June 25 2009 show notes

  • Show live from KTLK AM1150, Los Angeles.
  • Article: No, Really, It’s Not Government-Run! Michael Tanner.
  • Guest: Michael Tanner, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Topic: Healthcare: the co-op cop-out. He’s been writing about the so-called compromise. Co-ops. Washington State has a successful one, insures 10%. Florida had a spectacular failure. Creating a few more won’t make much difference. What’s the point? If a whole new bureaucracy, if there was nationwide paying power it would still make a saving. Private can’t compete with public, because it is not a level playing field, because it can lose. They bail out banks. Non profits already bailed out, lots of exemptions.
  • Bumper Music: Maria, Johnny Mathis (video).
  • Matthew 25:31-46:

    When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

    Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

    Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

    The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

    Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

    They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

    He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

    Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

  • The difference between the way morality is viewed between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives back to Patrick “give me liberty or give me death” Henry wanted a theocracy. Liberals from Jefferson to Ted Kennedy are concerned with what are we doing in public. Jesus and parts of the Old Testament. Are there hungry among us? If so, we are not a moral people. Matthew 25. Conservatives believe that enlightened self-interest, or greed, is collectively best for all. Look at the countries with fewest functions, like Somalia, it does not work well. Elliot Spitzer need not have resigned, liberals are not so concerned. When conservatives are caught, because private morality is who is sleeping with whom, smoking, private behavior, conservatives are all over this stuff.
  • Bumper Music: Don’t Cry for me Argentina, Tom Jones.
  • It took Sanford 6 days in Argentina to break up with her?
  • Article: Opium-eating wallabies get high, make crop circles.
  • In Illinois on July 1 a new state budget takes effect, eliminates all funding for some social services, for example “Little Angels” housing for fragile multiply disabled kids. Ben Burch of White Rose who has Thom’s archives says these children will be sent home, many need 24/7 care to stay alive, therefore they will die.
  • Article: Larry Craig: I Did Not Meet Governor Sanford In Buenos Aires by R J Shulman.
  • Video: Beloved Coach Slain In School. The man who killed him had been arrested a few days earlier and sent for psychiatric evaluation, but released because he was uninsured.
  • Todd said the Republicans are now outsourcing their mistresses. Armin suggested a TV series, “Sanford and Hon”.
  • Obama should package health care as pro-life.
  • Spitzer, selective prosecution, 7:1. They should not have looked at the attorneys who were fired, but those who stayed in place like Leura Canary.
  • Battle between insurers and deliverers, who makes money, and how. The media does not know that single payer is not socialized medicine.
  • Bumper Music: Change, Bart Crow.
  • Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
  • Article: Police say he reported his own crime.
  • Article: Student Strip Search Illegal: School Violated Teen Girl’s Rights, Supreme Court Rules. 8 to 1. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.
  • Yesterday Obama apparently gave in to right wing pressure and condemned what happened in Iran, giving Ahmadinejad what he wanted, just like Bush gave Osama bin Laden what he wanted by invading Iraq. Ahmadinejad is now whipping up anti-Obama sentiment in Iran.
  • Article: OECD Health Data 2008 – Selected Data.
  • Article: Release: Stop Health Care Industry Fraud, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
    “Sen. Bernie Sanders, a member of the Senate health committee, said today that real health care reform must address the billions of dollars in fraud and abuse that comes from the major corporations in the health care industry.

    “What we have seen for many years is the systemic fraud perpetrated by private insurance companies, private drug companies, and private for-profit hospitals ripping off the American people and the taxpayers of this country to the tune of many billions of dollars,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said at a committee markup session.

    Sanders cited example after example indicating that virtually all of the major hospital chains, private insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies have been involved in massive health care fraud over the past decade.

    The senator said Health and Human Services Department investigators found this year that 80 percent of insurance companies participating in the Medicare prescription drug benefit overcharged subscribers and taxpayers by an estimated $4.4 billion. Altogether, he added, Medicare and Medicaid fraud totals some $60 billion a year.“

  • Give them the corporate death sentence. Dissolve the corporation.
  • How many people would to take to put pressure on them by dropping their medical insurance? More than are willing or able to do it. We need to raise hell with our representatives. It is our duty to make sure that they know what we want.
  • Duncan Hunter (R-Ca) had a survey on his site asking people to vote yes if they wanted single payer health care which would raise taxes and finish off the country, or no if they wanted to keep government out of their health care. 85% voted yes. The survey is no longer there.
  • Article: CMD’s Wendell Potter Exposes Health Insurance PR.
  • Article: http://www.prwatch.org/node/8422, Wendell Potter.
    “I read in the local paper about a health “expedition” being held that weekend a few miles up U.S. 23 in Wise, Va. Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals were volunteering their time to provide free medical care to people who lived in the area. What intrigued me most was that Remote Area Medical, a non-profit group whose original mission was to provide free care to people in remote villages in South America, was organizing the expedition. I decided to check it out.

