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Obama Hushes Healthcare Advocates
Don't like the way the Wall Street bail-out turned out? It looks as if we're in for something similar regarding healthcare.
With popular fury at the status quo rising and hunger for a real, public option attracting over 70 percent approval in polls, the White House is urging public-option advocates to hush.
According to the Washington Post, in a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama asked health care advocates to ratchet back their pressure for a public option. He's apparently concerned about advertisements and on-line campaigns targeting foot-dragging Democrats.
We've been here before. Back in the fall and spring, when popular fury at private bankers was soaring, Washington urged liberal lobbying groups to focus more on backing the White House plan and less on attacking bankers and banks.
What happened? Washington allowed Wall Street insiders, many of whom had overseen the breaking apart of the economy, to manage the so called recovery, putting most of what was rotten back in place. The re-distributions of wealth to the top continued, while civilian unemployment headed through the roof.
As Barney Frank told bankers back in February, “People really hate you, and they're starting to hate us because we're hanging out with you.”
The health care debate is suffering from the same dynamic.
Specifically, on July 4, Obama said he is hoping left-leaning organizations will rally support for "advancing legislation" that fulfills his goal of expanding coverage. But the words public option were left out.
Pro-reform activists are pushing a public plan because it's popular, it's doable -- and it's at least a step closer to the only thing most actually think will work -- which is a totally public system.
Why are they pushing so hard? Well, consider what they're up against. Pulling against anything remotely public, is the biggest lobbying blitz Washington's ever seen. The Washington Post reports that private insurers, drug companies and their representatives spent more than $126 million on lobbying in the first quarter of this year. That's over $1.4 million a day.
And they've hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress to do all that lobbying work.
When Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sat down with health-care lobbyists on June 10, two were his former chiefs of staff. Their aim: to minimize the "damage" in profits to insurers, hospitals and drug makers from any change in approach from government. Specifically, they oppose any even remotely public option, the details of which are right now up for debate.
Want to hush the activists? The real scandal, it seems to me, shouldn't be the thousands of dollars that on-line organizers are spending on advertising to the public and Congress. The real scandal should be the millions that private insurers and pharmaceutical firms are spending infiltrating the government.
If the public option lobbyists had the access Big Pharma's got, they might not need to buy all those ads. Besides -- $1.4 million a day. Imagine what real-life nurses could do with that!
- Posted in
59 Comments so far
Show Allodoco
Okay - let me get this right. . .
Obama trumpets deomocracy for Iranians, the right to protest, to have a voice in their government, the right to point out 'alleged' irregularities in the system . . .
And then - when it comes to some of the political components that helped to elect him - HE TELLS US TO SHUT THE ---- UP!!
Okay - I think I get it now.
Preach to others in faraway places, especially if you don't like their government and it is not friendly to US interests, but quiet dissent and criticism at any and all costs at home, especially if such dissent actually threatens to end the duopoly / elitist / militaristic / fascistic government now in place.
Yeah, I think I get it now. . . . .
-hear, hear!
It seems like only yesterday that we were beleaguered by CD's resident lesser-evilists and DPAs to "elect more Ds and then hold their feet to the fire."
Now anyone who suggests lighting a match gets cold water thrown at them. It would be merely comical if the consequences weren't so deadly serious.
I said it on other articles and I'll say it again. Obama, live up to who you campaigned as or step aside for a national recall and let a real man like Nader, with a proven track record of caring for the people, take the helm. WE knew Bush would be a disappoinment when he was illegally appointed by SCOTUS, but, after those eight years of living hell, we expected much more from YOU. What a disappointment you have been for We the People.
Withholding health care by refusing to cover treatment is homicide, in my book. I think local district attorneys should be pushed to start prosecuting private health care executives when people suffer increasingly poor health or death because of a refusal to cover their illness. Second degree murder or mayhem by recision is just as bad as if it were done with a gun.
If you have a "pre-existing condition" (and the list of these is ever growing) and are able to get coverage, you are made to wait 6 months before getting treatment for that condition, even if it's diabetes, cancer, ALS, whatever.
In my state, we have a medical insurance pool for those who have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. I have not seen stats on how many people see their conditions deteriorate because they have to wait 6 months, and I wonder how many of them pay for 4-5 months of coverage but die before they're able to finally seek help. How much money is (in this case, Blue Cross) pocketing while making people hurt and suffer waiting for relief from whatever ails them?
