug! They've never known anything else. They've been told all their lives that they live in "the greatest country on Earth", and they think that means the greatest in EVERY way! That's ignorance. That is gross ignorance in fact. But it's not a sin to be ignorant...it simply means that one doesn't know about something, that's all.

I do know the difference, however, by direct experience. I and my parents lived in the USA for 10 years. We now live in a country with a single payer government-run health plan, and I regard it as the only sane and responsible alternative.

Recent polls have been done here about our Canadian health system. 87% of Canadians approve of it and consider it far better than what the USA has. 7% of Canadians would prefer a USA-style system with coverage by private insurers. The remaining 6% had no opinion.

I repeat...ignorance is not a sin. I am not condemning Americans in terms of their character when I say that many of them are ignorant regarding government-run single payer health coverage. I am simply saying they don't know much about it (if anything) and that their fear of it and their fear of "socialism" is based upon their fear of what they don't know about. They'd rather have the devil they're familiar with than the angel they've never met.

That is exactly what your private insurance companies count on...they are protected by public ignorance. Public ignorance will keep them in control of the situation and will keep them rich. The fact that they ARE rich will enable them to keep the American public ignorant by filling the media airwaves with disinformation and false scare stories about "socialism". It's a self-perpetuating fraud, and it is accomplished by lobbying with massive amounts of money.

You have a society now that is of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. That's not what your founding fathers promised you back in 1776. Were they lying? Not necessarily. But things have changed since then.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:26 PM

Just read this while I was lookin' at the news--such as the news is.

'Another protester, 12-year-old Micah Vandenboom, was there with her parents.

She held a sign that made clear her opposition to the president's health-care reform plans.

"Under Obama, everyone will get the same health care, that's socialism," she said. "It has failed in other countries, you know, like Europe."'

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:28 PM

Wendell Potter, whom several of us have posted about on this thread, was interviewed on MSNBC's Countdown tonight.

VIDEO, Wendell Potter, whistleblower, Countdown 8/19/09

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:40 PM

Click here for my view of Senator Grassley

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:46 PM

Peace
Health Insurance Companies are spending a known $10,000,000.00 per day on lobbying, commercials, websites resembling grass roots organizations and rallies with paid protestors - in the form of transportation and sundries.

They are probably spending even more that can't be easily found.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:49 PM

I do not for a second doubt that, Donuel. They are the culprits.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:20 PM

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/73765.html analyzes who's behind the flaps.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:49 PM

That's the first I've heard from Wendell Potter. In the clip he is speaking 90% nonsense. (Health insurers "want" you to pay 30% of all of your medical care even if it makes you go bankrupt.) (That way they get 30% profit whereas casinos are limited to 20% on gaming odds.)

We must think for ourselves. There is nonsense from Congress, nonsense from the White House, nonsense from corporation and industry lobbyists and their lackeys. Nonsense from public interest groups. Nonsense from the media. (Supporters of "the reform plan" are outspending opponents two to one, btw.)

You are on your own.

(My vote on the main bill, and I have calmed down: Regardless of how we got here, if the public option is dead, the betrayal is complete and unmitigated. We'll get more employees covered and more regulatory protections from insurance practices. BFD)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:58 PM

Did you mean QED, Heric?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:05 AM

Nationalized healthcare is the only chance I have to not be totally destitute for the rest of my life. That's simply a fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:31 AM

And THAT is the reason for nationalized health care. Art, I wish I was a millionaire . . . .