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Health Care Activists Disrupt Senate Finance Committee Hearing
Health care activists disrupted a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday, standing up one after the other as Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) tried to restore order.
As soon as police escorted one protester out of the room, another would stand up, criticizing the committee for convening a panel of 15 experts and excluding witnesses who support creating a Medicare system for all Americans. About eight were led out of the hearing.
"We need more police," Baucus said.
The mini-protest was organized by Healthcare Now, Physicians for a National Health Program and Single Payer Action, all of whom support a single-payer, government-run health care system.
"Single-payer needs to be on the table," one of the protesters yelled. "This is political theater."
Baucus eventually restored order to the hearing, asking those who remained in the audience not to cause further disruptions.
"I want you to know I care deeply about your views," Baucus said.
- Posted in
76 Comments so far
Show All"I want you to know I care deeply about your views" he should have followed up that one-liner with "But take your views somewhere else"
Baucus can stick it up you know where, with an oversized dildo, freakin jerk!
And the whole lot of em need to be kicked to the curb this next election, unfortunately with campaigns funded by multinational corporations, that doesn't seem likely.
VOTE THIRD PARTY!!!!!!and more importantly, Vote everyday with your MONEY!!!
Thank you homeward-angel and pleased to meet you. :)
If we can get enough people in this country to vote on the issues and completely ignore their party affiliation, third parties will be scoring big time. Good luck to all of us.
Unless you can align a "third party" coalition, each and every one of those third parties will stay marginalized in their narrow focus or single issue ghettos.
Start with IRV. The whole "I voted my conscience" line is a dodge. It's like pissing in the ocean. Use your fire to affect real change, not vote the least of the evils.
My God! they haven't even settled on a name for a progressive party yet, "third party" my eye!
Get behind whomever is the strongest.
"Get behind whomever is the strongest" . . . and continue destroying the nation our fathers' fathers' fathers' built.
The nation can't survive without a middle class. We can't survive while breathing, drinking and eating more and more toxic chemicals and pollutants. We can't survive without health. We can't survive with a pay-or-die, obscene profits for the few and denial of health care for the many system. We can't survive as one of only two industrialized nations on earth without a single-payer, everyone in, public health system. (The other is South Africa.)
It's not just individual people who are so effected, it's also U.S. business and industry that can't compete with their counterparts in other countries which provide universal health care. It's not just individual health, it's public health and our economy that's at stake here.
"Get behind whomever is the strongest" -- meaning single-payer obstacle-in-chief Obama -- is a recipe that will turn us into a banana republic.
We must do the opposite. Push, push, push Obama and his corporate Democrat allies into doing the only thing that will work for health care: single payer.
My God, again! How could you misunderstand me?
I meant to say the strongest leftist party. I mean, is ANY work being done on this or are Americans still sleepwalking to the next elections? You think the corporations are simply going to GIVE you what you need? It takes commitment, sacrifice, courage...not just pulling a lever for "brand Obama".
NOW you're saying what I'm saying. Before you were dissing third parties. I can tell you that we would have single-payer on the table RIGHT NOW if Ralph Nader had won 10-15% of votes in the last election, rather than 1%. (And, btw, Nader WAS the strongest leftist presidential candidate on the ballot.)
Voting third-party is where our strength lies. If you believe that, as I do, please be more precise in the way you talk about third parties, because it sounds a lot like you are saying third parties are futile.
Is there work being done now? You bet. Want to help? Go to http://www.singlepayeraction.org//index.php
and click on "Sign Up" and "Donate."
A call to action.
If you don't like a particular TV program, you call their sponsors and tell them you will boycott them until the program either goes off the air or changes to your liking. This works similar with
political parties, politicians and their sponsors (campaign contributors).
If you have a blog please post this on your blog. I want to get at least 100,000 people to sign these petitions, the first one which you can demand single payer health care and a fix to the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Read and sign these legislative petitions please and get hundreds of people to sign them and they will automatically go to Republican minority leaders Sen. McConnell and Rep. Boehner right away once you sign the petition.
http://tinyurl.change.org/EzKoE
http://tinyurl.change.org/upFFg
http://tinyurl.change.org/SmldU
http://tinyurl.change.org/zcCYl
http://tinyurl.change.org/DppEP
Oh and I created this parody t shirt about medicare part D that uses a familiar symbol.
