Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

Back last February, when proponents of a public option were finally making some headway between the time that the House passed its version of healthcare reform and the time that the Senate passed its version (and it's important to remember that Obama never pressured Blue Dogs or Joe Lieberman, never used the power of the White House and never took to the bully pulpit to advocate for a public option), Obama held a 'make it or break it bipartisan summit' at the White House which was gamed to keep proponents for getting real reform, (affordable quality medical care for everyone), shut out of the negotiations.  Why wasn't Anthony Weiner or any proponents of public healthcare, of single payer, at this summit?

The summit was gamed to let insurance companies retain their lock on the path to getting healthcare.

Whether it's Republicans saying no or Democrats saying yes, to attend this summit you must have accepted that the insurance industry's ability to make profits off of you be preserved and protected, despite it bankrupting you and the nation.

Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II) of medical care; the insurance industry is "wetting its beak", letting you get medical care (maybe, if you can afford the deductibles, the co-pays, and if your illness is covered by your policy, but) only if you pay them a gratuity up front.

That's what Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party passed.
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

There is no mechanism for lowering the costs of treatment. Obama put a fox in charge of this chicken coop -- Former WellPoint executive Liz Fowler will be writing and enforcing the regulations.

Obama's healthcare legislation prohibits the government from being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportat ion.

The insurance mandate is, indeed, a tax. Contrary to what Obama claimed, the IRS will be the enforcer, which means compounded fines and prison.

Obama took single payer (Medicare For All) off the table, because if the goal is to get affordable quality medical care for all then everything else pales in comparison.

He's preserving an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care. It's government sanctioned racketeering.

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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

Obama's healthcare legislation is Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (which was a $700 billion + giveaway to Big Insurance & PhRma), Part 2.  

Not only doesn't Obama's healthcare legislation accomplish what Obama and Democrats were put into power to get (affordable quality medical treatment for everyone), it is, in fact, a giant leap toward ending all public healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.).  

Obama's healthcare legislation puts more people into Medicaid, which the states are required to co-pay along with the federal government. The states are already going bankrupt, and moving toward eliminating Medicaid services as a result. States' options are limited, especially those states with constitutional requirements to balance their budgets.  So while people may find themselves covered by Medicaid, if you're thinking that should all else fail you've got Medicaid as your safety net, guess again:  Medicaid won't cover sh*t.  

Having insurance (which is all that Obama's legislation does, and not even for everyone, just for a few million more) doesn't mean getting necessary medical care or that you will be able to afford medical care.

Think about that for a minute, because I do understand how, after hours/days/months of spin by professional spinmeisters (politicians), you might not appreciate the distinction.
All that Obama's healthcare legislation does is require money to go from here (my pockets/taxpayers' pockets) to there (into insurance companies' pockets).

There is no limitation on insurance companies' charging and increasing co-pays and deductibles and eliminating services.

There is no requirement for insurance companies to have to provide services not paid for.

Insurance companies have already figured out the way around the restrictions in the bill.  The con game in the legislation -- Medical loss ratio.  The amount of money insurers must spend on health care, and how it will enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policy-holders.

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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats in Congress.  

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconciliation anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the de@d of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"  

Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made.
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

The Republicans never championed health care reform.

==========­==========­==========­==========­====

What do you think Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 was?  All that this latest legislation is is Part 2 of Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003.

There is no doubt that Republicans are scvm.  None.  

But Democrats aren't any better.

You're mistaking words for action.  I don't give a chit what politicians say; the proof is in the pudding.  The proof is what they use actually mean, and we invariably learn what their words meant when we see how the legislation actually works.  With Obama's healthcare legislation, we're going to see it years from now.   And we're not going to see a public option or anything that's going to keep costs down.

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats in Congress.  

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconciliation anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the de@d of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"  

Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made.

With regard to your own personal circumstances, there are so many different ways that your son could have had coverage, without your job depending on it.  What happens if you lose your job?  What happens when your insurance company raises your rates, your co-pays, your deductibles, because of your preexisting condition?
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

Dem policy makers designed it as a first step to a single-payer or government majority run system.
==========­==========­==========­==========­==========­==========­========

How?

Step-by-step, lay it out how you think that's going to happen.