    That 50-mile stretch of U.S. 23, which twists through the mountains where thousands of men have made their living working in the coalmines, turned out to be my “road to Damascus.”

    Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I reached the Wise County Fairgrounds, where the expedition was being held. Hundreds of people had camped out all night in the parking lot to be assured of seeing a doctor or dentist when the gates opened. By the time I got there, long lines of people stretched from every animal stall and tent where the volunteers were treating patients.

    That scene was so visually and emotionally stunning it was all I could do to hold back tears. How could it be that citizens of the richest nation in the world were being treated this way?

    A couple of weeks later I was boarding a corporate jet to fly from Philadelphia to a meeting in Connecticut. When the flight attendant served my lunch on gold-rimmed china and gave me a gold-plated knife and fork to eat it with, I realized for the first time that someone’s insurance premiums were paying for me to travel in such luxury. I also realized that one of the reasons those people in Wise County had to wait in long lines to be treated in animal stalls was because our Wall Street-driven health care system has created one of the most inequitable health care systems on the planet.“

  • Guest: Wendell Potter. Senior Fellow on Health Care at the Center for Media and Democracy…formerly CIGNA’s Vice President of Corporate Communications. Topic: Exposing health insurance politics and PR/ He also worked at Humana. Health insurance companies have been dropping enrollees when they get sick. People with individual policies filing an expensive claim will trigger a review which looks at their application for lies and omissions, even of things that people were not aware of, in which case they will cancel the policy, leaving the person to pay all the medical bills – rescission. They have also purged a lot of small businesses from the rolls if an employee makes a claim, by jacking up the rates at policy renewal time. One woman who claimed for breast cancer was dropped because she had not mentioned she had been treated for acne at 16. Bankruptcy.

    His experience seeing Americans lining up to see a doctor in cattle stalls, then being flown in a corporate jet and served off gold-rimmed china. Senior executives’ perks. Consolidation has reduced the industry to 7 very large companies and their hundreds of subsidiaries, beholden to Wall Street. Their bonuses are tied to the stock price. They have an anti trust exemption.

  • Bumper Music: Save The USA, Andrew Bayuk.
  • Bumper Music: You can leave your hat on, Randy Newman.
  • Article: Time for a Male Anti-Sex Pill by Matt Miller, author of “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas“.
    “At dinner Tuesday night, when my wife and I were discussing the likely enough denouement to The Sanford Disappearance, our 12-year-old daughter asked, “How come all male politicians cheat on their wives?”

    Her wiser 15-year-old older cousin replied, “It’s not just politicians—they’re just the ones that get in the news.”“

  • Sanford. Emails. Self-destructive. Testosterone makes men nuts. About a third of women and half of men cheat.
  • Welfare fraud, up to $70b. Only corporate providers can make money in their pocket from fraud. Medicare and Medicaid do not write checks to individuals like social security does.
  • Bumper Music: Keep the Light On, Whiskey Falls.
  • Article: Woman pleads guilty in drunken breast-feeding case.
  • Article: Ark. court rejects custody after mom shows up for psychological evaluation after 13 beers.
  • These people have affairs and apologize. What about the wives, how can they recover the humiliation? Republican senators were applauded when they returned. Yet they wanted Clinton impeached.
  • Care for holiday makers in Mexico was good and much cheaper. It’s all driven by Wall Street, who have gold plated health insurance and don’t care.
  • Book: “The Franklin Cover-Up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska“, by John W. Decamp.
  • Even before 9/11 was wiretapping people inside the US. If he had been a Democrat, the Republicans would have been raising hell.
  • Article: Bush administration leaks bolstered Rick Renzi’s reelection bid by Murray Waas.
    “In the fall of 2006, one day after the Justice Department granted permission to a U.S. attorney to place a wiretap on a Republican congressman suspected of corruption, existence of the investigation was leaked to the press — not only compromising the sensitive criminal probe but tipping the lawmaker off to the wiretap.