See it here.
http://bit.ly/1CMnA
"If all you people who want single-payer, like most of my constituents, and most of all other Americans, would kindly shut your mouths, we can get on with this committee meeting to show you how much we deeply care about your views by discussing every options except single-payer. The HMOs have spent a lot of money to make this committee meeting happen and we owe to them to get it back on track in the direction they want it to go. Thank you for demonstrating better decorum."
Most important, go to www.singlepayeraction.org for ideas and initiatives for taking on the bastards right now and fighting for Medicare for all.
"I want you to know I care deeply about your views," Baucus said. Oh really? Is that his final word on the unmentionable subject?
A very few outlets of the propaganda machine made brief mention of the arrests, but only Politico named the organizing groups. The less said, the better.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Single payer is dead. Killed by Obama and the Democrats.
No, killed by big Pharma, Obama and the Baucus, rats are just their puppets.
OK!
Was that 'pig' Pharma?
odoco
You're correct Thomas; Russ Feingold was on Democracy Now this morning and flatly stated single payer healthcare was not going to happen in this Congress, and uncharacteristically for him, when pushed by Amy Goodman to explain why - he hesitated and never gave a definitive answer.
He could have just said, "Now how is AIPAC going to afford all those guns if you people want all that butter?"
"You're correct Thomas; Russ Feingold was on Democracy Now this morning and flatly stated single payer healthcare was not going to happen..."
I agree. This is not just about Max--as odious as he is.
It's also about the Democratic Party. They are going to do for the insurance companies what they're doing for the banks. Period.
But even more importantly, this is about us.
When all is said and done, I think the single-payer issue will go a long way in not only exposing this kind of bullshit with the Democrats but teach people they simply can't just depend on political saviors.
The only way to get justice now is to organize and fight.
Yes, he didn't give a definitive answer, but he did state that there was sizeable objection to a new large Government bureaucracy. When he said that, I'm almost positive that's the new "framing" that universal proponents are going to take.
And so is the employees free choice act, but hey Obama let the two zionist spys Rosen and Weissman get off scott free. Change you can believe in?
Saying that single payer is dead only echoes the propaganda of the centrist corporate Democrats. They want us to believe that it's dead so that we don't raise a ruckus. All the more reason to raise a ruckus to prove to the bastards that it is not dead. Go to www.singlepayer.org and join the movement. Don't mourn, organize.
"Single Payer, Single Payer, all I hear is Single Payer , well you're not going to get Single Payer," Nancy 'Dances with a Tiara' Pelosi.
"We need more police," Baucus said.
Plfft, and they say we don't have a friend in Washington.
Senator Max Baucus is corrupt.
The Senator does not stand alone. They are all corrupt!! Bought and paid for by the corporations who, as Milton Friedman said, "Can not be ethical. Their only purpose is to turn a profit".
My Congressional Represntative, Jackie Speier, while at a public meeting where the majority of her constituents were wearing blue ribbons to signify their support for single payer, quoted Nancy Pelosi saying Single Payer would not pass and so Jackie will not vote for it.
Nancy Pelosi is admired by this Congresswoman because she thinks that Nancy works very hard for the intersts of the people of this nation. I mentioned that Nancy is famous for saying "Impeachment is off the table" when we all wanted Bush and Cheney to be impeached. Nancy was also fully briefed on the new aggressive interrogation methods used by the CIA and found no hint of torture in them.
My Congressional Representative is following Nancy Pelosi in opposition to the wishes of her constituents. How's that for representative democracy?
Our whole political system is badly flawed. And we are taking democracy to Iraq? Where did we get it -- and why can't we have it here at home?
Yes, agreed, but the entire Senate is corrupt. Can you name a single decent Senator, except perhaps Bernie Sanders? (please don't say Feingold or Boxer, ugh, enough of that - fool me once...)
In the mean time - for those of us without health insurance the battle needs to be waged on all fronts. for those interested - a link to Avazz.org
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) must investigate and develop regulations for these farms to protect global health.
