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TechnoratiDisruption of Congress or Corruption of Congress?
Single Payer Trial for the Baucus 13
Seven of the Baucus 13 were arraigned in Washington, D.C. Superior Court this morning.
The Baucus 13 are doctors, nurses, lawyers and other single payer advocates who stood up before Senator Max Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee during hearings on May 5 and May 12 and demanded that a single payer advocate be allowed to testify.
Senator Baucus called 41 witnesses over three days of hearings on health care reform – not one of which was a single payer advocate.
The Baucus 13 were handcuffed, arrested, and now face charges of “disruption of Congress.”
Seven of the thirteen – Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Pat Salomon, Dr. Carol Paris, Russell Mokhiber, Kevin Zeese, Mark Dudzik, and Adam Schneider – pled not guilty this morning.
The remaining six – Katie Robbins, Dr. Judy Dasovich, Dr. Steve Fenichel, Sue Cannon, DeAnn McEwan, and Jerry Call – will be arraigned later this week and next month.
A status hearing for the Baucus 13 was set for June 22 before Judge Harold L. Cushenberry.
The Baucus 13 are being represented by criminal defense attorneys Ann Wilcox and James Klimaski.
If they go to trial, the Baucus 13 will probably face a trial date sometime in the early fall.
Prosecutors this morning asked that the Baucus 13 be ordered to stay away from the Dirksen Senate Office Building – the scene of the single payer actions on May 5 and May 12.
But after objections from Klimaski, the presiding DC judge ordered the defendants to stay away from Dirksen “except for formal business – meaning other than protests.”
“Senator Baucus is charging us with ‘disruption of Congress,’” said Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action. “We are charging Senator Baucus with corruption of Congress. We believe we have a stronger case.”
According to a recent analysis by the public interest group Consumer Watchdog, Senator Baucus, the leading architect of health reform in the Congress, has received more campaign contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations than any other current Democratic member of the House or Senate.
According to the report, Senator Baucus received $183,750 from health insurance companies and $229,020 from drug companies in the last two election cycles.
During recent Senate Finance Committee hearings on health care reform, Baucus has refused to allow even one person to testify on behalf of a single payer health care system.
According to recent polls, single payer is supported by a majority of Americans, doctors and health economists.
Baucus has been repeatedly asked over the past months to allow a single payer advocate to testify.
He has steadfastly refused.
“Sixty Americans die every day from lack of health insurance,” Mokhiber said. “Only single payer will save hundreds of billions of dollars in overhead, waste, profits and fraud needed to insure every person in this country. President Obama, Senator Baucus and the corporate Democrats are engaged in the futility of piecemeal tinkering while Americans die. We need to put an end to the private health insurance industry so that the American people can get the health care they deserve.”
48 Comments so far
Show AllSenators and Congressmen/women should have their terms in office limited too. This would cut down on corruption.
How can anyone disrupt Congress when they won't get sta-sta-sta ahrted?
They can't vote down funds for war. They can't vote down funds for -- gee, what were the bailout funds for, anyway?
Bail out CA? Who needs 2 coasts?
Katrina? You knew Louisiana was wet when you moved there.
Educayshun? Huh?
What the heck. What's Robert's Rules of Order when you're having fun?
Do not worry!! US soldiers are in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting to ensure thaat Citizens of the USA can stand up and ask their congressmen questions!!
As to Universal Health care, its those North Koreans, Burmese, Chinese, Russians, Pakistanis, Bolivians, Libyans and Syrians that stand in the way!! Once those bums are all taken out then Americans will have the "freedom" to ask for health care without getting arrested!
I have a great deal of respect for the Baucus 13 and I hope to have the courage to follow their example. We need Single Payer and we need it now.
Believe it or not, our small, but enthusiastic, underfunded efforts to be heard seem to be getting through here and there. There was a rally in Indianapolis in honor of Wellpoint's board meeting this week, with good turnout. Most of the crowd headed around the corner to Senator Bayh's office at the end of the rally and next day the Indianapolis Star (conservative paper, owned by Dan Quayle's family) had an article on Bayh's conflict of interest - his wife Susan is paid very handsomely for sitting on Wellpoint's board (among others).