    Career federal law enforcement officials who worked directly on a probe of former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) said they believe that word of the investigation was leaked by senior Bush administration political appointees in the Justice Department in an improper and perhaps illegal effort to affect the outcome of an election.“

  • Upcoming Event: June 28 11:00AM – 1:00PM, Reno, NV – Washoe County Democratic Party Brunch – Reno Ballroom, 50 East 4th St., Reno, NV 89501. “The Washoe County Democratic Party are featuring a lively forum including presumptive gubernatorial candidates Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid and Nevada State Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley as well as Thom Hartmann, “the nation’s number one progressive talk show host.” Emcee: Reno City Councilwoman Jessica Sferrazza.” Tickets are $50, Table for Ten $500, Tickets are available online at washoedems.org, or call 775-323-8683.
  • Sanford’s affair. And gay people are destroying marriage how? Thom is waiting for Pat Robertson to claim it was gays who drove Sanford to it.
  • Health care is like an orchestra tuning up, we need a conductor. should be Obama. Some say Conrad was lying about Emmanuel. It is more like there is something else in the room playing loud, overwhelming the orchestra.
  • Bernie’s list email said we must address the billions of dollars in fraud in health care. We have seen for many years of systemic fraud. Give corporations the death sentence.
  • How many people dropping health insurance would it take? Too many. It’s our duty to make sure our representatives know what we want.
  • Article: The Silence of MoveOn, Tom Hayden.
  • Article: MoveOn: Break the Silence on Torture and War, Tom Hayden.
  • Article: MoveOn Resumes Antiwar Stance, Tom Hayden.
  • Guest: Tom Hayden. Former state senator in California and longtime activist, one of the founders of SDS, author of the “Port Huron Statement” and two new books, “Voices of the Chicago Eight: A Generation on Trial” and “Writings for a Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden Reader“. He and Thom should go to Croatia again, they had time to talk. He pushed at MoveOn, they pushed back, he is pushing. They have broken their silence on Afghanistan. Exit strategy. The executive is trying to excessively control Congress. MoveOn make a difference, lots of members, money. Escalation of troops, war expanding into Pakistan. 60 people killed by the US at a wedding party. Accidents are not accidents if they keep happening, They are estimated in to the equation, it is impossible to avoid. They have now come out on McGovern, silent on the supplemental. We have 6 months to turn latent doubt at grass root levels to active dissent by January 1, the next supplemental. Code Pink is active against the war. Peace and justice losing money. The economy smothered a lot of interest. Obama is getting a pass for a while, Congress deferring to the president. He has a new book due in August, “The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama“. Greenwald is filling the gap, but we need people on the ground like MoveOn. A long war with several fronts.
  • Bumper Music: Rockin’ in the Free World, Neil Young.
  • Article: Police: Man blares porn soundtrack to chase away neighborhood kids in Pa. cul-de-sac squabble.
  • Clip:
    “Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could reserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
    Political Observations, James Madison, 20 April 1795.
  • Amendment II
    “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
    Constitution of the United States, final version, September 21, 1789 (ratified December 15, 1791).
  • James Madison quote. The founders got it, banned a standing army, required every man to be in the militia. The second amendment. Only Congress can declare war. There was no legal declaration of war, so it is illegal, people should stand up.
  • Bumper Music: The Beat Goes On, Madonna (video).
  • Article: The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care, Atul Gawande.
  • Toni said it was not just the pharmaceutical companies, it is very complex. There are MD and hospital costs too. Pharma also does great things like give HIV drugs to third world countries, the costs of drugs that do not make it to market. Pharma is fighting generic drugs for third world countries. There are doctors in the US making over a million dollars a year, often from investments in the health care industry. Docs elsewhere typically make $125,000 – 250,000 a year, which is good money, as do many primary physicians in the US. They go into it because they want to be healers. Hospitals elsewhere are generally not run for profit. Frist’s father became a billionaire by buying non-profits, making them for-profit and cutting costs and services at the expense of patients and staff, leading to worse outcomes. Atul Gawande’s article about better outcomes at less cost, with many docs in one area referring patients to their own facilities. Her Pharma company has laid off a lot of middle managers. There is still a thriving private health care and Pharma industry in countries with single payer. Cutting out the CEO excesses and the people who’s job is to say no will invigorate the economy and create new opportunities. Entrepreneurship has been dying because people have been afraid to start their own businesses for fear of not having health care.
  • Leaders vs. representatives. They ought to pay attention, most of us want single payer or public option.
  • Tourism is hit by health care costs.
  • A way gay marriage could “harm” marriage is if people come out of sham marriages into gay marriages.
  • Bumper Music: Democracy is coming to the USA, Leonard Cohen.
  • Farrah Fawcett died.
  • Article: Kerry Pushes For Public Option Trigger In Closed-Door Meeting, Ryan Grim.
  • Our Comment line – Concerns? Suggestions? Kudos? – 202-536-5306.
  • Jay Tamboli, Talk Radio News, a lawyer. Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas was the only one for strip searching a teenage girl. In loco parentis argument. Six of the 8 said the school could be sued. They did not call the parents. In oral arguments only Ginsberg appeared sympathetic. In the Bong hits for Jesus case, Thomas said kids have no rights. Decision about criminal trials involving lab results, the defendant has right to cross examine the lab technician.

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