Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
AFSCME's Gerry McEntee Takes on White House
The president of one of America's largest labor unions, Gerry McEntee, has emerged as a major obstacle to the White House's efforts to maintain a unified front in the health care debate.
Gerry McEntee The veteran president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has crossed lines that few labor leaders - even those who quietly agree with him - would go near.
McEntee led workers in chanting a barnyard epithet to describe Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus's health care bill, which would levy a new tax on expensive health care plans. He published an op-ed in U.S.A. Today warning, in terms that could be used against Democrats in the midterms, that the plan could tax the middle class and cost workers their health care. And he blew off a plea from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and published an open letter promising to "oppose" legislation that contained the tax - published over the objections, several labor officials said, of other union presidents whose names appeared on the letter.
"We have had just about enough of his gratuitous slaps," said a senior White House official Friday, calling the politically charged language "outrageous and unacceptable" from an ally - even from one that had, the official noted, devoted substantial resources to health care efforts.
"He's doing his members a real disservice," said the official, who said that while all other labor leaders had been careful to keep their opposition to elements of health care proposals modulated and largely inside the tent, McEntee was "beyond the pale."
But a spokesman for AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stood by McEntee.
"We work closely with the White House and count ourselves among their strongest supporters," said the spokesman, Eddie Vale. "Sometimes being supportive means staking out a tough position, and nobody understands that better than President McEntee."
McEntee's posture - and the fierce response from a White House determined to keep allies in line - reflects a broader dilemma on the left of the Democratic Party, which is feeling both lingering satisfaction at Obama's victory and frustration at his caution.
From labor to civil libertarians to anti-war activists, progressive organizers have had to choose between biting their tongues and losing the access and power that comes with friends in the White House. McEntee is among the most prominent leaders who has been willing to challenge the administration.
Despite his investment - and AFSCME's - in health care reform, he has been willing to risk his relationships and his influence with powerful Democratic leaders in the White House and the Senate for a bill he can more fully embrace.
McEntee's stand also reflects the messy internal politics of the labor movement. His arch-rival in organizing public sector workers, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern, has aligned himself closely with the White House, pushing McEntee, an associate said, to define himself as the loyal opposition.
The posture is entirely in character for the brawny, brawling Pennsylvanian, who has a long record of confrontational politics, stretching back to the 1980s, when he led fierce attacks on Democrats who backed a balanced-budget amendment.
Unafraid of making enemies, he has a history - unusual for a union leader - of diving early and aggressively into Democratic primaries, supporting the unsuccessful presidential candidacies of Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton, and, most recently, endorsing Terry McAuliffe, who lost to Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial primary.
McEntee first angered the Obama camp during the 2008 campaign with his support for Clinton , especially in the early, demure days of the primary season, when his union mailed a harsh attack on Obama to New Hampshire voters, which asked: "How can we be sure the new President is ready?"
In labor circles, McEntee is regarded with a mixture of pride, indulgence and disdain.
"Gerry's never been shy about standing up to his members, regardless of who's in power - he's there to fight for his members," said the president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, a longtime McEntee friend, Rick Bloomingdale.
"A lot of people have made the political calculus that we don't want to piss of the White House, so we don't want to be that overt - but they're certainly glad that somebody is," said one prominent labor official. "That's the great thing about him - you can't edit the guy - and he likes to do the ‘bull***' chant whenever he can find an excuse."
McEntee, traveling in Puerto Rico to oppose layoffs of public workers there, was unreachable Friday, according to his spokesman, Chris Policano.
"No one's worked harder than AFSCME to support the president's vision of providing quality, affordable health care for all Americans," said Policano, who said the union has spent more than $2 million on advertising for health care reform, lobbied Congress, paid campaign organizers in 13 states, and turned out workers to town hall meetings, while planning a large-scale "national day of action" October 20.
"President McEntee is fiercely committed to the principles we've been advocating for months, including a public option and keeping costs off the backs of working families. He's more than willing to keep the heat on Congress to make that happen," he said.
