Rather than simply describing the types of coordinated attacks on healthcare reform that are happening, I thought it would be easier to understand exactly what we're dealing with if you could instead read the type of lying, manipulative, inflammatory "facts" being fed to the elderly and conservative Christians by "Godly" men like Gordon Klingenschmitt - the Navy chaplain who was canned for disobeying orders. (Or as he puts it: Disclaimer: The views of Chaplain Klingenschmitt, who was honorably but involuntarily discharged from the Navy in 2007 after facing court-martial for praying 'in Jesus name' in uniform, (but was later vindicated by Congress), are his own personal views.)

This is the new email from In Jesus' Name, the fundamentalist fundraising machine ginned up by Klingenschmitt to replace the Navy pension he lost by willfully ignoring orders:

HOT NEW PETITION to STOP OBAMA'S SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER. Please click, sign, and WE WILL FAX your petition automatically to all 52 "Blue-Dog" House Democrats and/or all 100 Senators, right away (saving you hours of labor!) and saving unborn children, grandmothers, grandfathers, and all other grand-genders created by this bill from Government-forced extermination.

Grandmas and Unborn Babies Face Extermination by Obama's "Health" Care Plan

Investors Business Daily has just exposed the Achilles' heel of Obamacare, that hostile, socialist government takeover of your hospital, doctors, children, and grandparents. In an editorial entitled, "How House Bill Runs Over Grandma," the editors report how President Obama was personally confronted by a North Carolina woman asking if "everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told they have to decide how they wish to die."

In response Obama joked that he hadn't yet hired enough bureaucrats to conduct such an operation, yet he could not deny the New York Post's discovery the House bill "compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care" (pages 425-430). In other words, your grandmother will be told, when insufficient resources are rationed to young people, that her duty to die begins with mandatory "end-of-life counseling," or as Obama explained, "encourage the use of living wills" that terminate otherwise salvageable lives prematurely through signed "do not resuscitate" (DNR) legal releases.

1) EUTHANASIA is the first result of Obama's socialist government "health" care plan.

Bankrupt state can't afford to pay for grandma's hip replacement? Obama's plan sends her a lawyer to make her sign a DNR, explaining her hastened duty to die, and obtaining her signature legally absolving him of all guilt. Euthanasia begins where capitalism ends.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN PETITION, AND WE WILL FAX ALL 52 "BLUE-DOG" DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE, AND ALL 100 SENATORS, TO OPPOSE OBAMACARE.

Widely respected Minister Rick Joyner wrote this week, after reviewing Mat Staver's analysis of H.R. 3200 "Health" care bill, voicing his strong opinion that this bill "is about euthanasia, the power to determine who lives or dies in America. Hitler and Stalin would have loved to have had a means such as this for dispatching the millions they killed-it would have made their job much easier, and probably given them the ability to kill many more than they did. THIS BILL IS THAT SINISTER. This is not a joke." You can read Mat Staver's line-by-line analysis of the 1000 page health care bill at the bottom of this email.

Now here's something we can do. Any readers from Florida or Virginia can file a complaint with their state bar association that Matt Staver (aka Mathew D. Staver, Founder and Chairman, Dean and Professor of Law, Liberty University School of Law) has used his position as the dean of a law school to lie about the interpretation of this bill and deliberately inflame the public dialogue. (Rebuttals here and here.)

The rest of you? Well, you can call him at one of his offices (434-592-5200, 800-671-1776) and let him know what you think.

2) Tax-payer funded ABORTION on demand is another guaranteed result.

Last week several so-called "pro-life Democrats" executed a bait and switch that will fully fund abortion on demand in the new Obamacare "health" bill. Led by compromiser and ex-pro-life Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), who was recently booted as an advisor to Democrats for Life of America for his lack of principle, the liberal House Democrats overruled conservative Republicans 30-28 to pass the hideous "Capps Amendment" to H.R.3200 in the Energy and Commerce Committee. This amendment now deceptively creates a phony accounting scheme that gives the false impression your tax-payer dollars will not subsidize abortion, while it simultaneously nationalizes free abortions for low-income urban neighborhoods, fulfilling the dream of Margaret Sanger (and her protege Ruth Bader Ginsburg) that African American babies will be the first exterminated in the government funded ovens that weed out "Populations that we don't want to have too many of."

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) explained the Capps Amendment: "It's one of the most deceptive amendments I have ever seen. The bottom line is that money is fungible, and the plan itself will be subsidizing abortion-on-demand, with taxpayer funding commingled, and the numbers of abortions will go up significantly."

