AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Jon Walker and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

This one’s in the bag…ObamaRhama can’t do anythin’ they want to do unless they can get someone else to do it for ‘em and nobody’s willin to take the fall for an insurance industry bailout. Now the progressives in both houses of congress need to consolidate their gains, get the medicare public option signed into law and get EFCA onto the books by Christmas so that they can shake up the leadership goin’ into the 2010 elections. That’s where we need ta spend our meager resouces Firepups…on contributionas to progressives who are willin to take back the Democratic Party for Democrats!

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, IF THEY KNOW WE’RE LOCKED AND LOADED THEY’LL GO BACK TO THEIR FOXHUNTS AND COCKTAILS PARTIES!!

Jane & team is now my number 1 stop of the day. More, Lately I’m so caught by the quantity & quality of your effort I’m checking in throughout the day. I hope the contributions are POURING in. Keep on ‘em.

p.s. ZED!!!

Senator Conrad’s co-op gambit is especially annoying to anyone who knows anything about the history of co-ops in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. I live in Minnesota and my county has both a drugstore co-op (worker owned) and a health-care co-op (I don’t know the details). Minnesota also has a version of Medicaid which Pawlenty has tried to kill.

Various sorts of seller, buyer, and worker co-ops were founded in this area during the first part of the century. (The most famous was Land-o-Lakes, which remains a power in dairy marketing though I don’t think it’s a co-op any more.) All of them were founded by radical, populist, community-oriented people who were trying to help the commonfolk. They were a form of do-it-yourself act-locally radicalism by people who knew that the federal government was going to be a day late and a dollar short.

And now Conrad is using co-ops as a cheap gimmick to help out Blue Cross. Disgusting.

First part of the twentieth century, that is.

Less people in alternative options means more money for the private insurance industry. Co-ops are a real good idea if receiving campaign contributions from the industry is your primary goal.

Citizen JohnEmmerson:

As a native Minnesotan who resides jest across the St.Croix in Wisconsin, I too am pissed that Conrad would bastardize the concept of “co-ops” to help cover a multi billion dollar bailout of the health insurance industry. The bastard is so crooked they’ll hafta use a corkscrew ta get ‘im into his coffin after he dies…didja know his wife gets big 6 figures from the health insurance crooks?

I know that North Dakota has some real problems with racism and knownuthingism but what are the chances of Conrad gettin primaried out there?

I would assume that a true Christian is one that wants health care for all. Is Sean Hannity a true Christian? Must see video below.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=3080

I have a theory that a lot of big money interests go to the small plains states because campaigns are cheap there and the Senators are economical purchases. A lot of the Dakota-Montana-Wyoming etc. Senators are the go-to guys for national interests which have nothing in particular to do with the state.

I was just writing a story today about Australian government scientists who were not allowed to testify as government scientists being paid to learn about the subject. The subject was climate change, and they were only able to testify as private citizens because their opinions were that their government’s policy was seriously wrong.

Never underestimate the power of politicians to ignore truths they don’t like. In a sane world, this CBO report should be enough to scuttle the co-ops idea, at least as proposed by the Baucus Bill. I have the feeling we haven’t seen the last of this idea, though.

Sometimes. One of the Dakotas (can’t remember if it was North or South) made out well thanks to credit de-regulation.

Although I don’t know for sure, I’d be willing to be that CBO approval is only required for Democratic proposals. Ignoring the CBO is okay if you are a republican, I would venture to guess.

I believe that some companies relocate offices to Dakota. But it’s the same thing, a measly 1000 jobs is a lot in a state with 600,000 people.

North Dakota had a socialist government in 1918, more or less. They established a state bank which is still in business.

Y’know, if the numb-nut Democrats had thought about adding a little TAX INCREASE to the bill — say, for instance, on the upper income folks — there wouldn’t be all this gnashing of teeth over “revenue neutral.”

And besides, what an idiot Obama was to make “no effect on budget” a “feature” of his proposal. We can afford to spend big bucks on war, but not on the health of our citizens?

Yes.

Is this CBO report the final nail in the co-op coffin because it predicts the Baucus mash note to private insurance saves around $82 billion over 10 years?

Gee, I would have thought the CBO report out in September showing a strong public option (how I am growing to hate that PO phrase!) would save up to $110 billion over that same decade, doncha think?

Here’s a 9/25 article over at CongressDaily, in case you missed it… .

Mom from Maui:

“And besides, what an idiot Obama was to make ‘no effect on budget’ a ‘feature’ of his proposal. We can afford to spend big bucks on war, but not on the health of our citizens?”

First, yeah: Why on the face of the Blue Marble do you ever start bargaining by asking for less than what you want?

See Birthers? That proves he’s one of us, a product of American culture. Unlike foreign cultures, where every price is open to haggling (can you seriously imagine trying to talk down the price of potatoes with a cashier at a local FoodMart?), any product of those foreign cultures would gasp at such bargaining ineptitude, Right?

Second, and I freely admit I’m pulling figures out of ether here because I don’t know what the true bottom line costs would be though I can infer it from every other civilized country that provides universal health care, but I would very, very happily pay an extra grand a year in taxes if it also means no more co-pays, drug costs that have a fixed price like say $10 (regardless of drug or quantity thereof as in Britain) and that my employers could give me the first true COLA-competing raise in a decade because they just saved themselves maybe $15k a year on health benefits spending on me after Medicare For All is in place.

And if those death-dealing, blood-sucking vampire private insurers go under or have to radically alter their business models or their workers have to seek employment with the Medicare bureaucracy, it won’t even make me feel one small little sad.

I never feel any guilt smacking a blood-gorged mosquito drawing baby-sustenance from my arm into a sticky mess (apologies to all Hindus, PETAns and/or vegans with that comment, but I’ll settle my mosquito karma in the next go-round if need be).

They are leeches tapping a vein and need a liberal sprinkling of salt anyway.

BTW: I did a quickie, back of napkin figure noodling about actual health care expenses. I took the total figures spent per year on health care in Britain and here (thanks Google!). I divided those totals by the number of people covered (total British population is around 62 million, the total covered by health insurance in the US — subtracting the ballpark 46 million uninsured from the ballpark 300 million), and it showed we pay around $9k a year per insured person and they pay around $3.1k a year (US dollars) for total coverage.

So, let’s just say that the fear mongers are right: That British have to wait for proper care, yada yada. I say, okay — let’s spend twice what they pay to make sure we have more coverage. And, of course, add in the extra 46 million to that bottom line ensuring they are covered too (costing maybe an extra grand per person per year).

Voila! We have universal coverage, throw money at the system to ensure we have prompt care (addressing that unproved straw man), and we have just reduced total health care costs from the $2.286 trillion now to $2.1 trillion with everybody covered.

So, even if the 254 million currently insured are the only ones who can afford to pay the bill (assuming those uninsured are uninsured because they can’t afford to pay…), that savings is still a savings and we’re spending twice per person what Britain pays for their total Medicare For All system.

Did my public school education fail me on math here? Sure, this back-of-the-envelope ciphering ignores all the “it’s complicated” over-thinking, but I can’t see how paying twice the price (saving us money) on a system that primarily works can be all that wrong.

Correct on every single point in your comment.