note to DAVID M. HERSZENHORN / NYT:

Messina wasn’t merely a “long time aide” – he was Baucus’ Chief of Staff

and there’s this:

deal maker who is not fully trusted by either party . . . .

really ?, ’cause CQ Politics has a slightly different take:

Now Baucus has emerged as one of his party’s fundraising champions

donations of at least $5,000 to 25 Democratic senators, including 10 members of two committees writing the health care bill: Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Show Baucus and other Democratic senators your support for the public option here:http://www.wewantthepublicoption.com/
Your name might even be on TV!

“Large, vocal consistuency?”

He means the private companies.

Gotta love this organization
http://haarm.org/

Baucus is leading? Kiss real reform goodbye.

Grassley has drawn the line in the sand
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…..hp?ref=fpb

Grassley has drawn a line on his re election fund. work that corner Senator, work it !!

What Should a Public Health Plan Option Include?
upstairs

I’m amazed that it has taken centrists like Baucus so long to get this: even if you’re sincere about your centrism, this idea that the left should be silenced only hurts your cause. Suddenly your favored centrist position is the left position, the starting point for the eventual compromise rather than the end point.

Good negotiators start by asking for far more than they really want to wind up with. Senate Democrats are such poor negotiators that many assume they are doing it on purpose.

Republicans and blue dog Democrats in the US Senate care; they care about the health of, tadah… corporate greed, specifically, corporate greed in the health “industry.” Greedy American insurance companies are scared that when the public option non-profit federal health insurance plan becomes law, there will be a 21st century version of the 22 April 1889 Oklahoma land rush, with millions of people switching from private health insurance plans into the new federal public option health insurance…

O/T: President Obama murdered some sixty Pakistanis attending a funeral yesterday with his drone/missile strike. He killed more people in one day than the Tehran tyrants killed in a week. Heck of a war crime, President Obama.

How depressing! Why don’t we raise the stakes (and money) and simply buy Baucus ourselves.

just attach a rider giving Iowa some more grain subsidies for corporate agriculture and Chuck’ll come on board….

If you are satisfied, not happy but satisfied, and apparently some 70% of Americans are, please be aware the cuts to benefits that keep you and your family healthy today will be many times more than the increase in benefits to those that remain in need. As a result you and your family should be prepared to suffer longer and die sooner to provide this benefit to others. Yes this is a very harsh line and unlikely to be repeated by politicians who know it to be true because often their pledge to represent is clouded by the desire to be re-elected. You are more likely to hear “If you are satisfied today you will be unhappy with proposed government plans”(as close as I can remember how Senator John Cornyn – R. TX said it on a radio show last week).

Healthcare is a complicated issue. The secret everyone in Washington knows is that in order to expand provide equal access to all healthcare you must actually limit access to the majority. Even John McCain in his campaign said he was in favor of a results based payer system. This seems attractive to a lot of industrious hard working Americans. However this is in place today by most insurance companies and they deny care on most unproven or procedures with very low probability of a satisfactory outcome. The way you pay for everyone is to simply raise the threshold. A $40,000 procedure with an 80% success rate may be allowed by an insurance company today but denied by a system that needs 85% at $40,000 to be deemed cost effective. In the words of a hospital system executive I spoke with years ago, “We all know what it will take to provide the same care for everyone; more people have to die.”

When people raise the concern that their availability of healthcare will be decided by the government our President responds “Private insurers deny services now”. Yes, insurance companies do at times deny treatment but they do so at the risk of multi-million dollar judgments when the story is laid out to a jury. It is the risk/reward system all businesses operate within. Our government healthcare knows no such penalty for the denial of treatment. The President has yet to say they will not limit care.

The idea that if you are happy with your plan you can keep it is a myth. You more than likely did not choose your coverage now. Your employer selected the company and plan. In an effort to be competitive in their industry they were forced to pick a plan as good or better than other entities where you might choose to work. However if a business will be forced to compete with others that choose to pay a tax and put their employees on a public health plan they soon will be forced to do the same. Our President kind of smiles and says “If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, 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.” It is logical that private business requiring a profit to survive would not be able to compete against our government running healthcare in a money losing manner for decades. Private business can’t raise taxes or continue to rely on the Chinese loaning them money to run in the red. Our government does this every day.

The 1990’s Hillary healthcare plan was defeated by millions of advertising dollars spent by the insurance companies. Today it has taken them less than four months of our governments treatment of business to decide they are better off betting they can benefit from the change than risk fighting it. As much as our president during his campaign decried the use of executive power by G.W. Bush as it related to terrorism and the Iraq war he has embraced it domestically as a way to pursue his agenda. The insurance companies watched the banks and auto industry have their business terms directed from the executive branch of our government without intrusion by the legislature or the courts. They have also taken notice of the huge benefits awaiting companies like GE through standardized electronic medical records and cap and trade legislation. You have seen the new green GE commercials, yes? You see risk/reward in play again but now it’s not profit/courts it’s profit/government with no checks and balance.

The following link compares U.S. healthcare to the healthcare available in countries that have already travelled the path we are about to go down.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/BA649

It is somewhat curious to me that those who fought so hard for stem cell research for the advancement of treatments would support legislation that is sure to stifle that research and development to a point the original ban could have never touched.

I do believe we need to help those people truly in need. There are ways to take steps toward helping those in need be in a position to help themselves. Medical savings accounts, allowing the purchase of health insurance across state lines, or putting every individual in a position to choose their plan and company rather than being lumped as a group are all good steps. Our county suffers from becoming a consuming, service economy but the biggest hurdle to starting any business is healthcare for the entrepreneur or a small staff. Want to jump start the economy? Remove the hurdle of having to be part of a large group to get insurance and watch small business thrive.