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In Copenhagen last week, when Senator James Inhofe tried to sell reporters on his climate change denialism, the European press corp showed the American media how to take its job seriously: "You are ridiculous," one German reporter said to his face. Sometimes, that’s what reporting the truth requires.
And that’s exactly what the American media should be saying to the White House and the Senate Democratic leadership for the travesty of a health "reform" bill now slouching towards Christmas eve. Only a group of idiots would have concocted this incoherent mishmash and called it "reform."
To be sure, there are many provisions of the Senate bill that are worthwhile, worth passing — I’ll get to that — but these mostly ad hoc features are carrying, fronting for a deeply flawed, underlying structure of a bill that utterly fails to reform what’s wrong with America’s inhumane, corrupt health care system.
America’s private, for-profit health insurance and delivery systems have failed. Their so-called "markets" are not competitive, and that can’t be fixed with puny exchanges that may or may not be created by skeptical — or recalcitrant — states. The insurance and hospital sectors are highly concentrated, dominated by market power that allows providers and insurers to overcharge Americans by 50 to 100 percent more than other nations pay for equal or better care and universal coverage.
So you would think any genuine reform effort would use the power of the federal government to bust up or at least confront the oligopolies and use its leverage to counter the industry’s market power, rationing-by-price and price fixing. But the Senate bill protects the industries, shields them from competition and expressly precludes national public entities from demanding better prices on the public’s behalf.
With government collusion, the private actors created a system of inhumane rationing that denies insurance to nearly 50 million and hawks fraudulent coverage to tens of millions more. The failure of the insurance system leads directly to the most egregious rationing of actual health care of any industrialized nation. Only in America is a private system allowed to bankrupt and deny care to millions, causing tens of thousands to die every year.
The obvious alternative to this massive failure of the private, for-profit system would have been to move strongly in the direction of universal public systems, while imposing strong price, quality and access regulation to the remaining private sectors. Public alternatives and strong regulation are the models for every other advanced nation — there are no exceptions. These are only ways to break the backs of the private oligopolies that are strangling health care in America.
But instead of doing the obvious, the reforms that actually work, the corporate Democrats and their corporate-shielding President have done the opposite. Every travesty in the Senate bill springs from an effort to preserve and shield the private industries that are financially and literally killing us.
Instead of providing strong public alternatives, the bill will bail out the private system, and not merely by giving them hundreds of billions to subsidize their unregulated premiums and fees. No, we will force 30 million Americans who can least afford it to buy their overpriced, poorly regulated products, and pay only lip service to the economic hardship this imposes.
The mandate to bail out the insurance companies (and the hospitals/providers they feed) is worse than bailing out the investment banks. It’s as though we had forced 30 million modest income Americans to purchase toxic assets from the banksters and then imposed taxes on everyone else to complete the bailout.
If you look beyond this flawed foundation and consider only the WH/Harry Reid list of wonderful things the Senate bill does, you’ll notice that virtually all of them require the government to replace or intervene in the private system. The best features provide discrete escapes and selected access to a government/public alternative.
In all of the arguments claiming it would foolish to defeat this bill, we find the bills best features move millions from the private denial/rationing system to Medicaid (maybe 15 million uninsured) or extend SCHIP; they expand and fund thousands of public health clinics ($10-14 billion more, thanks to the House and Bernie Sanders). Cantwell’s proposal allows states to carve out quasi-public negotiated systems for those between 133 and 200 percent of the federal poverty level. The Medicare buy-in would have been another benefit, following the same pattern.
In contrast, the last minute "fixes" to buy off extortionists like Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Baucus and friends typically involved federal bailouts of their private contributors.
Other "good" features try to rein in the abuses of the private insurance sector, but these weak features leave the private insurers too much flexibility to escape the regulations and provide minimal to no effective price oversight for an industry that survives through price fixing and market power. It is scandalous that the White House would cut special deals to preserve industry profits, while leaving the drug industry’s monopoly pricing scams essentially unregulated and prohibiting the government from negotiating better prices for the public’s benefit.
