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Update: The insurance industry has been circulating this video of Rep. Schakowsky as a way to frighten their members. Of course, not everyone finds this frightening.
While the US Senate has been capitulating to the banksters on meaningful banking reforms, the Senate leadership has been busy making sure there will be no meaningful reform of the US health care system. Yesterday, Sen. Chuck Schumer proposed a "compromise" of the "public plan" element that appears to give away the core of what health care reform should be about.
From the NYT, Schumer Offers Middle Ground on Health Care:
Mr. Schumer said his goal was “a level playing field for competition” between public and private insurers. But [insurance industry lobbyist] Ms. Ignagni said, “It’s almost impossible to accomplish that objective.”
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, asked Mr. Schumer to seek a solution. In his response, Mr. Schumer set forth these principles:
¶The public plan must be self-sustaining. It should pay claims with money raised from premiums and co-payments. It should not receive tax revenue or appropriations from the government.
¶The public plan should pay doctors and hospitals more than what Medicare pays. Medicare rates, set by law and regulation, are often lower than what private insurers pay.
¶The government should not compel doctors and hospitals to participate in a public plan just because they participate in Medicare.
¶To prevent the government from serving as both “player and umpire,” the officials who manage a public plan should be different from those who regulate the insurance market.
To understand why this "compromise" is more like a capitulation, follow the Times’ verbal sleight of hand in making this a conversation about insurance. What the US needs is universal health care and an agreement on how to manage and pay for those mechanisms that don’t yet exist. But what Baucus/Schumer are talking about is not health care, it’s health insurance, two entirely different things. Follow the Times:
Scorched by Republican opposition to the idea of a new public program like Medicare, Senate Democrats are looking for a middle ground that would address the concerns of political moderates. One way they propose to do that is by requiring the public plan to resemble private insurance as much as possible.
So, to accommodate people like Arlen Specter and Ben Nelson !!! and avoid threatening private insurance companies, the Senate would give up on providing health care and focus on providing insurance.
Our Senate seems to have lost track of what this is about. Sen. Grassley helpfully reminds us that the US pays up to twice as much for health care as other major nations, but gets less quality and leaves nearly 50 million people uninsured (and that problem is getting worse). More comparisons here.
We also know that providing health care via private for-profit insurance costs 50 percent or more than the same care under Medicare. Yet a major concern of those seriously following the debate is deciding where we’ll get the money to pay for health reform.
The answer is staring us in the face (or on your insurance premium statement). The money to pay for universal CARE is being wasted in inefficiency/excess profits of private INSURANCE administration. So net revenues must come from reducing the dollars we waste there. There is no dispute the private, for-profit insurance model has failed to provide fair, universal, or affordable health CARE. It’s a national disgrace. So reforms that shield that failed model from competition are inherently misguided and should be ruled off the table. Meaningful reform requires that the current model be strongly challenged by a better model.
The Senate needs to get back to addressing the problem of universal care and sustainable affordability. It has no business trying to protect blatant unfairness, inefficiency or excess profits in any industry, let alone one that by design remains profitable by refusing to cover patients or claims, hassling doctors and hospitals and financially decimating those who need care but cannot afford premiums.
Other views (with updates from today’s hearing:
Ezra Klein, Can Chuck Schumer Save the Public Plan?; update from hearing: Schumer Defends the Public Plan
d-day, When is a Public Plan Not a Public Plan?
Wonk Room, Schumer Explains How He Would Level the Playing Field . . .; hearing update
Physicians for a National Health Program, Senator Bauchus Repects Our Views
Health Care for America Now, Senator Schumer’s Health Care "Compromise": Don’t Freak Out!
The Hill, Liberal Senators tout public health insurance
SEIU: Senator Schumer: Competition Works for Health Care
Matthew Yglesias, Health and Health Care Costs (h/t for link to the Commonwealth Fund Chart)
77 Comments
It is this ‘framing’(Senate Democrats are looking for a middle ground that would address the concerns of political moderates) that is so deceitful.
Nelson and Spectre(pun intended) are NOT ‘moderates’ but whores who pimp themselves for their own purposes; they are neither Republican’s nor Democrats but self serving, professional ‘politicians’ who are more interested in what serves themselves than what is best for the nation.
And Schumer is the same type of creature.
Where is the media in pointing out the savings to business -overall- that single payer would provide?
