When are they going to drum Lieberman out of the Dem caucus and take away his Homeland Security Chairmanship?

YES! Try LIEberman with RE-ALIENATION to his DEMiserepublicanism, instead!!

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

Some little cadre of Dimocrats with some testosterone in their hormone injections needs to put the hammer down on this overgrown sheltered Zionist brat/traitor, strip him of his Senatorial Committee Chairmanship and his other seniority perks and and spell it out to him in no uncertain terms that he's done no matter how much money they have to spend on his opponent's campaign. But I'm not holding my breath. Someone should statue this creep like Berlesque-coni in Italia.

I've never liked Lieberman regardless of which issue he's currently FUBARing.

Old Joseph 'Stiff Necked' Lieberman, disagreeability must be in his genes.

I think we all know by now that this deform bill has to be defeated and scrapped, because it would make things worse than they are now. Congress has to start over from scratch and pass single payer.

Unfortunately, "progressive" Democrats have so far decided to support Obama and disregard their constituents, 60% of whom want Canadian-style single-payer national health insurance.

http://www.wpasinglepayer.org/PollResults.html

Make your voices heard. Oppose deform and support single-payer.

Lieberman ought to be drummed out of the Senate! You can't possibly convince me that the people who voted for him actually agree with his holding this bill for ransom until it becomes useless and doesn't change things for the better. He's representing only himself and his muddled, infantile, power-grubbing, attention-grabbing thinking!

All of Congress should be required to accept the VERY SAME HEALTHCARE they vote to provide the rest of the country - NOTHING MORE!!!

Who the hell do they thing they are that they can have the best healthcare in the nation and fail to provide the very same for their constituents!?!?!?!?!?

The first comments here have mostly focussed on "drumming" Lieberman out of the Senate. The CD-furnished caption to this piece comes closer to the mark in my opinion: that the whole health care "reform" bill is a charade in which Lieberman plays the necessary "bad guy" role needed to provide the excuse for Congress not passing a piece of legislative garbage that any thinking member of that body would have to shudder when he/she contemplates the disaster of its actual passage. If you're going to take out your drum, please be ready to drum out nearly all our "representatives" in the Congress and the White House, not to mention the gullible among the "progressives" who believe that the legislation in question has something remotely progressive about it.

You are all missing the point!

There was NEVER going to be a public option, or real reform at all. The "debate" has been nothing but shadowdancing from the beginning. It's all A FRAUD, and all you progressives/dems/Obama supporters are the marks, the patsies, the chumps. The purpose of the con? To keep your support and allegiance even as they conspire with your worst enemies to betray you and take away everything you have...your health, your jobs, your kids' futures, and finally your freedom. Even your air...

"The democrats should...why don't they...etc. etc. etc." Why haven't you caught on yet? OF COURSE they could dump Lieberman. OF COURSE they could get the public option. Hell, they could get single payer if they wanted to. (They could have impeached Bush IF THEY HAD WANTED TO.) They haven't because THEY DON'T WANT TO and never did.

They are the frightened servants of the Republican party, and the bought and paid for EMPLOYEES of the corporate/military elite.

And you are the prize suckers of all time. Face it: you Love Big Brother.

Grab some popcorn if you're staying for the theater.

Lieberman is merely covering as dutiful fall-guy for Democrats too cowardly to go on public record as the corporate minions they are. Poor woe-is-we Harry and Barry can now wring and wash their limp hands of it while feigning a valiant effort for the people. Meanwhile, all we can count on for sure are individual mandates to maximized insurance industry profits. Perhaps there will be some version of hospice care as a public landfill option to dump expensive terminally ill patients on the people.

Yes, Lieberman is odious, but he is only reading the script of corporatist co-conspirator Democrats. This role play is the only scenario that makes any sense knowing that he would have been stripped of his Israeli Homeland Insecurity chair long ago had Obama not stepped in and said let's not look back; mistakes were made; let's all just get along.

Take a good look at the picture. This is what a insurance corporation pimp looks like.

