Rep. Anthony Weiner - the GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry

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The Insurance Industry Continues Its SCAM

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Bill Moyers on Democrats and Healthcare

This has been making the rounds of the blogosphere the past week. I think it is a story that deserves to be spread widely that’s why I am posting it here.

Check out Health Care Reporting: Bill Moyers Shows How It’s Done

Check out Bill Moyers on the health care debate, Democrats, and Afghanistan

The key quote:

“MOYERS: I don’t think the problem is the Republicans . . . .The problem is the Democratic Party. This is a party that has told its progressives -- who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform -- to sit down and shut up. That’s what Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff at the White House, in effect told progressives who stood up as a unit in Congress and said: "no public insurance option, no health care reform."

And I think the reason for that is -- in the time since I was there, 40 years ago, the Democratic Part has become like the Republican Party, deeply influenced by corporate money. I think Rahm Emanuel, who is a clever politician, understands that the money for Obama’s re-election will come from the health care industry, from the drug industry, from Wall Street. And so he’s a corporate Democrat who is determined that there won’t be something in this legislation that will turn off these interests. . . .

Money in politics -- you’ve had in the last 30 years, money has flooded politics . .. the Supreme Court saying "money is free speech." It goes back to the efforts in the 19th Century to give corporations the right of personhood -- so if you as a citizen have the right to donate to campaigns, then so do corporations. Money has flowed in such a flood into both parties that the Democratic Party gets a lot of its support from the very interests that -- when the Republicans are in power -- financially support the Republicans.

You really have essentially -- except for the progressives on the left of the Democratic Party – you really have two corporate parties who in their own way and their own time are serving the interests of basically a narrow set of economic interests in the country -- who, as Glenn Greenwald, who is a great analyst and journalist, wrote just this week: these narrow interests seem to win, determine the outcomes, no matter how many Democrats are elected, no matter who has their hands on the levers of powers, these narrow interests determine the outcomes in Washington, even when they have to run roughshod over the interests of ordinary Americans. I’m sad to say that has happened to the Democratic Party.”

Bill Moyers in the Bill Maher Show
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

And here are links to the Bill Moyers Journal

Money Driven Medicine
Part 1
Part 2

Sirota on the Washington Power Dynamic in the Healthcare Fight

Writer and political pundit David Sirota wrote an extremely important piece of political analysis over at the Open Left blog which deserves to be read far and wide by people interested in the healthcare battle and how it can potentially tilt the power dynamics in Washington. The recent outpouring of outrage and organizing on the Left in support of a public option in healthcare reform is having an effect where Progressives are finally flexing their political muscle and is on the verge of success.

Sirota writes:

Polls show local Democratic dissatisfaction with easily primary-able Democrats, putting huge pressure on those Democrats to get in line; the Paul Krugmans of the liberal punditocracy, often offering up "on the one hand, on the other hand" dithering at the end of legislative fights, have now come out pretty strong for a public option; mainstream Republican editorial boards like the Denver Post are saying the public option is necessary; the decline in Obama's poll numbers are being fueled by progressive - not conservative - dissatisfaction on health care; fundraising for the public option campaign is intensifying; and the organizing work to support the public option is in full gear.

Taken all together, the aimed at A) forcing House Democrats to pledge to vote against a public-option-free health care bill and B) getting Senate Democrats to state their support of a public option may be making the easier legislative path the one that squeezes the Blue Dog Democrats...

He adds:

We must focus laser-like efforts on constructing a group of House members who delivers on a promise to vote against a public-option-free health care bill. If we do that, we will change the power dynamic in the health care debate by forcing the administration to use its power to make the public option a reality in the final bill that is reported out of the conference committee. And even more broadly, it may change the power dynamic on every other issue by finally establishing the progressive majority in the Democratic caucus - and not the corporate whores - as the final "deciders" on other major bill... While they aren't going to get us all the way to single payer (which I've long said was a huge missed opportunity), they may deliver us a public option that represents genuine progress.

