Health-Care Lawsuits "Unlikely to Succeed"

Read about it here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6v6tBADeB3k&pos=9

"This claim of power by Congress under the commerce clause goes beyond any claim that has been upheld by the Supreme Court in the past," Barnett said in a phone interview. "Congress has never mandated that private individuals enter into a contract with a private company."

Barnett drew a distinction between the health-insurance mandate and laws compelling the purchase of auto insurance. Such regulations are enacted by states, not the federal government, and regulate the act of choosing to drive, he said.

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I just wanted to note that I am not alone in recognizing that there is something very odd about this new mandate. What I find kind of funny is that I am on the side of the naysayers in this regard even though I actually support health care reform that would ultimately be even more far-reaching than anything they could ideologically tolerate.

I support at minimum a public option. I would prefer a single payer system. When I dream of things that will never happen I truly want a national health service.

But this particular issue puts me on the side of the GOP naysayers because I think this supposed "health care reform" that we've been given is actually just a big fucking corporate giveaway. Cost containment is nowhere to be found. Millions will continue to go uncovered altogether.

This bill is still a sham.

We Supposedly Have "Health Care Reform" (a.k.a. More Corporate Giveaways!)

Jane Hamsher has become one of the more studied and thoughtful voices on all things political, and especially on "health care reform." Here's a small quote:

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FDL Statement on the Passage of the Health Care Bill
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/22/fdl-statement-on-the-passage-of-the-health-care-bill/

But this is not health care reform, and the task of providing health care that Americans can afford is still before us. Too much was sacrificed to corporate interests in the sausage-making process. Rather than address the fundamental flaws in our health care system, we applied a giant band-aid. This health care bill does not come close to doing all that needs to be done to meet the needs of our citizens and our businesses as we retool our economy for the 21st century.

...(skipped bit)...Never before has the government mandated that its citizens pay directly to private corporations almost as much as they do in federal taxes, especially when those corporations have been granted unregulated monopolies.

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Her whole statement is worthy of a deep reading.

One fundamental thing that has to be observed is that Obama, and the whole Democratic party with him, have utterly caved to corporate interests. As it now stands, this "health care reform" is possibly the biggest corporate giveaway in U.S. history! "Health care reform" now competes with the other historic corporate giveaway that was recently called TARP and a whole host of other things when we bailed out the banks and Wall Street. Don't our public servants ever tire of giving money away to corporate welfare queens?

"Heath care reform" must now be placed in quotes because it is so far from the ordinary meaning of that phrase.

But I have a very slender hope for "health care reform." I believe that this kind of legal requirement to contract with a private health insurance company may very well not pass Constitutional scrutiny. Why not?

Well, let's consider the most obvious parallel: automobile liability insurance as is demanded of many motorists throughout the union. The main thing to know about automobile liability insurance is that you don't need it if you don't drive. No one can arbitrarily force you to buy it. You trigger the requirement by the intent to drive. So, if you want to drive, you need automobile liability insurance. Some states even offer their own insurance.

The requirement to purchase health care insurance under our new "health care reform" is a simple legal requirement: you do it because it is now required. There is no trigger - you don't have to want something special to require it. You simply have to get it. And right now that means buying it from a private corporate entity. You are now legally required by virtue of being alive and a U.S. citizen to contract with a private, significantly unregulated, monopolistic corporate entity to buy health care insurance.

Yeah, that may not fly.

And therein lies my hope! The fact that it probably won't pass muster means that the legal requirement as it stands will fail. When it fails the most likely remedy is to require you to buy into a government run scheme that will offer the same protection. Something like single payer.

No one has yet won any significant legal challenge to the notion that the government can make you pay a tax for the benefits it provides to everyone as a whole.

So, I don't think they can make you buy it from a corporation, but I do think they can make you buy it from the government itself. They'll just call it a tax.

Health Care Reform Bill Isn't Real Reform

I'm just going to give this link to Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake:

Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/19/fact-sheet-the-truth-about-the-health-care-bill/

This bill sucks fat cock in hell. I hope it doesn't pass. The Democrats continue on their merry course toward political suicide because they are blissfully unaware of what precisely they were voted into office to accomplish. When they fail to accomplish it, the payback is going to be so severe the sound of the blow will echo down the centuries.

