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TechnoratiWhy I Voted NO
Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.
But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross.
By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.
During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.
Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.
This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.
Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.
211 Comments so far
Show AllI wonder why Rep. Kucinich doesn't realize that he isn't welcome in his own party, except as window dressing.
That sums it up, he is far too progressive for the Democratic Party (which is moderate/conservative)
I have written a letter to Dennis to thank him for his vote and ask him to consider "Going Green". He is the farthest left of any of the other bozos in Congress and is wasting his heart and Soul in a sell-out party.
I hope more of you will flood him with letters and get his attention. I'm sure my one letter won't be enough.
What's his plan to achieve single-payer? You know, the plan you've been saying he has. He didn't mention it in this article.
Single Payer won't sell by calling it that. To win we need to call it Medicare.
Medicare for All.
Even the Tea Baggers say "keep your hands off my Medicare".
I have been encouraging him to run as an independent Green Democrat, a new Peace coalition.
Many Greens end up voting for the progressive Dems anyway while realistically no single 3rd party has a chance.. We need to unite.
Also the Dems are gonna need the independent and progressive 3rd party vote more than ever.
If he acts outside the Democratic Box, he can start a real peace and justice movement with power for a change.
Rep Kucinich. Thanks for doing the right thing. By the time the Senate gets done with this bad legislation, it most likely be worse as the Senate is more conservative than the House.
One thing is for sure, even if a healthcare reform bill in its current form passes, coverage will continue to get worse and more expensive.
The issue will need to be revisted. Whether is will be or not is another matter.
While I admire and appreciate Rep. Kucinich's convictions and standing by his principles, I found it disappointing that he chose to vote against something in which the margin of victory was so narrow.
I think he knows, as well as other readers here, that had this bill failed, health care reform would have died with it. There would have been no "do overs" and the status quo would have won. While I don't think this is a strong bill, there are still many debates to come and many changes to be made. This is only the first step in what I believe will lead to the single payer system that Rep. Kucinich advocates.
First step toward single payer? This is a step BACKWARD.
This bill addresses neither of the two most pressing objectives of healt care reform: it will neither control costs nor significantly expand coverage.
It is a step backward because for the first time it will mandate the purchase of a criminally overpriced, lousy insurance product--with no controls on premiums or deductibles. As such, it is nothing but a giant subsidy to a corrupt, piratical industry.
So--we have in this bill a giant handout to the very private insurers that single payer would remove from the health-insurance business. Would you care to explain how this complete capitulation to the very corporations who would be put out of business by Medicare for all is a step toward single payer--even a baby step--rather than a step backward, into national peonage to these blood-sucking insurance companies?
Instead of just parroting the Democratic Party line, you might wish to exercise your critical faculties about what's actually in this two-ton, lobbyist-authored monster of a bill.
"... it will neither control costs nor significantly expand coverage."
From the CBO: "...insurers would have to accept all applicants, could not limit coverage for preexisting medical conditions, and could not vary premiums to reflect differences in enrollees’ health... (The analysis also takes into account the provisions of section 262 of Division A regarding the application of federal antitrust laws to health insurers. CBO estimates that implementing those provisions would have no significant effects on either the federal budget or the premiums that private insurers charged for health insurance.)
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10688/hr3962Rangel.pdf
There is nothing in the quoted provisions that will control costs in the health-care system as a whole because there is no cap on premiums and deductibles. Even your quote from the CBO confirms that the bill will have "no significant effects on . . . the premiums that private insurers charged for health insurance." That's how you measure health-care costs--as a percentage of GDP; the impact on the federal budget is not the key metric there.
As Paul Krugman once noted, what other countries call health-care costs the private insurers call revenues.
You obviously have no clue about any of this.
Yeah! If we've learned anything from Rush, it is to cut off reasoned discussion by harshly disparaging anyone who dares to speak on an issue we want to own. Good job! :)
The "preexisting condition" has always been a grossly exaggerated as a contribution to denied coverage. The vast majority of denials of coverage are claims for procedures, hospitals, and doctors that the insurance policy doesn't cover - buried in the 150 pages of the plan's rules. This is especially common in emergency situations, where the patient is hardly in a position to shop-around for preferred doctors and ER's while in the ambulance.
It would have been great if a few more like Kucinich had voted this very gross bailout bill down. The NO vote was the correct vote.
Maybe. But maybe not. Had it died, or if the next vote on the bill that emerges from conference is no, the alternatives for going forward are these: keep the system the way it is, broken and unsustainable, or, create a new system in accordance to the desires of the American people, who prefer true movement towards single-payer, Medicare for all. I think the latter is more to the point. The danger of passing a corporate gift to the insurance companies is that this bill with requirements for insurance and a very weak public option that fails to lower costs, is this: "reform" (so-called) will fail, giving not only a gift to the insurance industry and Wall Street, but framing reform as a failing endeavor. If the progressives in Congress were to frame this issue as fake reform, and were to vote against the conference bill, (likely worse than this House bill) THEN, after mid-terms, we can take the issue up again towards a very strong public option or true Medicare for All. On the other hand, if a very weak bill passes, Medicare for All and/or a strong public option, will remain off the table.