Read the original article at the Open Left blog.

The LEFT is to blame for healthcare battle?

From Glenn Greenwald

Sunday Aug. 23, 2009 10:24 EDT
The Beltway consensus: the Left is to blame for health care battle

(update below)

The prevailing Beltway wisdom has now ossified that the problem with the health care debate is that those hardened Leftist ideologues cling childishly and petulantly to their little "public option" fetish and their refusal to give it up is jeopardizing enactment of a reform bill. Just see The Washington Post Editorial Page, Post columnist Steve Pearlstein and Joe Klein -- and especially the below-documented behavior from Newsweek's Jonathan Alter -- this week blaming The Left, as always, for their childish extremism in the health care debate. As always, the obedient servitude of Blue Dogs and "centrists" to the industries that own Congress aren't obstructionist at all. Somehow, the refusal of Blue Dogs to vote for a plan with a "public option" isn't impeding anything; there's no reason they should give anything up, because they're just being moderate and "centrist." As always, the way things should be done in Washington is that the proper scorn should be heaped on The Left until they're bullied into giving up what they believe so that Things Can Get Done (i.e., so that corporate dictates can be fulfilled).

All of that is taking place despite this truly remarkable passage from a New York Times article today, which details how Tom Daschle is still exerting a major role in advising Obama on health care even as he maintains his stable of health care industry clients. Shockingly, Daschle (and now the key Democrats) are advocating the very policy which his industry clients want: namely, health care reform with mandates, but no "public option" -- only with "co-ops" (article headline: "Daschle Has Ear of White House and Industry"):

But these days it often seems as if Mr. Daschle never left the picture. With unrivaled ties on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, he talks constantly with top White House advisers, many of whom previously worked for him.

He still speaks frequently to the president, who met with him as recently as Friday morning in the Oval Office. And he remains a highly paid policy adviser to hospital, drug, pharmaceutical and other health care industry clients of Alston & Bird, the law and lobbying firm.

Now the White House and Senate Democratic leaders appear to be moving toward a blueprint for overhauling the health system, centered on nonprofit insurance cooperatives, that Mr. Daschle began promoting two months ago as a politically feasible alternative to a more muscular government-run insurance plan.

It is an idea that happens to dovetail with the interests of many Alston & Bird clients, like the insurance giant UnitedHealth and the Tennessee Hospital Association. And it is drawing angry cries of accommodation from more liberal House Democrats bent on including a public insurance plan.

That's wonderful phraseology -- the co-op plan which Daschle is advocating to Obama and which the White House and Senate Democrats are now leaning towards "happens to dovetail with the interests of many [Daschle's] clients, like the insurance giant UnitedHealth and the Tennessee Hospital Association." What a weird coincidence; it's like those companies won a Bingo game (can you believe our number happened to get called?!? what awesome luck we have).

That's why there's such fervent demands for a "public option" -- because it's the only thing that can keep costs low and thus prevent this bill from being nothing more than a glorified bailout of the insurance and drug industries, which is exactly what will happen if 50 million people are forced by law to buy their products with no cost-control mechanism but ample government subsidies. Yet still, the prevailing Beltway narrative continues to be that it's those loser fringe Leftists who are impeding true reform by demanding a "public option."

Rest of article at link above.

Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's rain.

Gotta love Ed Schultz's passion on this

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Some Democrats ARE fighting for the PUBLIC OPTION

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White House Drops the Public Option from Health Reform

It appears Angry Independent’s prediction and analysis was correct.

From the New York Times:

Bowing to Republican pressure, President Barack Obama's administration signaled on Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system. Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession probably would enrage Obama's liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

From the Associated Press:

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama had sought the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured, but he never made it a deal breaker in a broad set of ideas that has Republicans unified in opposition.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that government alternative to private health insurance is "not the essential element" of the administration's health care overhaul. The White House would be open to co-ops, she said, a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory.


