The health care thread

[GONNAFISTYA]

Anyone catch the Betsy McCaughey interview on the Daily Show?

What a fucking idiot. The whole thing was another example of an absolute and complete moron denying reality in all its forms. It's quite clear she had no interest at all in actually discussing anything that didn't match her perceptions...things such as facts. She simply used the interview to present her stupid argument to the audience...the only people she actually wanted to talk to. It's also quite clear how frustrated Jon Stewart was throughout the whole thing. He wanted to call her an idiot on national television but held back...and that was a huge mistake. If I was him I'd have gone for the throat and relentlessly, mercilessly destroyed her.

Instead of death panels making decisions to kill grandma, there should be death panels making decisions on euthanasia for people who's brains have stopped functioning yet their mouths still work.

"You're saying this bill is a trojan horse to deny healthcare to old people?"
"Yes."
"That's not what it says in the bill."
"No. You're wrong."
"It talks about life-sustaining treatment."
"No. You're wrong."
"I've read the bill and I'm speaking english."
"No. You're wrong."
*reads section of the bill aloud that specifically mentions life-sustaining treatment*
"No. You're wrong."
"That's just silly."
"No. You're wrong."
"This has been a fascinating discussion because we just don't connect. It's weird...because...I like you...but I don't understand how your brain works."

Fuckin lol...he insulted her intelligence several times and it just flew over her empty head. And she can't even add correctly and thinks that $1000-$2000 will cover $5000 in insurance costs per person. Then she brings anecdotal, fear-mongering "evidence" from some nobody as a definitive argument.

Sorry America, but you're never going to get universal healthcare. Ever.

[mik0rs]

Lols, I love free treatment. I've also got the freedom to take out my own insurance and go private. I gladly pay tax for it.

Double lols go to the imbecile that claimed Hawking wouldn't stand a chance under the NHS when he's fucking British, and triple lols to the complete idiots that blindly quoted it.

It's hard to read a lot of stuff around the issue due to the absolute bile being spat out by some people, it's childishness makes me incredibly angry. Comparing Obama to Hitler? Do these people have the maturity of 15-year-olds? Isn't it possible to organise a coherent argument instead of crying "SOCIALISM! SOCIALISM! HITLER! HITLER!". Why don't these people just come out and admit they don't give a fuck about people who can't afford healthcare? Can they not at least be honest instead of rattling their jaws and going to such pains as to underline their lack of social conscience and intelligence?

[GONNAFISTYA]

Rachel Maddow does a good recap of Betsy McCaughey's interview on the Daily Show.

[Unisaw]

Are you happy with your (family too) current health care plan? Do you support a public option? Do you think the final legislative bill will have a public option? If so, will the bill pass?

Do you have major concerns about the coming reform?

Tough question actually. While I am happy with my current plan, I am NOT happy with the current system and would support a public option.

If I lose my job (currently 57 y/o) I am screwed. I have no options.

I would prefer the government role vs Wall Streets current role in rationing health care.

The first CEO to report over $1 billion a year in compensation (total) was in the healthcare industry.

Please watch Bill Moyerscurrent 2 part series on this issue.

I'm a commercial banker and have financed health care facilitities. I marvel at the system and how it allocates resources so inefficiently because the insurance system doesn't require efficiencies. Mind you -- the system works from a bankers/investors perspective, but I can't see that this model is sustainable.

[U4EA]

Anyone catch the Betsy McCaughey interview on the Daily Show?

Aye, saw it .. very frustrating to watch. Thanks for the Rachel Maddow link.

[Fender]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/2 ... 69447.html

"If I hadn't been involved in this process as long as I have and to the depth as I have, you would already have national health care," he said.

[bitWISE]

Wasn't the news recently about how the dems have some kind of unstoppable majority?

[Fender]

Until Kennedy kicked the bucket. There can't be a special election until January. The republicans can now filibuster until it dies.

[GONNAFISTYA]

Let them. Let them stand up and defend profits of insurance companies over health of citizens. Let them explain that if the insurance companies actually had to pay the claim of their recently injured loved one the system would collapse.

It should be hilarious.