When Emmanuel recently requested that he tone down his public criticism of compromise legislation, McEntee responded dismissively. "He told us that we really don't want to be looked upon as the group that stopped meaningful health-care reform," he said in an interview with Bloomberg News . "We would love to be on the exact same page as the White House, but we see ourselves as fighting for our members."
So instead of backing down, McEntee convened a conference call Tuesday afternoon of AFL-CIO union presidents, and presented them with an ad that would run the next day in POLITICO, the Washington Post, and other Washington newspapers containing this uncompromising language: "Unless the bill that goes to the floor of the U.S. Senate makes substantial progress to address the concerns of working men and women, we will oppose it."
The last phrase shocked other union leaders on the call, and three of them - Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers, and Harold Schaitberger of the International Association of Firefighters - questioned the language.
"It's gone," McEntee said of the ad, and when Schaitberger - a longtime foe -- tried to pass a resolution blocking the letter, he objected on procedural grounds.
"Is there any imaginable scenario where even AFSCME - the big blowhard - would oppose a health care reform bill by this congress and this president?" asked an official at one objecting union, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Is there any scenario that that would happen? So why would we say it in an ad?"
Others said they might still oppose the legislation, but that the ad was unnecessarily strident. "This is very premature to be putting markers down," Schaitberger said. "There are so many steps left. There are two Senate bills to be merged. We're going to get a lot further down this road by being prospective."
The unions that thought McEntee had gone too far are circulating a letter to the Senate that changes the word "oppose" to "not support it."
Another union president on the call, Unite Here's John Wilhelm, downplayed the differences."The president and the labor movement have the same agenda on health care. There might be tactical disagreements from time to time," he said. As for McEntee, he added: "There's a lot of different styles in the labor movement, and that's ok."
One longtime McEntee associate said the president and his aides will just have to get used to him. "That's just the kind of bare-knuckles politics McEntee has played for a long time," the person said. "I know the White House is pissed off at him, but it's awful early in the presidency to be tossing someone over the side."
65 Comments so far
Show AllThank goodness for AFSCME President McEntee and for AFL-CIO President Trumka! The rest of the union leaders don't seem to be able to remember that their job is to support their union members, who gave up pay increases in order to get adequate health care insurance, and now are being told by President Sell-out Obama that they will be taxed on their insurance policies.
And by the way, the "public option" will not be an option for anyone whose employer offers to sell its workers insurance, no matter how crummy and expensive the plan.
Obama's "plan" is a massive give-away to the insurance companies.
We have already seen how much his massive give-away to the financial sector helped us: we're still losing our jobs and homes, but they're swimming in money on Wall Street.
Obama and co-President Rahm Emmanuel can shove it.
It is about health control and revenue enhancements.
Take out the word "health" and you have it. It is about Democratic control over 1/5th of the national economy and the unlimited ability to tax "to protect health care". What gets protected is the politicians' sinecure.
I think you have it completely backward. They want he corporations representing 1/5 of our casino-economy to run our so-called democracy. Tax policy - specifically regressive tax policy - is an important way to achieve that.
www.itep.org
The corporations are the masters, the politicians, the servants.
I'd love to have democratic control of the whole economy. Note the small "d".
The quickest way to small-d democratic control of the economy is the immediate repeal of about 99% of the federal regulations on businesses and elimination of the income tax, in favor of taxes on consumption.
Ready to fly?
That sounds daft, to me. How long will it take, do you suppose, before we all finally really 'get it' that business owners are in business for themselves, and will do only the minimum necessary to stay on the right side of the law? If the law goes away, we become fair game.
Now, as far as a consumption tax goes, I'd suggest instead a tax on wealth-producing activities such as stock transfers, etc. A big tax. Consumption taxes reduce consumption, therefore the circulation of money, and thereby collapse the economy. Adam Smith pointed that out in 1776, in TWON. So what we really want is a tax on *non*-consumption. A tax on sitting-on-the-money.
pjd412 advocated small-d control of the economy, apparently meaning big-c Communist control, where "the people" own and control all the means of production. These are diametrically opposed and both have been tried. I'll leave it to intelligent readers to determine which has a better track record for prosperity, economic development, environmental sensitivity, and human rights.
