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Dennis Kucinich has called a press conference for tomorrow. Howard Fineman is reporting that Kucinich will vote “yes” on health care.
Kucinich told Obama that he wants a full ERISA waver and a public option in exchange for his vote. And if he actually gets an ERISA waver, it will be the biggest victory of the entire health care debate. As Jon Walker says, “ERISA is the 900 pound Gorilla that has fucked up America’s health care system something good.”
If on the other hand he settles for some worthless reassurances that “Obama will work toward it in the future” (which nobody but Lynn Woolsey is dumb enough to actually believe), or a meaningless symbolic vote that achieves little more than 15 minutes of futile grandstanding, good luck to him. A thousand people have donated over $16,000 to Dennis since yesterday to thank him for standing up for what he believes in. We’ll be asking him to return it.
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Has anyone ever returned any money, though?
I still send a futile letter to Chris Carney’s campaign every now and then, over his Hate Crimes Bill treachery. Just to let him know I remember. But I’ve never heard a peep.
Magic 8 says outlook not so good. If you’ll recall just before the House bill vote, he and Conyers caved on a single payer vote (and asked Weiner to withdraw his Amendment). I’d love to see an ERISA fix, but I wouldn’t bet the rent.
How sad would it be if the only Democrat who’s come through the HCR process with his dignity and integrity intact is Bart Stupak?
What could the Big Obstacle possibly have said to Dennis to flip his vote without concessions?
Dear Jane,
I regret to inform you that giving a Congressmen or Senator money to in effect buy his/her vote is a bribe and Im sure you know is illegal. Telling your readers that they should demand their money back if kucinich doesnt vote the way they expected or should I say paid him to vote a certain way is wrong. Even the most unethical lobbyist understands that giving money to Pols is no guarantee of results.
I hope you would be courageous enough to make it clear to those readers who gave to Kucinich and others at your behest that they should not have expected their donations to be considered as a payment in kind for their votes or support because it would be ILLEGAL!
Why would Dennis disclose to Howard Fineman of all people? It just doesn’t sound right.
“You know Dennis, I’m thinking what this crazy world needs is a Department of Peace”
:o)
He did get a vote on his Admendment to withdraw all Troops from Afghanistan in six months. I don’t know if this had any relation to his No to yes vote on HC.
Sounds like a great time for Fineman to guess. He has a 50/50 change of being right.
Most info to people like Fineman come from staff. Some leaks are deliberate some are not. But DC leaks leaks like crazy.
If he planned to vote no, would he be holding a press conference to announce it?
Good point but is there every a time Kucinich does not like to have the media hear him talk.
Yes, he would, whatever his decision
Jane, Your HCR exhaustion is showing. DK deserves the support he has paid dearly for. I have no clue what he’ll say, but I’ll believe he’s one of the good guys until he, not Fineman, shows otherwise.
p.s. the remark about asking for $$ back confirms my point – they’ve worn you to a frazzle. It’s out of your hands, take a break, you’re not the villan in this melodrama. Truth is, You & JON are probably as close to heros as there are in this – as Jon likes to say, it’s all about sharing information. He’s right and you’re great.
I mean, it would be fantastic if said he was going to vote no, and then listed all the gruesome particulars. Too much to hope for, I think.
I just doesn’t seem logical that Kucinich would decide to call a “News Conference” just to announce that he still going to vote no. That wouldn’t be News now would it.
The ERISA issue is huge, If he got that, it would be a tremendous achievement. This health plan is a dud, and only the ERISA waver gives states an escape latch. I would bet every one of that 16k that Obama did not give him anymore than the ride on Air Force One, but I’d love to be proven wrong. If he folds now, and runs into the arms of his MoveOn/Daily Kos abusers, he’s a disgrace and he deserves what he gets from that crowd in the future.
I agree. Dennis probably let a suggestive comment slip to get people to tune in to his presser tomorrow. That would be like Dennis.
A staff leak is practically worthless. Dennis telling Fineman how he’s going to vote is unthinkable.
Thank you Jane Hamsher for all of your incredible work. Keep on their tails. When they see you coming and start to duck away you know you are doing allright. Venceremos! Your words were never more poignant! If Kucinich caves then he is no friend of those who seek sanity over corporate despotism.
Threats.
The real question is, will you and Jane still love him in the afternoon?
Maybe because of all the attacks, all the pressure, he feels the need to explain why he will indeed vote no?
Fingers crossed…
Jon Walker, I hope your right and Fineman is just guessing, but something tells me otherwise.
Jane, I have to regretfully agree that Kucinich should give the money back. a person commented that asking for the money back shows your desperation. I couldn’t disagree more, if anything it shows the exact opposite. FDL chose to raise money for Kucinich on that promise that he will stick to his guns. Since Kucinich decided to change his mind, it is only justified that the money FDL raised for him on that promise he will stick to his guns and vote no, should be returned since Kucinich didn’t stick to his guns.
It is really, really disappointing if this turns out to be true. Like Michael moore said on countdown last night, “Thank you. Thank you. One vote out of 435 standing up for the 300 million. How truly sad is that?” Now we got 0, michael moore couldn’t have said it better, “How sad is that?”
TPM indicates Kucinich will make the announcement at 10am. “And unless Kucinich is now changing his vote to “yes” after spending time with Obama yesterday, it does seem a little odd to announce a decision he’s already made. Though you never know… “
Kucinich has been under perhaps unbearable pressure, and even Luther and St. Joan recanted temporarily; but it would be out of character for him to bail on the people. Whatever he decided, let’s have a good night’s sleep and hear him tomorrow.
He should return the money if he flip flops without getting something of value added to the bill. The money was not a bribe it was a thank you for standing on principle.
No one said hey Dennis I will send in 100 bucks if you vote yes or no, the money was sent as a thank you for standing uo for what you always have beleived in.
It is a very disheartening development. The death of a good friend is always hard to reconcile with the future. DC is apparently virulent contagion to the principled agent for good. Soon its condition becomes terminal.
Sorry, Jane, but there are others who are dumb enough to believe the “Obama will work toward it in the future” bullshit. Woolsey’s not the only one.
If Dennis got something meaningful in exchange for voting in favor of the bill, fine. If not, we definitely have to ask for our money back.
No more carrots at this point. It’s just throwing good money after bad. How many times are you going to reward someone only to be thrown under the bus!
I was over at Digby’s blog and she had a link to support move on for the wonderful job they were doing in whipping up votes and threatening primary challenges to get this god awful bill passed. That was my Dante moment, “all who enter here abandon hope”.
I unsubscribed to move on during the primaries. I have never regretted that decision. I am now down to two blogs, this one and Americablog.
It was written in response to the many emails I got from donors after the announcement wondering what we would do.
I hope he’s not caving. If he is, we’ll deal with it. But I hope he’s sticking to his guns and getting something for his vote if in fact he’s going to commit it.
A man of fine taste
;)
Oh, hi! I thought maybe you’d disappeared.
Still really interested in wrapping up this issue from earlier. There’s a related note regarding it here as well.
If on the other hand he settles for some worthless reassurances that “Obama will work toward it in the future” (which nobody but Lynn Woolsey is dumb enough to actually believe), or a meaningless symbolic vote that achieves little more than 15 minutes of futile grandstanding, good luck to him.
That would go a long way to proving Markos Moulitsas right about him. On the other hand I know of nothing that would justify Markos deliberately mispronouncing his name and that’s what pisses me off about Markos, not his opinion of Kucinich.
Maybe to reaffirm his “no” after meeting with Obama and to explain his reasons. He did issue a press release to explain his “no” vote on H R 3962 last Nov.
I was over at Digby’s blog and she had a link to support move on for the wonderful job they were doing in whipping up votes and threatening primary challenges to get this god awful bill passed.
Really a let down.
Glad everyone still retains a good disposition and
sense of humor.
I hope so.
I agree with those who say one rarely calls a press conference to announce nothing’s changed.
I worry that Dennis flipping would lead to months of horrific Democratic kumbayah self-congratulation – though of course that’s the primary goal of all this. Health care for Americans has almost nothing to do with it.
I’ll still hope for the best – and keep working for it, too.
I note that Rachel Maddow, ever big on “hypocrisy,” didn’t point out the hypocrisy of Obama flying to Ohio to publicly lambaste Kucinich, but when Lieberman was the single vote blocking something we all just had to shut up and suck it.
Sad how Obama’s campaign of “Yes We Can” can only marshal spine and energy to resist doing the right thing.
Apparently “Yes We Can” had the unstated subtext of “No You Can’t.”
It’s hard to imagine that obama will agree to anything that will dissatisfy his bff’s in the health care industry whom he is so loyal and servile to.
Z
Ah yes, Markos Koulitsas. Who went from “Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate” to calling Dennis Kucinich a murderer on national television for not supporting the Senate bill in less than 3 short months.
If Kucinich got something in return, I doubt he would be the one announcing what he got. From what I understand, he wanted individual states to be allowed to move toward single-payer. If he got that, wouldn’t it be quickly included in the bill and passed quietly so as not to awaken the wrath of the Right?
I don’t know whether he will announce his support or explain his opposition. The fact that he lasted this long as the sole progressive vote is impressive enough. I keep going back to Ralph Nader, but I think besides Nader, very few politicians can truly stand alone and face the heat. Kucinich gave it all he had, I think. If there were more like him, we would have been in much better shape.
Related to this particular article, I wouldn’t be entirely shocked to see Obama concede an ERISA waiver, it was truly one of the only bipartisan healthcare reform initiatives in the House (single-payer and State’s rights folks).
Though I don’t really understand how it would fit under the rules of reconciliation, as it’s not a direct budgetary item; it only has implied impact. Unless I’m misunderstanding something.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote that famous book about him, right? “The Little Prick”?
We should look at the big picture. Obama engineered from the beginning a grand sellout to the insurance, drug, and medical industries. Nothing has changed on that, because let’s face it that was the object of the exercise. Any deal Kucinich makes will not change it. It is why the bill needs to be killed. The only question I can see being answered by this is whether there is one progressive in the House or none.
I second this emotion.
I note that Rachel Maddow, ever big on “hypocrisy,” didn’t point out the hypocrisy of Obama flying to Ohio to publicly lambaste Kucinich, …
I stopped watching. No reason to watch anymore.
Youve made your points and Ive stated my positions. I cant tell what kind of questions to ask me and you cant demand the kinds of answers you want. But I must apologize for the Troll comment your point of view is as valid as mine and I should havent attacked you like that.
Well, this confirms one thing (as if we didn’t already know): Obama is an unprincipled hack who doesn’t give two shits about the American public. This whole “process” has been quite instructive.
It’s time to break off from the Democratic Party. If this doesn’t clinch the deal, I don’t know what does.
Kucinich gave it all he had, I think. If we were more like him, we would have been in much better shape.
ftfy
Cross post from below on renditions activist
In my view we have to face the fact that the power of the Obama political machine has marginalized progressives to the point FDL may be the only organized group left. MoveOn and Daily Kos have been co-opted and effectively silenced. And other too.
I am just someone who comes on and writes a few posts but it seems we may need to not rush too much in planning strategy and tactics that will help the progressive movement to endure if not flourish and to get it right
Seeing these stories about Kucinich and threats to veto any bills to create oversight of domestic spying, lifting visas of human rights activists etc. gives me chills. I feel the country being shut down.
Ah, another day and another issue where Jane Hamsher knows more than everyone else what’s best for everyone else. Smugness is Jane’s best quality.
It’s called lying.
They lied about their positions, in order to get donations from people.
Kucinich maybe not so much, but there are a lot of people still mad at Shuler and Carney, who, not to put too fine a point on it, lied to us.
They think we’ll forget – well, not so fast as all that.
I’m sure that’s the goal of getting Dennis to flip, but it won’t work out that way. As has been said here at FDL in the past few days, the Democrats seem intent on fucking up hcr and making sure that the blame for fucking it up is spread evenly throughout the Democratic Party.
First, Pelosi. Now, Dennis.
Rather than lend credibility to this failure, this failure will ruin the credibility of progressives and all Democrats.
I think there’s plenty of very important reasons for DK to hold a Press Conference other than to change his vote. Most importantly, Obama came into his district & tried to line up his constituents to influence him. DK had to stand there & take it because that’s decorum & he plays by the rules. (In case anyone’s missed it, aside from FDL there haven’t been a lot of opportunities for those opposing the proposed HCR Bill to air their concerns without being interrupted & adversely branded.)
For Obama’s antic, DK deserves an opportunity to restate his reasons for opposing the legislative tripe they’ve been relentlessly jamming down our throats. A Press Conference now is perfect timing & a great way to make an argument that needs every chance to be told.
On the other hand, if DK’s been paid off for a vote not absolutely needed, all the more power to him AND us. I say this because, unlike so many of his Brethren, DK’s demands will be in line with voters, not PHARMA or radical fringe. Go get’m Dennis, we’re counting on you.
sorry, stfu?
And of course you’d never engage in that….
Good luck to those that want to reform the democratic party through primaries … it is a noble cause, but there is a ton of work to do … probably decades. It is particularly disgusting to see obama going populist for a bill that doesn’t have what 2/3rds of the american people want: a public option … becoz of him more than any other … and to see his henchmen like move-on, the unions and donna brazile threaten to primary any democrat that doesn’t fall into line and sign a bill in which the majority of the people do not want, that mandates that we buy health insurance off of private companies, and holds tens of thousands lives hostage in order to get it passed. If those lives are so important to them, then why does the vast majority of the bill go into effect 4 YEARS from now, why does it still leave tens of millions uncovered, and why don’t they just get some sort of bill through just to take care of that issue rather than dangle those lives as leverage to get the rest of the corporate friendly bill passed.
obama and the democrats and their leadership and much of their “grassroots” henchman are DISGUSTING and just becoz the republicans are more DISGUSTING doesn’t change a damn bit of that.
Z
Way too fmany purity (and other) trolls around here in the last couple of months.
Most of them think they know more about what Jane should be doing than she does. None of them seem to have been here in the last two election years.
Dennis did flip on SCHIP and voted for it even though it excludes immigrants. But if he caves on this (a 20% expansion of Medicaid, some money for community health centers, and subsidies less generous than the current subsidized COBRA–in exchange for mandating everyone to buy private insurance, a tax on employer benefits, and new restrictions on abortion) it will be a sad day for the republic.
I’ll say this right now, if he caves for nothing but an ERISA waiver that’s bullshit.
Do any of you here really think states are going to implement single payer? If you do I would like to know what drugs you’re on so I can get some. Name me a state that has a state government willing to do this. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
That’s all 3 “Firedogs”. If he caves (and I really really hope not. I hope he’s calling it to say no and stick it directly to Obama. But if he caves that’s all 3.
We ready to start a third party yet?
You confuse a willingness to stand up for ones beliefs as smugness. Then you’re probably a party loyalist as opposed to an idea loyalist so it’s not surprising that you would confuse the two.
I don’t get it…could someone please explain the effect of an ERISA Waiver? Would all regulation of health insurance products then be subject to state oversight, and no longer pre-empted by ERISA?
Why do I keep getting this feeling that the Obama who was running for office was replaced by a double from the ‘Mirror-Mirror’ universe, between the election and Inauguration Day?
To quote Dennis:
“It it time for leadership of clarity, courage and integrity.”
But not from Dennis. Not from anyone, it appears. Very sad.
Hmmm. Didn’t expect this of DK. Glad I voted against him as FireDog.
I first came to Firedoglake because Rachel Maddow mentioned it on her show. I made it a point to watch her show every night since then, but lately she’s just been unwatchable. Spin sucks.
Couldn’t agree more.
Jane, my liege. DK is the last dog willing to die for the cause. Let’s hear what he has to say. This story could be a plant by the WH to apply more pressure. Maybe there is a book in it for Howard Fineman.
We will know tomorrow. And, if DK says yes in exchange for something of value, then I have one thing to say to DK;
Thank you. For being our last dog to die.
My liege, this fight is over.
Once he votes yes he loses all his credibility and they own him. This is really depressing news.
Reminds me of a beautiful quote from St. Exupery that should have been applied to the current HCR hairball bill:
“…in anything at all, perfection is finally
attained not when there is nothing left to add,
but rather, when there is nothing left to take away.”
As I understand it, ERISA would stand in the way of adoption of a state-based single-payer system, no?