Democrat path to little or no health care reform:

- Obama announces no significant change to current private health insurance practice.
- Single payer government public option not even included in the debate (compromised away before the start)
- Private meetings take place between insurance representatives and Obama and congress members. No open process as was previously promised by Obama.
- Obama lets Congressional leaders manage the process with little leadership by Obama.
- First rounds of Congressional compromise includes compromises with Republicans, even though Republicans won't even vote for the compromised bill.
- All so called progressive Democrats are pushed by Obama and Congressional leaders to fall in line meanwhile, conservative Democrats are "negotiated with" as they continue comprimising and blocking advancement of bills.
- So called progressive House Democrats renege on their public option pledges and vote on passing a bill without public option and includes abortion limitations.
- Second round of legislative action occurs in the Fall with Republicans not even included in meaningful discussions since they won't vote for the bill anyways. Reform bill continues to get compromised by Democratic conservatives.
- Quasi non-profit "public option" that was a compromise was removed.
- So called "Medicare public option" is being threatened to be pulled out.
- Senate leader starts putting pressure on House to vote on final Senate bill without amendment or debate (accept as is).
- Meanwhile, as this process drags on for nearly a year, Congressional members receive large sums of political contributions from pharmeceutical, health care, and insurance companies.

Gosh, are there any insurance companies in Connecticut?

Most major insurance co's are located in Connecticut. Lieberman is a Connecticut senator. The insurance co's contribute generously to Lieberman's reelection fund. Lieberman doesn't want a public option. Now he says he will not support lowering Medicare coverage to those 55-64 who most need health insurance and who have the greatest difficulty paying for it--if they can even get it. You do the math.

"It is not on the table at this point," the source said. This seems to be the favorite position of the reactionaries who claim they are Democrats.

First of all, Joseph Lieberman is listed as an Independent. Why is this buffoon allowed to caucus with the Democrats and given the powerful chairmanships that he now enjoys? If Reid had any balls, he would send this pompous shill for the insurance industry to the Senate Commitee on Tiddlywinks.

Of course, Ried or any other member of the Democratic leadership (including Barry Obama)will never defy Lieberman because he is a convenient scape goat on why the "can't" pass meaningful health care.

Joe Lieberman and his wife have become millionaires thanks to the health insurance industry and the liberal media is too stupid or dishonest to point this out.

American "Health Insurance" is just another protection racket.

Not that this bill is anything to write home about, as gutted and watered down as it is - not to mention that it's a massive subsidy for the insurance industry - it's probably better to let it drop and start the fight for single payer all over again. But seriously, isn't there some way the Democratic party can shed itself of a little smarmy, zionist, neocon, wet toilet paper twat like Lieberman? The little son of a whore should just step in front of a bus. But then I suspect the Dems love having a whipping boy like him around as cover for their own whorish tendencies.

I wish the people of Connecticut would stop voting for this bastard and keeping him in office. Take his chairmanship away and kick him off the government health care rolls! He and his wife can afford to pay, with all their bribe money from the insurance cartel, for their own health care out of pocket.

Then he has the nerve to say that the Medicare buy in will add to the deficit. These people are such liars and sad clowns, the deficit is already astronomical. Guess what, the senate just approved a spending/stimulus bill which is expected to hit the president's desk for signature soon http://www.marketwatch.com/story/senate-approves-huge-spending-bill-2009-12-13

This news seems to be trickling out to the corporateMSM though it is NOT at the moment big news as I think it should be! They keep printing money but there's no money for ANYTHING that would help our citizens and they refuse to enact universal health care. We all know where the money's going. They just pushed through another stimulus package on a Sunday and I guess the other corpMSM like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times are waiting for directions from their handlers (AKA the people who own/run the place) on how to break this news to Americans.

Some friends and I were talking a few months ago about what we would do if/when the bottom falls out with the economy, we all get fired/let go, what are our emergency/contingency plans just to stay afloat until things stabilize. We talked about forming a network and doing most of our planning online via social networks to make arrangements if one of us is fired, can't find another job, needs a place to stay temporarily, etc. It is similar to what people here have said about organizing for general strikes.

The recent news about media/cable companies consolidating and trying to stop freedom of bandwidth on the net is coming to a head. It might soon come down the pike that traffic to the REAL information/news is going to be slowed dramatically because the oligarchs don't want us to know about their treasonous actions before they can pass these bills.

