Thank you, Donna. I am sick over this bill. I know that under it I will most likely remain uninsured and end up paying a fine, and for what? To make this war-happy oligarchy I live in richer? It's certainly not for the people. Anyway, it's been beyond depressing.

I was reading one of Professor Green's latest blog entries, "America Heal Thyself," last night and here's the last paragraphs:

Here’s an alternative scenario. It might smack too much of progressive hallucination, but we can still dream, can’t we? Or did that go out the window too, along with habeas corpus?

"What if the Republicans in the Senate blocked passage of the current bill on a filibuster, crushing the signature legislative goal of the Obama presidency? What if Mr. Really-Smart -But-Not-So-Wise got pissed off for the first time in his life, looked over the edge and into the abyss of his failed one-term presidency, didn’t at all like what he saw, and then started playing hard ball, throwing elbows, naming names, and treating his and America’s enemies like they were – golly, could it be? – actually enemies? What if he and Democrats in Congress wrote a real healthcare bill, one that was really about providing health to Americans, not wealth to corporations? What if they actually used their majorities and their presidency to make it law, rolling over a Republican objection to their use of the reconciliation process as an end-run to a Senate filibuster, just like Bush and the Republicans did to Democrats all across the last decade?

Now that would certainly make losing on this current go-round more than worth it.

But, of course, for that to happen, Democrats would actually have to have some guts.

Unfortunately, ‘Democrats’ and ‘guts’ are two words that have not been used in the same sentence – other than in opposition to each other – for nearly fifty years now."

http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/America,_Heal_Thyself.html

Personally I don't know if anything can shake this corporate-owned President. I have no idea what he stands for, or who he stands for. He's crawled back into his hole on health care again, and the WH apparently came out swinging against Harry Reid on the opt out for the PO and apparently is pulling for the "trigger" again. As bad as the PO has become this is pretty astonishing crap.

The only bright spot in this whole mess right now is Dennis Kucinich. He's put up a new website with a petition called "Health Care for All: Whatever it takes, for as long as it takes."

http://kucinich.us/

A poster on HuffPo left this link. The story over there on Kucinich is garnering more comments than I would have expected -- certainly not in the past -- with the overwhelming majority supporting him.

Here's the comment of an Obama-bot in the Halloween bash story on HuffPo. In light of all that's going on it really made me gag:

"How nice. A POTUS and FLOTUS of the people, for the people and by the people."

When do these delusional people wake up?

This is why it Must BE SINGLE-PAYER (as Obama PROMISED) OR SINGLE TERM!

For the first time I must disagree with Donna Smith, she has been right throughout this entire mish mash. Single Payer is the answer.

But....."Healthcare is a basic human right, and we know President Obama knows that."

Where did this "right" come from? Its not in our Constitution nor the Bill of Rights.

Folks: Face it, when it comes to health care, most of your Representatives in Congress are not the Red Communist menace, but are just as bad if not worse; ( Cuba has free health care for all and has one of the best health care systems in the world) because most of your Representatives are THE HEALTH CARE MENACE! They are for the most part, totally impervious to the average Americans suffering. They have no empathy or compassion and could care less that 122 American citizens perish every day because of lack of health care. If this is not a national health care emergency, then I do not what is! Just like they claim to support the troops but really could care less about how many die in punic wars,they claim to be patriotic and wrap themselves in the flag and could care less about 122 sick American citizens perishing every day. They are owned by the fascist $$$$$$ of big pharma and big insurance!

"...denying treatment becomes the main way for the insurance companies to raise profits."

By what actual mechanism is this accomplished? Do insurance companies employ a specific committee, or panel, if you will, to sit in judgement over who lives and who dies? I wonder if they call it a "life panel".

- Kent Shaw -

Donna,
I just read that Pelosi stripped the health care bill of the Kucinich amendment. I signed a petition telling her to put it back in.

What are you doing about this latest outrage?

Wow! Its really hard to have an Adult conversatio. Its my pleasure to give all you folks such an opportunity to attack rather than discuss, especially since I am apparently elected to the status of these folks.......so I'll have to answer broadly....

B ut before that, thanks Jennifer for your adult and reasoned response. And I NEVER suggested we should give up on Single Payer, its ther only system that gives every citizen what they deserve. Full health care. And I think we all agree on that.

It seems to me that it shouldn't be that hard unless you are simply so eager to assert your self appointed moral superority or that you are so obtuse you cannot read that....

"Health Care is very much like Fire Departments....there is no basic right to them, but in everyones interest and in the interest of society, we organize and pay for them. But they are not a "basic" human right."

It SHOULD be apparent this is exactly the same as " Many rights are derived via common law" ....you are also thanked for an adult and reasonerd response. My whole point was that there are no guaranteed rights except under the Constitution. All the things you mentioned could be changed tomorrow without the Suprme Court being involved. And even the Constitution can be amended of course. But I know you are well aware that our entire legal structure is derived from the Constitution and it is the final arbiter of every law America.

Moral rights as I believe I pointed out are different culture and religion to religion and even different within some countries. The mountain people in Viet Nam were nothing like the rest of the Vietnamese people for example.

To those with their usual personal attacks....pitiful.
To those racists that insist on charging racism to every diviation from their chosen ideology....transparent to say the least.

For those that speak of Canards....insisting that something is a basic human right without anything other than a "moral" argument, without a law under the Constitution or the Constitution itself guaranteeing it, that is a canard.

When something should be a right, you change the law, the "Civil Rights Laws" are a prime example.

Katie Robbins of Healthcare Now said “this bill falls so short, even with the Kucinich amendment — we will not support it.”

There's a good reason for Ms. Robbins's statement: like the ever-malleable and shrinking pubic option, the Kucinich Amendment is the fruit of a timid, losing strategy.

This Kucinich state-by-state tack is just another doomed-to-fail farce to siphon off energy from the real fight. There are only nine provinces in Canada. There are fifty U.S. states--trying to pass single payer on that long, winding road should take only, say, about thirty years, during which 45,000 people per year will still perish from lack of ability to afford a doctor (not to mention that the states are mostly broke anyway). My guess is that most of the people proposing this leisurely, doomed approach probably already have very comfy coverage (certainly Kucinich does!) and feel no personal pressure to press for Medicare for ALL--now.

This state-by-state gambit is a variation of the half-hearted "public option" approach--give half the game away before the game even begins, the idea being, I suppose, that if you propose something half-assed right away, the corporate malefactors will be so bowled over by your reasonableness and politesse that they will just melt in gratitude and say, "Great idea!" The reality is that, like a feral beast, they will smell your weakness and attack you with redoubled ferocity--which is exactly what has happened in the Democrats' health-care debacle that is now unfolding--or unraveling--before our eyes.