We could definitively form an alliance between disaffected Dems, Green Party members and Naderites. That’s at least 10% of the vote. This would deny the Democrats victory in every election. We could field candidates on the local and national level.
Of course there is always the bigger picture to consider. The economy is likely to hit the wall in 2011. Depression could render this whole debate irrelevant.
I disagree. It’d be easy enough to screw this up (from their standpoint) without all the effort.
No, this is about enacting into law a permanent financial bailout for the sickness industry – which is now ~1/6 of the economy. It’s the D’s version of what the R’s do for the military, and together they do for Wall Street.
This is absolutely D’s advancing their side of fascism (which is really what this is, the government will force every citizen to give money to private businesses). That’s why they’re playing so hard, because the people who will actually benefit are the one who matter – the ownership class.
It’s important to see this as part of a unified business/government/media agenda over the years.
Jon Chait picks up this story, managing to insult both Dennis and FDL
http://www.tnr.com/node/73787
This intra progressive fight is getting nastier all the time.
I find it hard to believe that DK would change his vote for something small. My bet is that it is something substantial. That’s my hope, really.
What if he got a trigger for a po? Even as the Democrats gave everything up in exchange for nothing, I always wondered there wasn’t even a trigger for a public option left in.
If DK caves in any way on this, the progressive movement in the Democratic Party is dead forever. He has made himself the last vestige of hope in the party for the most serious of reform-minded people.
As it stands, even with an ERISA exemption, the health care “reform” to be enacted is an utter disaster for the American people and the progressive movement. The only outcome to still hope for is no legislation being passed at this sad point. If legislation is passed, it is, again, a disaster for the American people and the progressive agenda. The only question DK is addressing is whether or not there is a SINGLE figure with ANY STATURE WHATSOEVER in the Democratic Party who can WIN ANYTHING AT ALL, HOWEVER MINOR for the progressive movement and reform-minded people.
In reality, at the end of this week, the fight against the corruption and corporatism and craven conniving sellouts in the Democratic Party is only beginning. The future of the progressive movement in the Party is absolutely dubious and nobody with a clear mind should have much hope for the Democratic Party ever representing a single one of us in any real way.
I started hearing the same themes as those spouted by Ezra, MY, Josh, et al.
That spin is all predictable, don’t need to listen to her to repeat them.
Geithner on tonight. Jesus.
Regardless of the outcome of the efforts on HCR this week, virtually no Democrat currently holding office should re-elected under any circumstances whatsoever.
In any particular month? I gotta plan, ya know…
I am actually a HCR supporter (sorry guys) but I actually don’t buy it until I hear him say it.
Reminds me of Michaelangelo’s relationship to sculpture. He said the sculpture was already in the stone, he just removed the extra marble hiding it.
I agree. But I don’t think fielding more leftish candidates against the corpo-Dems will win the day. You need leverage outside the 2 party duopoly.
I’m a HCR supporter too, I just don’t see this as real reform.
thank you
As has been long said, if elections could change anything they would have been outlawed years ago.
Cauliphonia (and Jerry Brown will be Governor soon!)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/singlepayer-health-care-a_n_440869.html
Same for me. I gave up on Keith when Lawrence O’Donnell took over. I held out some hope for Rachel; she seemed to be avoiding the issue, with her little “how a bill becomes law” cartoon.
But now she, like all the others, seems overwhelmed by the “if THOSE guys [right-wingers] are against it, it MUST be good” philosophy, and seduced by all the “we’ve got to do it now or it will never get done” and “this is just an attempt to break Obama and we can’t let that happen.”
Of all of them, Rachel, who is smart, who came the last to this “media” thing and who reads her e-mail, should KNOW better, should READ the legislation, should LISTEN to folks like Jane when they provide her with chapter and verse on how bad this bill is.
I feel like I’m retreating further and further into a cave. As someone mentioned above about Digby: now she’s shilling for the bill. WTF?
Where the hell can I go to read or watch? FDL is about it.
Hawaii is the only state that got an ERISA waiver. It now has the highest quality, lowest, and second highest level of coverage as a result.
More likely if Kucinich sells out. They will take his vote. He will be discredited among progressives, and they (Obama and Rahm) will throw him away. To be honest, I don’t know what Kucinich will do. He has not been completely opposed to Obamacare in the past. I have heard him on cable talk about some of its positives. It says a lot that we don’t know even with him which way he may go. Progressives simply can’t depend on any politician to stand with them. I have said for many months now. The Democrats are not our friends or allies. We need to figure out how to oppose them, not continue to throw money and support at various ones and hope for a different outcome.
And, that would accomplish what?
I fully and wholeheartedly support health care reform but this bill is Health Insurance Company Welfare.
With my last remaining shred of idealism, I’ll stick with Dennis until I hear the betrayal come from his own mouth.
That says it all.
Well put.
Right now, what worries me is that the disaster that is about to ensue through the remainder of this week – the passage of lobbyist-driven legislation by the Democrats that would have brought Ronald Reagan to his knees, uncontrollably, with tears of joy in his eyes – is going to be presented in the media as some sort of “populist triumph”.
We’re about to see economic rape committed against everyone in the country who has no choice but to work for a living. This act of rape is going to be committed by the political ruling class but driven primarily by the Democratic Party, which pitches itself as the progressive or liberal alternative to rightist politics.
If this monstrosity is passed into law, I’ll likely give up forever on any concept of there being a hope for populism in America. The legislation that will be passed, if any is, will be the final needed proof that the US is a nuclear-armed banana republic and that the national government’s power will be used primarily or exclusively to enrichen and empower the plutocracy at the expense of the serfs and peasants.
I don’t think economic indicators actually support that. Indeed, the recovery as it were will probably continue to trudge along. The problem is over the past 40 years the middle class has really lost it’s position, and this latest melt down has exacerbated the growing gap between the haves and the have nots, and I don’t think the “recovery” will remedy that. I expect that growing gap will be even larger than it has been in recent years. The problem is the American public has been slow to recognize that their economic status has been decimated because it’s happened over time, and the most destruction to the middle class comes in these melt downs, then there is a recovery, people feel relieved, they don’t notice that they do not return to their previous status.
sunnyOprogressive
you do know that 54% of the USA citizens hate the Obama Insurance Wel-Fare plan wink wink Health care Bill.
once Obama Health Care Bill passes, is this going to make 50%,60% 70%, 80% of the USA love it? probably not.
What are house Dems and senate Dems going to do the day after this Health Care Scam passes? tell the world they are progressives? laughing
all jokes a side this is a republican bill, democrat who vote for a republican bill, want be democrats for long.
this health care debate showed the real progressive base the type of scum that has infested the democratic party.
Glenn Greenwald articles are a 100% accurate the Dems in congress will screw their base, because like republicans they are own by corporations.
the day after this Bill passes your name is going to be Category5Hurricaneprogressive. Hell will come!
there is no need to start a third party, all real dems have to do is eliminate the scum in the democratic party, passing this bill will make it very easy to do.
accountability for an economically raped population amongst the chief rapists, when no other possibilities exist
A trigger would still be bullshit for the reasons a trigger was bullshit when we went thru this before.
Don’t start going backwards now. We drew the line in the sand for a full PO, don’t take scraps from the WH because they’re putting the pressure on. That’s what they’ve wanted all along, us feeding at their scraps.
@65
I agree, Maddow has been pathetic lately. She started great guns but turned into a corporate lackey real real fast. Did you see the interview with Pelosi? It was the single biggest game of softball I have ever seen.
Don’t dare risk your precious access do ya? The only joy I derive from her patheticness is that my female friends can’t lord her as “the best personality on TV” anymore.
Power knows nothing of sex or sexuality. Even a lesbian is not immune from the taste of it.
The entire “liberal” infrastructure has been co-opted. Look at the Nation. When I was growing up, the corporate media never had them on AT ALL.
The “progressive” blogs, the rags, the pols–etc, etc. They are all pods, man. We need to create a separate movement.
Kucinich seemed happy when he got off the plane, if Huffpost is to be believed. Good sign for ERISA.
your assumption is that Obama is a Dem? he is not
Once the Obama Insurance Wel-Fare plan passes, and the masses learn about this scam, there will be a movement within the Dem party to kick out all corporate politicians.
I hope Dennis Kucinich stands his ground, stays true to his liberal progressive principles and doesn’t submit to any bullying.
Bully State versus Nanny State, or both, because during the infamous Bush/Cheney years we saw a combination, a Bully State and a Nanny State, with the Nanny State version being pushed by Bush and Cheney focused solely on enriching the welfare queens on Wall Street, and through no-bid contracts, Republican corporate welfare queens, from small to large companies (like Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, etc.) along with individuals, a whole welfare line of conservative Republicans with their hands out.
At the same time, the Bush/Cheney “Bully State” sought to bully the U.S. Constitution, Congress, the judiciary, the U.N., ACORN, and all Democrats and independents not sucking up hard enough to Bush, Cheney and the neo-con Republicans, using the “unitary executive” Bully State to promote one democracy-busting policy after another, from illegal warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of U.S. citizens to outing a covert CIA agent, from lying us into a war in Iraq to trying to start a war with Iran, to name just a few “Bully State” Bush/Cheney initiatives that broke the law, undermined our country and our national security. GITMO. Torture. Secret Renditions.
So, of course, with the culture of corruption “Bully State,” self-proclaimed anti-”Nanny State” Republicans now out of power in Washington, they are accusing President Barack Obama of trying to establish a “Bully State” and “Nanny State” (like they did?), while he appears to be trying to reverse and undo (through half-measures or no measures at all, from what I can tell) the actual Bully State/Nanny State perversion of our society under Bush and Cheney, a perversion that was meant only to make the wealthy even more wealthy, and funnel taxpayer funds solely toward Republican organizations, individuals and companies.
Granted, President Obama is no Bush or Cheney (or at least not so extreme and corrupt), but he is no FDR either. Nor LBJ. Nor JFK. Nor Jimmy Carter. Nor Dennis Kucinich.
Obama looks closest to being a repeat of Bill Clinton, ceding concession after concession to the Republicans (like Clinton did during his second term), compromising the liberal progressive Democratic Party in the process, appearing wishy-washy between his rhetoric and actual actions, claiming transparency while pushing secrecy, blocking investigations into the previous administration and all the crimes committed during the Bush/Cheney “Bully State” years while touting the current administration’s supposed adherence to the rule of law (even while maintaining many Bush/Cheney “Bully State” criminal policies), claiming they are firmly behind labor unions, pro-choice women, small businesses while taking pro-Big Business and anti-choice religious fundamentalist positions, whether in healthcare reform (no universal single-payer, no public option, but yes to anti-abortion language) or an independent federal Consumer Protection Agency (put it in the Fed, make it disappear).
In other words, if President Obama isn’t careful, he will go down as the second worst American president in U.S. history, right beneath George W. Bush, who by far did more damage to our democracy, our Constitution, our economy than any previous president (with a lot of help from his criminally-insane totally-Bully State vice president, Dick Cheney). President Obama, where is our liberal progressive super-hero when we need one, when our nation so desperately needs an antidote to the conservative poison of the previous administration?
Too bad there are not more liberal Dennis Kucinichs around, on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Hopefully, the Bully State bullies on either side of the conservative aisle won’t get to him.
If – and I still hope this isn’t what’s going to happen – DK has decided sell out, it does reveal something of the decision that faced him, especially considering his own personal whip count and prediction for the bill. If he was for whatever reason of the opinion that the bill was going to pass, then it’s “best” (in a sordid, Washingtonian definition of best) to sell at what’s effectively the top of the market for a vote.
Otherwise he gets nothing at all, sort of like the owners of this home.
I still hope he’ll say why he’s choosing to vote against this, and continue to stand up for real health care.
“If you’re going to sell out, make sure somebody’s buying.”
California?
California can’t even agree on anything to save thier tanking ecconomy, and you think they’re going to pass single payer?
Dude I hope I’m wrong, but really I’m not.
Hawaii indeed, but they already have a single payer version. SO they can’t adopt it since they already have it. Name me a state that would implement it if they could. name me a state with enough actual progressives in it.
Agreed.
Lisa Derrick is upstairs!
Late Night: Census Questions
That is in Dennis history, that he stood up to the mob when he was mayor of Clevland. He has a reputation of true grit and is fearless.
He is a pretty serious presidential candidate when the time is right.
After the pressure tactics, or the “Squeeze” put on by the chicago goon sqad, ~~~EDITED IN MODERATION~~~ enterage, he would of course take the opportunity to put things in perspective, and have the approapriate venue with all the lights and cameras and a great spectacle where I hope he will give the short version of why he is still a no, and put the thing to bed.
Last I heard, Ahhhnold was going to veto single payer.
It is truly hard to believe that DK is holding a news conference to announce he is not going to change his vote. Why would he do that? So, I think we are reaching the final relaization that there are NO heros left in congress. Rather bleak, but it is a necessary catharsis for those that would like to reform the Democratic Party and remake it in the form of the New Dealers. The Democratic Party is the single most imminent threat to freedom and a rational governmental system.
Separate movement requires separation. IE, a divorce. The movement as such begins with people who know what the hell is going simply refusing to participate in the election process when the only choice is yet another whorish Democratic Party figure holding us hostage to the Republicans.
Our ability to be alienated is a gift, along with anger. The next step is to not participate in the election process without a sound candidate for any given office. The next step is to offer no kind words to any candidate not miraculously on our level, nor any money whatsoever. Breaking out of a bad relationship involves refusing to play our part in it ever again.
Let the fucking Democrats get themselves elected playing for the Republicans’ base or “swing voters” or whatever. Let them do without a single one of our votes ever again.
A trigger for a public option would suck, but would you be happier to learn that Dennis gave away his vote for 15 minutes of futile grandstanding, i.e. nothing, than you would be to find out that he got something, anything, in exchange for his vote?
ERISA waivers don’t cut it for me. Not worth it, maybe for Kucinich, but not for me. I’ll wait for the vote and go from there.
This is all very much like the Republican-driven march to the Iraq War in 2002-2003. Support the Preznit on
the warhealth reform, you traitors!The important thing to take from this horror is how both sides are far more alike than different.
We here are the small part of the system that can not be as easily swayed by the collective prejudice. And what’s important about that is it means there are people on what is castigated as “the other side” who, on every issue, have that very same ability.
We need to find them, befriend them, and work with them.
It’s reaching out to those people to liberate ourselves from the national psychosis that is two-party politics that will finally create a new future for us all.
“national psychosis”, indeed!
Seriously, that’s where this is headed. They’re going to lose their base for a decade or more. I know I won’t be trusting them for a long, long time.
Agree. If he is changing his vote, it’s really important that he got something — even if we all know that what he got is bullshit.
Sad to say.
I’m never giving up hope. I’m only 39 and plan on fighting for the progressive cause to my last breath. Our economy and culture because of peak oil and climate change has to go progressive or we die. So hell we all got to die one day. We got nothing to lose.
100%AGREE
Kucinich can keep the money I sent him. I send infrequent small donations to Kucinich, Ron Paul, Nader (its been awhile), Cindy Sheehan and recently FDL. I have been known to make small donations to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. I am confident that Dennis will vote no or get something of value for all of us with his yes vote.
Adding a dollop of something sweet to convince Kucinich to switch is vote doesn’t do anything about the poisonous substance of this bill.
Sorry, eCahn and I disagree about our approaches on this. I see the danger as real enough to discuss and risk being wrong. I don’t want to put words in eCahn’s mouth but she thinks it is important to wait until things start to go kerblooey so as not to risk one’s credibility. But the fact is that the negatives are real and getting worse and the positives are basically air. There are actually a range of probabilities. An exogenous event like an attack on Iran could precipitate a collapse. Our elites are so corrupt I would not put it past them to organize such an attack so that they could blame Iran for sinking the economy. No, it doesn’t make much sense but then have the Republicans, Democrats, and Obama been making any these last months? Most growth we see is coming from the government. When Obama begins to retrench that growth will evaporate and the underlying contraction in the private economy will be exposed. Same thing for when the stock market finally pops. 2012 has a bunch of refinancings that must be done and that could sink everything. The main thing here is that all of this is not so much if but when it happens.
That is a racist slur.
Well, I’ve got to provide my little glimpse from living in Hawaii [Maui].