As for taxes, it is true that there will be less of activities that are more heavily taxed. A consumption tax then reduces consumption, as you so correctly point out. However, it reduces consumption by the rich more than for the middle class or poor, because necessities take up more of the wealth of the lower strata.
Where then does the money go that the rich don't consume? I doubt that much of it goes under the mattress, or is buried in the back yard. Instead it is invested, loaned, or otherwise put to use. That money then goes to businesses small and large, new and old, to buy materials and equipment and hire workers. Far from collapsing the economy, prosperity is spread through the classes by burgeoning commercial activity. Poor people are hired, middle class entrepreneurs have access to low-cost capital to start new activities, independent research can be funded, new products developed, and innovation abounds.
As you say, Adam Smith correctly developed these ideas as far back as the 1770's.
Maybe excess profits were plowed back into enterprise in the 1700s. I don't remember. Today's capitalists for the most part do not use their money for new and positive enterprise. They buy 12 homes each with 14 bathrooms and pools and closets bigger than many people's dwellings, 14 yachts, insane amounts of jewelry and furniture etc. etc. Most new spending has been for production in countries that allow close to slave labor conditions, for war industry and for speculative finance. Quick profit for MEEEE and the earth be damned is the prevailing morality.
This is the last time I will be wasting any effort answering your baseless assertions. waltdimm is way to the right of much of the US population at this point, so he should go to a different forum. We have a lot talk about and a lot to do.
Joe
You assert that is the way to democracy, but give no evidence. Your plan sounds like a corporate plutocrat's dream. No thanks. I am for regulating huge corporations and for a tax structure that spares the poor and makes the rich pay their fair share. That is a steeply graduated income tax.
Deregulation of finance and corporations has led to increases in kleptocracy, pollution of the earth, war profiteering and the subversion of democracy by the power of the dollar. My evidence is the last three decades.
Joe
Health insurance industry campaign donations and public interest do mix... everything up.
Obama said that we needed to "make him do it" - and he was not speaking to representatives, he was spaeking to the grassroots.
Time for the cabinet and spokespersons to be reminded.
Seems to me that McEntee is doing exactly what needs to be done - and as a representative of labor, what Obama said to do.
FDR was the guy that said " I want to - but you have to make me" Obama has never said that. But we on the left need to pressure him to do what little he'll do that's not "regressive - robin hood for the rich" policies he loves so much. WE have to FORCE him to do it - and we can't force him to do anything if we sit on our hands WAITING for the manchurian candidate(for the republicans) to save us. NOW is the time to express your disapproval with the president - not after the laws have been passed and we're back into election mode of promise the world while blowing it up. The rightwingnuts are correct when they say this is Obama's waterloo. If he doesn't pass true health care reform that helps the middle class and working poor - he's gone!
Funny, but I am near certain that I have heard Obamabots insist that Obama also said: "I want to - but you have to make me".
What is the mental disorder called when one swears that they have seen a person do or say this or that when it it really just their imagination?
And as far as this perplexing punitive tax for comprehensive plans - it is really a program where government, at the insistence of big insurance, encourages us to get these abominable, bankruptcy ready-to-happen "consumer driven" plans. Even when we pay heavily out of our paychecks, or make major pay concessions in union contracts, they don't want us to have the coverage that a Canadian takes for granted for free!
I never trusted O but I do remember when the MSM reported that he repeated FDR's phrase.
"Obama said that we needed to "make him do it" and he was not speaking to representatives, he was speaking to the grassroots."
Oh, really? I don't know how anyone can fall for that tricky crap when Obama immediately locked single payer out of the debate and cutting us off at the knees, no matter how much we BEGGED.
