The following line just keeps coming up over and over again:
“the public plan that 76% of Americans want”
It is starting to sound like pure propoganda to me.
I don’t think 76% of Americans ever wanted the public plan and I certainly think whatever the number was at one point that number has dropped significantly since.

Great video. Very inspiring. Thanks, Mike.

PS-
I just read this line on another story:
“A majority of Iowans want a public plan, as do 67% of Iowa Democrats”
Can we agree that the percent of Iowa Republicans in favor of a public plan is certainly lower than 67%? Yes, and probably much lower. That could easily put the overall percentage below 50% inspite of the line “A majority….” That’s a big difference from that 76% that is carelessly tossed about.
The public plan option is as dead as Jacob Marley’s ghost.

The part of Colorado that Salazar represents might as well annex itself to Utah. It is that Republican and that uniformed. torgo2009 might be right about one thing. The percentage of people wanting a public plan may not be 76%. It is probably higher than that now. My premium just went up 37% starting next month. I suspect every single person in my group is now in favor of the public option!

snark

We want to keep giving funding insurance companies who provide zero value to patients. We want the insurance companies to keep funds that should go to physicians, PA’s, nurses, aides, Medical technologists, PT’s, Hospitals, pharmaceuticals, medical device providers and all those who actually provide tangible VALUE to the patient.

/snark.

You would think that the insurance companies would wait until the health care reform had shaken out before raising rates. Or are they letting us know who really controls our country?

I’m sure Rahm’s going to take good care of you. Really, he’s going to pay for your health insurance. Trust Rahm.

Notice any resemblance? http://coleworld.org/images/weasel_2.jpg

The numbers on a public option health plan come from a Quinnipac poll released two weeks ago. Here is a report on it from Bloomberg.com.

What is your basis for not believing it?

Pay no attention to Torgo. He looks after the place while the Master is away.

The voices in his head say so.

Torgo Try this:
HART/McINTURFF Study #6095–page 21
June 2009 NBC/Wall Street Journal Survey
34a. In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance––extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?
Extremely important 41
Quite important 35
Not that important 12
Not at all important 8
Not sure 4
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/ms…..l_Full.pdf

Here’s another:
Most Americans Support Public Health Care Option, Poll Finds

By Jonathan D. Salant

July 1 (Bloomberg) — Sixty-nine percent of Americans support creation of a government-run health plan to compete with private insurance companies, a new poll found.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..NeGQfmE378

do the google. “I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” –Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278

TOrGo sHOulD STiCk tO dELIVeRyiNg PIZzaS.

Mike is great. Any chance we can get him a microphone for these situations? I’d contribute to that cause. Thanks for these!

Is it worth passing a health care bill that is little more than a bailout of the insurance industry, just like the ACES bill bailed out the coal industry, or the supplemental bailed out European banks?

according to the axiom of the Least Worst, if they pass a botched, flawed plan that lavishes billions on the industry that helped write it, but also includes a miniscule improvement for a few regular folks who are able to jump through 53 bureaucratic hoops, then yes, it is worth it!

Dr Kirk Murphy wrote a fine advocacy of the need to pass something

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/6145

however, it is the continuing pattern of settling for the least worst that got us to this point in history, so maybe it is time to re-evaluate all the cpitulations

It’s a sad side effect of listening to Limpy Limbaugh.

The Blue Dog Dems need to use their taxpayer-financed health plan to treat their addiction problem. They’ve been mainlining lobbyist money into their bloodstream a bit too long, and now they can’t quit the junk.

I think this video would make a great campaign or issue ad in Mr. “Whatever” Salazar’s district. How do you think Mike Stark would have been treated if he had announced himself as, “Representative Stark of Blood-from-a-Colorado-Turnip” health insurer? Do you think Stark would’ve gotten the same quick-step walking interview? Stark should count himself lucky that Salazar didn’t follow Nebraska’s senator Johanns’ lead and get the cops called on his ass.