More cynically I have to accept that the Democrats know exactly what they are doing and just don't care. Because...

They got theirs. Fuck You.

Just like the GOP.

Be Clear: The Buck Stops at the Desk of the White House "House Negro"

There is no "news," only opinions about possible facts. So I don't know much, but I still have my own opinions loosely based on what I think the facts may be. If you read enough the facts bubble up to the top, just like the blood from meat when you are making a tasty stock before skimming off the scum. And scum is absolutely the right word for these facts...

I quote myself from May 31, 2009 - Obama's been prez for about 4 months, and you should read the whole post but here's a small bit from it anyway:

......

http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-single-payer-universal-healthcare.html

Obama hasn't floated a plan of his own and despite his previous support for a single-payer plan he has refused to allow any such plan to be discussed at recent healthcare reform negotiations. His claimed deadline may reflect the political realities of congressional elections in 2010, but it is also defeatist and melodramatic. Where was the forewarning on this? Now everyone is supposed to immediately jump in support of whatever Obama decides his plan will be even though he has refused to state just what in the hell it is? And the single-payer option is off the table? And it's now or never? By 1 August 2009?

He doesn't seem very hopeful, does he?

Obama is carefully orchestrating all of the reasons why any healthcare reform will prove impossible. And despite whatever Obama or any other Democrat may say of it in the future - they are intentionally dropping the ball on this reform issue because they lack both the leadership and the courage to do the right thing. Cowards all!

Let me float some ideas of my own with you...

Access to healthcare when you need it is a right and not a privilege. No one should be bankrupted by the vagaries of fate or accidental misfortunes concerning their health.

There is no reason to include the health insurance industry in any negotiations about healthcare reform. Why not? Because the health insurance industry is the problem and the source of waste that needs to be corrected.

Any plan that mandates that citizens must buy insurance from private insurers is a giveaway just like mandatory auto liability insurance. And the waste and enormous expense of healthcare will continue to escalate under such a reworked version of the status quo.

Our political representatives aren't going to do what's right because they fear the health insurance industry more than they fear you, the electorate. You are going to have to make them fear your displeasure more instead.

......

Then back in August I decided that this was all just distracting theater that would amount to nothing:

......

http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/08/glenn-greenwald-great-minds-think-alike.html

Given Obama's lackluster negotiating style it's hard to imagine any other result was intended. Obama has broken promises. He has given away the store for 2% with big pharma behind closed doors. Neither single-payer nor the "public option" was ever given serious play. It all seems so obvious now.

Greenwald goes on to say some "pie in the sky" shit as if things might still turn out alright, but you'll have to forgive me if I remain a cynical realist. The plan was to fail. If we pull success from defeat, I will NOT be crediting Obama for it. If success occurs it will be because torches and pitchforks were the next logical negotiating tactic.

It remains the assertion of this blog that the threat of violence is a transformative force and that's what Jefferson really intended by it all along. The fucker lived to the ripe age of 83, and that's obviously not because he was constantly spoiling for a fight. However, he did stand ready to take certain things all the way if he absolutely had to. There is a difference...

Cynic that I am, I observe that this protracted health care reform "dog and pony show" has also served the function of distracting all and sundry from the perhaps just as meaningful fleecing of the American Taxpayer when it comes to the bank bailouts - without meaningful oversight and a now broke FDIC - and the utter lack of Wall Street reform. The economic bubble just might get reinflated and all of these problems passed off to the next biggest fool after Obama.

Fantasy Sequence...

Interviewer to Obama: "Mr. President, what are your greatest accomplishments since you took office?

Prez Obama: "Well, first of all...wait, look over there!!!"

......

And that makes Obama a "House Negro" in my book, just like Brother Malcolm used to tell it:

http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/08/malcolm-x-house-negro-and-field-negro.html



......

I'm a field negro too.

And as a person of color myself, I don't feel like I have to excuse my use of terms like "negro." This blog is about social justice for all human beings. I have no qualms pointing out social injustices when I identify them nor naming our various tormentors for what they are. Some are the 1% themselves (who mainly sit at home and do nothing), and some are their helpers (who do all the work for their masters).

Be clear: Obama is a helper, even though he's supposed to be our man. But Obama's many campaign promises are turning out to have been empty rhetoric now entirely unsupported by the necessary follow-through actions.

