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One of the big components of the new possible “deal” in the Senate would be to create a new, national Office of Personnel Management (OPM)-run program. How exactly this OPM exchange for national non-profit insurance plans, which is meant to be a replacement for the public option, would work is unclear. Rumors are that if the non-profit insurance companies fail to offer good enough plans on this new OPM exchange, it would trigger the creation of a real public option.
Who in Congress would likely oversee this new OPM exchange? The answer is Joe Lieberman.
The plan emerging from negotiations among moderate and liberal Democrats would put a key part of the planned health insurance exchanges under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). And jurisdiction for oversight of OPM falls to the centrist-dominated Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Lieberman chairs.
Thats right, Lieberman, the biggest champion of the health insurance industry in the Senate, will chair the committee that oversees this “alternative” to the public option. It would probably be Lieberman’s finger on the public option trigger. The idea of putting Lieberman in charge of keeping the health insurance industry honest sounds like hiring the fox to guard the hen house.
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Heckuva Job, Harry!
This is a joke, right?
Happening in Ohio right now
SINGLE PAYER ADVOCATES HAVE ENTERED THE OFFICE OF SENATOR VOINOVICH AND ARE DEMANDING THAT HE SUPPORT AN EXPANSION OF MEDICARE! CALL NOW AND MAKE THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS! PHONE NUMBERS, FAX NUMBERS, AND SCRIPTS BELOW:
Senator Voinovich
1-866-220-0044 (Congressional Switchboard – Toll Free)
216-522-7095 (Cleveland Office)
216-522-7097 (Cleveland Fax)
“I am calling as a constituent from Ohio and I am demanding that Senator Voinovich vote for the Sander’s amendment, a national single payer plan. As a self proclaimed fiscal hawk, Senator Voinovich should realize that this is the only method that will provide health care to ALL Americans while saving costs. Some inner city school districts in Ohio could save up to 28 million dollars a year on their health care costs. Medicare for All would also create approximately 2.6 million jobs, slightly less than the total number of jobs lost in 2008. In the Senator’s last term in Congress, he should stand up for this moral issue, and realize that health care is a human right. A group of activists in Cleveland are currently sitting in outside the Senator’s office to demand that Sen. Voinovich support the Sanders amendment, and that he donate the $582,516 he received from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries during the 2008 election cycle to The Free Clinic of Greater Cleveland. They will remain at the federal building until Senator Voinovich agrees to these terms or law enforcement removes them. The Senator works for them, and we all say Medicare for ALL, support the Sander’s amendment!”
Senator Sherrod Brown
1-866-220-0044 (Congressional Switchboard – Toll Free)
202-228-6321 (Washington DC Fax)
216-522-7272 (Cleveland Office)
216-522-2239 (Cleveland Fax)
“I am calling as a constituent from Ohio, and I’d like to thank Senator Brown for cosponsoring the Sander’s amendment for a national single payer health care plan. Medicare for All is the only way to provide health care to everyone in America and cut health care costs. We hope to see Senator Brown continue to advocate for real health care reform.”
Once you have made a round of calls, start at the top and make them again! Our goal is to make sure that our legislators know that we support single payer Medicare for All, and any less will not do. Thanks for all of the great work you do!
Yours in solidarity,
Drew Smith
Coordinator
Mobilize Ohio Movement
http://www.mobilizeohio.org
I only thought my day couldn’t get any worse.
Fuck.
Thanks Jon, for all your effort.
all Big Insurance stocks up today
Wow, smoking gun…no wonder Lieberman’s been surprisingly supportive. This oughta give them leverage if he wants to keep his chair – knowing Lieberman, he’ll accept a carbon copy of the French Health care system, as long as it’s put under his committee’s jurisdiction.
Harry needs to remove Joe Lie from the Chairmanship NOW!
Jon,
Is FDL gonna oppose the bill or not?
When will you come to a decision?
