I think Obama is afraid to make moves that are too "radical" because whatever move he makes, someone is going to be hurt no matter what in the short term, and he's going to be blamed. Obviously, it is better to hurt the fat cats than everyone else, but let's remember who holds all the cards here. The only way that real reform is going to come is if people march out into the streets and demand it. As it is, the vast majority of people in this country are really afraid of "change", or don't know exactly what it means. The world slowly turns, each day seems the same as the one before. As long as they have a job and a place to live, most people are satisfied; if things are bad now, they could get a lot worse rather than better. Those more farsighted know, however, that sometimes maintaining the bridge requires major repair work; while those driving over the bridge may feel nothing is amiss, without those repairs it will eventually collapse--and no one is going anywhere until it is done.

Elsewhere, it seems to me that the reason why Republicans like small government (unless it is military expenditures) is that they don’t like to concern themselves with the welfare of the proletariat. The negative effect of this is that Republicans have too much free time on their hands, used to expectorate inconsequentially and daydream of omnipotence. If they are Republicans, it is not against any moral or ethical law to engage in a little corruption or harmless dalliances. Effete New Yorkers might not understand this, but South Carolinians are made of stranger—I mean stronger— stuff. Spitzer’s call girl escapade—that’s supposed to be more censorious than Monicagate? Clinton, being a Southerner, didn’t resign. Sanford’s sexcapade with an Argentine tart (who isn’t even American) was merely an exercise in straight-up American “foreign relations.” At least somebody is holding the American "end" up.

In regard to the conversation with Michael Tanner from the Cato Institute, I find it remarkable the suggestion that doctors are motivated more by visions of great wealth than the Hippocratic Oath. In order to bring healthcare costs under control, everything has to be on the table—including reimbursement requests that are usually inflated in order to receive an “adequate” return. It is simply unconscionable that this country spends so much on healthcare for so little return relative to other countries. What this country spends on healthcare now should by all reckoning cover everyone, and all with first-class treatment. One reason why healthcare costs continue to skyrocket is that there are too many hands in the cookie jar. The vast majority of the healthcare dollar is spent to pay people to perform a certain function, much of which has nothing to do with providing healthcare.

Editing my comment--I clicked too soon

"Conservative big business (and Blue Cross and other insurers are big big business) uses Rumor tactics and they have open door to big media sources to help them spread.

PICA will be after you now mstaggerlee :-)

Singe Pay USA is having an action event tomorrow in Portland, Oregon.

Saturday June 27, 11 AM
David Douglas High School, South Cafeteria
1400 SE 130th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97233
Their comment is "Let's attend this town hall and get Sen. Merkley on record in front of his constituents about Single payer Healthcare."

If you live in another city, you could come to Portland to support this meeting and spend the rest of the day having fun in Portland. It's a beautiful beautiful city! Bring your bicycle!

I think people in favor of starting with public options should attend "single pay" events and vice versa because we all want health care!

Charlie Rose had a CEO on his show last night [6/25/09].
Here are some of the things he said.

Business leaders in the U.S. must become good American citizens again.
We have to make our country competitive again.
Corporate managers should start bringing back some manufacturing to the U.S.
We need more manufacturing and R&D in the U.S.
Healthcare absolutely has to be reformed; it is needed by G.E. and by the American people.
People who say we don't need healthcare reform are living in an alternative reality.
CEOs who are going to put millions into ads against healthcare reform are delusional.
He said that he voted for John McCain, and that he's a Republican.
The last __ years didn't work out that well for working people in this country.
Middle class income has declined since 1980, but the top 20% have done fine.

Who was he?
Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric.

People ought to send a video of this interview to everyone in congress.

Reply to tvtkr -

NICE! That guy was from GE, huh? ... the company that popularized the outsourcing craze?! NOW there have regrets, because the shortsighted bastards are FINALLY realizing that the main thing the US had going for it was a HUGE, nearly insatiable, consumer market. However, as decent paying jobs have left the country (sent overseas by Jack Welch and the like), demand has dried up and suddenly, GE's bottom line is threatened not by cheaper suppliers, but by plummerting demand.