This Saturday there will be a single-payer seminar at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany, featuring John Conyers, Dr Claudia Fegan of PNHP, and Dr Rob Stone, co-founder and director of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan (affiliated with PNHP). Check the HCHP web site for directions, everyone welcome. This seminar is financed by the Presbyterian church.
It looks as if single-payer has become a full-fledged movement instead of an idea, and it is gathering momentum and support. It's important to keep after the Washington crowd and not give up - we can't afford to.
Sounds like you're doing great work--you've provided instructive and inspiring examples of the kinds of headway that can be made on this issue, one important step at a time.
Thanks for your efforts.
Has anyone seen the movie Sicko?
This Michael Moore masterpiece is a stirring indictment of US health care.
How can anyone view that film and not be ashamed of our system, where a quarter of our population is uninsured or way underinsured?
A large segment of the film features Moore's travels with ailing First Responders from NYC, to Havana, where they are healed.
Imagine being envious of the health care system of a Third World nation: Cuba!
The movie Sicko, while truthful, needs a sequel to prepare us to confront those who oppose single payer. I guess Hollywood would never allow it.
WE meed for Tom Hayden to start another movement...
WE could call it "Move-out" of the democratic party and
let the Obama crowd fend for themselves in the next election.
Move-out could call in all the members of the Working Classes,
that is the base of the Democratic Party.
Bill Clinton doublecrossed us big time with Nafta and
the outsourcing of our industrial base to China.
We are in a deep depression, and the stimulus is simply
a gift to the Banking Industry and a diversionary tactic
to have the people forget that we are in a Depression that we
will not recover from..
Despite his periodic leftist squalling, Tom Hayden has his suction cups firmly attached to the Democratic Party. He--and it--are dead ends (he was one of those "progressives" who whipped up all manner of frothy illusions in Obama's potential).
A key to any political renewal in this country is organizing independently of the Democratic Party and its left enablers like Hayden, The Nation, The American Prospect, etc. Those people have some good things to say, but they somehow lose their voices every election cycle and become accomplices in the very corporate crimes that they later--after the election, of course!--so "boldly" denounce.
Hayden? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Sioux Rose
FREDDIE: It's a catchy name and timely concept. Not sure who the spokesperson should be, but this is a GOOD slogan!
Disruption of Congress with peaceful protests by the people seems to be ineffective.
Is Congress demanding an incident like 1954 be repeated ere they act on the people's needs?
How Sweet it is. When Congress has the assurance of full health coverage for life and the insurance companies keep on funding their campaign coffers there is no incentive to keep those companies from gouging the public indefinitely. Just another conflict of interest: what's best for me or what's best for my country. No contest, the dice are loaded and the house always wins. The system is broken and will never be fixed until there is public financing for elections and our elected officials are beholden to no one but the voters.
Article I of the Quaint document:
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
So, in defense of this freedom, corporate bribery of our congress is legal, but these citizen's insistence that their grievance be heard is illegal.
I believe you do have the stronger case; it's definitely corruption of congress.
Pitchfork, thank you for bringing up this "quaint" document, Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. You'd think, in the flurry of excitement of trying to discern where the President's nominee for Supreme Court Justice "stands" on the various issues of the day, a bit of nod might be given to the matter of where she stands on Article 1 and the rest of the Bill of Rights that are so under siege today. Does freedom of assembly and petition exist when single payers were not allowed to assemble and petition until they did so my standing and shouting in the Baucus hearing room? Questions of this nature should be asked by Senators when they question the nominee, but does anyone care to quess whether they will be asked when Senators have so many "important" questions to ask about: whether she is pro or anti abortion, whether she thinks Hispanic women are uniquely qualified to make "sound" judgments, etc.?
Watch Obama campaign for the piece of trash when the time comes.
