The Nation / By John Nichols
comments_imageCOMMENTS: 155

Crunch Time for the Public Option

Without a public option, there is no real reform.
August 17, 2009  |  
 
 
 
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When Barack Obama assumed the presidency, there was talk that former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean might be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

That would have made Dean the administration's point-person in the fight for health-care reform. It also would have increased the likelihood that reform would be real. But Dean was rejected. And, now, the prospect of real reform is fading fast.

Dean said last week at the "Netroots Nation" gathering in Pittsburgh that the only thing that made health-reform legislation proposed by House committees (and apparently backed by the administration) worth doing was the public option. In that legislation, the physician and former Vermont governor argued, "the last shred of reform is the public option."

Just days later, however, the administration appeared to be shredding that last shred of reform. The Associated Press reports that, "President Barack Obama's administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system."

The woman who got the HHS job reform advocates had hoped would go to Dean certainly seemed Sunday to be jettisoning the idea of creating a government-organized alternative to private health insurance Sunday. Appearing on CNN's State of the Union program, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius dismissed the public option as "not the essential element" of the administration's health care agenda.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said pretty much the same thing when he appeared Sunday on the CBS News program Face the Nation.

"What the president has said is in order to inject choice and competition…people ought to be able to have some competition in that market," said Gibbs.

Pressed on whether the administration was abandoning the public option, Gibbs would only say that, "The president has thus far sided with the notion that that can best be done with a public option."

Startlingly, the clearest signal that the administration is preparing to jettison the public option came from Obama himself. Speaking at a town hall event in Colorado, the President referred to the public plan as merely a "sliver" of his reform agenda and said: "The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform."

On this, Obama is right. The public option has already been so dumbed-down and neutered that it is little more than a sliver. The problem is that it may be the only sliver of real reform in his program.

Even with a robust public option, the president's initiative looks a lot like a bailout for the insurance industry -- in stark contrast to the a single-payer reform that would replace industry profiteering with a not-for-profit system like Medicare.

Without a public option, there is no real reform.

Dean argued in Pittsburgh that: "The public option is (incremental reform)... But there is no incrementalism without the public option."

In fact, without the public option, the Obama approach -- and that of compromise-prone Democrats in Congress -- looks increasingly like a step in the wrong direction.

That's because the "reforms" currently under consideration threaten to undermine Medicare and Medicaid -- with radical cost-cutting schemes -- while steering hundreds of billions in federal dollars into the accounts of for-profit insurers and the pharmaceutical industry.

This is not "change we can believe in." This is change that serious reformers will find "very difficult" to support, as Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, said Sunday on CNN. Johnson explained that progressives would have a tough time backing legislation that did not include a public option.

"The only way we can be sure that very low-income people and persons who work for companies that don't offer insurance have access to it, is through an option that would give the private insurance companies a little competition," explained Johnson, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus who once worked as the chief psychiatric nurse at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dallas.

Congresswoman Johnson is exactly right. Without a robust public option, what the Obama administration and compromised Democrats in the House and Senate are talking about is not "health care reform."

It is "health care deform" that does not begin to address the crisis created by insurance industry profiteering -- and that could well make the "cure" worse than the disease.
 

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John Nichols is The Nation's Washington correspondent.
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Obama the LYING LIAR must be impeached, convicted, and put behind bars !
[Report this comment]
Posted by: maxpayne on Aug 17, 2009 8:14 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is a fiasco and cements the US as a nation outside of the mainstream and moving resolutely to full third world status. Obama definitely does not deserve reelection, and most likely will not get it, because either this will never be enacted, or will be proved to be a failure before the 2012 election.

It is proving to be the case that almost everything Obama says is a lie.

What Obama is now ready to sign is pretty much the opposite of what he has stated he wants. What it really is, when all false rhetoric is stripped away, is a massive, heavily regressive tax.

For anyone who does not know: a regressive tax is one where people with lower incomes pay a greater percentage of their income in tax than do people with higher incomes. A massively regressive tax is one where people with lower incomes not only pay a greater percentage, but they pay a greater actual tax, than do people with higher incomes.

What is being threatened is a massively regressive tax, pure and simple. Not only is it grossly unjust and doomed to failure (as hordes of people simply refuse to comply or are unable to comply) but, worse still actually, it is certain, to one degree or another, to dig the economy into an even bigger hole than it already is in. (And you thought the economy could not get worse, laugh out loud.)

Moreover, this whole thing is unprecedented; never before in world history has a government collected money for a specific private industry in what is supposed to be a free economy and society. Even talking about this, let alone enacting it, proves that the US is not a true free country and does not have a true free economy.

A tax (a mandate, if you insist) resembling this one would be anathema not only in the numerous countries that have faced the music and have gotten health costs and health injustice under control, but it would even be anathema in many of the backward countries that do not have decent health care systems.

The US is becoming backward even by the standards of the backward. I mean, if this goes through, from an economics and especially from an economics fairness perspective, now there will be obscure, poor countries with better health systems than the US.

But since Obama needs to cover up his lie that "he would not raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000, it can not be called a tax, so this tax is with rhetorically perverted to be a "mandate". Folks, "mandate" is simply another word for a tax, and/or it is a specialized tax.

Obama is proving to be a dangerous, narcissistic liar.

And to all you nations out there that have single payer or at least some genuine universal health care and not the TAX-UH-CHEW-SETS model, get ready for more barrels of laughs as America continues to remain a FUCKING LAUGHING STOCK !!!

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» RE: Rahm Emmanuel is right in the middle of it Posted by: rfrancis@godisdead.com
» Keep on voting for Nader........... Posted by: Unrepentant Heretic
» RE: And people chastised me for voting for Nader Posted by: rfrancis@godisdead.com
» Props for a spine Posted by: james108
» talk about liar Posted by: james108

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'you'll know him by his deeds'
[Report this comment]
Posted by: weathered on Aug 17, 2009 8:16 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama was bought by AIPAC, sold to GoldmanSachs and placed in a mutual fund marked:For the benefit of a few at the expense of the many.

Merry Christmas

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» The best excuse I heard... Posted by: james108

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Compromising into Oblivion
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Blueprelude on Aug 17, 2009 8:22 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Not long ago, a person representing Howard Dean called me asking for a monetary contribution to support his campaign for a strong public option that was not single payer. His argument was the talking point of "not letting the perfect get in the way of the good." I replied that to start off negotiating in Congress from that position was prelude to winding up with nothing at all. His position as a starting point would be the beginning of a savage whittling away of citizens protections to the point where there would be a stump of a public option, if any. I refused to offer him monetary support, and considered his campaign a tragic waste of organizing resources.

Now that Obama is ready to eliminate the public option component entirely, I feel vindicated in turning away the Dean people. Nothing else will do but single payer as health care reform. It appears, however, the American people will have to suffer much longer and become much angrier before we finally get it.

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» RE: Compromising into Oblivion Posted by: Blueprelude

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I didn't want to say, "I told you so..."
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Don_Algon on Aug 17, 2009 8:31 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
With all her faults and all her antics, HILLARY was and is the better person suited for the job.

(yes, yes, the elections are long over)

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» What a moron you are Posted by: leafsong1
» Re: What a moron you are Posted by: Don_Algon
» RE: e: What a moron you are Posted by: leafsong1

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Obama's over-compromising nature
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Defenestrator on Aug 17, 2009 8:31 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I realize that Obama himself didn't write any of the bills, but he essentially- once again- arrived to debate having already negotiated the issue in his mind.