Haven't we serviced the supply side long enough? Isn't it time for that pendulum to start swinging back to the demand side?

Here is the list of the ten Senators refusing to vote for a public option. The list comes from
http://www.billpressmedia.com/?p=3783 The contact information is listed on the Senate site.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?Name=...

Lets fill up their voice mail and email boxes.

Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): (202) 224-6551 Web Form: bennelson.senate.gov/contact-me.cfm

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE): (202) 224-2441 ; web form carper.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) (202) 224-3441 Web Form: cantwell.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) (202) 224-5244 Web Form: wyden.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) (202) 224-6551 Web Form: bennelson.senate.gov/contact-me.cfm

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) (202) 224-5824 Web Form: landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) (202) 224-6342 Web Form: hagan.senate.gov/?p=contact

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) (202) 224-2043 Web Form: conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) (202) 224-2651 Web Form: baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue

Quark -

Nope - you were right the first time ... _I_ was wrong, it is tktvr.

Oops. :)

Paul Krugman today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

"Not Enough Audacity "

When it comes to domestic policy, there are two Barack Obamas.

On one side there’s Barack the Policy Wonk, whose command of the issues — and ability to explain those issues in plain English — is a joy to behold.

But on the other side there’s Barack the Post-Partisan, who searches for common ground where none exists, and whose negotiations with himself lead to policies that are far too weak.

Both Baracks were on display in the president’s press conference earlier this week. First, Mr. Obama offered a crystal-clear explanation of the case for health care reform, and especially of the case for a public option competing with private insurers. “If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal,” he asked, “then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.”

But when asked whether the public option was non-negotiable he waffled, declaring that there are no “lines in the sand.” That evening, Rahm Emanuel met with Democratic senators and told them — well, it’s not clear what he said. Initial reports had him declaring willingness to abandon the public option, but Senator Kent Conrad’s staff later denied that. Still, the impression everyone got was of a White House all too eager to make concessions.

The big question here is whether health care is about to go the way of the stimulus bill.

At the beginning of this year, you may remember, Mr. Obama made an eloquent case for a strong economic stimulus — then delivered a proposal falling well short of what independent analysts (and, I suspect, his own economists) considered necessary. The goal, presumably, was to attract bipartisan support. But in the event, Mr. Obama was able to pick up only three Senate Republicans by making a plan that was already too weak even weaker.

At the time, some of us warned about what might happen: if unemployment surpassed the administration’s optimistic projections, Republicans wouldn’t accept the need for more stimulus. Instead, they’d declare the whole economic policy a failure. And that’s exactly how it’s playing out. With the unemployment rate now almost certain to pass 10 percent, there’s an overwhelming economic case for more stimulus. But as a political matter it’s going to be harder, not easier, to get that extra stimulus now than it would have been to get the plan right in the first place.

The point is that if you’re making big policy changes, the final form of the policy has to be good enough to do the job. You might think that half a loaf is always better than none — but it isn’t if the failure of half-measures ends up discrediting your whole policy approach.

Which brings us back to health care. It would be a crushing blow to progressive hopes if Mr. Obama doesn’t succeed in getting some form of universal care through Congress. But even so, reform isn’t worth having if you can only get it on terms so compromised that it’s doomed to fail.

What will determine the success or failure of reform? Above all, the success of reform depends on successful cost control. We really, really don’t want to get into a position a few years from now where premiums are rising rapidly, many Americans are priced out of the insurance market despite government subsidies, and the cost of health care subsidies is a growing strain on the budget.

And that’s why the public plan is an important part of reform: it would help keep costs down through a combination of low overhead and bargaining power. That’s not an abstract hypothesis, it’s a conclusion based on solid experience. Currently, Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance companies, while federal health care programs other than Medicare (which isn’t allowed to bargain over drug prices) pay much less for prescription drugs than non-federal buyers. There’s every reason to believe that a public option could achieve similar savings.