As of this minute, it seems that FDL won’t take ANY position. You seem to be afraid to call for defeat. It’s time to shit or get off the pot.
Strip HoJo of his Chairmanship…! Speaking of De Ja Vu…! 8-(
Shirt…! I owe ya a frothy one… again…! ;-)
HoJo is Harry Reid’s Pimp.
*waves to CT from f-f-frigid Toronto*
A balmy day here at sea level, Petro…! *g*
This is not good…!
Loose nukes…? 8-(
I know, I know … just thinking of Paradise makes me warmer …
Nah, Pakistan has faced trouble inside its borders for some time now … Nukes will be safe.
What is cause for worry is whether AQ Khan has helped other groups to make Dirty Bombs.
Targeting ISI does not bode well for Pakistan…!
Rule Number 1: Do not award gavels to your enemy.
Do they want to see a revolution?
Liarman given more power to undermine the american publics needs
Fuck it. Turn the keys over to the tea-baggers. At least they make me laugh.
-G
Hey CT and Petro.
-G
Maybe that’s Obama’s secret x-zillion dimensional chess move to get a populist revolution of the ground. Gotta be!
And if they are not so what? We’ll all go down together!
Now now… just because we know that the bill will have no public option, no cost containment, no drug importation, give the insurance companies hundreds of billions in subsidies, and restrict abortion access is no reason to rush to judgment on it.
I’m sorry, but this government is unable to do the peoples’ business.
Joe Lieberman in charge of health care.
And the hits just keep on coming….
the people are revolting
Zorro, the Gay Blade
I’d like to see Joe take a short ride to the nearest cancer ward.
I wish we knew what Lieberman has on old Harry.
Thanks for this news, Jon Walker.
mikesong will shortly siren like help shore up your proper respect for O.
Also History of the World, Part I
If you ever see Holy Joe smiling, that means you and me are fracked.
You know, I’m thinkin I was thinkin
Two bits
Four Bits
Six Bits
a Peso
all for Zorro
stand up and say so!
Never read that headline while holding a hot cup of coffee.
The analogies – fox guards henhouse; working prostitute appointed as abbess; defrocked priest paedophile new head of troubled boys’ home – don’t quite capture the disdain for the public welfare that committee assignment conveys.
Mr. Lieberputz’s oversight, in service of his insurance company patrons, would be as vindictive as his oversight of Homeland Security’s performance has been absent.
Is this the reward – destined to garner him even more lobbyist money than before – the esteemed Mr. Lieberman earns for obstructing reform, or for implementing the reform Mr. Obama had in mind?
he’s a smaaaattt boy
A hidden gem of a movie.
Ok, enough foolin around. Let’s get back to hysteria!
Harry Reid and LIERman are sacks of shit. As is Obama. Total corporatist frauds. How the fuck can they be so damned stupid and duplicitous? Dems are going to stay away from the polls in droves after being shafted yet again. What a bunch of worthless pigfuckers.
From Robert Scheer over at HuffPo. The sheer fucking audacity of this con artist in chief:
Barack Obama’s faux populism is beginning to grate, and when yet another one of those “we the people” e-mails from the president landed on my screen as I was fishing around for a column subject, I came unglued.
[snip]
Health reform was the subject of Obama’s Tuesday e-mail, which proclaimed in its heading, “We will not back down.” Addressing me by my first name, which I assume is in acknowledgment that I, like the millions of other suckers with whom he so intimately corresponds, had contributed to his campaign, he began with a clarion call for yet another contribution, this time to donate.barackobama.com/FinalStretch.
“As we head into the final stretch of health reform, big insurance company lobbyists and their partisan allies hope that their relentless attacks and millions of dollars can intimidate us into accepting the status quo. So I have a message for them, from all of us: Not this time. We have come too far. We will not turn back. We will not back down.”
george:
I’ll bet Joe Lieberman was born in Kenya too.
Fortunately, I was never tempted to contribute to Obama. After the Nafta/canada “gaff” [think Michael Kinsey] I knew he was a fraud.