Keep falling for this masterful phoney and you'll find yourself accepting more and more abuse.
Bring America Back !!!!....!...Look, Amerika for Dummies !!
***Everybody knew Team Obama would cave-in to Big Med, Big Pharma, Big HMO, and Big AMA---it was only a question of how much the yellow bellies would crawl.
****Jellyfish Obama threw a Single Payer Health System under his bus, along with most other campaign promises, and His
so called Public Option is a Sham to quiet guys like Mc Entee and the Unions until they shove the Insurance Company Plans down our throats. Forcing everyone to buy insurance!
Increases of $100 to our present premiums !
Zionist, AIPAC trustee, Rahm Emanuel seems to be Captain of the Obama Policy Ship of StaTE. He (Emanuel) is setting up that Ship for every kind of torpedo around the Globe !
****So, Shout it from the Rooftops, Mr McEntee---Your union members are being ripped off by Team Obama, and so are the rest of middle Americans.
its nice someone rustled rahns feathers. this weasel is
one of our largest problems with his backroom deals
his failure to put american citizens before corps.
and anybody else for that matter. obama needs to under
stand that they are giving him the our way or the highway
and will do whatever they can and with the state of
unionism in america today its probably not too much
but he is about to lose their backing. if that was me
i would have done this in july with a rally outside
the whitehouse and the capital building to make sure
that the powers that be would not have any misunderstandings.
thank GOD Obama ended the trickle-down voodoo economics he railed against during the elections.....can you say ONE AND DONE OBAMA?
Finally, a player on the national political scene, and from labor no less, who will call a spade a spade....or in this case, apparently, call a cow pie a cow pie.
Good for you Mr. McEntee. I suggest that the real fight is to get money out of politics. That's the one unions need to get behind to end politician bribing contests once and for all.
The unions behind getting money out of politics? The unions are many of the largest donors to political candidates in the USA. Of the top 100 biggest donors, 27 are unions, 19 of the top 50, and 8 of the top 12.
1989 - 2010 Top Contributors to Campaigns:
AFSCME $41,412,673 #2 of all organizations
IBEW $30,920,696 #6
NEA $29,960,425 #7
Laborers Union $28,426,600 #8
SEIU $27,650,957 #9
Carpenters and Joiners $27,570,758 #10
Teamsters $27,402,304 #11
CWA $26,748,746 #12
The 27 unions in the Top 100 list gave a total of over $527,000,000. Well over 90% of this money went to Democrats, so don't expect any help from Washington.
[Source: Center for Responsive Politics from FEC data.]
I was an organizer with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America for many years and also President of one of its District Councils. At the same time, I was a member of the Communist Party. During that time, I constantly fought for our union to take an independent class struggle position rather than look towards aligning itself with a big business party. The top leadership within the trade union movement continues to believe that its interests lie with the success of American corporations and that a partnership exists with the ruling elites. Hopefully reality will drive more of the rank and file of the trade union movement to abandon this myth and replace their leadership with one that fights for their real class interests.
A communist in the right-wing Republican Carpenters and Joiners? That must have been something...
And, to the the person critical of union campaign contributions, what would you rather them do? Accede the whole field to the corporations? We don't always get to choose the battlegrounds on which we fight!
The "right-wing Republican Carpenters and Joiners" only contributed 90% of its $28,000,000 to Democrats.
ezeflyer suggested that unions could lead the fight to get money out of politics... My point was that much of the money in politics is UNION money. The unions are not going to give up their ability to buy political access and compliance any more than corporations, trial lawyers (#5 on the list), or any other special-interest group with more than $2 in the bank.
"Getting money out of politics" seemingly only applies to money from people we don't agree with.
"A communist in the right-wing Republican Carpenters and Joiners? That must have been something..."
Indeed it was. :-) Thankfully, the rank and file membership gave me the support I needed to prevent the International from unseating me during those years. Democracy kept getting in the way, as it should.