". . . the alternatives for going forward are these: keep the system the way it is, broken and unsustainable, or, create a new system in accordance to the desires of the American people, who prefer true movement towards single-payer, . . ."
These alternatives will exist whether this turd of a bill passes or not.
q
I would argue that health care reform died as soon as the Obama administration decided that accomodating the insurance companies was essential to passing legislation. After that, it doesn't matter how many "debates to come" and "changes to be made" there are. The meaningful debaters have been shut out of the conversation, making change a simple matter of wishful thinking.
Believe what you like. Then there's evidence.
And we wouldn't be having this conversation at all if there had been a McCain administration. I'll believe in what I know, not in "what ifs".
Typical sanctimony and retreat from evidence. I'm disappointed.
A McCain administration with an Obama sign on the front is still regressive.
War is still war.
Executive overreach is still executive overreach.
A dead Bill of Rights is still a dead Bill of Rights.
Cause-and-effect is still cause-and-effect.
Since you claim to believe in what you know, not what-ifs, then obviously you are retracting your claim that our country will achieve single-payer one day. That was a particularly egregious "what-if" in the face of movement in the opposite direction.
Yeah! What an egregiously sanctimonius disappointer! Carl should just stay out of this discussion because we have the right answers! :]
No, Carl should give good, solid support to back up his claims. He has not.
Poor Carl doesn't understand inarguable logic like "cause and effect is still cause and effect". He should learn how to use good solid support like this for his claims, and then we would probably all agree with him! :)
I encourage you to cease being purposely dense. Contribute something to the discussion for the very first time.
OK! Thanks for the encouragement! :D
Bennifer is just a paid Obama cultist troll. He/she always does this on the threads.
There is no doubt that McCain would never have proposed any sort of Health Insurance "Reform" except to ban any possibility of justice in the case of gross medical malpractice.
And without Clinton there would have been no NAFTA Treaty passed which continues to create the giant sucking sound of jobs going South or Overseas.
I was not sure of the true content of this Bill until reading Kucinich and others'
analysis. I am afraid we have been suckered again by the Wimpocrats opening the sluicegates to the widest predatory gouging of money to private Corporate interests
since the Military-Industrial Complex.
Or the Transit/Urban Destructive Auto Industry...
(well I guess the list goes on and on...)
A bad bill is a bad bill and this bill with only 6% eligible for a public option is
a bad bill giveway to private Insurers.
And after the private Healthcare deniers have billions more in their pockets to ladle out to our sycophantic "Representatives" for "lobbying" (i.e. legalized bribery) will this make it harder or easier for real reform? Hmmmmmm....
By the way, when was the last time you heard ANY of the major media mention campaign
funding reform...
What would be a very interesting Marxist analysis would be the role of private Insurance capital in our sick US capitalist system.
One would think that ALL the other industries such as GM, GE, major manufacturers and producers of real goods and services would be leading the charge to get the
private Insurance exploding health premiums off their backs. One would think the National Association of Manufacturers would be pitted against the private Insurance lobby which is bleeding them to death and forcing jobs to Canada and other countries which provide 3-6% overhead healthcare.
Why aren't they?
Here the issue to investigate is: what percentage of Corporations do these
monopoly Capital Insurance behemoths own and control?
Where do they park their billions upon billions as they deny healthcare?
I think you are right about this. I seem to remember obomber huddling with the insurance industry, and giving them some kind of promise that whatever attempts to change the system, they'd all come out ok, not to worry. Just haven't heard much about that lately.
anyway, as Dennis point out this thing he voted against is a big give away to for profit insurance
- The above comment by "Broadway Carl" is such an entertaining example of self-delusion & rationalization that had it been intended as satire, one would have no choice but to admire its brilliance.
Here's a translation of what the above poster really means:
"While I want to pretend to admire Rep. Kucinich's principles (because one must always pay lip-service to 'principles'), I really side with all the spineless Democrats who voted for this give-away to the insurance industry, & who lacked the courage to fight for anything better. In fact, I think that on balance, it's bad that Kucinich has these pesky principles, which often cause him to deviate from the Dem Party line. When the Dems are busy selling out to the insurance industry (not to mention the anti-abortion fanatics), these few Democrats with principles should just shut up, and march along with the Party."
Mr Carl says, "This is only the first step in what I believe will lead to the single payer system that Rep. Kucinich advocates." This is like saying, "I support President Obama's giving trillions of dollars to Wall St, because it's the first step towards reforming our financial system." Just as the Wall St bailout strengthens the banksters (& thus their ability to thwart serious 'reform'), the present health-care bill strengthens the insurance companies -- who, after all, designed the whole package, just as Goldman-Sachs designed the analogous "economic rescue" package. // Not only does the present bill fail to confront the insurance companies, it's such an outrageous gift to them, that it guarantees they'll NEVER be confronted.
No matter how blatantly the Democrats betray the public interest, Dem Party apologists will always find a way to see it as "a step in the right direction." This is true "WAR IS PEACE, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"-style thinking.
