60% of Americans support a public option. That 60% defined as the radical left. What a sham scam

“Pragmatic” should always be read as “status quo”

Props needed: potato (now cold)

pass our industry-approvedwritten bill instead

Fixed.

Democrats: the Party of Snow

So if this bill fails, what do we do?

Hey, the next time you need cancer surgery or a root canal, just go down to your local emergency room, remember?

There is no liberal voting bloc in Congress anymore. There are non-sociopathic, corrupt friends of industry (the Democrats) and sociopathic, corrupt friends of industry (the Republicans). Why do we even act like there’s a chance they will represent our interests anymore? Doesn’t that make US Charlie Brown, trying to kick the football?

Jane, I wish I could offer an idea but I don’t have a clue what else you can do beyond continuing to lobby & publicize the corruption of Obama and the team he chose. My synopsis is simple: if Russ Feingold couldn’t be convinced to vote against the Senate HCR Bill, the problem within the Democratic Party is dire.

here’s the operative paragraph, as far as I’m concerned:

The only thing I wonder about is whether Washington Democrats are baffled about the extreme “enthusiasm gap” between Democratic and Republican voters, which very well could cause them to lose control of Congress this year. By “enthusiasm gap,” it is meant that the very people who worked so hard in 2006 and 2008 to ensure that Democrats became empowered are now indifferent — apathetic — about whether they keep it. Even as crazed and extremist as the GOP is, is it remotely possible that the Democratic establishment fails to understand not only why this “enthusiasm gap” exists, but also why it’s completely justifiable?

Make it simple, Medicare for ALL. The public option ‘battle’ merely diverted our attention from the simplest and most direct reform of our health care.

Blame FireDogLake as usual.

To easy and to popular. Plus, how does this help the real people in the equation the CEO’s of the Health Mafia Corps.? Don’t they deserve huge profits as well as taxpayer subsidies?

We support candidates who have well documented support for Medicare For All and other “progressive” issues. The govt has operated under a neoliberal ideology for most of the last 150 years. We’re not gonna change that overnight.

right on. except that there are three acts and glenn’s reinactment has the first act missing. here it is, recovered from the archives:

Progressives: We want single payer!

Dem party elite: That’s not possible [based on bogus polling data -s], but a public option is almost as good and that is possible!

Dem party supporters: OK. We want a public option!

Progressives: That’s a stupid, non-workable, neoliberal policy that has failed every time it’s been tried! We don’t want to pre-compromise in the middle of a long term human rights struggle for comprehensive universal healthcare. We don’t want an insurance industry bailout. We want single payer or some other policy that makes sense!

Dem party supporters: Single payer advocates are stupid purity trolls no one can work with! We are the real progressives, let’s just ignore those ignorant, impractical, unserious, idiots. And better yet, if no one listens to them we can use the language of single payer (universal healthcare, etc) advocates and no one will know the difference.

Dem party supporters (now to be called Progressives): We want a public option! We don’t care if it is a puny non workable public option, just so long as we can say we have one!

I think it’s about time to invest in mobile-home manufacturing.

Seriously, I think it’s time for a new Declaration of Independence, but I don’t know who to deliver it to?

Well, I will be sending Senator Durbin my insurance premium notice to his home address with a request to pay the recent increase. A few thousand of us who do likewise might have an effect on the exalted ones.

OT–Jim Lenz, CEO of Toyoate USA, about to testify to Congress. I fully hope and expect that he will tell them, “Let’s look forward, not backward.”

IMO, an extremely important paragraph is:

The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts…

Jane,

I forgot to thank you for boiling this down to the simplest, most easily digestible number of words.

Every time I think the problem can’t be expressed in less than ten pages, you succeed in making it clear in half a page.

Is it too soon to ask WTF we’re going to do?

There’s nothing wrong with The OLD Declaration of Independence. Read it, and you’ll see. All that has changed is that, whereas the Founders were not willing to be taxed 3% on their tea without proper representation, and were willing to fight, kill, and if necessary die over it, modern Americans seem to have no limit to how much abuse they will passively accept before they even mount a massive, non-violent street protest. The only reasonable conclusion: We, the collective WE, deserve to be treated like livestock, because we continue to act like livestock. Moooo.