We no longer have any say in our own country. Speak up; get arrested. When they call the 'system broken', it is a buzz word for it works for them; not for you. Why do you think everything is 'broken'? Broken simply means the cash flow is going to the top. Government hearings are only theatre.
"Baucus, the leading architect of health reform in the Congress, has received more campaign contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations than any other current Democratic member of the House or Senate"
What we have here is a bad case of institutionalized bribery.
"We don't have corruption in America, it is institutionalized and perfectly legal"
Unless millions take to the streets, call a general strike and shut the country down, France style, we aint gonna get no single payer, not even close.
A wooden stake needs to be driven into the vampirical system once and for all.
Show me the fuse. I have a lighted match in hand. If our government can kill us with impunity and no one takes action, all is lost.
On Sunday, my wife and I went to a "town hall" meeting with Senator Wyden, who is on the Senate Finance Committee. Wyden has sold out his roots as an advocate to the Corporatists.
Wyden says we need "a uniquely American" system. One of the people he called on pointed out that we already have a uniquely American system ... dominated by the insurance industry.
Wyden said that during his last campaign (in 2004) people kept telling him that what they wanted was "{what Congress has" ... so that's what he wants to sell to us. He admitted that most of the people who said that didn't _know_ what Congress has ... basically they are given a list of insurance options. Back in 2004, the only person who was talking about Universal Single-payer Health Care was Dennis Kucinich. Most people _still_ think that it means "socialized" medicine.
What Wyden wasn't hearing was that about 70% of the people in that meeting were in favor of single-payer that _excludes_ the insurance companies.
(Although Wyden ran town hall meetings all over the state this weekend, there were _none_ scheduled within 25 miles of Portland or Salem.)
I'm ready to support Steve Novick, the Progressive candidate who ran against Merkley last year, to run against Wyden in the 2010 primary.
Wyden's seat has been secure, so he doesn't need to raise much money. Here are his top 5 contributors from the last time he stood for election in 2004 compared with his next election in 2010.
2004
1 )Metro One Telecommunications
2) Pacific Crest Securities
3) Banfield Pet Hospitals
4) Intel
5) Bernard Madoff Investment and Securities
2010
1) Nike
2) Blue Cross Blue Shield
3) Banfield Pet Hospitals
4) Pinnacle Healthcare
5) M Financial Group
Couple interesting things there, but aside from Bernie Madoff, Banfield Pet Hospitals has been a longtime supporter. They apparently are part of Pet Smart and they sell health insurance - for pets.
Yes, Wyden is irritating, isn't he? I and my wife have been to very similar town halls of his. He's stone-walling on single payer, and the only possible reason is corruption. He's taken enough insurance company money, and he's staying bought.
It's even worse than that: he seems to be sabotaging the "public plan" component of the DEMOCRATS' healthcare deform. Last week, Green Party activists here got a letter from a reform activist in another state asking us to run someone against him because of his role on that issue.
Sold: the Pacific Green Party is seeking a candidate to run against Wyden next year, and we've sent out a press release to that effect. I'm on the committee looking for a candidate (care to join and give us your name, P.P.?) If you're interested, go to our website, www.pacificgreens.org, and call one of the contact people listed there.
Now, technical politics and Steve Novick: He seems to be a good guy, albeit a Democrat. And there's the rub: do you really think the Democrats will support a challenger to an entrenched incumbent who is following the party line? Because make no mistake:
The Democratic Party, except for a few individuals and the party membership, is AGAINST single-payer health insurance. There is only one national party that supports and campaigns for it: the Green Party. So if that's your issue, you're a Green whether you know it or not. And in Oregon, P.P., your registration matters, because registrations help maintain our ballot access.
Oregoncharles
Oh Gaaaawd. I can't even begin to describe my disappointment in Wyden after attending one of his town hall dictates. I literally had to leave because of the nausea.
This Congress is proving itself quite corrupt, especially the leadership.
Henry Waxman's coming attack on the American family is especially loathesome.
I think there is ample evidence that Congress isn't at all cowardly. In fact they're quite courageous.