The mantra of incrementalism, especially since 2000, has become an extremely popular way of fooling oneself. Any change at all, no matter what it might be, is theorized as progress. From this it's a short step to denouncing opponents of that change. Call them extremists. Remind them that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Never, ever examine the merits of the change.
Good post! Also, never, ever mention specific republicans or blue dog dems who should be challenged for reelection! The important thing is to throw ALL Dems out in 2010! The resulting vacuum will probably result in health care for poor people and stuff. That's all we want, right? :}
Yes, RichM, you got me. That's EXACTLY what I MEANT. You're way too smart for me. Enjoy your Kucinich write in vote in 2012.
Just watch the disgusting debate over the Stupack amendment in the House, which restricts women's access to abortion even further than the Hyde amendment. In addition to the issues Kucinich discussed, this should have been reason enough for any self-respecting progressive to vote NO. I believe in the long hard fight for single payer in the country, even if it takes generations.
This is a health insurance bailout package, partly at the expense of the working poor and partly at the expense of government debt to foreigners that comes at the expense of our sovereignty and accelerates our job offsourcing.
Yep, were screwed again, I wonder what agency will take the job of waiting in the ER to issue citations for nonparticipation in the scam? Probably GCServices, the collection agency that works out of the courts...
Gee,
I already went through this insurance scam in 2006 Florida. "Mandatory" Flood Insurance covered by only one company selected by Gov Jeb Bush: Citizens. The premiums quadrupled for waterfront. So did the mandatory Hurricane Insurance for mortgages which never paid on "wind" damage (apparently, hurricanes have no wind.) Then the same thing happened to all the privatized community utilities. Then the property taxes tripled. Then the predatory loan raised its ARM sky high on me. It was the most profitable year in history for the insurance and finance sectors. It was my financial ruin.
When you force the consumer to buy insurance, you are not in a free society anymore. I left the country after all these constant corporate extortions and I have never looked back. Banana Republics have a much higher standard of living imho. I can see a US trained doctor on this island for about ten dollars. I buy NO insurance at all. I run naked. If the roof blows off it only costs about a grand to replace the whole thing. If I get sick and die, at least I'll die a free man.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Kucinich and a few others in D.C. [very few, admittedly] are willing to vote honorably. This bill should never have been on the floor, and if the likes of Pelosi constitute the Democratic Party, then it, along with the Republican one, should be eliminated. All of us on this website should now be planning to campaign AGAINST every one -EVERY ONE - WHO DID NOT WORK FOR SINGLE PAYER. Oh, sez you - the Republicans would win. So? A puppet of the corporations is a puppet of the corporations. What OTHER label you put on the puppet is irrelevant.
"Oh, sez you - the Republicans would win. So?"
Has everyone forgotten the last eight years so quickly? We wouldn't be talking health care reform of ANY kind had we had a different outcome last November.
"...Has everyone forgotten the last eight years so quickly? We wouldn't be talking health care reform of ANY kind had we had a different outcome last November..."
- First of all, everything that Bush did was done with support from Democrats. They went along with him on everything, & fought him on nothing.
- Though it's unintentional, you're quite correct to refer to the present bill as "talking health care reform." It's only TALKING reform. In reality, it's a government-enforced plan to expand profits for insurance companies, being peddled to the public under the banner of "reform."
This is one reason I become a dual citizen. THe first was the president select Bush's "administration". When I retire I have the option of going to Europe. The needed changes will come, eventually, but only after much more pain has been experienced and much more economic disruption. It is possible that democracy will reassert itself in the US. But if our media's "balance" is any indicator it will be some long time. I mean to say, consider how, decades ago, the cigarette - cancer connection was so very long in being accepted, how long it was before Vietnam was "ended" how an open and critical investigation into 9/11 was prevented and now how those guilty of destroying our economy are getting rewarded for such and global climate change is STILL being "debated". There are many, many other instances where the public's right to know and the quality of public debate and decision making has been ruinously manhandled by those who are supposed to inform the public regarding important issues so that they might support policies and programs to correctly address them. When will everyone in the US, and the world, realize we are ALL on the same team. I fear, not until some disaster forces such a realization and at great, great cost.
Right on. Health insurance and health care are two very DIFFERENT things. In fact, health insurance is the opposite of health care.
http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/
Dennis K. is one of only a handful of D party members that are progressive. The rest are BS artists, schmoozers and corrupted liars.
He ought to leave his party and form a movement to reform the rigged election system, campaign finance system, party system, big-money, corporate dictated political process.
I called my current rep and former rep. (Pete Stark and George Miller) and told them to vote NO on the bill. Alas, they did not. They are supposed to be "progessive, left-wing Democrats. With progressive leftys like that we don't need no conservatives.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Now, Kucinich is a man who votes like a President, with the greater good of US citizenry at heart !
****Down with Team Obama and their entire bunch of cave-in
specialists. They would not know what a Reform was if
Wiliam Webster was here to define it for them in plain english.
***Rep Kucinich needs to declare NOW that he is challenging the Obama/Biden Administration, and it's complete and total failure to deliver promised campaign change and reform !
