The best report on what we're up against was this interview with Wendell Potter, the whistle blower on all things Cigna and the insurance industry as a whole. He was on Bill Moyers last night:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html

No matter how bad you think it is, it's always worse, especially when you hear it from a former insider. Listen to how he got to be where he is today in his thinking. He's certainly not some "disgruntled employee," as I'm sure the industry would like to paint him.

He is also the one who wrote the article "Obama's False Friends of Health Reform," and again on Bill Moyers talked about Ron Williams of Aetna.

As citizens we have a daunting task ahead of us, but to give up is not an option. The medical industrial complex will never stop doing what it does best -- earn profits for Wall Street and institutional investors -- until we do something about the large for-sale sign on the door of Congress and the Oval Office.

It’s interesting to note that those shouting loudest their fear and animosity toward the government providing national health care are the same ones who loudly proclaim the government provided national military can do no wrong.

Signed: Lawlessone [for more irreverence, see resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]

When Rahm and Obama back a single payer, government sponsored and administrated health plan that covers every person from cradle to grave with no co pays and no deductibles, and involves no private insurance companies, let me know.

Until then, I hear enough bullshit.

Trial balloons, rationalizations, lies, and presidential dithering are signs of political bankruptcy. Just when we think there is no where to go but up, we are dragged down further. Washington is a bottomless pit of corruption. The White House has become a bottomless outhouse. Pulleeeeesse, somebody put a moon on the White House door.

"... a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest."

Hmmm. Isn't that exactly the alleged adavantage that "free market" capitalist enterprise was supposed to provide over so-called "socialist" systems? Have I misunderstood the underlying concepts?

Obama is running out of policy changes that will truly define his pesidency as one of real progressive change. Afghanistan will prove to be a failure. Throwing money at the banks will fail. Bailing out the auto industry will fail because it wasn't the corporations that should have been bailed, but rather the infrastructure itself - under democratic control - for the real greening of the economy. Hell, the list of failures because of capitulation to the right, just goes on and on. A truly single payer health care system is probably the only thing that will redeem him and he looks to be blowing that one as well.

BHO, Larry Summers, Rahm Emanuel - No EFCA, No Single Payer, No SSI, No Medicare, No savings, No pensions, No Unions, No middle class home ownership, no 'middle class' college students, No No No No NO! Get over it. No more middle class anything anymore ever again.

This is "Richfilth Country", this is the Roman Slave Republic that the richfilth kiddie raping slave holders wanted for themselves when they wrote the Constitution in 1787 - and the triplets are here to make it happen.

Most of you can already write the words the animal will use to cover his betrayal - you already know them. The implied became predictable and is now inevitable.

This will happen at the same time they announce "The Big Barbecue!" Thats where they round up your children and cook them and eat them...you think I'm kidding....I wish I was...

Pieces of 8

It's Time To Debate A "California Style" Local Health Care District Law -- In The United States

State governments are often the birthplace of our nation’s best policies. This is where public officials work on the problems of a constituency that has direct access. With that being said, I feel it is unwise to propose a new domestic policy (like a health care co-op) which has not been successfully implemented and tested by a state government.

One successful policy developed at the state level -- that has yet to enter the national debate on health care -- is California’s response to injured WWII servicemen who returned to rural areas and were unable to find adequate health care.

In 1945, the California legislature created the “Local Health Care District Law” that allowed communities throughout California the authority to create a “special district” with the ability to raise funds, elect governing officials, and provide needed medical services.

Today there are 78 Health Care Districts in California that are tailored to the needs of their local communities. Most of these districts operate hospitals, but some offer primary care clinics, and others manage specific treatment programs. Surprisingly, 3 new health care districts have been created in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2000.

One successful health care district in the heart of Silicon Valley is in Mountain View, California; it has operated The El Camino Hospital (ECH) since 1963. In 2003, ECH district voters overwhelmingly approved Measure D (by 71%) to provide $298 million for a new hospital. The list of accomplishments and awards at ECH are so numerous that I’d suggest a visit to their website.

Most Democrats in Congress contend that there cannot be a viable health care reform policy in America without a public-option plan. Meanwhile, Republicans are digging-in to defeat a single-payer system.

My suggestion is to create a nationwide and mandatory “local health care district law,” implemented by local boards and designed to serve the 46 million uninsured Americans. This would allow the private health care system the opportunity to eliminate waste, improve efficiencies, and meet their obligations.

In addition to providing a safety net for the uninsured, it would allow the local community the ability to address, and to prevent the most pressing health care concerns in their district. And, a “national health care district law” could be primairly funded by the savings President Obama recently outlined.