With the nation going bankrupt, this is a first step toward ENDING all public healthcare programs.  What we're going to see first is a state-by-state curtailment of Medicaid services. 
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

The 'donut-hole' that never should have existed in the first place, and that the DLC-controlled Democrats created as a "compromise" for Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (another massive corporate giveaway package).  

The whole of Medicare Part D was a scam and a scheme, a "first step" (as Obama's 'most ardent supporters' like to say) towards privatizing public healthcare.

In 2003, PhRMA lobbied hard and got Congress to insert language into the bill that created a Medicare drug benefit that prohibits Medicare from using its market clout to negotiate with manufacturers for lower drug prices and making sure the drug benefit was only available through private insurance plans.

The result was that Medicare members can only get drug coverage by joining a private insurance plan. People who have both Medicare and Medicaid (dual-eligibles) were switched from Medicaid prescription drug coverage to a private Medicare drug plan. Prescription drugs for this population cost 30% more under the new private Medicare drug plans than they did under Medicaid, increasing pharmaceutical companies' profits by at least $3.7 billion dollars in just the first two years of the program. For example, Bristol Myers earned a windfall of almost $400 million, thanks to higher prices for the stroke medication Plavix.

The American taxpayer has been subsidizing pharmaceutical companies for decades with the promise that the R&D we were paying for would result in lower prices and breakthrough cures. Instead, we've been stuck with higher prices (twice as much as other industrialized countries) while the pharmaceutical companies try to snag new markets overseas with what were to be our discounts.

Not only did Obama break his campaign pledge (of the government, PhRma biggest customer, negotiating for lower priced drugs, and reimporting pharmaceuticals), he gave PhRma a huge gift.  The deal that Obama made with PhRma wasn't for PhRma to go up against Big Insurance; it was for PhRma to help sell a plan that makes more profits for Big Insurance.

PhRma paid chump change ($80 billion over 10 years, plus $150 million for ads to support a plan that had NO public option) so that they could keep massive profits and k!II public healthcare.  Obama (who had dropped the public option and the universal requirement) let the pharmaceutical industry continue to make obscene profits, and gave the insurance industry a clear field and new customers, all paid for with taxpayers' money.

 Oh, and by the way, $80 billion over 10 years is less than 1% of the profits PhRma makes a year.
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

missjulz   59 minutes ago (2:05 PM)


"We don't have short term memory loss. We recall the results of meetings with the pharmaceutical industry et al during HCR."



williamg   1 minute ago (2:15 PM)

Yes, and what were the results:

--Donut Hole voluntarily filled in Medicare Part D
--PHarma stays neutral on legislation (Hillary Clinton said PHarma's money was a big reason her plan was defeated in the early 90s). 
--Dr.ug reimportation would have to be addressed in seperate legislation. 

Why is that so terrible -- especially since dru.g reimportation would lead to the dr.ug companies just raising rates in Canada, allowing Americans little savings?
==========­==========­==========­==========­==========­=========

The 'donut-hole' that never should have existed in the first place, and that the DLC-controlled Democrats created as a "compromise" for Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (another massive corporate giveaway package).  

The whole of Medicare Part D was a scam and a scheme by both pro-corporate parties, a "first step" (as Obama's 'most ardent supporters' like to say) towards privatizing public healthcare.

In 2003, PhRMA lobbied hard and got Congress to insert language into the bill that created a Medicare drug benefit that prohibits Medicare from using its market clout to negotiate with manufacturers for lower drug prices and making sure the drug benefit was only available through private insurance plans.

The result was that Medicare members can only get drug coverage by joining a private insurance plan. People who have both Medicare and Medicaid (dual-eligibles) were switched from Medicaid prescription drug coverage to a private Medicare drug plan. Prescription drugs for this population cost 30% more under the new private Medicare drug plans than they did under Medicaid, increasing pharmaceutical companies' profits by at least $3.7 billion dollars in just the first two years of the program. For example, Bristol Myers earned a windfall of almost $400 million, thanks to higher prices for the stroke medication Plavix.

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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their Corporate Masters.  

I suggest that you consider Democrats and Republicans as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric. 

Once in power, Democrats consolidate Republicans' gains from previous years, and continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertising campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what We, the People thought they were. 

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigans and all the different ways they've been tricked, and start seeing Democrats as no different than Republicans, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tailored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisan cooperation' demeanor. It's smirk-worthy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude,like that's somehow "a good thing".
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party got the healthcare legislation through that the insurance industry and PhRma wanted.  