To every Democrat who created and now defends this monster of a bill, "you are an idiot." You blew the best chance we’ve had in decades, you protected the abusive industries instead of their victims, and by enriching the corrupters, you’ve made it harder to fix this mess in the future. You betrayed those who put you in office.
If you don’t fix this, we will watch/help you lose next November and again in 2012. Trust us.
Related:
Me, White House Protects Pharma/AHIP Deals, Breaks Compact with America
Jon Walker/FDL, This is nothing like the Netherlands (responding to Jon Cohn’s defense of mandates)
Marcy Wheeler/Emptywheel, My BarackObamaTax
Jon Walker, Answering Nate Silver’s 20 Questions, and Nate responds
David Sirota/Open Left, Howard Dean, Movement Leader (updated)
Scarecrow, This Isn’t Health Reform: It’s Extortion for a Protection Racket
Scarecrow, Trading Off the Public Option
* Corrected to substitute "ridiculous" for "stupid."
More: HuffPo — Great graph on the recent rise in insurance stocks.
92 Comments
I think one of the major problems reforming America’s health care system is that all the good solutions are already being used by other countries.
To keep Americans convinced that the American way of doing things is the best way, your leaders have to come up with a plan that is different from what other countries have, even if their solutions work. The media is complicit in this, repeating hourly the mantra that America is the greatest country in the world. Maybe it is. They shouldn’t need to keep telling you.
I was particularly struck by the way Obama dismissed the Canadian health care system out of hand, as if there were no ideas there even worth considering.
When America becomes willing to learn from other countries, there are all sorts of solutions waiting to make life better (I’m looking at you, New Orleans levees).
A less rambling and incoherent way of saying the same thing:
Any “Uniquely American” solution is automatically precluded from being the best solution if some other country has already discovered the best solution.
Obama’s dismissal of Canadian healthcare is a JOKE. We live there now, after I spent the past 5 years actually working as a writer for the for-profit US insurance industry, with an emphasis on employee benefits copy. Canada’s system is better for the majority of people the majority of the time, as are the systems of Europe and most of the rest of the world. There are waits for some things, but nothing that approaches the for-profit rationing that you can bet is NOT going to end in the US under this bill. Too bad. But it’s not a done deal yet, so maybe they will get smart. DROP the mandate unless there is a government option pegged to Medicare that people can join instead of the for profit criminals, etc.
garaldo you have hit the nail on the head! We are extremely resistant to outside Ideas. I worked in Canada for a while and talked to hundreds if not thousands of Canandian citizens about their health care system and not once did any of them say much of anything negitive about it. In fact one gentlemen explained to me that the man who created their system was named the greatest Canadian ever in 2006. They often were baffled as to why we hadn’t gotten on the boat ourselves. I myself was injured while there and had to go to the doctor. I was promptly seen, had an MRI (yes they have those there), was diagnosed and didn’t pay a cent or receive a bill, I know it just sounds awful right! Unfortunetely in this country wealth is king and the insurance industry always makes sure they own just enough of our so called representation to get whatever they want. Out of all the people I blame most for our current situation it has to be the President. He has been absent in this debate and because of it the vultures are winning. The thing that bothers me the most is that the government will force me to pay these monsters for my health care. Asking me to pay these terrorist organizations is a lot like asking Joe Leiberman (proudly of jewish decsent) to pay Hamas for his health care. I don’t throw this kind of language around easily but I feel that strongly. BTW Jane Rocks
is there any reason to think this doesn’t apply to the house bill as well?
[p.s. thanks scarecrow, i imagine this must have been a hard post to write]
The House has modest but important expansions of the public solutions, such as expanding Medicaid up to 150% of FPL. That measure, along with similiar public-oriented features in the Senate bill, are worth having. These are now hostages to swallowing the features that empower the already too big to regulate and too big to reform industries.