This plan would serve the Democratic Party's historic mission to bring fairness and equality to all Americans. It would also take the sting out of their critic's argument that the Democrats want to create a one-size-fits-all health care plan.

The health care districts would govern like school boards, and operate with the same advantage of being locally controlled. Elected trustees could come from the health care industry, and they would be required to reside within the district they represent. The local health care district board would work with existing service providers (or create new providers), and their mission would be to fill in the gaps in coverage within their community.

Other health care options that are now being discussed are non-profit medical co-ops, which has never been tested on a large scale in the US; and state mandated insurance coverage that has been tried in five states without a great deal of success.

A national health care district system may seem unwieldy, and would create a new government bureaucracy, but I would submit that the creation of the ”Local Health Care District Law” by the California Legislature in 1945 was a landmark policy that is stronger than ever after 64-years of operation.

Obimbo should fire Top Ramen Emanuel RIGHT NOW! If he's looking for a political Frank Nitti-enforcer type, D.C. and the Democratic party is crawling with them.

Or is Obimbo signaling to the insurance companies that everything's A-Okay? Don't sweat. We're watching your backs 24/7.

Ya know, if Obama really wanted to get the people behind him for the rest of his term, he would advocate the formation of WE The People Single Payer Medical Insurance, using retoric like unification of the people trying to overcome HardTimes. Indeed, why not make ALL forms of non-life insurance single payer!

That's EZ: the trigger is NOW! This is the eternal trigger, and it's a one-way valve. When and if thimes get better, Universal single payer health care stays.
and i get medicare--heven't even used it so far--three years. going in for FREE health check nest month. my fave doc has a waiting list.
huhm.
know any good docs who don't?
at this age it's all about chemical and blood checks. it's lab stuff.
Rahmmie boy is a little bit too right wing for my taste. As are ALL of Obama's dipplidocus advisors. who do we like? anyone in the econ side? no. Military? no.
so why shuld health care be any different?
This Prez is the Manchurian candidate, a Ripuglican in cool cat's clothing. We shall never see progress as long as he is in...or his advisors. Gates, BTW, was an acolyte in the Chuch of Bryzenski 9you spell it. Zbig still wants war with Russia--maybe that's why Putin looks askance at our Golden Man.
Don' let despair bite ya. We still have Hill the Shill, and the Shadow gov't out there cookin' up more adventures unbeknownst to Obiwan or anybody. Biding their time. Or who do you think ordered the Coup from the School?
It takes a lot to call Honduras an accident by somme good ol' boys. Boys will be boys. only if the left did that the marines would be there already.

"...one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option..."

Can anyone identify another "best way" to get there?

Putting profits ahead of healing the sick and even preventing premature deaths is not morally defensible.

Excellent comments all. The White House is looking like it's being run by the Marx Brothers. And Obama is beginning to look - hapless. For a Democratic President to spit on the progressives is not a good game plan. Obama's treasury department is run by Goldman Sachs and Emanuel seems to think he's the president. The American public has clearly become red meat for the wolves and with the exception of a few stalwart progressives who refuse to be bullied and whipped into shape, no one cares. Not the President, not the Congress. I can't say "our", that's reserved for the corporations.

I'm beginning to feel like a detached observer watching a clown circus. This performance is even better than the Reagan administration. Maybe Obama doesn't want a second term. Looks that way to me.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Regardless of how nutty Republicans are, the Democratic Party is the real evil in this country. Republican politicians simply represent a traditionalist, conservative culture that exists in some form in every country in the world. Democratic politicians, though, claim to represent those disenfranchised by the prevailing culture when in reality their only real goal is to preserve the very traditions and institutions they claim to oppose. It is an ideology based in treachery - a pathology far more advanced than the simple callousness of Republicans - and can therefore truly be described as evil.

Of course what's funny is that everyday people like Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama and Harry Reid issue public statements that make it abundantly clear who and what the Democrats really represent, and yet no matter how clearly they make the point, liberals keep right on voting Democratic in the vain hope that THIS time things will be different. One can only conclude that liberals in this country either enjoy self-inflicted pain or else - like the politicians they support - actually accept and even embrace the conservative culture in which they live.

"It just gets curiouser and curiouser." ---Alice in Wonderland.

The whole healthcare reform issue reminds me of Charles Dickens' Circumlocution Office:

"This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been foremost to study that bright revelation, and to carry its shining influence through the whole of the official proceedings. Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving -- HOW NOT TO DO IT."