I have this fantasy of California or one of the other states that is trying getting a single payer plan through. Businesses are thrilled not to be chained to insurance premium hikes, people are thrilled to be getting better care for less in taxes than they were paying in premiums and the rest of the country sees that socialism isn’t the ruination of a free society. It may just be a dream, but it’s all I’ve got. I don’t see anything good happening on a national level for a while, but I’m still willing to fight for it.

today my health care insureance rep walked in and informed us our contract is increasing 22%

in a one years period of time I might add

Maybe Progressives need to step back and compare the U.S. with other countries.

For a totally corrupt and bribed government, the U.S. isn’t half as a bad as a lot of other totally corrupt and bribed governments.

There, don’t we feel better for what we DO have?

So that’s why Obama did all those town halls in Elkhart where they were hurting from low RV sales and promised them better times ahead. He knew we’d all be down to going from temp job to temp job and living in RV’s because we couldn’t afford real housing (plus you can easily move it to Mexico when all the jobs are down there)!

You just don’t lose a 32 political point lead, without trying to lose a 32 political point. Democrats had 32 political point lead over the GOP 12 months ago.

What Happen?

The HOPE a DOPE by Barack Obama and the Corporate Elites

Progressives are a threat to the Status Quo, which is now in shambles.

Barack Obama number 1 task was to demoralize the Progressive Movement.

House Dems are starting to wake up, Barack Obama does not care about Progressives, he wants and seeks a House control by the GOP. (he use too, the Tea Party is not your grandmother GOP)

It is simple when the House is control by the GOP, the Corporate party Obama belongs to will get their wish to govern from Corporate Point of View (what the MSM calls the center)

Remember the HOUSE has pass 290 pieces of legislation that the Senate is currently letting die.

Obama the Progressive Candidate will return in 2011, with his GOP house, to tell progressives how he needs their help. (Obama probably doesn’t want this wish laughing)

It is a very simple SHELL game to keep Progressives out of power. (Progressives are the majority of the american people, thus the reason the Public Option polls so well)

The million dollar question of the day, does the GOP want to take control of the House? Probably Not.

The Tea Party candidates grown by Fox News are not the governing type ask SCOTT BROWN.

Scott Brown will soon be kick out of the Tea Party movement. It will be interesting to see how the Tea Party reacts to traitors. A lot of GOPers are very nervous. Scott Brown political career probably just went up in smoke.

The elites now have very huge PROBLEM the left is FURIOUS and the RIGHT wants blood. Which group does J P Morgan, Goldman Sach, Blue Cross, want to play with?

Paul Craig Roberts says it best, the USA is coming a part right before our eyes.

When you think of the terrible stress, pain, loss and horror of major illness that threatens not only your life but your very home and the future of your family, how can these assholes possibly sleep through the night?

This, the whole debacle, is an evil. Are we not human?

One minor quibble related to controlling those that narrative.

Dramatic Reenactment of the Health Care Insurance Costs Timeline

The summary put out the the White House doesn’t really seem to be very concerned with anything but Medicare and insurance costs.

Slightly OT.
My favorite detail under “Delay and Reform the High-Cost Plan Excise Tax.” which was pushed out to 2018.

To ensure that the tax affects firms equitably, the President’s Proposal reforms it by including an adjustment for firms whose health costs are higher due to the age or gender of their workers, and by no longer counting dental and vision benefits as potentially taxable benefits.

Woe to those who have employees with large families or that otherwise get sick in a way that doesn’t fit the actuary tables.

No.

Yes this is the most important line.

Every Progressive Blogger needs to read and understand the Glenn Greenwald article.

No, it doesn’t make us like Charlie Brown and the football – it makes us appear to be mice voting for either a Siamese(GOP) cat or a Tabby(Dem) cat. Either way, the mice get slaughtered.

Props needed: football (optional), unscuffed by actual contact with an actual kicker’s foot

Last week, the NY Times ran an article discussing how Obama’s remaining concern for an HCR bill is that it retain the excise tax on so-called “cadillac” plans.

Now we all know, following brilliant Robert Reich, that this excise tax is an unacceptable attack on the middle class, whose health insurance plans are “chevy” and not “cadillac.”

Interesting, but no longer surprising, that this excise tax is the one feature Obama will fight for.

Oh, how Dems have been duped!

It’s one thing to say dems unthinkingly projected their hopes and wishes onto Obama’s blank slate campaign mantras, and should not be surprised. It’s another thing entirely to realize that we have solid evidence of Obama’s specific campaign promises (such as insisting on a Public Option) and similarly solid evidence that Obama has reneged on those promises and also lied about ever having made them.

Dems, we do not merely have a spineless corporatist. It’s looking more and more as if Obama is really a right wing Republican.