Now granted, Maui is like a third world country, not in the least as “advanced” as Oahu, which is not in all that great shape compared to other states.
Quality medical care is hard to find. There’s only one hospital, and it’s none so good.
It’s hard to find a doctor who will take Medicare. It’s impossible to find doctors in certain specialties. For example, in looking for a rheumatologist, for the entire state, there was ONE, and even he was not in the state full time, dividing his time between here and Arizona [as I recall], and then only available on Oahu [a plane flight away from Maui, the Big Island or Kauai; even harder to reach from Molokai or Lanai]. It’s like what I imagine things to be like in rural Idaho or Alaska.
My understanding is that “insurance” is employer-based, and while coverage is “mandated,” if you don’t have a job, you’re SOL; employers frequently keep employee hours below the threshold for coverage; plus all the usual employer tricks.
Plus, the job market here is LOUSY, the education “system,” [if you can call it that] is below third world level, and many “jobs” are within the providence of the “independent contractor” [read: $$ under the table] so there’s no “insurance coverage” there.
I’m only relating this from personal experience, not from reading reports and statistics, but don’t let the sunshine and ocean views fool you.
Fineman?
Fineman has no credibility.
I’ll bet that Kucinich is going to announce his NO vote, precisely because of the transparently empty gestures (and threats) made by Obama, and thus he feels he needs to reclarify the issues to the public why he is opposing the bill.
Kucinich should not be shortchanged here. He’s a big man.
He is the tallest politician in Washington.
What you are basically saying is that there will be no recovery. I would agree with this. Best case we get Japanification. I still think depression is more likely though. You really can’t sustain stagnation when the fundamentals start out as bad as these and continue to get worse.
I just can’t imagine Dennis caving without getting something. If he has indeed caved – not traded his vote for something – what would be left of the true progressive movement that still gives a shit about the American people?
Don’t let the ELITES TRICK YOU!!!
Barack Obama is not a Democrat. Just like Clinton he wants to work with Republicans. (if progressives stay home and don’t vote for strong progressives the people pulling Obama strings WIN.)
Barack Obama is not stupid! He is a good actor and speaker just like Ronald Reagan was. The only issue in the USA is JOBS! Obama knows the more you talk about JOBS the stronger the Progressive Base grows.
(DID FDR only focus on Health Care in the middle of a DEPRESSION? NO)
Remember if OBAMA and SELL OUT Dems in congress had talk about JOBS, the DEMS base would have grown in NOVEMBER.
I truly believe Barack Obama would love to work with a republican congress, because he is a Republican
What has Barack Obama done to advance progressive causes? Not much.
David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs know how to win elections the campaigns in 2010 and 2012 are going to be BASE elections. Why piss off your BASE?
It is all an ACT PEOPLE?
We piss off the progressives in 2010, we know this will make them stay home. (remember Obama just wrote a republican Health Care Bill)
Come 2012 Progressives will be so piss at the Republicans, they will come back in vote for us. (this is how David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs wants to use Progressives)
Ever heard of the “ROPE A DOPE”
Progressives don’t let Barack Obama do the “Rope A Dope” to you (Obama calls his plan the HOPE A DOPE)
When do the troops come home? 2011
Why 2011? Barack Obama will preach from every mountain in the USA shouting to Progressives in 2011 how he is bringing the Troops Home.
However, in 2012 if he gets re- elected, he will screw Progressives again.
It is all a Game!
You beat them at their game by using the tricks they use on you.
Remember when Politician get to CONGRESS or the White House, they can TRANSFORM into anything they want to. Ask Barack Obama!
That’s what makes this whole story so incredible. If Dennis has flipped, what did they give him to make it happen?
No, I’d rather he didn’t sell out. but if he did for a Triggered PO, it’s bullshit and he’s a sellout.
If he got a trigger we shouldn’t call him a hero, we should call him what he is, a fucking sellout who just betrayed everything he stood for.
And seriously, we need new firedogs. I just so happen to know a guy who wants to run in NY *nudge nudge*
If he did in fact cave for nothing the Progressive movement is dead.
We would have to reform as an actual political party. A revolutionary party, because government reform would no longer be possible.
thanks you for telling us what is about to happen on the main land.
Obama is going challenge Bush for worse President ever
Whether this bill gets defeated with Dennis’ no vote or not, all those who really get what’s going on big picture, and there are many here, need to steel ourselves to do all we can to do away with the two-corporate-party system. The situation has gotten beyond the ridiculous, all the way to the truly, totally intolerable. Nothing that happens with this bill will change that reality.
Doesn’t matter what they promised him. Did they promise him no mandate? no anti-choice language? a public option? Frosting won’t neutralize the lethality.
I find it hard to believe that Dennis Kucinich got anything meaningful in exchange for his vote. If he really got the public option OR an ERISA waiver (which could pave the way for state-by-state single payer) then that would be the biggest (perhaps only) progressive win since the whole health care debate began.
But waiving ERISA doesn’t sound like a budgetary item under the Byrd rule. And why would Obama suddenly be supportive of the public option at this late hour? We’ll see…
If Dennis comes out tomorrow to emphasize why he knows the Obama bullshit to be so wrong and to demand real reform, he’d be showing the country what real leadership looks like. And we’d have to do everything we can to make sure he beats the corporatists in Democratic clothing next Nov who will come after him.
Yeah, you’re right. If single payer gets past the Governor in California, it will be referendumed out of existence.
My bad. Please deleat that part about the lawn decoration, should have taken a paragraph to more intellegently expressed the frustration, about how how good will has been answered, in that the first of firsts, and how for so long there could never be the chance for one of color to rise up the system, but all in one fell swoop, with that great moment that it was overcome and with my help and blessings, that this one individual who is like all men is frankly, not as great as some hoped.
So I’ll check that in the future.
I’m never giving up hope. I’m only 39 and plan on fighting for the progressive cause to my last breath.
I agree with this sentiment. Regardless of the outcome, I think progressives like Jane, Jon, and others at FDL may have accomplished much more in this fight than now appears obvious. I have a very wide network of well-placed friends — all Ds — in the DC area who understand and accept most of the arguments that are made on this blog daily.
Did Obama blow an enormous opportunity? Absolutely. But I think millions now understand that his approach to governing is fundamentally unsound. Most of the folks I know still don’t question his good intentions, but they do understand he was (and perhaps still is) totally unprepared for the job. And they are extremely skeptical that he has any good answers on other important issues.
That doesn’t get us the lost opportunity back, but the blind hero worship is gone, I think.
Maybe I’m too optimistic. But giving up is not an option.
We’re just gonna hafta wait and see. *g* If Pelosi rounds up more than enough votes to pass this piece of shit it’ll be a moot point except for the flip itself, assuming there is one.
You’re right, the mandate, anti-choice language and lack of drug reimportation are all bad. But I’d trade a federal public option for removing the ERISA barrier to complete state regulation of insurance. If ERISA is truly waived with respect to the states, you could see robust public options, comprehensive insurance regulation, and even single payer programs at the local level.
I don’t see how they could pass it without a separate bill, though, since it doesn’t seem like a budgetary item for reconciliation. But between that, credits for insurance coverage, insurance rate reviews, banning preexisting conditions and policy limits, etc. Plus they’re still moving forward with repealing antitrust exemptions for the insurance industry, and filling the Medicare prescription donut hole. I think ERISA alone would swing the bill from a borderline negative to a big progressive win.
But I’d have to see it to believe it.
Let’s all hope and pray tonight that’s exactly what he does. Hold a vision for that as the outcome.
That of course requires we tonight have the courage, in our case to hope for the possible rather than resign ourselves to the inevitable, that we ask DK to exhibit tomorrow.
Change always begins with oneself. (I don’t always like that part. ;-) )
Obama has clearly brought to light the fact that the USA currently has a two corporate party system.
I admire the passion and guts from Jane Hamsher. I just object to the notion that “Progressive” can deliver a productive ‘end’ without “Progress”…Is this a liberal blog or is it the political version of ‘Survivor’…We’re getting ready to vote Kucinich off the Island! He’ll join Harkin, Woolsey and the other “contenders”. Instead of a “consolation prize”, he has to refund his $16K admission fee….I’m hoping that we’re able to move on after this bill is decided… Oops, I forgot…’Move-on’ was already dismissed in a prior episode….
Personally, I don’t really care what DK does tomorrow. I’ve had it with the Dems. and am moving myself to the Indie col. from here on out. No more $$ or votes for these people anymore.
I was thinking that a DK flip would help the leadership flip enough others to pass this pos. But if he stands his ground, this pos is gone. That’s why I think what Dennis does matters so much.
Good Post,
Jane and Jon have done an AWESOME JOB!!!
a lot of help is on the way
I think he’s more than prepared for the job. He’s a fine neoliberal prez. He is not, however, an FDR Democrat, never has been, never will be. Finance economy is cruising right along while the real economy is stagnant, in the process of creating a permanent subclass of unemployed. Friedman’s Chicago Boys love every second. Shock Doctrine USA.
Yeah…but a lot warmer. ;-)
I think Dennis Kucinich will get what he wants or he won’t vote yes. I really do. Kucinich knows exactly what the health care industry has managed to pull off with this bill and if he gives in, I will be shocked. If he does get a ERISA waver and any start for a real PO he will have saved the Democrats ASSes. People are going to die in the next four years waiting for this bill to start helping people that have nothing. The news is going to be covering all the deaths and hardships year after year. The Dems have set themselves up for losses if they haven’t figure that now the REpubs will be highlighting the deaths of the 50 thousand
And yes the 45 thousand deaths a year is an old figure with all the job losses and loss of income that have been escalating for the lower classes.
I draw the line at the mandate, anti-choice language and public option. No compromise.
We should all be independent, but progressive doesn’t equal partisan. If Dennis Kucinich somehow convinced the president to push for waiving ERISA completely with respect to state regulation of insurance, that’s a gigantic progressive win. As Jon Walker has pointed out, ERISA establishes a “ceiling” on state insurance regulation that’s turned insurance law into a grotesque byzantine maze that most lawyers can’t even begin to work their way through. SCOTUS reverses itself every decade on just how much regulatory authority the states have left under ERISA.
If it were truly gone, the door would be wide open for wholesale insurance reform across the country. That’s great for progressives (and Americans), regardless of how you feel about Democrats.
I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for these cowards to change anything our way. The deals were made long ago and 33 pieces of silver have been long spent. The Dem. party is a hollow shell now filled with the rot that is left when a party has long out grown its usefulness. We need something “new” to replace it. A “new” party that starts at the grassroots and slowly builds a base and wins local races is how to go. The people are yearning for something new we just have to figure out a way to give it to them. They know the duopoly has NO interest in them.
No, it would mean that states could institute single payer without getting sued by the insurance companies under ERISA. It would be a big deal to me since CA is looking to go single payer. It has been an uphill battle but people are so mad at the insurance companies right now that I could see it happening. If they are mandated to buy something and their choice is insurance company extortion or socialized medicine, I think most would choose the single payer option. But I am still not convinced that alone is enough to justify voting for this bill since it would only allow an alternative to those in states that manage to implement single payer.
If this bill was actually “Progress” then you would have a point. As this bill will actually do more harm than good and be nothing but a bailout of private insurance companies, your point is kinda moot.
Did you hear that phony bologna Pelosi try to tell people she was a Single Payer advocate before people in the room were born.
News Flash for Nancy…
It doesn’t count if you are in a position to do something about it and you don’t even bring it up. What a duplicitous phony corporate sell out.
Repeat after me.
Even if ERISA is waived, there will not be single payer in the states.
I ask you again, name me a state that has enough progressives in the legislature, a governor willing to sign it, and doesn’t have a process by which the voters will repeal it themselves (hi California).
As no state meets that qualification, the ERISA waiver is a red fucking herring.
Stop calling it the biggest win ever, it is in fact smoke and mirrors.
Kos crowd thinks we’ll like it once it passes. Let’s see, we’re close now, so I should be getting some good vibes…hmmm, maybe…no…warming…not quite…
No, it’s still shit.
I’ll second that, on all counts. I didn’t give to this special fund because of how the recipients treated us the last time. You wrote about that earlier today. Until we can put the money in some sort of escrow, I won’t. As that great philosopher once said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, won’t get fooled again.” Or something like that.
The problem with no mandate is, that insurance where the providers are not allowed to disallow applicants due to pre-existing conditions, will self-select for the sick and needy. The healthy will simply wait until they are sick and then buy insurance. The system will collapse.
The concept is simple: if health care is a right, then all have the responsibility to pay for it, according to their means. In this bill, subsidies will be provided to those who don’t have enough to buy it on their own. The exact provisions I don’t know, but usually subsidies go up to 200% to 300% of the poverty level for other comparable (i.e. SCHIP and state-based) programs.
Does the bill go far enough? Of course not. It’d be simplest to just expande Medicare. Is it an improvement over the current unregulated private insurance (i.e. non-seniors, non-employer-based) market? Yes. Reviews of premiums and prohibitions against rescissions of care are in the bill. It’s a first step.
I agree with the point made several times–Obama should’ve ditched the bipartisan nonsense months ago and pushed for a Medicare expansion, or something similar, this summer, leaving the Nelsons and Liebermans of the world twisting in the wind. But he blew his chance. This is what we have–let’s go with it for now. It puts us in better stead to carry on the fight in the future.
Definitely not holding my breath! I’m very skeptical DK got such a huge concession from this President.
My only point is that people here are seriously underestimating how revolutionary a full state waiver of ERISA with respect to state insurance regulation could be. That’s such a big deal it outweighs a lot of the big negatives, when you keep in mind the remaining good parts of the bill. It would be the biggest progressive victory thus far.
Which is probably why it won’t happen…
Here’s a state for you: Pennsylvania
It meets your criteria of a state that would implement single-payer if it could (Senate Bill SB400, 30 co-sponsors for the economic impact study in a 50 seat Senate). Of course in PA we are admittedly short on progressives with our so-called “guns and religion” West, “Alabama” middle and right-wing enclave South-East, but in a Republican dominated State Senate we do have majority support for single payer! So there’s a state that would implement it if it could.
Maybe the lesson is that support for single payer is much broader than just progressives.
Well we do have an idiot Republican governor, who’s balancing the budget by canceling school on Fridays. This started last year.
Hawaii arm-wrestles at the bottom of the educational garbage pail with LA, AL and MS for the coveted title of “worst.”
I ask you again, name me a state that has enough progressives in the legislature, a governor willing to sign it, and doesn’t have a process by which the voters will repeal it themselves (hi California).
As no state meets that qualification, the ERISA waiver is a red fucking herring.
Stop calling it the biggest win ever, it is in fact smoke and mirrors.
Everytime someone says ERISA is a big deal I will ask this. because it is NOT a big deal.
He was on Countdown and said, “Let’s move from conjecture to what I think is going to happen…”
WTF?!
Short answer: yes, where the purity trolls try to vote everyone else off the island, because none of us are ‘good enough’ to stay. If they win, it’s going to be fun – elsewhere. They can have the damned island, because the last one left won’t have any options.
Well, the New England states (particularly Vermont) are the likeliest suspects to lead the way. The Pacific Northwest would probably see some movement in that direction too.
But forget about that. ERISA also prevents state regulation on many of the details of group insurance policies and other consumer protections. Countless court cases on “ERISA preemption” have screwed consumers over for decades now. If ERISA preemption is gone, the states will have much more leeway to go after the insurers.
It’s a big deal even if it doesn’t lead immediately to single payer… assuming the ERISA waiver is for real.
While it may simply sound funny, that really is the best way to understand it, because at the level of collective consciousness that’s exactly what it is. Consciousness, of which human consciousness is a form, is self-similar – which means it has the same characteristics whether we look at it at the scale of a person, or a family, or a country, or a planet. So what we understand about the nature of and how to care for humans individually is also how we care for a country and a planet.
The self-similarity of consciousness is also why we have Presidents, most recently Bush and Obama, who are sociopaths (in the formal DSM sense). They reflect the character of the whole system (which means they also reflect some part of each of us, like it or not).
That’s also why changing the world works (and can only work) when I see what I want to change in the world and then change it in myself. If I’m doing that, then I must be a reflection of the world changing itself as well. If I’m not changing myself, then the world isn’t either.
It’s like the M. C. Escher hands, each drawing the other. It’s beautiful.
