OurFuture: "Anything Goes" capitalism destroys companies and workers' lives

Capital Eye: Aides, lobbyists and contributors among those left in the wake of John Ensign's ethics scandal

Lean Left: Don't know much about history, biology, science books, the French I took...or art. But I do know that I'm a right wing moron.

Where’s the Outrage?: Dr. Errington Thompson says..."Keith, thanks for letting America see the world I work in every day."

TAPPED: Congress' torture coverup

Welcome Back to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Week: Nattering nabobs of negativism edition

Will he or won't he? Everyone's waiting to see what President Obama will say in tomorrow night's speech. Will he draw a line in the sand over the public option? Despite the president's rousing speech yesterday, this article makes it seem doubtful.

Here's the problem in a nutshell: President Obama is looking for "something he can call a public option," not an actual public option. He wants a political compromise above an actual solution - an approach which may work on some issues, but is ill-suited to the magnitude of this health care crisis:

Amid fresh signs that the White House is preparing to back a scaled-down health care overhaul that would only include a public insurance option as a fallback plan, several House liberals told Roll Call that they could support such a bill depending on how it was structured.

The “trigger” approach has been considered a deal-killer by liberals on and off Capitol Hill, and the willingness of some Congressional Progressive Caucus members to entertain it reflects a recognition that a bruising August recess has imperiled prospects for reform and redrawn expectations for what is possible.

“This is a way to get a bill,” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said. “I believe it’s worth listening to because I want legislation that is going to, in some shape or form, expand coverage and bring down the cost of health care.”

Boy, that's a far cry from what we heard a year ago, isn't it? Because we're not all that interested in Massachusetts-style mandates that not only aren't worth anything to people whose budgets are already stretched too thin, it imposes an additional burden for the privilege. And it sounds like the progressive caucus is starting to crack.

Liberals stressed that the shift does not amount to an abandonment of their commitment to a “robust” public insurance option. They said they would only support a trigger if that approach guaranteed the same access, quality and affordability.

“I don’t want to give the impression that I’m so flexible that I’m willing to compromise away meaningful reform,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said. “But there may be a variety of ways of getting there than the one I originally formulated in my mind.”

The development could open a path forward for the White House, which has so far been vexed by the threat of a liberal rebellion in the House if it backs off a far-reaching public insurance option or a revolt by Senate moderates if it insists on one.

In advance of a make-or-break address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, President Barack Obama took the temperature of leading House liberals on a Friday conference call. Leaders of the Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sat in on the call and reiterated their support for a strong public insurance option, Progressive Caucus Co-Chairwoman Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said. Obama did not make any definitive statements and asked for a follow-up meeting today or Wednesday.

“It sounded like he was trying to figure out how he could get something he could call a public option, regardless of what it is,” one staffer familiar with the call said.

White House officials have been exploring the possibility of a trigger in negotiations with Republican moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), a member of the gang of six on the Senate Finance Committee that has been struggling to forge a bipartisan agreement.

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(Senator Ted Kennedy - passing of an era)

Regardless of having known the end would come for some time, hearing the news that Senator Ted Kennedy lost his battle to brain cancer still came with an overwhelming sadness - a true sense of loss. The passing of an era.

So as way of a tribute, here is Ted Kennedy at the National Press Club from January 18, 1972, outlining the priorities for the upcoming session of Congress. As always, Health Care was forefront on his mind.

Ted Kennedy: “If you think we have a (health) system that is working well today, ask the person next to you. Ask a mother who tries to call a doctor after dark. Ask a man who lost is health insurance because he lost his job. Ask a senior citizen whose Medicare has run out. Ask anyone who ever paid a bill or tried to file a Health Insurance claim. Our people will never get fair value for their enormous investment in Health Care, unless we break the strangle hold of the Health Providers and Health Insurance companies. We have a mammoth Health Care crisis because we have a mammoth health care system that works well, but only for the few. It works well for the doctors. It works well for the hospitals. It works well for the insurance industry. It works well for everyone but the sick. And it is the people who pay the price for this enormous profiteering. They have been sold a bill of goods for a system that is marred throughout by high cost and inefficiency, by inconvenience and incompetence. And by implicit or outright fraud. I do not believe that the Congress will be a party to the passage of any Health Insurance bill that maintains such vital flaws. We stand on the threshold of real reform. And 1972 can be the year when we cross that threshold and fulfill at last the promise that health is a basic right for all our citizens, not just an expensive privilege of the few”.