That gives us 3 years to support his Candidacy, identify the chasm and world of difference he could deliver !!
Kucinich For President !!!! Send Obama on a 10-year Tour of Duty with his adopted War in Iraq !!! He will love it!
BEAUTIFUL COMMENT!!!
I totally agree, we need a president like Kucinich or Bernie Sanders, people who have proven they are vote for the people and not for corporate interests. Is there a petition out there for "Kucinich for President" I would totally sign it and vote for him. (Yes, I was an idiot and voted for Barack, its like slapping yourself in the face).
E
I haven't seen a petition yet but I WILL start looking. I wrote to him this morning asking him to run again, consider "going green", and to thank him for his vote on this garbage bill. I hope you will also write him and have as many progressives as you can do the same.
My first thought on reading this comment is, 'As If!'
As if - a President is enough to get us what we want. We need congress too - Presidents don't make laws, they simply encourage good or bad lawmaking.
As if - a congresscritter won't vote 'yes' if there is a real danger of SOME kind of reform being squashed. As previously mentioned, this IS the way it works in Washington. It takes more than a handful of 'token' votes to enforce the will of the people over 'the powers that be.'
As if - life ... and politics... were so simple.
My second thought is, 'I wish!'
People who try to force simple solutions to complex problems make those problems worse. It doesn't matter what party or non-party one is affiliated with. Complex problems require complex solutions.
Although to be totally fair I have a simple solution of my own: BAN WALLSTREET!
ex
Well if unconstitutional garbage like this is going to be the new standard, than a new constitutional amendment is needed: Congress shall make no law where one's income is used against him or her.
Because the way it is now, if your income is low but not near or below the poverty line (if specifically it is from about 133% to 500% of poverty especially, which is many millions of people and families) you are going to be taken to the barnyard for a good fleecing of what little you have by your government and by the insurance company fat cats. Whereas if your income is ultra low, below 133% of poverty, you are off the hook: no new requirements to buy something you can't afford, and no new taxes for you.
So between this new abomination and the fact that you can't get a decent job if you don't already have one anyway, have we gone around in one big circle in the last 30 years and will we now see the return of the non or slightly working, extremely low income, but Cadillac driving, mink coat wearing, welfare drawing, food stamp drawing, heating assistance drawing, rent assistance drawing, lots of leisure time enjoying, and now no health insurance mandate Queens that Reagan spoke about? Probably so, laugh out loud.
Silly Americans, health care economics is for the serious and the successful, not for you.
"...Cadillac driving, mink coat wearing, welfare drawing, food stamp drawing, heating assistance drawing, rent assistance drawing, lots of leisure time enjoying, and now no health insurance mandate Queens that Reagan spoke about"
Way to go on expanding the debate. Yes, I'm sure living on the dole in a crappy apartment in a dangerous neighborhood is the new American dream.
we used to call those the "600 a month welfare queens"......now we're stuck w/ the 600 billion a month welfare queens in the form of UHC and goldman sachs....
can this president do ANYTHING that isn't a hand-out to corporate America?
It appears to be no...........
Here's a list, good and bad.
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/obama-timeline-110309
Esquire??? Obama accomplishments????? LOL
Seriously, all of those "accomplishments" cited by the authoritative(???) Esquire Magazine (lol at "Esquire" again) don't amount to a bag of chips. Roughly half of them have not even happened, although it was announced that they were to happen, lol again.
And, the point was, in Obama's post apocalyptic America, it will be indisputably better to be dirt poor income wise, assuming of course you have enough wealth or enough in kind benefits to cover basic necessities, which is indeed doable, (more easily doable in small towns than in big cities incidentally, so the neighborhood may actually be quite nice) than to be simultaneously a lower income wage slave working the hind end off, and at the same time a slave to the multimillionaire insurance executives.
How sweet (no, how disgusting, actually) the irony that a "black man" brought us slavery to the ultra wealthy insurance execs. The wonders never cease, lol.
The United Swindles of America remains the United Swindles of America.
Good on you, Dennis. You had my (write-in) vote for Prez in 2008 and you shall have it again in 2012 should you choose to run again. Keep up the good work. You are one of less-than-a-handful of representatives who actually have the best interests of the people in mind, instead of the best interests of the corporations. Just remember, it takes only one person to make a difference, no matter what the odds.
HR 3962 will give the libertarians and conservative Republicans plenty of ammunition to criticize government as too intrusive in health affairs. HR 676 would have kept government out of people's health affairs, out of interfering with business, and stayed limited to defending the health care of its citizens. Either the Senate defeat this bill or it is time to get government completely out of the way. They are meddling with business affairs by siding with the insurance giants and crushing small businesses. I strongly stand against corporate welfare and side with Dennis Kucinich as a Green/Libertarian mix.
I say amen to Broadway Carl. I am a long time admirer of and contributor to Dennis' K's positions and campaigns, but I think that in this instance he has made the perfect the enemy of the good and (what no one in politics should ever forget) the possible.