Knowing all this transforms the seeming chaos of national politics and policy into something that’s actually very easy to both understand and predict.
And that makes it possible to consciously change.
…this is the problem with Kos liberals.
listen to me , I support issues, not people. If on the next bill, say financial reg, Sanders comes out in is all blazing guns of glory, I will support him.
But on this I will not, as he is a traitor and a sell out.
Issues, not people. I don’t deify Obama like you and your Kossacks. Now go back to your Reaganite’s board and leave us in peace.
The ERISA waiver allows states to enact single payer without running afoul of federal law, right? But how likely is it that cash-strapped states — with their own corrupt legislatures — would do such a thing? Particularly without federal assistance?
I’ve yet to see any empirical evidence this is true. There will certainly be people who “go naked”, but there are already. Right now, the government picks up the tab for the most at-risk portions of the population – seniors, the poor, the military (and ex-military), and prisoners. That adds up to roughly a third of the population. Of the remaining two-thirds, the insurance industry takes the money of roughly three quarters and provides adequate coverage for about half. It’s about time insurance picked up their share.
Put down your weapons and speak with each other like adults.
Please.
I live in one of those northeast states, NY.
I can tell you right now, even Vermont doesn’t have the state government for single payer. It’s not Howard Dean’s state anymore.
Oh I’ll agree ERISA should be gone. Not my point.
My point, even with that is that it’s not even close to enough to justify voting yes on this disgusting bill. I’m not willing to bailout private insurance and Mandate we all have to buy from them just for that. And if Kucinich is, he loses my support.
Already asked and answered, I see. Having lived for years in Vermont, I’d say no fucking way. The will would be there but not the money.
That’s what rapists say about rape, too.
Kübler-Ross five stages of grief:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
I’m between 4 and 5. Where are you?
I must be in the twilight zone. Not even the fringe Right sites have more attacks on President Obama as I see here.
Is this Health care bill perfect? No, but there are many good things in it. More importantly, it is a start. The door to total reform, at least, will be cracked open if it is passed, just as social security slipped through a cracked open door and improved over the years to where it is now.
You take what you can with the politicians you have and move forward incrementally, which is smart. Or you self-destruct, pull a Ralph Nader 2000 and get a George W Bush.
Think of poor folks with pre-existing condition. This bill helps them. Kill the bill, they wait another 20 years if they survive.
I remember the three and a half minutes that lowering the age of Medicare eligibility was possible. So yes, I share your skepticism.
Anyway, I don’t have any idea what’s going on. I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to find out why I should fly off the handle. ;)
I have a similarly gloomy view of things. I had almost no hope coming in to this HCR issue, but the events of this week have removed all further doubt for me. We’re past the tipping point, corruption-wise. I think it’s starting to tip and there’s nothing we can do to keep it from falling over. Until then, I really see no reason for participating in, and especially contributing to the political system.
We have to stop giving money to candidates. This particular incident should be eye opening. No offense intended, but $16,000? That’s a rounding error for these guys. And to echo others up-thread, it’s borderline hypocrisy to demand DK return your $16K for not voting the way you wanted him to on one issue. Aren’t we supposed to mad at corporations and rich people for doing that? I guess the only difference is that they’re successful when they do it. Wonder why.
PJ Evans what makes Barack Obama a Democrat?
Barack Obama = BO
BO is not for the Public Option
BO is not for Drug Importation
BO is for the Individual mandate
BO is not for abortion rights
BO is for more war
All the corporate elites are laughing right now! Shouting ~~~EDITED IN MODERATION~~~ trick those Liberals and Progressives into thinking he was one of them.
They will not be laughing long, Hell is COMING!
~~~EDITED IN MODERATION~~~ Obama was made by the Corporate elite for the Corporate Elite.
~~~ModNote: continued insults will result in your comments being deleted.~~~
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Firepup Freedom Fighters:
If Kucinich announces a “yes” vote he will also announce an ERISA waiver as a concession from the administration, which of course begs the question of why other “progressives” didn’t play hardball with that rat bastard Rahm Emmanuel long before poor lonely Dennis K.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, AND IF YOUR FROM MASSACHUSETTS SHUT THE FUCK UP UNTIL YOU GET YOUR SENATE SEAT BACK!!!
I bet they also mock their victims by mispronouncing names. (eg: Kew-sinitch.)
i stand with Crazy leggs Bachman
Well, since it SAVES THEM MONEY, let’s hope they start looking at it, eh?
I wouldn’t be so sure. I am amazed at how many people in my very red area of California are so enraged at the insurance companies that they are desperate for another option. That feeling would only get stronger with mandates on the way.
Is that Randy or Michelle?
I think it’s more generally just a vicious “shut up and take it, bitch.”
(But maybe that’s just Kos and MSNBC.)
I’d really like to put together a “we told you so” site — not for gloating over their stupidity, but to demonstrate that we did the work, examined the legislation, investigated specifics, and based on that can make fairly educated guesses as to what will happen under this idiot bill that they all think is the Second Coming.
Then we should put together a list [jumping off from where Marcy and Jon have started] of various issues, like premiums going up, deductibles increasing, mandates, the “pre-existing conditions” issue getting scammed via charges of “fraud”, etc.
Perhaps if some of the delusional Obamabots were able to see this, say two years from now, they’d realize that all the criticism and derision they directed our way was just wrong.
Then again, maybe not.
Why does it wait years before it starts to help anyone with pre-existing conditions? And how exactly does it accomplish this feat? By mandating that all Americans have to buy crappy products of private insurers. This is not a step in the right direction.
Yes, in the long run, no in the short run. Very very expensive in the short run. My state already has a junk bond rating, so setting up single payer would have to wait. Unless it was a federal initiative.
TCB
hope your not 50 years old…your insurance tab,BEFORE you get sick willbe 20,000 per year
He stated on DemocracyNow that IF there was an ERISA waiver (single payer movement in the States) that wasn’t pushed out years into the future, he would consider voting yes.
As towards States and single payer; CA has TWICE -THE LEGISLATURE- PASSED ‘single payer-currently -SB810- only to have Schwarz veto it. If a Dem is elected Guv, it won’t be vetoed.
And believe me -as I live in CA- CA voters will NOT repeal it.
Well, single payer would reduce overall health care spending over time, but it would cost the states more money. They’d need tax revenues to collect most of the money that would’ve been spent by employers and the government to provide people with health care.
But in this country the bulk of revenue is still raised by the federal gov’t, so the states would need part of that revenue back to pay for health care expenditures. Otherwise, it’d be to the states advantage to forgo single payer and allow their residents to collect the tax credits for private insurance.
Cantwell put a program in the Senate bill to give states 90% of the money they’d be entitled to on the exchange if they could provide broader coverage, I believe. Perhaps that would provide the necessary revenue for single payer.
Excellent idea. I think that we can probably find a lot of writing that will document that already, between what Jon and David Dayen have written, and various diarists.
They have an inexhaustible capacity for spin, and shamelessness.
hahahahaha
Bachman
kill the bill baby
I believe Kucinich will do the right thing. He was smiling when he got off the plane, because it is now clear to him what he must do. This is going to be good.
Sweet dreams.
We already have that same rescission language here in CA and it has done nothing. Blue Cross claims everyone they want to deny is a fraud and buries the state agencies in lawsuits they can’t get out from under if they try to make them follow the law.
We don’t need mandates to get rid of preexisting conditions. They don’t have mandates or pre-existing conditions in the group employer based market and they make plenty off that. They also have managed fine without mandates in Vermont. They don’t make as much money, but they are fine. It’s frustrating when people keep talking in the abstract when there is actual evidence out there.
I’ll take this one.
It actually doesn’t do much for pre-existing conditions. That provision doesn’t kick in for 4 ears, and even after it does it actually still allows them to charge you 3 times as much than if you didn’t have a condition.
The subsidies in no way make up for that 3 times the cost. not even close.
On top of not actually helping, we get all the problems. The mandate, a moratorium on negotiating prescription drug fees, and the fake sense that we fixed it all.
This bill is not a foot in the door, it is slamming your head in the door.
They are creating a new base, co-opting and or marginalizing traditional Democrats. Just look at how it stands now in support of this health insurance monstrosity. Just a handful of Democrats calling themselves liberal remain..
The teabaggers showed initiatives, the liberals moped.
No that’s actually not correct. He said IF there was a ERISA waiver AND a PO he would vote yes.
Critical difference friend.
CA voters won’t repeal it? Oh yeah? How are all those ecconomy fixes working out for you guys? You’ll excuse me if I don’t take you at your word.
How are those schools going to?
Plus, thanks to the complete lack of enforcement, it’s quite likely that if you are sick, the payments will be late, or held up for some “administrative” reason, assuming you are over the large deductible and under the lifetime cap, and they pay at all before you die.
I am definitely worried that Kucinich will say something like down the line this or that will happen with the public option or erisa waiver like the 2017 date that Obama wants.. ridiculous. I hope and pray Kucinich will not cave.
And he did such in a townhall meeting in his district after Obama left.
Yes, they’d be so much more Serious and Respectable if they’d simply write pithy web comments about their positions!
This country was set up to protect the wealthy minority.
Class warfare will not be won with petitions. After one year of keyboard activism, – what did we win?
Dennis, he has always been right for the right reasons.
Consistent.
I’m not abandoning my faith in his courage.
The cash strapped states need a break from Medicaid and other expenses. The employers in the state need a break from ever increasing premiums. The current system is being paid for. The trick is to get the people paying now to pay into a cheaper system so they see it as a plus. The people who are scared to death of socialism are loud but they are not all that numerous. Most people just want the peace of mind of health coverage as inexpensively as possible.
Uncaring Schwarzeneggar vetoed single payer here in CA twice. And this is the guy who married Maria Shriver who campaigned like crazy for him. Wish Arianna Huffington had won the primary.
The whole “after Obama left” part makes it worthless. No one covers “after the president left”
“REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I mean, it’s—we don’t have the vote yet. The ball is still in play. The White House could decide that in order to pass the bill, they need to put public option in it, a meaningful public option. That would certainly get my attention. Or they could decide that they also want to protect the right of states to proceed with single payer, and not some place far into the future, but do it now.
‘Or’ is not ‘and’.
What kind of pressure can Obama leverage on Dennis that he would dare to cave, especially after he made his position clear on Democracy Now.
I find it hard to believe that Kucinich could get enough of a real public option, not some meaningless Orwellian bill title or a signing pen, in exchange for his vote.
Legislation like that would be DOA in conference because Ben Nelson, Max Baucus & Joe Lieberman joined Obama’s Rahm orchestrated Kabuki reform to guarantee Big Insurance/Pharma/Wall Street contributions for his 2012 campaign.
Watching Pelosi declare that America’s families can’t wait another day for this colossal, shock doctrine sellout — is absolutely insulting.
They only look incompetent. This is what they intended all along.
Grief is essential for transformation. I have to grieve the death of who I was before I can step into who I’m about to become.
Between 4 and 5 is good.
Doesn’t matter who covered because he was speaking to his constituents.
I’m truly flabbergasted that so much is being written based on rumor and people’s own personal assumptions.
Relax, the whip count is still on the negative side and Dennis was the last of the 77 who signed a PO pledge.
Not that out of character… remember Iowa in the 2003 Dem caucus where he turned all of his votes over to Edwards?
Royally pissing off his ardent supporters as I recall.
I was a dedicated Dean supporter/campaigner… and was pissed that he would send his votes to Haircut Edwards when Edwards had less in common with Kucinich ideologically than Dean did…
He’s not that pure…
So what if slick Obama bargains from 2017 to 2015 on the erisa waiver, would Dennis cave.
Wrong as usual.
Yes they only have to survive 4 years for Obama care to take effect. Of course by that time the unregulated rates for insurance will have likely doubled.
You’re right, PJE, we’ve shown them how to win.
Vanguard Revolutionaries and Heighten the Contradictions.
The FDL folk simply never got the point of the Boxer the Horse character in Animal Farm, comfortably situated elites will always sell out workers for future revolutionary gains.
These donation campaigns need to withhold the money until after the vote. Otherwise, we look like fools. Politicians will be pretending to fight the good fight just for our idiotic donations, then change their vote at the last minute. I doubt DK intended to do that though.
I’m guessing:
1. He had intended to vote Yes all along and was playing hardball for as long as he thought he could to see if he could change anything for the better.
and/or
2. The administration got quite tough on him. Who the hell knows what they could have threatened him with.
I understand it, but what else is there to do. We’re not at a Revolutionary situation yet. It’s close but we’re not there. Hell I don’t even know of a lefty org trying for revolution. Point me there if you know one tho.
Night all. I’m going to walk my talk and make a little health care happen in my own world now by caring for myself and my cat.
Hold a vision tonight and stay strong. I hope you all take a moment to care for yourselves and each other, too.
Would it be okay with you if I spouted off about how NY voters feel? You don’t understand CA from looking at how the govt is or is not working right now. We have a dysfunctional system in many ways. It does not reflect how CA voters feel. As far as the legislature goes, even with our dysfunction, they have twice voted for single payer which would have passed absent veto. We are looking at a very real possibility of keeping the legislature that votes that way but trading a veto governor for one who would sign off on single payer. The initiative process would have to recruit enough voters statewide to get rid of single payer and that’s not likely to happen. Gerrymandering is the only reason we have as many conservatives in the legislature as we do and we still have almost a 2/3 majority there.
Californians have actually voted to protect money for schools and mental health when left up to a vote instead of the dysfunctional legislature. Don’t read the same sources that try to tell you the whole world will love the Senate bill once they know what is in it and think you know what California voters will or will not do. For heaven’s sake, don’t tell those of us who actually live here that you know us and our neighbors better than we do.
Looks like I have to be the one that explains that there’s no Santa.
If tomorrow they decided to include the PO, you really think Kucinich announces that? Of course not, Obama goes up there and screams it from the rafters. It would be insta base rally.
They don’t give something like that to Kucinich, are you out of your minds?
MAYBE, MAYBE they give him an ERISA repeal to announce for his vote. But I don’t even think they would give him that either.
So most likely options are
a) he caved
b) he’s going up there for a “fuck you I’m still no”
and less likely is him announcing an ERISA repeal, and it’s a fantasy to think it’s a PO.
There’s no easter bunny either guys, sorry.
If a Dem is elected governor they won’t veto it? Are you sure about that? Perhaps if they’re a Grayson, Kucinich, or Sanders (not a Dem, but usually sides with them and not that left either). More likely than not, they’ll be some corruptible, weak-minded, party-first centrist like most others.
“No offense intended, but $16,000? That’s a rounding error for these guys.”
Especially with the new SCOTUS Citzens United ? descision: $16,000 is serious money, and not to sneeze at. But it won’t mean a thing up against the deep pockets, in currency and other things.
What should be hoped for, is principles. not to be bought or intimidated.
Not buying it Paula sorry.
First of all that’s a lot of “if” in your scenario. IF you keep the same legislature (in a bad year for dems), and IF you get a Dem governor, and IF that governor would actually sign it.
I also remember everyone from CA saying prop 8 would never happen with CA voters. But look where we are now.
I’m sorry I don’t see Cali going single payer anytime soon. I’m not happy about that, but it’s true.
The current system is paid for — at $5,700 per person, per year (for every man, woman and child full stop) — due to its massive unfairness. A cruel but effective form of rationing. Get rid of that, open the system up, and either you cut costs massively or raise taxes. You’d really have to do both.
The current system also does a great job of hiding the costs of health insurance from those who get good insurance through employers.
We’d at least need to get rid of Prop 13 provision, jack up income taxes across the board and probably add to sales taxes. It’s not just the Palinite types who would squeal about that.
Employer-based insurance is heavily regulated already, and is generally a large enough pool to effectively defray the risk. The major changes in insurance policy under this bill will occur in the other third (non-Medicare, non-employer-based, as my earlier post specified). It’s this other third of younger citizens who have no employer insurance who are being fed to the wolves.
State-based programs like you mentioned have much more trouble regulating companies which cross state lines. The federal government will have much more power to enforce its regulations.
One question, which I’m sure all the conspiracy lovers here will have ample answers to: if this health-care bill is such an unmitigated givewaway to the insurance companies…why are the same companies lobbying so desperately against it?
Is their lobbying just a sham? Explain.