4-5 months isn't so bad when you consider the 24 month waiting period for medicare disabled people face after approved for social security disability. Talk about cruelty-they really are just giving them more time to pay out everything they have left before they die.
Goddess Forgive America :(
If I were a vindictive person (which I sort of am), I would take a certain amount of pleasure in what must be the outrage of some of those "liberal" groups like MoveOn.org who have been the biggest cheerleaders for Obama and supporters of a component of health care "reform" (a public option) that HE HIMSELF has proposed. Now that Obama shows himself hog-tied once again by "Republican" opposition and needs to work a deal so that he can achieve the "expanded coverage" that is the fondest desire of the health care industry, he tells these people in effect to: shut up, you're rocking the boat. With themselves now being thrown under the bus with so many persons and agencies that have facilitated Obama's rise to power and then cast aside when their support became a liability to his ambitions, I'm wondering whether they will utter a squeal of protest before the wheels of the bus grind them under. (I'm so glad I didn't buy one of those celebratory "victory" posters that MoveOn was peddling after Obama's electon; I'd definitely be looking for my money back on that lemon purchase.)
My husband, if he makes it alive and can overcome the mental trauma he's been pushed into, will never forgive Obama for this kind of behavior when he finds out what our votes for Obama now mean (we live in TX and the only 3rd party on the ballot was Barr). Who does Obama think he is anyway? He has no right to criticize the young and the loving of the 1960s and 1970s all the while praising the Reaganomics years of the 1980s. I already bled for my husband after Vietnam and it took a long time to help him overcome his brainwashed mentality of resorting to suicide if he cannot win. After nearly dying of being poisoned by a greedy doctor twice, he has been getting into constant mood swings. At first, he would keep wishing that I had never saved his life after Vietnam but I'm glad I still have friends and neighbors who, in addition to myself, are also urging him not to give up his life as they visit him. We are also fighting to keep my husband from going mental because we cannot afford a psychologist after this. It takes a lot of work from myself and everyone else fighting the system to take charge of what all drugs are really good for my husband and we have not given up fighting bad doctors who continue to try to sneak in bad pills and careless care all for the want of more money. One of my neighbors even told us that maybe we're all healthcare comrades after all ! Obama and his insurance and pharma cronies can tell us to shut up all they want but we healthcare soldiers aren't going to take no for an answer !
Thank you for sharing your story here. My thoughts are with you. We're still fighting too.
David
I'm glad you're doing everything you can to keep your husband alive. Don't give up and please let him give up either. We all miss him dearly on this site. As you remember, when I met him in person and was invited to meet you as well, I was in tears just seeing him so crippled despite his heroic deeds in life after leaving the bloody war. I hope I did not remind you of your sorrow and anguish when you tried to stop me from crying. My heart goes out to your husband and God bless him. Yes, we're all soldiers in the fight for health care reform, men and women.
I didn't expect any different from your Democracts, but I've been watching US politics for some time now.
When does the next campaign start? Just wait, articles by Greens will be banned from CD(apparently you have some weird tax law that punishes smaller parties), and half of the comments will be explaining why you need to re-elect more Democrats so that the big bad Republicans won't do things like deny you the public healthcare that people around the globe have been enjoying for decades.
Say hello to the new boss same as the old boss! Want Change you can believe in? Ok, lose your job and you'll get those changes fast, like not having any Health Ins. for one. Then if u get really sick or even remotely sick the health vultures will take everything you have left and they won't be nice about it. Your BODY is their profit machine but your health is only your concern.
Human bodies are simply commodities to the U.S.& Global Rich machine.
America has two AIPAC controlled political parties.
This one is going to give us health care based on bloodletting and leaches.
The bloodletter's leach lobby is already swarming congress.
Although I had serious misgivings, I voted for Obama.
Now I feel defrauded.
There is NO "hope" and NO "change you can believe in."
Time to listen to old Bob Dylan records, like Desolation Row.
-30-
OleManRiver July 7th, 2009 12:14 pm....So true...a place of comfort...and some semblance of truth and creativity to be heard.
Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row.
And old RZ is still on that unending tour....47 years on the road.
Ole Man River: Yes Bob Dylan and I've also suggested a re-discovery of Woody Guthrie, if you want real troubadours of our miseries through the last 80 years.