With such an ad, maybe a clip from Moyers’ interview with Wendell Potter, about flying over Colorado in a corporate jet with gold-rimmed plates and gold-plated utensils.

bb

Salazar’s ears sure pricked up at the mention of the word “weasel.” Hehehe.

Sure enough: http://garyflood.org/JSalazarWeasel.gif

Torgo, just curious, do you take care of the place while the Master is away?

Yup, that’s our man.

It really sucks when you have to hold your nose to vote for someone, however, the repigs here on the Redstern Slope smell even worse.

Jane —

Salazar is just representing the views of his conservative district.

[/Blue Dog Spin]

Facts, is that all you have to offer just facts. Pathetic /*s

Yiccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is it with these guys? Here’s my take, though it probably doesn’t apply to Salazar. They’ve been in Washington so long they don’t see the rest of the country as real people, just consumers to get votes out of every two years. My rep has been there since 1976. He lives there. One of his kids dated one of my friend’s kids 20 years ago! The people’s suffering just doesn’t register with them. The only way this is going to pass is through an outside movement, like Civil Rights. It is going to take large-scale demonstrations.

One of the enjoyable things about living in France this spring was watching how groups affected by government regulations or proposed legislation actually got out and marched in the tens of thousands: doctors one time, teachers another, and so on. That is what it is going to take. The Reps have to know that their re-election depends on passing a public option.

The Reps have to know that their re-election depends on passing a public option.

!!! indeed – that is the kind of thing it would take to get their attention.

but, unfortunately, the Progressive netroots has bound itself to the need to support Democrats, no matter what, and cannot credibly threaten to withdraw support of any candidate with the talismanic (D) appended after their name on the ballot.

outside of Democratic Party online outreach type sites, there is writing like this:

But let’s note that Obama’s sell-out on health care reform was aided and abetted by the progressives, the left groups and political organizations and the unions that failed to hold him to his earlier espousal of single-payer, that instead of calling him out on his cave-in, bought into his initial compromise of a so-called “public option” insurance alternative, and even into his subsequent backdown to an even more watered-down version of possibly state-run or “cooperative” plans.

http://counterpunch.org/lindorff07142009.html

nice going! keep whipping for the least-worst from a terminally broken, unresponsive, corrupted Democratic Party – and you may not even get that!

as for the system that would work, Single Payer, face it, the Democratic Party is your biggest obstacle!

the Progressive President, for whom you did uncompensated pushback and advocacy?

President Obama’s White House made crystal clear this week: a Canadian-style, Medicare-for-all, single payer health insurance system is off the table.

Obama doesn’t even want to discuss it.

Take the case of Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan).

Conyers is the leading advocate for single payer health insurance in Congress.

Last week, Conyers attended a Congressional Black Caucus meeting with President Obama at the White House.

During the meeting, Congressman Conyers, sponsor of the single payer bill in the House (HR 676), asked President Obama for an invite to the President’s Marchy 5 health care summit at the White House.

Conyers said he would bring along with him two doctors – Dr. Marcia Angell and Dr. Quentin Young – to represent the majority of physicians in the United States who favor single payer.

Obama would have none of it.

This week, by e-mail, Conyers heard back from the White House – no invite.

Why not?

Well, believe it or not, the Obama White House is under the thumb of the health insurance industry.

Obama has become the industry’s chief enforcer of its key demand: single payer health insurance is off the table.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/03-15

From Scarecrow’s post, above:

D. A national health insurance plan (”public option”) will be
one of the plans available in the exchange to individuals and small businesses that don’t have insurance.

Ummmm…are we getting a little nervous? Scepticism is understandable, but grim resignation? This is far from over, JH.

.
What’s coming is a sell-out on the universal single-payer national healthcare that 80% of us are demanding.

That’s a good thing. It’ll be the beginning of the end of corrupt corporatist government in the U.S. There will be no real solutions to any public policy problems until we get corporate money and corporatist politicians, Democrats and Republicans, the Hell out of our government. They are the problem. A citizen take-over of the Democratic Party is the solution.
.

Check the link. That’s what they’re there for.