So why tell you this shit again today? Well, there are more people that would appear to agree with me and the facts are starting to form a scum at the top of the human stew we have made of ourselves politically. And the "lefty" Democrats themselves are starting to get pissed off Obama too because Obama expects them to carry his water for him and maybe even commit political suicide too.

Digby says:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/best-we-can-do-by-digby-jim-vandehei.html

And Obama can say that you're getting a lot, but also saying that it "covers everyone," as if there's a big new benefit is a big stretch. Nothing will have changed on that count except changing the law to force people to buy private insurance if they don't get it from their employer. I guess you can call that progressive, but that doesn't make it so. In fact, mandating that all people pay money to a private interest isn't even conservative, free market or otherwise. It's some kind of weird corporatism that's very hard to square with the common good philosophy that Democrats supposedly espouse.

Nobody's "getting covered" here. After all, people are already "free" to buy private insurance and one must assume they have reasons for not doing it already. Whether those reasons are good or bad won't make a difference when they are suddenly forced to write big checks to Aetna or Blue Cross that they previously had decided they couldn't or didn't want to write. Indeed, it actually looks like the worst caricature of liberals: taking people's money against their will, saying it's for their own good.

And Greenwald has this stuff:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/16/white_house/index.html

The administration is getting the bill which they, more or less, wanted from the start -- the one that is a huge boon to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. And kudos to Russ Feingold for saying so:

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), among the most vocal supporters of the public option, said it would be unfair to blame Lieberman for its apparent demise. Feingold said that responsibility ultimately rests with President Barack Obama and he could have insisted on a higher standard for the legislation.

"This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don’t think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth," said Feingold. "I think they could have been higher. I certainly think a stronger bill would have been better in every respect."

Let's repeat that: "This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place."
...
It's also worth noting how completely antithetical claims are advanced to defend and excuse Obama. We've long heard -- from the most blindly loyal cheerleaders and from Emanuel himself -- that progressives should place their trust in the Obama White House to get this done the right way, that he's playing 11-dimensional chess when everyone else is playing checkers, that Obama is the Long Game Master who will always win. Then, when a bad bill is produced, the exact opposite claim is hauled out: it's not his fault because he's totally powerless, has nothing to do with this, and couldn't possibly have altered the outcome. From his defenders, he's instantaneously transformed from 11-dimensional chess Master to impotent, victimized bystander.

The supreme goal is to shield him from all blame. What gets said to accomplish that goal can -- and does -- radically change from day to day.

I love that "11-dimensional chess" stuff. Hilarious. Idiocy on the face of it. Obama's a genius! No wait, he's a victim! Well played, Blue Dogs...

Fucking A...

And here's Anthony Weiner (Congressman New York's 9th District) complaining about it all:

http://weiner.house.gov/news_display.aspx?id=1384

"Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge? It’s time for the President to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the President to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate."

There's more at HuffPo too (although I sometimes find them to merely follow the progressive polls - this time they know that we progressives are really and truly pissed off):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/16/democrats-lash-out-at-oba_n_394424.html

"The president keeps listening to Rahm Emanuel," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). "No public option, no extending Medicare to 55, no nothing, an excise tax, God!" he exclaimed about the Senate health care bill to Roll Call. "The insurance lobby is taking over."

What's it all mean? Obama is failing on every front. And there's no longer any reason to be distracted by this in name only attempt at "health care reform."

He meant to blow it. He is blowing it. It's blown.

Done deal.

They might still pull reconciliation out of their collective asses, but I doubt it. The oligarchy opposes it.

Health Care Reform H.R. 3962: Just Say No!

Kucinich voted no and here's why:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/08-0

John Geyman M.D.'s informed opinion of the bill last Thursday:
http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/11/05/health-care-reform-2009-no-bill-is-better-than-a-bad-bill/

Yeah, there are some useful tweaks to existing health care insurance here that should pass into law and I'm not opposed to every word of this bill or anything like that. But I am opposed to the mandate that exists to buy insurance from the private health insurers and I equally resent the fact that a fantastically robust Medicare for all style provision is entirely lacking in the bill. I am also pro-choice, so no joy there either.

