I never thought that the Obama administration would be such incredible wets. Not that I thought that he was the bee's knees, mind you, but there's after all a lot of experienced brainpower around him. Have they learned nothing at all from failed campaigns by the Dems whenever they gave in to the Reps?

Let me say one good thing about Dubya: He and his buddies stayed the course they believed in, no matter what anybody shouted or screamed. No, I never liked it but yes, I give them A for just doing what they thought was right.

I don't get it how come progressives in America cave in at the drop of a hat.

araquin one word. BALLS. we have been robbed jobbed or any
other verbs or adjectives that are related here. i never
regret for a nyc microsecond that i voted for ralph.
as for the title obama picks fight with lefties. he should
stop worrying about us and do his god dammed job. then
we won't have a problem with us. he can't use us again
so now he'll pander to the yahoo's. problem is there's
way too few of them.

And now, at general forums, I start to read the rightwingers saying "He'll probably be impeached." I'm guessing Limbaugh or some other yahoo said it, so they're dutifully going out and about to start yet another nasty rumor. Obama will do nothing but lose if he plays softball with those people -- they *hate* him, and they have neither honor nor integrity, so they don't play anything like fair. In fact, they seem to despise fairness, along with every other virtue.

Whatever keeps Obama from getting shot.

If you're going to fight on, do it under some banner other than the Democratic party. The Democratic party has ceased to exist; it is now part of the Sharper Image catalog (which I believe also went out of business).

HANDS ACROSS AMERICA RALLY for support of SINGLE PAYER

august 23, 2:00(CST) your local mainstreet

take gov't control out of corporate hands back into the voting public.

I have volunteered for President Obama's campaign and have made over 2,000 phone calls over a 2 month period. I, like many progressives, doctors, nurses, etc., strongly believe a single payer system to be the easiest, most effective way to deal with the health care crisis.

With the understanding that we live in a world of compromise, progressive have settle on the compromised position of a public option in order to accommodate the interests of the much too powerful insurance industry and its representatives in Congress, the Republican party.

The elimination of the public option would be an unacceptable capitulation to the will of the minority (70% of Americans have consistently supported single payer over many years) and for this reason, it will not be something that I, and many other progressives would support.

The President, and the Democratic party should better pay attention to the following: any health care bill that shall pass without a strong public option will simply be seen by progressives like myself as a mandate to deliver more customers to private health insurance companies; and if that is what comes to pass you will have lost my support for the foreseeable future.

If the Democratic party capitulates to the pressures of big business and deny the people the choice of a strong public option, it will be the final nail in the coffin of the party as the representative of working people. I, for one, will actively begin working to build a truly progressive party to the left of the apparently centrist, corporate driven Democratic party.

We should let Obama know that there will be only two criteria his heath-care reform will be judged by i) it has to bring down health care expenditures to less than 7% of the GPD –to match the average of the other developed countries– and ii) it has to make coverage universal while improving the quality of care to match that of the UK and France. Everything else will be considered failure.

What matters here is that whatever will be created to compete with the clepto-medical complex i) be strictly non-profit, ii) be forbidden to pay out-of-control salaries to its execs, employees, and doctors, iii) be large enough to have Walmart-level bargaining power (i.e., de facto extortionary power) over the physician leeches and the pirate peddlers of fantasy-priced medical supplies, iv) have legislative foundations that cannot be perverted by future caveman administrations, and v) not be allowed to exclude anybody from coverage or to charge different fees to different people.

Obsessing about single-payer, the public option, health care coops, etc, should not let us forget that the final goal of any worthy reform of the heath-care system is to attain what is above, i.e., to stop the parasitizing of the national economy by the clepto-medical complex and abolish the stone-age relict of universal coverage not being guaranteed from birth on.

Obviously, we need a third party that could form a coalition with the Democrats, as they have thrown away what brought them to power. 74% wanted some form of single-payer, and 57% were willing to pay higher taxes- what the heck happened? On issue after issue, Obama and the Dims have faded, then folded. I left the party several months ago, after 37 years. The previous comment about Bush was right- he rammed through his bills that most Americans didn't want, and got his pet war to boot. The Dims have been eunucized!
I LOVE how the repugniCANTs claim to want "fair competition", yet keep the anti-trust exemptions for the health care industry. Harry Reid has got to go!

