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Yippee! Dr. Paul Hochfeld of Mad as Hell Doctors got into the White House photo op yesterday and then appeared on Keith Olberman to tell the tale and make his case for real health care reform.
He got more time than he did on the Ed Shultz Show and he was more prepared and sounded angrier. Keith had on Howard Fineman to remark about the president’s appearance with white coated doctors in the Rose Garden. And Keith called it what it was…a photo op.
Then, amazingly, he announced that next up would be Paul Hochfeld of Mad as Hell Doctors. And Dr. Paul was really ready. Much more so than when he was on "The Ed Show". Maybe it was because Keith just let him talk. It was very good.
The reason I am so excited is that I had pretty much said to myself that my going to Washington last week was the end of the line for me. I was passing the baton on to the next generation and then going to a beach somewhere. But then I was at the rally of "Mad as Hell Doctors" with amazing firedoglake bloggers Let’s get her done and ralphbon. And Margaret Flowers, the doctor arrested as one of the Baucus 8 in the Finance committee was there and she was radiant. I could not quit after looking at her face. Damn you, Margaret and Paul.
Here’s the video: Mad as Hell Doctor on Keith
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Mad as Hell Doctor Paul is also “Smart as Hell Doctor”. He said that he talked to about 2 dozen doctors at the photo op and most of them were on board with him. The real fight has begun. Some people are dead serious and not willing to be part of some managed piece of propaganda. I highly recommend Sheldon Wolin’s “Democracy Inc: Managed Democracy and Inverted Totalitarianism”. He was Chalmers Johnson’s professor at Princeton. Chris Hedges is also a fan. He has a great chapter on the “elites”. Very “Eyes Wide Shut”.
Thanks so much for reporting this, MM. It means a LOT. Such an uplifting piece.
Fantastic! People still need to email the White House to get PBO to meet with the MAHDs.
Annoyingly, in the preceding segment, Howard Fineman erroneously said that PBO’s personal physician in Chicago is a strong advocate of a public option. The doc in question, David Scheiner, is a straight-up single-payer advocate, as is his former partner, Quentin Young, one of the leaders of Physicians for a National Health Program.
And for whatever reason, Obama’s Chicago physician has “distanced himself” from Obama. Wish I could recall where I read that…
EDIT: I read it here, and I had it backward. Obama has distanced himself from his former physician. From a commenter at Benen’s place, and also at HuffPo:
“Obama’s former Chicago physician is on record as saying that black people have worse health care than whites and he also has advocated a British-style single payer system. So Obama has made a great effort to distance himself from him saying, “I just go there to get my shots; I don’t read all his papers,” and “He was an important doctor in that period of my life, but I’ve moved on,” and “I’ve asked that doctor to remove me from his patient list; and he’s also cancelled the subscription for ‘Time’ magazine, which he said he only ordered for me since nobody else would read it.”
Cancelling “Time” is priceless! Yes BHO has now dumped his preacher and his doctor from “that period of my life”. He has also dumped any semblance of being part of a community other than the Chicago Boys neo liberal club. Welcome to the “Nudging of Hope”.
That “quote” from the commenter at Washington Monthly was satire! Read further down in that thread. Let’s not spread it as genuine. Really, why would the President need to go back to Chicago to get his shots!
Actually, I didn’t say I believed it, only that I had read it “somewhere” and then when I found out where, I realized I hadn’t remembered it correctly. But thanks for the correction. I didn’t mean to misstate.
No sweatski, molly.
yeah! great news! props to mad as hell docs and margaret flowers and montanamaven! and ralphbon and letsgetitdone! and pnhp! and ed and keith!
And don’t forget Rachel!! She’s really been dogged on the involvement of big insurance and big pharma in the health care debates.
MSNBC should have had their friggin cameras down at the rally when the Mad as Hell Doctors came to D.C. last week. Christ All Mighty what did they have to do to get coverage pack some guns? Have their rally in Iran?
Come on where were Rachel, Keith, Ed, Chris matthews last week.
They sure cover the rallies where people are packin?
No excuses. Know the Doc’s P.R. people let MSNBC know they were coming
We did have media there, including some who took care to interview Dennis the K after his speech. But, so far, I haven’t seen any reports from these folks about the rally. I can’t explain why Ed, Keith, or Rachel didn’t cover it. Of the three, I have the feeling that its Keith who may have the most passion for Medicare for All. Don’t know why I think that. Anyone else have the same or a different impression?
Yes, Keith is going to do a special comment tomorrow night. He also let Dr. Paul talk as opposed to Ed who had a set of prepared questions. Keith actually listens when he does an interview as opposed to waiting for the guest to finish and then ask the next question. I try to do that when I interview so our interviews often go in a direction we had not anticipated. Much more fun. Jon Stewart is really the best interviewer on TV. Maybe we should lobby for Dr. Paul to get on “The Daily Show”.
That’s a great idea.
the Doc was so clear and on point.
Thanks selise, for grouping us in with the MAHD, Paul and Margaret. But they’re the ones who are really “walking the walk.”
I agree Lets that the doctors are really putting themselves on the line and they are taking a lot of time off work. Margaret is dedicating herself to this, I believe, and has cut back on her work. I took a few days off to go to Washington and spent some dough, but was fortunate that you and Bonnie took me out to that fantastic restaurant. Besides the rally, it was the highlight of my trip. Nothing like good friends, good talk and good food. I am fortunate and I want that fortune for others. Fancy that, eh?
I have spent 5 years every Saturday talking health care on my radio show. Often I just wanted to give up when a caller would call and say “But the government can’t run Amtrak and what about Fannie and Freddie?” or “I don’t want to pay for lazy people in the hood.” As Peanuts would say “AAAAARRRRGGG!!”
mm, Dinner was a pleasure for Bonnie and I, too. As for “AAAAARRRRGGG!!” You can say that again.