This current round of negotiations is further solid proof that Obama has NEVER wanted the Public Option. It was a slick lie and we were duped.

We are being told by the commentariat that killing this Bill would cause HCR to fall off the radar for the next 20 years. Yeah, right — the truth, of course is that getting this mandate to transfer your money to the Speculator-Investor class, stuffed with regulatory loopholes, is going to impose a moratorium on real reform for a generation.

This Bill needs to be killed. Incumbents need to be voted out and then, having learned the lessons of sausage making while ignoring the Medicare for All T-bone steak option, they can pass real reform in no time flat.

here is the enthusiasm gap personified in the recent MA election:

The same voters who buried McCain in 2008 just didnt vote this time. They stayed home.
Sure there is a drop off to be expected from a presidential general election, but this was all over the air and papers. If people didnt feel betrayed they would have showed. Even if 15% of Obama’s margin had showed up, Coakley would have won.
Almost million MORE folks went to the polls in MA in 2008 and all of them voted for Obama.

Scott Brown got the same vote total as McCain, but Coakley got 900k fewer votes.
Dem turnout and independent turnout just disappeared.

MA Election results
2010 election
1,168,000 brown
1,059,000 coakley
20,000 others
2,247,000 total

2008 election
1,109,000 mccain
1,904,000 obama
100,000 others
3,113,000 total

Brown wins with about the same vote as McCain got.
Where were the 900k or so voters that didnt show up at all and who just a year ago gave Obama the win?
Brown ran identical numbers to McCain, but Coakley drew 900k fewer.

Dems and independents just didnt turn out. It is as Howard Dean tried to say but then didnt have the data to support it–Progressives are mad at Obama for talking tough on Corporations, HMOs, Big Rx, and Wall Street. But then playing kissy face with them.

There are about 1.5 million Dems, .5 million Goopers, and 2 million no party in MA.

This morning my e-mailbox contained the usual drivel from OFA ["Obnoxious Fucking Assholes"]: The President’s bill is GREAT; Here’s the list of all the fabulous things it will do; write/call your representatives NOW.

They received my reply, with a note that “their” bill didn’t include a public option.

Fuckers.

Yeah but we have the biggest, baddest, bestest corrupt gummint evah! U.S.A. U.S.A

I hope all Progressive bloggers read that article. A bell went off in my head. I wonder how they choose the “Rotating Villian.” Jay must have had to swallow hard to have to publicly say he was for partisanship more than the health of Americans. Or maybe not. After all, he didn’t seem to mind fighting for telecom immunity.

trying to pass healthcare reform has only shown how outdated our system of government is.

other developing countries are using our middle class to their benefit. our government system is unable to react.

Thanks for the information.

This proves that Howard Dean was correct

you have your history wrong

the founders rebelled against the removal of taxes on the incoming tea, not the addition of taxes

in addition, as you say, the taxes the were oposed were only those faced when there was no “representation”, they had no voice in who served the governemt

that particular point fails and has no corelation today

Progressives: We want a public option!

Progressives: We want Medicare for All!

Jane Hamsher: Too bad!

I wonder how they choose the “Rotating Villian.”

They draw straws. Short straw is “Villian for issue x“

I’m sorry to have to say this, but (despite the fact that he’s done some worthwhile things at the margins), I think Obama is a fraud.

The corporate oligarchy made a good choice when it hired him: black (splits the progressive base), telegenic, dynamic, intelligent, and just as committed to their wishes as Bush was.

to bad for everyone, today my health insurance agent raised our rates 22 percent

if there were a medicare option they would….not….dare

so too bad for everyone if we cannot get this done

I would love for a Republican, at the Insurance Fraud Summit on Thursday, to bring up the public option that would fuck up the carefully laid plans of the WH and InsurPharma.

we’ve been saying that for quite some time blue, quite some time

I recommend adding the exact return address to your “auto-delete spam” list. Worked like a charm for me.

I agree with you.

A republican needs to attack OBAMA on his left FLANK and let watch him dance out of that trap. With CPAN running, let see how the Blue Dog Obama talks his way back to center

I doubt if any Dems will bring up the Public Option.

Spot on about villain rotation; it’s something I’ve felt for a long time.

The Democratic Party as it’s currently constituted exists for only one reason: to give liberal and progressive impulses a place where they can go to die.

When can I have my third party? It could have the same exact platform as the traditional Democratic platform, just be committed to enacting it.