Obama is simply to young and to inexperienced for this job.
Like all the other over-educated Ivy League Morons,
{Bubba Clinton, the Bushees} they sold us out with Nafta, WTO,
and outsourced our industrial base to China. Why is this so
difficult to understand? Why are they keeping this a secret?
We are in a major depression and it is getting worse.
Obama fiddles while the country burns.
Obama should write a Single Payer Bill and challenge the
Congress to vote on it. Next year we could dump Move-on and
we could Move-out the Democrats like Dodd who have been caught
with their hands in the Cookie-Jar, and make a living of
AIG, and the rest of Corporate America.

Corruption cannot produce quality affordable health care. The politicians do not fear the left and will walk all over us. We have not rattled any cages on the streets or in town hall meetings so we get what we deserve, nothing. The left has lost it's moral compass and can no longer act with moral purpose. The Left has defeated itself. The People of America will pay for the Left's moral bankruptcy. It's over and we lost again and again and again as the left blindly adheres to it's misguided choice of death over life. Choose death and we get death.

Lesson here once again.... If liberals stick with the Democrats, you are going to get scammed time and time again. Don't liberal DP voters ever learn?

Without the public option what's the point. It'll just be handing billions over to the health care billionaires and business as usual.

However, here in Texas, Medicaid is being drained by illegals who come across the border, have children and then get free health care for those "citizens". If this type of behavior is not controlled the "public option" system will be bankrupt before it even gets started.

Obama promised to change 'business-as-usual' in Washington. He promised to ensure real competition for the insurance industry. He promised universal healthcare.

Absent a muscular federally-operated 'insurance' option, the list of regressive 'reforms' is infinte, but a few of them would include:

No FBI or OIG-DHHS to deter and punish healthcare fraud perpetrators --- those who are caught by these agencies for the Medicare and Medicaid program number over 3000 annually.

No accountability, as is the case now, for the insurance industry.

Rewarding not only the insurance industry, but other cancers in the healthcare menagerie by expanding their roles and exponentially increasing their revenues is insane.

Cost containment of any substantive meaning (beyond the propaganda crap) is unattainable.

A strong signal that when push comes to shove, special interests and their pimps in Congress are more important to public-policy makers than the health, well-being and econonmic viability of millions of Americans.

A questioner asked how private companies "could possibly compete" with the public option, and President Obama replied in very strong terms. The question was good, he said, even though that was wrong. The question was notably bad because it placed emphasis on business success rather than on what's best for the American people.

But President Obama blew this questioner to smithereens with his example of UPS and Fedex doing a better job than the U.S. Post Office. How could there be a reasonable reply to that?

Truth matters, but the objectors to public option don't care about it. They just want to win and are selfish and narrow.

Sensible people do need to fight now (forget labeling them as "liberals"-- a horrific failure in journalism as premature compromise in itself). Hold out against the Dumbo's no matter what.

Jim Shea
Once again, Obama has revealed his true colors. He should have run as a Republican.

Those of us who thought he was a progressive were fools. We should have voted for
Nader.

The US truly is becoming more fascist every day.

Real progressives always approached Obama's candidacy with some ambivalence, but it looked as if his election might, at least, open a few doors. With each new appointment, however, the hand-writing was on the wall. With the escalation in Afghanistan, the message was clear. The great sociologist, William G. Domhoff was correct (I never thought he wasn't) when he said that the Republicans and the Democrats were the right-wing and left-wing of the Property Party. So, what do we do? As Joe Hill said: "Don't mourn. Organize!" The future of health care reform --and of everything else-- belongs to us, the people, if we do.

Finally!!! Thanks, Krugman.

This is - no, I have insist on this jibe to show you the different culture - where any debate about health insurance for all would be right now if it took place in Europe.

We don't need liberals to fight, liberals are useless. We need leftists to fight. Liberals are disgusting, just a lighter version of Newt Gingrich when you get really down to it.

At the end the right will always win when liberals "fight", like the right always wins with Obama.