Joe and Barack probably have each other in their wills.
Anyone else? The Dali maybe?
Sorry, not sure if I was ever able to pull off hysteria. I’m more of a “shit happens, so what?” kinda guy.
Well, this just keeps getting better and better.
This is a joke, right? I believe this could just push many of us to blow our brains out.
Fuck indeed.
We need term limits to rid the congress of the entire collection of slackers.
I wasn’t thinkin of you specifically. I keep gettin on trouble for that.
It’s all a fucking joke. . .take that to the bank.
The Ed Show from the KC Health Fair.
The healthcare debate has entered the realm of farce. But the fdl frontpage still refuses to come out against it. Criticize it? Yes. One has only to read the post above. But oppose it in its corrupt and loathesome entirety? Still not there.
Oh I know that. I sometimes just read and shake my head and go on.
Liarman in charge of the public option trigger….. FUCK NO!!
I wouldn’t trust him with a glass of water…. He would claim it is now wine!
Start your own fucking blog. Oh yea, you have one.
Ooh, A lot of the usual suspects have arrived… Greg, dakine, Raven, nahant, ad nauseum…! ;-)
S’up…?
talking to me? :-)
Just goin with the flow.
Joe with a trigger… now just who do you think that man will shoot?
This nation is under attack… the enemy is within.
With that grey water flow…? ;-)
Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.
Short Ride?
My head is going to explode!!
Somebody needs an ass beating for even mentioning his name in the same breath as health care.
Stop this insanity before it happens.
Judging from EdShow. Ending the Federal Reserve,(re-establishing the Bank of the United States?), ‘Stringing’ up Obama’s Economic Advisors, the Fed chairman, and Treasury Sec., are issues only T-baggers espouse?
My eyes popped right open when I saw the headlines. I certainly hoped it was a joke, but no—
Really this administration is becoming as unhinged as the republicans are. It’s hard to say which offends me more: lunacy of the right which would never have any appeal to me or lunacy of the faux left which I voted for and hoped for better things. I knew Obama couldn’t do everything for everybody, but now I see that he is definitely loosing his moorings. (I realize that Obama is not the senate or the house: but I don’t actually see him disagreeing with whatever they come up with either.)
no country deserves this guy lie er mann more than we americans
we have become greedy self righteous and even war mongering
and mega profits off the sick and needy.
please please someone tell me that is not greed defined and be able to keep a straight face.
please please someone tell me 720 military bases around the world is not imperialism defined.
to show you how screwed up the world is our pres gets a peace prize the same week he sends 30,000 troops to fight in another one of our wars for profits.
the sad part most americans think he is doing the right thing
in a dumbed down world great speechs work.
americans have been imperialists for so long they cant see it right in front of their faces.
the only thing that will stop our imperialism around the world is complete economic breakdown.
great speechs worked in germany but at least hitler gave them full employment.
obama is already running for reelection for 2012 with his speechs and actions to pacify the industrial military complex and corp american for $$$$$$$$$$
The same foxes are in charge of the same henhouses…! What’d ya expect…? ;-)
My heart is with you Hugh!
But I also am of the opinion that whatever a pile of excrement our government is; it is all we have to work with. I have admiration for Jane and those who accept that reality and continue to have the patience to try to work with what assets and levers present themselves.
A fools journey? I really don’t know.
OT
I haven’t seen anything about Zalaya in the American press. Al-Jazeera, however, reports on “Zelaya rejects Mexico asylum offer.”
From NYT, “Beleaguered Iraqi Leader Puts Off Gates Meeting“
Fine and well but to what end? Are we talking ownership, principles, participation(having fought the good fight). – what?
“Beleaguered Iraqi Leader Puts Off Gates Meeting“
What, he doesn’t like the new version of Windows?
Oh. That other Gates…
Hugh, as Teddy and Jane have already stated… Oppose what…?