I could give a fuck if this bill passes or not. I rather hope it does not. I'd frankly rather that the health care crisis get worse rather than to approve a measure so insubstantial that it is little more than a thinly disguised handout to the private health insurance industry by way of a mandate to buy health insurance. The working poor will not be able to spend 18-20% of their income on private health insurance in this way and I very much doubt that any subsidies will alleviate that crushing burden.

The mandate to buy insurance will not likely prove to be constitutional, in my opinion. It's one thing to tax an individual and then to provide public services in return; and it's quite another thing altogether to force anyone to contract with other private entities just because the federal legislature seems to think you should.

So, if this passes we're headed for a showdown on the issue of "freedom of contract" - because contained within the idea of the freedom of contract is the freedom to not contract at all.

What's in Play Right Now on Health Care Reform

Rachel Maddow provides an excellent explanation of what is in play right now. There is an enormous disconnect between what the government is calling the "public option" and what most people think is meant by that term. We have to be very careful that if we support health care reform at all, that we don't water it down so much that it is ultimately ineffective and thereby open to criticism as if we had actually given it a proper chance, when we perhaps really didn't.

This being the grotesque corporatist country that it is, I am not hopeful of meaningful reform. Reid is playing a bit of bait and switch here with his flam-flam description of what he has actually proposed.

Anthony Weiner Brings the Pain

A new study by Representative Anthony Weiner (D – Queens & Brooklyn), member of the Health Subcommittee and Co-Chair of the Caucus on the Middle Class, revealed that 151 members of the House and Senate currently receive government-funded; government-administered single-payer health care - Medicare.

On the list of recipients are 55 Republicans who have steadfastly opposed other Americans getting the public option, like the one they have chosen.

Weiner said, "Even in a town known for hypocrisy, this list of 55 Members of Congress deserve some sort of prize. They apparently think the public option is ok for them, but not anyone else."

http://weiner.house.gov/news_display.aspx?id=1364

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See the full 55 member list at the link above.

Truth is an Absolute Defense:Alan Grayson vs Conservative Talking Heads

This is really very interesting stuff. I am AMAZED at the AMAZEMENT shown by the conservative talking heads at the fact that it has taken this long for anyone to call them out on their endless bullshit, to play them in the same way they try to play others. They did not like it one bit. They want to keep nonsensical talking points before the public thereby accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Where were these talking heads when endless GOP members and other conservative talking heads reduced the political conversation to this level of bullshit? You know who I mean: Coulter, Limbaugh, Beck, Savage etc. - to a man, interchangeable mudslingers (Hey, I see an Adam's Apple, kay?!). And now all of a sudden they don't like it? Well, fuck them!

One of my favorite "teaching points" here would be the way the GOP operative tries to get back onto his talking points of tort reform and free market competition - as if resolving those matters would in any fucking way equal better health care for even one person. Despite the obvious corporatist whoring which obviously unites the GOP, they stay on point and never veer off track or play by another's team rhetorical strategies.

Political debate takes place in a sewer. There are no heroes except those that prevail and accomplish their goals. Anything else means fuck all.

Progressives need to learn that indulging the rhetoric of the other side makes for very bad sound bites. Don't listen. Don't play "fair." Speak! Make your point. Keep it short and sweet. Make no fucking apologies for what you want to say and for god's sake do not equivocate. Say what you mean and say it mean.

"I would like to apologize. I would like to apologize to the dead." - Alan Grayson

Democratic Super Majority + Limp Dick vs.Don't Get Sick + Don't Fuck = Epic Fail!

Here's a funny thing about health care reform: people die from lack of access to health care.

Oh wait, that's not funny - that's totally fucking frightening! But, you know, the Dems have it hard getting anything done since they have a super majority in congress.

This is what ultimately happened to health care reform, as depicted on "Late Show with David Letterman."

It's abstinence only, folks! Don't get sick. Don't fuck. We are under the thumb of the party of: NO!

As in "no empathy."

"It's not about the specifics - it's about wanting to oppose reform, wanting a political victory, wanting to undermine the president and the democratic majority."- Arianna Huffington 

Graft vs. Consumer Choice

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Arkansas "Democrats" Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Rep. Mike Ross - we come for you! Be the public servants your constituency demands of you or prepare to get your lives turned upside down as every crooked deal you have ever made is exposed to the daylight. The Walmart-ization of Arkansas is over. With their backs against the wall economically, the true ruling class of this country is finding its backbone. And you have made it so.