Amy Goodman interviewed whistleblower Wendell Potter, former CIGNA executive, last week:

AMY GOODMAN: But don’t the insurance companies like this legislation?

WENDELL POTTER: They do. And that’s why this will not be repealed. They like a lot about it. This legislation, we call it "healthcare reform," but it doesn’t really reform the system. There are a lot of good things in there that does make some of the practices of the insurance industry illegal, things that should have been made illegal a long time ago, so that—

AMY GOODMAN: Like?

WENDELL POTTER:—for that matter, there are good things here. But it doesn’t reform the system. It is built around our health insurance system, as the President said. And they want to keep it in place, because it also guarantees that they will have a lot of new members and billions of dollars in new revenue in the years to come.

AMY GOODMAN: How does it ensure that?

WENDELL POTTER: One of the—the core component of this—and it’s kind of ironic, but the one thing that the Republicans and conservatives are saying they want to repeal is the provision that we all have to buy coverage from private insurance companies.

AMY GOODMAN: Like we do for auto insurance.

WENDELL POTTER: Exactly, right. And they’re citing or they’re saying that that’s unconstitutional. That’s also all for show, because it is just an effort to try to, in a sense, turn people away from the idea of reform. It sounds complicated, but it’s part of the insurance companies’ strategy. 

Read the entire interview here.
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

“The Democrats & Republicans give the illusion that there are differences between them,” said Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition. We fight over whether a Democrat or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact aren't significantly different. There were no Democrats willing to hold the line on SinglePayer. Not one. I don’t see this changing until we radically shift the balance of power by creating a larger & broader social movement.”

The corporate control of every aspect of American life is mirrored in the corporate control of healthcare. And there are no barriers to prevent corporate domination of every sector of our lives.

“We're at a crisis,” Flowers said. “Healthcare providers, particularly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independent practice. We're seeing greater corporatization of our healthcare. Practices are being taken over by these large corporations. You have absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with the InsuranceCompany. They tell you what your reimbursements will be. They make it incredibly difficult & complex to get reimbursed. The rules are arbitrary & change frequently.”

“This new legislatio­n doesn't change any of that.  It doesn't make it easier for doctors. It adds more administrative complexity. We're going to continue to have a shortage of doctors. As the new law rolls out they're giving waivers as the provisions kick in because corporations like McDonald’s say they can’t comply. Insurance companies such as WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Cigna & Humana that were mandated to sell new policies to children with preexisting conditions announced they weren't going to do it. They said they were going to stop selling new policies to children. So they got waivers from the ObamaAdministration allowing them to charge higher premiums. Healthcare costs are going to rise faster.

The CenterForMedicare & MedicaidServices estimated that after the legislation passed, our healthcare costs would rise more steeply than if we'd done nothing. The CensusBureau reports that the number of uninsured in the US jumped 10 percent to 51 million people in 2009. About 5.8 million were able to go on public programs, but a third of our population under the age of 65 was uninsured for some portion of 2009. The NationalHe­althInsura­nceSurvey estimates that we now have 58 or 59 million uninsured. And the trend is toward underinsurance. These faulty insurance products leave people financially vulnerable if they have a serious accident or illness. They also have financial barriers to care. Co-pays & deductibles cause people to delay or avoid getting the care they need. And all these trends will worsen.”

http://www­.truthdig.­com/report­/item/powe­r_and_the_­tiny_acts_­of_rebelli­on_2010112­2/
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

“You can’t effect change from the inside,” she has concluded. “We have a huge imbalance of power. Until we have a shift in power we won’t get effective change in any area, whether financial, climate, you name it. With the wealth inequalities, with the road we are headed down, we face serious problems. Those who work and advocate for social and economic justice have to now join together. We have to be independent of political parties and the major funders. The revolution will not be funded. This is very true.”

“Those who are working for effective change are not going to get foundation dollars,” she stated. “Once a foundation or a wealthy individual agrees to give money they control how that money is used. You have to report to them how you spend that money. They control what you can and cannot do. Robert Wood Johnson [the foundation], for example, funds many public health departments. They fund groups that advocate for health care reform, but those groups are not allowed to pursue or talk about single-payer. Robert Wood Johnson only supports work that is done to create what they call public/private partnership. And we know this is totally ineffective. We tried this before. It is allowing private insurers to exist but developing programs to fill the gaps. Robert Wood Johnson actually works against a single-payer health care system. The Health Care for America Now coalition was another example. It only supported what the Democrats supported.