“One question, which I’m sure all the conspiracy lovers here will have ample answers to: if this health-care bill is such an unmitigated givewaway to the insurance companies…why are the same companies lobbying so desperately against it?”
They’re not. The lobbyists are trying to shape the legislation in their favor, and they’ve done a bang-up job so far.
I think FDLrs should strongly consider watching all youtube clips with Noam Chomsky in the title. It would go a long way to help this community get a better grip on reality.
Of course it’s a sham.
This is literally the deal that that white house made with Pharma. They want it.
Well no, I should stop here.
It’s not a sham, but if they lose they’re OK with that to. So yeah they want it to fail, but they made damn sure even if it doesn’t they’ll be OK.
And they know the WH needs an enemy, and they really rather it be them than Republicans.
Quite the contrary, we are. It’s up to us to educate ourselves on the inner workings of the exploitation system (both capital and centralized governments), share the knowledge with others, and provide alternatives and ways to tear down the system. The one good solution offered in Michael Moore’s capitalism is decentralized, non-hierarchical work places where all employees make decisions together. This is essential in bringing down capital and centralization. We can not move from true socialism based on the hierarchical work structures and centralized power (governments) that we have now.
Waiting for some ideal apocalyptic point puts us in a passive position, one that will likely never arrive. Capital and the governments that serve to maintain this socio-economic order always find a way to keep on going from one catastrophe to the next.
The number of folks, even here, who don’t seem to know what is and isn’t in this hideous bill, or what Kucinich has repeatedly stated he’s been holding out for, is really starting to depress me.
No wonder we’re getting a garbage bill, next to no one even knows what they are arguing for or against.
If Kucinich gets a properly-written states’ rights amendment put in (aka ERISA waiver)–one that doesn’t contain liabilies such as federal-funding penalties and vulnerability to lawsuits from the insurance companies (like the broken one Sanders got in), then this will indeed be a huge victory.
Why? Because this is exactly how Canada’s system got its start. One province starting its own system.
If California manages to fix its legislative gridlock issues, gets a progressive governor again, and Kucinich pulls off a REAL ERISA win, they may well show the nation how Single-Payer is done. Why? Because it really is the only fiscally-responsible plan (and would be good for the economy in a thousand different ways next to never discussed in these insane debates), and, California is in deep financial trouble.
this ought to explain:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03052010/watch3.html
I would go back and re-read that Lenin
You have to have a Revolutionary situation before a revolution can occur. Mass worker anger is not a sufficient condition for this.
A revolutionary situation is defined as a situation in which the old ways can no longer govern effectively and the people no longer wish to be governed in the old ways.
You, me, and FDL are not “the people” as of yet alas. To many think we can just reform our way out. I remain less convinced of that everyday.
Just for the record Teddy, and I’ve said it before, Carney’s claim to be a veteran in order to get the Democratic vote in 2006 was subterfuge. He worked in the Pentagon under Douglas Feith in the Office for Special Plans (name was also used by the nazis) and anyone who was vetting him should have known he was a stealth Republican using the Democratic label in order to capitalize on anti-GOP feelings in the electorate.
i agree with you, but it would be wise to stay out of dark rooms, hide all sharp objects and forgo drugs.
The truth can be tough. Agree with you, by the way, on class warfare. It’s what we got.
Thanks to Jane and Jon, and others here, for putting up one hell of a fight. (I’m trying to find the sliver of light in this dark, dark situation.)
Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Howard Zinn, and then when you understand the problem is deeper than just Republicans and a few corporate Democrats, start reading critiques of capitalism (Marx) and centralized states (social anarchists, libertarian socialists). Otherwise, we’ll be fightinf this forever, fighting for nothing essentially. Even slight moves to the left, say a Green Party or Democratic Socialist party is just putting temporary band-aids on a much deeper problem that always returns. Look at France, Greece, Sweden. These countries have been dominated by socialist parties, yet share similar problems as we do, capitalism remains strong, they just hide the problems with higher taxes and social welfare (that starts to erode as resistance from the people does). This is not a sustainable solution.
First of all Kuninich said he wanted ERISA and a PO for a yes vote, not one or the other. So yeah, if he only takes one he lied, blatantly.
the US is not Canada. and as I said to Paula, I don’t think the chances for CA are as good as you seem to think they are.
Prop 8 won by votes, you really don’t think they could get it repealed by votes even if you got all the luck in the world and got the governor and legislature you need?
I hope so, but I’m not convinced.
Explain what, the point I just made?
Kübler-Ross five stages of grief:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
I’m going to ride 2 for awhile and when these idiot Democrat Fascists get wiped out this November I’m going to 5 and laugh and then start over.
You know I often fear that the problem is that we’re just not evolved enough yet for socialism.
and because that would work, it won’t be in the bill.
I’ve been stuck on anger for the past….when did they start HCR?
I’ll let you know if I ever get past it.
A few states have some political progress toward single-payer. A summary is provided by David Swanson here.
Just came across an AP story that demonstrates by counter-example just how pathetic the Progressive Caucus is….
Democratic leaders have assigned House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California liberal, to negotiate with Stupak, and the two men talk daily. Stupak said a few of his anti-abortion colleagues have been called by high-ranking administration officials. Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who backed the bill in November but is undecided now, said she has heard from several Cabinet secretaries.
Another one, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was surprised to hear from Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, said Stupak, who declined to identify the lawmaker.
Stupak said the members of his group have politely told administration officials they need to negotiate through him. (emphasis added)
Stupak has less than a dozen backers, somewhere between 5 and 10 probably. the Congressional Progressive Caucus has, what, 70 or 80 House members? The CPC members are from safe districts, by and large, they’re not losing their jobs whatever happens. If they had given one person their proxy to negotiate the votes of the entire group, they’d be taken as seriously as Stupak and their large number mean the president would have to either yield to their wishes or lose any hope of passing HCR. It doesn’t matter how how much the CPC demanded, be put in the bill, If the president started whipping the Senate with half the effort he’s used on House members, he’d have his 51 votes in 2 hours.
Let’s see– if the Progressive Caucus had insisted on a reconciliation-only HCR bill that dropped the Senate bill, allowed anyone to buy into Medicare with income-scaled premium subsidies and moved up the start date to 2011 (in other words, Pete Stark’s Americare bill), that would mean no public funds would be going to private insurers that cover abortions. Not only would Bart Stupak endorse that deal (adding his voting bloc to the CPC’s ), the CPC could do worse than giving Stupak their proxy to negotiate. Say what you want about the man, he’s the only Democrat on the HIll who knows how to stand his ground.
There you go listening to what “people” say. I was not surprised that Prop 8 passed and I don’t know of anyone actually living around here who thought a no vote was a given. It being a bad year for Dems in general doesn’t mean it’s a bad year for Dems here. Do you have any actual information about CA legislative seats expected to flip? There’s at least one that may flip from R to D due to particular circumstances. I’m in one of the really red pockets and these die hard Republicans are singing a different tune about a lot of issues since their children’s schools started being gutted and unemployment is so high that people who never thought they would suddenly need the social safety net. Conventional wisdom is not a substitute for actually living here. People I fought with over Palin are mad as hell about the R governor and not liking the likely R candidate to replace him (Ahnold is term limited).
All around the country, people talk about CA like they have any clue what it is all about. It’s a huge state with a complex history and present. I’m not saying that single payer is going to be our Christmas gift or anything, but to say that it can’t happen based on outsider’s conventional wisdom generalities pisses me off.
Why do we assume he’s going to crumble, settle, turn into Bernie Sanders, or whatever? It looks to me like he’s doing a Lieberman for OUR SIDE. At least wait and see.
Many revolutionary theorists since Lenin have disagreed. Of course, ideally, some catastrophic situation may be the best opportunity, but without a strong foundation ready to act when that happens, the power vacuum will be grabbed by some other ideological force, which will largely retain the power structure we have now, whether it’s state socialists, a new/reformed centralized “democracy”, or fascists. If the first, it’s just a matter of time before that falls back into the hands of capitalists. In the meantime, those in power become the new capitalists and kings/queens. If the last 2, nothing really changes yet again.
They lobbied against the public option and after that was gone for larger penalties so people don’t pay Uncle Sam instead of them (and thanks to Obama, they got at least some movement on that in the reconciliation sidecar proposal). They aren’t lobbying against the current bill. Have you noticed the difference in the ads running when the PO was still at issue vs. now? The relative silence is deafening.
Have you not noticed that the exchanges and enforcement are going to be state based in Obama’s plan? We’ll have the same problems, only they’ll have more money to bury us in lawsuits and buy off regulators and politicians and people won’t be able to as easily vote with their feet since an IRS enforced penalty will await them if they do.
I’m aware of that. I explained what a win on a real ERISA waiver would do because it seems many here don’t even know what it is. I was hoping most at least have some grasp what Public Option is, though many don’t seem to understand that not all versions are created equal.
We’ll see tomorrow whether Kucinich is standing strong for both. I’m not prepared to condemn him based on a rumor from a unlikely source.
As for California’s chances of pulling off Single-Payer, as an ex-Californian, I think they might surprise you. Especially since 1 in 4 are now uninsured and most will not be remotely happy with what this bill will and won’t bring them.
Wrong. Hunter gatherers were egalitarian, ie, for most of human existence. The power structures arose with agriculture. It’s not inevitable we want to be this way. The question perhaps is can we live without power structures in sedentary civilizations? I believe we can, but we have to reorganize everything from the ground up, including how decisions are made. We have no option really. Capitalism is unnatural and more importantly, unsustainable. It will kill this earth and us if we don’t stop it.
PHrMA’s five stages of pills:
1. Denia
2. Ange’
3. Bargaine
4. Depre’
5. Accepta
Take five and call me in November
If a Dem is elected, that would be Jerry Brown. He supported single-payer when he was gov before, but seems to have backed off that lately. So, I would not expect him to whip it, but would not expect him to veto, either. The OneCare campaign claims to be within 3 votes of veto override in both houses.
Meg Whitman, the most likely Rep candidate, has committed to spend >$100M, but is coming across as a corporate diva so far. She’s been spending like a drunken sailor both promoting herself and dumping on her primary opponent; per Calitics they were both playing to the wingnut gallery at the state convention.
JB was polling ahead of her before he even announced. So, we’ll see.
Would you please stop assuming health care has anything to do with Prop 8? Is it just Californians that you assume vote against your position on all things if they vote against your position on one thing? The Mormon and evangelical churches will not pour money and pressure on anyone to fight single payer. The Mormon church actually has a lot to gain if something like that passes. They have a church welfare system that has had problems even in lesser recessions keeping up with the needs of its members. To the extent that the state provides a safety net, it helps them financially. Gay marriage is a holy war to them. Social services is not. The Mormon church has not even thrown its weight at the abortion issue and its official stance on abortion even within church consequences is not all the way over to the right.
Again, you may well be right that CA won’t get single payer, but back up your assertion with arguments that make some sense, not just pulling stuff out of your hat without knowing how things are here.
Even though I “know” what ERISA is, I don’t know what it is. But I know Public Option is a loaded term. The versions that have been suggested, the versions that “almost got in,” were tight-fisted pathetic offerings anyway, aren’t they?
That Accepta is really, really addictive.
Some examples to look for on Wikipedia and Youtube,
Spanish anarchists in 1936
The Paris Commune
Worker takeovers of factories in Argentina (The Take being a good documentary on this)
To a lesser extent, Christiana in Denmark (somewhat escapist, perhaps to encourage by example, but seems stigmatized as a hippie/druggy themepark/village, rather than an ongoing transformation).
the answer to your question @ 3minutes25seconds.
Dr. Marcia Angell:
“A physician trained in both internal medicine and pathology, she was the first woman editor-in-chief of “The New England Journal of Medicine.” She’s now senior lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard University Medical School and writes extensively and often about health care.”
oh, hell: BILL MOYERS: But given that, why have the insurance companies, health insurance companies been fighting reform so hard?
MARCIA ANGELL: Oh, they haven’t fought it very hard, Bill. They really haven’t fought it very hard. What they’re fighting for is the individual mandate. And if they get that mandate, if everyone does have to buy their commercial products, then they’re going to be extremely happy with it.
Welcome to the new Democratic party, where we like our public options like we like our political relationship partners, tight-fisted and pathetic. Hope and change was just the pre-marriage push for how great we were going to be treated. Now that we’re married, tight-fisted and pathetic is the name of the game and enabling the abuse is the way the party plays it. But he swears he’s for a public option (and closing Gitmo and transparency in govt and…) and I think he really means it this time! Besides he’s so dreamy and sweet when he’s not drunk on power and lobbyist money!
Denia is worse.
And let me explain a wee bit about ERISA.
The Sovereign must grant an ERISA waiver to sue. That’s right, the Feds/States depending on the waiver language have to agree to be sued.
The type of ERISA waiver DK asks for is that in the case of single payer only, that there would not be suits, such that an experiment may be tried, by voluntary participants.
How free market and tort reform-ish is that? It’s a reichwing nightmare, because it’s actually good for people, and gives them some tort reform goodness!
I don’t know if it’s a high enough price for a yes vote, I lean “no it’s not a high enough price goddammit” and I’ll wait and see what DK actually does.
Uh, that was the exact point I made in my post, in RESPONSE to the question another posted asked.
some more , but it should be watched, – certainly by kossaks, but I’ve been banned there.
MARCIA ANGELL: Well, I think you really do have to separate the policy analysis from the political analysis and I’m looking at it as policy. And it fails as policy. Moreover, a lot of people say, “Let’s hold our nose and pass it, because it’s a step in the right direction.” And I say it’s a step in the wrong direction.
You’re right. Politics is different and there are a lot of people who say, “Look, it’s a terrible bill. Even a step in the wrong direction as policy goes. But we need to get Obama elected again and we need to continue with the Democratic majority in Congress. And so we need to give Obama and the Democrats a win. If we don’t, the Republicans will come in and take over Congress in the fall, and then the White House in 2012. But the problem with a political analysis is sometimes you’re right and sometimes you’re wrong. And Democrats and particularly liberals have a history of outsmarting themselves.
didn’t pay attention to the quotation marks, we’re all good.
Is it bad form to use quoted text here? I usually use the “Reply” button but sometimes one wants to be clear about a specific part of what someone else posted. In this case a question at the end of a lengthy post.
It’s excellent form to refute assert quoted text here. Particularly with the blockquote function, as one can make a quite clear argument/refutation/concurrence.
Clarity is king as far as I’m concerned and I think a lot of people agree with that.
as far as i know it is personal choice as to which to use. if not using reply, it helps to include the comment # you are replying to as well as the commentator’s name — which the reply button does fill in for ya.
Barack Obama is not only a Fraud but he is a very, very dangerous man because so many people are still duped by him and go along with his lies and deceit.
Now, Dennis Kucinich is falling victim to Obama’s lies, deceit and fraudulent promises…..Kucinich is another spineless loser like the rest of the Democratic Party and its useless party hacks. If Kucinich votes for this he will join the list of the many, many frauds inside the Democratic Party!!!! He will join the other fraud known as Bernie Sanders as well….These Democrats are all worthless scumbags to the lowest common denominator.
On another note but not inconsistent with this jam through healthcare bill which shows, I am afraid that Obama might be close, if not already-a Fascist President.
Obama’s suggestions that anyone arrested have their DNA samples taken and put into a national registry database. His loathing of teachers is also quite despicable. Like Bush before him, Obama has no proof that the teachers in Rhode Island were not doing their best or that the students did not do its best either. I believe that Obama at this point is pushing America into a corporate Fascist state at a very rapid speed and that he is also paving the way for the GOP Nazis to come into power in the next few election cycles. Obama is a FAILED PRESIDENT already and many of his actions are beyond perverse and despicable.
How Precious is the Precious Barack Hussein Obama?
Let’s count the ways:
Barack Obama explained his admiration of Ronald Reagan in an interview when running for the presidency. Here is what Obama the Precious said about his Hero—Ronald Wilson Reagan:
“I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.” —Barack H. Obama, 2008
Thus, Obama states that he admired the human rights violating Ronald Reagan because of the b.s. that there was full of excess in both the 1960s and 1970s, in which government grew too big and of course had lacked accountability.