The corruption that passes for governance in this country almost leaves me speechless.
amen! amen! amen!
physicians for a national health program has a blog
Thanks for the link; I added it to list.
And for more bloggy goodness, I’ve been noodling over at PDA today, God help me.
unlike ezra, pnhp actually know what they are talking about – and have been organizing and educating on the issue for i think a couple of decades.
Wow! Check out this video of protesters delaying the start of today’s Senate Finance Committee roundtable, demanding that single-payer representatives be included. And listen to the sleazy round of guffawing as Baucus quips (at least for him, it’s a quip), “We need more police.”
excellent. v glad to see someone calling out moveon and dfa!
reminds me of a post paul rosenberg wrote a year or so ago: Martin Luther King and The Moral Imperative For Polarization. here’s a bit from the post:
and here’s a bit from mlk’s letter from birmingham jail (which is what paul discusses in his post):
i recommend whole post (and if you get that far, my first comment).
wow is right!
don at pnhp has a post up on the beginning of the hearing captured in that youtube (he has a transcript of bacus’ comments): Sen. Baucus respects our views
With apologies to MLK (and to womenfolk for the lack of gender neutrality):
Recommended, great thread, thanks Scare and to all commenters.
excellent!
although i would have put hcan in with the stumbling blocks. worse than worthless.
And again, Amen!
I can’t even read all of this, it’s so upsetting.
Update: I’ve added a video of Rep. Schakowski.
damn. i used to like jan schakowski. but she’s selling the bait and switch in that clip.
damn. damn. damn.
now i’m really depressed.
When you tell people you’re starting with X because you think it will lead to Y, and you believe that it will, it’s not bait and switch. It’s called political strategy. Whether it’s wise/realistic strategy or not is what this post is asking.
Thanks so much for this post and especially the Jan video and the chart. I was sickened by the Baucus hearing fiasco. I’m sickened by Senators and Reps who are continually screwing over legitimate and desperately needed progressive policies and programs.
Blessings and thanks for your ongoing lucidity and concern.
i have no reason to think that jan doesn’t believe what she’s saying but it’s not her bait and switch that she’s selling.
edit to add: this anti-insurance bit of kabuki is new to the hcan efforts, which have had the effect of primarily excluding single payer from the discussion.
Scarecrow, in responding to “Whether it’s wise/realistic strategy or not is what this post is asking.”, I would refer you back to your statement: “The Senate needs to get back to addressing the problem of universal care and sustainable affordability. It has no business trying to protect blatant unfairness”.
Sorry but THAT is exactly what the Senate thinks it business is about. And has been ever since lobbying took off in the 70’s.
I am surprised that the implementation of Medicare ,which took only one year to implement, isn’t brought up as an example when the talk rolls around to the ’seachange’ such would bring.
It would also be insightful for others to realize what FDR was saying regards the implementation of Social Security in the current kabuki about healthcare.
The first 10 minutes of the video can be skipped as it is a regurgitation of the interviewee’s qualifications and history.
We have Schumer to thank for so many republican wishes fulfilled, judges, policies, hell… is he Snarlin’ Arlen’s counterpart in the middle?
Here’s what I’d like to know: Why does something as important to individual Americans as health care require a “level playing field” for those who would make money from it?
Is that all we Americans are? Targets of opportunity for entrepreneurs?
YUP
Double Yup.
Chuck Schumer voted to confirm Jay Bybee.
Chuck Schumer voted to confirm Porter Goss.
Chuck Schumer voted to confirm, and personally vouched for, Michael Mukasey.
Chuck Schumer voted to confirm Hank Paulson.
With Democrats like Chuck Schumer, who needs Arlen Specter?
“level playing field” means that any public option can’t be allowed to compete successfully with the insurance companies.
unfortunately the only political path to a decent public option which might lead to universal coverage required a credible threat of single payer. by taking single payer off the table, this possibility is undermined. that is one of the reasons i have seen this as bait and switch kabuki from the dem leadership and their allies. if it was for real, they would not have worked so hard to make sure single payer was off the table.
an insurance giveaway marketed to us as healthcare reform.
edit to add: triple yup.
My perception of the fight against single payer is that if the insurance industry looses, then one of the great capitalistic underpinnings of US society has become invalid, so leading to questioning all other capitalistic underpinnings in the US. It truly would be the beginning of a revolution in the US.