There are a lot of activist groups controlled by the Democratic Party, including Families USA and MoveOn. MoveOn is a very good example. If you look at polls of Democrats on single-payer, about 80 percent support it. But at MoveOn meetings, which is made up mostly of Democrats, when people raised the idea of working for single-payer they were told by MoveOn leaders that the organization was not doing that. And this took place while the Democrats were busy selling out women’s rights, immigrant rights to health care and abandoning the public option. Yet all these groups continued to work for the bill. They argued, in the end, that the health care bill had to be supported because it was not really about health care. It was about the viability of President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is why, in the end, we had to pass it.”

KEEP READING
About Health
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Administration Braces For Setbacks To Health Law

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program, knows what it is like to challenge the corporate leviathan. She was blacklisted by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room. 

“The reform process exposed how broken our system is,” Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago. “The health reform debate was never an actual debate. Those in power were very reluctant to have single-payer advocates testify or come to the table. They would not seriously consider our proposal because it was based on evidence of what works. And they did not want this evidence placed before the public. They needed the reform to be based on what they thought was politically feasible and acceptable to the industries that fund their campaigns.” 

“There was nobody in the House or the Senate who held fast on universal health care,” she lamented. “Sen. [Bernie] Sanders from Vermont introduced a single-payer bill, S 703. He introduced an amendment that would have substituted S 703 for what the Senate was putting together. We had to push pretty hard to get that to the Senate floor, but in the end he was forced by the leadership to withdraw it. He was our strongest person. In the House we saw Chairman John Conyers, who is the lead sponsor for the House single-payer bill, give up pushing for single-payer very early in the process in 2009. Dennis Kucinich pushed to get an amendment that would help give states the ability to pass single-payer. He was not successful in getting that kept in the final House bill. He held out for the longest, but in the end he caved.”

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Thanksgiving 2010: Which Media Figures & Outlets Are You Thankful For?

No to all corporate media, including the MSNBC 'liberal line-up' (O'Donnell, Olbermann and Maddow, for reasons best understood here.

Today it's yes to Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Jeremy Scahill.

The most important reads/reports of the day...perhaps of the year:

Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges

Economics, Poverty and Why The U.S. is Becoming an "Underdeveloping Nation"
Amy Goodman interviews economist Manfred Max-Neef, who says, "Eco­nomists study and analyze poverty in their nice offices, have all the statistics, make all the models, and are convinced that they know everything that you can know about poverty. But they don’t understand poverty," Max-Neef says.


Amy Goodman interviews activist Derrick Jensen:
"The Dominant Culture is Killing the Planet...It’s Very Important for Us to Start to Build a Culture of Resistance"
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Obama Comeback? Aides See 'Makings Of A Serious Potential Rebound'

The most important read of the day...perhaps of the year:

Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Holiday Jobs: More Retailers Offer Jobs As Economic Vital Signs Improve

The most important read of the day...perhaps of the year:

Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Thinking on George Washington and Barack Obama at Thankgiving

“The Democrats & the Republicans give the illusion that there are differences between them,” said Dr. Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition. We fight over whether a Democrat will get elected or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact are not significantly different. There were no Democrats willing to hold the line on SinglePayer. Not one. I don’t see this changing until we radically shift the balance of power by creating a larger & broader social movement.”

The corporate control of every aspect of American life is mirrored in the corporate control of healthcare. And there are no barriers to prevent corporate domination of every sector of our lives.

“We're at a crisis,” Flowers said. “Healthcare providers, particularly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independent practice. Were seeing greater & greater corporatization of our healthcare. Practices are being taken over by these large corporations. You have absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with the insurance company. They tell you what your reimbursements will be. They make it incredibly difficult & complex to get reimbursed. The rules are arbitrary & change frequently.”