Robert Parry wrote on January 19, 2008, in an article “Obama’s Dubious Praise for Reagan,” that war crimes were committed and not held to “account.” Robert Parry wrote that:
“On the domestic side, Reagan oversaw the dismantling of regulatory structures that restrained the excesses of Wall Street investment banks, the energy industry and other economic powerhouses. Many of today’s problems – from the mortgage meltdown to the nation’s wasteful energy policies – can be traced to Reagan’s contempt for that type of accountability….Reagan’s clandestine dealings with Iran and Iraq remain shrouded in secrecy and deception to this day. Also suppressed has been the full story of how Reagan tolerated drug traffickers who operated under the cover of his favorite covert operations (Nicaragua and Afghanistan)….. Even more troubling, Reagan aided and abetted mass slaughters in Central America, including acts of genocide in Guatemala, but neither he nor any of his senior advisers faced any meaningful accountability for their actions…. Yet, even as the world community has sought to punish war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, no substantive discussion has occurred in the United States about facing up to Reagan’s horrendous record of the 1980s….Rather than a debate about Reagan as a war criminal, the former President, who died in 2004, has been showered with honors as a conservative icon. His name was attached to Washington National Airport as well as to scores of other government buildings around the country….As part of this rosy view of the Reagan years, the U.S. news media rarely acknowledges the barbarities of the 1980s in Central America. When the topic does come up, it is usually a one-day story about how these little countries bravely are facing up to their violent pasts….. Though Reagan portrayed the bloody conflicts as a necessary front in the Cold War, the Central American violence was always more about entrenched ruling elites determined to retain their privileges against impoverished peasants, including descendants of the region’s Maya Indians, seeking social, political and economic reforms…. The worst of the Guatemalan violence – like the bloodletting in El Salvador and Nicaragua – came after the election of Reagan in November 1980…. Once in office, Reagan chipped away at an arms embargo imposed on Guatemala by Carter who was offended by its ghastly human rights record. A fundamental part of Reagan’s strategy was to silence criticism of the atrocities whether the accusations were coming from the news media, human rights groups or the U.S. intelligence community…. If Obama really wanted to be a different kind of politician, he might instead stand for the truth, even when it is politically difficult and unpopular. He might acknowledge that while Reagan did put the United States on a “fundamentally different path,” it was not a path that led to either accountability or to justice.”
Read the entire article @:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/011908.html
Finally, Barack Obama who never wrote a peer reviewed law school journal article is obviously lacking in the realm of international law, by letting the likes of Jay Bybee and John Yoo to get off from their war crimes.
But, with this spineless Obama one can expect things like not “allowing Democracy to work,” contrary to the lies of Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and allowing the war criminals off the hook from the Bush administration.
The Democrats are totally USELESS and complete FAILURES and SCUM!!!!
I’m guessing many people will be a lot less likely to donate to progressive politicians and candidates because of those who have recently taken their money and will now vote the opposite they they said would.
The sad truth seems to be that progressive politicians from Obama down don’t feel beholden to individuals who contribute. It’s just suckers’ money to them.
Cool, I’ll try that out. Thanks.
Best of all worlds. Thanks.
I can imagine Kucinich holding a press conference to announce that he’s sticking to his guns and voting no for one very important reason.
The Ohio town hall the other day put the onus on him, and I’m sure he and his offices are being snowed under with Obama supporters demanding he “VOTE YES!”, just like the one shouter at the town hall.
If I were in Kucinich’s place, I’d want to get out from under that and shift the focus back onto Obama; “If you want my vote, you’re going to have to work for it.”
Announcing now what his intentions are tells the “VOTE YES!” callers that he’s decided so they can stop dialing his number. It also exposes Obama, who is going on Fox, moving this bill even farther to the right, to attract conservative voters. Exactly when is Obama going to move the bill to the left, to attract those that put him into office?
NY Times Reporter Confirms Obama Made Deal to Kill Public Option
Posted: March 16, 2010 12:57 PM
By Miles Mogulescu
“….For months I’ve been reporting in The Huffington Post that President Obama made a backroom deal last summer with the for-profit hospital lobby that he would make sure there would be no national public option in the final health reform legislation. (See here, here and here). I’ve been increasingly frustrated that except for an initial story last August in the New York Times, no major media outlet has picked up this important story and investigated further….Hopefully, that’s changing. On Monday, Ed Shultz interviewed New York Times Washington reporter David Kirkpatrick on his MSNBC TV show, and Kirkpatrick confirmed the existence of the deal….Kirkpatrick also acknowledged that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina had confirmed the existence of the deal to him….Shultz quoted Chip Kahn, chief lobbyist for the for-profit hospital industry on Kahn’s confidence that the White House would honor the no public option deal, and Kirkpatrick responded:
“That’s a lobbyist for the hospital industry and he’s talking about the hospital industry’s specific deal with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee and, yeah, I think the hospital industry’s got a deal here. There really were only two deals, meaning quid pro quo handshake deals on both sides, one with the hospitals and the other with the drug industry. And I think what you’re interested in is that in the background of these deals was the presumption, shared on behalf of the lobbyists on the one side and the White House on the other, that the public option was not going to be in the final product.”
Read the entire article and comments @:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html
Obama, Durbin and Pelosi All Point Fingers at Someone Else for Killing Public Option
Posted: March 12, 2010 04:55 PM
By Miles Mogulescu
“Barack Obama says he supports a public option but claims there aren’t 51 votes in the Senate to pass it in reconciliation. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin says he would aggressively whip the 51 votes for the public option if Nancy Pelosi would send him a House reconciliation bill that includes a public option. Nancy Pelosi says she won’t include a public option in House reconciliation bill because there aren’t enough votes in the Senate to pass it. It’s looking more and more like a game of 3-Card Monty….Meanwhile, over 40 Democratic Senators have signed a letter or otherwise indicated that they would vote for a public option if given the opportunity and it is almost certain to garner at least 51 votes if it actually came to the Senate floor. But every leading Democrat is doing everything possible to avoid an up or down vote on the public option and pointing the finger at someone else for killing it….It’s all Kabuki theater to cover up the truth that President Obama made a backroom deal with the for-profit hospital industry that the final health care bill would not include a national public option….”
Read the entire article and comments @:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/health/policy/13health.html?_r=1
Considering the stampede of progressives willing to abandon their positions, never. But the crooks and cons hold out, so he kisses their asses one by one.
There’s a lesson to be learned, but I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that most liberals just aren’t smart enough to figure it out.
YES Indeed:
Obama Is Taking an Active Role in Talks on Health Care Plan
By David D. Kirkpatrick
Published: August 12, 2009
“…In pursuing his proposed overhaul of the health care system, President Obama has consistently presented himself as aloof from the legislative fray, merely offering broad principles. Prominent among them is the creation of a strong, government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers and press for lower costs….Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Obama and his advisers have been quite active, sometimes negotiating deals with a degree of cold-eyed political realism potentially at odds with the president’s rhetoric….Industry lobbyists and moderate Democrats in both chambers, though, argue that the White House’s actions behind the scenes show a recognition that the finance panel’s anticipated compromise is the most likely template for any final legislation….“The House has largely been a sideshow,” said Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee, a member of the so-called Blue Dog caucus of conservative Democrats. “The Senate Finance Committee is where it really matters. That’s the bottleneck.”…. Mr. Obama and his top aides have immersed themselves in the Senate Finance Committee process. The president talks to Mr. Baucus several times a week, people briefed on their conversations say. Mr. Obama has also held a few calls with the panel’s ranking Republican, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa…..Several hospital lobbyists involved in the White House deals said it was understood as a condition of their support that the final legislation would not include a government-run health plan paying Medicare rates — generally 80 percent of private sector rates — or controlled by the secretary of health and human services….“We have an agreement with the White House that I’m very confident will be seen all the way through conference,” one of the industry lobbyists, Chip Kahn, director of the Federation of American Hospitals, told a Capitol Hill newsletter.…“The president has said he wants a public option to keep everybody honest. He hasn’t said he wants a co-op as a public option…”
Read the entire article and comments @:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/health/policy/13health.html?_r=1
Contact: Nathan White (202)225-5871
Kucinich Press Conference on Health Care Reform
Washington, Mar 16 –
Date: Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Time: 10:00 a.m. ET
Location: Capitol Building H-321
Washington D.C. (March 16, 2010) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) will announce his vote on health care reform at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, March 17, in room H-321 of the U.S. Capitol Building.
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=176655
I normally only lurk in this forum, but I think it’s appropriate to note that tonight we have both Jane Hamsher and Michelle Bachmann vociferously arguing for the defeat of this bill.
I’m not a fan of what’s transpiring here; a few weeks ago I wrote to Obama that the individual mandate in the absence of a public option amounts to “A saprophytic corporate feast on the financial carcasses of the US treasury and the American middle class”, and I still believe it. I’ll even grant that this is a bill that might have (like Medicare part D) been passed under the bush administration, with all the Rs voting for, and all the Ds voting against.
Nevertheless I think everyone needs to take a step back and look at what the world will look like in a week’s time if on the one hand the bill passes, or on the other if it fails.
If HCR is defeated the corporatists will have won on every level. It will guarantee the failure of the Obama administration, complete the demoralization of the democratic base, precipitate an electoral disaster in November, and sow the seeds for another (possibly terminal) round of looting which might hollow out our society to the point of degeneration into a feudal system.
OTOH, if HCR passes, well there will be another piece of crap legislation on the books. On the plus side, it will establish healthcare as a right, the republicans will be totally deflated, and we will still have the ball.
Everything that’s bad about this can be fixed in the next round with legislation that can’t be rationally argued against in a future standalone measure. E.g. Public option? CBO says it Saves $100B. Any questions?
Jane, please don’t let the merely crappy be the enemy of the drowning-in-pigshit. I contributed to the erstwhile public option advocates too, but I recognize that holding their feet to the fire in this situation does not further our goals.
Hmm, interesting. Smart analysis. I hope you’re right.
I do know his office has been inundated with veeerrry specific sob stories, written by people representing that tiny sliver of cases affecting well educated, upper middle class people who stand something to gain in this bill. We know them here as the “everyone else must suffer so that I can gain” stories, whose claims never seem to hold up to close scrutiny.
It’s amazing how 90% of the letters represent about .05% of the population, written in highly technical terms so you’ll know exactly what clause of the 2000+ page bill would benefit them.
I think it’s appropriate to note that Alan Grayson and Michelle Bachmann are both arguing for audit the fed, too.
Should we tell him not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good and give up on that as well? Or should we just draw and quarter him and demand his entrails be scattered across the Mongolian steppes for having agreed with Michelle Backman about anything in the first place?
3/16/2010
Dear Representative Kucinich:
It’s simple. You only have two choices:
Vote Yes on this healthcare bill and immediately resign as having violated the oath of office you took to uphold the Constitution. If you don’t resign, you’ll lose the next election anyway – and trust me I will donate what I can to see that you are defeated – so you may as well think through what you want to do once your career in public service is over. If this bill is approved, I promise you that I will stop paying taxes and will use that money to support every legal effort you KNOW will be mounted to have this voted declared void as unconstitutional. I will not have my money used to fund elective abortions or my government mandating coverage for them in any way. I will not be complicit in the deaths of innocent pre-born children. I just won’t. Nor should you be complicit in efforts to enact legislation that is clearly unconstitutional. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the government gets to force people to purchase ANY commercial product. NOWHERE!!!! And don’t give me that nonsense about car insurance. I don’t have to drive a car, but I do have to breathe.
Or, you can vote No on this healthcare bill and by doing so, stand up for large majority of voters of this country who DO NOT WANT this bill to pass. Then, you’ll have the opportunity to work with legislators on both sides of the aisle to craft real healthcare reform we as a nation both need and want, which, by the way, DOES NOT CONTAIN A PUBLIC OPTION!!!!
So, the choice is yours. Vote yes and be booted out of Congress as soon as possible or vote No and be there to work for real healthcare reform over the next several months.
My my, you have no idea how ironic it is that this appears today of all days.
Well, if Dennis caves, that’ll be it for me. I’ve been super active in this, reading politics news and blogs every day, and I’ve contributed probably 3-4 grand since last January. I’m about as motivated a constituent as the Dems could possibly ask for — and this will be it for me.
Lately, the anger and feelings of helplessness as the Democratic party is taken over — completely — by industry shills, party-first douchebags, and Obamabot cheerleaders — has actually been disrupting my life. Now that I will have direct evidence that all the heartache, all the donated time and money, mean squat… why should I stay involved? Why drag myself (and my loved ones) through that? Nothing will change. There is no “progressive movement” left in the USA, and certainly no real populist reform will happen. We are a government Of the Corporations, By the Corporations, For the Corporations — and why should I want to be a part of that?
So I’ll probably unsubscribe from all my mailing lists, including FDL, just because it hurts too much to care, and… find something else to do with my life. I firmly believe that America is a dying empire, and we’re just seeing the bread and circuses to prove it.
*sigh*
Dear Jane,
Thanks for all you do. I hold very few in high esteem but on the domestic front you are great and a true blue activist. Just as on the antiwar front and peace movement-I hold Kathy Kelly in high esteem as well. I had the honor of meeting Kathy Kelly a few years back and spent some time with her.
It appears to me, after having almost and just about completing a paper of the marketing and propaganda of selling the war on Iraq, that the Obama administration employs similar techniques…..The Bush administration did not sell the war on Iraq, but, in repetitive fashion, and continually hammering out its position day in and day out on talk shows using its surrogates. MSNBC led by Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow and the likes of Bill Press, Thom Hartmann, Joe Madison, Tom Joiner, and Randi Rhodes are what is known as “Liberal Democratic Party Gatekeepers.” In, other words, useful tools, useful idiots and people who don’t have two thoughts going on in their “brains” at any one time.
Just as the Bush administration would have made war on Iraq with or without the Congressional Vote on October 10, 2002, the Democrats are hell bent on doing something similar here as well.
Perhaps, Obama can give a “Mission Accomplished” Speech at the nearest Insurance Company dressed in emergency room garb and holding a BIG NEEDLE.
There was an article in Newsweek a while back which also spoke of this bill having been cooked in backrooms a long time ago.
I will leave you with a quote by Michael Parenti who said the following to Amy Goodman from February 23, 2004:
AMY GOODMAN: I would like to try to look at where we stand today, the state of the world, and why at this point you have decided to write this book about ancient Rome. How do you see the two fitting together?
MICHAEL PARENTI: Well, I discovered that ancient history is not so ancient. Many of the same issues attain an overweening, ruling aristocratic class that believes that everything belongs to them. They have an entitlement to the resources and labor of society. They have a right to plunder the rest of the world for self-enrichment, and I think we see the same thing today. I’m not one of those critics that believes U.S. foreign policy is confused, or stupid, or misinformed, or well-intentioned but it goes awry. I think it’s a brilliant policy filled with many brilliant, terrible, horrible victories. And that’s what we’re describing now. It’s systematically undermines any movement, any country, any leadership, any popular group that tries an alternative way of self-defining, self-developing, using the resources, the markets, the labor of their society for their own needs, rather than for a multi-corporate global system, a neo-liberal system, which seems to be the goal of this reactionary clique in office today.
Although Parenti specifies U.S. foreign policy, one can also apply domestic politics to his point as well.
Again, Jane, thanks so much and perhaps one day, I’ll meet somewhere in America unless I decide to move to New Zealand or Canada. The way the U.S.A. is going moving elsewhere is now on my mind a lot more and more than ever before.
I’ve been pondering the same thing. Both houses of the legislature have passed a single payer bill (but of course they KNEW it would be vetoed and we have all seen how that game works.) Presumably if Brown were elected he would sign it BUT Jerry Brown has a long history of doing maddeningly stupid things. Plus who can say who owns him nowadays so that’s not a slam dunk.
ONE thing is for sure. California is the largest state and still a trendsetter despite its current massive problems. If a single payer bill did make it past the governor’s signature you can bet the farm that HealthCartel money by the Quadjillions would rain on the state in a massive wall to wall carpet-bombing effort to defeat it by referendum. Californians DO usually cave under such pressure. I’m sure the angle would be that single payer is too expensive for a state that already mondo insolvent. I think that California would be a heavy lift despite all the apparent favorables.
Yes, its also called “neoliberalism” and also known as the “Washington Consensus.”
These economic policies are proven failures the world over. Neoliberal economic policies have also been a disaster in relation to reforming “developed nations.”
People should run from any policy with privatization in it or the suggestion of public-private partnerships.