As an AFSCME member I say keep speaking out for the interests of the workers. How dare this administration and this Congress think that the workers of this country should be taxed on their medical insurance premiums. Let's put the taxes back that were rolled back during the previous administration and then consider raising taxes on the ridiculously wealthy. The wealthy derive their wealth from the workers so it is only fair they pay taxes to support medical care for all. Come on folks, let's back real medical care reform, not this ridiculous crap being pushed by Baucus and Obama.
The primary reason to treat ObamaInc like BushCo is that they are essentially the same. Obama clearly supports Baucus's corporate welfare for the inscrewus industry which will come at the expense of the commonfolk. McEntee understands what this is all about: The Class War. We need many more like him to defeat the abomination that is ObamaInc.
When will the Unions realize that they are throwing their Member's
dues money away by spending Millions on Democratic Politician's
campaigns? This money would be better spent on organizing, in my view. There are two bellwethers on this:
A Public Option available to all in the Healthcare Reform Bill.
Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
If either one of these bills fails, or is watered down, the Unions
should stop funding the Politicians, as they have taken our money
and sold us out.
Although Emmanuel is an a**hole of the first order it's not like Obama doesn't know what's going on. The writing of the health bill was outsourced to Congress to make sure no "mud" could be splattered on Obama's K street manufactured halo.
Obama and the big money that supported him knew that he was and is a total hypocritical sell-out.
The Left should immediately withdraw support and begin to support those that are known and trusted to stand by their words even if there is no hope of winning. It is better to fight and lose than to support someone who will stab you in the back. Obama does not deserve our support. He deserves our contempt.
Forget the betrayer that swaggers to the podium and boldly lies to us.
Letting Republicans in is pretty reckless. Repugs are not the same as Democrats. We just went through eight years of show me. No, I am not ecocidal. It's better to vote out Dem cons than to let Repug berserkers in again by voting third party.
I don't want a third party. I want to see an organization that no longer blindly votes for a "D". Maybe sometimes we'll choose a D but mostly we will support our own "I" candidates. We can then work with the D Party from a position of some strength instead of continually being conned by the latest Left impersonator.
Imagine if that "I" organization had 3 million members (plus those that are uncommitted who follow our lead). We would then be the swing voters. We could demand that the D Party pass legislation BEFORE the election if they want our vote; otherwise we vote for our own.
aremagen;I like that T org.!Tony
aremagen
You hit the nail on it's head about the modus operandi of this White House.
Everything is designed to keep Obama's hands clean while he sells us out behind closed doors. Obama and Rahm should quit with the charade and a hang a shingle outside the Oval Office door,
"WE CONSIDER ALL CASH OFFERS."
"McEntee first angered the Obama camp during the 2008 campaign with his support for Clinton."
That's his first mistake. He SHOULD have been behind Kucinich, the only TRUE & SERIOUS labor candidate during the primaries.
Yes, when I read the article saying he was progressive with regards to the 2008 Presidential candidates and that he wasn't for Obama, then Dennis Kucinich is the only person who fittingly came to mind if McGentee is really serious about health care reform and is known to be partial to or towards the Dem. Party, which'd eliminate Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Ron Paul, and possibly other candidates last year, from who we could expect that McGentee may've supported. Then the article drops the "bummer bomb" in saying he was supporting Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean, neither of who could be trusted for real health care reform, or much of anything else that's a critical issue and which the rich ruling "elites" profit from. We can consider it a safe certainty that Hillary Clinton could not be counted on for honourably upholding the Constitution and respect for international laws, etcetera; and it's very unlikely that Howard Dean would really be much better.
The Clintons have a long record of really being with the ruling "elites", doing as they want or demand; instead of abiding by the Constitution and international laws, ... that the Constitution clearly states are "law of the land" in the USA.
Dennis Kucinich could be counted on to really work on good health care reform. As President, there might be too much opposition to his efforts for him to achieve needed legislation, but he could be counted on to do all he could. We can't reasonably believe this of any of the above three people, including Obama; Obama, Clinton, and/or Dean.