[R00k]

Let them. Let them stand up and defend profits of insurance companies over health of citizens. Let them explain that if the insurance companies actually had to pay the claim of their recently injured loved one the system would collapse.

It should be hilarious.

Do you honestly think that would make any difference, the way media covers these topics?

Hell, one of the GOP congressmen (was it Grassley?) recently said that the fact that Ted Kennedy was even alive was a testament to the fact that we don't need public healthcare.

Two to three weeks later, Kennedy is dead. And I'd be surprised if those comments get more than a passing mention anywhere besides MSNBC.

Not that his death proves or disproves anything in the actual debate mind you -- the point is that the health care wheel-greasers in congress can get away with saying just about anything that they want to without needing any sort of evidence for any of it. The people who support reform, on the other hand, have the onus of convincing the public that it will insure everyone in the country, without costing anyone a dime, and without being "socialist" (whatever socialist happens to mean that day), while also spending appreciable amounts of time batting down every negative lunatic idea that Faux News decides to give air-time.

With spineless panty-wastes like the democrats in office, this battle was lost before it started. And so much for hoping Obama could provide some leadership. All he has done is broker backroom deals with drug companies, and then somehow look completely surprised when republicans act the same way toward him as they did during his campaign, and the same way they did during Clinton's presidency. Not to mention that he got elected largely on the platform of reforming healthcare, and then decided to take a back seat and let congress figure out how to do it.

Aside from being black and having charisma, he's starting to look more like John Kerry every day.

[Hannibal]

Yuppers. This healthcare clusterfuck is suggesting at least a couple of possibilities.

1. Obama truly is Dr. Smoov gettin' his chess on and thinking 3-4 moves ahead. The glorious ninja finishing move is only a few weeks away.

2. He's being un-bold and un-strong on the one issue where he can ill afford it.

Time will tell my brothers, but number 2 is looking more and more likely every fucking day.

[GONNAFISTYA]

Let them. Let them stand up and defend profits of insurance companies over health of citizens. Let them explain that if the insurance companies actually had to pay the claim of their recently injured loved one the system would collapse.

It should be hilarious.

Do you honestly think that would make any difference, the way media covers these topics?

Actually right after I posted it I had the same thought.

[Ryoki]

Aside from being black and having charisma, he's starting to look more like John Kerry every day.

Well put. Painful

[Fender]

panty-waist

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

Is the health care industry not the biggest donor to Obama campaigns?

[Fender]

62% of US bankruptcies are because of medical debt
78% of those had medical insurance

http://download.journals.elsevierhealth ... 004045.pdf

AFL-CIO won't back a program w/o public option
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/ ... index.html

[R00k]

panty-waist

Interesting. I always had a completely different meaning in mind for it.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

Between the Rhetoric and the Reality

August 30, 2009 By Ralph Nader
Source: CommonDreams

Ralph Nader's ZSpace Page

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(August 24, 2009) -- The Obama White House-full of supposedly smart political advisors led by the President of the "Change You Can Believe In" campaign movement of 2008-is in disarray. Worse, multiple, confusing varieties of disarray provoking public confusion, internal Democratic Party strife, and the slow withdrawal of belief in Mr. Obama by his strongest supporters around the country.

Two of his most steadfast supporters in the media-columnists Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert of the New York Times-are wondering about Mr. Obama's plans. Krugman repeated his fellow Sunday Times essayist Frank Rich's observation who wrote about Obama "punking" his supporters with his waffling, reversals and frequent astonishing adoption of Bush's worst corporatist and military policies.

While Bob Herbert, taking to task his political hero for waffling and vagueness regarding health care, issued this reluctant appraisal:

"I hear almost daily from men and women who voted enthusiastically for Mr. Obama but are feeling disappointed. They feel that the banks made out like bandits in the bailouts, and that the health care initiative could become a boondoggle. Their biggest worry is that Mr. Obama is soft, that he is unwilling or incapable of fighting hard enough to counter the forces responsible for the sorry state the country is in."

There has rarely been a more auspicious time for a transforming Presidential leadership. Disgraced corporate capitalism has shattered the economy. The living conditions of millions of workers and pensioners whose taxes were taken to bail out these Wall Street crooks and gamblers are dismal.