Halfway between the "fundamental changes" that 71% of Americans want (single payer) and what the Republicans want (no change at all) is the "public option". So, starting at the "public option" is arriving with a pre-negotiated package. Then, of course, the Republicans and the rightwing "Blue Dog" democrats want to take a pound of flesh out of WHATEVER comes their way. They take the pound out of a pre-negotiated package and we end up with a worthless re-shuffling.

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Obama the Total Compromiser...who compromises to the point of acheiving NOTHING!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Quist on Aug 17, 2009 8:33 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
One problem that I have noticed about Obama since the beginning of the primary is that he is a total Centrist, compromiser, and has an extreme desire to be liked by ALL. This will be OUR downfall and his undoing.

Extreme centrists and compromisers do not stand for ANYTHING and do not achieve much of anything. Well this is not totally true...he has given trillions of dollars to bail out the corporate and banking oligarchy that is in truly in power. Ultimately, all he and his Democrat cohorts are doing is ruining the Democrat brand to anyone who is even a bit left of center. So be it...it really is time for a truly PROGRESSIVE, viable, reasonable, independent, honest, and responsible political party.

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Even when out of power, the Right get's its way.....
[Report this comment]
Posted by: CatDad on Aug 17, 2009 8:36 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
After the 1964 election, when the Democrats crushed the GOP with a peace platform and had total majorities in Congress and controlled the White House...it took only one year for the Right to get its way in Vietnam.

Flash forward to 2009, with a Democratic president and solid Dem. control of Congress: Single payer: shot down in flames...okay fine...we'll just start with the public option: Apparently the GOP might get "mad" if we do this, so this is being shot down.

Why the f*** do the Dems give such prominent posts to conservative Senators from states like Montana and North Dakota (Backus and Conrad)?...in essence holding progressive legislation hostage. Why does North Dakota and Montana get to dictate health care for the rest of the nation?

My prediction has panned out: We are going to get "Mitt Romney Care." The "solution" to the health care crisis is to make buying health insurance mandatory like auto insurance...with the giant health insurance cartel laughing all the way to the bank....They'll get 30 million new customers to dispute coverage for...

Obama....you f****-ed you...shame on you...

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» Why so surprised? Posted by: bonapartist
» Cuz dem's are to the right too Posted by: james108

Comments are closed-

Obama was MIA on Health Care Reform
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Paul_C on Aug 17, 2009 8:41 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Where was he when the wacko's were defining his reform efforts as "death panels" and other absolutely asinine claims? Where was he when Dick-head Armey was leading his army of ghouls into zombie-battle?

Are we to believe that on his most important issue Obama the masterful campaigner did not understand that if he was not out-front defining this thing then his enemies would be?

Or was it his intention all along to hold up the Public Option as a sacrificial lamb, a decoy proffered to appease those progressive "extremists" and, conveniently, take all the hits, put pressure on the Insurance Industry to make some weak-kneed offer of "compromise", and ultimately give Obama the right-wing corporate ass-kisser his alleged "legislative victory".

I am guessing it is the latter. Obama is a bald-faced liar lacking all substance - for him "substance" means "photo op". He absolutely does not see the difference.

peace,
Paul

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» RE: Obama was MIA on Health Care Reform Posted by: photon's feather

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Option To Choose Medicare.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: melpol on Aug 17, 2009 8:43 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Medicare for all is out on the table and cannot be swept under the rug. The bad guys are the owners of the health insurance industry. They are investing billions to save their companies. But their money will not silence the voice of the people that want the option to choose medicare coverage.

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» What, Are You Joking? Posted by: woody, tokin' librul
» RE: What, Are You Joking? Posted by: melpol
» Choosing fiscal and moral bankruptcy. Posted by: ABetterFuture
» Thanks. Honesty. At last. Posted by: ABetterFuture

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LET'S JUST SIGN THE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL
[Report this comment]
Posted by: VZEQICVA on Aug 17, 2009 8:51 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Bush style. Ram it down everybody's throat and then fight about it. Obama's enemy is K-Street, but he knew that. The same people who destroyed Clinton's attempt were ready for this. The money spent to buy politicians during the past few weeks would fund the most exravagant health care system imaginable. Obama had to know that he was about to put many noses out of joint. It goes with the territory. He has to develop a thicker hide and do the right thing. Unless every single American can see a doctor when it's necessary then the president has failed the people. If he can't get this bill through, it's downhill after that. I never imagined that I would say that. ANNA

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» Obama is k street Posted by: james108

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Has the WhiteHouse Jettisoned
[Report this comment]
Posted by: woody, tokin' librul on Aug 17, 2009 8:52 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the public option?

Not yet, perhaps, officially...

but by signalling their willingness to compromise on the point (where "compromise" means "cave in to special interests, agin"), they've effectively neutralized it as a bargaining chip, if that was their intention...

Meaningful reform is dead...

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CP USA or Green Party - time to abandon the Dems for good...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: lasarte-oria on Aug 17, 2009 8:53 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's high time to give up on the Dems - Obama, in my opinion, was their last chance at proving that they were out to put people first and represent the citizens of America - not even 9 months in and it is obvious that was just a dream - a projection of our interests and hopes that real reform could come in the package of an intelligent, inquisitive man with humble beginnings...
The truly activist parties are CP USA and the Greens - just give a gleam to their respectives charters...I used to think that neither of those parties were worth supporting as they would detract from the 'lesser evil' of two poor candidates, but I think those parties both stand a very good chance of getting more elected representatives and increased membership from fed-up Dems (like myself).
Perhaps the result of solid third party representative is the proverbial lemonade of this healthcare fiasco.

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» Totally Agree Posted by: Drclaw
» Purge the incumbents Posted by: weathered
» RE: Absolutely! Posted by: improperly_sedated

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PUBLIC health care or bust!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Ghoulman on Aug 17, 2009 8:53 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius dismissed the public option as "not the essential element"

What?!?!?!

This is the Clinton years all over again.

The public option, a choice for all Americans, is the essential part of this reform bill. Whatever form this bill ends up with when Congress comes back in the Fall to vote, the public option is the only reason to propose the bill in the first place. To say anything else, as Secretary Kathleen Sebelius does here, is the exact opposite of what Obama asked of Congress.

This goes to show the real battle for reform is with the Democrats.

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Can we say: JIMMY CARTER?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Centavo on Aug 17, 2009 9:08 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And why anyone would be surprised at how this is playing out is beyond me.

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On Saturday, Ralph Nader reminded us that there is still one last chance for HR676 but
[Report this comment]
Posted by: JenniferBedingfield on Aug 17, 2009 9:09 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
it looks like we the people have to once again pick up the phones and bug those Congress men and women to support it.

From Nader's article:


"The Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121. The full Medicare, single payer bill (backed by nearly ninety legislators) is H.R. 676. The go-to citizen group for your sustained engagement is singlepayeraction.org. The rest is up to you, the majority, who want to put the people first."

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

I'm ready to go back to the switchboard and give it another go.

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» RE: Thanx! Great link! Posted by: Ghoulman
» No problem. :) Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
» done that Posted by: Drclaw
» RE: done that Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
» that's what I mean.. Posted by: Drclaw

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Where's Dr Dick? He's usually singing O's praises
[Report this comment]
Posted by: DCostello2 on Aug 17, 2009 9:25 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What happened to Dr Dick? Did he finally see the light about Obama? He's usually one of the first to say how great the O-man is and how he's gonna give us health care reform. Sorry, Dr Dick. Don't say you weren't warned.