I assume, then, that you will have no trouble educating the readers here as to what is "good" in the bill.
Exactly, perfesser.
The bill is not good.
It's godawful, a step backward. As the PNHP has already stated, it's worse than no bill because it will FORCE people to purchase an extortionate, lousy product and will thus strengthen and subsidize a piratical industry that needs to be euthanized.
Don't be fooled. Kucinich's vote was a token. If the bill had really been in danger of failing, he would've voted in favor of passage, like virtually every other member of the progressive caucus.
Kucinich's ruse is precisely the sort of tactic Democrats use to keep progressives from abandoning the Democratic Party. They will cast a vote in support of a failed cause or come out in support of some undefined legislation, just enough to lead you on, but in the end, progressive bills are always blocked from coming to a vote. If Kucinich were genuine, he wouldn't have backed off the single-payer amendment.
You bring up the larger structural picure. I agree the election and electroal systems are rigged, the winner takes all system produces only two parties and is anti-democratic (results in minority rule).
The legal framework that favors corporations and gives them the individual rights of a human being is deeply unjust, the legal framework that equates money as free speech is deeply unjust. Allowing a corporate media oligopoly, that spews little more than propaganda and tabloid fluff, to emerge is deeply unjust. The two-party system is a de-facto ONE PARTY STATE.
Some people find it too disturbing to admit this. Decade after decade we see the same old thing no matter who controls Congress or the White House. Even so called progressives believe that the system still works. The Nation is a good case in point, it is little more than a spin doctor for the D party.
The Ilness and Death Profit Industry (IDPI) wins, no surprise here. They flooded Congress with 10s of millions of dollars of bribe money and got what they paid for.
I wish my rep would have voted NAY along with Dennis K. As already outlined, the bill is a criminal extortion racket. It gives the IDPI millions of new customers that will result in billions in new profits; guarantees obscene, barbaric and Vampiric profit margins; and uses our own govt. as a thug to force people to buy a sub-standard product at wildly inflated prices. If that was not enough, taxpayer money will be directly handed to the IDPI in the form of subsidies.
If anything like this gets signed by the Emperor, it should be legally challenged as unconstitutional.
Thank you Dennis!
"America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system"
The majority of Americans already recognize this: the politarians don't, and they're as remote from the acute suffering of people as the aristocrats in 1789 and 1917 were.
Here is a lucid, thorough explanation of the reasons that this bill SUCKS:
http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/11/05/health-care-reform-2009-no-bill-is-better-than-a-bad-bill/
Just stop and think for a moment. All of this could have been avoided if the voters had only cast informed ballots. Nader supports Single Payer - along with 4 others of the 8 presidential candidates that were on my ballot.
Blame the voters who continue to vote for dem/repubs and then they get voters' remorse. Voters keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Does anyone out there really believe that the dems or repubs will ever represent the people??????
I commend you Dennis for keeping your word in your July 30 letter, signed with 56 others, to not accept anything short of a public option tied to Medicare rates, available to anyone. Bravo! You and Eric Massa are the ONLY TWO of those 57 who kept their commitment.
I posted a comment to Lucinda Marshall's article listed below, and wished I'd published it here when encountering Broadway Carl's inane apologetics. I hesitated after seeing RichM, et al, apply the appropriate smackdowns.
But I feel that I might as well go on record here, too, after "jcarrigan" popped up in support of Broadway Carl, and actually USED the expression... well, you'll see:
____________________________
But... but... the Democrats have a PLAN! Dontcha SEE?
They're gonna FIX all this in Obama's second term!
This so-called "first term" is REALLY just a campaign for the SECOND term. The SECOND term is the "money term"!
During the FIRST term, or "pre-term", Obama and his crew have to take two steps backwards, keep their powder dry, and most of all not make the perfect the enemy of the good!
But once's Obama's elected to a SECOND term, the Fix is in and the Fixing begins! Unless the time isn't right, of course, and the Dems realize that the Fixing won't happen unless Obama's (Democratic) SUCCESSOR gets a MANDATE.
OK, the successor won't be able to do much in their FIRST term, but...
[Cue: Sonny & Cher, "The Beat Goes On"]
· Yr Obd't Servant
I said nothing about a second term. This bill has to go through the Senate and then be voted on again in both houses. But you can guarantee that had nothing been done on health care, if it dies right now, there won't be a second term, which may be fine for you, since Obama hasn't fixed everything on the progressive wish list in his first 9 months. Go ahead and write him off and enjoy a President Pawlenty or President Palin in 2012. Then come back here and whine some more.
You want single payer? So do I. But where did everyone go? Where are all the throngs of people that followed, volunteered and voted for Obama during his campaign? All I see on TV are teabaggers and wingnuts with disgusting signs and strapped with guns. Where are our single payer rallies? When do we go to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to state what we want?
Dan Froomkin: Want Obama To Be Bolder? Take To The Streets!
"...Obama has fallen way short of expectations. He surrounded himself with too many people who represent politics-as-usual, and he has buckled under to pressure from the national security establishment that Bush put on steroids.
