Evidently John Boehner is so incensed over that tanning tax in the Affordable Care Act that he's vowed to do everything within his power to stop the implementation of "Obamacare". His remarks came in the context of his reassurance that he really, really doesn't want to shut down the government, but then, there's that pesky health care law...

Of course, in a divided government, the likelihood of a government shutdown depends almost entirely on how flexible Republicans and Democrats are during negotiations over the budget and federal spending. So if Boehner's pursuit of "smaller, less costly, and more accountable government" is dramatically out of sync with President Obama's priorities (like implementing his health care law), a temporary shutdown may just be inevitable.

"I am committed to doing everything that I can do and our team can do to prevent Obamacare from being implemented," Boehner said. "When I say everything, I mean everything."

So that we're clear here, Boehner is prepared to shut down the entire federal government to prevent the following:

• Non-discriminatory coverage for all Americans (e.g., no more pre-existing conditions exclusions)
• Government assistance to make insurance costs affordable for individuals
• Coverage of children until they reach age 26
• Preventive care and wellness
• Elimination of lifetime and annual limits on coverage
• Expanded Medicaid coverage for the poor

These are just a few benefits under the Affordable Care Act. Whether or not you believe there was a better way to go with this, these are still very real, very important benefits, especially elimination of pre-existing conditions exclusions.

John Boehner has vowed to shut down the government to stop this from happening. The entire government. He justifies it this way:

"Our goal is to have a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government here in Washington, DC," Boehner told reporters. "Our goal is not to shut down the government."

A less costly government? Pretty laughable coming from the man who wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent at a greater cost than the entire 10-year bill for "Obamacare".

Democrats have to stop running from the Affordable Care Act and own it, straight up. On September 23rd -- 7 days from now-- insurers will no longer be able to terminate policies when people get sick. They'll have to cover emergency services without prior authorizations that leave patients in ER hallways. Women will have access to OB/GYN care without a referral from a primary doctor. Children under the age of 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions. Lifetime dollar limits are a thing of the past, policies cannot be rescinded, and preventive health coverage is included at no additional cost.

These are meaningful to many, many people. Democrats need to start taking ownership of this instead of letting John Boehner re-prioritize tax cuts for the rich as a more important agenda item.

This is exactly why a national single-payer health care plan (or its European equivalent) is needed. We could actually afford to treat everyone's conditions with the massive savings we'd realize if we move from a profit-driven health insurance system.

The Massachusetts plan is struggling because it's nothing more than an insurance co-op - something that keeps paying the middleman:

Tens of thousands of Massachusetts patients who grapple with some of the most intractable mental health problems - eating disorders, addictions, autism, and post-traumatic stress - should face fewer barriers to treatment under a state law that went into effect July 1. But the cost of the state’s latest healthcare expansion remains an open question.

The new law, which lifts limits on care, adds the four mental health disorders to nine other common psychiatric conditions that health insurers must cover as they do physical ailments. That means, for example, that a drug addict who previously would have been denied treatment after 24 outpatient sessions and a total of 60 days in a hospital will now get as much care as medically needed to tame an addiction.

While patient advocates hailed the expansion of mental health assistance, the people who will pay the bills - insurers and companies that provide health coverage to their workers - greeted the law with uncertainty, especially about its cost.

The expansion illustrates two of the most pressing issues in healthcare today: equality for mental health services and the price tag for expanding medical care.

“Any step we take that breaks down this artificial divide that exists between mental illness and physical health is a big step,’’ said Matt Noyes, a mental health advocate at Health Care for All, a Massachusetts consumer group.

Medical spending is under scrutiny from Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill, and the cost of expanding mental health coverage, known as “mental health parity,’’ is a matter of disagreement.

Supporters of the change, citing the experience of other states, said they expect parity will add less than 1 percent to overall healthcare costs, while easing the stigma of mental illness.

Insurers’ overall spending in Massachusetts, estimated at about $13 billion a year, will increase by $13 million to $39 million a year because of the new law, according to regulators’ calculations.

