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The President's health care policy speech was brilliant but when you get into the details another picture emerges. Unfortunately, at this point, the proposal outlined last night is the ultimate corporate giveaway. It's not health care, it’s insurance care. As many as thirty million new customers for an insurance industry which makes money not providing health care. The only way this country will see true health is by investing in real health care. That is the essence of HR676, the single payer bill.
The President's health care policy speech was brilliant but when you get into the details another picture emerges. Unfortunately, at this point, the proposal outlined last night is the ultimate corporate giveaway. It's not health care, it’s insurance care. As many as thirty million new customers for an insurance industry which makes money not providing health care. The only way this country will see true health is by investing in real health care. That is the essence of HR676, the single payer bill.
The President opened his speech speaking of how we have solved the economic crisis - how? By rewarding those who caused the crash! Is this the way we solve the health care crisis? Rewarding the insurance companies? Helping insurance and pharmaceutical stock to soar, propping up markets while skimping on health care? The very same system which caused the health care crisis is being rewarded with the guarantee of tens of millions of new customers mandated - by law - to have health care. The latest plan rewards the very companies that have denied treatment, denied care, denied drug coverage while their profits grow daily.
The only way this country will see true sustainable economic recovery is through investment in the real economy, priming the pump through job creation. The only way this country will see true health is by investing in real health care.
The "public option" has been relegated to insignificance. What we will now get is yet another "private option", not a public option, because single-payer is "off the table." We the people deserve better. We have been faced with general warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan - multi-trillion dollar ballouts for arms merchants, $12 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, bailouts to coal and nuclear industries, and now proposed huge subsidies for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. What's wrong with this picture? Everything!
- Dennis Kucinich
President Obama's proposal fell short of change for which I voted. If I understood his plan correctly I will not be eligible to drop my employer based coverage and buy into the government run plan. In other words the "public option" is not an option for Amercans like me. This is unfortunate because I believe the pool needs to be expanded to include people like me who are, fortunately, able to afford the coverage that I have right now in order to make the public plan more financially robust. No wonder health insurance stocks are up today.
Here is a translation of Rep. Wilson's "apology" to the White House for calling President Obama a liar during his address last night: "I still believe that you are a lying sack of you-know-what but I acknowledge that I can expect no political cover whatsoever from my Republican colleagues." That is why I did the following: 1) I called my congressman (Brian Baird) and demanded a House censure of Wilson; 2) I called Rep. Wilson's office this morning and politely told the staffer who answered the phone that he should resign. This call took several attempts to make by the way. I have had trouble getting through to my Senators' offices but the only time it took so many attempts to connect to a Representative's office was when I was calling Speaker Pelosi. 3) I called Leader Hoyer to thank him for his call on Wilson to apologize to the House but I also requested that he amend the request to include Rep. Wilson's acknowledgement that the very premise of his petulant outburst like a teabagger at a town hall was patently false. Failure to do so should draw an immediate censure vote on the House floor; 4) send $5 to Wilson's likely 2010 Democratic challenger.
Thanx, Thom, for all you do. I have learned so much from you and your listeners on your shows (local and syndicated).
Excellent Ed, we could actually get some photoshoppers going and set up an entire site. I will try to tweet your link today.
And while I have everyones attention- twitter is making Beck nervous- twitter your favorite progressive link- especially internet radio link daily- I think its working, honesty I truly believe the folks on the other side are just misinformed- you get them the facts! and they will do the right thing.
I am with Lore- we should let Sonya know that we are out here and that she Rocks!
Trevor,
Thanks for the vote of confidence....but....I have no voice that will be heard by those in power. I've seen this movie. I can't even get the ear of my congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, (though I would prefer her head on a platter.....figuratively speaking.)
Thom gave me this idea....."What the CHIC Senator should be wearing these days"
Check it out!
http://jeffersonsporch.blogspot.com/
Caller- I did not hear Barack Obama say he was going to fine poor people-
Here is the nice graphic layout of the President's plan at this link, be sure to scroll down or you might miss it http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hcsignon/?district=CA5&returnlink...
I'm kinda new to all this, but, is there some way to vote Rasta off the island?
THOM! Make Sonia Santomayor your person of the day and send her a signed copy of your book!! Please! She would love the insight into something she sees already!
Wow! Lets here it for both Shawn Taylor and Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor!!!
DDay - you need to go and call him out!
UK schools hiring bouncers as cheap teachers
Thousands of former postmen, driving instructors and nightclub bouncers are being hired as “cheap labour” to teach children as young as five
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23742335-details/Schools+...
Children in Britain living like in ‘times of Dickens’
Poverty levels in parts of Britain mirror "the times of Dickens", leaving schools struggling to cope with increasing numbers of children lacking the most basic personal skills, according to a teachers’ leader.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/6164141/Children-in-m...