The House PO is too weak, IMO, because it’s decoupled from Medicare. Others here hope it would still survive and grow, so I could be wrong; we don’t have any direct precedents to know for sure. For me, that coupling was the essential piece that would make it possible to get started — a major concern because market entry is always a problem in concentrated markets (that’s how they get concentrated), and that just reenforces the difficulty of creating a countervailing market power (and regulatory enforcement pressure) on the public side — That coupling would have made it viable enough to be an effective challenge to the private system. So “fixing this mess” means going beyond what the House offers alone.
hard to write? No, I’ve been sending the same message for months. I’m a broken record on the market power issue.
Trouble is, that would require both a willingness and an ability to accurately describe what’s going on, which would require both a spine and a knowledge of math — and let’s face it, many if not most journos got into the field because they were handy with words but not with math, and their bosses’ bosses won’t pay for anything that might actually educate people on HCR.
Yep, but they think will vote for them any way. NOT THIS TIME.
I should add that the House bill also authorizes federal/Medicare negotiations with the drug companies and lifts anti-trust immunity for insurers. These would be useful steps in the right direction but require continuing vigilance against very powerful interests that have essentially bought large swaths of Congress and pervaded administrative/regulatory thinking. We have decades of corruption and anti-govt/regulation ideology to overcome.
It’s laughable, or pathetic, that are a complacent/complicit media accuses those who point this out as the non-serious “ideologues.”
thanks scarecrow, for the additional info re the house bill. i’m starting to get the various bills and versions of bills confused.
re the issue of regulation, i don’t remember if i’ve brought this up in one of your threads yet, but apparently both the house and senate bills have problems with undermining state regulations. from the letter to pelosi and reid:
p.s. i guess i must have been projecting when i wrote the “hard to write” comment. truth is it was hard for me to read — even though, as you know, i’ve been more than a little skeptical of the entire approach. just can’t seem to stop myself from hoping a little bit…
Jane is on the ED show right now…!
She was fucking great CT!! How ya doing besides drooling over Jane???
*heh* Moi…? 8-P
“…It’s obscene that we’re mandated to pay private corps…”
I’m wondering if it would pass the court test.
I think it would fly with the current crop of nine supremes…! 8-(
I like this, maybe this is the answer.
It would prolly be struck down by every federal court until it got to SCOTUS where they would rule that we have to fork over 75% of our pay to the health insurance companies plus give any 17-26 year-olds living at home to the military to feed our imperialist adventures.
nice
Constitutionally can they do it?? Force us to pay taxes(that is what is boils down to) to Private Corporations who have no place in the Constitution anyway??
shit what ya drinking tbsa??
Seems corrupt…..
Thank you CTuttle…just saw it…
I lived in France for 7 years. The government had a system that was very much like Medicare, with 80% coverage for all (and it was affordable). Private insurance companies (mutuals) did a very fine business selling “top up” policies for the 20% that remained open, and covered things like dental and vision care. Their insurance industry, though regulated, does just fine. What’s the problem with Medicare for all? Why can’t we ever study the systems that work really well? Does the USA always have to invent?
An example. The top up policy in France for me, aged 65, was €80/month. I needed a hernia operation. Three days in hospital (the French don’t kick your ass out the next morning). Total cost on checkout? Zero. I argued that I had used my room color TV to watch the World Cup soccer finals and that I knew this was a €1/day charge. I was informed that the hospital had waved that as France was in the finals and what would you think of us if we asked you to pay for that? Civilization.
jealous…. sniff sniff…the damn French get good health care why can’t most Americans?? For that matter there are 37 countries where they all get better quality health care at affordable prices… Our elected Officials have FAILED all of us..
Amazing and I heard other great stories about the French Health Care. I had the same thing done here and my pay out on a PPO was 2050.00 and I was out a few hours later on my way home. Love their wine
Great story. I have a similar one, an injury walking into a door at the D’Orsay. Ambulance ride, glued me back together. No charge.