CLICK HERE TO SIGN PETITION, AND WE WILL FAX ALL 52 "BLUE-DOG" DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE, AND ALL 100 SENATORS, TO OPPOSE OBAMACARE.

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Yesterday I wrote about how the Catholic Church was working behind the scenes for unemployment extensions, and wondered why conservatives liked to pick and choose which religious values they want to hide behind support. This is another perfect example:

Rick Santorum has been outspoken about his Catholic faith on the campaign trail, explaining how his faith and personal values have influenced his political positions. But at a campaign event at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma today, Santorum had trouble rationalizing how he reconciled his opposition to health care reform with the Catholic Church’s support of the plan. A questioner asked Santorum, “With you lining up with the Catholic faith on so many issues, why not the Catholic Church on health care since it is a value and a human right?”

Santorum offered a rambling answer, first saying that church’s teachings had shaped his life and then insisting that he also has to consider reason as a politician. “I always say if your faith is true and your reason is right, then you’ll end up in the right place,” he said. “And of course why would God create something where reason would bring you one place and your faith would bring you another if your faith is true?” And as a public official, he said, he had an obligation to talk to people who share his faith and those who don’t:

My conscience was formed as a result of my life experiences and primarily through faith and through the moral values I was taught through the teachings within the Bible and the church. Yes, I bring that to the table. That’s who I am. [...]

I look at the Affordable Care Act and say, both from the standpoint of faith, do I believe that people should have the opportunity to purchase health care? Yes. Do I believe that it is the right that the government should impose and control? No. It’s one thing to say that people have a right to access of care. It’s another to say that the government should be the implementer of that. And something tells me that government is the least effective tool to make that the best possible care.

This year-old video features a demonstration against Whole Foods exec Mackey's opposition to health care reform.

It's amazing, how comfortable conservatives are with making crap up! No matter what, they're going to twist the facts to fit their political agendas:

Last August, John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, sparked outrage in the liberal blogosphere and a customer boycott by publishing a full-throated critique of Obamacare on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal. He argued that the country should "move in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment," and held up Whole Foods' own health plan as an alternative: "Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction."

But it turns out that Mackey's claims, which also fueled conservative opposition to the Democrats' health-care bill, were misleading. In a memo that he sent to all employees last month, obtained by Mother Jones, Mackey concedes that Whole Foods is actually sinking under the weight of its health care expenses. In the past seven years, he writes, the cost of the company's health care plan as a percentage of its sales has gone up 60 percent. This year's tab is "equal to about 10% of the total Team Member compensation of $2 billion," Mackey complains. "On average over the past three years we have spent more on health care costs than we have made in total net profits!"

Far from being a model of do-it-yourself health care reform, then, Whole Foods' costly insurance plan illustrates why Mackey's opposition to the Affordable Care Act was misguided. Like other major grocery store chains, Whole Foods is facing rampant inflation in health costs. (Unlike Whole Foods, however, Safeway supported key parts of the ACA.) Experts blame this on a lack of incentives for doctors to control costs and the 44 million uninsured Americans who burden the system. The health care bill passed in March is meant to address those problems, in part, by mandating that everyone purchase insurance, subsidizing coverage for the neediest, and creating exchanges in which individuals can pool their resources to purchase affordable coverage. A report by the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from large companies, estimates that the bill could lower health care costs by as much as $3,000 per employee by 2019.

Yet Mackey, an avowed libertarian, appears to see only one upside in the passage of health-care reform: The opportunity to use it as a scapegoat for Whole Foods' increasing health costs. In the memo, he informs his employees that their insurance deductibles will be increasing to $2,000 for the company's medical plan and $1,000 for its prescription plan, a spike that he blames entirely on the federal government: "This is very important for everyone to understand: 100% of the increases in deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums in 2011 compared to 2010 are due to new federal mandates and regulations." (His emphasis.)

But Whole Foods CEO isn't being honest with his employees about the real cause of the company's escalating health costs. Most of the ACA's key provisions don't go into effect until 2014. Major parts of the bill that kick in sooner, such new rules governing "mini med" plans offered by fast food chains, wouldn't directly affect Whole Foods. And even then, the bill allows companies to petition for temporary exemptions from the new rules.

A surprise to no one who cringed through some of the nasty and personal smears against Michael Moore as "Sicko" was released, reformed health care executive Wendell Potter admitted that there was a systematic plan and campaign to discredit both the filmmaker and documentary.

Yesterday, on the TV and radio show "Democracy Now" hosted by Amy Goodman, the former Vice President of CIGNA, one of the nation's largest health insurance companies, revealed that CIGNA met with the other big health insurers to hatch a plan to "push" yours truly "off a cliff."