Those Bob Dylan (et al) records may be "old" in a strict chronological sense, but for better or worse, their content is as fresh as ever!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Send this video to all of the Obama supporters you know. I admit to having voted for him- even holding my nose after his vote on FISA- but I have regrets. I have friends who won't criticize anything he does (or doesn't do), who claim we can't have Single Payer because it's "too radical" or because it "won't work in the US."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE
Obabush is just what the doctor ordered. Maybe in 2012 people will stop voting for democrat and republican puppets and vote for Americans. There may be 45 million without health insurance, but there are not 45 million Americans without health care. All they have to do is walk into an emergency room and they will be treated. The nerve of the poor stealing from insurance companies, where is the profit in that. Why can’t we have what congress and the uninsured has? I will pay every medical doctor or hospital bill you get, you will not even see the bills. I will do that and lower taxes for everybody. I will earmark the first ten-percent of the taxes you currently pay for healthcare. Who gets the ten-percent now, ADM got $ .51 a gallon for boondoggle ethanol. There is plenty of money already there. We have to do two things, end the current welfare structure in this country and let the wealth creators fend for themselves, and stop spending our money on national offense and start spending our money on national defense. Now that’s American, do not be deceived by the patriots who wrap themselves in body bags and salute the flag.
solrev, do not confuse ER care with health care. It's bandaid care, and they then tell you to go see a doctor. You still need to be treated, but now owe hundreds of dollars as well.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Congresspeople, like all government employees, pays a LARGE employee share of their health insurance, just like private employers. And the health insurance is from a private company, just like private employers.
It is NOT free.
Keep making the false claim that congress gets free healthcare and I'll keep debunking it.
- federal worker
I have to beg to disagree with you on one thing. I am uninsured and I do not have easy access to healthcare. Sure I can go to a doctor and I am charged full freight, thus I don't go too often. I went to an Immediate Medical Care facility about a year ago. I was charged $80. Normally their reimbursement is $40 from the insurance companies.
I had had an eye accident a year earlier. I was terrified to go to the ER because I knew I could not afford it. It was a Sunday. I went to the place I had gotten my last pair of glasses from, Lenscrafters. By luck the doctor happened to be there at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. For $30 my eye was checked extensively and he said I needed to see a specialist, that I had splinters in my eyes (I was poked in the eye by my son with an old broken wooden fishing pole). He gave me antibiotics and the name of a specialist to go to the next day. He said be there at 9 a.m., when they open, tell them I sent you and that you don't have insurance.
Well, folks, my eye was saved. One 45-minute visit to have the splinters taken out, antibiotic drops for my eyes for the next two weeks, three follow-up visits that were about 20 minutes apiece. Total cost for all of this? $200. The doctor said we need single-payer healthcare. I was treated with respect and kindness.
That walk-in facility I mentioned earlier. I was treated with total disrespect, like I was some sort of a lower-class citizen for not having health insurance. And this is not the first time I've experienced this attitude.
I have also had one visit to the ER -- courtesy of a Paxil-induced severe anxiety attack which I thought was a stroke. For basically a six-hour sleep courtesy of Xanax I was charged $2,800, which I am paying off at $30 a month. I am sure the hospital would have been reimbursed much less from insurance.
Maybe an illegal alien can get away without paying for services as an ER -- an American citizen can't.
What we should be doing is sending all of our co-pay bills, unreimbursed medical expenses, ER visit bills -- any bills whether we are insured or not -- to President Obama, with a copy to Congress, with the words "request for single payer" on the envelope.
The fact that healthcare lobbyist spend $1.4 million a day trying to block meaningful healthcare reform, should say it all about the need to change the system. Insurance companies have way too much excess cash.
As for Obama - don't get me wrong, the alternative to our president would have been way worse. We would not even be talking about healthcare reform if McCain/Palin had won. But Obama and the Dems are playing with fire, if they cave to special interests and repubs and end up passing a watered down healthcare bill.
So no one should follow Obama like blind lemmings. Obama will likely praise any bill that passes and claim victory. But the important thing is not passing the bill, but passing an effective bill. So keep the pressure on for real healthcare reform, including a strong, national public option.
Generally, there are two ways to change the system -- ballots and bullets. Right now, ballots don't seem to be working...
The common people desperately need a robust third party (and I DO NOT mean the Green Party), probably one like BeForKids' proposed Main Street Party, that focuses on the economic and foreign policy issues, with no positions on the social issues. It cannot have positions on the social issues because it must, to have any effect at all, attract the millions of poor and working class people who "cling to guns and religion," and particularly the ex-military types.