Petition link:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/?cl=225212523&v=3271
"...WHO has been saying for years that 'a new pandemic is inevitable'(2) and experts from the European Commission and the FAO have cautioned that the rapid move from small holdings to industrial pig production is in fact increasing the risk of development and transmission of disease epidemics. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that scientists still do not know the extent that infectious compounds produced in factory farms affect human health.(3)
Studies abound of the horrific conditions endured by pigs in concentrated large-scale operations, and the devastating economic impact on small farmer communities of bloated large-scale operations.(4) Smithfield itself has already been fined $12.6m and is currently under another federal investigation in the US for toxic environmental damage from pig excrement lakes.(5)
(1) Biosurveillance report tracing the disease to the Smithfields farm: http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html
Reports on the link between the Mexican factory farm and the flu:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/for-la-gloria-the-stench-of-blame-is-from-pig-factories-1675809.html
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-fg-mexico-flu28-2009apr28,0,1701782.story
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=can-swine-flu-be-blamed-on-industri-09-05-01
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227063.800-swine-flu-the-predictable-pandemic.html?full=true
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/swine-flu-outbreak----nat_b_191408.html
(2) WHO pandemic information
http://www.euro.who.int/influenza/20080618_19
(3) FAO, EC and CDC reports on the risks of industrial farming on public health
FAO and CIWF and http://www.cdc.gov/cafos/about.htm
(4) CIWF and PETA video reports of the disgusting conditions for animals in factory farms and the disease ridden manure swamps:
CIWF and PETA
(5) Reports on Smithfield's animal welfare and environmental damage
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/for-la-gloria-the-stench-of-blame-is-from-pig-factories-1675809.html
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/press/releases/new-report-highlights-the-trouble-with-smithfield-article03132008
http://avaazimages.s3.amazonaws.com/SmithfieldJan08.pdf
(6) Reports on UK tax payers subsidising factory farms http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/5225298/Taxpayers-forking-out-700-million-for-factory-farming-in-England.html
But there are so few of these politicians and so few richfilth animals. Couldn't we just round them up, put them into a single sports stadium (they would all fit) or even decentralize and have several stadiums, and do a "Pinochet" on them? You know, bury the headless, handless corpses right there under the astro turf as a warning to all future creatures of their kind? The heads and hands could be used as fish food on the dying coral reefs. It would achieve the desired effect and the message would be unequivocal. Think outside the 'box'.
Tbis comment is filth. Please refrain from posting your violent fantasies here.
I applaud the comment actually. You have to use filth to describe filth adequately and that is what the man is doing...
No, we can describe filth, describe it graphically and in detail, but without making it. On the other hand, there's no need to censor such comments to censure them.
Yes, and let's just describe protest in nice easy to live with terms as well. Rather than ACTUAL protest, which might offend or for-gosh-sakes, endanger, somebody. I mean the way things are no one is endangered now, no one is being killed or tortured. So why put anyone at risk?
Or if there are still those who feel they MUST protest, let's make sure they do it in the designated protest zones only. Safety (and politeness) first.
Agreed, although, you'll probably be banned for saying it. As for the gutless poster who criticized you for saying it, they'll probably be planning another useless, fashionable lefty protest or signing another lousy petition to some stinking richfilth politician.
Healthcare should be taken from all members of Congress, all policy advisors and key officials in the executive branch (including Obama) and members of the supreme court.
And of course ...deny their family members as well.
And when Sasha falls off her new swingset ....
I agree! Why are my tax dollars going to provide health coverage for military, veterans, Congresspeople, and government workers if I can't get coverage myself?
This is a terrific suggestion. Someone should organize getting them to do this as a show of good faith. What better service could the Obama family do for Americans right now than go without healthcare until everyone has achieved it!
No one should have healthcare unless we all have healthcare, particularly those who will be making the decisions. Perhaps the concept of National Healthcare should be put to a national referendum.
Of course we should have a National Health Service, or at least National Health Insurance. Everyone knows that, including Baucus and Obama and Pelosi. We should keep fighting for it, but I do think we should support the "public option" in the new health insurance bill as a fall-back position. If we get the mandatory insurance without the public option, we will actually be worse off than we are now. We'll be forced to buy from the insurance companies.
Rep. Jackie Speier told a community meeting on saturday that the new bill will extend Medicare down to 55 year olds, which would be some improvement at least. We'll see if that gets stripped out too.
Yes, Jackie said there is a chance people over 55 may be able to get medicare--but the important thing she said is that she will not vote for Single Payer because Nancy Pelosi said it will not pass. She didn't say why Nancy would not urge the Deomocrats to vote for Single Payer and then---if it doesn't pass---come up with something else.
I having a great deal of trouble seeing the change since the Democrats have both houses of Congress. They did come up with a little health care extention for poor children paid for by the people who can't get over their addiction to tobacco. (Talk about kicking someone who is down.)