McGentee's evidently not truly "progressive" in a good way. Maybe he is in some respects, but he clearly isn't when it comes to who to support for the U.S. presidency.
The article also doesn't provide precise information on what he wants for health care reforms; it only says he's opposing the present bill on the basis of demanding real reforms. What's real health care reform to him might not be particularly appreciable for the general population. If he was for universal health care reform, which the country needs, then I expect that the article would've stated this and it didn't, so he's evidently not for UHC. So what does he precisely want for reforms?
It's a question people should be asking and demanding a truthful answer to. After all, he's already proven that he's not someone to count on for choosing who to support for the U.S. presidency.
"...instead of abiding by the Constitution and international laws, ... that the Constitution clearly states are "law of the land" in the USA."
My copy of the Constitution says in Article VI: "This Constitution, and the laws which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;..."
International law has no constitutional authority unless included in a treaty, signed and ratified by the Senate. Only when a treaty has been ratified, the terms of the treaty carry the same weight as the constitution.
You're technically right, but the U.S. is cosignatory to and therefore did ratify international law; enough of these laws to arguably matter anyway. So as I previously said or inferred, relevant international laws, like many regarding war and human rights, are law of the land in the USA; supremely so, as you state.
The U.S. refuses to ratify the law for banning cluster bombs, f.e., but the U.S. is nevertheless cosignatory to surely most laws regarding war and human rights.
All one needs to know about the US government's adherence to treaties it signs and artifies is to look at the Kellog-Brian Pact and the overall history of Indian treaties. History and recent events prove the USA to be untrustworthy and no more than barbarians dressed in three-piece suits.
McEntee, not McGentee, as I previously misspelled it.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This was the perfect time to oppose the movement of the Baucus bill and McEntee's message was aimed at Harry Reid, not the White House. Reid is the one who has to make the choice between the Baucus bill and two other bills. His choice is between sending a bill with a public option to reconciliation with the House or sending the Baucus garbage. If Reid sides with Baucus it will give more excuse to the House to ignore a public option. This will cost the Democrats in 2010 and 2012 because many who might still say they support Team Obama will likely just sit out the elections--especially when the union rank & file realize how they've been screwed by whatever health care deform crawls out of the intestines of the craven DLC Congress.
I wanna know what the barnyard epithet was.
I doubt it was cow pie.
Also, given the record of this congress and this president, where the hell are the other union leaders who ought to be supporting McEntee instead of telling him to be more cautious? Sure as hell the AFSCME historically has not been known as a radical union (I was a member once).
From the article:
"'We have had just about enough of his gratuitous slaps,' said a senior White House official Friday, calling the politically charged language 'outrageous and unacceptable' from an ally - even from one that had, the official noted, devoted substantial resources to health care efforts.
"'He's doing his members a real disservice,' said the official, who said that while all other labor leaders had been careful to keep their opposition to elements of health care proposals modulated and largely inside the tent, McEntee was 'beyond the pale.'"
ANONYMOUS White House official? Calling McEntee's efforts to obtain REAL health care reform "gratuitous"? What a pile of horseshit. If Obama REALLY wanted a genuine "public option" instead of just pandering (lying) in public, there'd be one.
The AFSCME spent millions promoting health care reform and McEntee rightly sees the betrayal from the White House and the Dems (Baucus). He has every right to be angry as hell. None of us should put up with this crap anymore.
Sen. Baucus and Obama are "beyond the pale." I am tired of being sad. I'm very, very angry. I'm outraged. We all should be. This country is moving in one direction: downhill. I actually voted for that bastard (Obama). My apologies to my fellow citizens; I should have "wasted" my vote on a third party. ANY third party! Burn down that effing tent. Tear down that wall!
-30-
The epithet was bull---t. It was later on in the story.
Baucus Bovine Bullshit?
Has a nice ring to it.