How stupid does one have to be to make a terrible healthcare system even more terrible?
Kudos to Jane on the Ed show today — even our “progressive” hosts are now trying to paint a smiling lipstick face on a national tragedy. Our family moved out of the country due to deep concerns over the direct America was taking, it appears that the worst was NOT behind us. And by the way, we moved to where there is universal healthcare and it is MUCH better than the legalized extortion in the US. Right now, this bill includes “mandates” that basically makes all of you indentured servants to the for-profit insurers whose “back” the bill was supposed to “break.” IF THEY CHARGE THE MANDATES, DO NOT PAY THEM. This bill is NOT better than the status quo and the “30 million” people who will get coverage are mostly people who will be forced into it by “mandates” — people who CHOOSE not to buy insurance, not those who need it most. The ones who need it most will still largely find a screw job waiting for them.
…even our “progressive” hosts are now trying to paint a smiling lipstick face on a national tragedy.
The veritable ‘lipstick on a pig’ analogy…! ;-)
True enough, but the fact is that competition is the wrong model for a health care system. Unfortunately, the notion that it might bring down costs was served up as a disingenuous “framing” by the proponents of the public option, in an attempt to sell the PO as a “free-market” approach to health care reform. Worked like a fucking charm, eh?
We need a system that’s rationalized around a national health care budget (broken down into regional components) which ensures that all necessary and effective services are available to all citizens. Complexity and fragmentation–which competition and the necessary regulatory framework will only exacerbate–are the enemies of a high-functioning system.
Without a global budget, all of the cost and deficit pprojections are so much smoke. There is absolutely no way to estimate accurately all of the consequences of the system our rulers are creating. These pols give a whole new meaning to the phrase “too clever by half.”
We’re wasting our breath discussing and criticizing the Senate bill. All that matters is communicating to the Congress that we want it killed, and preparing for resistance and civil disobedience if it’s not.
go here and tell them all you want to sign up for Medicare.
it is something at least…
Done … thanks for the heads-up.
now we need a hundred million more citizens to sign up also!! Maybe then the fucking critters will listen to the people!!
sure is corrupt tbsa.
CT we sure do lose there with the business loving right wing up there… Assholes
As soon as this bill goes to conference is the time to fight for the public option because Pres. Obama has said he wants the final bill to be like the house bill. GO after your senators and demand a Public option over the Xmas break.
OT, but could we get a link to the “You are an Idiot” comment to Inhofe?
Was it right to his face?
That’s priceless.
I heard on Digby that a bunch of our Red State Super Geniuses from Congress were planning to go to Copenhagen and make us all proud to be Americans, with their Creationist/Denialist/RW bullshit, but didn’t catch any followup to that.
They flew up there, made a speech on some steps and then flew back home. Not many people payed attention to them.
I would love to see the “idiot” comment as well.
Search here, it was a reporter from this paper
http://www.spiegel.de/international/
Sen. James Inhofe Called “Ridiculous”…
Ah, — my mistake — ridiculous, not stupid. I’ll fix. thanks.
How fast are ya gonna post Jane’s appearance…? *swoon*
;-)
We have the video of Jane on Ed Show and will post soon.
Ya’ll rawk…! No finer Mods around the world wide web…! *g*
true Dat!! CT!
Oh Tuttle…..sigh… will tell Suz ya know *G*
Oh Noes…! Not the LQQK…! ;-)
It will be on Full Stun ya know…!!
Thank you. That made my day.
I have family who are tragically trapped in Oklahomastan. Sad, really.
I keep posting this article everywhere because I think it’s so good:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082740
I wish I had more hope this bill could be killed. All the mainstream media are portraying opposition to it as ideological. I like the fact that (some) people on the right and (most) on the left see it similarly (as a bailout). Its badness is non-partisan. (Our solutions differ.)
