IF they cared about serving constituents or saving money they’d pass the Dorgan Amendment by itself, this week. Good luck with that. The first question EVERY elected Dem. should be confronted with everytime they address the public is, why won’t you pass the Dorgan Amendment NOW?

If this bill has mandates plus public funding of insurance companies for those who can’t afford it without a public option, KILL THE BILL. It’s nothing but a give away to the insurance industry. We need to end corporate welfare, not expand it.

stick a fork in it.

I don’t want to see Rahmbama win this one, at all!

Legislate individual fixes — anti trust, preconditions, ratios, reimportation, etc, now.

Pick up single payer Medicare for all after the mid terms.

And don’t let them tell you a Public Option (at least as written by the House Dems.) will lead to a government takeover of healthcare.

A report issued by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office highlights faults with both sides of the argument to create a public health-insurance plan.

The CBO said only six million Americans would enroll in the public plan proposed in the 1,990-page health bill unveiled by House Democrats, according to findings issued late Thursday. That undercuts foes’ claims that such a plan would lead to a government takeover of the health-care system.

It is … maybe the only hope of turning around health care reform’s awful poll numbers.

Is there any evidence for this statement? And it’s clearly wrong since one way to turn around health care reform’s poll numbers is Medicare for All. And unlike the “public option,” that reform could actually inspire people to build a movement.

But of course, we have to pretend there is a shred of sanity in the entire US political debate on this issue, so it’s necessary for Walker to ignore this central reality.

I am very hungry for a blog that actually represents the US population.

No public option it’s just more of the same ……..kill it !

Public option! Public option! Pass some more kool-aid.

Hell, the House passed the potato in the biggest way possible – they passed a bill with the public option.

Health care is the highway, and you are the car.
If we ran the highways like we run health care, just imagine:The poor would have dirt roads, only the wealthy could use the Interstate, and the rest of us can build and maintain our own roads. Big business for trolls.

And what do we get from our president this week? Another round of him pushing the PO and all women aside while begging for bipartisan GOPer love.

The very best thing going for this country is the fact the GOP wont let Obama do to us what they would love to do themselves.

Kill this bill.

Fact of the matter is the Plan is highly unpopular with constituents, and therfore many congress people are backing off. They are there to represent the voter, nothing more, nothing less. If the voter doesn’t want it, they shouldn’t get it. The concept that polls indicate people want this is skewed. I could show you polls that say candy is great for you if all I polled was Kindergartners!

You’re gonna be hungry a long, long time, unless [Edited by Moderator. No need to be insulting].

No bill is better than this so-called “health care reform.” And we’ll see the same dynamic with the clean energy bill, which is a giveaway to the coal industry.

Steny Hoyer, another hot shot Democratic jag-off. Another Democrat that is more than deserving of being primaried. If the U.S. fought WWII with the quality of Democratic a holes in Congress and the WH we’d all be speaking German and Japanese.

If ever there were a contemporaneous perfect example of why we should keep on keepin’ on, consider the editorial in today’s Fargo Forum, which is usually strong in its red tilt. On the issue of “Stimulus hypocrisy is stunning.”

The public option can relay and resonate from progressives/bloggers to mainstream with just as pervasive a force.

Fired up? Go.

I think the WH and dem leadership really underestimate the degree of anger and apathy that this process and product are going to result in. I guess we really shouldn’t be surprised though, what with a WH with Rahm’s policies and way of doing business at the helm. I really hope the democrats get their butts kicked. Maybe we can get rid of some dross.

I don’t actually agree that no bill would be better than this bill, although I haven’t read Obama’s most recent proposal in detail.

The real problem is not with passing the bill but with pundits who will claim that it is a huge step forward when actually it’s only a mouse step that won’t solve the underlying problems. And one of the reasons why we have pundits like that is because of blogs like this one where they ignore the central realities – that the US needs a national health care system – in favor of mouse reforms like “public option.”

This whole bill and current political situation is scary. There are some good ideas in the health bill, but there is way too much pork. It the details that scare me the most. Forget trying to save this one and start over. No Pork!

I’m sure Obama can rely on the pesky activists to work as hard to secure his re-election as he worked to secure the public option. Fair’s fair.

So if we do kill the bill, what’s the next step?

Ronnie Raygun made considerable political hay demonizing welfare queens.

Why is no one able to pick up on the theme of demonizing corporate welfare queens? It would seem to be a solid launchpad for a successful political run.

Medicare-for-all. The bill is already written, so, a few fixes and improvements and VOILA.

Watch more people die from lack of access to medical assistance.

Rahm didn’t want to do health care. After they started he wanted to do a skinny health bill. Then he pushed even harder after Scott Brown won in MA. Rahm is not dictating the direction of the health bill.

ghostof911 @ 22

“corporate welfare queens” are a construct and a reflection of our corrupt government.