They consistently give us the middle finger despite facing serious backlash. TARP, (still waiting for some new banking regulations), single-payer, FISA be gone, the credit card reform joke, or the long awaited bankruptcy "cram down" legislation, just to name a few. Congress and Obama failed the people every single time.
It's always about them. Everything is framed as Democrats against Repubublicans.
They'll always do what their paymasters want. The end game for members of Congress is staying in the club. And that's it.
The American people are nothing more than a footnote or the latest poll.
It's all bullshit. If this isn't obvious by now, get your head out of your ass.
Or enjoy being a doormat.
The words and actions of Bacchus and Altmire reeks of contempt for the American people. They deserve to be banished into oblivion or worse. They don't care. And why should they?
We pay them. They screw us.
Respectable citizens are tossed in jail.
While dirtbags like Bacchus publicly mocks them.
All incumbents MUST get the boot, with Obama at the top of the list.
Now HE's a coward.
Freepressmyass explains it all very simply in the statement, "They'll aways do what their paymasters want." That is it. The people we elect to the Senate and to the house DO NOT REPRESENT US. No, again quoting Freepressmyass, "The words and actions of Bacchus and Altmire (and all the rest of our 'representatives')reeks of contempt for the American people.
Public Financing of the campaigns of our officials is the way to get these people to act as they should---heed the word of their constituents, not their paymasters. There is a bill in the Senate, S.752, and in the House, HR 1826, to establish a publically financed campaign system. The legislation would provide qualified candidates public funds in exchange for agreeing to limit their contributions from individuals to $100.or less.
It is proposed that this public finance could be funded by a 0.5% tax on companies that receive $10 million or more in federal contracts or by a 10% assessment fee on the sales of new broadcast spectrums to broadcasters.
You must contact your 'representative' and tell them to vote yes for public finance of the campaigns for the Senate and the House.
Bring America Back !!!!.............It is most surely the Big C---Culture of Corruption, for inside the Beltway you do not change it, it changes you and assimilates you !
**If it's Healthcare it it Big Meds, Big Pharma, Big AMA, Big HMOS==and their Enablers on the Hill and Whitehouse !
**If it's War, it is the all powerful Beast of the Military Industrial Complex, gorged with $$$$$, and fear shock & ase !
Obama has been engulfed by the Culture of Corruption he promised us He would Change !!!!
Baucus is an old Hack==probably a Blue Dog like Lieberman.
I hate to say this but although there are many Drs. and nurses that want a single payer system , just as many or more like the system just as it is. Why? because, they profit hugely from it now. Drs. in other countries don't become multimillionaires like the great majority do in this country. The greed extends from top to bottom in so called Health Care.
You are wrong about this. According to a recent survey in The Annals of Internal Medicine, 59 percent of U.S. doctors favor single-payer Medicare for all.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN31432035
Many doctors have lost patience with the huge administrative costs and chaos of dealing with multiple insurers, and with interference with medical decisions by HMO bean counters.
A majority of the nation's nurses also favor single-payer including the country's largest nurses' unions:
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/nurses-lobby-single-payer-system-new-workplace-regs/2009-05-14
If serious activists are going to plan and strategize over key issues like this, they need to do a little reading and get their facts straights. A good place to begin is the FAQ at www.pnhp.org.
Vanmungo,
Thank you for the link. Do you know of any other sites or articles that explain the issues?
I am already on board with single-payer... but I want to educate myself as best as possible so I can try to help spread the correct facts about single-payer. I have a bunch of friends from Britain and they have helped me to dispel the many myths that are spread here in the US about the British health care system... and I have to say I would love to live in a country with a health care system like theirs.
Edit: Forget that request for more links... www.pnhp.org has a wealth of information, and plenty for me to get up to speed.
Thanks again!!
Could you imagine the hell the NRA would have given to Baucus if he were to call for the arrest of 13 protesters standing up for universal access to firearms? Max Baucus is a big time supporter of tax cuts for the wealthy elite and playing "nice" with the NRA but he's no friend of supporters of single payer healthcare. What we need is a "NRA" similar to advance the people's healthcare causes. If we're gonna have universal rights for owning firearms, then we sure as hell better have universal healthcare even if it takes another Constitutional Amendment to make healthcare a right and not a privilege. I can see the states passing the amendment overwhelmingly so that they won't have to bear the costs although not high but Congress is a tough one to crack at since they're tied to big insurance and pharma more than the state pols.