The interview contains new revelations about just how frightened the health industry was that "Sicko" might ignite a public wave of support for "socialized medicine." So the large health insurance companies came together over a common cause: Stop the American people from going to see "Sicko" -- and the way to do that was to cause some form of harm to me (either personally, professionally or...physically?).

The insinuation that the campaign could include physical damage just so Americans wouldn't learn that Canadian and UK health care systems aren't nearly as bad as they've been demogogued (and don't get me started on Norway) is more than a little frightening. But certainly, as Moore admits, the campaign worked.

The interview goes on as Potter reveals how his front group was able to get its talking points and smears into stories in the New York Times and CNN. It is a chilling look inside how easy it is to manipulate our mainstream media -- and just how worried the health insurance companies were that the American people might demand a true universal health care system.

In particular, Potter talks about how they may have succeeded in influencing CNN to run a factually untrue story about "Sicko" by its reporter, Sanjay Gupta (which led to my infamous encounter with Wolf Blitzer and later, an apology from CNN for getting their facts wrong).

Potter believes his work to defame "Sicko" succeeded, as the film didn't end up posting "Fahrenheit 9/11" grosses. To be clear, "Sicko" went on to become the 3rd largest grossing documentary of all time at that point. And as the release of "Sicko" in June of 2007 was the first time since the defeat of Hillary Clinton's healthcare bill in 1994 that the issue of health insurance was brought to the forefront of the national media, I believe it helped to reignite the issue during the 2008 election year by exposing millions of Americans to the truth about the health insurance industry. More than one person on Capitol Hill will admit that "Sicko" was a big help in rallying public support for the compromise bill that eventually passed earlier this year. But I agree, their smear campaign was effective and did create the dent they were hoping for -- single payer and the public option never even made it into the real discussion on the floor of Congress.

And forgive me for being a broken record on this, but here is example #3,208,296,209 of how the traditional media not only failed us, but conspired in a disinformation campaign with corporate interests. Pundits like Ted Koppel and Jon Stewart want to talk about how both MSNBC and Fox News are equally toxic to the national dialogue, but they've missed the boat, big time. The media has been failing us for much, much longer and in far more destructive ways than whether Olbermann or Beck show themselves to be hyper-ideological.

Potter's interview with Amy Goodman is available in full here.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be limited to senior citizens. Over the past couple of months, the Chamber of Commerce has taken great pains to misinform small businesses about what the Affordable Care Act does for them, too. But out of nearly 700 seniors quizzed about what health-care reform meant for them, not one was able to get all of the answers right.

A recent National Council on Aging poll conducted between July 9 - July 12, 2010 yielded some pretty startling statistics.

• 21% of respondents said they were "very familiar" with the law, and an additional 64% said they were "somewhat familiar" with it. Of those, 60% said they were satisfied that the information they received was accurate and reliable.
• Yet, when asked if the new law would result in future cuts to their basic medicare benefits, 55% of the "very familiar" group answered "Yes", as did 47% of the "somewhat familiar" group.
• 62% of the "very familiar" group said they believed the new law would increase the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years, with 57% of the "somewhat familiar" group concurring.
• Half of those "very familiar" with the law believes it does not improve the quality of care for beneficiaries with chronic illnesses, and 46% believe Medicare payments to doctors will be cut.
• Remarkably, only 52% of the seniors "very familiar" with the law agreed that uninsured Americans will be covered and younger people would have extra protections.

I would love to know how many of those claiming to be "very familiar" with the law watch Fox News. I would put money on it being more than half. Reading these results made me want to go out and scream from a tall building "This is why we can't have nice things!!!!".

Fortunately, NCOA is a little more measured than me. They've created materials to help seniors understand the law and what their benefits are under the law. Now we need to get out there and help them understand it, because seniors' health is as important a feature of the new law as coverage of the uninsured.

Oh, and maybe we should get them to turn off Fox News for awhile, too.

After overseeing a company that proposed rate hikes of 39% in the midst of the health care reform debate, Anthem Blue Cross President Leslie Margolin has resigned.

LA Times:

Leslie Margolin led the Woodland Hills-based insurer as it weathered intense criticism this year over planned rate increases of up to 39% for many of its nearly 800,000 individual policyholders. Anthem canceled the hikes after calculation errors were uncovered in its filing.

Anthem parent WellPoint Inc. would not comment on Margolin's departure, saying only in a written statement that she "played an integral role in collaborating with hospitals and providers across the state" and championed innovations to improve patient safety.