This whole process makes me long for the genuine Democracy of France circal 1793. I wonder if anything left will give those of us without a Rockefeller fortune any way of influencing public policy whatsoever.

Awesome, plus!

The goopers can take the public option issue and, rather than wait for a reconciliation event to get it passed in the Senate, make it their own. They would get a boat load of votes with that move.

No.

That is absolutely no reason to accept corruption of any level.

Whatever the specific details of the tea tax situation in 1776, all I care about is the principle, which, as you acknowledge, was that of having no voice or influence in the authority making the rules imposed on the people, who were required to obey. As is the situation we face today.

The Declaration of Independence itself relies on the principle, not the details of the tea tax.

So, rather than my point failing, I think you missed my point.

Public option isn’t a Medicare option. It would affect only a small percentage of the population and even for those people wouldn’t be like Medicare. Essentially it is a scam, though a scam that Hamsher loves.

I have pretty much had it with all the talking. BHO talked and talked and won the nomination. Then he talked and talked and beat McRottenPilot with a clear majority. Now a year into is presidency he is STILL TALKING. The ONLY reason I will support BHO is the SCOTUS. This country can’t afford to have another corporatist on the SCOTUS.

This is free market capitalism at it’s finest. They have theirs and don’t give a fuck about us.

Yesterday Dick Cheney went to the hospital on my dime. I sit here uninsured. I’m not a very happy person.

you can make your point without analogies that represent the antithesis

we are represented so the “no taxation without representation” is not germain

nor is the fact that you might not like your taxes, the founders staged their revolt against the removal of taxes not the addition

I think you might try to find an analogy that represents your point of view rather then the polar opostite

The Cadillac Tax is focused on the Employer Constituency. It forces employees to downgrade their medical plans to less expensive plans.

It is cost containment. For Employers.

The American people are suffering through a huge crisis and are desperately begging for leadership and all the Democrats can do is respond with excuse after excuse and truly mediocre legislation that will make the rich people richer and leave the rest of us as the perpetual victims of insurers who will find 1001 new ways to screw us over.

But really, our government is under total control not by the electorate. The controllers could turn America into a Zimbabwe if they wanted. They could orchestrate street riots between Fox viewers and MSNBC viewers.
Of course Americans wouldn’t demonstrate against their government like Iranians and Pakistanis. That has been media-bred out of us.

I kind of think a medicare option is a public option, thought they might create differant proposals for each, they are both an option provided by the general public pool

What is Obama? scam or liar

bush torture o-kay
excise tax on union health care plans o-kay
don’t ask don’t tell o-kay
public option for the american people not o-kay
more war and wars o-kay
drug importation for the american people not o-kay

Again I ask you What is Obama khin? a scam artist or liar?

Yeah but we have the biggest, baddest, bestest corrupt gummint evah! U.S.A. U.S.A

Not to mention the best dressed, the best fed, the best coiffed, and best tanned government.

We DO set the World Standard for what we do, no doubt.

I just took a moment to reread the history. You don’t have it right, either. Go back and check re “the removal of taxes.”

In any event, the point and the principle continue undisturbed.

jay reckefeller

The MA senate race removed yet another scab on a pox riddled body of the Democratic party, exposing its sickness for all the country to see.. I’m terribly sorry the system is bought out… and that the only place voters had to go was with a centerfold republican…. but I am glad they did.

Anyone who has had time to pay the slightest attention to detail over the last few years knows we don’t have twenty senators in our party today who would really do half the right thing (demand a PO, prosecute war or bankster criminals, develop real jobs bills, push green energy as if it were the best thing we could do for national security, much less consider health care to be more important than wealthfare) today. I really don’t think we have five.

Kill this damn bill.

No, actually, I LIKE getting their shit:

a) informs me re what they’re up to (and I can thus recognize the “talking points” in various posts/comments); and

b) gives me yet another chance to write something nasty to them.

I have it perfect

the king removed the tariff on his pals import tea, the founders would have none of it and threw said tea into the the sea, that was the boston tea party

though it’s promoted as some kind of revolt against taxation the reverse is true, it was a revolt against the removal of tax

your point as compared to the analogy are the polar oposites

sorry

the founders had NO problem with taxes if they had representation, and the boston tea party demonstrates their belief perfectly

time to move on, I’ll be upstairs

No.

That is absolutely no reason to accept corruption of any level.

But not accepting it will not do anything about removing it. The system is so gamed, that Obama conned millions of Americans to get elected, and many of those millions remained conned. I have a hard time accepting that, but it just happens to be reality.