He never quit the fight.

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I went to the Arlen Specter/Joe Sestak Q&A panel today at Netroots Nation that was led by our own Susie Madrak. Specter answered questions about why we should trust him since he switched parties and he made his case. He's a skilled politician and did a pretty good job trying to defend his lefty creds. We didn't act like the Beckerwocky teabaggers do and he was treated with dignity, even if most of the audience supports Joe.

When he was questioned about Chuck Grassley's ""We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma" he adamantly said Grassley was wrong and he said he would speak to him later today. I yelled out "call him now!" and several other audience members also yelled the same thing. I waved my phone and said, "You can use my cell phone!" He said he would call him right away.

I followed him to the back of the arena and a bunch of us surrounded him as he made good on his promise. He tried to reach Grassley, but got no answer. As he was leaving, I was able to ask Specter if President Obama should kick Grassley out of the negotiating position he has for spreading egregious statements and falsehoods about health care.

Specter said that we shouldn't kick Grassley out of the Finance committee because senators are wrong at times, but he promised to stay after Grassley. I think Obama should have Baucus kick him out of the negotiating process because he's violated his duty by spreading lies about a health care bill he's trying to legislate over.

UPDATE:

John Amato: Senator, one more quick question. I'm John Amato of CrooksandLiars. Does Senator Grassley's irresponsible statements and the fact that he's on the committee that's negotiating for this health care bill, doesn't that disqualify him, in other words, shouldn't Obama say, why should I even have him at the table if he's going to make such outrageous statements?

Specter: Does it disqualify him, no. When he made that statement, it's wrong. If you disqualified every Senator who is wrong about something, there wouldn't be any Senators.OK?..

Well, now Specter and Grassley are involved in a Twitter war:

Well, Grassley never picked up. So Specter tweeted all about it.

And Grassley is not pleased.

And in a narrow sense, Grassley's right. He didn't use the term "death boards" or "death panels." He said "There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life. And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear.... We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

But in the broader sense, Specter's got Grassley pegged.

Citizen journalism rocks! We proved that once again.

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Keith Olbermann calls out the dangerous rhetoric and lies of Sarah Palin and her other GOP cohorts--such as Glenn Beck and Sen. John Cornyn--scaring the populace with their outrageous fear mongering over health care reform.

You shouted "fire" in a crowded theater -- a hot one -- and then today tried to roll it back with "no, no, sorry, not fire, I meant flashlights."

Too little, too late, too obvious.

Madam, you are a clear and present danger to the safety and security of this nation.

Whether the 'death panel' is something you dreamed, or something you dreamed-up, whether it is the product of a low intellect and a fevered imagination, or the product of a high intelligence and a sober ability to exploit people, you should be ashamed of yourself for having introduced it into the public discourse, and it should debar you, for all time, from any position of responsibility or trust in the governance of this nation or any of its states or municipalities.

It is exactly this kind of lowest demoninator scare tactics of Palin's and her other GOP buddies that has brought about the aptly albeit bluntly named PleaseCutTheCrap.com.

And while it's semi-nice to see Palin back-pedaling slightly, the fever pitch is such that a concerted joint effort by the White House and the Democrats in Congress is required to push back on this inciting and ugly rhetoric, before it goes too far.

Transcripts below the fold

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Steven Pearlstein writes an excellent column in the Washington Post that says what most of the media will never say. Republicans lie every chance they get to try and destroy health care reform. The title of his piece is: Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems...

It's not too long so read it for yourself.

Have you seen the teabaggers in action during Rep. Lloyd Doggett's (D-TX)town hall on health care? These are standard right-wing tactics -- attack any kind of meaningful change in health care, or even any kind of meaningful discourse around it. They remind me of a gathering of Joe the Plumbers.

