Individual Mandate Rejection Would Leave White House 'No Contingency Plan,' Spokesman Says

Obama was completely against mandates.  He criticized Hillary's support of them -- Here is Candidate Obama on mandates.

Before the healthcare debate even began, Obama made sure that there would be no public option, no single payer universal healthcare, no means for Americans to choose a public healthcare system, no means for containing  costs through public healthcare programs.  He took single payer off the table and blocked all efforts to get a public option in the final legislation due to the secret deal he made (and then lied about, and then had to own up to when the memo was leaked).

A caller on CSpan not long ago asked Richard Wolffe, who was out plugging his latest book written from his special access to the Obama White House, if we're ever going to get a public option to keep costs down.

Wolffe makes it clear that Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats never had any intention of going with a public option or expanding public healthcare in any way (although Wolffe is mistaken when he says that Obama never ran on supporting a public option).

If only Obama had kept his campaign promises. 

Obama campaigned on reregulating businesses and banks. He campaigned on ending tax breaks and subsidies to companies moving their factories and jobs overseas. 

Now? Not so much. 

You get the regulations first and THEN you give them the money. You put a whole healthcare program together BEFORE you get money for healthcare IT that, heaven only knows how it can comply with HIPAA. You keep your entire shopping list of needs and wants ON THE TABLE (single payer universal health care) BEFORE you concede it away. Anyone who has ever written a contract, negotiated a deal of any kind knows this. 

Obama has done everything A ss-backwards. What he does only makes sense if he's NOT a populist, NOT a liberal (we knew he wasn't, but Obama's most ardent supporters implored people to believe that "once he gets into the Oval Office, you'll see!"), and IS a continuation of the same failed policies of the transnational corporations that have destroyed the middle class. 

What Obama is doing ONLY makes sense if what he wants is NOT what Obama's most ardent followers claims that they want. The only way to get Obama to do the people's bidding, get him to champion We The People and not the Corporations is for Obama's 'most ardent supporters' to stop defending him; they work against their own best interests when they do that.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Individual Mandate Rejection Would Leave White House 'No Contingency Plan,' Spokesman Says

Do you think that 10 million more voters went to the polls in 2008 to vote for Obama than the other guy, more voters than in the history of the nation, new and returning voters, so that Obama and Democrats would write and pass Republican legislation?

Did you?
About Obama Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Individual Mandate Rejection Would Leave White House 'No Contingency Plan,' Spokesman Says

Friday, December 17, 2010
Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?
By Sam Graham-Felsen


Obama entered the White House with more than a landslide victory over Sen. John McCain. He brought with him a vast network of supporters, instantly reachable through an unprecedented e-mail list of 13 million people. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independents and even Republicans - and they were ready to be mobilized.

It's not just the 13 million on the Obama campaign's email list being held down, but Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party told groups usually identified as Democratic supporters to stand down, not run campaigns to get populist legislation like a public option through, because the White House wanted top-down control over all activities to get whatever legislation it wanted to get passed into law.  

I think the best comparison for what Obama did when he deactivated the email list and had Democratic activists stand down is to Bush attacking, invading and occupying Iraq, and then firing the Iraqi army and disbanding the Baath Party.  It left millions of Iraqis without any income, the nation in rubble and ruin without electricity, water, government services, no functioning infrastructure or rule of law.  

I think Bush did it to create an atmosphere of chaos in order to push Iraqis into becoming insurgents, which would provide the neocons with an excuse for remaining in Iraq and occupying it for years and decades.

What possible reason could Obama have for neutralizing the activist wing of the Democratic Party, and then blame not getting real Democratic legislation passed on not being able to move Blue Dogs and Republicans to support it when Obama never even tried to pressure Blue Dogs and Republicans?
About Obama Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Individual Mandate Rejection Would Leave White House 'No Contingency Plan,' Spokesman Says

Single payer. Medicare for all. That is what makes most sense

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

Yes, but that's not what Obama (or politicians in either of the parties) wants.

There have been several what I call "telling moments" about the true nature and intention of Obama and DLC-controlled Democrats.

Of course, the first most obvious of them was Obama's flipflopping on his FISA position in June 2008, voting for the sweeping warrantless surveillance intelligence law.  Obama missed the February vote on that FISA bill as he campaigned in the "Potomac Primaries" (he was running then as "lefter than Hillary), but issued a statement that day declaring "I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty." 