We leftists warned you against this Beije Bush for 2 entire years before the election but you weak-minded fools went ahead and voted for him anyway. Now go ahead and enjoy 4 or 8 years of Bush with a tan.

Liberals ARE NOT ALLOWED IN AMERICA. Not since 1980. The closest thing to a liberal, is a young person, with an Obama bumper sticker. All other americans are too scared to voice an opinion, knowing the bush terror squads still roam freely.

entered these into a dead thread so i'm reentering them same subject anyway - if any one wants to do something ,let talk let get together lets start

well screwed again lets just admit it and stop this senseless jaw boning and bemoaning .there's only one thing that this accommodate-or will respond to from us, and then it might not matter if he dose or not any way, like Joe Hill said organize.
that's right. the 2012 primary starts now . who's up Coumo, Kociich, yes Ralph Nader .comeon grassroots lets get on with it ,forget the public option single payer now. no more corporate bail out-- end the war now!

hay people class warfare it is. it an't no foolin around. by all mean lets march on the capital, now right now! i,m ready to go, but not for a public option, strait up single payer,lets grind their faces in it. i,m ready to confront there brown shirt thugs at the town halls, were are the buses. i'll cross state lines. look people i've got sever emphasize and i'm on ssi, still i'm ready to brave the gas and put my life on the line for what's right. still remember we must use a multie pronged approach. and the electoral proses no matter how piss poor it is, is a vital part of that. some of you say why bother they'll only betray us (even Kusinich, even Nader?)well maybe so maybe not , maybe we have to work twice as hard to keep them honest.the fear of losing office is a powerful lever . and anyway if you believe that why bother to write into sites like this, there's no hope , why even bother to read these materials , just go crawl into your insular little hole and die, gripping to yourself. yes people lets increase the adds and turn up the heat on those mangy ,squirmy, thieving, egg sucking, corporatest yaeller dog dems. lets throw them out in the primary s even if it means that they'er replaced by repugnats, at lest they can't stab us in the back, and let stop calling them blue dogs , yellow dogs was the original term ,look it up ,lets stop letting the enemy define themselves, and defining us.a cowardly thieving yaeller dog ,is a cowardly thieving yaeller dog not a blue dog not in a blue moon. and yes the 2012 primary starts now , right now .this vary minute. let get goeing , lets throw the bum out lets let this gutless appeaser, accommodationist konw were going to jettison him. remember all he wants is for every body like him , lets let him know we think he sinks, maybe it will cause some small changes in his shameless behavior in the meantime, before we deep 6 him, he's nothing but a disgusting cowardly traitor.
in the mean tine people we need to look to the future. and i propose there are 3 holey grails that we must set our minds to accomplishing at all costs. one we must eliminate large sums of money in the electoral proses ,rich men should not be allowed to buy their own election and i would propose that no individual be allowed to contribute more then 25$ to any candidate in any election, and that contributions to issue ads be likewise limited. we must eliminate this political lucre, even if this requires a constitutional amendment to do it, lets get going people. #2 we must eliminate financially based corporate lobbying strictly, imposing the severest penalty's thereupon the perpetrators , remember the hand of the white collar criminal lies behind the hand of the desperate street punk, welding the blade. thirdly we must destroy and eliminate commercially sponsored electronic media completely ,and forever ,it is the greatest satan,in it's ubiquitousness it degrades and perverts the mined,leads to mindless socially, and environmentally, global, cancerous consumption, that is not sustainable , and by controlling the spigot of information to suit the political preferences of the advertisers ,grossly distorts the political dialog of our nation. reasonably priced pay per-view over a fully activated high speed internet . could replace this shoddy system , and eliminate the hidden cost to the consumer at the check out line. but we must fight like demons for it . i will repeat this clarion call over and over again in a thousand different forums in a thousand different way as it is the only way. .

I wish Obama would just stand up for the change HE can believe in. Our belief, obviously, is misplaced.

is there nobody willing to STAND UP FOR WHAT IS RIGHT or are all satisfied to bitch, complain and or make excuses??