Why can't the Democrats take some of the money being used in our illegal wars and spend those funds instead on Single Payer Health Care? The wars go on and now the promise to shut down Guantanamo is broken. And torture? That is so past. We need to look forward! to the end of what democracy we have?
I would love to hear what the Montanans have to say for Baucus's shameless act of forcing more policing of the single payer advocates. I know that although Montana elected this creep, this is not what they had in mind.
Here is something I wrote in a post on Saturday:
"As a Montanan, I've followed the career of Max Baucus since his first election to the Senate in 1978. He has straddled the fence the whole time, and now the fence is broken. He is a corporate democrat all the way, and his allegiance is to the powers inside the beltway. The Republicans here can't find anyone to beat him, and the democrats don't have anyone to run against him in the primary. He had millions in his campaign war chest for highly polished TV commercials for the 2008 campaign, and no one can even remember his opponent's name from last fall's election. The margin was something like 80-20. Max is a democrat in name only and he's not gonna jump ship and become a republican, because he's in too good a position as it is. So it will be up to you, fellow citizens in this country, to shine a big light on him and expose him for what he is. Maybe then, he might be disgraced and voted out of office (in 2014). That's way too long to wait though, so you'll have to expose his corporate-sponsored health care plan for what it is, just another big corporate welfare handout, just like the Medicare drug program and the bank bailout (which he strongly supported). Please help."
I watched the You Tube video, and Baucus's response to the protesters seemed lame. He got the hearing back under control after the protesters were escorted out, but I think they did make some kind of impression on him. It will take continued protests on a repeated basis as the hearings continue to make a difference. As he resists single-payer rhetoric, he must be pressured to keep the debate open. This is the first big issue for him as Finance Committee Chairman, and his thick skin may not be enough to withstand public pressure. He's never really seen that kind of pressure before.
I must applaud the protesters. They are the only way that single-payer will have a chance anytime soon. I'd love to join in, but I've still got a day job.
1978 must have sounded like a perfect year for a corporatist pol to start his or her career up on Capitol Hill although it wasn't until Raygun got in that the corporatist policies took off like a jet. What's going on with Jon Tester, the other D from MT? I haven't heard much from him since he entered office in 2007. On the issues, I must admit that I almost threw up when I saw Baucus's voting record and compared it to Burns's. Even on NAFTA and CAFTA, Baucus shamelessly voted yes while Burns, despite being the typical social conservative Republican, had at least an iota of a heart to vote no to those scams. Nice Saturday post. :)
The US medical system already has a single payer....YOU!
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
What a jerk Baucus is. I'm ashamed to admit that before this, I actually thought he was okay.
You can call Senator Baucus's office--number is 202-224-2651. If the office is closed, they will let you leave a voice mail, and will also give you an emergency phone number. Leave a message, and then call the emergency number. This IS an emergency!
Also, go here: http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/committee.htm to find the Senators on the committee, and you can contact them, especially if they're from your state. Ask why they sat there like stooges, instead of defending our right to have some single-payer advocates at the table.
And then call C-SPAN (Main Number: (202) 737-3220) and ask why their camera person couldn't show us the single payer advocates who were speaking. Is C-SPAN a news, or a propaganda, organization? (rhetorical question)
DO IT. DO IT NOW.
Ah, our democracy at work!
These protesters are my heroes today.
DON'T be lulled by "public option", "affordable", etc. which are code words to keep private insurers alive and well. SP/Improved Medicare-For-All is not possible or sustainable without its cost efficiencies and with the bankrupting profits and administrative bloat of the present nonsense-system. Folks, it's SP or nothing and if not now-then never! Let the disruptions continue and increase EVERY DAY! Today's were magnificent!
Your tax dollars at work crushing American democracy. A majority of Americans want single payer, the people of most democratic countries can have it but in the Dem. controlled US Congress it's not discussed. Not one of the 15 experts called discussed it.
What about the fifth estate, the bulwark of our Democracy, we sure will have a robust debate there, even if Congress won't discuss the single payer option, correct? You get a short piece about the disruptions caused on Politico. It's really a spectacle.
Josh
"Power coceded nothing without demand. It never has and never will." Frederick Douglass
"I want you to know I care deeply about your views," Baucus said.
I just read this sentence and hurled. Now I need a mop.
But wait, there's more!
Senator Baucus also said, "I want you to know that I care so deeply about the problem that I have agreed to forego my own taxpayer-paid platinum, premium deluxe coverage until everyone is in and nobody is out."
Er, or maybe not.