That is an awesome article…! Mahalo…! ;-)
yes!! Since reading it on one of your posts I too have been sending it everywhere possible. GREAT. STUFF. Truth will out.
Come on now, ya’ll. Don’t let the lack of change be the enemy of the hope.
Right now, the delays to 2014 look like some of the best features of the bill. That allows us to be a hive of hornets seeking a mandate for changes to the bill and calling out Republicans for obstructionism.
In other words, it looks like the present bill sucks, but we must fight to get changes to it in the next one-to-two years.
For now, we just take names of who actually stands up for real healthcare reform–no matter how short that list is. And who rolls over–which gives a lot of blue state progressives some heavy lifting tasks in 2010.
TarheelDem
We must not let the MSM label this Bill as a Progressive Bill.
This is a Republican Bill
We cannot let, the MSM shout to the masses that Progressives are going to force you to buy Insurance.
The Ownership Class is going to try to hang this HCR Bill on the necks of progressives. (RUSH LIMBAUGH the spoke person for the onwership class is yelling all over the place about how this is a Liberal BIll.)
We must elect real Progressives to Congress in 2010!
Is Obama a real progressive? No
Churchill and the three strikes law
we have devolved to that haven’t we??
how ya doing?? got your emails great always..
(i keep unsubscribing but it doesn’t seem to work)
email just received from president barack:
………..
Early this morning, the Senate made history and health reform cleared its most important hurdle yet — garnering the 60 votes needed to move toward a final vote in that chamber later this week.
This marks the first time in our nation’s history that comprehensive health reform has come to this point. And it appears that the American people will soon realize the genuine reform that offers security to those who have health insurance and affordable options to those who do not.
I’m grateful to Senator Harry Reid and every senator who’s been working around the clock to make this happen. And I’m grateful to you, and every member of this community, for all the work you have done to make this progress possible.
After a nearly century-long struggle, we are now on the cusp of making health insurance reform a reality in the United States of America.
As with any legislation, compromise is part of the process. But I’m pleased that recently added provisions have made this landmark bill even stronger. Between the time when the bill passes and the time when the insurance exchanges get up and running, insurance companies that try to jack up their rates do so at their own peril. Those who hike their prices may be barred from selling plans on the exchanges.
And while insurance companies will be prevented from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions once the exchanges are open, in the meantime there will be a high-risk pool where people with pre-existing conditions can purchase affordable coverage.
A recent amendment has made these protections even stronger. Insurance companies will now be prohibited from denying coverage to children immediately after this bill passes. There’s also explicit language in this bill that will protect a patient’s choice of doctor. And small businesses will get additional assistance as well.
These protections are in addition to the ones we’ve been talking about for some time. No longer will insurance companies be able to drop your coverage if you become sick and no longer will you have to pay unlimited amounts out of your own pocket for treatments that you need.
Under this bill families will save on their premiums; businesses that would see their costs rise if we don’t act will save money now and in the future. This bill will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of the program. Because it’s paid for and gets rid of waste and inefficiency in our health care system, this will be the largest deficit reduction plan in over a decade.
Finally, this reform will extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who don’t have it.
These are not small changes. These are big changes. They’re fundamental reforms. They will save money. They will save lives.
And your passion, your work, your organizing helped make all of this possible. Now it’s time to finish the job.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
Yes, sir. You can bet we will be finishing the job, but you won’t like it.
I posted this on another blog, but Progressives have to keep fighting to either kill this bill, or, if and when it comes out of conference (I think that’s the next step, isn’t it??) to keep fighting to gut the worst parts.
Nobody said it would be easy.
I’m gonna heave.
so sorry, my fault for not including a warning.
These people are fuckin’ delusional. I mean, shit, we knew they lived in a bubble on another planet but shit like this is from a parallel universe. Calling EPU. EPU, call home.
LOL!