Make sure you watch the video at the end of Greenwald’s post with GOP Rep. John Shaddeg. Hate to say it but this republican makes more sense than many of our congressional democrats.

a) Know yer enemy

b) Poke ‘em in the eye, figuratively

[moved]

Maine has one,-isn’t working.

It was not the removal, but rather an underhanded imposition of taxes, along with the indference that Parliament had the right to levy a tax, that aroused the opposition. Your lack of detail is just as antithetical as my misstated analogy.

But let’s not masturbate. My point was clear, and remains so. Represtenation means nothing if it is fraudulent. The principle remains the same. No effective voice in determining one’s own fate. Don’t get over-literal to the point of absurdity. It makes you look bad.

Personally my impression of Obama was always that he was a milk toast. But there are definitely areas where he broke his promises, like on prescription drug reimportation.

“Public option” is not a serious policy, though – Hamsher just pushes it because it is in vogue with the liberal intelligensia.

When did Jay Rockefeller stick his head up his ass, and why?

By all means, masturbate.

“I have it perfect.”

Now I know I’m wasting my time with you. But, just ask yourself, why would any sane person rebel against the REMOVAL of taxes? Your research skills suck. Use teh Google.

Sounds like you’re more concerned with Ms Hamsher than anything else. The rest is just window dressing.

Why let them off the hook so easily? Even if it had included one it wouldn’t have been any better than the House’s version. Tell them it’s a POS because it doesn’t propose Medicare for All, and deserves to be killed. And remember, if you never ask for it, you’ll never get it.

LOL. I thought I could rely on you, at least, not to get over-literal. LOL

khin, I have a lot of frustration with Jane. I think she has been much to supportive of the Dems by offering support to “progressive” incumbents. HOWEVER, when you shoot at her for support of the public option you miss entirely what she has defined as the public option. Her definition is very close to Medicare for all. It is not the bullshit fraud the House passed calling it a public option.

Regardless, now what do we do?

I say: support Rethugs against blue dogs and primary everyone we can except the most progressive dems. Eventually, they might learn…

Don’t forget Obama intentionally dropping the ball when he refused last recess to get some progressive appointments through~!

With the Democratic elite blatantly rigging the candidate selections for the 2010 election — the Senate corporate coup is well and truly over — the corporates have won.

It would be best to kill it. But, I don’t agree with this:

We are being told by the commentariat that killing this Bill would cause HCR to fall off the radar for the next 20 years. Yeah, right — the truth, of course is that getting this mandate to transfer your money to the Speculator-Investor class, stuffed with regulatory loopholes, is going to impose a moratorium on real reform for a generation.

Regardless of whether this passes, the Medicare for All movement will grow, and we’ll be back at this stand within the next two years. In a sense, if this bill passes, it will give us a deadline to form that third Party and get this bill repealed, so we can get rid of the mandate. Also, the continuing high rate of annual deaths due to lack of insurance should spur our efforts to het this done as soon as possible.

@Jane
I find it funny that night after night Rachel Maddow highlights GOP hyprocrisy but entirely ignores those of DEMs on the Public Option. As far as I can tell you have been blocked from appearing since the Senate plan passed and the only people on are feeble wonks such as that kid Ezra. This rotating villain schtick is getting tired and needs to be called out.

I dunno if losing elections and having them become lobbyists is going to teach them much. Look at history. We’ve got a gigantic national debt to the point where it looks like bankruptcy, the debt continues to rise because of wars, cost of living is rising to the point where there’s a death toll (health care), the tax burden is becoming increasingly unfair (especially with health care mandates, which amount to a tithe to politically connected monopolies), the conspicuous consumption of our noble class continues to rise, unemployment is high, the resentment of the poor and middle class at the priviledged continues to rise, and there are no representatives of the people in our government (with no way of changing that).

The teabaggers are citing the wrong revolution. Those are not the conditions of the United States pre-1776.

We tolerated you as you advocated more “Kissing Cousins” marriages. You used the freedom provided by Jane Hamsher for numerous posts on the issue. So bashing Jane is your new issue. Stay classy.

Yes sir. If this does not convince progressives to stay home in 2010 and 2012 what will? We need to let the dems take a serious ass kickin in the next two elections in order to open up some opportunities for real progressives. To keep voting for this democratic party makes no sense. Progressives shld make it known to all no strong jobs bill and no strong public option means we are staying home on election nite.It is time for us to quit being taken for granted. PS: Who here wldve thunk that the dems wld come up with a health plan that FORCES you to buy insurance from a private carrier without any competiton to them? This is a real loser but the dems are willing to follow Obama off the cliff I guess.