Today, House members are back home to begin their month-long recess. The far right has indicated that they plan to welcome many of their representatives with large, angry throngs (“town halls gone wild”). The corporate lobbyists engineering these “grassroots” efforts have indicated their harassment strategy is to “yell,” “stand up and shout,” and “rattle” the members. Politico reported that Democratic members of Congress are increasingly being confronted by “angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior” at local town halls. This past weekend, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) was the latest victim of the right’s strategy, where protesters followed him and chanted “just say no” to health care.

We've all seen it before. I wonder how many of these teabaggers actually have health insurance and are working. This should have been expected because it's all too familiar. Digby links to this piece by PBS that charts the fight for health care. A Detailed Timeline of the Healthcare Debate portrayed in "The System." It's a facinating look at the time line of events.You'll notice that Newt Gingrich raised the flag that health care was coming and republicans should do everything they could to destroy it.

Spring 1991 - Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, in a private discussion about long-term Republican political strategy, predicts that the "next great offensive of the Left," as he puts it, will be "socializing health care." Gingrich declares the need for hardline Republicans to begin positioning themselves now to keep Democrats from winning in the future.

Digby writes:

I'm sure the Democrats all remember this and are prepared for it this time. Right?

If you haven't read the entire PBS timeline on how health care reform was derailed in 1994 recently, do yourself a favor and read it. The legislative side has an eerily familiar feel to it, especially the part where the Democrats in the Senate preen egomaniacally while selling out reform to the insurance industry and the Republicans. You'll recall that the Republicans consciously pumped Whitewater in the press to create a distraction for the public and fuel mass protest among their own base. It's a sign of their impotence that the best they could come up with this time was a fringy clown show like the birthers, but it's certainly done its job among the 58% of Republicans who now aren't sure if Obama is actually an illegal alien. This stuff is evergreen.

If you can, please attend any town hall meeting in your area and try to bring some sanity to it or expose these phony populists for what they are. If you can, interview the teabaggers and send me the video at crooksandliars@gmail.com or crooksandliarsvideos@gmail.com. It will be up to the progressive groups also to organize activists to offset what Republicans hope to accomplish. The Democratic party should have expected this. That's why I asked President Obama to demand that Congress work through the August recess. You can depend on Max Baucus to do his part and screw up health care for all Americans. He sold us out before.

August will be littered with images of the Zombie Plumbers disrupting town hall meetings because the media just loves this stuff. As usual, they won't give proper context or explain who these teabaggers are, and Americans will view these wackos on the news as a legitimate effort by patriotic Americans who are against changes to the health care system instead of explaining who they really are. I hate to bring this up, but do you remember how the media handled the six weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania Democratic primary? It was pretty frightening. That's what we can expect this month, and it won't be pretty.

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(Claude Pepper - D-Florida - Governor Harold Stassen - R-Minnesota - The relentless jangle of The Bogey Man)

The never ending debate in a National Health plan and another dig in the archives for some perspective. Seems the one thing the debates had in common (the ones I've come up with from 1947, 1949, 1951, 1961) is the fear factor, trotted out almost verbatim by spokespeople for the AMA - all following the dreaded bogey man. It seems this overriding fear was the biggest factor in sinking any useful legislation in health care. And always the fear card is played by the Republicans. This debate features Senator Claude Pepper (D-Florida) and former Governor Harold Stassen (R-Minn.) from the program "American Forum Of The Air" on January 29, 1950.

It's interesting to note that one of the arguments made against the British system of Health care was the reported "dramatic rise in gravesites" after it was enacted in 1943, eluding to the notion that British National Health care became inept. Trouble was, there was that little thing called World War 2 that seemed to escape the radar and that all this sudden rise in dead people came not from a flawed health system, but rather bullets and shrapnel.

In the argument against a decent National Health care plan - reality doesn't seem to play much of a role.

Sensen No Sen: The health care crisis oligopoly and the real weight of the AMA

The Stranger: A classic example of the Gay Panic Defense

Jack & Jill Politics: New video from @WeekInBlackness - BET doesn't care about black people

D-Day: The Maze of Food Policy

NotionsCapital: American Milestone - 2.75 ton of fudge!