Thom's analysis is spot on. He is confirming what I thought I heard last night. That is why I'm reluctant to attend his event here in Minnesota on Saturday. I would be lending support to something that very well may be a pig in a poke. I want to believe him and don't want to do anything to hinder his efforts if he really is working for the real change we all worked and voted for. I walk a tight-rope between my convictions and his promises. Keeping the heat on him seems like the best course until he proves otherwise. Blind support is nothing more than joining a cult and drinking the kool-aid. The only cult I'll join is one that promotes the promise of our liberty as envisioned by our fore fathers.
I believe many college professors as adjunct faculty at private schools would fall into the 5%.
BTW, the MSNBC website has been changed overnight. It is MUCH harder to navigate (i.e., links to Countdown and Rachel Maddow are harder to find --- "buried" in other headings rather than being listed in the previous side panel.)
Could Keith Olbermann's anti-corporate comments last night have anything to do with it? Just asking...
Obama is who we thought he was
He's a stark raving centrist compromiser --
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/
DRichards and Gerald Socha,
I agree with both of you. I guess I am in a temporarily weakened state (fever, sore throat) and want SOMETHING to work.
I have been thinking about what Jonathon Cohn (author of the book Sick) and later (this a.m.) Howard Dean have said about Obama's proposals --- that this is a good start (my interpretation.) Rep. Maxine Waters was pleased with the principles laid out in the speech, too. I'd like to hear what Rep. Anthony Weiner thinks, too. Time (as Thom says) will tell. Dean video:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32777358#32777358
Cohn said last night on MSNBC that he wants single-payer reform but that the principles Obama laid out can be built upon legislatively over the next few years. It's up to Congress (with Obama's "guidance") to follow through.
Anyway, if this is a start, LET'S GET STARTED!
Yes, it seemed like he played Mr. Bipartisan and kind of shoved we progressives off to a corner. So many "liberals" seem so school girl giddy over this speech but in the end, the option is no option and it's really Kent Conrad's lame idea, and on and on. The insurance companies make out like bandits with enforced consumers and remember, he has already given us up to the drug companies, they have free reign to keep shaking us down.
There is more to dislike but what's most distressing to me is how many so called liberals seemed snowed by this speech.
is it true that President Obama will make me buy my socks from Wal-Mart?? or is he just going to force me to buy health care?
One of the most distressing aspects of last nights speech was how our President characterized the public option as being a "liberal" concern. Like he was throwing us a bone. Upwards of 70% of Americans polled indicate their support for a public option. I need to examine and digest what the President's plans really mean, but, at first blush it seems overly convoluted, complicated, and timid to me. None the less, I personally will reluctantly support him for now. It seems like the president didn't throw us, (progressives), under the bus...but...he has left us dangling perilously suspended in front of the spinning tires. Being a progressive in the Democratic Party is all too often an exercise in learning to survive being ridden hard and being put up wet, to borrow an old cowboy phrase.
Watching the Republicans keep negotiating for Health Care Bill that they have no intention of supporting it became obvious how the Democrats were being "played" yet again. The intention is not to create a bill that would be palatable to the "moderates" but to keep pushing the agenda to the right to make it unpalatable to the left. This is an intentional and brilliant strategy. They are using the "poison pill" tactic that Wall Street Corporations use all the time in Corporate America.
I am the mother of a very medically fragile kid - actually he is 19 now, and disabled. I also own a business and pay the premiums for all employees at 100%.
The point I never hear is that I would be spending my income so differently if I were not paying so much out of pocket each year (personally for the past nearly 20 years).
Are other corporations and businesses really in favor of a plan that puts so much of this kind of money into the hands of the insurance companies and not into their pockets. I am not taking vacations, buying new cars, new clothes at anything like I might be if I were not putting so much money out each year for the high cost of the non-covered portion of my medical.
As the employer, I had to change premiums this year because I could not afford the plan we had for years, the costs were too high. So, the bottom line is that individual out of pocket went up by a hugh degree.
So why are Republicans in favor of lining the pockets of the big insurance companies instead of their own?
Just wondering why this argument has not come up.
Anita
Where do I start? First, Thom's plan for health care reform is the answer. Medicare, Part E, is a great idea. Medicare for everyone!!!
How can we afford it? Rollback the Reagan and Bush II taxcuts!!! Corporate America needs to pay more in taxes. Some increases in our taxes to help God's children should not be too much to ask of us.
Whose paying for the three wars in the Middle East? Why can we afford to kill God's children but not to afford to save God's children with decent health care? Everytime I hear that we are a Christian nation, I experience a torrential puke, similar to Niagara Falls.
http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/09/09/a-tiny-minority/?utm_source...
Re: Mandatory insurance for all (like mandatory auto insurance) is a real boon for the insurance industry.
Mind you, the health insurance companies already agreed to the Administration's terms on rescission and pre-existing conditions months ago in exchange for a mandate that all Americans would have some kind of insurance coverage. And, of course, covering more preventative care has been one of the major objects all along. So, there was nothing new here.
Obama also promised health insurance exchanges, to make it easier to buy health insurance companies' products once the government mandates that you must do so. ..
Post Mortem: Did Obama's Speech Set Stage For Death Of Change?
http://airamerica.com/blog/2009/sep/09/obamas-speech-shows-some-people-w...