Progressives won’t be the only ones staying home in Nov 2010. Many in the Democrats’ base have been disillusioned by failure and corruption since Nov 2008. The sad thing is that the msm will sell the results as a Republican victory rather than Democrats defeating themselves.

It remains a mystery as to why anyone acting as a representative for their constituents would not vote for them regardless of their personal belief. Any other reasoning would have fatal flaws.
If the representatives that we elect don’t begin following our wishes, they have no one to blame for what happens to them. I don’t think they understand how a million people might be willing to spill their blood for them as a response to their helping to kill another 10 million of their family members.
Common sense isn’t being served well any longer. We can’t continue to conclude our “friends” in the democraptic party are helping. Jello Jay got his name back. Ronny Wyden has proven he is an insurance company tool as well as a purported progressive. Sorry boys, you can’t have it both ways. You are openly criminal stooges fronting for someone that pays you more than your salary in the senate. You are under arrest. Submit yourselves to your state police and admit the crimes. You don’t have long before it will be out of your hands. You need to spill the beans, blow the whistle. Or you could consider standing up and making damn sure to filibuster the crap you have allowed to fester disguised as a health insurance scam of epic proportion. May you both die soon that you may be replaced by representatives that care about the people first.

From your lips …..

Supporting progressive incumbents is an excellent idea.

“I say: support Rethugs against blue dogs”

I don’t think that will work. They don’t care if they lose. they’ll just move up the ladder to lobbyist where the pay is better, and they’ll still get to keep their Gov. retirement.

This turn taking as villains is working out perfectly for them.

I find it funny that night after night Rachel Maddow highlights GOP hyprocrisy but entirely ignores those of DEMs on the Public Option.

This has bothered me about TRMS for a long while now. GOP nonsense isn’t my concern so much as is pressuring sellout Dems to do the right thing when the Democratic Party is in power and pushing sellout Dems out of office when the Democratic Party is out of power.

Keith Olbermann has also quieted down his sharp criticism since Nov/early Dec 2009. During the 2008 primaries, he bent over backwards to support Obama over Clinton. I think he felt regret during the second half of 2009 and started speaking out forcefully. Then he just backed off. My guess is that NBC executives ordered him to back off. Too bad.

This is why voting green as a “none-of-the-above” vote is a better protest.

Oh, I forgot. They’ll still get to go to all the parties an laugh at us.

So, what can we do to about those senators who won’t sign on to the public option?

- Tom

Agreed. There’s no excuse for progressives just to stay home. It’s always better to vote. I was thinking of writing in “Howard Dean.”

I feel the same disappointment with Rachel and KO. Even e-mailed KO about turning some of his attention away from the reichwingers to the real villains in the current administration, and about getting some new guests instead of the usual apologists. Specifically mentioned village transcriber Ezra Klein and that other wimp, Richard Wolfe.

Actually, you are wrong.

We are not represented when the US Senatorial response to an email suggesting an end to the war, is to terrorize the email sending voter with a black, machine gun toting, unmarked Blackwater helicopter, and the congressional response to charges of media malfeasance and conspiratorial criminal cover ups, is to grant them immunity.

I have walked that walk. And I talked about it too. I blogged the whole miserable experience buried in the comments of AlterNet. You sir, seem to be either ignorant or in denial.

Well, Jay Rockefeller apparently thinks that standing up for the Senate rules and the no-longer-extant niceties of the Senate is far more important than hcr or a public option.

When you think about it there are under 20 CEOs and maybe 100 board members that comprise the insurance industry leaders. There are maybe 50 lobbyists working on this issue, max. There are 100 people in the senate, and 435 in the house. There’s one President and one Vice President.

1,007 people aren’t that many people. There must be a way for the people to change their views. There used to be that many abortion providers willing to do late-term abortions after all.

Suppose we got 50 votes in the senate–does everybody really trust Obama to send over uncle Joe for the tie breaker? I sure don’t. IMHO we need 51 votes and no assist from Baracky. I dob’t trust Obama as far as I could throw him…maybe even a little less than that.

Joe Biden could be the tie breaker. But he won’t. The President doesn’t want the public option.

So Jay Rockefeller was for an unpassable public option but is against the same public option if it can actually pass. Could the corporate democratic establishment show its colors any more clearly?