Calm down a bit…! I luves ya, but…! *G*
As I say. Maybe a fool’s journey. But what are our choices?
He’s doing it in support of the King of Norway!
It makes no difference what they say
Ooh, Woolsey is gonna be on with Ed shortly…! Waters has already said she’ll vote against any plan without an PO…!
Eww. Just too creepy.
btw, how does the federal employees health insurance program end up under homeland security in any case? That too is just weird. It seems to me that the homeland security department itself is spiraling out of control, but that is Holy Joe’s job, isnt it?
Gasp.
Well, I’ve got my own tale of woe with Windoze 7.
Check this shit out from the Sunshine State
The headline was “Teabagger Punches Old Man”. Anasagasti is 57.
I saw that. Dude got a year’s probation, anger management classes and 50 hours community service. He also has to stay away from the guy he punched. Plea agreement.
I’ve had stuff thrown at me but never been assaulted. Won’t be any plea agreements if I am, though.
Yea but they make it some big deal and they are not that far apart. I had to smack a dude at a football game this year and I’m sure the headline would have been “Aged Vet Commits Child Abuse”!
Jane is up on the Ed show!
57 is old in many circles… Maybe not around here…! Yeah…! Jane is on with Ed…! *G*
The first thing out of Jane’s mouth is that all these people at the health clinic are “middle class”. Same with Ed’s intro. So, it’s important what “class” these people are from?
Yea but the 57 year old hit the 65 year old.
That was fast, Jane be gone and this dick from the Heritage Foundation is up.
Fighting agaist the stereotype that only homeless bums can’t afford medical care.
Go, Jane, Go…!!! Kudos, Jane…! You’re looking as lovely as always…!
Istook is a real tool… I tell’s ya…! 8-(
Class shouldn’t be important but it is. So you use whatever tools available to you to highlight the issue. And all the TradMed types fancy themselves as struggling middle class so it hits a couple of their biases.
Reminds me of Spiro
A big electromagnet on top of the case for a few days should clear it right up…
LOL
Agnew?
It’s another reason why ‘think tanks’ are oxymorons…!
Why do you think that class shouldn’t be important? That’s a conservative talking point.
eh not surprising at all.
Now just where did I say that? I said that using class shouldn’t make a difference. And it should not make a difference for need. But in order for some folks to actually see that there is a problem, it has to be shown to be hitting the folks next door. That is, the middle class.
I would like to see an ideal, truly color blind society. And that is a conservative talking point? Since when? Just because I’d like to see a fully egalitarian society, doesn’t mean I don’t recognize how many generations we’re away from seeing that.
Oh, sweet Jesus, wouldn’t you know. Lying jerks.
I have not read the comments, but I can say that my former “non-profit” insurance company dumped me after 5 years of highest premiums and zero claims for “mild seasonal allergies.”
I can’t wait to see what JoeLie wants to do.
It should be a condition that he has to step down. invent a new committee just for him, like the “oppose progressives out of spite” committee. can he be stripped of his chair during recess, or must we wait until after the congressional year, i wonder. Not really, i don’t wonder, not gonna happen unless things change mightily. He’s their excuse for pleasing their corporate masters: “But, we haaaaaaaad to!”
They must’ve leaked this just to see if we were still paying attention.
Can we see another two hundred outraged responses? I’d like to wake up to a corrective announcement.
Oh, and may I add, f*** that shit.
I am about to go to a meeting of our county party credentials committee to hear a complaint against a ward chair who hosted a fund raiser for a Republican. It is against the rules, he’s gonna lose his chair. What is so hard about enforcing some rules?
Buh bye, Joe.
“I would like to see an ideal, truly color blind society.”
What does color blindness have to do with class? And why do you get all huffy?
I fail to understand the point this statement is making, and I feel that the preponderance of problems faced by 95% of Americans are a result of class denial by the PTB :
“Class shouldn’t be important but it is. So you use whatever tools available to you to highlight the issue.”