Sorry to jump in here on an unrelated thread but I think it was you who told another poster how he might get his cholesterol for insurance purposes.I had trouble with mine and the DR. wanted me to take zokor or one of those drugs and since I hate taking drugs I said give me a couple of weeks and we would talk about the drugs then.When her targets for me were exceded she did not know what to say.Anyway what I did was take Nature Made 1000mg capsules 1ea. a day and a tablespoon of Manitoba Harvest shelled Hemp Seed once a day.The whole lipid panel went down!The only thing I have to work on is get my hdl up.The only reason that I dont take hemp twice a day is because of the expense and it is better to send for it on line.google it and go for the best deal.It tastes good and is really good for chol.Take care of yourself,Tony
Always union,AFGE,IBEW and would if a member now (I'm retired) would want this guy on my side and would back him always
I voted for him too. But now I see that not only is Obama McCain, he's better at lying to get what he wants.
Affordable health care for all?--Sadly, not in the cards in the USA. Instead, we have wars, bad health care , wall street rule, torture....
Crazy place, this country, no? Our so-called elected officials torture like crazy, take money from poor saps on main street and give it to rich twits on wall street, get in stupid war after stupid war...hopeless. Maybe 300 million people is ungovernable. Maybe 500 or so elected politicians in D.C. is too many, maybe one president should do the governing listening only to Wall Street and the Pentagon. No maybes--this is what we have. As long as these twits can keep people relatively happy and employed we have reasonable chance. Trouble is, people are not working, our economy is a house of cards and China looms!
I'm glad someone is calling BS when he sees it. The stupidity we've witnessed in the Senate (no one is telling us what's happening on the House side) is complete BS. The Baucus bill deserves to be defeated. It is not reform. It's the bill the health insurance industry wrote. Fortunately, it isn't necessarily what will go to the White House for signature.
After learning this week (on the Keith Olbermann) that the health insurance industry enjoys an exemption from federal anti-trust legislation, I am doubly outraged that we couldn't get a public option included in Baucus' bill.
Now, the only thing that will satisfy me is a repeal of the insurance industry's exemption. Let's put their capitalist ideals to work and create some competition. Let them fight it out and let's add a public option to make things really interesting.
It's good to know that someone is calling Bullshit on the chicanery of this Democratic administration.
Good for Gerry McEntee!
Health Care Reform should have been passed in January with the Stimulus.
Nine months later we continue to languish without health care reform legislation,
and from what news stories that are circulating, any reform won't begin until 2013!
How much more abuse can a people take? It will be good to see the Green Party grow into viability in this country.
Bill in Dubuque,
Teamsters Local 120
That 2013 date has not been played up enough. It should make people as angry as everything else in this bill so far. It's bogus. It's all tied into the election. I assume the thinking is that Obama will be safely reelected before Americans discover they've gotten the royal screw. How can you read this any other way? People were covered by Medicare within 11 months of the bill being passed -- that is what crisis mentality looks like, the idea of saving people 65 and over who were dying from lack of health care. Now the situation is far more dire and look how we drag our feet.
Obama simply wants this passed yesterday so he can cross it off his list of "accomplishments" and build up his Presidential resume. GW's resume, if you just took the name of the bills without their ramifications and the actual effect on people, would look pretty good. No Child Left Behind is a good example. That sounds pretty warm and fuzzy to the casual observer. It's been a disaster for the people -- and Obama apparently wants to keep that, too.
Wall street Casino fails and they get free money and less taxes.
Mainstreet Fails through little fault of its own and some Democratic Berserkoo wants to tax the collapsing middle class to pay for healthcare.
Who is so evil as to even think of Taxing union workers health benefits?
Since readers posting in this page think this stand by McEntee is so great, some of these readers should explain what he's promoting for health care reforms, for I didn't see any mention of his demands in terms of specifics. Is he pushing for UHC, or significantly less, while nevertheless more than what the present bill in question, that he's opposing, or what? What are the reforms he specifically demands to have legislated?
There's no point in praising his stand until people are informed of the specifics of his demands for health care reform.