Democrats that have a voice that could spread that meme of corporate “welfare queens” are just too timid and spineless. Actually, the term “welfare queen” is inaccurate because they are treasonous criminals and that’s the meme that needs to be spread. They have more in common to the Robber Barons and the Court of Louis XVI. Democrats don’t want to say anything that might offend their esteemed Republican colleagues.

An Open Letter To President Obama:

Dear Mr. President,

With all due respect, to listen to and read your Administration’s Health Care Proposal is an exercise in cognitive dissonance.

You keep saying that there are cost control provisions in your proposal. I have read your entire posting on your web-site. Except for a few minor provisions like the Reaganesque “waste, fraud, and, abuse” boilerplate and such, there is no economic control on costs through competition. There is no “Public Option” and there is no cessation of health insurance anti-trust provisions.

Without one or both of these economic controls, we will see a spiraling up of health insurance costs to businesses and consumers. Any freshman in Econ. 101 can tell you that when you add thirty million or more new customers to and industry with no competition, such a gargantuan increase in demand will only push premiums ever higher (at least until 2018, I noticed you pushed the 2013 Senate date back…)

You should tell Emanuel, Geithner, and Summers that Milton Freidman is dead and so is the Chicago School of Economics. Alan Greenspan has as much as admitted it. The rest of the World knows it. Why doesn’t your policy staff?

The way our two party system is governing, America will soon look like Detroit.
Party identity plays into the hands of those that would divide and conquer, and they are doing a bang up job.

I’ll take Detroit anytime over the cesspool that is Washington D.C.. At the least it has real people and not the phonies, hypocrites, thieves, royal courtesans and war criminals that populate the streets of D.C..

Why is no one able to pick up on the theme of demonizing corporate welfare queens?

Because everyone of our politicians (Dems included) are Corporate whores.
But I agree with you. It should be picked up but we might have to have a loud Progressive 3rd party to do that.

The corporatist slime game continues. We need to start a People’s Health Clinic to circumvent the criminal capitalist class. Obummer can’t lead on anything. How long has this health care dance been going on now? The guy’s a big lemon, man.

SPINELESS – ABSOLUTELY SPINELESS.

reply to 6 i totally agree with:”But of course, we have to pretend there is a shred of sanity in the entire US political debate. But doesn’t everybody know: There ain’t no sanity clause.

Rahm, is that you?

Well said, branding works. It’s the one thing rethugs do well.
” corporate welfare queens”

Is he back again?

Branding is always easier when you’re dealing with an easily distracted, ill-educated populace. Democrats for too long have given the benefit of the doubt to large swaths of the population, that they could actually think for themselves and that facts mattered. Republicans realize that many people just want to be told what to think.

Demand an up or down vote on Single Payer. Of course the Obama Administration now officially supports the corporations against the people. Obama opposes even the Public Option. Thanks for nothing Mr. President.

Meanwhile, the White House message was already being relayed by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who told reporters on Tuesday that President Obama seemed to believe the public plan had no chance in the Senate.

“I was for the public option. I believe the public option does, in fact, provide for — and CBO scores it as — saving money. And to that extent I think it’s a good thing,” said Hoyer. “But I think that it is obviously an item that the president has decided — he was for the public option, as well — is not something that perhaps the Senate can buy.”

“The collapse of California’s education system is going to generate more and more attention and activism over the coming year, as it hits a broad cross-section of California very hard. It therefore creates a political opportunity for progressives to act to restore our schools and ensure our children have a future in this state.”

Tax wealth and establish a State run single payer option; California has a huge risk pool! Also, establish a North Dakota style State Bank to stimulate California’s job growth. As California goes,…

The White House is treating the healthcare debate like a farce, trying to dupe angry voters into blaming the blameless House Progressives for the absence of the PO.

That has been their plan all along.

I meant more his manner of leadership and politics. I tend to equate tacking to the center, marginalizing progressives and toadying to business interests as something to identify with Rahm first. I suppose I could just as well get used to the same for Obama, now that I think of it.

You should tell Emanuel, Geithner, and Summers that Milton Freidman is dead and so is the Chicago School of Economics. Alan Greenspan has as much as admitted it. The rest of the World knows it. Why doesn’t your policy staff?

Absolutely true statement. Beautiful!

I don’t know where you live, but there are different views out there. In my neck of the woods, single payer would not be popular even though I live in CA, which may well get single payer in the not too distant future because much of the rest of the state is much more liberal than my area is. So I could look around my neighborhood and then confidently proclaim that even a public option is a no-go while people in other neighborhoods could look around theirs and then confidently proclaim that single payer is what the people want. Then the politicians look around the beltway neighborhood and all they hear is socialized medicine and death panels because the pundits are in a world of their own. So they glance down K street and money appears plus, I’m sure, dire warnings about killing an entire industry during a recession. You see it with the student loan bill, the dire warnings about the jobs that will be lost. Imagine what would be said about single payer health insurance. It all depends on where you’re looking what arguments you see and how real they seem to you.