Rather than expressing remorse, the arrogant corporate lobbyists are working over Congress with ferocious demands, fueled by cash-register politics and paid Astroturf rallies back in the Congressional Districts.

The giant corporations and their trade lobbies want no real health insurance reform that will reduce their monopolies and profiteering. They want no renewable and energy efficient standards interfering with their massive waste, pollution and inefficiency. They want no reductions in the bloated military budget surrounded by the waste, fraud and abuse of what President Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell warning to the American people.

The corporate supremacists want no changes in the deliberately complex and obscure tax laws favoring the corporate evaders and avoiders and the tax havens for the super-wealthy.

In short, the global corporations want Washington, D.C. to continue being their massive deregulator and cash cow perpetuating the abandoning of American workers, the pillaging of the American taxpayer and the defrauding of the American consumer.

Forget about corporate law and order to restrain the corporate crime wave. The harmony, bipartisan President Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, have outsmarted themselves. What worked to defeat Hillary Clinton last year has succeeded in splitting the Congressional Democrats into progressives, corporate liberals and Blue Dog Conservatives Republicans can scarcely believe their luck and are busy exploiting these schisms.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the number two House Democrat, undermines his Speaker, Nancy Pelosi's "public option" plan for health insurance. Senator Max Baucus-a closet Republican masquerading as the Democratic Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, is working hand-in-glove with right-wing Republicans and the White House to craft a weak "bi-partisan" bill that keeps getting weaker as the corporatist Republicans sniff increasing weakness in the White House.

Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, the more progressive legislators are accusing their former colleague, Committee Chair, Henry Waxman of selling out to the defiant Blue Dog Democrats on his Committee. While Mr. Waxman himself has to be worried that even his compromised "public option" (which Democrats should be calling "public choice") will be derailed by the bill that the Baucus/Grassley/Obama axis will soon reveal in the Senate.

The Obama voters do not know what they are supposed to support. Obama never did identify with a clear health insurance proposal-not to mention the single payer approach (full Medicare for all) he says he would favor if he was "starting from scratch." There has been nothing upstanding for his supporters around the country to rally around.

It is sad to say that all this could have been predicted by Obama's political record as an Illinois and U.S. Senator. He rarely has taken a stand and fought against his adversaries. Even after he cuts a deal with them, they continue to undermine his agenda.

Once again, Bob Herbert senses the disturbing trend: "More and more the president is being seen by his own supporters as someone who would like to please everybody, who is naïve about the prospects for bipartisanship, who believes that his strongest supporters will stay with him because they have nowhere else to go, and who will retreat whenever the Republicans and the corporate crowd come after him."

Mr. Herbert can speak from authority. He has written many columns over the past 18 months reflecting that "nowhere else to go" attitude. If he is going off the bandwagon, more will follow. Mr. Obama better wake up and pay attention to his base before they either have somewhere else to go or simply stay home. It happened to Clinton in 1994.


Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.

[R00k]

Somebody needs to buy this Texas pastor some serious airtime.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/02-5

[bitWISE]

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."

I like that.

[bitWISE]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009 ... -on-it.php

and then

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/01/bac ... ur-wrists/

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[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

I would go crazy living in the USA. The level of public discourse is appalling.

[R00k]

The level of the average discourse broadcast by our drama-loving media is appalling, yes.

If these things weren't given airtime, most of the nonsensical shit-spittle we are hearing on a daily basis would still be relegated to backwoods, cabin-dwelling cavemen and moonshine-fueled tent revivals on the banks of Three Eyed River. Unfortunately, for the last 9 years now people have been encouraging these fanatics to think that their ideas are mainstream, and the 24-hour news cycle has been playing right along with them.

Which is why I felt like slapping my friend the other day for suggesting that we really don't need public airwaves of any kind, since the radio and television stations/companies obviously supply whatever is most popular to any given region -- the market polices itself, in other words. If this is what market competition produces, I'll take a socialized media any day.

[bitWISE]

Good link to pass around:
http://aarp.convio.net/site/PageNavigat ... s_vs_Facts

I'm actually really impressed with AARP taking the initiative on this (especially being that they are part of the private option).

[bitWISE]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/0 ... 77687.html