As Hitlery and Obomber used to say, "when negotiating with one's enemies" (they were usually speaking of Iran), "one should not take anything off the table." If you take anything off the table, and I mean anything, in negotiating with the plutocrats you will almost certainly end up with nothing. Of course it is in the plutocrats' interests to take off the table any powerful negotiating instruments the common people may possess. It is in their interests to prohibit by any means possible even the very mention of what may be effective negotiating positions and means by the common people. And if they succeed in that, they insure victory for themselves.
"We would not even be talking about healthcare reform if McCain/Palin had won"
Let me disagree. Progressives in the US have been/are/will be talking about healthcare. This would be true whether it was Obama or McCain.
Obama, as it stands now is not talking about single payer(the obvious solution) anymore than McCain is.
Currently, the Dems are proposing, at most, a bastardized "public option" insurance plan that would leave in place the massive insurance bureaucracy with it's huge profits that help pay for the scare ads and lobbyists and bribes to members of congress.
Anything like that that leaves your co-pays and doctor pools and approval proccesses in place is no improvement. Even if there is a "public option" it will be modeled on the private plans, and if the private plans are so hot, why do you want change in the first place?
Didn't Obama begin by saying . . . "make me do it!" . . .
Obviously, it's not those of us who want MEDICARE FOR ALL who are making him say "Uncle," it's those monied interests who have access to him and those who who got to him pre-election with camapaign finance BRIBERY.
We're not reinventing the wheel here --
Every other nation has managed to provide universal health care for citizens and preventive health care.
Let's stop this "for profit" health care industry which is killing us all!!!
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
-Every other nation has managed to provide universal health care for citizens and preventive health care.-
The US is unique in it's level of social divisiveness. Too much worship of individualism, consumerism, as well as cultural and ethnic xenophobia. It will be exremely difficult to overcome these tendencies in order to obtain UHC.
and too much brainwashing of willing victims.
I recently read that the Dem. plan was to force people to purchase health insurance from existing insurers, who in turn would no longer be allowed to exclude anyone, thus allowing enlargement of the pool of insured. I wrote all my reps and told them this extortion is totally unacceptible, and if it came to pass, I would continue to purchase insurance from myself.
How the insurance industry views its clients is very clear now--they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves and their shareholders. So I say fuck them and their government mandates--not one more penny of my money is going to be paid for ANY insurance industry policy. That 1.5 million/day is just over 2,600/day for every congresscritter--nice work if you can find it.
>>I would continue to purchase insurance from myself.
I'm with you. My "insurer" walked away from me before I was out of intensive care after bypass surgery.
The government cannot force people to participate in their own mugging, and like you, I will refuse if "mandated" to do so.
It's all actually quite simple to comprehend.
We've just been misspelling the type of care involved.
___ It's not about our health care,
___ it is about their _w e a l t h _ c a r e
N.
-ding!!!
When I see any headline or text concerning the health-care debacle that contains statements by the Obama maladministration or our Elected Misrepresentatives, I mentally substitute the term "Frankenstein" for "health care".
Because the substance of such reporting isn't really about "health-care legislation" at all, as the commenters here know all too well.
It's inevitably about the gamy body parts being assembled by our ghoulish Ruling Class into a living corpse of health care, animated by the lifeblood of corporate profits.
Expect the result to fall over frequently, since our wily, manipulative pols will attach baby feet to take those baby steps.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obama can go to hell. If Kucinich, or Nader, had been elected there would have been a health care solution or hell to pay. Obama is a joke.
Here is the thing, the masses are idiots. However, they can be led. Until there is a charismatic leader who represents the people, there is no hope for progress.
Then one is led to think of the obstacles to a charismatic leader.
1. The opposition of the media, the establishment, the money, etc. This is formidable indeed, and it is not clear that this obstacle is surmountable..
2. The internal divisions of society - racial being number one, but there are also important social divisions, abortion pro and con, gay pro and con, etc. Again, it's not clear that these obstacles are surmountable.
Conclusion - we're cooked.
Yes we are cooked, but we would be cooked with DK, Cynthia or Nader at the helm too. The Republocrats would block everything they tried to do and the Congress could always rely on the SCOTUS if it became necessary. We need a purge of all three establishments not just the executive.
Given that US healthcare costs are twice what they are for any other industrialized nation, this certainly gives the lie to the old saw that the free-market is the most efficient system available for mobilizing and distributing resources.
Obama Hushes Healthcare Advocates
______________________________________
In my never-ending quest to improve upon headlines, I submit this:
Obama Flushes Healthcare Advocates
· Yr Obd't Servant
1 term.