Recently, Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google said this: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."

Here's the link to the video: http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-secrets-are-for-filthy-people

Sounds to me like they are using the umbrella of "privacy" and the Patriot Act to spy on activities of people who are making plans to opt out of the system just to survive in spite of all the laws that are being passed to force us into servitude and this is another way to control the people. They are spying on our organizing activities on the internet and reporting back to the NWO villains about where the bulk of the organizing is happening. Then the corporateMSM swoops in to slow down freedom of information on the internet. How convenient!

It's amazing how one man can hold up something important. On the other hand, it's perhaps not just one guy - like some here have pointed out...

Good, the health bill needs to be killed. This may be the only good thing that Lieberman has ever done for the country, even if for the wrong reason.

By the way, all of Congress has health care access that the average person doesn't get.

>>From http://www.2020hindsight.org/2009/08/02/the-health-coverage-of-congress-members/

Out of all 500+ Congresspeople (Reps and Senators), only one doesn’t participate in the generous taxpayer-subsidized plan: Rep Steve Kagen. Here’s more about him (emphasis mine):

The Wisconsin Democrat has refused to accept federal healthcare benefits, making him the only member of Congress to do without. He will continue, he said in an interview, until every American can enjoy the same coverage as federal lawmakers.

… “If every member of Congress put their heads on their pillow every night like I do . . . knowing this could be the night I lose my house, we’d fix healthcare in a week,” said Kagen, who spent decades as a doctor in the Green Bay area before winning office in 2006.

its a shame that harry reid doesn't have the balls to strip
lie berman of his senate chair and kick him into the wilderness with the rest of the republicans. he is such a coward.

I wonder if all these negative comments will affect Senator Lieberman's resolve.

Also, is he obstructing the public option for his own private gain, or is he just defending the sacred American tradition of money-changers in hospitals?

One word...
RECALL

Hey all, please forward and respond as you are able. This is my favorite resource for single payer (Medicare for All) documentation and advocacy. Their website NO MORE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS TO THE PRIVATE INSURANCE GIANTS. We need health CARE for all, not health INSURANCE for all. Blessings to you and yours during the holidays,

"The most common way that people give up their power is to think that they don't have any." --Alice Walker

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12/14/09
Contact: Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.
Mark Almberg, Physicians for a National Health Program,
(312) 782-6006, mark@pnhp.org

The Senate proposal to allow uninsured people over age 55 an opportunity to buy into Medicare constitutes yet another government subsidy to the private health insurance industry, a leading health policy analyst and single-payer advocate says.
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told a radio host Wednesday morning, "One of the better provisions of the reform legislation was that it prohibited charging older people more than twice (or thrice in the some versions) as much as you charge younger people in the individual market. But by saying everyone over 55 in the individual market can be picked up by Medicare, you've really let the insurance industry off the hook."
Woolhandler continued: "That is, the highest-cost patients in the individual market will be taken off their hands and paid for by the taxpayers; and private insurance will remain the only option for people under the age of 55 and for anyone who gets their insurance through their employer. Another way of saying that is: if you now have private health insurance and you don't like it, you're forced to keep it.
"The buy-in to Medicare is only for those 55 to 64 and it's only for people who are not offered private health insurance through an employer. So it turns into just a subsidy to private health insurance: the taxpayers will pay for the high-cost patients and the health insurance industry can take the lower-cost patients."
Woolhandler, who also practices primary care at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts, is a prominent advocate for single-payer national health insurance, sometimes called an expanded and improved Medicare for All. She says research has demonstrated that replacing today's multi-payer system, with its wasteful paperwork and bureaucracy, with a streamlined single-payer system would save about $400 billion annually, enough to assure everyone comprehensive, quality care.
"I want to remind people that at its core, this bill takes $450 billion in new taxes from the taxpayers, and hands it over to the private health insurance as subsidies. So, the core of the bill is a financial strengthening of the private health insurance industry. Now, one of the small things that was good about the plan, that is, forcing the insurance industry to lower the prices for older enrollees, has been taken out of the bill, essentially."

Woolhandler also said the proposal for an exchange of private, nonprofit insurance plans for those under 55 will be of little benefit, noting, "It's similar to the menu that is offered to federal workers, but of course federal workers actually get money to buy the health insurance. They don't just get the menu, they get the money."