Sound familiar?

rahm emanuel is a zionist weasel. and obama is a repuglican in sheeps clothing!the only change has been just that. look- the
only change that will happen is one that will be forced on them thru mass public demonstration and electing third party or
independent candidates.i live in nyc and meet alot of tourists
and immigrants. and find them the best gauge on what has happened
to america.most are shocked over what has gone on in just
the last 8 yrs. and they still love us but not our govt.
i wonder why?(sarcasm sarcasm sarcasm) nothings going without
some sacrifice on our behalf but we have to start now!

I voted for Obama because the ruling class of this de facto one-party despotism gave me no other choice: again, as in 1964, a seemingly "rational" Democrat (who in the '64 example of monoparty Big Lie histrionics was already plotting to escalate the Vietnam conflict into a full-scale war) versus a Republican KristonuKulurmaniaK.

I would soon learn that my '64 vote for LBJ -- the first vote I was ever allowed to cast (you had to be 21 or older to vote then) -- was the idealistic and hopeful product of the extent to which I had been victimized by deliberate political deception.

My 2008 vote for Obama was more informed and thus far more skeptical. It was like the act of a drowning sailor struggling to remain afloat after his ship had been torpedoed by fascists. Like the drowning sailor I swam toward what I thought was flotsam that might save my life -- the ultimately malicious illusion of Obama's "change we can believe in" -- and am now discovering that what I saw was instead the dorsal fin of a shark.

Having suffered rather deeply and personally from LBJ's betrayal in 1964, I am too well defended to make the same mistake twice: I have not been hopeful about this nation's potential for progressive change, or truly enthusiastic about any U.S. politician, since Robert Kennedy was my senator/presidential candidate and John Lindsay my mayor.

Hence I am not suffering the same trauma so many others are experiencing. Indeed I suspected from the beginning that "change we can believe in" was merely a message to the ruling class that Obama would reliably further what has become the sole U.S. purpose -- that is, the perpetuation of capitalism -- with the only "change" limited to that which further ensures the absolute protection of the ruling class and the total subjugation of all the rest of us. Hence too I suspect whatever health care "reform" is made into law will not deviate from that purpose and those goals.

Medicare meanwhile -- as I have learned from bitter experience -- is not just a fraud but yet another representation of the socioeconomic savagery deliberately nurtured by the capitalism-uber-alles policy the U.S. embraced 46 years ago and will now obviously follow to the end of capitalist time. Because Medicare's co-payments are prohibitive -- officially no more than 20 percent but in reality 50 percent or more and then almost always cash in advance (no checks, no plastic) -- it is of no use whatsoever to those of us who are genuinely poor while it is simultaneously yet another huge taxpayer-funded bonus to the rich, effectively a 50-to-70-percent medical discount to the aristocracy and its servants.

As for the rest of us -- unless we have enough money to pay for the supplemental insurance required to reduce the Medicare co-pays to an affordable level -- we are targeted for euthanasia by neglect and abandonment: the official but (probably) unwritten policy that eliminates those of us capitalism deems unprofitable -- that is, those of us who are elderly, disabled (I am both) or otherwise no longer exploitable for profit. Which, beyond all the distracting rhetoric about "reform," is the real reason there will be no genuine change for the better: any substantive change would bring an end to this U.S. equivalent of the Final Solution.

While in a civilized nation such obvious rule-by-plutocracy would cry out for socialist remedies, in the U.S. this is uniquely not only untrue but impossible: the entire population was long ago deliberately conditioned in the core value of the ruling class -- infinite greed as ultimate virtue -- to create a barrier of malevolent closed-mindedness beyond which socialist values cannot possibly ever penetrate. As a result the same limitless selfishness that governs the board room also governs every other aspect of U.S. society, literally from birth to death.

Anyone who doubts the dismal and terrifying truth of this statement need only look at the conduct of the welfare bureaucracy -- the very people presumably responsible for caring for our most fragile citizens. From 1970 through 1990, these "caregivers" parasitically feathered their own nests by hiking welfare administrative costs 5,390 percent (NOT a typo) even as they slashed stipends and services to the poor by 66 percent -- and then, in an ultimate act of Big Lie welfare fraud, blamed the poor for "runaway welfare expenses" that were in fact the result of a bureaucratic spending spree.

Welcome to the United Estates of America, the One Big Plantation upon which "progressive" is merely another synonym for "in denial." As Tom Waits says, "step right up..."

The bottom line is, if we got rid of the damned insurance companies completely, three wouldn't be any "volatile" discussion about the "public option" because the government paid Single-payer plan would be the ONLY plan.

Congress won't even do a cost study on Single-payer, because they KNOW that it will prove what we already know ... that the greedy insurance companies have been stealing us blind for decades.