There appears to be a complete misunderstanding of National Health care Plans here.
Let’s take the UK, as its the system I best understand (my understanding is old, and this may not be fully accurate):
1. The British pay a “National Insurance” Payment. It’s an employment tax, paid by employees, similar to social security.
2. The National Health Service owns the majority of hospitals, and employs most health care workers (including doctors).
3. There is private insurance (BUPA) and private doctors. It is also possible for doctors to mix public & private practice.
4. General Practitioners (GPs) are paid a capitation rate for a “list” of patients. One can join any GPs list. The GP decides if GPs list is full (closed) or open.
5. There are no claims, no paperwork (except medical records), no deductibles, and a small fixed charge for prescriptions.
6. There are waiting lists for treatment of chronic conditions. There is generally no waiting time for acute conditions.
7. Health care for the elderly is rationed. There is little use of ICUs for the terminally ill elderly.
The first huge cost in the US system is claims, denials, & deductible management. A second huge cost is profit. A third is doctors fee based procedures, a fourth hospital chain profit, and a fifth drug company profits.
Finally, the British treat their whole population,cradle to grave, for the same percentage of GDP as Medicare in the US.
And as I never pass up an opportunity to point out, Schumer (and HRC) stood four-square behind Dubya’s nomination of Bernie Kerik to head up Homeland Security.
Congress is bought and paid for by the banksters, big pharma and the insurance corporations. Does anyone actually believe this Congress is going to implement progressive universal healthcare of a Canada, France, Great Britain, Sweden et al? It’s looking like it will take at least two election cycles to get rid of the Congressional whores both Republican and Democrat.
We, here at the Chicano Veterans Organization, have long advocated that UHC be placed into the VA’s Medical and Hospital Systemic. Thus, everyone would be treated equally as to having health care. As to ‘fairness’ that’s not likely to happen unless the VA is the sole arbiter.
And by utilizing the VA, these two ‘insurance’ systemics proposed and advocated by Baucus and Schumer, will no longer exist except for discussion purposes. Thus, actual cost, cost controls, and cost containment, become the responsibility of both the Legislative and Executive Branches.
Therefore, seniors, the low-income, military vets, and the middle class are eligible for the same quality and quantity of health care. In the event that UHC is deemed lousy in the future, we as the voters, have access to the ballot box. And as such, our Elected and Appointed Officials will also get the identicial health care available to all of us, unless Congress makes some self-designated exceptions that accrue solely for themselves. Not likely, but they will try to carve out their exceptions.
Jaango
Single-Payer National Health Insurance
lots more at the link. i don’t know anyone who is advocating for something like the uk system.
goddamnit…DO SOMETHING ABOUT THESE MOTHERS
TAKE AWAY CONGRESSCRITTERS HEALTCARE PACKAGES…..NOW
Is that all we Americans are? Targets of opportunity for
entrepreneurslarge monopolies or cartels?Yes, Dorothy.
there, fixed.
I get the impression that people believe that universal health care will be paid out of general taxation. There appears to be no substantial discussion on how to “reallocate” current insurance payment to a single payer plan.
There has to be huge job loss in insurance companies, doctors offices, and hospitals to cut medical costs. Administrative (claims) costs, not money spend on treatment.
Someone needs to get the word to
OstrichSenator Schumer that the entire issue is health care finance, not health care insurance.Our current spending on health amounts to 15% of our GDP, and we get shit for spending twice what any other developed economy spends. You can count expenses as a fraction of GDP or as current dollars/capita. We are spending about twice what anyone else spends and our health status measures don’t reflect it.
That can only mean we are spending the money in the wrong places. Meaningful health care reform means that there has to be a public option. Here in New Mexico, we’re ecstatic because Big Bill signed a law that mandates insurers spend at 85% of their premium income on health care. Where does the other 15% go? Profit, bureaucracies designed to deny care to their clients, etc. Traditional Medicare administrative costs run around 3% of premiums.
Now, you tell me: which is more efficient? A system whose admin costs run around 3% or one whose admin costs have to be capped at 15%? I’ve got a PhD in Statistics, but it’s not needed to figure that one out.