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» Dr. Dick? Posted by: Benn_Miller

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Those old Great Expectations
[Report this comment]
Posted by: talkville on Aug 17, 2009 9:43 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just like Single-Payer, the Public Option was never seriously on the agenda of these folks.

The very project of neo-liberalism and its economic theories is to expand and extend Market Forces and Private Capital into every single aspect of living. That's the ruling Gospel here in the USA as well as pretty much all over the world. And it seems like that's what we're in fact going to get here when the legislation reaches the pen of the "most powerful man in the world" and the Office that he occupies.

What this economic emphatically does not want to encourage is the expansion or advance of anything in the way of social services or labor rights. In fact, it's interested in contracting them as much as possible. Start by checking Chile, Argentina and the whole host of third-world powerless countries who have already undergone or are undergoing this Grand Experiment in the 21st Century US-led New Economics.

Already the word is out: it is from such programs as Medicare, Medicaid and regressive taxation at the federal and state levels that much of the "savings" will be extracted to pay for this so-called "Reform" of Health Care.

Those caught in the immediate conditions of necessity by lack of access and lack of services for health needs pretty much just have the "option" of getting used to it. That's the way it is: Money Talks, and those without or with little walk -- away from closed doors and apologetic smiles.

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You Voted for Him
[Report this comment]
Posted by: jende on Aug 17, 2009 9:44 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You're getting what you voted for--another Yesman to the corporate controllers of the country.

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» It really is the Drugs Posted by: Hiroak
» Not I. I picked Nader. Posted by: Benn_Miller

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Reform died long before the last election
[Report this comment]
Posted by: leafsong1 on Aug 17, 2009 9:57 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Democrats were obviously not committed to reform; they just used it as a red herring to avoid talking about empire and war. As I have said before, the deather town hall thugs were created and mobilized to give Obama and the Democrats cover for the despicable and manifestly corrupt "reform" legislation they had already decided to pass. Now they will cry about public anger or a lack of public support while they cash their paychecks from the industry. Those who are surprised by this simply weren't paying attention. Now it seems that health care reform will consist almost entirely of requiring people to purchase more policies from the health insurance industry. That's change you can shit on.

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This has little to do with Obama and everything
[Report this comment]
Posted by: EncinoM on Aug 17, 2009 10:00 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
to do witht he spineless bluw dogs in congress who jumped ship at the first sign of problems.

The GOP townhall tactics won, they manufactored enough of a contraversy so that the Democrats in tight races would care more about preserving their jobs then reforming Health Care.

The one think good I have to say about the GOP is that they often vote with one voice, there is little desertion in their ranks. The same can not be said of teh Democrates. Once a numbe of their jobs were threatened they bailed on the President.

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» Dream on, Sunshine Posted by: leafsong1
» take this trash elsewhere Posted by: Drclaw
» Buying influence is relevant Posted by: weathered
» what?? Posted by: Drclaw
» That is just a typical... Posted by: EncinoM
» RE: what?? Posted by: weathered
» RE: what?? Posted by: EncinoM
» Obama is part of it and he knows it ! Posted by: JenniferBedingfield

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What the f*** is wrong with Americans!!!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: MeyravLevine on Aug 17, 2009 10:02 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Note to fat, dumb Americans: the vast majority of Americans need a job to be lucky enough to get health care insurance.

If you lose your job, you lose healthcare; why the fuck would you be opposed to a public option?

Insurance companies routinely deny health benefits to even those of us with good health care options; why the fuck would you want to side with these vultures over the quality your quality of life?

Obama's era is officially over if he doesn't get the health care reform with a public option.

As Howard Dean recently said, there is no point in having a health care reform bill without a public option.

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GROW SOME!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Ahimsa on Aug 17, 2009 10:40 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
President Obama, GROW SOME BALLS!
We need you, it is now or never!
Are you going to let us down like this?

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» RE: GROW SOME! Posted by: Blueprelude
» Exactly!!!! Posted by: Hiroak
» RE: GROW SOME! Indeed... Posted by: AnIndependentThinker
» RE: GROW SOME! Erroneous assumption. Posted by: photon's feather

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No Single Payer = No Vote
[Report this comment]
Posted by: warphead on Aug 17, 2009 11:43 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Enough! Enough of being suckered by the Democrats! They have the power to pass this! The only thing left us is to sit out the 2012 elections and the Obama re-election. What difference does it make? We have the same policy's now as under Bush. Obama has resinded all his campaing platform promises the left supported him for; and for what? Change you can wipe your ass with!
Let's do this!! Pass the word and start the movement to not vote if we don't at least get this one issue so important to us all: No Single Payer = No Democrat Votes!!!

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PASS THE BUCK,BEHIND THE BACK & THROUGH THE LEGS,goobly gook on hike
[Report this comment]
Posted by: wolvedrive on Aug 17, 2009 11:49 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the current life exspectancy of the resurgent GOP ,insurance statistics indicate,is all over the map and the stock market goes wild on news that medically per(pre)scribed _ss wipe will now only be availed for the creme of the cropped/crust or-and buy 10 and get the next 10,000 free,a regular lifetyme supply,does anyone care to guess what I'm talking about,good, now ya know the feeling,governed assist and regulated horse-sh_t

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What next?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: improperly_sedated on Aug 17, 2009 11:56 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is all just a repeat of the "Hillarycare" fiasco, and will most likely have similar results.

When that happens, the worst thing we can do is believe these clowns when they say "it's been decided" as if there were a rule forbidding Congress from voting on health care twice.

Remember: Medicare already exists. That means all we need to do to have a single-payer system is expand it to include all citizens. It is legislation that could be written on a single page, and could be introduced a week, a month, or a year after they've passed whatever monstrosity they're about to pass.

They will tell us about "windows of opportunity" and that we need to wait another fifteen years before speaking of this again.

That's when we need to get louder and angrier and not let up.

Our system of corporate, for-profit health care amounts to extortion and mass murder and we should not shy away from referring to it as such. Hundreds of billions of dollars per year are diverted from ordinary Americans into the hands of the already rich, and tens of thousands of Americans die every year for failing to pay this blood money.

When the current political theater is concluded and they, in all likelihood, subject us to another variation on extortion and mass murder, we will be told that they did what they could and that they can do no more.

They will be lying, and our best move will be to turn up the heat that very day.

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» Meet the New Boss Posted by: Hiroak
» RE: Meet the New Boss Posted by: improperly_sedated
» RE: Meet the New Boss Posted by: photon's feather

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It's morally wrong
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Posted by: reg373 on Aug 17, 2009 12:25 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
to leave 100 million Americans un or underinsured, 1 illness away from financial ruin. And it's wrong to burden small business with the outrageous insurance costs also -- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth

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» The GOP is morally wrong Posted by: Hiroak
» oh..and by the way Posted by: Drclaw

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ROFLMAO
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Posted by: Hiroak on Aug 17, 2009 12:50 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When did any of you assholes actually begin to think America was getting real universal healthcare? Never happen in your comical country.

Millions will continue to die, be sick, productivity lost, and creativity stymied. People with Healthcare tend to be able to tell an asshole boss "Go fuck Yourself" and go off and start a business or find another job. You stupid fucks are little more than slaves.

Millions of dollars will be earned by Insurance CEO's, CFO's, COO's and all the high muckety-mucks, and of course the stockholders. The rest of us really can't believe the naivete' of the American people, and all the poor dumb people who will NEVER be rich and will toil all their lives to make others rich are against single payer and support the GOP.