“This new legislatio­n doesn't change any of that.  It does not make it easier for doctors. It adds more administrative complexity. We're going to continue to have a shortage of doctors. As the new law rolls out they are giving waivers as the provisions kick in because corporations like McDonald’s say they can’t comply. Insurance companies such as WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Cigna & Humana that were mandated to sell new policies to children with preexisting conditions announced they were not going to do it. They said they were going to stop selling new policies to children. So they got waivers from the ObamaAdministration allowing them to charge higher premiums. Healthcare costs are going to rise faster.

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimated that after the legislation passed, our healthcare costs would rise more steeply than if we'd done nothing. The CensusBureau reports that the number of uninsured in the US jumped 10 percent to 51 million people in 2009. About 5.8 million were able to go on public programs, but a third of our population under the age of 65 was uninsured for some portion of 2009. The NationalHe­althInsura­nceSurvey estimates that we now have 58 or 59 million uninsured. And the trend is toward underinsurance. These faulty insurance products leave people financially vulnerable if they have a serious accident or illness. They also have financial barriers to care. Co-pays & deductibles cause people to delay or avoid getting the care they need. And all these trends will worsen.”

http://www­.truthdig.­com/report­/item/powe­r_and_the_­tiny_acts_­of_rebelli­on_2010112­2/
About Thanksgiving 2010
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Thinking on George Washington and Barack Obama at Thankgiving

“You can’t effect change from the inside,” she has concluded. “We have a huge imbalance of power. Until we have a shift in power we won’t get effective change in any area, whether financial, climate, you name it. With the wealth inequalities, with the road we are headed down, we face serious problems. Those who work and advocate for social and economic justice have to now join together. We have to be independent of political parties and the major funders. The revolution will not be funded. This is very true.”

“Those who are working for effective change are not going to get foundation dollars,” she stated. “Once a foundation or a wealthy individual agrees to give money they control how that money is used. You have to report to them how you spend that money. They control what you can and cannot do. Robert Wood Johnson [the foundation], for example, funds many public health departments. They fund groups that advocate for health care reform, but those groups are not allowed to pursue or talk about single-payer. Robert Wood Johnson only supports work that is done to create what they call public/private partnership. And we know this is totally ineffective. We tried this before. It is allowing private insurers to exist but developing programs to fill the gaps. Robert Wood Johnson actually works against a single-payer health care system. The Health Care for America Now coalition was another example. It only supported what the Democrats supported.

There are a lot of activist groups controlled by the Democratic Party, including Families USA and MoveOn. MoveOn is a very good example. If you look at polls of Democrats on single-payer, about 80 percent support it. But at MoveOn meetings, which is made up mostly of Democrats, when people raised the idea of working for single-payer they were told by MoveOn leaders that the organization was not doing that. And this took place while the Democrats were busy selling out women’s rights, immigrant rights to health care and abandoning the public option. Yet all these groups continued to work for the bill. They argued, in the end, that the health care bill had to be supported because it was not really about health care. It was about the viability of President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is why, in the end, we had to pass it.”

KEEP READING
About Thanksgiving 2010
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Thinking on George Washington and Barack Obama at Thankgiving

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program, knows what it is like to challenge the corporate leviathan. She was blacklisted by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room. 

“The reform process exposed how broken our system is,” Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago. “The health reform debate was never an actual debate. Those in power were very reluctant to have single-payer advocates testify or come to the table. They would not seriously consider our proposal because it was based on evidence of what works. And they did not want this evidence placed before the public. They needed the reform to be based on what they thought was politically feasible and acceptable to the industries that fund their campaigns.” 

“There was nobody in the House or the Senate who held fast on universal health care,” she lamented. “Sen. [Bernie] Sanders from Vermont introduced a single-payer bill, S 703. He introduced an amendment that would have substituted S 703 for what the Senate was putting together. We had to push pretty hard to get that to the Senate floor, but in the end he was forced by the leadership to withdraw it. He was our strongest person. In the House we saw Chairman John Conyers, who is the lead sponsor for the House single-payer bill, give up pushing for single-payer very early in the process in 2009. Dennis Kucinich pushed to get an amendment that would help give states the ability to pass single-payer. He was not successful in getting that kept in the final House bill. He held out for the longest, but in the end he caved.”

KEEP READING
About Thanksgiving 2010
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Thinking on George Washington and Barack Obama at Thankgiving

The most important read of the day...perhaps of the year:

Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Time to Give Thanks for Profiles in Political Courage

The most important read of the day...perhaps of the year:

Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...