Quick! Call super-progressive Anthony Weiner to go on the talk shows and point out the gross self-serving hypocrisy and to urge publicly the progressives case for the public option!

What? Oh. He was too busy spending your 10k to take your call.

Investigate their ties to covering up CIA operations in child abuse.

I think we can’t have good medical care because it would expose a carefully nested set of pedophiles. It is just a hunch, but fully supported by all the literature.

1007, a number that would neatly fit into Guantanamo.

Say no to financial terrorism.

There were, much like today multiple factions, those against the Stamp Act and those that had devised a way to take advantage. The folks that wanted the tax kept at 25% instead of having it was reduced to 10% by the Indemnity Act were smugglers and merchants who sold untaxed Dutch tea. They had profits to protect. Others, mostly Whigs, were against the taxes since they could not vote for members of Parliament. The actual makeup of the people in the Boston Tea Party could have been a bit of both.

WTF?

don’t you guys get it yet? so long as we are content to argue about a public option that has no chance of being anything other than a dumping ground for the sickest and therefore most expensive among us (leaving the private insurance companies free to make even more profit off the healthly) we’ve already conceded and the corporatists have already won.

let’s fight for something real — any kind of policy that will work to provide universal comprehensive healthcare. or we might as all go home take some soma for all the good we’re doing.

the public option as it exists in any bill the house or senate leadership has ok’ed in the past year (including all those passed by committee) is just a fucking trojan horse for the mandate to bailout the insurance companies.

!!!!!

Do Not Resuscitate the ‘Public Option’
by Andy Coates

“With its reliance on the magic of the marketplace, the “public option” is simply not a proposal for reform. In fact, it has already been tried, and failed: in Maine, a “public option” insurer known as DirigoChoice, was established in 2003. It has failed to enroll but a tiny percent of the uninsured, did nothing to reduce the costs of insurance or health care, nor did it reduced overall health spending, nor did disparities in care improve – and in the last year DirigoChoice has fatally tanked.

In the United States a corporate oligopoly of huge insurers, with near-monopoly control in most locales, dominate the market. A government insurer of any size would simply add yet another bureaucracy to the present byzantine insurance mess.”

“Any successful “public option” insurance plan would wind up covering the sick and the poor. It would be designed to lose, not win, the market competition. It would not prove affordable or comprehensive. Worst of all, a highly successful “public plan option” could put our nation on a fast-track to permanent two-tiered health services, exacerbating deplorable disparities that plague us.”

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/23-4

With respect, because I know the general tone of your comments, my intention was not to get bogged down in the actual historical details. I speed-read my way through all that stuff today after perris challenged me on the details of the tea tax. It was just an analogy I was using to make my point about the principle of rebelling against illegitimate exertions of authority, but I read enough to see that the East India Company lowered tea prices enough that tea was cheaper than it had been before with the prior tax imposed. Parliament was still burying the tax in the price, but intended the lower overall price to quiet dissent while still retaining the principle that Parliament had the authority to levy any tax at all. The colonists saw through that ruse, and rejected the inference that even a hidden tax could be imposed without representation. I take the further step of saying that ostensible or fraudulent represenation, i.e. that is blatantly unresponsive to the will of the People it claims to represent, is equally illegitimate as NO representation, and that the principle of rebellion against such under natural law is justified, per the Declaration of Independence.

I care much less about the details of history than the applicability of eternal principles. I would hope all here would share that view.

Before we get to the rebellion part, how about getting of our asses and do some Protest Marches!

WhereTF are the Unions and the Students (they are looking at crushing debt and joblessness) !??

thank you fuckno. somedays the stupid burns extra hot and i start to think that we dems are just as batshit crazy as republicans (although in different ways).

Sure, let’s have a march big enough and long enough that it shuts down commerce and cannot be ignored. I’d be there, right alongside you. But it looks like we’d be there alone, judging by the passive tone of most of the whining one hears from the oh-so-civilized-and-erudite left. And, honestly, in my heart I can’t believe that the gangsters who kill with such impunity would tolerate a significant march or be at all impressed by our non-violent demonstration.

Which is why you always see me pushing for something much more active and aggressive, while trying to stay on the good side of the Moderator.

so long as we are content to argue about a public option … we’ve already conceded and the corporatists have already won.

So, should we be for or against passage of the Senate bill — as amended by BHO? Honest question.

Thanks.

Trying to fool all the people all the time.

Me too.