IT IS ABOUT THE MONEY. The people have it, the rich want it and they will trade your health, your life, whatever, to get it, because "We The People" don't matter. Nice slogan you have there, that's all it is.

Have a nice day - Stupid People

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» that's great-you're smarter Posted by: Drclaw
» Guess I struck a nerve Posted by: Hiroak
» ..addendum Posted by: Drclaw
» RE: OFLMAO Posted by: photon's feather

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If the Democrats can't pass this........
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Posted by: AJR Journal on Aug 17, 2009 1:13 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
With a
1. 70-seat majority in the House
2. 20-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate
3. An eager-to-please President,
this may never pass.
Wow, who would have seen this coming?
What a stunning reversal of fortune.
Let's sit back and watch the Democrats destroy themselves from the inside-out.
Schadenfreude, anyone?

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Free Market? yaa right !! When President/Congress/Media are also enslaved to the same Corporations
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Posted by: peaceia85 on Aug 17, 2009 2:38 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This what we get.
I guess the audacity of hope was too audacious. There will be be no public option. They probably settle for expanding Medicare to some groups.
Your Corporate boss will become more powerful as health care takes half of your income. and you can not quit.

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"Public option" is NOT single payer; it is a cynical deceit
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Posted by: chlamor on Aug 17, 2009 3:37 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I came across this comment maybe here maybe somewhere else and I think it bears repeating:

"
"Public option" is NOT single payer; it is a cynical deceit

The "public option" parrots never address the arguments made by, e.g., Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org). Why do you think that is?

Public Plan Option in a Market of Private Plans
By David Himmelstein, M.D. and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.:

The "public plan option" won't work to fix the health care system for two reasons.

1. It forgoes at least 84 percent of the administrative savings available through single payer. The public plan option would do nothing to streamline the administrative tasks (and costs) of hospitals, physicians offices, and nursing homes, which would still contend with multiple payers, and hence still need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives administrative costs. These unnecessary provider administrative costs account for the vast majority of bureaucratic waste. Hence, even if 95 percent of Americans who are currently privately insured were to join the public plan (and it had overhead costs at current Medicare levels), the savings on insurance overhead would amount to only 16 percent of the roughly $400 billion annually achievable through single payer -- not enough to make reform affordable.

2. A quarter century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field. Despite strict regulation, private insurers have successfully cherry picked healthier seniors, and have exploited regional health spending differences to their advantage. They have progressively undermined the public plan -- which started as the single payer for seniors and has now become a funding mechanism for HMOs -- and a place to dump the unprofitably ill. A public plan option does not lead toward single payer, but toward the segregation of patients, with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan.

www.pnhp.org

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

Everyone knows that successful negotiations begin from a position greater than what one actually wants. Therefore, starting negotiations with "public option" instead of single payer means that the ultimate outcome will be less than even "public option."

A public plan option does not lead toward single payer, but toward the segregation of patients, with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan.

PLUS this segregation will set up the "public option" to appear much less efficient than the private option...not only is this cynical deceit, but its a planned sinister defeat of any public health care set up by those who prefer a for profit health care plan.

Health care for people, not for profit!!!

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» RE: xcellent post, chlamor! n/m Posted by: photon's feather
» America exists for "Profit" Posted by: Hiroak

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Let's Stop Shooting Ourselves In The Foot
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Posted by: desidid on Aug 17, 2009 3:58 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Here is how I see it, to rule out nothing or everything is counter productive and that is how you end up with nothing. If a bill can be created that will end life time caps, pre-existing exclusions, physicians being overuled by rn's working for the insurance industry, provide preventative measures, and cap the profits from medicine, I don't care what it is called.

While they are looking at health care reform they should also deal with worker's comp. insurance as well. I know that State Insurance Fund of NY has a practice of A-1ing insurance claims. That means that even cases that are obviously compensable are challenged. Most of these cases take 5 years to make it through the Comp. Board. Once they have been found compensable the hospital (or their collection agency) can impose interest beginning one month after that date.

This practice cost every insured person because your premiums reflect those payments. So we can exact every drop of blood from our President if he doesn't give us a Public Option, or we can tell our representatives you will give us relief.

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So fracking depressing...
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Posted by: doctorsquared on Aug 17, 2009 4:50 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I think it is a foregone conclusion that we are going to end up with nuthin' as far as a health care reform bill is concerned. Gotta hand it to the right wing - they (and their media allies) sure made it look like there was a spontaneous groundswell of old time down home populist opposition to easier access to health care for all (and minimized the coverage of the violence...and the involvement and mobilization of powerful top-down right wing forces...etc., etc.)

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Public option would be GOOD for the health insurers
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Posted by: LeonBNJ on Aug 17, 2009 5:16 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
To me the 'Public Option' would be good for the private health insurers. It could take on the sickest working class Americans, taking them off their hands with considerable savings. It would force the big insurers to offer a certain standard of service, reduce overhead and overpaid executives as well as more competitive premiums, perhaps low enough to attract more lower risk customers.

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Public was given no options.
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Posted by: james108 on Aug 17, 2009 6:23 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's insane to give people no voice, steamroll dissenting opinions and options and discussion in the mainstream, make secret deals with big pharma and who knows who else, and spin it as a public option. Too much deceipt to be good for us.

The big industry bankroll commercials accuse the other side, right or wrong, of astroturfing too? Disguisting for them but worse on us if we fall for it.

Hmmm... There's single payer, real community hospitals, universal fee schedules to prevent extortion on individuals. Who say's there're no options than the big money, scheming, conniving ones the democrat leadership pushes?

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The Real Barack Obama Just Stood (Us) Up
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Posted by: lorenbliss on Aug 18, 2009 3:02 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama -- finally proving himself to be nothing more than the House Butler for Big Business -- has deliberately, systematically reduced healthcare reform to mandatory insurance: a huge, globally unprecedented windfall boost in profits for the insurance companies.

Verily, “change we can believe in”: exacty as I predicted.

From now on, think of the United States as the Big Plantation, the insurance companies as our new Massa, and all the rest of us as nothing more than Massa’s newest slaves.

From now on we are to be shackled to Massa’s obscene profit-margins, our enslavement mandated forever by the pay-or-be-punished necessity of buying Massa’s insurance.

Thus the idiocy of hope: McCain/Palin could have done no worse.

Thus too the irremediable difference between the neo-slavery United States and the Civilized World:

The Civilized World long ago decreed healthcare a basic human right and provides it accordingly.

But in what is surely the most definitively barbaric display of major-nation viciousness since World War II, now the United States officially declares that not only does healthcare remain a privilege of wealth, but that it is elevated forever beyond reach of reform, a now-eternally sacrosanct privilege of the wealthy for which -- specifically to help the wealthy become even wealthier -- everyone must endlessly pay.

Perhaps now -- though it is far too late -- we will awaken to the bitter truth the United States is but a one-party despotism with a single purpose: the perpetuation of capitalism -- absolute power and unlimited profit for the ruling class, total subjugation and bottomless poverty for the rest of us.

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» The world concurs Posted by: Hiroak

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Raise hell at all public events if they appear to be waffling and
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Posted by: JohnHKennedy Denver CO on Aug 18, 2009 8:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
AND

Keep asking ALL politicians at ALL public events
"Why do they support Torture?"

If they aren't actively calling for enforcement
of our Federal Torture Laws,
They Do Support Torture.