This sticks in my craw…
Reflect upon what Russ, Dean, and, HoJo said today…!
WTF…? 8-(
i get that people disagree about stuff and that’s ok (still love to argue though). but what i really drives me nuts and personally i find absolutely completely unacceptable, is the misleading, dishonest, bullshit and lies.
fuck that.
Amen, Sistah…! *g*
what Tuttle and selese said!!!
Go to the bottom of the email selise there is a link to unsubscribe.
I just did and left this message:
well done. i’ll keep unsubscribing as long as i keep getting email like that one!
me too!!!
The worst part (if we don’t succeed in killing it) will be listening to the constant chatter about how ‘historic’ this bill is.
The German telling Inhoe he’s ridiculous recalls Michael Moore’s observation in Sicko that in America the public is afraid of the government but in Europe it’s the other way around. Can you imagine one of our t.v. heads saying anything so succinct and nervy to any of the stuffed shirts paraded out on Sunday mornings ? It would mean bad seats or no seats at future orchestrated media events. These jackasses should be doing perp walks around the media but in this culture it’s all catwalks and cakewalks.
Mind boggling. The Dems had to know there would be an outcry from the left. I said back in the summer that if they didn’t pass a public option they would get killed in 2010. Just stupid.
Preview: Video of Jane on Ed Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgKLMhk2m1Y
I can see from Ed’s comments that we’re going to have distinguish between the progressive community in the real world and the so-called “progressives” in Congress. To paraphrase Pogo, “We have met the enemy and it ain’t us.”
The truly hillarious shit is them saying we can revisit and improve it at another time.
night all. happy solstice.
but the “deeply flawed, underlying structure” was fine with you as long as there was something bolted on that could be called a ‘public option.’
glad to see the FDL A-team come around to the point of view that was suppressed and derided a few
monthsweeks ago.perhaps Corrente is still a taboo area to many, so here is an interesting post from there:
“On Political Feasibility”
That’s not correct. I have been critiquing the structure from a market power framework for many months, and I never claimed that structure was acceptable “if there was something bolted on that could be called a public option.”
The charge that FDL has been surpressing alternative views is also incorrect; and in my role as diarist, I don’t ban people and have never sought the ability to do so.
The charge that FDL has been surpressing alternative views is also incorrect; and in my role as diarist, I don’t ban people and have never sought the ability to do so.
Us regulars have always been able to browbeat the opposing views…! ;-)
ok, but outright calls to kill the bill are of very recent vintage, yes?
JH is an articulate advocate of early mover advantage, yes, and had stern words for mainstream national women’s groups caught flatfooted by Stupak?
In numerous exchanges with SP folks you defended the PO, and therefore the entire bill to which it was attached? they were inseperable, yes?
I didn’t mean to imply anything about banning by my use of the word ‘suppress’ – how about ‘created a climate that was rather less receptive’ to SP and kill the bill advocates? not a big deal, we can handle it, just pointing out that the wind used to blow the other way.
the terminological usage of ‘polls show 72% of Americans support the PO’ was debatable, to say the least, see for example Kip Sullivan’s 6 part series at PNHP.
There seems to be a misunderstanding. I’ve defended/explained the theory of what a PO might accomplish if adequately structured, without any illusions about what a weakend version could do, nor have I equated the weakend versions with what I originally defended. Nor have I ever defended “the entire bill” with or without some version of a PO.
On the day that Schumer proposed his PO “level playing field,” I described it as crippling the concept — that was months ago — and have consistently argued against proposals that would decouple it from Medicare. Since I much prefer single payer, I don’t have an argument with single-payer advocates on that, though I’ve often been accused of arguing against sp merely because I chose to defend/explain the PO theory.
just fyi. it has indeed happened. don’t think it’s on topic for your thread though , and i have no desire to be overly provocative (which for me means not bringing it up where it’s off topic)…. hope you understand that’s why i’m not providing links, etc.