Indeed, the prospects for such savings are precisely what have the opponents of a public plan so terrified. Mr. Obama was right: if they really believed their own rhetoric about government waste and inefficiency, they wouldn’t be so worried that the public option would put private insurers out of business. Behind the boilerplate about big government, rationing and all that lies the real concern: fear that the public plan would succeed.

So Mr. Obama and Democrats in Congress have to hang tough — no more gratuitous giveaways in the attempt to sound reasonable. And reform advocates have to keep up the pressure to stay on track. Yes, the perfect is the enemy of the good; but so is the not-good-enough-to-work. Health reform has to be done right.

You can contact members of Congress/Senate and the Whitehouse with the following toll free number from the AMA: 1- 800-833-6354. If you want to contact a senator outside your district you will need a zip code from their district which you can get from their website.

Here is the list of the nine Senators refusing to vote for a public option. The list comes from
http://www.billpressmedia.com/?p=3783 The contact information is listed on the Senate site.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?Name=...

Lets fill up their voice mail and email boxes.

Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): (202) 224-6551 Web Form: bennelson.senate.gov/contact-me.cfm

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE): (202) 224-2441 ; web form carper.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) (202) 224-3441 Web Form: cantwell.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) (202) 224-5244 Web Form: wyden.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) (202) 224-6551 Web Form: bennelson.senate.gov/contact-me.cfm

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) (202) 224-5824 Web Form: landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) (202) 224-6342 Web Form: hagan.senate.gov/?p=contact

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) (202) 224-2043 Web Form: conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) (202) 224-2651 Web Form: baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue

Even if the public option is a resounding success, will it really mean the end of the for-profit insurance providers? I, for one, sincerely doubt it.

Around 40 years ago, when I was entering the labor market, there was only one health insurance provider - the non-profit (at that time) Blue Cross/Blue Shield. There was also a thriving for-profit insurance industry, providing liability coverage for drivers and homeowners, life insurance, etc. Most of the companies that provide Health Insurance today are simply new divisions or subsidiaries of those same companies.

If a very successful and well-run public plan supplants all the corporate providers that are around today, those companies aren't going to go out of business - will simply shut down their health insurance divisions. They'll simply have to find a way survive on the auto/home/life insurance business - JUST LIKE THEY USED TO!

Dear Sen. Sanders,
Please talk about how awful the idea of getting our health care from non caring employers is. This is a letter I wrote to Sen Patty Murry and Sen Cantwell.

Telling people to get their health care through their employer is not only forcing people to put themselves in a completly vulnerable position in which a supervisor can take your health care away on a whim, but it is a complete myth for millions of people. Poor people are expected to go to work in jobs without health care everyday in many thousands of types of employment while our leaders smugly pretend that getting health care from an employer is a given, and that it is a given that this is a stable situation that people can depend on.

People lose jobs every day. Make a wrong move, you fired and you have no health care. Get too sick to work, well, it won't be long before you are gotten rid of on some pretext or another. Get pregnant, oh the odds of you doing something unacceptable just went up real real high. Make you supervisor feel threatened accidentally, your health care is threatened....your child's health care is threatened...etc. Multiply this vulnerability by an infinite number of reasons a person could lose a job and health care without warning and you'll begin to get a picture of what it is like to have to depend on flaky supervisors or floundering businesses, or offices full of back stabbers to maintain your and your love one's health.

Pretending to believe that a person can depend on an employer for health care is not only ridiculous; it is based on a lie. Replacing jobs that provide health care is extremely hard and people go for years trying to find an employer that will make this commitment to them. Most employers would rather exercise the many formulas to avoid having to provide health care to employees. I have been sent home from several jobs after paying daycare, transportation costs, and other sundry costs of coming to work only to work an hour and then be told to go home because I was going to have too many hours and my employer would legally owe me health care. This is just one example of how the poor subsidize the rich with their very small resources and their very valuable health. This practice is common and it was done at the community college regularly and that employer was Washington State.