How much of that would be different, however, if the people who voted for Obama had remained politically active? If they were visibly and energetically not just supporting him, but pushing him to be bolder?
But Obama's supporters aren't giving him even rudimentary political cover.
Almost forgotten these days is the fact that in Obama's first address to Congress. In February, the new president served up a pretty darn bold agenda, backed up by a respectably progressive budget proposal. So what was the reaction? Obama looked over his shoulder and saw -- no one.
The talking heads on TV and in the newspapers tut-tutted about what a big gamble he was taking. And without any palpable expression of public support to worry about, the moneyed interests and their congressional lackeys in both parties went about nibbling everything to death."
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/want-obama-to-be-bolder-t_n_348969.html
I supported Kucinich and still do. I contributed to his campaign. He had a great plan: He needed one million people to donate $50 to fund his entire campaign. How much did he raise? I don't even think one tenth of that. I can't imagine there aren't one million progressives out there with the ability to donate.
And you call me an apologist? Maybe I'm just not ready to give up and run down the street with my hair on fire after 9 months. I remember the last 8 years.
"And you call me an apologist? Maybe I'm just not ready to give up and run down the street with my hair on fire after 9 months. I remember the last 8 years."
I think I would call you an apologist, although not for the silly straw man that you projected into another writer. I think that your arguments point to a blank check for Democrats on the basis of their not being Republicans. Your comments to me and others seek to frame all discourse in terms of the alternative being a Republican administration. This maneuver defines the current situation as relatively good, no matter what may happen.
In this way, you decouple ideas from the context. Since I cannot conceive of politics without considering the ideas that attach to those politics, blank checks like yours, rhetorical or otherwise, are simple apologia.
Well then call it what you like. I don't see it as apologia, I see it as reality. Until we have something other than a two party system, that's exactly what it is. But don't stop those write in votes for Kucinich or Nader. See how far that gets you.
And a blank check for Dems has gotten us where again?
Carl writes, "... But don't stop those write in votes for Kucinich or Nader. See how far that gets you."
- This is truly a moron's argument, as it blithely ignores the lesson of the monstrous health-care bill now under discussion, & indeed everything Obama has done in his first 10 months: namely, voting for mainstream Democrats ALSO doesn't get anyone anywhere.
The situation is as follows: if you vote for Republicans, you get endless immoral war & corporate welfare. If you vote for Democrats, you get endless immoral war & corporate welfare. And since most Americans are too stupid and cowardly to vote for anything but R's or D's (otherwise, you're "throwing away your vote," donchaknow), it's certain that voting for any alternative to R's and D's won't make any difference -- thus letting morons like Carl jeer at the few who at least were principled enough to stop voting for R's and D's.
Carl doesn't realize it, but what he's really saying is, "You Nader/Kucinich voters are losers, BECAUSE people like me are so stupid we'll keep voting for the Obamas, Clintons and Kerrys -- and there are MORE OF US than there are of you!"
Yeah Carl you are so moronic you don't even realize what you are saying whenever you talk! It's good that the brilliant debaters on this site can translate your words into appropriately abusive language. Carl, try harder and maybe you too can sound just like Rush/Glenn/Bill! :[
Having fun joking progressivism? How much again is Obama paying you to troll like a cultist?
Cash?
NOW who's "whining"? Maybe it's all in the ear of the beholder!
Not to mention that you may well be one of those folks who wouldn't run down the street with their hair on fire even if their hair actually WERE on fire. So that zinger goes by the board, I'm afraid.
You've got that moderate Democrat battered spouse syndrome thing going, so it won't help to point out that our Elected Misrepresentatives from the Top Dog down have made it clear that traditional citizen protest and activism is null and void; health-care activists opposed to the No Insurer Left Behind abomination-- aka Obama's Win-- have been persistently either blown off out of hand, or forcibly removed and arrested for daring to interrupt the hucksters conducting the "business" of government.
Max Baucus was, and perhaps remains, so bewildered by being hassled by single-payer supporters that he decided, or was directed, to conduct a blatantly-cosmetic and belated meeting with such supporters in which he apparently remained utterly clueless at the prospect that anything beyond partisan political calculus governed events.
So everybody pretty much just left out the same door they came in, and Baucus resumed Moving Forward as if it had all been just a bad dream. The White House excluded Obama's OWN former personal physician from participating in a staged "health-care" symposium, etc.
I don't want to laterally leap onto my Barney Frank Critique soapbox here, but I'll note that Frank, in his usual imperious and sarcastically condescending way, has made it clear that the Elected Misrepresentative para-corporate collective hive mind, fka the US federal government, has rendered traditional political dissent and protest irrelevant.
It's reasonable to infer from Obama's own conspicuous distance from dissenters, evidenced during his candidacy by his refusal to acknowledge dissenters at the Democratic National Convention except for a brief wave with a ten-foot pole, that he shares Baucus's and Frank's perplexed disdain for such rabble up in arms.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. If you desire to Change the Collective, the first step is to voluntarily assimilate. Resistance is futile... [repeat, ad infinitum]
Also, for all their talent at righteous scolding, even the coolest-browed mod Dems never HAVE been able to make up their minds over whether the thing to do is CHEERLEAD "support" Obama regardless of disappointment at his compromises, or BOO Obama in the course of putting his cloven hooves to the fire when he seems unwilling or unable to take satisfactory positions.