A full audio recording of the interview, conducted by an affiliate of KPFK Pacifica radio in Los Angeles, is available.

Woolhandler is also co-author of several studies published in prominent medical journals this year, including one showing 62 percent of personal bankruptcies are linked to medical bills or illness and another showing that nearly 45,000 excess deaths annually are attributable to lack of health insurance.
Dr. Woolhandler and other leaders of Physicians for a National Health Program are available for interview on the most recent developments in the emerging health reform legislation.
Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) is an organization of 17,000 doctors who support single-payer national health insurance. To speak with a physician/spokesperson in your area, visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions or call (312) 782-6006.

Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602
Phone (312) 782-6006 | Fax: (312) 782-6007
www.pnhp.org | info@pnhp.org
© PNHP 2009

1965 what Republican supported Medicare-none, and it past. How did that happen? Easy, the Democrats under real leadership said to the Democrats you vote for this thing and it passed. With a good threat you can get things done. Start out with something smaller that the planks of the party suggest Democrats are for, if someone wants to turn tail, dry up everything going to that state, make an example so when the hard hitting legislation comes up the bastards who are wolves in sheeps clothing will know whats coming if they balk, Burning a few of these Democrats in name only should put the fear of God into those who drag their feet. Something has to get done, we have the majority and we can't function wothout forcing the issue a bit. Compromise only goes so far, and that was tried earlier in the house with 60 changes in the legislation and still not one vote from the republicans. So the only way to deal with Democrats who want to play Mugwump is to kick them over the fence with a swift kick in the pants.

Senator Lieberman used to be a pretty good guy. I've heard all the theories about why he's changed his views so much, but suspect it is something internal and mysterious. At this point, with passage of a health bill so close, I sure wouldn't want to be the senator who effectively shot it down. That would classify one with the reprehensible Phil Gramm, who declared undying enmity against the first health bill promulgated by Hillary Clinton and Ira Magaziner. One could say anything about it and did and I will: "A hell of a lot better than anything being proposed now-- a real chance for the United States to become a civilized nation." Oh Bottle, how can you be so cynical about the good ol' USA? Well, it started when I was 25 years old and spent a year going around the world for much cheaper than staying at home. I got to New Zealand with breakbone fever. My girlfriend met on the last boat took me to her mother's doctor. And he cured me for nothing. It was SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. And I loved it! Still do! And think anybody who doesn't is a TOTAL IDIOT!
Not a cent! It was like living in the garden of Eden! Not like living in a greed-infested hell of Gramms and Liebermans
who would rather perish than do anything nice for all the people.

This grotesque parody of a "health care bill", now called "health insurance reform" has got to go.

Time to scrap it and the corrupt boneheads who created it.

Time for people to demand single payer.

Canada's health care bill ran a full five pages, H.R. 676 is 28 pages long, and the present mess is 2,019 at last count. That alone tells us something. It's not going to be implemented for four years because it will take at least that long to sort it out and find out what exactly it calls for.

Lieberman is a back stabber, is of no party but his own, and will stick only with whom ever will help him reach his aganda, and that is to make a run for president. He is one of the reasons many didn't vote for Gore. Lieberman, and the leaders of Israel seem to have some kind of hold on the US, and the reason he gets away with his little games. Our tax money continues to be sent to Israel to kill the Palestinians. Find out why, and boot out Liberman.

There is another path.

Put together a simple, straightforward Single Payer healthcare bill and watch what happens to Democratic representatives who vote against it.

This mean spirited lackey of Aetna Insurance loves the power of bringing down the democrats who dissed him. He will be voted out of office but handsomely reward by his insurance benefactors.

So this one babyfaced creep and his pivotal vote is now the single most powerful health care broker in America. If they don't scuttle the public option, the only (already gutted) redeeming provision of this godawful health care bill, Lieberman will not vote for it. Sorry, America. Joe doesn't like it. Joe has you hostage. What was the line in Trainspotters? "We're ruled by wankers. So what does that make us?" I hope the liberals scuttle the bill. A country which lacks a natural disgust for the likes of Lieberman does not deserve health care.