Public Policy is becoming more and more a dead letter in America. Obama is certainly making his hero Ronald Reagan proud in pursuing these neoliberal economic policies from education to health insurance reform.
Obama is also pleasing the Republican Mayor Daley of Chicago as well. Yes, Daley still has a (D) after his name but he runs Chicago like a Republican and has even admitted he is one.
Not necessarily true. Please see my response at 292.
Spot on, keep singing that song, it’s the only song with all the right words.
To the commentariat:
Think about this all the way through – why would Jane let up heat on Dennis Kucinich? Why would Jane submit to the same argument Dennis himself posed, where he said, to paraphrase “Were I to cave now, what would I gain?”
This is the way pressure works; it’s actual pressure.
Fineman is keeping up that DNC aura/strategy of inevitability, in my opinion. After all it’s not Fineman that votes, or has a press conference, but DK; and the result of that is not inevitable this very moment.
Imagine tomorrow, and Dennis saying “Love you and feel for you Natoma Canfield, but No Way In Hell Am I Voting For Your Corporate Death Sentence For Others. In Fact, It’s A Sin It’s Happening To You.”
Tim Kaine: Those Who Back Reform Will Be Rewarded
By Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
First Posted: 03-16-10 02:10 PM
“….Speaking shortly after sitting down for lunch with President Obama, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine offered one of the more explicit carrots yet to Democratic lawmakers still undecided about whether to support health care reform….Cast a “yes” vote, Kaine said, and lawmakers will be rewarded by the activists in the party and even (he hinted) by the national Democratic groups….”The [Organizing for America] activists are incredibly engaged,” Kaine told a group of reporters outside the White House. “They want to see reform happen. Maybe the way to say it is I think they will energetically respond and work very hard for those who were part of this reform effort.”….Addressing the topic later, Kaine added: “The volunteers we have out there working, they are working on this because they care about health care. They care deeply about it … That’s why our activists are engaged. They want to solve a problem and they are clearly going to be very excited to work with those who they see as part of the solution.”….The former Virginia Governor declined to say whether he or others would be deploying any political sticks to go along with the carrots. Instead, he offered a warning to his fellow Democrats: failure to pass legislation could seriously damage the party politically….”
Read the entire article @:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/16/tim-kaine-those-who-back_n_501125.html
Well, as I said several comments earlier [perhaps, even, on another thread], imagine what could have been done if they’d used all this energy for a GOOD bill.
America never changes in any REAL way without reaching an Apocalyptic Point as you put it. It’s just the way America is built.
I highly recommend that all concerned citizens at FDL listen to these two programs with hosts Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone from WBAI Radio in NYC:
091013
The Medical Industrial Complex and the Fiction of Healthcare Reform, Part 1: Bought and Paid For
091110
The Medical Industrial Complex and the Fiction of Healthcare Reform, Part 2: The House Bill
Taking Aim Audio Archives Programs with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone @:
http://takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
Remember the good ole days during the Bush administration when the rat-ass and useless Democrats seemed to be all “uspet” that drug reimportation was not included in the prescription drug deal?
In this bill, people will pay anywhere from 17% to 20% percent of their incomes to health insurance companies. Thus, printing more and more money to hand over to these scumbag insurance companies. Subsidies do not help everyone either and for many the penalty is cheaper but the government would then wash its hands.
Medicare CUTS In both Bills and don’t let them lie about their onhoing deceit. These members of congress are SCUMBAGS!!!!
I’m not asking anyone to give up on anything. I _am_ suggesting you hold your horses in the interest of maintaining the possibility of future progress.
Michelle Bachmann and Alan Grayson may well both be advocating auditing the Fed, but there are two crucial distinctions between that and your common position with Bachmann on HCR.
Firstly, HCR is the make or break issue for the Obama administration -Bachmann understands that and she wants to break it. What do you want?
Secondly, Bachmann’s support of a fed audit is, like every position she takes on everything, calculated to instill confusion among her enemies. Are you confused enough to condemn your friends for recognizing this?
This bill only bailouts more and more health insurance companies and I don’t give a rat’s ass if this bill would “defeat the Obama agenda.”
The Obama agenda and this HCR enslaves Americans and puts people more and more into the poorhouse and does nothing to rectify the health care crisis and problems in America. It’s also a chance for big pharma and big insurance to raise premiums.
The biggest myth of these bills is that it would help more people—BIG F-ing LIE!!!
I have absolutely NO problem breaking Obama and his administration. He has earned it.
No one defeats the Obama agenda quite as thoroughly as Obama.
…and what comes after that?
Yes, that’s the saddest part…
And I don’t care if Obama LOSES in the 2012 Election either.
As a matter of fact, I hope the “Dems” (Democaves) lose the White House, Senate and House of Reps in the next two-three election cycles. These Dems are certainly not the Democratic Party of your grandparents or parents and that’s damn sure now!
Obama is destroying the last vestiges of the “Democratic Party” and maybe even America itself, in the same way Gorbachev ensured the fall of the Soviet Union. Analyze the real situation which is quite severe here in America and you will understand Obama is intellectually challenged and in a unsurpassed way regarding economic issues. Unemployment is not “9.7%” but more like 18-20% and suggest people not to be too knee-jerked when the Obama jackoffs tell ya stuff or CNN/MSNBC says this or that about the “economy improving.” The economy is becoming worse and worse and in very severe ways. The future of the American economy is not looking pretty in the next several months ahead.
The Democratic Party has stamped its status as LOSERS and I mean BIG LOSERS for decades and decades to come. But, wait, the Democrats no longer exist. These Democrats are “Daley Chicago Republicans” who desire the privatization agenda of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.
Where have you gone, Democratic Party? You certainly do not exist any more. And Liberals are very F-ing naive and stupid, I must add.
Leftists and Radicals unlike the spineless and gullible liberals do not bend over for any party apparatus which is tied to the power elite like big defense contractors, big insurance companies, big pharma, big agribusinesses, etc.
Vote or not, I deem the ho’enchilada rotten.
And if Kucinich brings a fork to the carcass, he must be STARVING.
All I know is that after DK’s press conference tomorrow that a thread here on FDL is going to blow up with comments (on one side or the other) BIG TIME.
Hoping Dennis stands his ground and grinds up with bill with his explanation.
On the subject of the Dems losing control of the WH, Senate, or House: I wonder if there is any possibility that Dems would actually be more effective just in blocking GOP bills (purely for political advantage, not for any reason involving policy or, heaven forbid, principles) than they are in holding majority power.
The song that keeps rolling around in my mind tonight is Neil Young’s Helpless sung by K.D. Lang… dedicated to all the folks We, the People care about as they fall through the fingers of family, friends, and neighbors… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5KRVtjgMkM
Where did David Beckham fly after tearing his Achilles tendon? Finland. Private medicine flourishes alongside a comprehensive national system. Millionaires want the best, too! Instead of focusing on the problems of the bottom 99.99%, maybe its time we thought of those among us who really matter.
Democaves! Kinda perfect. I’ve been going with Jellocrats.
Yeah, the Dems were really “effective” in blocking Bush’s war on Iraq and the subsequent supplemental bills to fund the war which has led to America’s awful economic state of being.
It was those 27 Dems in the U.S. Senate who voted to allow Bush to go to war on Iraq no matter how they parse it now. These Dems feign that they did not give Bush the go-ahead for war on Iraq, but, any idiot knows that the vote on October 10, 2002, certainly did allow Bush to go to war on Iraq.
Well, at least the likes of Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd were not fooled by the Bush administration.
When it comes to political ambition, the Dems will NOT BLOCK CRAP in the minority. There will always be enough dimwitted Dems to go along with the rotten Republicans.
The Republicans are ideological.
The Dems are political.
The Republicans support their base.
The Dems sellout their base and call it names using slurs.
The Republicans just tell ya what they want and do it.
The Dems say they are doing this but do the other or opposite all the while claiming its for your own good—paternalism at its highest.
The Republicans are in your face about what they do.
The Democrats are deceitful and slick in what they do.
The Republicans are rotten
The Democrats are dirty.
The Republicans have a spine when they do stuff.
The Democrats lack a spine when they do stuff.
The Republicans covet their supporters.
The Democrats betray their supporters.
The Republicans want more and more wars.
The Democrats say they want diplomacy but will also resort to war.
The Republicans breed war criminals.
The Democrats allow these war criminals a free reign of freedom instead of prosecution.
The Republicans use Torture Lawyers.
The Democrats excuse the war crimes of Torture Lawyers.
The Republicans hate teacher unions.
The Democrats sell out teacher unions.
And on and on and on….The beat goes on and on and on….
duracrats
News just out that a quarter of all Californians under 65 are uninsured now, mostly due to working class people losing their jobs or their insurance because the companies can’t keep the employees and the insurance. CA has a history of saying “we know you have the money, spend it on what we demand” when it wants to and the money to prop up the insurance system is astronomical and rising all the time.
I heard an interesting interview of a person who had done research on millenials. They are jaded about corporations and benefits and look out for themselves. The college students and young adults here in CA of that age group are getting very politically active. We could be in for some wild times now that the people who remember the property tax mess that prompted Prop 13 are fewer and those who just know we used to have great education and other services are on the rise. I have to have some hope in CA because I am quickly getting to the point where I have none for the federal government.
He might – why not? Not everyone heard him on Olbermann.
I do not understand the connection between an ERISA waiver and making it easier for states to set up single payer. I did a quick search of FDL and found a few articles about a waiver being important, but I didn’t find an explanation of why. Could someone provide a link or explanation about why an ERISA waiver would be helpful?
See link in Jane’s post at top.
Obama staged this Air force One tryst with Kucinich on his home turf, then used the poor cancer ridden Ohioan as an example of how bad the system is (not telling the real truth about why this woman was screwed like millions of others..and how his HCR bill will make things worse for her)
And to back track, the Prez had the cameras rolling when he read the letter to insurance operatives from this sick woman where she communicates how she had to choose between her health care and keeping her home. Then the cameras were shut down for the rest of the deal.. pun intended.
This whole Ohio thing was staged and directed by Obama to humiliate Kucinich..and using that poor cancer victim was basically another cheap trick.. like when Obama brings up the sob story about his mother and the ovarian cancer.
What a master manipulator of the truth. Question is why would Kucinich buckle? Is he reacting to all the garbage in the press about him being another Nader spoiler (I RESPECT NADER)… or that his vote might potentially bring down health care?
Add in what Obama produced in Ohio.. and then Daily Kos diatribes.
Like it’s being piled on Dennis… What a disgusting, sadistic PREZ we have with his dirty Chicago style politics..
Something is up here, and I sense it’s foreboding.
If Dennis caves, it will be a real tragedy,
New Zealand seems quite remote. My top picks are Canada, northern Europe (plus the Netherlands and France) and Australia (ok, same situation as New Zealand, I just like the California/Florida-esque climate). The UK is really one with the US and shares many of the same problems, heading in the same direction, they just have a better health care system. Keep in mind both Canada and Australia are considered corruptible “plutocracies” by the big boys (see the Citigroup memo). Canada is not that far behind the US. France may have the greatest chance of leftist revolution (not Soviet/Mao style, rather stateless libertarian socialism) of the highly developed western countries, but who knows?
Watching C-span.. reporter on.. says unlikely Kucinich would stage a press conference to oppose the Prez.
K will cave… and I can’t imagine any concessions in return..
This is disgusting.
Fax lines very busy to Kunicich’s Washington DC Office.. I sent two faxes to his Ohio offices asking him not to cave.. when we already know he will.
These days, sending donations on our grassroots level is a waste time and money. Corporations eat these up..
The only leverage we the People have is at the ballot box.
I have to agree with this..If money is given voluntarily, don’t expect any members of Congress to be bought out, especially by comparison with corporate underwriting. I think it’s just the same old bribery routine.
Really, Jane?
First the Norquist letter, now this. You’re really going to go after the lone Progressive in the House because you didn’t get your Single Payer Pony? What’s the word I’m looking for here…ah yes, “petulance”.
Ever hear of the public option?
We think letting insurance companies use the IRS to sell really crappy insurance to the poor and the middle class is a bad idea. They will use the revenue to fight single payer in the future.
No Boo, I’ve never heard of the Public Option. Please.
But by all means, keep chasing that snipe. I’m sure no one will mind if you hold up an admittedly imperfect bill and let premiums continue to rise 39% annually while you stamp your feet and hold your breath.
And I’m sure that chasing Progressives out of Congress is a winning strategy, too.
I have never posted on this site, and, except for responding to a recent Glenn Greenwald article (an excellent expose into the whole Dem con game around this “health care” debacle), haven’t posted on or even bothered to read any political sites for months.
Why?
1. The acid rancor and/or off-the-charts rage that usually weave their way through blogs and posts – energies that do nothing but keep the craziness going and reinforce the idea that “attacking” is acceptable; and
2. A kind of “victim” mentality that seems to permeate most of what’s written.
For the record: I choose not to be a victim. Not to Obama, not to the MSM, not to Rachel Maddow, not even to Dennis K. I also choose not to go the way of calling them every name in the book if I find them saying things or doing things that reflect the same old rotting politics that have gotten us to the collosal mess we’re in right now.
Personal persective: I left the Dem Party years ago. Because, as a commenter here earlier suggested, for me – it’s about ideas. Advancing ideas. Not about advancing “The Party.”
I decided to register at this site today (the only one I’m now registered at besides the Greenwald site) and leave this comment because I sense there are some people here who are on a similar page and who might be willing to consider, as a result, the creation of an alternate party. I know, I know: “Progressives” have talked about doing this for years. Years and years and years and years. But the fear of “leaving” the fold…has pretty much immobilized those of us who’ve known for a while…that it’s time. It really, really, really, really…is time.
Having stated such, I offer the following with kindness in my heart: I am not interested in a third party that puts most of its energy into demonizing others. Demonizing to the point of using foul language, threats, violent imagery as a venting mechanism. Rather, I would be most delighted to group with those who wish to let go of the rage, let go of the “victim” stuff, let go of the need to castigate anyone. And instead choose…the high road. The high road of claiming our truths, putting them out there with honesty, standing our ground, and doing so in a way that exudes a respectful, almost calming presence.
I sense…the masses could be ready.
I thank all those reading this who’ve been willing to open their eyes and acknowledge the depth of corruption that oozes through this country’s corporatist politics.
And now…the choice is yours and mine to make.
I wish us all…the very best.
I couldn’t agree more with that.
I hear so-called progressives, like an abused spouse, giving in, going back–accepting something bad for fear of nothing or worse.
If progressives can’t stand strong and demanding in their beliefs they’ll never get anywhere. While it’s true you can’t have everything, you’d better draw lines and get some things. If not–you’ll be ignored.
And that’s what will happen if this bill gets through.
The path to success will be to slide to the right, bribe right leaning or corporate frinedly Dems–ignore or bully the progressives into submission–because that’s what works.
Every time.
Congressman Kucinich has masterfully kept the public option issue on the air waves as long he could. Filling the air waves with the truth about this legislation for as long as he could. Masterfully. Thank you Dennis
So it appears the sell out will be wholesale then. So Kucinich, I guess you are returning your firedog campaign donations since you failed to keep your word and will vote for a bill without a public option?
If he didnt even get any concessions, which I think is most likely, then its not even in line with his statements that you this was an attempt to bargain for a better deal.
It feels like we will have passed some tipping point toward facism when we litteraly allow corporations to profit/feed off the bodies of americans.
Agree way out of line even for Jane
Okay, there is an apocalyptic point, it’s the man-made destruction of the earth that will disrupt much of the life on the planet. If we continue as we are now, it’ll likely be here within a hundred years. At best, we can hope to survive for awhile in very small numbers. We can accept this destiny and ruin all of our advances over the past several thousand years, possibly even dooming the human race to extinction, or we can change this destiny now, retain the advances we made, and progress in a new, sustainable way.
Marx and old communists are wrong. Capitalism, or any mutated form of it, is not going to kill itself as a system, leading inevitably to communism. It will keep going, crisis after crisis, until the planet is destroyed unless we wake up and stop it.
Having them defend an unpopular mandate without a popular public option is a winning strategy?