Even if Obama is bending over and subjecting himself to a so-called "compromise" to take a step in the right direction, it still undermines what we need. A BOLD leader.
I knew he wouldn't perform but i voted for him anyways and now finally i took of my bumper sticker.
bardamu July 7th, 2009 5:36 pm............IF he makes that!
Gail July 8th, 2009 11:23 am
bardamu July 7th, 2009 5:36 pm
"1 term."
bardamu: You're probably right about Obama serving one term.
"Reagan swept Mondale in a landslide in the 1984 realigning election, gaining the support of disaffected blue-collar workers, north and south , partially because the Dems did nothing to save their jobs, one of the main reasons they became susceptible to losing the so-called "culture wars."
The culture wars are getting worse in this country; it's no longer only the blue-collar workers losing jobs but just about every sector that can be outsourced to other countries. However, the problem today is that the majority in both parties is
undermining the middle class on every level while they continue to build and extend power to corporations who support their campaigns.
"US capital did not ‘de-industrialize’ – it relocated to China, Korea and other centers of growth, not because of “falling profits” but because of surplus profits and greater profits overseas."
U.S. policies have not only undermined our job market but the safety of our country. When the Pentagon relies on foreign countries to supply the U.S. with critical military devices, it's pretty clear we could be in some very serious trouble down the road.
Barney Frank got it right when he told the Bankers in Feb. that they were hated, and that the Government was starting to feel the hate as well.
Well, Barney let me just share with you, YOU AIN'T SEEN HATE yet.... waterdown, block, thwart the Public Option or Single-Payer and the HATE will be directed at both Parties and then who will you turn too for Campaign money? Not from me, and a lot of other folks will feel the same way.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. President!! And members of Congress and Senate.
tommytoons July 7th, 2009 6:20 pm Truer words were never spoken. The pressure is building and the masses will gather. WE have HAD ENOUGH!
We have indeed had enough, but outside my tiny circle of leftists, all the people I know are angry at Obama for his socialistic proposals for higher taxes, and bigger government and enviro-naziism.
Health care is a mess. What can we do ? Nothing, irate ltrs, talking points, videos, protests, polls etc., seems to convince the Pres., his admin, and the wimping democrats.
Got bill from Dr. today for colonoscopy. Included therein
was a specialist Dr's charge for $ 697.00 for a office visit. Office visit was at most a ten minute review of results. !! $ 700 for ten minutes !!!
Called his office and they said all he will get paid is $ 200 from insurance but that the total amount represents his usual fee.
With insurance paid only $ 30.00 co-pay for visit. So I guess it just isn't Big Pharma, Insurance Co's, but the Dr.'s as well. They are all at the trough gulping up what's left of a totally broken system. Who paid the $ 200, which doesn't show on bill, most likely the state as policy is a state financed program (ie. MA) And don't cry when doctors say that they are not getting their full fees.
Failure to get health care costs under control will be detrimental to economy as those between 55 - 65 are going bankrupt if they get sick.
I feel for you, sounds like legalized highway robbery!
It seems at this point that Obama has swung into office facing many problems that plague our country. On each issue it is increasingly clear that his personal weakness and ineffective policy choices based on his choice of cabinet, staff and advisers has put him at odds with the general consensus of the American people.
They seem to see themselves as reasonable policy makers and we the people as some sort of rabid dogs that need to be reigned in.
It is quite reasonable then to look at all these issues of conflict in a different light. Obama sees differently than us on prosecution of the past administration,torture and secrecy, prosecution of AT&T and others over their braking of the law, banking regulation and fixing that crisis and this issue of health care for all.
What this has brought out is the OZ behind the curtain. That force that drives the ill- conceived, poorly managed and executed policies that are coming out of the white house. Oz is corporations.
The power and strangle hold over our country by the corporations has driven the direction of policy against the people themselves and their strongly held wishes and desires for good government.
While corporate existence, rights, contractual powers are not found anywhere in our founding papers it was the supreme court, the ultimate gate keeper in the struggles for freedoms, fairness and progress of the people in opposition to the rich, property holders and financial barons that has created the concept of corporations as "a person worthy of rights".
This issue of the health of the American people if denied at this point brings to the top of the list of abuses to be addressed for the common good and general welfare of the nation. No other issue can address the abrogation of the will of the people than this one issue.
Without addressing this important issue we will fall to fighting amongst ourselves and descend into a powerless people in a third world state dominated by the rich and powerful who are the boards of directors of corporate fascism.