FWIW, I was not for single payer at all when people were complaining about it not being on Max Baucus’ table. I thought its reps should be at the table because everyone should have input, but I didn’t want it to be the plan. The way the public option alternative has played out has convinced me that insurance companies need to be completely out of the picture unless rich people want private insurance for whatever extras they are willing to pay through the nose for. I doubt I’m the only one whose opinions have evolved over the last year.

Jane is on the Ed Schultz show right now.

http://www.620kpoj.com/mediaplayer/?station=KPOJ-AM&action=listenlive&channel_title=

That’s exactly what I would like to see. A state bank that loans to businesses that provide jobs within our state, single payer health care, progressive taxation and great schools and infrastructure. We have a huge economy and could make a great example of how well progressive ideas could work if we just did it. Heaven knows trying it Reagan’s way hasn’t done us any good.

The heat should be put on Reid to include the PO in the senate reconciliation bill. He’s in a tight Nevada race and he has responded to pressure before. Obama has made it clear his office will not do shit to support a PO. Jane and the other progressives need to make clear, if there is no PO in the reconciliation bill, Reid will pay for it.

Wow, that IS great news. The ‘hypocrisy’ theme seems pervasive, and the ‘critters continue to surprise every day with new examples.

Great letter. Have you sent it to your local paper? I bet they’ll publish it.

In all but one advanced industrial nation for profit health insurance is against the law. That one country is the United States. In the U.S. each and every individual is a potential mark.

I agree with Teddy. Send it to your local newspaper.

AP front-page article here, today. Low corner, inoffensive headline, but up there, anyway.

I decided to personally examine all of my dealing with Government, health Care and business for waste, fraud and abuse or neglect.
I found a tiny way, with slight adjustments and little effort, to potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars in Hospital billing. By combining three Categories into a special group that must be:(1) Approved for Financial Assistance by the Hospital. (2)Receiving Social Services from a city or county that is their sole residence. And are in Medicaid Spend down. (3)Their ability to meet spend down is eminent, due to illness or accident, or progressive disease, or in hospice, or the need for assisted living etc.

They bill all patients without considering, after one bill, if all above conditions are met.And the patient has both sent all documents applying to spend down to Social Services and notified the billing agents that you are on spend down and have a new bill. Any further attempt to collect the debt is a total waste of time, money, and paper. If the patient worsens within 3 – 6 months, the can continue to send any new bills. They stop aging them after a whole. Often the go into collections That ain’t free either. Just once. At a cost of $5 per bill time how many qualifying patients / year ?
5 x X = actually, quite a bit.
It would cost almost nothing to implement. It is only stopping 100% wasteful spending.

To Teddy and Bluetoe2. Thank you for your kind words. I have sent my open letter to the papers. Thank you for the encouragement!

In my neck of the woods, single payer would not be popular even though I live in CA…

In all parts of California, I’d imagine senior citizens appreciate their Medicare benefits, they’re already on the single payer bus. And since the rest of us all hope to live long enough to be a Medicare beneficiary, I think the better question to ask your (younger than 65) neighbors is: do you support dropping the Medicare age restriction so you”d be covered immediately instead of waiting till age 65?

Totally agree kill the bill without public option.

If the bill goes through with un-american individual mandates putting in cost-controls later in the senate will be like dealing with nine-headed hydra monster Hercules dealt with in Greek Mythology with conservative democratic senators taking turn in the blame chair on behalf of Insurance companies.

If publicly financed healthcare in the form of tax money subsidies to private health insurance companies becomes law, then you can kiss goodbye for the next 1 or 2 generations any possibility of a public option. But strangely enough, the abortion issue via the Hyde Amendment will very, very possibly come to the rescue – the abortion issue via the Hyde Amendment will very, very possibly make a public option law. Here’s how: No matter what language they come up with to try to satisfy the Hyde Amendment, like the Senate Bill language, enough of one or the other side will find it unacceptable enough to kill the bill that contains the language. That makes publicly financed healthcare in the form of tax money subsidies to private health insurance companies politically impossible. The only thing left would be a public option – or no help ever for those very many tens of millions with no healthcare. ——– These health insurance companies know all this. They will pressure these selfproclaimed prolife House Democrats to vote for the Senate Bill language. Which “master” will these selfproclaimed prolife politicians serve? The prolife voters? Or the ones with all the vast amounts of cash, the private health insurance companies? This will test these selfproclaimed prolife politicians. Note: Recall the reaction in Nebraska Sen. Nelson got – he did not pass the test according to prolife voters. This is going to get really interesting.

Mod note: Please do not post a comment multiple times. Feel free to link back to an original comment or post. Thanks.

Did Obama make a deal with forprofit hospitals giving up the public option? I’ve seen it reported. If he did this, then he needs to be held accountable. If he did this, then I am angry. If he did this, then he will make the public option law only if he is forced to. As I said at February 24th, 2010 at 11:03 pm, the Hyde Amendment and the abortion issue may be the only way to force him. Let’s hope that we find out whether he really did this in time.