Despite WellPoint's denials, there's no question that they've been disappointed in their West Coast operation's failure to boost profits. Margolin has been president for two years, and in that time Anthem Blue Cross has seen profits dwindle, passage of the Affordable Care Act, and a strong movement afoot in California for statewide single payer health insurance.

I suspect Margolin is heading out of the corporate sector to the nonprofit sector to do battle against the rising tide of California OneCare's passage after Jerry Brown is elected Governor.

In a separate statement, Margolin said she was leaving Anthem to lead a private healthcare reform coalition, Transforming Health Care. That group is composed of hospitals, physician groups, health plans, employers and consumer advocates working to improve California's healthcare delivery system, Margolin said in a statement.

It sounds so nice and consumer-friendly, doesn't it? Their website isn't launched yet, but it has this nice transitional statement on a plain page:

TransformingHealthcare.com is a consortium of expertise to improve performance, change, and grow healthcare organizations. This strategic alliance of consulting firms offering complementary services in healthcare. These organizations, most headed by their founders, have small, elite staff with outstanding competence in their specialties. Consultants are selected to create the most appropriate team for the needs of each client.

The list is interesting. From computer consultants to specialists in Sarbanes-Oxley, it's certainly an eclectic bunch. And now they can add Margolin, former president of Anthem Blue Cross.

This isn't a new idea, and it's not limited to Massachusetts. (When I first read about it, it was called "tiered" coverage.) I expect we're going to see it spread, though, because the just-passed federal legislation doesn't actually reform the health care system, and much of the much-vaunted "access" is in name only.

Which means the fight isn't over. Because if you have a serious health problem and your coverage will send you to the facility that doesn't have such a great track record, you're out of luck:

Health insurers are starting to sell policies that largely bar consumers from receiving medical care at popular but expensive hospitals such as Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s — a once radical idea that is gaining traction as a way to control soaring health care costs.

Governor Deval Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray have included such restricted provider networks in their recent legislative proposals to control rising insurance rates. And the state this month began offering limited-network plans to 300,000 state employees, retirees, and their families, promising 20 percent discounts on premiums if they are willing to give up access to some of the Boston area’s most renowned hospitals.

Dolores Mitchell, executive director of the agency that oversees health insurance for state employees, said she wants “to send a message to the more expensive [provider] organizations that, ‘Hey, we’re not going to just sit still and do nothing’" as medical costs climb year after year.

But even as state officials promote the idea, there are obstacles to its wide adoption. Some of the state’s largest insurers have contracts with powerful teaching hospitals and doctors’ groups that could make it difficult to exclude them. And Massachusetts consumers and employers have long cherished choosing from a broad range of providers.

In a yearlong investigation into rising health care costs completed last month, Attorney General Martha Coakley cited "distorted" contracting practices as one factor. She found that providers with market clout have negotiated clauses in their contracts that prohibit or inhibit insurers from creating plans intended to steer patients away from them. She did not name the companies involved, but said regulators and lawmakers should move to discourage or forbid these practices.

Certain providers “are strong enough to dictate which products get into the market," agreed Rick Weisblatt, senior vice president for health services at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, the state’s second largest insurer.

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Remember his unhinged performance in this video from CPAC? Well, he continues to astound us all.

Once again Andrew Breitbart demonstrates that he's a major league smear merchant, who has no shame---only disgrace. Really, this one takes the cake.

Joan Walsh:

His "proof" that black congressmen lied about being called "nigger" is as useless as his ACORN clips. Andrew Breitbart isn't fit to spit-shine the shoes of civil rights hero and Congressman John Lewis. It's ludicrous to think that the right-wing bully believed he had the moral or political standing to call Lewis a liar, after Lewis and two other black congressmen reported they were called "nigger" by tea partiers during the healthcare reform vote March 20. Lewis's word on the confrontation is good enough for me.

Now comes news that Breitbart is the liar – or at least the misleader. Video he's been peddling to "prove" the congressmen were not called the N-word was actually after the slurs occurred. As a friend notes, "It's like running video of the Twin Towers on 9/10 to prove 9/11 didn't happen." Of course the videos Breitbart peddled to claim ACORN helped a supposed pimp and prostitute set up a child-prostitution ring have also been found misleading, at best. The California Attorney General's review said they were "severely edited" and in fact "showed no violation of the law." New York authorities concluded the same thing.

AP has the full scoop.

A reconstruction of the events shows that the conservative challenges largely sprang from a mislabeled video that was shot later in the day.

