Supreme Court Health Care Decision Will Define The Future Of The American Health Care System

Obama's healthcare 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.  

The insurance mandate is, indeed, a tax. Contrary to what Obama claimed, the IRS will be the enforcer, which means compounded fines and prison. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/health/policy/18health.html?_r=1&ref=politics

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.  On Countdown with Keith Olbermann, whistleblo­wer Wendell Potter talks with Lawrence O'Donnell about it.
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Supreme Court Health Care Decision Will Define The Future Of The American Health Care System

Just for argument's sake, let's say that that's true, that "Private Insurance Companies came out and spoke against the bill and were waiting to see if it was going to be upheld".  

If they didn't speak against the bill, then you would believe it was a bill they liked?  And that their silence would make you suspicious about who the bill was good for, the people or the insurance/pharmaceutical/hospital/AMA industries?

The bill was written by the insurance industry.  The regulations were created by the insurance industry and the regulations and legislation is being implemented and overseen by the insurance industry.  Obama put the foxes in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executives Liz Fowler and Steve Larsen) to write both the legislation and the regulations, and enforce the regulations.  

Fowler's most notable actions to date has been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees.  So much for Candidate Obama's pledge on restricting lobbyists from writing our laws.

KEEP READING
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Obama Will Seek To Scale Back Drug War In Second Term: Report

TThe old "lesser of two eviIs" argument.  In spite of the fact that Obama's continuing just about all of the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better:  How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret?

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.  

You defend Obama at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporatio­ns and establishm­ent elites.  It's people like you, Obama's 'most ardent supporters', saddle us with DINOs, with Democrats who don't work in our best interests, because of your unbridled support of him.  

Look at what Obama did just last week because he needed the Hispanic vote:  He stopped enforcing immigration laws that he'd been doing with a vengeance.  Had the Hispanic vote been a sure thing, Obama never would have done it.  

It's people like you who are f**king us all over.

Why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republican­s?
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Obama Will Seek To Scale Back Drug War In Second Term: Report

One key phrase is "making Americans believe that our government is working for them." Notice that Obama didn't say he actually wanted government to *work* for Americans; he just wanted us to believe it would.

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Thank you, Susan.  Great point.   

With that in mind, it's why I tell people that they should go back, go to YouTube, and watch Candidate Obama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, listen with their now 'experienc­ed ears' (experienc­ed in lawyer-spe­ak, aka Bush-speak­, although Bush needed a team of speech writers to do what Obama is able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think they'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote.

To get into office and then once in office, each party's candidates use high-price­d public relations firms, with spinmeiste­rs crafting sophistica­ted propaganda campaigns to con voters into believing what isn't true. The same people who gave us "What's good for GM is good for the country" give us legislatio­n with oxymoronic titles ("Clear Skies Initiative­", "No Child Left Behind" "Affordable Care Act") and campaigns with empty rhetoric and sloganeeri­ng ("CHANGE", "HOPE", "STRAIGHT-­TALK EXPRESS"). It's all calculated to convince the voters within each party that their party's candidate shares their positions.

The truth is that Obama's  nothing but a politician­, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense.  It turns out that doing what's right for transnatio­nal corporatio­ns is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards­. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican­, "What's good for GM is good for America."  He did a snow job on everybody.  
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Obama Will Seek To Scale Back Drug War In Second Term: Report

DLC-Democr­ats and Republicans like to foster the fallacy that there is an extreme or far left faction within the DemocraticParty.   There are no extremes or far left in the Democratic­Party.  They left long ago, and can be found bombing animal testing labs and burning down suburban subdivisio­n sites being built on land where ancient forest have been clear cut.  If they vote at all anymore, it's as Independen­ts and rarely for Democrats.

The fact is, real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans; they're only hard to sell to Obama's 'most ardent supporters' who are either political operatives paid to cheer him online or ignorant b00bs who treat politics like sporting events, something to pick a side and root over instead of educating themselves on all aspects of the issues.

When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare­; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.  

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characteri­ze themselves as far-anythi­ng or extreme, but mainstream­. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicamen­t of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to kill babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritar­ian intimidati­on are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when RonaldReagan, LeeAtwater and KarlRove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism, and how liberals were responsible for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud.

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless doing what politician­s had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks,  don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

But Obama only does that to progressiv­es.
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