Tax revenues will have to spent,
OstrichSenator Shumer. You’re not going to get rid of Medicare (nor Medicaid for that matter, and likely not SCHIP either.) What sense does it make to have one systems for minors (Medicaid, SCHIP), another system-to-be-named-later for adults (I’ve got a name: DenialCare) and finally a system for seniors (Medicare.) That is re-inventing the wheel, without any decent reason to reinvent the damned thing.The stupid just really burns sometimes, you know?
But Schumer is the evil doer of the Democratic Party and the US Senate. He is! We have history of Schumer’s crap. Thanks to Schumer and Feinstein, we were given former AG Mukasey. That is just one incident, but it says a lot.
Who are these people they call Democrats?
Read this please:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/…..inline=nyt
Starting at the beginning they say, and I quote:
* Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, is considered one of Washington’s fiercest political practitioners.
Here is another exciting quote from his pals at the NYT:
* As the financial crisis jolted the nation in September 2008, Mr. Schumer became one of the first officials to promote a Wall Street bailout, spending hours with bankers and in closed-door briefings. In the end he and other lawmakers nailed down the details of the $700 billion rescue package that year.
Did you see him on Geithner’s schedule? Frankly, I didn’t look. I was more concerned with his dinners at the home. Wish I would have been there to watch the quid pro quos at those intimate dinners with the Kissinger family.
And here’s a little more for your reading pleasure:
And this quote from the NYT:
Mr. Schumer plays an unrivaled role in Washington as beneficiary, advocate and overseer of a financial industry that is his hometown’s most important business. But in building support, he has embraced the industry’s free-market, deregulatory agenda more than almost any other Democrat in Congress, even backing some measures blamed for contributing to the financial crisis.
Now this is the part that will make you ill… and anyone who is familiar with Mr. Schumer knows that it’s a lie:
* Calling himself ”an almost obsessive defender of New York jobs,” Mr. Schumer has often talked of the need to avoid excessive regulation of an industry that is increasingly threatened by global competition. At the same time, Mr. Schumer has cast himself as a populist who looks out for the middle class.
In case you missed it, and I quote: “Mr. Schumer has cast himself as a populist who looks out for the middle class.” Populist? Ha ha ha ha ha1
I better stop with the word liar.
TERM LIMITS
thank goodness, BargainCountertenor is here now and will hopefully answer all your questions.
we need bumperstickers ….SINGLE PAYER NOW
Why attack “the law” and not individual policies or politicians? The GOP does all three.
They attack policies, ignore them, refuse to enforce them, put lifelong opponents of what they are meant to achieve in charge of running them.
They attack political opponents. Bill Clinton’s impeachment was training camp. Its drawback was that it subjected the GOP to widespread criticism, though it spawned a legion of commentators – e.g., Maureen Dah’d – for whom it was such a high (a virtual orgasm?), that no amount of cigarettes, booze, television or OpEd space is a sufficient substitute.
They attack the judiciary, whether on the floor of the Senate or by confirming extraordinarily extreme choices. They attack individual lawyers like Johnsen or Koh before they can set policy. They attack the law itself through extreme legislation (MCA, DTA, UnPatriot Act), and through over a thousand signing statements (a virtual line item veto on legislation).
They attack representative government by keeping it secret, by punishing in secret and without restraint, and by “contesting” not elections (Franken v. Coleman), but the electoral process. When that fails, they put Democrats in jail through trumped up charges, even if it takes two or three trials to get them (Don Siegelman).
The GOP attacks “the law” for the same reason Shakespeare observed that to consolidate a late-medieval revolution, it was necessary to “kill all the lawyers”. They were and remain the king’s collectors of taxes, his writers and interpreters of laws, and the institutional repository of rights of succession and limits (if any) on monarchical power. No usurper is safe without rendering them speechless or compliant.
This flu pandemic is the perfect time to take to the streets and DEMAND healthcare at least as good as Canada and Mexico
WE AVE NO PUBLIC HEALTH HERE…GO DEMAND IT NOW
Obama needs to sharpen his veto pen. These republicrats are starting to piss everyone off. First the banks and now the insurance companies over the PEOPLE. Geez.
or Cuba,they are much better prepared for a public health disaster than America is,look at their IN PLACE clinics,we are far behind
Hey, Jo Fish. Long ‘ol time…
Scare – great diary.
Has he ever done anything right?
Q&A between DEBORAH SOLOMON (NYT’s) and our newest Democratic Senator:
Deborah: With your departure from the Republican Party, there are no more Jewish Republicans in the Senate. Do you care about that?