You can not justify this HCR bill in the terms that have been propounded and it is for the left to stand firm in its oppostion.
The mandate to buy private insurance is not acceptable period, and were it to become law, it should be disobeyed and then taken to court. And in spite of any repercussions it simply must not be obeyed.
First off, the idea is to have universal health coverage not universal coverage by mandate. Big difference.
If people choose to enter into a risk sharing pool it is because they see the obvious advantage for them and for others to do so. It is the advantage they see in the arrangement that motivates them, nothing else. Mandates play no part in their decision.
If on closer inspection they see that over time premiums and co-pays will endlessly increase while access to services derease, and in the meantime the profits to insurers is guaranteed to skyrocket then there is no advantage to their entering into the risk pools. Especially if a much better option is available.
If for others this arrangement does make sense, say for someone who is very or chronically ill, or whose costs are assumed by the government then they are free to enroll in the risk pool. But again that is because for them there is an advantage in the arrangement even if for others there is not. Here too mandates play no role in how they decide.
So for anyone seeking to be insured mandates never play a role in their decision making. The function of madates is exclusively to assure increased profits for private insurers. And they should be vigorously disallowed or if not then disobeyed. No further willing or unwilling padding of insurance profits can be allowed.
Here, at least, the left must draw the line.
Trust us.
Nice close.
Do you think they know what honest people mean when we say that?
I’m surprised that folks haven’t raised more of a stink over the item highlighted by Lawrence O’Donnell [while listening to that weaseling toad Maxine Waters]:
that Nelson’s “price” for agreeing to vote for cloture was that the Feds will now pick up 100% of Nebraska’s Medicaid costs. Other states, you’re stuck with the current formula for fed/state cost sharing.
Hello??? California?? New York?? Michigan?? You guys down with that?
Sure makes everyone who didn’t hold out for a “deal” look like a chump.
we americans know nothing about what is corp fascism.
we are too busy telling the world we are the best of everything in the world
we are on such a steep decline most americans dont even know what is hitting them.
they know something is not right but they have no idea what it is
the only thing they know to do is blame congress while they vote their same congress person in term after term.
in my life I have been witness to this country being the hero and bailing out europe then rising to greatness and then wars for profits then deregulated capitalism to a steep decline in wealth and moral values, not religious values.
the most selfish people we have in america are the religious folks who hold bake sales while voting down health care reform while families go bankrupt for medical bills unknown in europe.
all the while these religious folks pride themselves on being compassionate people. the bottom line they care less about the millions without health care. but they get all kinds of good feelings as they hold their bake sales.
no we are a nation that has become so dumbed down even our journalists cannot ask an in-depth question.
check out how many journalists were for the iraq war
how many in congress voted for this war to look tough on terrorism to get reelected.
the end is near for america as a wealthy nation but then what did we do with our wealth but create suffering around the world with our wars for profits and our CIA.
the universe is like a great cosmic mirror and it reflects back to us what we refect to it.
and what are we refelecting to this cosmic mirror?
greed, selfishness, wars, imperialism, nation building, corp fascism, drug culture, arrogance, self righteousness, corrupt politicans, materialism, religious dogma, and the worst; capitalism which by its very design to create a third world nation of have nots as cheap labor to enhance the profits of the capitalists.
naw dont believe me continue to believe the mass media and the journalists who are on the payroll and owned by the capitalists like congress is on the payroll of corp america.
I wouldn’t necessarily attribute the reaction of the German reporter to a desire to speak “truth to power” (although the “Spiegel” is moderately good at that):
Sen. Inhofe is so far outside the German mainstream that he’s got no chance of mainstream coverage aside from being an oddity.
The reverse would be the German MP Sahra Wagenknecht-Niemeyer, no mainstream US journalist would really cover an honest to God Marxist politician.