James Wolcott: Sarah Palin taunts John McCain with her runaway caboose

When I ran this picture the other day, a lot of you wanted to know where you could get one of these wristbands. Well, we live to serve here at C&L, so here's the story behind them.

This is a project started in 2007 by Daric Cheshire, 36, an artist/business owner in Portland, Oregon, as a response to the ongoing health care crisis.

If you'll remember, there were a lot of causes using wristbands (such as the yellow "live strong" bands, etc.) at the time, and he thought it was a perfect way to illustrate the problem of the uninsured.

At the time he started the project, his own family was uninsured. The original concept: if people who actually are uninsured were to wear these wristbands, the rest of us lucky enough to have insurance would be able to see in daily life what a real problem it is - that it affects normal, everyday people like your grocery checker or your next door neighbor and not just marginalized groups like the homeless, or undocumented immigrants.

The response was enthusiastic, and it's grown to where the bands have been embraced by people who just want to draw attention to the problem, whether they're insured or not. As he puts it, the message of the band is:

"I'm uninsured. You may not know why, but now you know my face. Maybe I look like you or someone you love. I'm uninsured and scared of being without health insurance in this country. Maybe my health is already suffering from lack of health care. Today it's me, tomorrow it could be you."

What a great idea. As Michael Moore showed us in "Sicko," none of us really have health insurance - we have the illusion of health insurance.

If you want to get one of the bands, you can click here. If you can't afford it, he'll send you one, anyway.

UPDATE: Got this letter today:

Susan,

Thank you so much. I was up till 1:30 addressing envelopes, woke up and realized the site had exceeded its bandwidth. The response has been overwhelming. I really appreciate your support. We are back up and running now. I hope I can keep up with the demand. Thanks again.

Best Regards,
Daric

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With DINOs like DiFi, who needs to worry about Republicans?

President Barack Obama may not have enough votes in the U.S. Senate to pass his effort to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein said.

“I don’t know that he has the votes right now,” Feinstein said today on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “I think there’s a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus.” Controlling costs of the new system is a “difficult subject.”

So the very wealthy DiFi, who hasn't met an appropriation she wouldn't try to swing to her husband's company and ended up having to resign from the Military Construction Appropriations committee when this conflict came to light, and lucky recipient of free healthcare, courtesy of the U.S. Senate, doesn't think that the 59 (nay, 60, if Franken ever gets his seat) Democrats can actually pull it together to vote for the health care reform that a HUGE percentage of Americans want?

Pardon my French, Di, but WHY THE FRAK NOT???? Her answers don't make a lot of sense, frankly:

FEINSTEIN: Ergo, you have enormous problems in my state. California’s bigger than the populations of 21 states and the District of Columbia put together. We have an enormous health care industry, 350 hospitals. University of California alone has 34,000 health care workers, has health care worth $4 billion a year. So it’s complicated. Additionally, the state is in a state of financial catastrophe. I think that’s clear. So, if you change the Medicaid rate, for example, it has an impact on California between $1 billion and $5 billion a year. Now, how could I support that? Because it would take down the state.

Er...huh? Does the fact that these costs are offset by the savings to employers not come into play? How about the fact that by creating a public option, health care costs would be a lower percentage of the average income to individuals and companies? How about the greater costs we all absorb now to cover the uninsured and underinsured? This is not that complicated: COVERING EVERYONE WILL SAVE LIVES AND MONEY.

Then Feinstein becomes even more puzzling:

You also have enormous profit centers in the health care industry, in pharmaceuticals, in medical insurance. And I wonder about these profit centers. Because, unless you have some method to control these profits, premiums continue to rise in the private sector, as they have over the past eight years, substantially.

Therefore, controlling costs is a very major and difficult subject, as long as you have a large private-sector involvement. So this needs to be worked out.