How do we do that without the boatloads of money the firearm manufacturers give NRA for promotion and lobbying?
The appearance of a philosophical organization dedicated to preserving and expanding second amendment rights that NRA provides is just a facade for the firearms manufacturing lobbying organization that NRA really is.
The NRA mission is simple: SELL MORE FIREARMS. Although less than 1.5% of the US population are NRA members, firearm manufacturers provide so much money that the NRA always gets what it wants in Congress.
Ah yes, the manufacturing. Too bad there's no way to manufacture a healthcare crisis like manufacturing firearms.
Hmmm...the NRA, among other things, is working to ensure that you and I have the tool(s) we need to convince Congress to enact Single-Payer...among other things...only if voting fails to achieve the wishes of the populace, of course...
Boy would I hate to have to see us go that route but I guess there comes a time when the old saying "the pen is mightier than the sword" just won't work in this case.
CQ from Maine--
If--and that's a big if--President Obama manages to get a good public plan started as part of his reform efforts--progressives should be able to use that as a genuine building block for ultimately achieving single payer health care. There is something to be said for not letting the good become the enemy of the perfect. But if there is no public plan, I say throw the bums out.
And only we can stop the pathologising of humanity. Stop asking your doctor about Flomax--start asking him or her about his or her relationship with the drug companies.
I've noticed that some liberals associated with the PDA--Nation Magazine types--have shown some softness for the "pub-op" plans being floated as the Plan B of the HMOs. This is the most insidious fraud being perpetrated by Obama and his cohort of corporate liberals (such as the AFL-CIO and Healthcare for America Now [HCAN]). This shame "reform"--often marketed under the misleading slogan "quality, affordable health care for all" (a PR marketing code for "force everyone to buy coverage from the HMOs") purports to offer an appealing "public plan" alongside the private insurers, but is simply more of the same. For those not familiar with this debate, here's why:
The advantage of single-payer is in risk pooling--everyone is in the same pool: well, sick, young, old, sick, and poor, thus averaging out the risks and costs of guaranteeing coverage to everyone. In the "public-option plan," everyone is NOT in the same risk pool, as they would be in single payer. In a "pub-op" plan, the oldest, sickest, and poorest would end up in the public plan--the youngest and healthiest cohort would aggressively marketed by the private HMOs, because that's where the profits are. Hence the whole advantage of single-payer risk pooling would be lost: the whole point is to combine EVERYONE's resources (through taxation rather than private premiums) so that the currently healthy 80 percent (any one of whom could become ill tomorrow!) subsidize the unhealthy 20 percent and thus achieve overall cost efficiencies not obtainable if these two groups are in separate pools. In a pub-op plan, the public sector, saddled with the sickest and oldest 20 percent, will incur unmanageable per capita costs and will be made to look unworkable. Moreover, it will have to charge premiums and impose deductibles, just like the private plans. It would be just more of the same, notwithstanding the "public" branding. A "public" plan that charges premiums, imposes deductibles, and operates according to the same criteria as the HMO is . . . a fraud, just an appendage of the HMOs, and not a building block for anything.
This is the sham in the making that is the Stark-Hacker-Obama pub-op plan: game the system so that the public sector founders, thus discrediting the idea of publicly funded health care for another generation. Pub-op is a Trojan Horse for the HMOs--a wolf in sheep's clothing, lipstick on a pig--chose your cliche, but that's what it is. What it is NOT is the real reform the public needs--it's just another scam to keep the private insurers in business--the HMOs Plan B to gull the public into believing that it is getting some kind of "reform."
A publicly funded plan can achieve real cost efficiencies ONLY through true risk pooling--that means EVERYONE IN--everyone in the same pool. That means single-payer Medicare for all. The "public option" being pushed by the corporate liberals of HCAN and the AFL-CIO is not a step toward single-payer--it's a step into the abyss.