The Washington Post:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius signaled on Sunday a willingness from the White House to embrace insurance cooperatives as the main plank of health-care reform rather than pushing for a public option in the final version of legislation being debated in Washington and throughout town halls across America.


Commentary from Firedoglake:

So Obama campaigns for 2 years with the public option as the centerpiece of his health care reform. He's elected by the largest majority in 20 years, and the public gives him 60 Democratic seats in the Senate and 256 Democratic seats in the House. Obama then publicly lobbies for said public option after he takes office. Then Kent Conrad, who represents like 7 people, and a handful of corrupt Blue Dogs say "No way." And Obama caves.


Commentary by Ralph Nader from Commondreams:

Obama is about to make his biggest mistake to date by favoring the bipartisan deal his assistants are working out with Blue Dog Senator Max Baucus and his Republican counterparts on the Senate Finance Committee. This proposal has no public option, no consumer protections or restraints on the mayhem and skyrocketing charges of the so-called health care industry.

It is up to the people of our country to "make him do it" whether this year or next. A mere one million immediate calls to members of Congress by one million assertive citizens will start sobering up these legislators who think they can get away with another sale of our public trust.

The Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121. The full Medicare, single payer bill (backed by nearly ninety legislators) is H.R. 676. The go-to citizen group for your sustained engagement is singlepayeraction.org. The rest is up to you, the majority, who want to put the people first.

'Free market' in healthcare

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Health Care Rejectionists - It's Always Been About Race

Found this at DailyKos

Health Care Rejectionists - It's Always Been About Race
Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 08:15:33 PM PDT

Academic Gerard Boychuk illuminates why the United States has followed such a different course of public policy on health care from Canada's: (PDF)

The politics of race were a central fixture of the period in which American public health insurance policy initially emerged and help to explain both the lack of national public health insurance as well as the specific structure and characteristics of the programs that did develop...

The politics of race had not been a significant barrier to the inception of public health insurance prior to the end of World War II. Had a national program of health insurance been implemented before this point, it almost certainly would have adopted the racialized cast of the existing social programs comprising the American welfare state. To this point, southern Democrats in Congress maintained an effective veto over new programs and, as a result, retained powerful mechanisms to ensure that new programs would not challenge the existing racial status quo...

They could do this by directly excluding African Americans in the South (e.g., by making farm workers and domestic servants, a big part of the African-American population of the South, ineligible) or by leaving administration to states or localities, and letting them either deny benefits or pay lower benefits than to whites.

Health insurance should have been included in the New Deal, because left as it was until later, it became entangled in the post-war politics of civil rights.

In the immediate postwar period, the ability of the South to enforce an effective policy of segregation on the federal government was challenged as was the racial status quo in the South. The federal government abandoned its official policy of racial segregation beginning with the integration of the American Armed forces by executive order in July 1948. As the federal government became more clearly committed to desegregation after World War II, federal intervention in virtually any policy area could be construed as a potential future challenge to the racial status quo. Due to the highly segregated nature of health services provision in the United States, especially--but not exclusively--in the South, it was virtually inevitable that the politics of public health insurance would become inextricably entwined with the emerging political battles over civil rights. This certainly proved to be the case with President Harry S. Truman's attempts--the first by an American president--to enact national public health insurance in the period from 1948-50. Truman's linking of civil rights and health insurance in his 1947 State of the Nation address and his appointment of a high profile integrationist to lead his administration's health care reform exacerbated southern fears that a national program would challenge the racial segregation of health services in the South...

By the 1960s, circumstances relating to both civil rights and public health insurance had changed dramatically. Segregation in health care services had come on the defensive even in the absence of federal programs. Segregation in education had been found unconstitutional in 1954, and there was every reason to believe that similar court challenges would emerge in the area of health services. The passage of the Civil Rights Act, 1964 made such challenges even more likely. Moreover, the provision of the existing federal program for cost-sharing hospital construction enacted in 1946, which explicitly allowed segregation, was struck down in 1962 by the Supreme Court...

Read the rest of this interesting diary over at the link above.