I think the “window of acceptable ideas” is roughly as big in Germany as in America, but the position of this window is different.
ok, sorry to raise what are basically retrospective quibbles when compared to the importance and power of writing like:
no need to continue here further – but I remember being appalled at the notion of mandates the moment I heard of them, but I do not remember much ire directed at them early on by high-profile FDL names, and their nature has not changed since the beginning, except they were rather more covert.
Please understand that my posts come in lots of varieties. Sometimes just snark, sometimes just news or using news to set up some rhetorial point, sometimes straight opinion (all of which you can throw away or not) but sometimes they’re an effort to explain concepts in the public debate. I wrote a lot of posts on the PO and exchanges and mandates etc. expaining them from the perspectives of “system structure” or “market design,” with the hope of getting everyone to at least understand conceptually what the debates were talking about.
I understand the role of a mandate within the exchange/subsidy structure Congress has followed. The overall structure is not ideal; but IF you have that structure, and you want to prevent free riders and promote cost/risk sharing across a given population, you need a mandate to get everyone in.
The FDL Action team, as I understand them, are saying that for now, given the compromises that have been made, Congress should no longer impose a mandate until or unless all the other conditions that arguably make a mandate fair are in place. For example, Jane said tonight on the ed show that it’s immoral to force people to purchase a product from a private insurer, and enforce that mandate via IRS penalities, if the product itself is not adequate/affordable. (other parts of the position wold add), there is no mechanism for keeping the product affordable and there’s no public alternative –e.g., a PO/Medicare buy-in, etc that people can choose instead if they feel the private product is unacceptable or their insurers is screwing them. I understand that as a much more complicated position than merely “kill the bill” no matter what, which has been misinterpreted as “kill all the current bills.” It’s a fairness principle, but not quite the same as saying that a mandate per se could never be acceptable within this framework. I believe that’s what she’s saying — but I don’t speak for Jane (or anyone else).
There’s a whole ‘nother framework that redefines the mandate as one of paying taxes on a progressive basis of ability to pay, in order to fund a single Medicare-for-all or other sp system.
Obama says public option was only “symbolic”. Comments to Urban Radio Network via Politico tonight- see “Obama watched the vote” .
No wonder this is such a monstrosity of corporate payoffs! I guess the 45 million people who don’t have health care are just ‘symbolic’. Their fear and suffering are just an intellectual idea in the narcissistic mind of Number 1. It was all just a story he told us about the public option, fighting for re-importation, regulation and transparency! Now we know- read his own words on how ‘significant’ it all is now.
“”The public option, he said, “is an area that has just become symbolic of a lot of ideological fights.” But, Obama added: “As a practical matter, this is not the most important aspect of this bill — the House bill or the Senate bill.”
Only “a few million people” who buy into the insurance exchange set up in the bill would have benefited from the public option, he said.
“So it wasn’t like suddenly everybody would just go out there and buy a government-run plan,” Obama said. “Most people will still get health insurance from their employers.” “
America’s private financial systems have failed.
America’s private automobile industries have failed.
America’s private manufacturing industries have failed.
America’s private real estate markets have failed.
America’s private corporate media have failed.
America’s private energy delivery systems have failed.
This list is incomplete. Our free market economy is nothing of the kind.
The monumental corruption of our representative systems of government, compounded by the woeful and willful ignorance of a majority of our citizens will only accelerate the rate of failure until we are on an economic and political par with Somalia.
Pretty accurate. At the absolute core it’s just arrogance that drives the thinking. Phrases like “uniquely American” are akin to “greatest country” and ideological theories like “American Exceptionalism” make me puke. It’s nothing but selfish bragging. If our country is so fucking great, why are we in debt up to our ears, have more prisons, crime, poor people, wars, illiteracy and the most expensive health care with the worst outcomes – and deadly pollution – per capita than other industrialized nations? Hell, 50 years ago half the current Democratic Congress and Barack Obama would have been called Republicans and 80% of the current Republican Party would have been called John Birchers. Piss on the whole corrupt crowd.