I'm not much of a sports fan these days, but as one born and bred in Philly, I suppose the "boo-bird" spirit is accordingly strong in me. For instance, it seemed natural to boo when Obama received the Nobel MVP Award after a first quarter filled mostly with punts and fumbles. Even being edumacated afterwards that it's really more of an INCENTIVE award didn't help.
And it seems just as natural to boo when Obama cooes that the AARP and the AMA are on board with Our History-Making Health Care legislation.
But it's so selfish and mean-spirited and ultimately self-destructive to BOO at the drop of a hat, because it's certainly not helping the star quarterback's morale! Since booing is so problematic, it's probably more of a matter of "if you can't cheer, better not to open your mouth at all".
Because, regardless of all that hype about We the Progressives diligently holding our Well-Meaning president's feet to the fire, Booing is really a last resort, and so difficult to do appropriately that it's best avoided at all.
This last point is indicative of the heart of battered-spouse syndrome; if Daddy hurts us, if the star quarterback ends up throwing interceptions or is turned into pudding by the defensive front four, it's really OUR fault for letting him hang out there to dry!
OK, just checked mirror, not even a wisp of smoke rising from what's left of the crop.
PS: to avoid burdening comments threads with unnecessary duplication, also see my November 8th, 2009 5:37 pm comment posted to "Single Payer Advocates Starting to Break Against Obama" by Russell Mokhiber-- it's presently just under "Further...:" on the left-hand column in the main page.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Carl, quit using straw man arguments! We are the only ones allowed to set up a flimsy straw man and then easily knock it down. We own the straw man paradigm! :\
You have it, Obedient. Sounds like an over-the-top satire, but that's exactly what will happen and people will fall for it, just like they fell...never mind. It's so easy.
If folks start registering and voting Green en masse, we'll know they are serious.
As an old girlfriend used to say, "half a loaf is better than none". But I'm glad you lodged the protest vote Dennis. It shows you are one of the few politicians with principles. I'm sure you knew beforehand that it wouldn't lose the entire bill to the Repugs and con Dems. Now at least we have a bill that can be improved as we go along.
This bill is NOT half a loaf. It is no loaf. It is worse than no loaf--it's toxic swill.
See the following lucid, thorough explanation of the reasons that this bill SUCKS:
http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/11/05/health-care-reform-2009-no-bill-is-better-than-a-bad-bill/
If the Repugs and con Dems were so much against it, it must be an improvement.
Did you read the article and think about the actual details of the bill?
It's a shell game.
The insurance lobby WROTE this bill.
They have all their bets covered. They finance and control all the Beltway players. They all agree on one essential point--retaining the stranglehold of the private insurers on the health-care financing system.
The "disagreements" are simply about how best to jerk the American people around.
"had this bill failed, health care reform would have died with it."
This is a bill about mandatory private insurance, NOT about "health care reform". The Democrats will rue the day they celebrated this raft of crap as "historic".
One might wish Rep. Kucinich -- or SOMEbody! -- had seen fit to denounce the crass obscenity of throwing more of the poor into the rolling Death Panel of Medicaid.
Obama, with his drum-major -- or is it majorette? -- fantasy of leading with a "baton", is an even-more-ludicrous embarrassment than even the most cynical predicted. His prissy parade's about over, and the whole country's knee-deep in pony poop.
Dem-dat-dare November 8th, 2009 5:12 pm
"Obama, with his drum-major -- or is it majorette? -- fantasy of leading with a "baton", is an even-more-ludicrous embarrassment than even the most cynical predicted."
Verified. Have you noticed that anti Bush articles have pretty much dried up on the progressive Internet? When an empty suit follows what many in Progressive Land consider to be the worst Presidency in history, who wants to or can profitably think or write all that much about either one of them? I mean, Bush has been covered already, and there isn't all that much to say about an empty suit, is there, laugh out loud?
Just wake us up when at least one of the two Corporate parties implodes or when there is a new, half viable non-right-wing party that isn't tagged as a one issue party and that does not have the poison word "socialist" in its name.
Or if China stops buying Treasury bonds, that would justify a wake up I guess.
Dem-dat-dare, that's Hilarious, thank you!
I have no way of proving this, but I would bet that if the House had been evenly split and Kucinich's vote was the tie-breaker, he would have closed ranks with the Democratic Party hacks for whom he urges everyone to vote during every election cycle.
His vote was not needed, so he could afford to indulge in some "principled" speechifying.
Granted, this is a mere hypothesis, but there is ample evidence for it in his inexorable calls for people to vote the straight Democratic line, even though he knows those Democrats will trample everything he claims to stand for.
If he places party loyalty above political principle during EVERY election cycle, he would probably do so in a crunch like this.
But his vote was not critical--so he can continue to play the role of the Democratic Party's "useful progressive idiot."