Breitbart posted two columns on his Web site saying the claims were fabricated. Both led with a 48-second YouTube video showing Lewis, Carson, other Congressional Black Caucus members and staffers leaving the Capitol. Some of the group were videotaping the booing crowd.

Breitbart asked why the epithet was not captured by the black lawmakers' cameras, and why nobody reacted as if they had heard the slur. He also questioned whether the epithets could have been shouted by liberals planted in the crowd.

But the 48-second video was shot as the group was leaving the Capitol — at least one hour after Lewis, D-Ga., and Carson walked to the Capitol, which is when they said the slurs were used.

Questioned about using a video on his Web site from the wrong moment, Breitbart stood by his claim that the lawmakers were lying.

"I'm not saying the video was conclusive proof," he said.

AP also reports that Rep. Heath Shuler – a Blue Dog Democrat from North Carolina, no raving lefty – says he heard the slurs too.

That's four congressmen vs. Breitbart and his tea-party bullies. Which story do you believe?

He says his videos aren't conclusive proof on his site. Really, you Richard Nixon wannabe. Then WTF are they on your site for you?

I met with Barney Frank last week and he backed up the claims of hatred that happened to him and told me that he was indeed called a faggot.

Hey Andrew, bring over the 100K to my house. We have mutual friends that can set it up. I'm here waiting to collect it and I'll deliver the money to John Lewis.

James O'Keefe has a good mentor. doesn't he?

Digby continues with more acts of racism:

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You don't suppose they're doing this for political reasons, do you?

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has a message for all the attorneys general and Republican lawmakers who are threatening lawsuits and claiming that an individual mandate for insurance coverage is unconstitutional: You don't have to abide by it -- just set up your own plan.

The Oregon Democrat isn't inviting opponents to defy the newly-enacted health care law. Instead, he's pointing out a provision in the bill that makes moot the argument over the legality of the individual mandate.

Speaking to the Huffington Post on Tuesday, Wyden discussed -- for one of the first times in public -- legislative language he authored which "allows a state to go out and do its own bill, including having no individual mandate."

It's called the "Empowering States to be Innovative" amendment. And it would, quite literally, give states the right to set up their own health care system -- with or without an individual mandate or, for that matter, with or without a public option -- provided that, as Wyden puts it, "they can meet the coverage requirements of the bill."

"Why don't you use the waiver provision to let you go set up your own plan?" the senator asked those who threaten health-care-related lawsuits. "Why would you just say you are going to sue everybody, when this bill gives you the authority and the legal counsel is on record as saying you can do it without an individual mandate?"

Jon Walker at FDL accuses Wyden of being disingenuous:

This is not accurate. You see, the problem is that the individual mandate starts in 2014, but states can’t get a waiver to try a different system, potentially one without an individual mandate, until 2017. So, there is nothing states can do to stop the individual mandate from being in effect for at least three years.

Whether you agree with an individual mandate or not, it is just wrong to say people shouldn’t complain because, at some point in the future, they might possibly have a way for states to opt out of it. If the state waiver started in 2014, Wyden’s argument would be perfectly valid, but as the law currently stands, his statement is pure baloney.

Wyden also seems to be glossing over the serious problem of system entrenchment. While it would be easy for a state to experiment with a new health care system in 2014 if they could get a waiver right away, trying to start a new system in 2017 would be much more difficult. The law requires them to put all the effort into setting up this exchange system. Expecting a state to start all over by uprooting this new system and putting up a whole different system after only three years is a huge hurdle.

Obviously, Wyden's provision wasn't meant to make it easy for states to opt out. But it does make it possible, and that's probably all it needs to do to meet any legal challenges.

As to motive? My guess is, they probably did it this way to hit their CBO targets.

If the Republicans were operating in good faith, it would be a lot simpler to consider reconciliation amendments like the one Jon suggests. Instead, they're doing what they do best: obstructing the process. No no no!

Here's something I didn't know:

A couple of hours after President Obama signed the health-care bill, an elated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with a group of columnists and commentators, issuing a warning to insurance companies and offering a surprising view of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Asked if insurance companies might raise their rates on health coverage and blame the increases on the new health-care bill, Pelosi said that the insurance companies should be aware that they’re not “automatically included” in the new health exchanges the bill creates.

“Unless they do the right thing, they’re not going in,” she said. “They will be relinquishing the possibility of having taxpayer-subsidized consumers in the exchange,” she said.

Under the new law, the health exchanges Pelosi referred to will be created in 2014. By pulling customers together, they will give individuals and companies a better chance of bargaining when they buy health insurance. Because the exchanges are expected to serve millions of new customers, insurance companies will want to be part of them.