AND


SIGN THE PETITIONS
Demanding
both a Commission of Inquiry
and a Special Prosecutor
For All Their Crimes
at ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

ANGRYVOTERS.ORG


Over 250,000 signed Add your Signature Today

Only Prosecution Stops Torture!
Only Prosecution Stops Abuses of Our Constitution and Rights.

.

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Don't Send A Senator To Do A Man's Job
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Posted by: NoPCZone on Aug 18, 2009 8:37 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Senate is a fraud, full of people about as connected to reality and the people they are sent to represent as someone in a rubber room down at the asylum. All that pretend 'my esteemed colleague" bullshit makes me want to puke.

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Why Democrats Fail And Republicans Regain Power
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Posted by: desidid on Aug 18, 2009 2:46 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Democrats and Independents eat their young (representatives) at the first sign they are going against their wishes. Republicans bend the will of their constituents to their way of thinking. If Dems and Independents could work in a concerted effort we could have a representative government. But we have very little give in our approach to government that is why we don't hold the reins of power for long. It isn't the Republicans that will beat us it is our inability to reach consensus and our laziness. We won't work hard again until we have lost. If we were attending these town halls in mass and promising the blue dogs and others who aren't standing firm on health-care that they will be in the unemployment line next election, they might grown a backbone. Right now they don't have any reason to.

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Nike Dunk
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Posted by: Nike Dunk on Aug 23, 2009 10:13 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thank you for your sharing. Maybe you are interested in Nike Dunk.

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ugg cardy boots
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Posted by: sadfa on Sep 6, 2009 1:41 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
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Alternet Comments:

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Obama the LYING LIAR must be impeached, convicted, and put behind bars !
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Posted by: maxpayne on Aug 17, 2009 8:14 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is a fiasco and cements the US as a nation outside of the mainstream and moving resolutely to full third world status. Obama definitely does not deserve reelection, and most likely will not get it, because either this will never be enacted, or will be proved to be a failure before the 2012 election.

It is proving to be the case that almost everything Obama says is a lie.

What Obama is now ready to sign is pretty much the opposite of what he has stated he wants. What it really is, when all false rhetoric is stripped away, is a massive, heavily regressive tax.

For anyone who does not know: a regressive tax is one where people with lower incomes pay a greater percentage of their income in tax than do people with higher incomes. A massively regressive tax is one where people with lower incomes not only pay a greater percentage, but they pay a greater actual tax, than do people with higher incomes.

What is being threatened is a massively regressive tax, pure and simple. Not only is it grossly unjust and doomed to failure (as hordes of people simply refuse to comply or are unable to comply) but, worse still actually, it is certain, to one degree or another, to dig the economy into an even bigger hole than it already is in. (And you thought the economy could not get worse, laugh out loud.)

Moreover, this whole thing is unprecedented; never before in world history has a government collected money for a specific private industry in what is supposed to be a free economy and society. Even talking about this, let alone enacting it, proves that the US is not a true free country and does not have a true free economy.

A tax (a mandate, if you insist) resembling this one would be anathema not only in the numerous countries that have faced the music and have gotten health costs and health injustice under control, but it would even be anathema in many of the backward countries that do not have decent health care systems.

The US is becoming backward even by the standards of the backward. I mean, if this goes through, from an economics and especially from an economics fairness perspective, now there will be obscure, poor countries with better health systems than the US.

But since Obama needs to cover up his lie that "he would not raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000, it can not be called a tax, so this tax is with rhetorically perverted to be a "mandate". Folks, "mandate" is simply another word for a tax, and/or it is a specialized tax.

Obama is proving to be a dangerous, narcissistic liar.

And to all you nations out there that have single payer or at least some genuine universal health care and not the TAX-UH-CHEW-SETS model, get ready for more barrels of laughs as America continues to remain a FUCKING LAUGHING STOCK !!!

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» RE: Rahm Emmanuel is right in the middle of it Posted by: rfrancis@godisdead.com
» Keep on voting for Nader........... Posted by: Unrepentant Heretic
» RE: And people chastised me for voting for Nader Posted by: rfrancis@godisdead.com
» Props for a spine Posted by: james108
» talk about liar Posted by: james108

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'you'll know him by his deeds'
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Posted by: weathered on Aug 17, 2009 8:16 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama was bought by AIPAC, sold to GoldmanSachs and placed in a mutual fund marked:For the benefit of a few at the expense of the many.

Merry Christmas

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» The best excuse I heard... Posted by: james108

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Compromising into Oblivion
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Posted by: Blueprelude on Aug 17, 2009 8:22 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Not long ago, a person representing Howard Dean called me asking for a monetary contribution to support his campaign for a strong public option that was not single payer. His argument was the talking point of "not letting the perfect get in the way of the good." I replied that to start off negotiating in Congress from that position was prelude to winding up with nothing at all. His position as a starting point would be the beginning of a savage whittling away of citizens protections to the point where there would be a stump of a public option, if any. I refused to offer him monetary support, and considered his campaign a tragic waste of organizing resources.

Now that Obama is ready to eliminate the public option component entirely, I feel vindicated in turning away the Dean people. Nothing else will do but single payer as health care reform. It appears, however, the American people will have to suffer much longer and become much angrier before we finally get it.

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» RE: Compromising into Oblivion Posted by: Blueprelude

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I didn't want to say, "I told you so..."
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Posted by: Don_Algon on Aug 17, 2009 8:31 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
With all her faults and all her antics, HILLARY was and is the better person suited for the job.

(yes, yes, the elections are long over)

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» What a moron you are Posted by: leafsong1
» Re: What a moron you are Posted by: Don_Algon
» RE: e: What a moron you are Posted by: leafsong1

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Obama's over-compromising nature
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Posted by: Defenestrator on Aug 17, 2009 8:31 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I realize that Obama himself didn't write any of the bills, but he essentially- once again- arrived to debate having already negotiated the issue in his mind.

Halfway between the "fundamental changes" that 71% of Americans want (single payer) and what the Republicans want (no change at all) is the "public option". So, starting at the "public option" is arriving with a pre-negotiated package. Then, of course, the Republicans and the rightwing "Blue Dog" democrats want to take a pound of flesh out of WHATEVER comes their way. They take the pound out of a pre-negotiated package and we end up with a worthless re-shuffling.

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Obama the Total Compromiser...who compromises to the point of acheiving NOTHING!
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Posted by: Quist on Aug 17, 2009 8:33 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
One problem that I have noticed about Obama since the beginning of the primary is that he is a total Centrist, compromiser, and has an extreme desire to be liked by ALL. This will be OUR downfall and his undoing.

Extreme centrists and compromisers do not stand for ANYTHING and do not achieve much of anything. Well this is not totally true...he has given trillions of dollars to bail out the corporate and banking oligarchy that is in truly in power. Ultimately, all he and his Democrat cohorts are doing is ruining the Democrat brand to anyone who is even a bit left of center. So be it...it really is time for a truly PROGRESSIVE, viable, reasonable, independent, honest, and responsible political party.

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Even when out of power, the Right get's its way.....
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Posted by: CatDad on Aug 17, 2009 8:36 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
After the 1964 election, when the Democrats crushed the GOP with a peace platform and had total majorities in Congress and controlled the White House...it took only one year for the Right to get its way in Vietnam.

Flash forward to 2009, with a Democratic president and solid Dem. control of Congress: Single payer: shot down in flames...okay fine...we'll just start with the public option: Apparently the GOP might get "mad" if we do this, so this is being shot down.