Stand tall or fall, motherfuckers!

Bob Cesca: The Most Nightmarish Health Care Reform Bill Ever

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-most-nightmarish-heal_b_281214.html

And the Baucus Plan doesn't offer a public insurance option.

So you're basically screwed if you have moral objections to being forced by the government to hand over a chunk of your monthly income to the same corporate criminals who heretofore have engaged in practices that can accurately be defined as death panel-ish: canceling the policies as soon as you get sick, denying claims, refusing to pay for life-saving procedures, or, as we read about this week, randomly hiking the premiums for 114,000 Michigan residents by around 30 percent effective immediately. If you happen to object to financing such corporate practices (past or present), there's no public option waiting for you in the Baucus Plan.

Instead, you would have to buy a private insurance policy or be penalized by the federal government like so:

Penalties for failing to get insurance would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level -- about $66,000 for a family of four -- would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.

Let me repeat this another way. Max Baucus wants to force us to hand over billions of dollars in free cash to the private health insurance cartels and if we refuse, we'll be fined thousands of dollars if we object to paying these mafia-style tributes to Baucus' dons.

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I'm glad I am not the only one to notice these significant defects in anything currently being offered, with the notable exception of HR676 (which hasn't any traction at the moment).

I think there are legal challenges waiting to be made on this kind of mandate. It's one thing to trigger having to buy liability insurance by wanting to drive a car; it's quite another to be forced to hand over hard-earned money to a private industry just for being alive and able to pay.

Cenk Uygur: The Problem with Obama's Speech

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-problem-with-obamas-s_b_281665.html

In his analysis, Uygur cites this portion of the speech:

Obama: It is only one part of my plan, and should not be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles. To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end - and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.

What has to be noticed by anyone actually looking at those words is that Obama is pointedly re-framing health care reform as merely correcting the abuses of the private insurance industry. As if we all wanted private health insurance - NOT!

Obama is really out to lunch on this one. I NEVER wanted a mere band-aid on private health insurance. I don't want to fix it. I don't want to buy it. I don't want to be forced to buy it or face a fine. I don't want the private health insurance industry to gain millions of new customers that can't afford their weak tea bullshit.

Seriously, what the fuck is this? If that's Obama-care, he can fucking keep it.

Single-payer or nothing. Truly.

Let's put the U.S. health insurance industry in its grave.

Kucinich Opposed

From his website:
http://kucinich.us/index.php

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The President's health care policy speech was brilliant but when you get into the details another picture emerges. Unfortunately, at this point, the proposal outlined last night is the ultimate corporate giveaway. It's not health care, it’s insurance care. As many as thirty million new customers for an insurance industry which makes money not providing health care. The only way this country will see true health is by investing in real health care. That is the essence of HR676, the single payer bill.

The President opened his speech speaking of how we have solved the economic crisis - how? By rewarding those who caused the crash! Is this the way we solve the health care crisis? Rewarding the insurance companies? Helping insurance and pharmaceutical stock to soar, propping up markets while skimping on health care? The very same system which caused the health care crisis is being rewarded with the guarantee of tens of millions of new customers mandated - by law - to have health care. The latest plan rewards the very companies that have denied treatment, denied care, denied drug coverage while their profits grow daily.

The only way this country will see true sustainable economic recovery is through investment in the real economy, priming the pump through job creation. The only way this country will see true health is by investing in real health care.

The "public option" has been relegated to insignificance. What we will now get is yet another "private option", not a public option, because single-payer is "off the table." We the people deserve better. We have been faced with general warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan - multi-trillion dollar bailouts for arms merchants, $12 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, bailouts to coal and nuclear industries, and now proposed huge subsidies for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. What's wrong with this picture? Everything!

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Yeah, that's how I saw it too. What a total dick Obama is turning out to be. Totally fucking useless.

Obama's Health Care Reform Speech 9 Sept. 2009

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This was more of the usual smooth-talking fluff.

The Good:

Obama: What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.

That's what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan - more security and stability.

Now, if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who don't currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange - a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It's how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it's time to give every American the same opportunity that we've given ourselves.

For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need. And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right. In the meantime, for those Americans who can't get insurance today because they have pre-existing medical conditions, we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin if you become seriously ill. This was a good idea when Senator John McCain proposed it in the campaign, it's a good idea now, and we should embrace it.