The profits in health care are obscene. Look at what CEOs took home. Elizabeth Edwards famously said that $1 out every $700 spent in this country for health care went to pay the CEO of UnitedHealth. But here's where I'm flummoxed by this statement by Feinstein. If we have a public option that lowers the costs to consumers, doesn't the "free market" then naturally depress these profit centers in health care by forcing them to be competitive with the public option? Isn't that a good thing, Di?

The stakes are too high for these kind of nonsensical arguments from ridiculously privileged politicos ignoring the will of the people. Please consider donating to our Campaign for Health Care Choice to make your voice heard.

Transcripts below the fold

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Mahablog: Life as a preexisting condition, and why the private health care industry will never, ever, not in a million years, come even close to solving the health care crisis.

No Comment: Partisan politics and accountability for torture. (But horrors, how could anyone question Cheney's virtue?)

Mock, Paper, Scissors: Because nothing is as funny as keeping innocent people in Gitmo.

The Hunting of the Snark: Dear Heaven, they've hired another one.

Zaius Nation: Doctor Zaius highlights some cool blog artists.

Guest post by Batocchio. Temporarily e-mail tips to batocchio9 AT yahoo DOT com.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders on The Situation Room discussing his recent article at The Huffington Post, Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege. From the article:

Let's be clear. Our health care system is disintegrating. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. At a time when 60 million people, including many with insurance, do not have access to a medical home, more than 18,000 Americans die every year from preventable illnesses because they do not get to the doctor when they should. This is six times the number who died at the tragedy of 9/11 - but this occurs every year.

In the midst of this horrendous lack of coverage, the U.S. spends far more per capita on health care than any other nation - and health care costs continue to soar. At $2.4 trillion dollars, and 18 percent of our GDP, the skyrocketing cost of health care in this country is unsustainable both from a personal and macro-economic perspective.

His interview with Wolf Blitzer below the fold where the good Senator showed just exactly how any question that is prefaced with "here's what Karl Rove writes", should be answered.

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As Think Progress and Steve Benen noted, Tom Coburn was on Washington Journal today scaring the public about the government boogie man taking over health care.

As did his colleague in the House Rep. Charles Boustany, Colburn seems to have memorized Frank Luntz's talking points and has them down pat.

Luntz’s 10 pointers in “The Language of Healthcare 2009”:

(1) Humanize your approach. Abandon and exile ALL references to the “healthcare system.” From now on, healthcare is about people. Before you speak, think of the three components of tone that matter most: Individualize. Personalize. Humanize.

(2) Acknowledge the “crisis” or suffer the consequences. If you say there is no healthcare crisis, you give your listener permission to ignore everything else you say. It is a credibility killer for most Americans. A better approach is to define the crisis in your terms. “If you’re one of the millions who can’t afford healthcare, it is a crisis.” Better yet, “If some bureaucrat puts himself between you and your doctor, denying you exactly what you need, that’s a crisis.” And the best: “If you have to wait weeks for tests and months for treatment, that’s a healthcare crisis.”

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From the Cafferty File:

While Washington looks at trying to solve the nation’s health care crisis, many Americans aren’t waiting. They are willing to take matters into their own hands by seeking medical treatment elsewhere.A new Gallup poll shows 29 percent of those surveyed would consider traveling outside the U.S. for treatment in a foreign country. 24 percent would travel for cancer treatment or diagnosis. 15 percent for a hip or knee replacement. 14 percent for heart bypass surgery. And 10 percent for plastic surgery.

When people are asked if they would consider treatment abroad, assuming the quality was the same and the costs much cheaper, those numbers jump by an average of 12 points.

Medical travel used to be considered a luxury for the rich, but with health care costs at home skyrocketing and an estimated 48 million uninsured Americans, that may no longer be the case. In fact, this poll shows people without insurance are more likely than those with coverage to think about going abroad for medical treatment.

When it comes to regions of the country, those in the West are the most willing to travel while people in the Midwest and South are less likely to go abroad.

Meanwhile if there are improvements in insurance reimbursements, hospital quality and cheaper costs abroad — more Americans could start traveling elsewhere for health care.

Here’s my question to you: Would you be willing to travel to another country to get medical care?

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