Why the f*** do the Dems give such prominent posts to conservative Senators from states like Montana and North Dakota (Backus and Conrad)?...in essence holding progressive legislation hostage. Why does North Dakota and Montana get to dictate health care for the rest of the nation?

My prediction has panned out: We are going to get "Mitt Romney Care." The "solution" to the health care crisis is to make buying health insurance mandatory like auto insurance...with the giant health insurance cartel laughing all the way to the bank....They'll get 30 million new customers to dispute coverage for...

Obama....you f****-ed you...shame on you...

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» Why so surprised? Posted by: bonapartist
» Cuz dem's are to the right too Posted by: james108

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Obama was MIA on Health Care Reform
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Posted by: Paul_C on Aug 17, 2009 8:41 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Where was he when the wacko's were defining his reform efforts as "death panels" and other absolutely asinine claims? Where was he when Dick-head Armey was leading his army of ghouls into zombie-battle?

Are we to believe that on his most important issue Obama the masterful campaigner did not understand that if he was not out-front defining this thing then his enemies would be?

Or was it his intention all along to hold up the Public Option as a sacrificial lamb, a decoy proffered to appease those progressive "extremists" and, conveniently, take all the hits, put pressure on the Insurance Industry to make some weak-kneed offer of "compromise", and ultimately give Obama the right-wing corporate ass-kisser his alleged "legislative victory".

I am guessing it is the latter. Obama is a bald-faced liar lacking all substance - for him "substance" means "photo op". He absolutely does not see the difference.

peace,
Paul

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» RE: Obama was MIA on Health Care Reform Posted by: photon's feather

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Option To Choose Medicare.
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Posted by: melpol on Aug 17, 2009 8:43 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Medicare for all is out on the table and cannot be swept under the rug. The bad guys are the owners of the health insurance industry. They are investing billions to save their companies. But their money will not silence the voice of the people that want the option to choose medicare coverage.

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» What, Are You Joking? Posted by: woody, tokin' librul
» RE: What, Are You Joking? Posted by: melpol
» Choosing fiscal and moral bankruptcy. Posted by: ABetterFuture
» Thanks. Honesty. At last. Posted by: ABetterFuture

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LET'S JUST SIGN THE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL
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Posted by: VZEQICVA on Aug 17, 2009 8:51 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Bush style. Ram it down everybody's throat and then fight about it. Obama's enemy is K-Street, but he knew that. The same people who destroyed Clinton's attempt were ready for this. The money spent to buy politicians during the past few weeks would fund the most exravagant health care system imaginable. Obama had to know that he was about to put many noses out of joint. It goes with the territory. He has to develop a thicker hide and do the right thing. Unless every single American can see a doctor when it's necessary then the president has failed the people. If he can't get this bill through, it's downhill after that. I never imagined that I would say that. ANNA

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» Obama is k street Posted by: james108

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Has the WhiteHouse Jettisoned
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Posted by: woody, tokin' librul on Aug 17, 2009 8:52 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the public option?

Not yet, perhaps, officially...

but by signalling their willingness to compromise on the point (where "compromise" means "cave in to special interests, agin"), they've effectively neutralized it as a bargaining chip, if that was their intention...

Meaningful reform is dead...

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CP USA or Green Party - time to abandon the Dems for good...
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Posted by: lasarte-oria on Aug 17, 2009 8:53 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's high time to give up on the Dems - Obama, in my opinion, was their last chance at proving that they were out to put people first and represent the citizens of America - not even 9 months in and it is obvious that was just a dream - a projection of our interests and hopes that real reform could come in the package of an intelligent, inquisitive man with humble beginnings...
The truly activist parties are CP USA and the Greens - just give a gleam to their respectives charters...I used to think that neither of those parties were worth supporting as they would detract from the 'lesser evil' of two poor candidates, but I think those parties both stand a very good chance of getting more elected representatives and increased membership from fed-up Dems (like myself).
Perhaps the result of solid third party representative is the proverbial lemonade of this healthcare fiasco.

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» Totally Agree Posted by: Drclaw
» Purge the incumbents Posted by: weathered
» RE: Absolutely! Posted by: improperly_sedated

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PUBLIC health care or bust!
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Posted by: Ghoulman on Aug 17, 2009 8:53 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius dismissed the public option as "not the essential element"

What?!?!?!

This is the Clinton years all over again.

The public option, a choice for all Americans, is the essential part of this reform bill. Whatever form this bill ends up with when Congress comes back in the Fall to vote, the public option is the only reason to propose the bill in the first place. To say anything else, as Secretary Kathleen Sebelius does here, is the exact opposite of what Obama asked of Congress.

This goes to show the real battle for reform is with the Democrats.

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Can we say: JIMMY CARTER?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Centavo on Aug 17, 2009 9:08 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And why anyone would be surprised at how this is playing out is beyond me.

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On Saturday, Ralph Nader reminded us that there is still one last chance for HR676 but
[Report this comment]
Posted by: JenniferBedingfield on Aug 17, 2009 9:09 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
it looks like we the people have to once again pick up the phones and bug those Congress men and women to support it.

From Nader's article:


"The Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121. The full Medicare, single payer bill (backed by nearly ninety legislators) is H.R. 676. The go-to citizen group for your sustained engagement is singlepayeraction.org. The rest is up to you, the majority, who want to put the people first."

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

I'm ready to go back to the switchboard and give it another go.

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» RE: Thanx! Great link! Posted by: Ghoulman
» No problem. :) Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
» done that Posted by: Drclaw
» RE: done that Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
» that's what I mean.. Posted by: Drclaw

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Where's Dr Dick? He's usually singing O's praises
[Report this comment]
Posted by: DCostello2 on Aug 17, 2009 9:25 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What happened to Dr Dick? Did he finally see the light about Obama? He's usually one of the first to say how great the O-man is and how he's gonna give us health care reform. Sorry, Dr Dick. Don't say you weren't warned.

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» Dr. Dick? Posted by: Benn_Miller

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Those old Great Expectations
[Report this comment]
Posted by: talkville on Aug 17, 2009 9:43 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just like Single-Payer, the Public Option was never seriously on the agenda of these folks.

The very project of neo-liberalism and its economic theories is to expand and extend Market Forces and Private Capital into every single aspect of living. That's the ruling Gospel here in the USA as well as pretty much all over the world. And it seems like that's what we're in fact going to get here when the legislation reaches the pen of the "most powerful man in the world" and the Office that he occupies.

What this economic emphatically does not want to encourage is the expansion or advance of anything in the way of social services or labor rights. In fact, it's interested in contracting them as much as possible. Start by checking Chile, Argentina and the whole host of third-world powerless countries who have already undergone or are undergoing this Grand Experiment in the 21st Century US-led New Economics.

Already the word is out: it is from such programs as Medicare, Medicaid and regressive taxation at the federal and state levels that much of the "savings" will be extracted to pay for this so-called "Reform" of Health Care.

Those caught in the immediate conditions of necessity by lack of access and lack of services for health needs pretty much just have the "option" of getting used to it. That's the way it is: Money Talks, and those without or with little walk -- away from closed doors and apologetic smiles.

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You Voted for Him
[Report this comment]
Posted by: jende on Aug 17, 2009 9:44 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You're getting what you voted for--another Yesman to the corporate controllers of the country.