So in February 2008 Obama implied he would have voted no, and in July 2008, after liberal activists had already "fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign", and after the bulk of the primaries and caucuses in heavily liberal states had taken place and he'd gotten their votes,  he blew off the left.  

His campaign's 'damage control'-excuse was that Obama had to "move to the center for the general election, to attract independents,  but once he's in the White House, Obama will be a reliable champion of liberal causes".

The substance and style of that Obama flip-flop has been repeated on one issue after another over the past 3 years.  

Never was Obama's treachery more evident than during the healthcare debate, when a whole slew of strategies were employed by the White House to make sure that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries would continue to reign supreme and reap windfall profits while gaining permanent control over Americans' medical care and options.  

Instead of what Americans put Obama and Democrats into power to get (affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone), Obama managed to put the insurance industry in as the gatekeeper to Americans' healthcare, requiring Americans to pay the insurance industry, but with no controls over costs.  

Having health insurance ≠ medical treatment.

 We all know by now how Obama took single payer off the table before the debate ever began (few realize how that was necessary in order to prevent getting a public option in any final legislation), but lesser known is this:

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Individual Mandate Rejection Would Leave White House 'No Contingency Plan,' Spokesman Says

How Obama has handled the massive problems is EXACTLY how Republicans would've handled them (and how BushCheney was handling them).  Obama's not governing as he had promised or as a real Democrat would have.

The real shame, the real tragedy for all of us is that Obama could have been a transcendent president, good for both business AND the People.  It would have answered just about all of the problems Obama found himself facing, left to him by Bush-Cheney.

On the domestic front, the job creation possibilities were lost when the real reform proposed by single payer universal healthcare advocates was eliminated from even getting a seat at the table, and Obama chose to preserve an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care, which is government-sanctioned racketeering.

The 'job creation' reform that survived was billions spent on the Patriot Act-like invasion of citizens' privacy and the outsourcing of jobs that's involved with putting medical records on the internet -- All for a system that doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it).  

The SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare system wouldn't have put the insurance industry out of business by the way.  It would've been a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone and boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance and Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance and Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physician practitioners (nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, and other allied health professionals). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competently provided by this level practitioner. There's no reason to waste a physician's time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases. 

It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs and non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation.  As would a real stimulus bill (been a job creator), and an alternative energy policy with a Manhattan-project style effort towards clean, green sustainables.

These are all good things, but Obama and Democrats have chosen the dark side.  The corporate side.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Individual Mandate Rejection Would Leave White House 'No Contingency Plan,' Spokesman Says

Then Obama hasn't been playing 11th-dimensional chess?  All of this wasn't a ploy, a bold plan to get single payer universal health care?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

I support single payer universal healthcare (affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone) and Obama's legislation doesn't.  It supports the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

There is no mechanism in Obama's legislation for lowering the costs of treatment.

Obama put a fox in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executive Liz Fowler) to write and enforce the regulations.  Her most notable actions to date have been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees.

Obama's legislation prohibits the very thing that was the top issue in the 2008 election:  The government being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportation.

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, lower drug prices), 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 c/hit.  

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.  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 healthcare, 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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

So you like Republican policies, which should then make you a Republican.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

Single payer, universal health care.  Medicare for all.  That is what's needed and that is what Obama shouldn't have unilaterally, on his own, taken off the table.  

If Republicans are such scvm (and I believe they are) and "so dangerous", why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting them? Why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting the greatest heist on the People in all history? 

Why are Obama and Democrats continuing the war crimes of Bush & Cheney, and blocking investigations and prosecutions into their crimes?

How does a Democratic president, on the heels of the most criminal and corrupt administration in the nation's history, not replace Bush-era US attorneys? Presidents may fire US attorneys, and they do so routinely at the beginning of a new administration. It is unusual to fire US attorneys in mid-term (as Bush did) except in cases of gross misconduct (which wasn’t the case during the Bush administration). This is what Obama's US attorneys do instead of returning the democracy to the American people -- Instead we get Bush-style obscenity prosecutions.

Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their Corporate Masters, and by extension, the military industrial complex.  

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".
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

Yes, Republicans are scum, but the fact of the matter is that Democrats didn't need Republicans for passing anything.

Democrats enjoyed a greater majority in both houses of Congress than either party has had in decades.  Even without 60 (but the Democratic Caucus in the Senate had 60). But one example is that Obama didn't need 60 to pass real healthcare reform.  All Democrats needed was 50 plus Biden (reconciliation), which is what they did in the end anyway, but for a corporate-pork-laden bill with no cost constraints that doesn't provide affordable quality medical treatment for everyone.  