When a representative government, a government that, arguably, has the legal authority, the constitutional mandate, to execute the wishes of the populace, in this case, Single Payer, yet pretends to be unable to do so in favor of private monied interests...is this funny? sad? excusable? believable? no wonder the constitution doesn't offer the general citizenry the opportunity to remove senators from office...

so, in the near future, more and more of us will become jobless and homeless, without healthcare or retirement...and gun sales are going up and up and up...and Haliburton's been building lots of prisons...

Until the CBO scores single payer, everyone in the Administration and Congress should refrain from fog machine politics. Clear the air! Score single payer then we'll try to take you seriously.

God what a waste of time and resources, people are suffering - get on with it!

Have you ever noticed how many times there are comments and plans to make competition mandatory to bring prices down? We see that in all sorts of things from banking to food production. Great idea, the banks and the insurance companies competing for your business.

Don't forget, those same people are meeting in board rooms and expensive hotels around the world, fixing prices, buying politicians.

"OK, this year, you sell for a dime cheaper and get the extra business. Next year it is your turn. Oh, and be sure to prepare papers to show that overall prices have to rise because we are charging each other more money for the raw materials."

Real competition hasn't been seen since the late forties, if then. Pants that should cost twenty-five or thirty dollars are in the stores at eighty-five. Periodically, they go on "sale" for fifty or fifty-five and we think we are getting a deal. If you go to three or four stores, the price range for the same stuff is about the same.

Take the oil companies. The only competition is to see who can raise the prices the highest and still get people to buy it. Last year's ripoff is being repeated this year. There was no shortage last year, just speculators. Same this year.

Those who thought the Obamanation was going to be any different than being Bushwhacked or Clintonated need to see a Colorectal surgeon because there heads are stuck in the wrong place.

"The goal is to have a means and a mechanism
to keep the private insurers honest," Emanuel
told the Wall Street Journal.

Will someone please tell me why that should be the goal we try to reach?

Shouldn't the goal be to at least transform medicine in America to the place it was before Ronald Regan became president?

And that would be?

Doctors looking after the health and wellbeing of children, teens, adults, and the elderly. And health care being at least affordable for you and your family if you were working at an honest job.

Every since the conversion to a de-regulated society began, medicine has become a cash-cow for a narrow range of individuals and special interests, while access to that care becomes more restricted to the wealthy classes and politicians.

Why don't we set the goal to be to bring the craft of medicine in America up to the standards you find in Europe, Japan, Canada, and Cuba? Why should we remain a 4th rate power in the field of infant mortality?

Everything in this article points in one direction: Single Payer and Regulation to put an end to financial abuse of the system, and Criminal Penalties for executives and doctors who abuse that system.

Rahm needs to shut the hell up! Over 70% of Americans want real honest to God healthcare that is either single-payer or a strong public option. If the Democratic Party in Congress cannot get this reform done, then it time to say farewell to the Democratic Party and start another Party that will listen to Americans....Most Americans don't listen to the Republican Party now, why shouldn't the Democratic Party not face the same contempt?

Obama DOES need to know that if this bill is not passed where all Americans are not covered, then he already is a lame duck President, no second term...I don't care how well he speaks....action speaks louder than words Mr. President!!

Dear President Obama,
Using any and all means with the intelligence evident in a man of your stature you must conceive a way to move forward with either Single Payer or 'A Public Option'. What this last means only time will tell. Show us your heart. Do the right thing. Keep your word though it means your political death.

I am 80 years of age and have waited a long time for someone like you to be my President. There's a time to be shrewd and a time to put on armor,lift your sword and wade into battle.

If not now it shall never be.

This is getting weirder and weirder.

Single payer is the ONLY proposal that would solve the health care crisis without huge expenditures of money, yet would give everyone access to decent health care, a choice of doctors and hospitals, treatment without insurance company meddling, and yet....

A Congressional Budget Office scoring needs to be done - legislators can request one, and H.R. 676 is ready for scoring, unlike the mess they did score, which came from Kennedy/Dodd, and was not even completed. The scoring would tip the ball game.

If single-payer doesn't pass, the Democrats will have discovered a way to put the Repubs back in power quickly, because the other options just aren't good enough, and if they try to tax health benefits, and/or demand insurance mandates, everyone will lose, and they're already getting angry.

Never have so many tied themselves into such nasty little knots to protect an industry we neither want nor need, and which is destroying the country. I only hope they don't have to learn the hard way, because then it will be too late.