Arlen: I sure do. There’s still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner.
50,000,000…………Americans with no health insurance and NO MONEY to see a doctor spells….VIRUS NIGHTMARE scenario
Exactly my thought. Nothing’s going to happen until we take to the streets folks. There are a handful of lawmakers that deserve to stay, but in general, we need to throw the fuckers out.
in2 years he is toast and boogger jelly
Well the people in insurance companies can come work for the single pay beaurocracy. Then they could even form a UNION.
So we are going to set up a government insurance company, with reserves? That’s just nuts. Where do the reserves come from, and what are they invested in? This is just crazy. It could only happen in the village. Real people wouldn’t even suggest this in a public place where their pragmatic friends and neighbors could go nuts on them.
must go do dinner love yall bbl
Only idiots and Rethuglicans think that UHC will be paid exclusively out of general revenues. Oh wait, idiots and R’s — that’s pretty redundant. In other industrialized countries, UHC is financed via a combination of payroll taxes and general revenues. If we went to a single-payer plan, we’d have to figure out how much we were going to spend on it, and where the money would come from. The easiest way to handle it would be with a payroll tax and reallocation of current general revenues and directed revenues (mostly Medicare taxes.) That’s what the current Single Payer plans before Congress do.
There will be a hit to the labor force when those things are done away with. The current SP bills recognize that and allocate funds for retraining and unemployment. I’m not personally convinced the hit is going to be that large. One thing that has to be done is large-scale data collection on current treatment practices. Right now, the insurance companies treat that information as proprietary and won’t tell anybody about it. The only decent database we have is the Omnicare system, and the only reason it exists is because the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services exists. We have shot ourselves in the foot in this regard: getting access to Omnicare is just slightly easier than getting access to the Air Force’s launch codes (I’m exaggerating for effect, okay?)
Putting all of this stuff together in a way that makes the data (1) useful and (2) guarantees reasonable personal privacy is a really difficult task. Knowing what questions to ask once the data are collected is also a nontrivial task.
So, my seat-of-the-pants guess is that a lot of these jobs will morph into similar sorts of jobs. Some are going to be lost, no question about it.
And medical practices will change. We won’t see 80 year-olds having month-long stays in the ICU with COPD, for one thing. From an efficiency stand point, that’s not a high-payoff use of the facilities. I’m not sure what effect it’s going to have in NICUs, but given the sucky outcomes that they have with micropreemies, we’ll probably see changes there too.
I hope this helps.
Cafe Press.
Speaking as someone who has worked as an office manager in a family practice for >30 years, we spend a tremendous amount of time and money fighting with the insurance companies for medically preferable treatments as well as, of course, reimbursement. We’re all for single payer. Practically no one is going into family practice any more because of the continuous hassles with insurance companies – it’s not worth it – it drives us CRAZY! Universal insurance is no solution – the country needs universal healthcare! Thanks for the encouraging post. You guys are wonderful.
you are awesome, thank you!
will just add the link to your diary on the single payer bills in congress
I hope you have some sort of a system to organize and let congress know your feelings.
Thanks, selise.
I still owe you a diary on the research and analysis components of those bills. I’ve got to get through finals here before I’ll have time, and by then the bills may be completely different.
I’m signing out now, I need to get some supper and then it’s off to the orchestra pit.
nothing owed. anything you do to “learn me” (i like the way kirk uses that phrase) and us is always greatly appreciated.
Fantastic post Scarecrow. thank you.
cujo359 has diary promoted to the front page!
Group Think Begins Regarding Sonia Sotomayor
They cant throw this opportunity away! We must organize. The wimps can not prevail. This is just too damn important. We need a progressive party.
I want to get rid of entitlements. It’s time to treat Congress like the temporary workers they are. The should get the entitlements that temporary workers get and no more. Just might change their perspective.
I’m a constituent of Schumer’s and I have written him many times and attended local events at which he was the main speaker.
He always replies; he always says thank you; he does not address the issue.
When he speaks he likewise does not address the issues. He tells jokes. Yes, good jokes. But some of us are there for other reasons. He has never taken questions in my presence, not even when it’s a small group of party faithful.
I have no idea what he believes, supports. When a vote comes up it is always a surprise which way he will vote. I should look at his contributors.
Okay, I called Schumer’s office and blistered an ear or two this morning –
and this came up as a counter diary on DailyKos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..-Freak-Out
Help, can anyone out there decipher/refute/agree to the above?