It has been my experience that employers who provide health care also demand huge amounts of unquestioned wage theft. The attitude across the board is that you better be grateful and that means doing a lot of tasks on your own time. I worked for the Community Colleges of Spokane and this problem was rampant. It was horrible and to make it worse my work school site was in a Superfund site that was loaded with heavy metals. The fact that this site was in a Superfund site was hidden from our knowledge and I only found out because I was seriously ill and started paying attention to some info that I was gathering, small bit by bit, from things mentioned in the newspaper. It took me many years to gather enough of this hidden info to successfully research the problem as site names was hidden and addresses placed on unmarked dirt road behind my work site.

To make a long story short, I was exposed to lead, arsenic, chromium 3 & 6, and cadmium. I finally quit work when my employer reduced my hours below the number which made me eligible for benefits. This was SOP for employees who became seriously ill which, of course, happened regularly.

Before all that, I got my best friend a job at the community colleges as my aide. This, of course, before I knew I was asking her to join me to work in a filthy Superfund site. She died June 1, 09 of 5 different kinds of cancers... stomach cancer, intestinal cancer, bladder cancer, gall bladder cancer, colon cancer. She was a 47 year old single mother of three kids.

I am sick of these lies and myths that are killing people. With the lax pollution laws, the secrecy that is enjoyed by polluters, the bomb testing by the US Government, the leaks and pollution from Nuclear Plants like Hanford, Americans deserve Single Payer Health Care. Americans are owed Single Payer Health Care.

Telling people to pretend that getting health care from an employer is a good idea is also a complete lie. It is smothering position for people and it keeps people in jobs that are miserable and is a recipe for employers to exploit employees when it does happen. There are no laws making employers provide health care and they only provide health care to some employees even if they provide any. High deductibles are a given.

Anyone not working to fix this horrible life threatening health care nightmare in America will not be receiving my vote, but will find me fighting for someone that will.

This travesty and exploitation of lower classes is inhumane and not one bit better than segregation by race. Now we have segregation of health care by class. Promoting the phony lie that people should expect health care from an employer is just that, a lie for millions counted and millions more uncounted.

Webmaster, my "remember password" function never works on this site. Also I am not finding a place to change my password to something I can remember.

B Roll,

'Love music, too -- all kinds, but especially folk music from around the world.

Thom criticized Barack Obama yesterday for what he considered caving to right-wing pressure and making a statement in support of the Iranian protesters and critical of the Iranian government for violently repressing them.

Was Thom right?

Thom’s concern was that incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was declared the winner of the election would use Obama’s statement as an opportunity to blame the unrest on the United States.

Ahmadinejad, of course, immediately used the opportunity to point a finger at the U.S.

But was Thom right?

My impression of Thom’s comment was that he was reacting in fear, that the Iranian people would be turned against us, especially because of America’s intervention in the Iranian affairs from 1953 forward. (We were behind a coup against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. Then we brought back the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and supported his dictatorial regime until he was overthrown by the Iranian revolution in 1979.)

The Iranian people are well aware of the U.S. involvement in those events and have been suspicious about American intentions toward their country since then. But that was almost 6 decades ago and a lot has happened since then.

Like most societies, Iranian society is very complex. We know that Iranians, especially the young and urban young, as well as the middle class, like American culture and society. They also like Barack Obama.

I think, but I’m not sure, that they may be more sophisticated than you’re giving them credit for. Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader had already begun pointing fingers at the United States. The people protesting the election aren’t likely to fall for the Iranian government’s propaganda. In fact, they may take hope in the fact that Obama has spoken up in their defense.

I’m agnostic on this point, but I don’t know how long the United States, as the sole super power in the world with the claim of being the world’s moral leader, could be expected to remain too low key when the government of an important country is cracking down on its population they Iran is doing now.

