BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:05 PM

Oh, I should have credited InOBU too.

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: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:04 PM

THAT was an excellent analogy, McG of H.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 02:15 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: 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: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 01:29 PM

I have but one word to say: FUCKINGBASTARDASSHOLESONSUVBITCHES.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 09:23 PM

I hope he addresses the nation on TV and talks about what he has in mind. Straight from him to the people. Hell, it worked in the campaign, and these types of attacks on him didn't win it for the bad guys.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 09:19 PM

Little punches can only fall a president without courage... Time for him to get going... No, it won't be purdy but it's time... I mean, Obama has the BIG microphone... In other words, he has all the left hooks on his side and it's time to punch back...

B~

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

"Insurance Exec Turned Whistleblower Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Health Care Industry
Thursday 16 July 2009"

This may have been mentioned before.

http://www.truthout.org/081009B

It's a long article but worth the time to read.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 08:37 PM

Lots of little punches will keep Obama off his stride. Ya think maybe that what the Nay sayers are doing?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 08:28 PM

I believe it is time for Obama to step out from behind his shield and just lay out what *he* wants... Letting Congress come up with a plan is a waste of time... Congress is terribly dysfuntional and not capable... Congress has had enough time to put together sevarl frameworks and Obama is wasting time if he thinks that he can get any Republicans on board... That won't happen...

Yeah, it's time for him to stand up and be who folks who voted for him thought they were getting... His poll numbers aren't dropping because he's trying to get bipartisan support... They are dropping because he hasn't stood tall in the saddle...

Screw the Repubs... They are no more than pesky gnats bhuzzin' around Obam's head...

Tell ya'll what... You know this ol' hillbilly ain't really no Dem but I did work for Obama 'cause I thought he had the courage to stand up to special interests... If he doesn't support a public option and fight fir it he will have lost me... I'll just go right back to the Green Party and never look back... This was a real iffy thing for a Greenie to support Obama and lots of us aren't gonna stick too long if this guy folds his tent becasue a few loonies show their asses on TV... That ain't courage in my book...

Obama knows exactlt where the progressive wing stand on this issue... He doesn't need to hear from me... He knows that coops won't fix anything... This ain't rocker surgery here...

No public option and no more support for this administration from this ol' hillbilly...

Square business!!!

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 08:27 PM

Thanks, Alice! I just signed them both.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 08:20 PM

A new low:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVS4Zgjm8HE

Woman Yells Heil Hitler To Jewish Man at Las Vegas Town Hall

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 08:02 PM

Here is another way to add your support to the public option as part of health care reform.
http://standwithdrdean.com/ sign the petition w/Dr. Howard Dean

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:04 PM

dang... need to fix that link

here it is:

http://www.healthreform.gov/support.html

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 07:00 PM

If you support health care reform as the White House is promoting, you can provide feedback at this link:

http://www.healthreform.gov/support.htm

The screaming and ranting misinformation is grabbing all the attention.

The White House needs your feedback if you agree with the health care reform they are trying to achieve.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 06:58 PM

Let your legislators know you feel like this.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 06:46 PM

Yeah, Maryrrf, they do tune you out... Why??? Becasue they are not prepared to have an intellegent discussion...

But this goes way, way back... The BIG LIES that the righties have come up with over the years to scare up the morons and thugs are just amazing...

Now it's "death panels"???

And the beat goes on... And on... And...............

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 01:28 PM

"it's like the curse of Cassandra to see the truth and have good people not believe you"

I did notice that.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 12:17 PM

http://www.donkeylicious.com/2009/08/flowchart.html

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 12:08 PM

You see the trick? "I've been told" - so he doesn't actually make the lying statement himself, he delegates it out to some unknwn source. And it is a complete lie.

I wonder if Grassley picked it from our own Douggie? who's used the same trick for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Amos
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 11:20 AM

Bruce:

It's not exackly nice, no; it's like the curse of Cassandra to see the truth and have good people not believe you.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Stu
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 11:19 AM

"I've been told that the brain tumor that Sen. Kennedy has — because he's 77 years old — would not be treated the way it's treated in the United States."

If he believes everything he's told without providing some evidence then he's a gullible dick. To repeat this bollocks means he's a nasty gullible dick.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 11:14 AM

And this NPR interview with a British surgeon about NHS.

Surgeon defends British system. This page has an AUDIO link. The report includes the recording of Senator Grassley, the quote I posted below about Senator Kennedy, and the surgeon's response to it. Another ad is played in the report from a TV campaign here showing NHS ending the life of a patient whose health care would be "too expensive".

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 11:08 AM

You see the trick? "I've been told" - so he doesn't actually make the lying statement himself, he delegates it out to some unknwn source.

And it is a complete lie. With the additional somewhat questionable implicatrion in the background that the American system would provide the same quality of treatment that Ted Kennedy will have got ("the way its treated in the United States") for everyone who needs it.
Is that really true?   It would be, here in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 11:07 AM

This morning there was this interview and report on National Public Radio.

Is Britain's Health System Really That Bad?
This is a link to the page with an AUDIO file of the report.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:58 AM

And the problem is that these lies such as Alice cited get repeated over and over, and when you try to tell people they're not true, and counter with evidence, they tune you out.   It's almost like a lot of people have selective hearing. It's maddening.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 10:41 AM

Speaking of lies....

Republican Senator Grassley recently said this about the British health care system:

"In countries that have government-run health care, just to give you an example, I've been told that the brain tumor that Sen. Kennedy has — because he's 77 years old — would not be treated the way it's treated in the United States. In other words, he would not get the care he gets here because of his age. In other words, they'd say 'well he doesn't have long to live even if he lived another four to five years.' They'd say 'well, we gotta spend money on people who can contribute more to economy.' It's a little like people saying when somebody gets to be 85 their life is worth less than when they were 35 and you pull the tubes on them."

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: TIA
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 02:17 AM

Yes, Bruce. Keep repeating lies often enough, and some people will believe even you.