The Bad:

Obama: That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still cannot afford coverage, and 95% of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements. But we cannot have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees. Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part.

The "lie" part:

Obama: Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

A little later he also said this:

Obama: My health care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a "government takeover" of the entire health care system. As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly-sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare.

So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly - by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates.

And:

Obama: Add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years - less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration. Most of these costs will be paid for with money already being spent - but spent badly - in the existing health care system. The plan will not add to our deficit. The middle-class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term.

My thoughts:

The obvious intent is for the public offering to be floated as if it were meant to take over as a similar plan did in Canada. But, now the details...

One of the problems is the timing of it all. If this all happens 4 years from now, who's to say it won't be a political football for all of the time intervening between now and then? Might it be rescinded by a new president and a new congress four years hence? What's with the four years anyway - is Obama trying to get himself and his congress re-elected with this stuff?

And 5%? WTF? That will not be enough to have this thing take over. It will be too small and too weak.

We won't save on administrative overhead (i.e. paper pushing bullshit) because we will still have a kabillion private insurers biting back for every dollar. So the possible 30% savings that could be realized there is now gone.

I am very concerned about mandates. I am also concerned about penalties connected to a mandate. It's all too ambiguous. Too flimsy.

The last thing I want is to have to buy insurance from the same private insurance companies whose numerous acts of criminality are what necessitated a movement for health care reform in the first place. And what's the option again? Buy or pay a fine. Fuck that noise.

Matt Taibbi has neatly laid out how true reform was torpedoed from the first (see previous posts for links). David Sirota doesn't seem too impressed either, as is summed up at the end of a recent HuffPo piece:

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David Sirota on "Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/reviewing-president-rahm_b_281559.html

I mean, I seem to remember an election just a few months ago that resulted in a Democratic president, and huge Democratic majorities in Congress - and I seem to remember there was a Barack Obama who only a short while ago said geting those electoral results was the only obstacle to a full-on single payer health care system, much less a weakened public option. But again, I guess it's just too bad that after that election, President Emanuel now rules America.

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To echo Sirota's and Taibbi's many excellent points along the same lines: who are the Democrats attempting to appease? They own congress and the oval office. They could just ram through whatever the fuck they like. But no, first it has to be watered down into meaningless pap.

Okay, so maybe Obama's now only 95% Cheney as per Greg Palast's equation.

Taibbi: Sick & Wrong Update

Rolling Stone has updated their site with the full text here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong
or print version:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/print
or download this digest-sized PDF version:
http://jump.fm/HEYHH

Mass Media Heroes: Maddow, Olbermann, Franken

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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That's right, Obama. We'll fucking replace your cowardly ass.

Notice how Franken actually talks sensibly to a mob of people opposing his views. I do see a candidate as beholden to the will of his constituency, but I do also agree that they must vote in a candidate that is capable of discerning what that "will" actually happens to be. You could almost see that woman's jaw drop in the clip, but Franken's response is spot on. One could almost hear his side bar thoughts: "I am doing the will of the 80%, you tea-bagger types are so egregiously misinformed that you don't actually have either a reasoned nor a coherent viewpoint that anyone could actually represent."

The other day on HuffPo a wingnut posted something like:
"No socialized medicine! Don't touch my Medicare!"

Well, which way do you want it, buddy? Catch a fucking clue.

A Fool and His Health Insurance Money

Think you've got health insurance? Rescission could leave you broke and sick

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/09/02/think-youve-got-health-insurance-better-double-check-and-be/

The practice is "rescission": an insurance-industry procedure of retroactively canceling approved health-insurance policies obtained in the individual market after the policyholders get sick and file large medical claims.

Rescissions are often used to stop fraud on the part of enrollees who have misrepresented their health histories to obtain coverage. But consumer advocates say that insurance companies are driven by profit to revoke coverage based on even inconsequential discrepancies between the application and the medical record. Many insurers even pay employee bonuses for meeting a cancellation quota and for the amount of money saved.

"This amounts to post-claims underwriting," says healthcare advocate Jerry Flannagan of Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit consumer education and advocacy group. "They're supposed to look at your medical records ahead of time -- but once they offer the coverage, you should be able to rely on it."

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I know a solution for this: single-payer universal health care. You know, because it makes sense and is a good value...