*ouch* That’s gonna leave a mark… Race is always an issue alongside class… They’re always inextricably intertwined…! Even here in Hawaii…!
fuck it, my point is that I think everyone running around talking about the “middle class” status of these needy folks IS race oriented. What do the geniuses call it, “dog whistle”?
I suggest you stop pissing on your leg. I reviewed your contribution to the thread and, well…
Oh, Thank God! Now please don’t throw off my hysteria qi with your stinkin’ levity.
sooo… this is the result of the democratic-controller legislature elected into office last november? to ignore the citizens and kowtow to their corporate masters AND pussy-out to lieberman?!?!?!
Well, I could be wrong since I am more often than I’m right, but I didn’t take it like that. Although I’m talking about Jane’s comments. Maybe you were talking about the comments in this thread?
I dunno, sorry. It’s just I thought Jane brought it up, not because of any relation to race whatsoever, but because polls show that like 80+% of folks are “happy” with their current insurance. And I (and maybe Jane) believe that’s just because they’ve never really had to use it to find out how quickly they’ll drop you. I thought the point was to show all those middle class folks sitting at home with health insurance that “See, these are middle class folks too, and it could happen to you at anytime.”
Anywho, that’s how I took it. YMMV.
Not Jane on the thread, Jane, Ed and everyone else that I’m watching seems compelled to let everyone know that these are upstanding middle class people. They are people in need, that’s enough for me.
but then I’m not a smart as some of these people who have shown up lately
“fuck it, my point is that I think everyone running around talking about the “middle class” status of these needy folks IS race oriented. What do the geniuses call it, “dog whistle”?”
Seems like the whistle works well on you, ‘hoss’.
Well, yeah, that’s what I meant, Jane on the TV. Like I said, I thought the point they were trying to drive home was to all those folks who think they have great insurance that “it happened to these middle class folks, and it could happen to you to.”
I agree with you though that being in need is enough for me. I just thought their focus on class wasn’t in any way anything do with race, it was just trying to drive a point to the other middle class people watching.
But, I could be wrong. Maybe it was about race. Obviously, I can’t speak for Jane and Ed et al. That’s just how I took it.
go back to your school books asshole
Precious and oh so adult like!
Edit: This was not intended to be gentle teasing, not serious.
Is there one too many “not”s in that post?
OK, third time is a charm… I did not intend to sound cranky or bitchy. Sorry if that was the perception. My typing usually sucks but has been worse than usual today.
i didn’t know it was now permitted to call another commenter a “fucking asshole” — good to know, as my options are now greatly expanded.
Mod note: It isn’t permitted. Thank you.
He probably won’t agree to vote for it anyway.
Ten dollars says he doesn’t.
fair enough. i won’t do it either then.
try minding your own business, I haven’t said a word to you in over a year
Holy Joe was Obama’s mentor when he came to the Senate.
Why are we all so surprised?
I think I shall vomit.
God help us.
I wish Sherrod Brown were my Senator. I’m stuck with dumb (Kay Bailey Hutchison) and dumber (John Cornyn) in Texas. Math problem of the weak (not a misspelling) 4 Conservadems are holding up reform. 3 of these people are on 2 of the most prestigious committees in the Senate. 2 of these people are Chairs of committees. 1 chance to do the right thing for Americans on healthcare before we demand that they give up their committees. 0 tolerance for any more bullshit! $100 dollar donation for anyone running against their sorry grandstanding asses.
Well, he was the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket once, too. It’s not damning, per se, but it does suggest that in this very personal fight over health care “reform”, Holy Joe is carrying water Obama doesn’t want the public to know is his.
If Holy Joe’s committee is assigned to oversee the new health care regulator, it’s confirmation that he was. Because if he successfully obstructed something Obama wanted, Obama would demand that Reid make him pay a price, not get a lucrative reward.
You have got to be kidding me!!!
Do this and you won’t have any Democrats left in the party.