Thanks, Van, for a superb explanation of this trick.
Oregoncharles
There are three problems with the "public plan:" first, it isn't free, only (we hope) a little cheaper. Second, it would just become a dumping ground for the private companies, a place to put the expensive (sick) clients. Third, it loses a main advantage of single-payer: huge savings on billing expenses for doctors, hospitals, etc.
This is a situation where half-measures don't work well, so the "enemy of the good" argument doesn't apply.
Oregoncharles
Senator Bacchus is a disgrace and I salute the heroic 13 for standing up for what is right. Bacchus needs to be replaced by someone who really cares about the health of the nation. Also, I'm sickened by the sophistry of Obama with his statement that if he were "starting from scratch" he would be in favor of single payer. If this is not a time to start from scratch, when will it ever be? Obama wants fiscal savings, single payer offers amazingly good savings. We just need to keep the pressure on and the getting ever increasing numbers of people involved to break the Insurance Industry lobby. Protest, protest, protest until the country gets what it wants and needs: Single Payer Health Care. Everyone in, no one left out.
One initial step to getting rid of this industry is to call it what it is. The Private Death Insurance Industry. The DII.
As anybody who ever took Business Law 1A knows, the law requires for-profit corporations to manage the business to benefit the shareholders. If I buy stock in an insurance company, I don't want them taking high risks by selling policies to, or paying claims (heaven forbid) to an insured that has existing conditions. If the company takes such risks I have the right to sue the CEO for failing to manage risks.
Government should do what private busineeses by their nature cannot do. Medical insurance is an example of something government does better. Anybody who does not support single payer is one of two things: 1) stupid, or 2) corrupt.
Obama is an attorney and is therefore not too stupid to understand this simple concept that us grunts learned in Business Law 1A. We can therefore only conclude that his dismissal of single-payer demonstrates the degree to which he has become corrupt during the past five years.
Yes the differentiation between rights and needs should be the distinction between what government is for and business is for. Our rights should not be bought and sold on the open market in a democracy, but alas that is not what we have. We have CEObama. Not servant Obama. But did Obama really want to serve the people??? No he stated clearly that his job was to encourage us to serve ourselves while he served his own interest as an elite corporate master, I hope that message gets through to the people, it is relevant to the times.
It seems that the only way our cowardly Congress is going to buck the lobbying power of the health insurance and pharma tyrants is a populist uprising.
May 30th is one of those days. However, more rallies are being planned. Throughout the country, various rallies are taking place, demanding that the Single Payer concept is considered.
http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/may-30th-day-of-action/
Visit this site for locations, posters, flyers, etc.
"I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." F.D.R.
Contact your US Congressional Representative and two US Senators and tell them that they need to support single-payer if they want your vote.
Dick Durbin made it clear that Wall Street (the banks and insurance companies)own the US Government, thereby making it difficult for your elected officials to support single-payer without a lot of pressure from you and I.
The insurance companies are watching Obama shower the banks with unprecedented corporate welfare and they are pushing health care "reform" that provides them with at least as much corporate welfare as the banks are getting.
Well my exerience, dealing with bullies such as Jason Altmire, who tells SinglePayer advocates, "You are a minority, you do not represent the district (4th Congressional SW PA) and you are not going to get Single Payer." is that we are not going to persuade such legislators. They will have to be replaced and perhaps the president who thinks that Single Payer would be too disruptive will have to go too. It's well intentioned to disrupt Senator Bacchuses hearing but what we really need to do is geet rid of Senator Bacchus, Jason Altmire and their ilk. We have to organize politically and at the very least challenge them in the primaries before they will even make a pretense of listening. If we are strong enough we will get what we want by telling them what they must do to stay in office.
I agree. Replace the pols who dont listen to the people. We can do health care. Congress runs on health care money! Money that could be spent providing healh care is spent on buying tv time. Managed care was created with this pay off to the pols built in.