HANDS ACROSS AMERICA RALLY FOR SINGLE PAYER

August 23, 2:00(CST)
your local mainstreet

There is no health care reform; there is just the crises of a malfunctioning succubus of a healthcare system that requires even more adherers to its self-destructive and usurious ways to keep it from caving in on itself.

So we will be required to buy policies from a system that already reeks of corruption and exists only as a cash cow for the top earners in it.

That these CEOs, their lawyers and their representative health care professionals, who make more money working for a fraudulent and corrupt system of reimbursement than they do being doctors or hospital administrators, are also the entities deciding what the "new" health care system will look like would be laughable if it didn't represent the untimely and grueling deaths of people who would live longer and less terrified lives in almost any other industrialized nation in the world when it comes to health care.... as if most of the rest of us can even imagine being less than satisfied with annual incomes starting in the 300,000 dollar range.

Did any one ever think this would come out any differently? As soon as the fine senator from Montana started talking about how everyone would be heard, even after it was quite clear the whole proceedings were rigged to keep the public option off the table (and clear what remnants of it remained by encouraging the right wing nimrods their delusional beliefs about what a public option means to people who already die years earlier than their well-insured senators and representatives)it was overwhelmingly obvious that what we were witnessing was the whole sale pimping of what remains of American and Obama's integrity when it comes to presiding over a government that can actually deliver on the changes it won the elections spending millions of dollars shouting about.

And why not a public option? One hears that the insurance companies have declared that they simply can't compete with such an entity. Hell, they sure ain't competing for the potential dollars the uninsured might bring to them now... beyond treatments required for tardily diagnosed treatable diseases in their final stages. Medicaid and Medicare end up getting that dough... unless hospitals are forced to eat it because there is no one left in the family with any assets worth stealing to recoup the cost. Ever sit with someone for the year or more after their loved one has died, from being underserved and badly administered due to lack of insurance, and work through the kinds of shit that surfaces in them every time another bill or collection notice comes that names the deceased and all the particular, often peculiar, overdue charges? (hospital slippers: ten dollars)

Why not a public option? Because then the insurance companies would have to compete. They would have to deliver the goods. They might have to cover pre-existing ailments. They could no longer spend thirty percent of their profits for the piddly salaries of people who are the front lines in the officially sanctioned but rarely admitted to policy of denying coverage in order to boost the bottom line and keep those top salaries at the top.

Listen: I work for a provider that is primarily reimbursed through public options, i.e.: Medicaid and Medicare. These systems are far from perfect. The level of government oversight is unwieldy and intrusive to the point of compromising the quality of care that can be delivered. Front line professionals are more and more required to be paper shufflers even though their bottom line depends entirely on face-to-face interactions and care that they have less and less time for. Duplicating that on a more widespread basis is not in the best interest of anyone, BUT (and, as you can see, it's a big but) with administrative spending at ten percent and the express inability to refuse care to anyone who most needs it, it is certainly better than the alternative: i.e.: letting people most in need rot or disappear or, in the case of mental health care, get swallowed up in the burgeoning prison system.

So why not have a strong public option? If there is to be real competition between the public and private options the only people who would benefit are the consumers, as both would have to trim excesses to survive.

Why not? Ask the gentlemen and women in Washington from the President on down who continue to get huge influxes of cash for their next campaigns from the health care billionaires... the only people who are healthy from this bizarre and f--ked up excuse for health care.

Change? Pul-lease...

for those of you who want to stand and fight and fight. how can we get together on this site. .i guess write to the moderator ,site coordinator ,or web master let them know we want a forum in which to organize, coordinate and connect with other organizations on these issues . let them know we are willing to take the risk of being put in touch with each other by email i am going to do so . if not who has some other constructive ideas on how to move foreword please respond

I feel like I'm being strangled. Why is it that the real changes we need get watered down to being like piss weak coffee.

I do not understand why these concrete headed people want to give some CEO of some insurance company their hard earned money so he or she can make millions of dollars a year and then deny coverage to some child who needs a liver or kidney transplant.

I am at my wits end- I have just put my resume and cover letter in for a new job. I've had my current job for just under 8 years. I can't take driving 38 mi one way and then driving around for the job too. I know gas is goin up again and plus, I feel guilty as hell driving all over kingdom come,spewing C02 into the air. I hope this job comes through, it's the only one that could hold water for us as far as replacing my current income( and one that I can still do personality and skill wise). I'd be driving just 15 mi one way and no driving around... It's in a museum...