But a coalition of employer and insurance groups contends that the costs are likely to be significantly higher. Insurers said that the state’s calculations substantially underestimate the costs. They have not, however, come up with their own estimates.

Huffington Post:

Ken Silverstein of Harper's has discovered that Washington Post columnist David Broder has been spending time recently on the business lecture circuit. Among the groups to which he's spoken in the past few years are the National Association of Manufacturers, the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors, the American Council for Capital Formation, and an organization of health insurance companies.

As Silverstein points out, this is especially notable because Broder's spent years criticizing journalists who do this as being "greedy" and appearing to be "part of the establishment and therefore part of the problem." Silverstein has yet to receive a response from Broder about how much he's been paid for these speeches, although he did find that Broder seems to have received $12,000 for a 2006 talk.

And this behavior is nothing new from Broder. For decades his shtick has been to posture as an independent-minded guardian of the DC press corps' conscience, while engaging in exactly the kind of intellectually corrupt Washington insider-dom he publicly deplores. In fact, he's so shameless it almost makes you feel bad for everyone there with him in the DC muck. They may be all be whores, but Broder -- whenever he's on break from servicing the clientele -- makes the rest of the hookers listen to pious sermons about the evils of prostitution.*

What's unclear is whether Broder is deeply devious, or suffers from the kind of anti-self awareness usually associated only with severe brain damage. Perhaps it's the latter, and he believes those nice gentlemen are leaving the envelopes of cash on the dresser because he and they share a deep emotional connection.

Whatever the case, here's a little-known but especially hilarious example of Broder at his most Broder-iffic. Read on...

A friend writes..."As a guy who has sung commercials for Dodge, Coors, Bud, Busch, Wrigley's, Coke, Pepsi, Toyota, Insurance companies, cereal, and on and on...this isn't really exaggerated. The stuff coming out of the control booth is just like this." The Santa Sessions:

hi, kids, it's friday at the round up, and you know what that means! it's toon time!! (it is, at least, when skippy the bush kangaroo is in charge!)

ted rall takes a look at the war on terror scorecard, while tom tomorrow wonders about some things. get your war on is strangely intrigued by joe lieberman, and minimum security is going green (as in, frogs).

continuing with this week's economic questions, ampersand of alas, a blog asks, how's your insurance coverage? and august j. pollack asks, hows tom delay's plan to defeat illegal immigration?

elayne riggs doesn't write political toons, but she throws parties for editors of 'comicmix'. and likesunday has a new take on pinky and the brain. and of course, we all remember jon swift's wonderful deconstruction of the rightist toon day by day.

a town called dobson prefers the x-games to baseball. dave the rave prefers penguins. mapaghimagsik would prefer not to have a blue dog.  and skippy's own brett penrose feels bad for sen. ted stevens.

photoshop toons is da bomb! republic of sestakastan explains how the new fisa rules got passed, and we all love this golden oldie from the poor man institute, keyboard kommando komiks!

that's all for now, kids! be sure to send your tips to skippybkroo at aol dot com, in blogtopia, and yes, i coined that phrase!

Yahoo News (h/t NonnyMouse)

Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed when floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damages, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The case could affect thousands of rebuilding residents and business owners in Louisiana. Robert Hartwig, chief economist at the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute in New York, said in June that a ruling against the industry could have cost insurers $1 billion.[..]

The decision overturns a ruling by U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr., who in November sided with policyholders arguing that language excluding water damage from some of their insurance policies was ambiguous.

Duval said the policies did not distinguish between floods caused by an act of God - such as excessive rainfall - and floods caused by an act of man, which would include the levee breaches following Katrina's landfall.

But the appeals panel concluded that "even if the plaintiffs can prove that the levees were negligently designed, constructed, or maintained and that the breaches were due to this negligence, the flood exclusions in the plaintiffs' policies unambiguously preclude their recovery."

God forbid the insurance agencies have to pay out for these people with devastating losses.