Value for the Money

Author David Sedaris shares a personal anecdote about healthcare

http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/2009/08/19/author-david-sedaris-shares-a-personal-anecdote-about-healthcare/

Allow me to answer with kidney stones. I had my first one at the age of 34. At the time I was living in New York, and had no health insurance. Never in my life had I experienced such pain, but I couldn't afford to go to the hospital, and so I passed it at home, not knowing until the end what it actually was. (I thought I was delivering Satan's baby through my penis.)

I had my second kidney stone seven years later, in Paris. It was ten o'clock in the morning, and after looking at my options in the phone book, I took the metro to a hospital in the 15th. Two minutes after walking through the door, I was in a private room. Delicious, mind-numbing drugs were delivered to my blood stream by way of a tube and life was beautiful. I was in the hospital for four hours, and as I was leaving, I asked the receptionist how I was supposed to pay.

“Oh,” she said, “We'll send you a statement.”
“But you never even asked me my name.”
“Really?”

A few weeks later I got a bill for the equivalent of seventy dollars, this because I'm not a French citizen, and am therefore not entitled to free care.

I got my third kidney stone a few months ago, while on a lecture tour of the United States. The hospital I went to was in Westchester county and the service was outstanding. Maybe I arrived at the slowest time, but, like in France, I was waited on immediately, and the doctor and nurses could not have been more pleasant. Again I was there for four hours, though this time the bill came to $5,800. Not including medicine.

I'm completely fascinated by the health care debate going on in the United States, especially by posters of Obama with a little mustache drawn on his upper lip. Is that what Hitler is really known for, his health care plan? To quote Bill Maher, “I haven't seen this many pissed off old white people since they canceled, “Murder She Wrote.”

Now I live in England. I've just been granted Indefinite Leave To Remain, which allows me access to the NHS.

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The only way to prefer what we do in the U.S. is if you are actually insane. I'm a fiscal conservative so I like to get my money's worth with everything. You tell me:

$70 vs $5,800+

Rachel Maddow on Health Care Reform Politics

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Okay. So the GOP doesn't really want pizza and we should therefore not bother to negotiate with them since we can bypass anything they do via reconciliation, right? Alright, Hawaiian it is...

Glenn Greenwald: Great Minds Think Alike?

Previously I stated this:

Obama is carefully orchestrating all of the reasons why any healthcare reform will prove impossible. And despite whatever Obama or any other Democrat may say of it in the future - they are intentionally dropping the ball on this reform issue because they lack both the leadership and the courage to do the right thing. Cowards all!

And today I will go one step further: Obama is intentionally tanking everything. Every fucking thing a progressive might want is being deep-sixed. Obama is an owned man - a "house negro" as Malcolm X used to speak of them. Obama licks the hands of his corporate masters. If they feel bad, Obama feels bad too. Obama doesn't stand for hope unless it's false hope. Obama does not represent change anyone can believe in unless its change for the worse.

Here's the deal: The Dems think they can make people vote for them again in 2010 if they can keep people on the hook on the progressive issues of the day. As I said in early July:

Do you know how the GOP keeps promising the judgmental asshole bottom-feeders in the party that someday they really will outlaw abortion when everyone with any sense knows that they will never do that very thing because it is a) politically impossible and b) extremely useful as an issue to stir the support of their psychotically christian base?

I think healthcare reform and peace movements operate the exact same way in the Democratic party. The Democrats will never go against the monied interests of the health insurers nor big pharma. It just ain't gonna happen. And the Democrats are regularly greased by the military industrial complex too. No hope there either.

The Dems think we all have a big fucking "L" for loser imprinted on our foreheads and that they can keep riding our dashed political aspirations to victory each and every election. They mean for us to keep hoping with no payoff.

http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-obama-intends-to-fail.html

Quoting myself:
http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-single-payer-universal-healthcare.html

And again:
http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/07/politics.html

Now, the brilliant Glenn Greenwald is one long-winded motherfucker. His blog entries read almost like legal briefs in their determined attempt to refute all possible alternative viewpoints before Greenwald offers up his own opinion for examination. In his most recent blog he would seem to be on the exact same track I have been on for a while now:

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Over the past decade, the Democratic Party has specialized in offering up one excuse after the next for its collective failures. During the early Bush years, the excuse was that they endorsed Bush policies because his popularity and post-9/11 hysteria made it politically unwise to oppose him. In later Bush years when his popularity plummeted, the excuse was that Democrats were in the minority and could do nothing. After 2006 when they won a Congressional majority, the excuse was that Bush still controlled the White House and had veto power. After 2008 when a Democrat won the White House, the excuse was that Republicans could filibuster.