We didn't elect Rahm Emanuel. He is an appointee. What the fuck is he doing speaking for the President, or Congress? I'm for HR676, and if that has already been sold out, then some other kind of Public Health care option. If the problem is that it will drive the for-profit insurance companies out of business, then that just PROVES it is the right thing to do. That proves that it is cheaper, and more effective. HR676 allows for current healthcare providers to remain IF they obtain not-for-profit status. I don't think "not-for-profit" has hurt the growth of many churches in the U.S.. And,I think there should be the same separation that is between church and state applied to businesses and state, and other countries and state. The only relationship that "state" should have is between ELECTORATE and state.

"In private, White House officials are concerned that the debate over a public option has become so volatile that it could end up derailing the entire health care package."

The entire health care package? Without single payer or even a public option? What does that leave, "Promise to slow cost increases down and don't cross your fingers while you do it?"

Whose running this dog and pony show--it smells and looks like the old show--the crooks get it in their wallets and the people get it in a darker place than that.

Keep yelling everybody. You are allowed to criticize a policy of the person that you voted for. Getting a dem in the whitehouse was not the end, it was the beginning. Obama does not just call the shots and we obey. We lead ourselves.

The more money Emanuel can suck out of the American people, that`s more money that can go to israel, you know Chief of Staff with dual citizenship how can he lose.

Obama best put out his OWN fire!

From these comments and much else, I begin to think that this whole "health care reform" fiasco is going to be the Obama administration's Waterloo in terms of public support. You don't "play around" with people's health needs: at least not after having promised to fix a broken system and you offer no prospect except endless confusion and complexity as you try to be all things to all people and wind up being nothing to anybody except the profiteers of the medical care and insurance industries. Dare we to hope that the supposedly intelligent actors in the administration will realize this and actually turn in desperation to the simplest and most workable solution: the very "single payer" system that has been kept so circumspectly off the table of consideration? Will single payer be the Mighty Mouse who comes to save the day as those who want mandates and public options find that there is nothing but self-destruction in their plans? Probably not, but still I'm a dreamer.

Lately, when I see any headline or text concerning the health-care debacle containing statements or developments by the Obama maladministration or our Elected Misrepresentatives, I mentally substitute the term "Frankenstein" for "health care".

Because the substance of such reporting isn't really about "health-care legislation" at all, as the commenters here know all too well.

It's inevitably about the gamy body parts being assembled by our ghoulish Ruling Class into a living corpse of health care, animated by the lifeblood of corporate profits.

Expect the result to fall over frequently, since our wily, manipulative pols will attach baby feet to take those baby steps.

· Yr Obd't Servant

Rahm Emanuel suggested that the White House would be comfortable with legislation that had a public plan "triggered" in only by worsening economic conditions.

Worsening economic conditions for whom? With 50 million without health care at all is that not enough? How many millions have to loose their home? How many more are to go untreated. How many more have to die? How many businesses like GM need to fail?

Hey Rahm can you put a number on that? Just what is your comfort level and can you compare that with someone given the news they have a treatable disease but can not get treatment?

Your compassion just overwhelms me.

The Democratic Administration needS plausible deniability for the Healthcare industrial complex, so the Healthcare corporations that paid the money to put Obama and Emanuel is the White house get there monies worth and the Amercan People believe they have a better system, which they won't.

Ahhhh yes, "AMERICAN DEMOCRACY" IN ACTION, sure feels like the Corporate state to me.

Remember kids, War Is Peace!

Emanuel and Obama are just playing "good cop, bad cop." They are on the same page, and this is just a diversion while they prepare to push a huge gift to the insurance companies down our throats.

It is so clear that what we're going to end up with is "insurance" that is mandatory (a big pay-off to the insurance crooks) but that we still will be afraid to use because the copayments and deductibles can drive us into financial ruin.

In NO OTHER FRIGGING COUNTRY does getting sick wipe out your whole family and put you on the street. This is it, for me. I am so angry I could spit nails.

I didn't want to "waste my vote" on a third party, so I voted for "change we can believe in," which turns out to be the same old crap on steroids. How I wish I'd voted for Nader. And if McCain had won, so what? The only difference would be that there might not be an organic garden on the lead-contaminated (thanks, Bill Clinton, for spreading toxic sludge there) White House lawn.

My sincere apologies to everyone who knew better than to fall for the flim-flam man.

My line in the sand is Single Payer or nothing, as anything other than Single Payer will just make everything worse--and things are bad enough already. It's quite clear Obama is playing politics with people's lives, just as HRC did in 1993-4.

On so many issues, it's clear that most congresscritters ought to be fed into a woodchipper and used for fertilizer as they prove time and again to be no better than manure.

From the article:

"The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest," Emanuel told the Wall Street Journal.

Hey Rahm, if the private insurers were honest, WE WOULDN'T BE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION! GET IT???