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» It really is the Drugs Posted by: Hiroak
» Not I. I picked Nader. Posted by: Benn_Miller

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Reform died long before the last election
[Report this comment]
Posted by: leafsong1 on Aug 17, 2009 9:57 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Democrats were obviously not committed to reform; they just used it as a red herring to avoid talking about empire and war. As I have said before, the deather town hall thugs were created and mobilized to give Obama and the Democrats cover for the despicable and manifestly corrupt "reform" legislation they had already decided to pass. Now they will cry about public anger or a lack of public support while they cash their paychecks from the industry. Those who are surprised by this simply weren't paying attention. Now it seems that health care reform will consist almost entirely of requiring people to purchase more policies from the health insurance industry. That's change you can shit on.

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This has little to do with Obama and everything
[Report this comment]
Posted by: EncinoM on Aug 17, 2009 10:00 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
to do witht he spineless bluw dogs in congress who jumped ship at the first sign of problems.

The GOP townhall tactics won, they manufactored enough of a contraversy so that the Democrats in tight races would care more about preserving their jobs then reforming Health Care.

The one think good I have to say about the GOP is that they often vote with one voice, there is little desertion in their ranks. The same can not be said of teh Democrates. Once a numbe of their jobs were threatened they bailed on the President.

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» Dream on, Sunshine Posted by: leafsong1
» take this trash elsewhere Posted by: Drclaw
» Buying influence is relevant Posted by: weathered
» what?? Posted by: Drclaw
» That is just a typical... Posted by: EncinoM
» RE: what?? Posted by: weathered
» RE: what?? Posted by: EncinoM
» Obama is part of it and he knows it ! Posted by: JenniferBedingfield

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What the f*** is wrong with Americans!!!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: MeyravLevine on Aug 17, 2009 10:02 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Note to fat, dumb Americans: the vast majority of Americans need a job to be lucky enough to get health care insurance.

If you lose your job, you lose healthcare; why the fuck would you be opposed to a public option?

Insurance companies routinely deny health benefits to even those of us with good health care options; why the fuck would you want to side with these vultures over the quality your quality of life?

Obama's era is officially over if he doesn't get the health care reform with a public option.

As Howard Dean recently said, there is no point in having a health care reform bill without a public option.

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GROW SOME!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Ahimsa on Aug 17, 2009 10:40 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
President Obama, GROW SOME BALLS!
We need you, it is now or never!
Are you going to let us down like this?

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» RE: GROW SOME! Posted by: Blueprelude
» Exactly!!!! Posted by: Hiroak
» RE: GROW SOME! Indeed... Posted by: AnIndependentThinker
» RE: GROW SOME! Erroneous assumption. Posted by: photon's feather

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No Single Payer = No Vote
[Report this comment]
Posted by: warphead on Aug 17, 2009 11:43 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Enough! Enough of being suckered by the Democrats! They have the power to pass this! The only thing left us is to sit out the 2012 elections and the Obama re-election. What difference does it make? We have the same policy's now as under Bush. Obama has resinded all his campaing platform promises the left supported him for; and for what? Change you can wipe your ass with!
Let's do this!! Pass the word and start the movement to not vote if we don't at least get this one issue so important to us all: No Single Payer = No Democrat Votes!!!

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PASS THE BUCK,BEHIND THE BACK & THROUGH THE LEGS,goobly gook on hike
[Report this comment]
Posted by: wolvedrive on Aug 17, 2009 11:49 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the current life exspectancy of the resurgent GOP ,insurance statistics indicate,is all over the map and the stock market goes wild on news that medically per(pre)scribed _ss wipe will now only be availed for the creme of the cropped/crust or-and buy 10 and get the next 10,000 free,a regular lifetyme supply,does anyone care to guess what I'm talking about,good, now ya know the feeling,governed assist and regulated horse-sh_t

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What next?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: improperly_sedated on Aug 17, 2009 11:56 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is all just a repeat of the "Hillarycare" fiasco, and will most likely have similar results.

When that happens, the worst thing we can do is believe these clowns when they say "it's been decided" as if there were a rule forbidding Congress from voting on health care twice.

Remember: Medicare already exists. That means all we need to do to have a single-payer system is expand it to include all citizens. It is legislation that could be written on a single page, and could be introduced a week, a month, or a year after they've passed whatever monstrosity they're about to pass.

They will tell us about "windows of opportunity" and that we need to wait another fifteen years before speaking of this again.

That's when we need to get louder and angrier and not let up.

Our system of corporate, for-profit health care amounts to extortion and mass murder and we should not shy away from referring to it as such. Hundreds of billions of dollars per year are diverted from ordinary Americans into the hands of the already rich, and tens of thousands of Americans die every year for failing to pay this blood money.

When the current political theater is concluded and they, in all likelihood, subject us to another variation on extortion and mass murder, we will be told that they did what they could and that they can do no more.

They will be lying, and our best move will be to turn up the heat that very day.

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» Meet the New Boss Posted by: Hiroak
» RE: Meet the New Boss Posted by: improperly_sedated
» RE: Meet the New Boss Posted by: photon's feather

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It's morally wrong
[Report this comment]
Posted by: reg373 on Aug 17, 2009 12:25 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
to leave 100 million Americans un or underinsured, 1 illness away from financial ruin. And it's wrong to burden small business with the outrageous insurance costs also -- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth

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» The GOP is morally wrong Posted by: Hiroak
» oh..and by the way Posted by: Drclaw

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ROFLMAO
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Hiroak on Aug 17, 2009 12:50 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When did any of you assholes actually begin to think America was getting real universal healthcare? Never happen in your comical country.

Millions will continue to die, be sick, productivity lost, and creativity stymied. People with Healthcare tend to be able to tell an asshole boss "Go fuck Yourself" and go off and start a business or find another job. You stupid fucks are little more than slaves.

Millions of dollars will be earned by Insurance CEO's, CFO's, COO's and all the high muckety-mucks, and of course the stockholders. The rest of us really can't believe the naivete' of the American people, and all the poor dumb people who will NEVER be rich and will toil all their lives to make others rich are against single payer and support the GOP.

IT IS ABOUT THE MONEY. The people have it, the rich want it and they will trade your health, your life, whatever, to get it, because "We The People" don't matter. Nice slogan you have there, that's all it is.

Have a nice day - Stupid People

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» that's great-you're smarter Posted by: Drclaw
» Guess I struck a nerve Posted by: Hiroak
» ..addendum Posted by: Drclaw
» RE: OFLMAO Posted by: photon's feather

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If the Democrats can't pass this........
[Report this comment]
Posted by: AJR Journal on Aug 17, 2009 1:13 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
With a
1. 70-seat majority in the House
2. 20-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate
3. An eager-to-please President,
this may never pass.
Wow, who would have seen this coming?
What a stunning reversal of fortune.
Let's sit back and watch the Democrats destroy themselves from the inside-out.
Schadenfreude, anyone?

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Free Market? yaa right !! When President/Congress/Media are also enslaved to the same Corporations
[Report this comment]
Posted by: peaceia85 on Aug 17, 2009 2:38 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This what we get.
I guess the audacity of hope was too audacious. There will be be no public option. They probably settle for expanding Medicare to some groups.
Your Corporate boss will become more powerful as health care takes half of your income. and you can not quit.

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"Public option" is NOT single payer; it is a cynical deceit
[Report this comment]
Posted by: chlamor on Aug 17, 2009 3:37 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I came across this comment maybe here maybe somewhere else and I think it bears repeating:

"
"Public option" is NOT single payer; it is a cynical deceit

The "public option" parrots never address the arguments made by, e.g., Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org). Why do you think that is?