I guess we’ll just have to hope for the best and see how things work out.

Bush One instituted torture programs, engineered Iran-Contra traitorous games, used the U.S. military to secure his economic interests in Latin America, and committed a WAR CRIME when he permitted the retreating Iraq army to be burned alive. If Bush Two is a war criminal, well, he's just a chip off the old block. Like father like son.

Why doesn't anyone want to talk about Bush One's crimes, too?

Just getting old and spending (at least) $250,000 of our high security tax money)every year just to skydive (with a nanny parachutist chained to his waist!), is NOT an excuse for allowing a war criminal to walk, unexposed or unpunished! Just because War Criminal Pinochet got old, the world did not forget his crimes.

High fructose corn syrup has a friend in Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

What is this record industry sponsored "Performance Tax" versus saveyourradio.org "Free Radio" thingy that KTLK keeps pimping about?

For the caller Sylvia, who can only use the Internet at the library: Ron Wyden can be e-mailed directly through his senate page. You do not have to have an e-mail account to contact him, at least, if e-mail is the way you want to do it.

mstaggerlee

I support your request for an edit button. And I'd like the return of the features the previous blog had, which were buttons below the text window that allowed us to do things like bold text, insert graphics and pictures and more.

Quark,

I'll read the article and get back to you next week, if the world or my world doesn't end in the meantime.

anyone having problems with website - email- webmaster@thomhartmann.com

I want to tell a quick health insurance story that happened to a friend last month.
My friend had bone spurs in her foot. She went to her foot doctor who recommended a non invasive ultrasound procedure to break up the spurs. She made arrangements with her employer to take time off for the procedure. The day before it was to happen, her doctor received a call from her insurance company, Blue Cross/Blue Shield denying the procedure. BCBS has a program named peer to peer where the patients doctor can talk directly to the insurance companies doctor. My friend doctor called the program but instead of being connected to a doctor he was connected to medical assistant who told him bluntly that that was the best he could get. The doctor asked why they were wasting his time? Well he said that that in his 27 years of practice, he has never been treated as poorly by an insurance company. My friend apologized to him be he told her it was not her fault.

Eventually, my friend had a outpatient procedure that involved two incisions and considerably more pain and healing time as well as being more expensive.

There it is another example of the government, uh excuse me , the insurance company coming between the patient and his doctor.

Want to know more about what's happening in health care?
http://democratichealthcareturncoats.webs.com/

B Roll,

I have been having similar thoughts about Michael Jackson. I've been thinking about the extent to which pain in one's life affects his success. (So many of Jackson's lyrics talk about his painful childhood.) How do talent, access and luck fit into the equation (compaired with pain)?

Quark,

When I considered a screen name it was so I could participate on the message board, which I actually have done very little of. The discussions there get so complicated, and convoluted.

From reading the message board, it seemed that there were some very smart people there; the kind who have deep and detailed knowledge of subjects they discuss. You know, like the way Thom can tell you what Thomas Jefferson's favorite flavor of ice cream is and go into detail about it.

I figured I'm not in that league, but I think I have some interesting insights (insights may be too glorious a word), and tend to see things from a different angle based on my experiences and whatever has made my mind work the way it does.

So, I felt that I might not be able to tell a whole deep detailed story, but I might be able to add some facts, thoughts, analysis and interpretations to discussions.

When you're watching the news, there's the main shot and the cutaways. The main shot is usually the reporter or anchor, if there is an on screen reporter, and then there are the cutaway shots that are supposed to give more flavor and help fill out the story. The main shot is called the A Roll and the cutaway shots are called the B Roll.

That's me. I might not have the main storyline, but I can add some cutaway shots.

I assume that the terminology comes from an organizing principle of shooting and editing. To make it easier, you'd want your main footage on one roll of film or tape and your cutaways on another. That way, when you're editing and you want to add a detail, or maybe you just need to make a transition, you can easily go to your B Roll (of tape/footage) and pick a shot to insert.