But Democrats didn't do that. 

Democrats also have refused to exercise the discretion that Rule 22 allows: Making Republicans actually filibuster, instead of just threatening to do it.  

Rule 22 gives the SenateMajorityLeader the discretion to actually make the call. Filibustering is hard on those soft, pampered bodies. HarryReid has refused to make them do it, letting them merely threaten.  He should.  Americans love reality TV.  'Survivor-Washington, DC'.  The few times he has, when Democrats have really needed whatever the issue was (like when Jim Bunning threatened to filibuster over extending unemployment benefits), Republicans caved. 

The DLC-controlled Democrats aren't forcing filibusters, and Obama isn't taking to the bully pulpit because it might actually work to get Democratic voters' legislative agenda made into the law of the land and do good for the People. And that's not what Obama and DLC-controlled Democrats are there for. They are there to do the work of the transnational corporations, and preventing that are the liberals. 

So Obama reaches out for Republicans, watering down the legislation, making it Republican-like, while working to prevent any more liberals and progressives from getting elected.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

I agree.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

I am for single payer universal health care, crazy lady.  Medicare for all.  

And if you want to ever again be addressed seriously or with respect by me, don't reframe my words and attribute positions to me that aren't mine.  It's a nasty habit you have.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

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.

Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II -- "I don't want a lot...Just enough to wet my beak") of medical care, letting you get medical care only if you pay them a gratuity up front.

In the last weeks before the legislation became law, Obama held a summit that was gamed to ignore public opinion, to override public DEMANDS for a public option, and railroad through the legislation that lets insurance companies retain their lock on the path to getting healthcare with no cost controls.  

The summit 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 or single payer) at that summit? Whether it was 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 us be preserved and protected, despite it bankrupting us and the nation.

Dylan Ratigan nailed it on a show he did right before Obama entered the last push to get legislation giving the insurance and pharmaceutical industries the keys to the Treasury no real restrictions, no cost controls, nothing that the insurance industry hasn't figured its way around.  Here's whistleblower and former CIGNA-exec Wendell Potter explaining the con game (medical loss ratio, the amount of money insurers must spend on health care) in the Senate healthcare bill, 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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

Health insurance ≠ medical treatment.

People need medical care.  Affordable, quality medical treatment.  Nobody needs to have health insurance.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

Facts about ACA:

Insurance is NOT medical treatment.

Having insurance does NOT mean being able to get affordable quality medical care. Mandating that everybody has to purchase health insurance so that a few million people will have insurance isn't the same thing as everyone being able to get affordable, quality medical treatment. 

It doesn't even mean that everyone with health insurance is going to be able to get the affordable medical treatment. It doesn't mean that if you pay your insurance premiums, your insurance company is required to pay for all of your healthcare needs.

But that's the 'Bush-speak' that Obama's been getting away with.

Obama and Democrats have been playing with the language, no differently than Bush and Republicans do.  Both parties are corporate stooges, protecting the profits of the 1% over the needs of the 99%.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

What do you think a doctor's visit and antibiotics for a sinus infection would cost you without insurance?  

What do you think that same doctor's visit and antibiotics would cost in deductibles and co-pays if you did have insurance?  
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Supreme Court Health Care Reform: Without Mandate, Nightmare Awaits Insurers, Uninsured

The scare tactics of these headlines is really shameless exploitation on HP's part.

Having health insurance ≠ medical treatment.

Obama's healthcare legislation doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it).

People who voted for Obama and Democrats voted to get affordable, quality medical treatment.  That was NOT a vote to protect and further enrich the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.  Voters did NOT send Obama and Democrats into power to entrench the insurance industry as the gatekeepers to being able to get medical treatment.  Voters did NOT send Obama and Democrats to Washington to continue tying insurance benefits to their employment.

Yet that is precisely what Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats did.

Meet The New 1%: - Healthcare CEOs replace bankers as America's best paid:

Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay.  One example is Joel Gemunder, CEO Omnicare, who had a total pay package in 2010 worth $98 million.

Obama's healthcare legislation is nothing more than a massive giveaway to the health insurance industry.  It is one of the most corrupt pieces of legislation ever enacted by our government.


The health insurance industry provides no real service.  All it does is take money out of the system.  It's nothing more than a blood-sucking middleman.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...