I don’t think the execs at NBC had anything to do with this, otherwise Big Ed would be quiet too. I think Maddow and Olbermann are being deliberately blind to hypocrisy on the part of “their guys”. Simply double standard, plus they get to keep access to the WH.

Word.

That so many progressives don’t seem to get this is worrisome.

Democratic victory on the HCR bill will by a pyrrhic victory. If it contains the public option (for 2% of us) it will be a pyrrhic victory in spades.

Living in Texas, my vote in November is going to be easy: vote against batshit crazy Republican incumbents. But if I actually had any Democratic congressmen incumbents, at this point I’m not so sure I wouldn’t hold my nose and vote against them, even if the challenger were some batshit crazy Republican living in their fantasyland.

FWIW, I think they feel that failure to pass “something” would signal the end of the Obama presidency.

Add to that timeline.
8 years of the Bush administration. 0 action

Urgh… over @ Huffingtonpost on the front page:

“Support For Up-Or-Down Vote On Public Plan Surging In Senate [Linked to:]
http://whipcongress.com/

How many times has this ‘sham’ been played out before? I guess for some people it comes down to the thrill of the chase — But in reality it comes down to those Senators that are vulnerable and are coming up for election in November will be ‘seen’ to tick the YES Public Option box, and those who are in safe seats, see a chance to ‘logroll’, or think they have enough time in office that their constitutes will forget where they stand — will then provide the much needed ‘cover’ to tick the NO Public Option box, or flat out refuse to commit either way.

Bottom line — after this little charade is over — we will again find there are not enough votes to insist on a Public Option — but hell the ‘sham’ will have been played out some Senators can say they really really tried.

When will people wake up?

I just saw a comment from the PCCC saying the WH has a loser mentality and I agree. They pissed away huge political capital, revived the GOP by trying appeasement in the face of naked hostility and now are backing off from the Volcker rule that they just championed. They are afraid of their own shadow. Obama needs to grow a pair.

Or maybe, just maybe, like say in some Boxing matches — they are actually paid to lose?

Maybe, but I am not that cynical to believe that. I believe its more a reflection of Obama’s personality that he believes appeasement is the path. Someone needs to let him know that he ain’t no Mohandas Ghandi.

Breaking news, supposedly: Obama has now come out in favor of repeal of the anti-trust exemption. But, he has done this as a “stand alone” proposal, not part of the package he unveiled yesterday from Rahm’s backroom.

Why is it a stand alone, and not part of the package? Per the NY Times blog on healthcare today: “Mr. Gibbs said the idea was not put into the overall health care plan posted on Monday because strategists believe there could be a bipartisan majority for repealing the exemption, separate from the main legislation.”

In other words, they know damned well that the package will fail, and is expected, and indeed intended to fail. (Good riddance, though, to the odious individual mandate, if that happens.)

If Obama had had such a defeatist attitude in 2006, he never would have run for President.

[[[selise!!!]]]

Kill this insurance company bailout bill.

Kill Obama’s shock doctrine presidency now.

Enact Medicare for all.

Why grow a pair when being a castrato has such a cushy corporate retirement package?

econobuzz, i don’t know what is best for you and i’m not going to tell you. as far as i can tell (and i’m no magician with superman’s x-ray vision) some people will be hurt and some people will be helped. if you are one of the people who would be helped, no way am i going to try to tell you not to advocate for what you think it is in your best interest.

i just want us to tell ourselves and each other the truth as we see it and as best as we can so we all are as informed as possible and not manipulated by expensive bullshit marketing campaigns.

i wish i had an answer or even some wisdom to share. i’m sorry. but whatever you decide to support and advocate for you have my support – so long as you don’t bs anyone, including yourself about it. good luck to you and to all of us.

ralphbon!

so good to see you! as you well know, no writer am i. but somehow at middle age i suddenly felt the uncontrollable urge to attempt a bit of documentary screenplay writing.

Succinctly put Selise. What the Democratic base is offered from the party establishment: a choice between no supper and floor sweeping of crumbs. That bunch needs to go, as soon as a quickly as possible.

I hope you realize that Rockefeller is basically giving away the fact that he’s most likely made a deal with Obama to gut the Climate bill totally. He’s just paying Obama back in advance so it’s not as suspicious. Mark my words…in a few weeks we’ll see the Climate bill turned into a total POS instead of a partial one. Coal plants will get to do whatever they want and then Obama will tell us again how he didn’t have the votes and how we “shouldn’t make perfect the enemy of the good.” Watch.