 Update: Download | play Download | play

It seems the money-men don't want Moore anywhere near them at the NYSE. Michael Moore went down to Wall Street to ask people to divest from health insurance companies and guess what happened? He couldn't get in...CNBC's Maria Bartiromo looks pretty flustered when Moore asks her if any other guest had ever been denied access with her before?

 Moore: They'll let me on the floor tomorrow?

Bartiromo: We don't have the permission...(stumbling)...to do that...

Moore: Has anyone been denied with you as a guest?

Bartiromo: Ummm, hey...let's talk about health care a second....

I could be wrong, but the decision on this could create a precedent that may have a big impact health insurance companies all over the US as well as potentially on the design of a universal health care program in the US. Queens Chronicle: (h/t Flint)

United Health Group, its United HealthCare and Oxford subsidiaries and several United and Oxford executives, including former United CEO William Maguire, are accused of violating the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in a law suit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, by Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and Flushing Hospital Medical Center.

The hospitals, in their RICO suit, accuse United Health Group and United HealthCare and other subsidiaries of implementing a "rogue business plan" on a "national level" that, for more than three years, "has contributed to UHG's profits, which, in turn, have been utilized in attempts to justify outlandish compensation to Maguire and to enhance the value of illegally backdated options for UHG stock" which were given to Maguire, other UHG senior executives and to managers of its business units.
[..]David Rosen, president and CEO of both hospitals, said: "UHG, United and Oxford have clearly established and refined a pattern of deceitful practices and myriad means to improperly retain money they owe to service providers, and to arbitrarily and unjustifiably deny payment for their members' medical services under their plans.

LA Times : (h/t NonnyMouse)

Scott Svonkin joined the Los Angeles County Commission on Insurance 10 years ago because he was concerned about an emerging problem: people losing health coverage. Since then, the ranks of uninsured Americans have swelled to more than 46 million.

Svonkin almost became one of them.

It happened after he left a comfortable government job as a legislative chief of staff to start his own marketing and public affairs consulting business. Late last year he started shopping around for health insurance for himself, his expectant wife and his young daughter.

He knew he'd pay more without an employer picking up most of the tab. And he knew he'd have to fill out a medical questionnaire because, unlike job-based coverage, individual insurance in California is contingent on an applicant's health. But that didn't concern him because, he said, "I'm healthy as a horse, never smoked and have had no major surgery."

As it turned out, Svonkin was rejected by not just one but three of California's biggest health insurers, which cited his history of asthma, among other things.

"I couldn't buy it at any price," said Svonkin, 40, who lives in Sherman Oaks. "I remember thinking, 'This can't be happening to me.' "

Svonkin is part of what experts say is a largely hidden aspect of the nation's health insurance crisis: the uninsurables, people whom insurance companies won't touch, even though they can afford to pay high premiums. Some, such as Svonkin, pay steep rates for lean coverage from the state's high-risk insurance pool. Others simply go without. Read on...

A Catholic, West Indian black Republican wonders: Why Am I (Still) A Republican?

Hey General Honore? You work for us. So fuck you, and answer the goddamned questions.

The Bulldog Manifesto convincingly rebuts Ann Coulter's scurrilous charge that NYC would immediately surrender to terrorists.

Sick and tired of Hannity's habitual lying? AD NAUSEA has a solution.

Desperate Times in Pascagoula: The Attorney General for the State of Mississippi, Jim Hood, has filed a lawsuit against several insurance companies...
The Bulldog Manifesto convincingly rebuts Ann Coulter's scurrilous charge that NYC would immediately surrender to terrorists.

Sick and tired of Hannity's habitual lying? AD NAUSEA has a solution.

'Bush appoints yet another unqualified crony to a critically important Homeland Security position. DC Media Girl ponders the choice...." concerns the continuing hackery at the WH in the appointment of Myers' daughter to that imporatnt immigration gig.

Desperate Times in Pascagoula: The Attorney General for the State of Mississippi, Jim Hood, has filed a lawsuit against several insurance companies..