No insurance now, but eligible for Medicare in 14 months, thank God. The rest of you will have to fend for yourselves, and you’d better goddamn FEND, chilluns. Actually, Medicare would be fabulous for most citizens: for less than $100/mo., the benefits beat the old BC/BS policy I dropped four years ago (that cost twice as much).
In any case, I am out of this debate~~~EDITED IN MODERATION~~~, nothing is going to change. You have to DEMAND a public plan. You have to block the streets. You have to occupy buildings. You have to stop reading blogs, unless you find one that can march into the Capitol and make something happen. This one is pretty good, I have to say. But that won’t do it, all by itself.
~~~ModNote: Intonations to violent acts are prohibited.~~~
I noted this article too earlier. It is another example of the ratchet effect. The Democrats take single payer universal healthcare off the table. They come up with a plan that gives the insurance 2/3 of what it wants. Meanwhile the Republicans are off somewhere in the 13th century ranting about whatever. So then your typical backstabbing Big Business shill steps in (Schumer in this case) and offers a “compromise” which finishes off giving away the store. Needless to say this is a compromise in name only since the Republicans will vote against it anyway.
This kind of kabuki for rubes would insult the intelligence of a lichen.
You may be pleased and surprised at this:
http://cmhmd.blogspot.com/2009…..times.html
Cheers,
Poor people can’t pay the premiums. They will require assistance. But, for some people it is possible to pay. An equitable way to cover all these people is to charge a premium that is a percentage of their income.
We should pay health care providers what they ask. It’s a free country and we don’t require them to work for free or to work at all. Medicare is it’s own problem. The new government plan to cover the not covered should pay what is asked, but do comparison shopping!
If they don’t participate then insurance isn’t of any use. It’s the actual health care people need. This is another reason to pay health care providers what they ask — it encourages them to do their job.
I think one big issue is “how can we pay for all these new patients”. We already pay for them, so just find that expense stream and feed it back into the new plan or the Treasury. Also, redirect patients from ER to lesser-expensive clinics and such.
I would bet you don’t even have to cap admin & profit percents if you just published them. The public can read and choose.
Information is a key to the free market working properly.
A pandemic won’t discriminate between those with coverage and those without. How many in Congress would feel safe with their health care if a pandemic of something very dangerous hit America and they knew they had voted to prevent everyone from having coverage/care?
Wouldn’t it be better for everyone to be covered from the git-go?
Are there enough ERs to cover huge waves of people?
It’s sometimes asked how we can afford universal coverage/care, but in a dangerous pandemic the ERs would be swamped — how can we afford that?
Simply preventing insurance company doctors from interfering with the primary doctor’s decisions would save us all a lot of costs.
In response to LooHoo, organizing doctors is like the old herding cats. Slowly and patiently, we’re making progress. Part of the difficulty is that many see doctors as rich, greedy, and only in medicine for the money. So, then you’re faced first with trying to convince them that, yes, indeed, there are lousy people who are doctors just like any profession. Only then can you get into the reasons they support a single payer/universal healthcare plan is because it will enable better, less expensive medical care for more patients. And, thanks to MarkH at 73. You must know some medical people- we’re all going nuts.
The private insurers publish only those costs they are required to file by the SEC, if they are publicly held. If they aren’t publicly held, they generally don’t publish anything — it’s proprietary information.
They could publish their detailed balance sheets and it wouldn’t do consumers any good, because for most of us there is no choice in the matter. We have what our employer carries and we pay whatever they negotiate. If we’re lucky (I am now, wasn’t until three years ago) we have a few plans to choose from. Federal employees get a monstrous list to choose from, probably too many.
Did I make my choice on the basis of administrative costs? I am not an idiot! I made my selection on the basis of costs and benefits.
Who can trust Schumer? The guy voted for the 2002 war resolution, pushed for and voted for Mukassey, voted for the Kyl Lieberman amendment. I just do not trust this guy
did he vote yes on the John Bolton nomination?
did folks watch Senator Feingold’s interview with Amy Goodman. They talk about health coverage, single payer etc. Now this is a man I would like to witness run for higher office. Consistent, clear, a man of the law
http://www.democracynow.org/20…..escalation
How can they spin this as middle ground? I bet those talking points are from an insurance lobbyist.