Are there any health care rallies planned for the rest of the fall?
Thanks for spending some of the “dough’ to be there. Had planned to be there but my father( in a nursing home )took a turn for the worse..and then bounced back
thank you so much MM for posting this. Missed keith last night
finally finally the Mad as Hell Doctors make it on Keith’s ( was amazed that Keith and Rachel let these Doc’s go by when they arrived in D.C. last week)
Really like that he talked his way in since the Mad as hell Docs were not invited
Hockfeld is so well spoken, gets the message of “single payer” out there so clearly. Hope folks spread this one around.
Doc ” Reps complicit with the insurance industry” writing the legislation
Olbermann “single payer went out the window months ago”
Hi mm. Glad you’ve decided to stay with us. Maybe as Paul Henreid famously said to Bogie, “This time we will win.” And thanks also for blogging on MAHD and Paul’s appearance on Keith’s program. It was a great appearance, and Keith also announced a special program on health care reform this Wednesday with a special comment. His intention is to shake up the debate we are seeing now. I hope he’s successful. Everyone should watch.
Btw, did those shots of us with the MAHD in front of the White House gate work? If so, can you post them?
I posted the pictures on my website. I have never posted pictures here. Is it easy? I’m so savvy about some things and then illiterate about others.
Folks should read your account on montanamaven.com, but you can also view the photo here.
Left to right, that’s half of Katherine Ottaway, Paul Hochfield, ralphbon, Michael Huntington, montanamaven, letsgetitdone, and a Mad as Hell nurse whose name escapes me.
I think it’s easy. It should be just normal image code when you post. This comment box won’t allow me to give you a code example here. But send me a note at eisai@comcast.net and I’ll send an example.
Thanks mm … this is heartening! SP … industrial strength solution for America. I wish people would simply support an actual structure called single payer, not the illusory “football” called the public option. It would empower the progressives by backing universal heath care as an actual, full out “civil right” … not something we must beg from our representatives, and watch profiteering vendors rob from us.
Yes, LL, Dr. Paul makes the case for this being a civil rights issue, the greatest of his generation. That is powerful. He said that it has already been determined that health care is a right in the U.S. because anyone coming to his emergency room in Oregon must be treated. So since it is a right, that right must be enforced. Too much energy for real reform was sucked away by the fictional unicorn called “the public option”.
well said, mm.
media is a HUGE block … public option gets talked of… very rarely sp like it is as “quaint as the Geneva Convention” … a similar travesty. If people have heard of sp they consider those in favor “extremists” … I continue with my congressional calls and writing about it. It was great to be in the NYC demonstration. People on street passing by were genuinely CONFUSED … what was all this intensity? Insurance and drug ceos getting $10-$20 million a year … lots of motivation and money to drown out the truth to power sayers.
mm… why won’t po progressives back up something real???? Why all the kabuki gamesmanship about trusting vendors that consistently betray…. why not call for genuine recovery in this country … and why with 45,000 premature deaths a year are citizens and even progressives still giving them, the vendors, and Congress and Prez further trust to “do the approaching right thing … a tiny increment toward a civil right”??????
What do you, meaning all of us, do when you are patronized as being naive and too purist for promoting single payer. So have they accepted we pass the buck to future generations … as if it will be easier then?
Hi lib, I think what you do is to explain that they are the impractical ones because 1) they are spending $2.5 trillion dollars per year for covering about 260 million Americans, when they could be spending $1.8 trillion to cover everyone, 2) they are taking greater risks of the spread of pandemics because uninsured people won’t get treated for illnesses at a sufficently early stage to nip them in the bud, 3) their life expectancy is 3 years less than a Canadian’s, 4) their risk of infant mortality is at least twice that of other industrial nations, and 5) without sp they risk of bankruptcy due to health care costs, a risk that has been completely removed for our friends in other industrial nations.
lets, thanks for the concise talking points and empathy! I will definitely use them.
also, health care becomes portable and one doesn’t have to stay married to a not so great job for the sake of the health care.
Right, lib, and thanks for adding that one. It’s so very important. The tie between one’s company and one’s health care is a barrier to business expansion. It creates a great weight on businesses that must supply health insurance and makes them uncompetitive internationally. And in binding employees to a particular business, it undermines new enterprise and innovation, decreases individual liberty, and reinforces the unhealthy hierarchy of business structures in this country which, in itself, is a drag on innovation and problem solving.
One of the most disappointing things in the current health care debate for me is continued reliance in the various bills on business to supply insurance for people at low cost. That is such a regressive practice if we value innovation and dynamism in our economic structure. Everyone knows that this is true, but the lack of character in this generation’s politicians is so great that they just can’t bring themselves to find a another way of financing health insurance that frees business and incentivizes its expansion. The “middle way” in health care reform has been so screwed in so many ways that detailing them in this comment is impossible; but continuing to maintain and even to increase the burden of health insurance on business is truly one of the stupidest disderata of the present proposals in Congress.
Yes, the more I get into the cost questions, the more angry I become at the PO people. The PO is just too expensive in the short run. Having a Jacob Hacker PO, even for a five year period ending in Medicare for All, would still cost us trillions of dollars more than just going to SP directly. The insurance companies are not worth it. We really need to put them out of our misery.
This video was excellent, and the Doctor made his case very well–thank you for sharing this!
Can you imagine what the WH image spin-meisters must have thought when they found out that a full-on single payer advocate doctor had crashed their Oh So Carefully Orchestrated photo op in the Rose Garden? And then showed up on 2 national broadcasts?The WH must be thinking that these Progs are starting to ooze out of the Mansion woodwork, which they almost literally are!