Public Plan Option in a Market of Private Plans
By David Himmelstein, M.D. and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.:

The "public plan option" won't work to fix the health care system for two reasons.

1. It forgoes at least 84 percent of the administrative savings available through single payer. The public plan option would do nothing to streamline the administrative tasks (and costs) of hospitals, physicians offices, and nursing homes, which would still contend with multiple payers, and hence still need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives administrative costs. These unnecessary provider administrative costs account for the vast majority of bureaucratic waste. Hence, even if 95 percent of Americans who are currently privately insured were to join the public plan (and it had overhead costs at current Medicare levels), the savings on insurance overhead would amount to only 16 percent of the roughly $400 billion annually achievable through single payer -- not enough to make reform affordable.

2. A quarter century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field. Despite strict regulation, private insurers have successfully cherry picked healthier seniors, and have exploited regional health spending differences to their advantage. They have progressively undermined the public plan -- which started as the single payer for seniors and has now become a funding mechanism for HMOs -- and a place to dump the unprofitably ill. A public plan option does not lead toward single payer, but toward the segregation of patients, with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan.

www.pnhp.org

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

Everyone knows that successful negotiations begin from a position greater than what one actually wants. Therefore, starting negotiations with "public option" instead of single payer means that the ultimate outcome will be less than even "public option."

A public plan option does not lead toward single payer, but toward the segregation of patients, with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan.

PLUS this segregation will set up the "public option" to appear much less efficient than the private option...not only is this cynical deceit, but its a planned sinister defeat of any public health care set up by those who prefer a for profit health care plan.

Health care for people, not for profit!!!

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» RE: xcellent post, chlamor! n/m Posted by: photon's feather
» America exists for "Profit" Posted by: Hiroak

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Let's Stop Shooting Ourselves In The Foot
[Report this comment]
Posted by: desidid on Aug 17, 2009 3:58 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Here is how I see it, to rule out nothing or everything is counter productive and that is how you end up with nothing. If a bill can be created that will end life time caps, pre-existing exclusions, physicians being overuled by rn's working for the insurance industry, provide preventative measures, and cap the profits from medicine, I don't care what it is called.

While they are looking at health care reform they should also deal with worker's comp. insurance as well. I know that State Insurance Fund of NY has a practice of A-1ing insurance claims. That means that even cases that are obviously compensable are challenged. Most of these cases take 5 years to make it through the Comp. Board. Once they have been found compensable the hospital (or their collection agency) can impose interest beginning one month after that date.

This practice cost every insured person because your premiums reflect those payments. So we can exact every drop of blood from our President if he doesn't give us a Public Option, or we can tell our representatives you will give us relief.

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So fracking depressing...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: doctorsquared on Aug 17, 2009 4:50 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I think it is a foregone conclusion that we are going to end up with nuthin' as far as a health care reform bill is concerned. Gotta hand it to the right wing - they (and their media allies) sure made it look like there was a spontaneous groundswell of old time down home populist opposition to easier access to health care for all (and minimized the coverage of the violence...and the involvement and mobilization of powerful top-down right wing forces...etc., etc.)

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Public option would be GOOD for the health insurers
[Report this comment]
Posted by: LeonBNJ on Aug 17, 2009 5:16 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
To me the 'Public Option' would be good for the private health insurers. It could take on the sickest working class Americans, taking them off their hands with considerable savings. It would force the big insurers to offer a certain standard of service, reduce overhead and overpaid executives as well as more competitive premiums, perhaps low enough to attract more lower risk customers.

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Public was given no options.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: james108 on Aug 17, 2009 6:23 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's insane to give people no voice, steamroll dissenting opinions and options and discussion in the mainstream, make secret deals with big pharma and who knows who else, and spin it as a public option. Too much deceipt to be good for us.

The big industry bankroll commercials accuse the other side, right or wrong, of astroturfing too? Disguisting for them but worse on us if we fall for it.

Hmmm... There's single payer, real community hospitals, universal fee schedules to prevent extortion on individuals. Who say's there're no options than the big money, scheming, conniving ones the democrat leadership pushes?

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The Real Barack Obama Just Stood (Us) Up
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Posted by: lorenbliss on Aug 18, 2009 3:02 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama -- finally proving himself to be nothing more than the House Butler for Big Business -- has deliberately, systematically reduced healthcare reform to mandatory insurance: a huge, globally unprecedented windfall boost in profits for the insurance companies.

Verily, “change we can believe in”: exacty as I predicted.

From now on, think of the United States as the Big Plantation, the insurance companies as our new Massa, and all the rest of us as nothing more than Massa’s newest slaves.

From now on we are to be shackled to Massa’s obscene profit-margins, our enslavement mandated forever by the pay-or-be-punished necessity of buying Massa’s insurance.

Thus the idiocy of hope: McCain/Palin could have done no worse.

Thus too the irremediable difference between the neo-slavery United States and the Civilized World:

The Civilized World long ago decreed healthcare a basic human right and provides it accordingly.

But in what is surely the most definitively barbaric display of major-nation viciousness since World War II, now the United States officially declares that not only does healthcare remain a privilege of wealth, but that it is elevated forever beyond reach of reform, a now-eternally sacrosanct privilege of the wealthy for which -- specifically to help the wealthy become even wealthier -- everyone must endlessly pay.

Perhaps now -- though it is far too late -- we will awaken to the bitter truth the United States is but a one-party despotism with a single purpose: the perpetuation of capitalism -- absolute power and unlimited profit for the ruling class, total subjugation and bottomless poverty for the rest of us.

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» The world concurs Posted by: Hiroak

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Raise hell at all public events if they appear to be waffling and
[Report this comment]
Posted by: JohnHKennedy Denver CO on Aug 18, 2009 8:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
AND

Keep asking ALL politicians at ALL public events
"Why do they support Torture?"

If they aren't actively calling for enforcement
of our Federal Torture Laws,
They Do Support Torture.

AND


SIGN THE PETITIONS
Demanding
both a Commission of Inquiry
and a Special Prosecutor
For All Their Crimes
at ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

ANGRYVOTERS.ORG


Over 250,000 signed Add your Signature Today

Only Prosecution Stops Torture!
Only Prosecution Stops Abuses of Our Constitution and Rights.

.

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Don't Send A Senator To Do A Man's Job
[Report this comment]
Posted by: NoPCZone on Aug 18, 2009 8:37 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Senate is a fraud, full of people about as connected to reality and the people they are sent to represent as someone in a rubber room down at the asylum. All that pretend 'my esteemed colleague" bullshit makes me want to puke.

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Why Democrats Fail And Republicans Regain Power
[Report this comment]
Posted by: desidid on Aug 18, 2009 2:46 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Democrats and Independents eat their young (representatives) at the first sign they are going against their wishes. Republicans bend the will of their constituents to their way of thinking. If Dems and Independents could work in a concerted effort we could have a representative government. But we have very little give in our approach to government that is why we don't hold the reins of power for long. It isn't the Republicans that will beat us it is our inability to reach consensus and our laziness. We won't work hard again until we have lost. If we were attending these town halls in mass and promising the blue dogs and others who aren't standing firm on health-care that they will be in the unemployment line next election, they might grown a backbone. Right now they don't have any reason to.

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Nike Dunk
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Nike Dunk on Aug 23, 2009 10:13 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thank you for your sharing. Maybe you are interested in Nike Dunk.

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ugg cardy boots
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Posted by: sadfa on Sep 6, 2009 1:41 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
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