Now that they have a filibuster-proof majority, a huge margin in the House and the White House, the excuses continue unabated, as Democrats are now on the verge of jettisoning one of the most significant attractions for progressives to the Obama campaign -- active government involvement in the health insurance market. The excuses for "compromising" are cascading more rapidly than ever: We need Republican support to ensure it's bipartisan. The Blue Dogs won't go along with what we want. Centrist Senators will filibuster. There are similar excuses being made to defend Obama from accusations that he deserves some of the blame for the failure of the "public option."

...I'm really surprised that there's anyone...who actually believes this -- that the Obama White House is merely an impotent, passive observer of what the Democrats in Congress do and can't be expected to do anything to secure votes for approval of the health care bill it favors. As the leader of his party, the President commands a vast infrastructure on which incumbent members of Congress rely for re-election. His popularity among Democrats vests him numerous options to punish non-compliant Democrats. And Rahm Emanuel built his career on controlling the machinations within Congress. The very idea that Obama, Emanuel and company are just sitting back, helplessly watching as Max Baucus, Kent Conrad and the Blue Dogs (Rahm's creation) destroy their health care legislation, is absurd on its face.

...The attempt to attract GOP support was the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill. But -- given the impossibility of achieving that goal -- isn't it fairly obvious that a desire for GOP support wasn't really the reason the Democrats were constantly watering down their own bill? Given the White House's central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama's clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm's protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists "centrists," it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the "public option" jettisoned, because that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.

The Obama White House isn't sitting impotently by while Democratic Senators shove a bad bill down its throat. This is the bill because this is the bill which Democratic leaders are happy to have. It's the bill they believe in. As important, by giving the insurance and pharmaceutical industries most everything they want, it ensures that the GOP doesn't become the repository for the largesse of those industries (and, converesly, that the Democratic Party retains that status).

This is how things always work. The industry interests which own and control our government always get their way. When is the last time they didn't? The "public option" was something that was designed to excite and placate progressives (who gave up from the start on a single-payer approach) -- and the vast, vast majority of progressives (all but the most loyal Obama supporters) who are invested in this issue have been emphatic about how central a public option is to their support for health care reform. But it seems clear that the White House and key Democrats were always planning on negotiating it away in exchange for industry support. Isn't that how it always works in Washington? No matter how many Democrats are elected, no matter which party controls the levers of government, the same set of narrow monied interests and right-wing values dictate outcomes, even if it means running roughshod over the interests of ordinary citizens (securing lower costs and expanding coverage) and/or what large majorities want.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/19/obama/

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Given Obama's lackluster negotiating style it's hard to imagine any other result was intended. Obama has broken promises. He has given away the store for 2% with big pharma behind closed doors. Neither single-payer nor the "public option" was ever given serious play. It all seems so obvious now.

Greenwald goes on to say some "pie in the sky" shit as if things might still turn out alright, but you'll have to forgive me if I remain a cynical realist. The plan was to fail. If we pull success from defeat, I will NOT be crediting Obama for it. If success occurs it will be because torches and pitchforks were the next logical negotiating tactic.

It remains the assertion of this blog that the threat of violence is a transformative force and that's what Jefferson really intended by it all along. The fucker lived to the ripe age of 83, and that's obviously not because he was constantly spoiling for a fight. However, he did stand ready to take certain things all the way if he absolutely had to. There is a difference...

Cynic that I am, I observe that this protracted health care reform "dog and pony show" has also served the function of distracting all and sundry from the perhaps just as meaningful fleecing of the American Taxpayer when it comes to the bank bailouts - without meaningful oversight and a now broke FDIC - and the utter lack of Wall Street reform. The economic bubble just might get reinflated and all of these problems passed off to the next biggest fool after Obama.

Fantasy Sequence...

Interviewer to Obama: "Mr. President, what are your greatest accomplishments since you took office?

Prez Obama: "Well, first of all...wait, look over there!!!"