On my current job we are being threatened with jail from hippa from our new supervisor. She bought locks for all our file cabinets and locks for our office doors, without asking the CEO and if you happen to leave one open or forget to lock your office she reminds you that if hippa shows up you could go to jail... (She's 12 yrs military)She also goes on about the paper work and other things, stating that if hippa finds out you'll go to jail.. We are not doing anything wrong. We did not have locks for years... We work with people with disabilities and find jobs for them. No one comes up to our offices we're in the back up stairs. There's much more that has changed on the job, to the point that it's now about paper work for funding agencies to micromanage the money flow....and not about helping people. If I'm loaded up with paper work and so worried about all it's details to the point of being afraid of going to jail, then I don't want to do the job for $13.65 per hour and put 28,000mi on my car from feb to now. They can keep it.
I'm at the point where I just may resign anyway, because no matter how hard I work or my husband works, we don't have enough money to pay the bills, or save or GO TO THE DOCTOR EVEN WITH INSURANCE... If we do something for our two daugthers it's because we didn't pay something. For instance.
Right now I feel I'm being scammed by my electric company, I called up to pay my bill that I got in the mail,
$70.00 Ok that's not bad... But the woman said on the phone, no I'm sorry, you owe 200.00+ I had a heart attack and after talking with about 6 customer service reps for three days I found out why they were saying that. They said that (even though I've been paying about 100-130- dollars a month (for months now) in July the guy showed up to read the meter. (yes I do sometimes call in my own reading) So when I got the 70 dollars I figured it was ligit... Anyways she said he got a reading of $196.00, and they want it by the 19th or else. Of course I blew her ear out and told them to keep their freaking electric -smushed the button on my phone. what a rip off. How do they get away with this...

I get a bill for Aug for 70 but now they say it's-with charges 200. and some change? This is not acceptable... We are supposed to be getting some school clothes, some new- some from the second hand store, with these next pay checks. WE were also supposed to be gettin my car fixed, the breaks, which have been really bad for about two month. Plus, as usual since I drive so much, the bearings are bad and they need to be fixed. We just spent 500.00 on my husband's car...
Overall I'm not in the mind of wanting to fit into this sick economic structure we have anymore. I could care less if I seem "responsible" and polite and what ever to ..... one needs to be to 'get along" any more.

Most people at work etc always say I'm easy to get along with and I've gotten some amazing presents from co-workers because they think I'm nice... helpful an "accmodator" type personality.... Well the accomodater is dead... She has transformed into the,,, well I'll have to come up with something good. I can't wait to go to my electric company tomorrow....

I don't know what my long speil will accomplish. I hope you all are not pissed at me. But this is what I'm sure many Americans are dealing with. I don't have that $238.00 that I pay to my insurance company through my current job to just throw at some CEO and not be able to go for my mamagrams (I'm 52) and not be able to go to the dentist or take my kids. There is not extra money for a damn thing- not one damn thing. What to hell am I working for... I'd rather stay home and keep my house in order and take care of my garden. Never thought I'd say I like house work over going out to work. But the price of working seems higher than staying home. My stress is very expensive...

Good Grief

it even posted twice... it just took me so long to write it that I had to refresh-but I guess it took the first time...

Protests don't work, they get no media attention now or before. The media is owned by the forces of evil who want nothing to do with any health care option for the majority of the population. The people who are in charge have no fear of us as a population. In France it is a whole different game, maybe it is because their memory of revolution is very clear in their minds. There they fear what will happen if it should come again, especially in the way they separated the haves from the have nots, if you get my drift! WE need to build a machine that operates on the old democratic system of winning elections with shoe leather and not lobbyist money and TV ads. We need to select candidates who represent reform and will not alter their stance regardless of the power structure in Washington. We only get a chance at one-third each election, but if we win significantly the tide will turn and the fear of a populist uprising will take hold. Throw out the blue dog democrats and those who tell us what to do, We are the people in charge. ORGANIZE!