Jane,
I respect your grit and tenacity but there are time where you have to pick and choose our battles. In a perfect society we all want single-payer like our canadian, european and latin counterparts, but considering what’s at stake in HCR–now is not the time for battle. I think Kucinich is doing right thing by supporting HCR
You might want this thread…
You mean, damn little? A bill full of loopholes with a 2.5% mandate penalty?
Welcome. And thanks for your thoughtful post. Yes of course nothing will change before we are able to put the disabling sadness and anger at betrayal in a box and move toward developing positive and optimistic solutions. You will find many on this site a rich source of ideas and energy. But with great respect, we do have to do our mourning and acknowledging our anger before it goes in the box. So bear with those of us still struggling in those phases.
Jane is amazing and there will be more forthcoming. I await her wisdom with anticipation of new insights.
I personally am coming to believe the country has become ungovernable. The Republicans. have if not created much of the chaos, are certainly inciting it. I fear it is inevitable now that we will succumb to an authoritarian and oppressive government, regardless of party.
I simply can’t see free democracy in the near future. Any planning, third party or other will I think involve accepting that reality with strategies to preserve our history with carefully focused actions at the fringes.
This article is about to scroll into cyber heaven. I hope you will be posting on the new as they come online.
First off, we’d need a new governor.
No, you’re right – I’m sure progressives like Kucinich grow on trees, and can win elections in any district because, you know, magic.
It ain’t a pretty picture.
that the public option will come up immediately after this legislation is passed
There is no way in hell that people in Ohio would be willing to bump Kucinich. That is unless Jane and Kos are willing to work with radical Republicans and teabaggers. If they go there they will lose many.
Jane, you mean well and have done great work on a lot of progressive causes, but on this issue the damage you’re doing to the progressive cause and to America in general is just awesome. You can’t always get what you want. Doesn’t mean you throw a fit and stop progress in its tracks.
There already is a new, more “progressive” party, called the Green Party. The Green Party also shares the benefit of multi-national support. It’s gaining popularity (seats) fast in a few countries.
That said, our problems run far deeper than political parties. So-called socialist parties have had power for many years in some European countries and yet the countries are not that much different than the US (look at Greece, even South Africa’s ANC is part of the Socialist International, yet it’s now believed poor Africans are actually worse off now economically than during apartheid). Class differences still exist, unemployment, etc. They just benefit from better welfare. Political parties in a centralized state cannot overcome capitalism and its effects (including ecological disruption and destruction). They can just take some of the wealth robbed back and spread it around. All the meanwhile, they face constant opposition from business and the other half of the government that more directly serves business.
I like the argument but question the numbers.
Read Lewis, “The Big Short”, you’ll like it.
We’d all be better off if Everyone read Chomsky.
As soon as this POS bill passes — assuming, that is, that it does — there is a very important battle to wage. The battle will be between two sets of liars.
First, on the right, it will be attacked as a government takeover — a lie that we cannot allow to prevail. Second, on the “left,” it will be defended as true reform — an unprecedented accomplishment, a panacea. Another lie that we cannot allow to prevail.
By far the worse lie is the second one. Every single claim that Obama made about this so-called “reform” is a lie. We lost round one, but not by much. He and his sycophants wound up having to defend his signature proposal as “at least better than what’s out there” and required to “save Obama’s presidency.”
We can’t let them pivot, declare victory, and move on. We have to continue to “document the atrocities.”
I’m having a hard time understanding why I should want Barack Obama to win a second-term, when in his first he’s done nothing but execute John McCain’s stump speech?
Can you explain to me why I should be overwrought with getting Barack Obama re-elected, when he’s content to govern like the Republican he defeated?
yes.
I find Fineman’s report dubious, as so far the only news results I’ve found are that Kucinich plans to announce how he’ll vote this morning. No mention was made in the articles found so far suggest what he’ll actually say.
I’m extremely confused about what it is you think is in this bill that will contain premium prices. If anything the subsidies are going to accelerate price inflation, not retard it. That’s how demand-side subsidies work, and the ones in this legislation aren’t indexed to future prices, so it will take another act of Congress to increase the subsidies; rinse, repeat.
Also, note that with each round of subsidy increases (if they ever come) we’ll be spending more on healthcare, not less. The fact that we spend so damn much for these services compared to the rest of the first-world is the whole reason we’re even addressing this issue, and none of what has been built now will help resolve that.
Again, I can’t make any sense of your statement, it seems completely divorced from reality, and rests your argument on demonstrable falsehoods and appeals to emotion.
It’s on order, from Amazon. I read a long excerpt from it in Vanity Fair [?]. I love Michael Lewis. [He was on The Daily Show two nights ago.]
Right — so we should make them defend unpopular mandates without allowing the public a public option. That will insure their success.
The Veal Penners never defend what they say with reference to actual facts — mostly they throw out a constant torrent of hate-messages at “progressives,” and hope that the self-hating side of the “progressives” will take over. Sometimes this strategy works.
I agree with all you say. And especially that we cannot let this pass as representative of genuine liberalism and progressivism or even consistent with the Democratic parties of the past.
Premiums will increase at a rate effectively unchanged according to the CBO
I wish I could be optimistic about the press conference.. but on the heels of Obama’s Ohio’s appearance; his wining and dining K on Air Force one, coupled with seizing on a cancer victim to hang lousy health care reform on, I can’t imagine Kucinich standing his ground.
That was funny.
Tom follow the money. Then you will discover Jane is right.
There is no plus to helping the health insurance cartel.
You need to learn the difference between paying premiums and actually getting coverage. Big difference.
How are the progressives and liberals coming with getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Have the progressives and liberals stopped our tax dollars from being used to torture and rendition?
How are they coming with auditing the Fed and regulating Wall Street?
How about taking the FDA and EPA out of the private sector, any progress?
I am a big tent Dem. I do not want to move to a third party. Criticizing the only place on the internets, however, where you can actually learn what is going on, is a reminder of many of the really lousy posts you have made here over the years.
Please apologize to Jane and send her more cash.
You probably thought of this already. But, FWIW, I would suggest that all of these misrepresentations be combined into a You Tube piece. I would include quotes from nearly every D — at one time or another in this debate — related to how far this falls short of what we truly need, including as many as possible that refer to specific misrepresentations.
Especially, including everyone who ever said we need to pass this piece of crap because “it’s better than what’s out there” or “if this goes down, Obama goes down.”
This all has to be gathered together in one place — and go viral.
Kucinich caved, He’s now on C-span 3/
Thank You! WizardLeft
AWESOME POST, and GREAT INFORMATION
It is like real progressives, don’t want to deal with reality, the democratic party has been hijack by a bunch of Corporate Elites or PURE SCUM.
Competition is A SIN!!! this is the bible the Corporate Elites live by, they hate the idea of any group challenging the Status Quo.
Glenn Greenwald tells progressives the PHONY DEMS “POS” that call themselves Dems and govern like Republicans are going to screw the Democratic Base, and when they do everyone is Shock?
SUN TZU says it best
Know Thyself and Know Thy Enemies
(Progressive better stop focusing on the GOP and turn their GUNS toward their real enemies the people running around DC calling themselves Democrats)
When Jane runs for office the tune would change. Hell even here at FDL they change rules midstream. Kucinich kept the public option issue and the truth about the legislation on the air waves as slong as he could. There has to be a deal about bringing in the public option soon after this legislation is passed
Boo – your assumption is that Congress is – at this very moment – chock-full of progressives who would be able to single-handedly do all these things, if it weren’t for the fact that they’re secretly GOP operatives.
Sad day…Kucinich disappointed.
Now he’s going off on Chinese medicine.. all well and good.. but..
Fineman did not say that Dennis disclosed to him. Fineman said his “sources”
I completely unsubscribed to MoveOn during the primaries, too. They should have first had a vote on whether or not to endorse a candidate. Instead, they just had that stupid vote.
No, what BooRadley, Jane Hamsher, and others here at FDL assumed was that the “progressives” in Congress could be coerced into leveraging their votes to get something good out of the government (e.g. a public option popular with a MAJORITY of Americans), by withholding such votes until legislation in their favor was included into bills they initially did not want to support. This strategy, of course, is the point of this diary.
Well it is a fact DK is going to Vote YES even though he said he would vote no. After all he is a Democrat and I guess he feels it is more important to support his President, his Party and his fellow Democrats in passing HCR rather than to be remembered as an obstruction to it. He is NOT a Traitor, lets not eat our own here.
Maybe a crazy idea, but why don’t we contribute to politicans after they do what they said they were going to do, not before, on what they say they will do. I don’t pay for my meal in a restaurant until I’ve eaten it, and I trust the restaurant more than I do politicans.
SO, Here’s my question of the day folks. Who, of all the well-meaning, very concerned & involved posters to this site will vote at the earliest & every subsequent opportunity to oust their Democratic Representatives from office REGARDLESS who their opposition is?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000613-503544.html
I’m feeling physically ill right now. Seriously. It’s probably got less to do with this than with something I ate, but this bad news isn’t helping.
Ah, the fog is clearing. I see…I see… YES!!! IT’S THE 11TH DIMENSION!!
DK & Orahma have hatched a secret plot to waive ERISA and implement the public option. With a national single-payer trigger. And a pony for every little girl. Degree of difficulty…infinite.
Apologizing in advance for the snark. We’re all in this POS together; just couldn’t resist.
Hope: Good
Hopey/Changey: Bad
And how long have you been able to stay in office speaking and generally voting in a progressive way? No “hopey changey” bullshit with Dennis. The “hopey changey” bullshit sticks to the asses of those who think we can get everything all at once. Keep pushing. Keep pushing
Bingo. Look at his record
Do you really think that Senator Brown, Congressman Kucinich, Senator Harkin etc are not going to push hard for the public option after this passes? Folks have their head up where the sun does not shine if they think we are not going to witness these progressives push hard after this is passed. Keep pushing folks. Keep pushing
Jane, get your head out of your rectum and get the bill passed. then it will be easier to fix all the other parts that need to be fixed. if you insist on this insane all or nothing ploy then you will get nothing. i have two sons who cannot get insurance because of pre existing conditions and one has a $75000 bill for medical operations sitting on him for the rest of his life. maybe you can afford no insurance but there are a lot of us who can’t. get with the program.
Agreed. I can’t watch Rachel Maddow anymore. What happened to objectivity? She is just as much a corporatist news anchor as the next, but “Up next, Ken Jones doing something stupid and irrelevant..” /sigh
Dennis Kucinich’s betrayal of the progressive movement is really disappointing. I will not be donating any more money to him in upcoming election cycles.
Congressman Kucinich’s remarks were insulting, condescending and disrespectful.
I am a progressive activist who supports passage of the health care reform bill. While it functions as a safety net, bailout and giveaway to the insurance mobsters, it also will help to insure millions of people who do not currently have insurance, and probably cut down dramatically on the 45,000 Americans who die each year because of lack of health insurance. Yes, the public option would have been a dramatic improvement, but the bill still needs to be passed.
However Congressman Kucinich did not offer even ONE WORD OF EXPLANATION as to why he is now willing to vote for the bill. All we heard were vague noises about helping Obama realize his potential. What the frack???
If you are going to vote for the bill, at least do us the courtesy, and show us the respect, of telling us WHY you are changing your mind, you know? Don’t do us any favors. If you’re not going to tell us why you’re voting for the bill, then just shut the frack up.
Sheez.
Think you mean lady as opposed to liege, but whatever.
I just posted something on David Dayen’s post about Kucnich’s flip, that probably belongs here, too.
Perhaps in future, it might make more sense to request “pledges” as a fund-raiser. Then, after the crucial vote or votes, those pledges can be collected.
Jimtowndem, I think you have a misundertanding of what this bill does. Do you realize it does not limit the amount the insurance company can charge in premiums for pre-existing conditions? Also even if they do deny your sons insurance because of a pre-existing condition then they only get fined a $100/day. Do you really think they will cover your son’s operation? I hope they are doing well.
Jane, get your head out of your rectum and get the bill passed. then it will be easier to fix all the other parts that need to be fixed. if you insist on this insane all or nothing ploy then you will get nothing. i have two sons who cannot get insurance because of pre existing conditions and one has a $75000 bill for medical operations sitting on him for the rest of his life. maybe you can afford no insurance but there are a lot of us who can’t. get with the program.
Are you kidding me? You really think anyone is going to be willing to go anywhere near healthcare for at least a few years after this is said and done? No. The only thing that will force this back on the table is when healthcare costs are still astronomical and no one can afford it.
Just because healthcare companies will not be able to reject people doesn’t mean they can’t raise their rates. If you really think a review board is going to be effective, I refer you to what a bang up job the ones that were managing the finance sector did. Oh, or they may be penalized at $100 a day per person they refuse coverage. Give me a break.
Your personal situation is clouding your judgement. I feel for you, but regardless of the passage of this bill you are still going to have that $75k bill because it will not be incurred during the new period, but will be preexisting.
You want to do something, stand on your feet and pressure your representatives to kill this bill. Medicare for all or nothing. Plain and simple. You are hoping that someone will save you, but no one will.
Sorry, not going to happen. It’s over, with Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et. al breathing a big sigh of relief. They’re not going to touch that rail again.
Next up, Social Security and Medicaid “reform.” And of course the Dodd “let’s put the CFPA in the Fed” financial “reform.” Fox, henhouse, get it? Only the Dems could get away with this shit.
Dennis held out as long as he could. He had the honor of being belittled and insulted by the President himself. In his own state. And he did get to fly on teh airplane. But the meta-story couldn’t be clearer: “The banks (and other corporate interests) own the place.” Obama came out in favor of his “reform” once it was clear that no public option was possible. Look upthread (Wizardleft@280) for NYT story confirming Obama sold us out long ago, but kept making meaningless populist noises about his support for a PO.
Good for you if you continue to hope and work for change.
Me too. But not within existing major parties. They are tweedledum and tweedledee corporatist sell-outs, who stand for the corporatist doctrine of eternal war abroad and social Darwinism at home. And they don’t necessarily even know it.
The Dems will get hammered in ’10 & ’12. They deserve it. But it doesn’t really mean much. In the long term they’re all going to the same place.
We need to bend more than the cost curve.
He didn’t get the ERISA waiver?
Kos was right in one sense: Kucinich *is* a little prick.
If I don’t get back the $20 I gave to Kucinich’s campaign last week, I will personally visit his campaign office in Ohio & take enough pens, staplers and laser-printer toner to make up for it.
Bull. It is not over. Keep pushing for the public option. I trust what Senator Brown, Senator harkin and others have said. They will revisit the public option. Make it happen sooner than later. Continue ot push
Oh, I can’t wait til folks like jimtowndem realize how they’ve been completely duped by the corporate Dems who shoved this turd down our throats.
Boy, that $100 a day fine sure is gonna scare WellPoint into covering your sons with their pre-existing conditions, right? ONLY if they determine that the total cost of your sons’ care will be less than $36,500. Since it’s already clear that their medical bills already total at least $75K, the insurers would be stupid to cover your sons.
I guarantee you that the insurers will successfully sue to lower that $100/day penalty to $10/day as well.
Im sure no matter what he said he would not satisfy you or most of the folks around here who feel betrayed.If im wrong please tell what would have appeased you? But the simple fact is that he changed his vote. Now that doesn’t mean he wont join the likes of Dean and Edwards in pushing for a public option and other improvements. Kucinich sees the writing on the wall he knows it would be devastating for America if Dems do not pass HCR this time around.
Where have I heard that before? Hmmmm Oh! I remember from every Rethuglican, teabagger, FoxnottheNews, Dittohead and wingnut with a mouth. Got any more Wingnut ditties for us my fellow Progressive.
The question is this: which votes will these Congressmembers withhold in order to get a public option?
Are you kidding me? You really think anyone is going to be willing to go anywhere near healthcare for at least a few years after this is said and done? No. The only thing that will force this back on the table is when healthcare costs are still astronomical and no one can afford it.
Take that a step further: do you honestly believe that if this bill – as flawed as it is – fails to pass, that ANYONE will EVER go near HCR again? HCR – even the mere mention of it – would be a career killer.
You want to do something, stand on your feet and pressure your representatives to kill this bill. Medicare for all or nothing
Let’s inject a little reality here: there’s no way in hell that gets passed in the current political environment, so the answer is “nothing”. Is that acceptable to you?
You must be blind. I said explicitly that I SUPPORT the bill and want it passed. Did you miss that? Or are you just illiterate?