I disagree with your conclusions (though in the current climate of Washington I can understanmd why you might see it that way). To paraphrase an old Barbara Mandrell country song, DK was progressive when progressive wasn't cool. I see no evidence that anybody is cutting him any slack for selectively changing his votes on the various issues he has championed including single-payer health care.
He is still regarded as an irrelevent gadfly in the Democratic party (much like Ron Paul is in the Republican party). Even though his positions reflect the clear majority of the several hundred posters to this blog most times, without sites like Common Dreams nobody outside of his conmgressional district would have even heard of him.
Poet
Kucinich has always called on people to vote for the very mainstream hack Democrats who he knows full well will crush the progressive agenda he yaks about.
Anyone who campaigns in practice for politicians who oppose everything he claims to uphold in rhetoric is--full of it.
I was unable to watch the voting on TV. I understand that this was a recorded vote in which case representatives vote in alphabetic order. Did the Dems have the required 218 votes when Kucinich voted? If the answer is no then he could not be absolutely sure that his nay vote would or would not defeat the measure. It is not new that politicians change their vote at the last moment. Your smear of "useful idiot" could therefore well be a vile insinuation based indeed on nothing but guessing.
I presented strong evidence that he places party loyalty above principle--that that is his basic modus operandi. You, of course, conveniently elided that part of the post.
So it's not a "smear"--it's based on his long-time record of calling for votes for the very people he knows full well will oppose his agenda.
The outcome of the vote is known in advance, through back-room caucusing.
They can change their votes after the time limit is over. On C-SPAN, I've seen lots of embarrassed-looking Blue Dogs come to the podium and switch their votes to the Republican side after a Democratic victory was certain. These people obviously have an agreement with the leadership that allows them to side with the GOP on certain votes as long as it doesn't give the GOP a win. This is clearly what Kucinich was doing on the healthcare vote, although he was voting against the party in order to delude progressives, rather than conservative voters in some red state.
I must say, after watching his behavior and the behavior of other alleged progressive Democrats during this healthcare fight, I no longer have any respect whatsoever for these people. Dennis Kucinich and Anthony Weiner are no better than Max Baucus or Joe Lieberman as far as I'm concerned.
Kucinich 2012?
Not by my vote.
Excellent insights, succinctly stated.
I wish that the splintered forces of the sane left would meet in a national conference and forge a united anticapitalist party along the lines of the NPA in France.
So many progressives in this country seem tactically and strategically clueless. Many single-payer groups, for example, are now staging sit-ins at the offices of the private health insurers. This is preposterous. What's the point? What's the obejctive? To elicit a promise from the private insurers that they will voluntarily put themselves out of business? Good luck!
That's the wrong target. All these actions should be directed against the Democrats who now hold the reins of power. But the most of the single-payer groups have their suction cups firmly attached to the Democratic Party and evidently fear taking any action that would benefit the Dems.
A sad state of affairs indeed.
What we need is a national mass demonstration for Medicare for all in Washington this spring. I doubt that the current single-payer leadership can pry itself sufficiently loose from the Democrats to bring it off, thought.
Let's face it, nothing is going to change in this country until progressives are willing to punish the Democratic Party politically, and that just isn't going to happen anytime soon, since most progressives are wealthy elitists who can continue to live perfectly comfortable lives with the status quo offered by the Democrats.
This is a Classic: you ignored my questions. New question: how do you know that Kucinich knew the outcome through backroom caucusing? You are this site's champion guesser.
Time for a remedial-reading class for you.
I did not ignore your question.
I repeat my answer, which obviously went over your head the first time:
"The outcome of the vote is known in advance, through back-room caucusing."
The outcomes of all votes are known in advance to all members of Congress. Just ask one sometime--or attend any seventh-grade civics class, or just read the newspaper. All the votes are carefully and assiduously lined up in advance on important votes so that nothing is left to chance. All party members are in touch with the speaker's office--or vice versa--and are well aware of the impending outcome. Your ignorance on this point is the problem here. There must be a primary-school primer on line titled "How a Bill Is Made."
What's really "classic" here is that you, who falsely accuse me of ignoring your point, are the one who ignores my key point: that Kucinich has a long history of placing party loyalty above political principle by (a) constantly calling on people to vote the straight Democratic ticket in elections, thereby helping to elect the people he knows full well will oppose every progressive proposal he claims to support, and (b) he never clearly denounces and calls out the party leadership on these betrayals. He is, at heart, a party hack who makes pretty speeches but ensures that the people who will crush the ideas in his speeches are elected and respected. You've ignored that point several times now. CLASSIC!
Here's a Web site you might find useful:
http://www.ldanatl.org/aboutld/professionals/adult_literacy.asp
Yes, that's exactly right. Kucinich plays a useful role for the Dem Party -- he helps to prevent left-leaning voters from bolting the Party altogether. In return, the Dem Party allows Kucinich to continue grandstanding as their "gadfly" & "man of principle." This way, whenever critics assail the Dem Party for being a party of imperialist warmongers -- which they certainly are -- Dem apologists always have the ready comeback, "Well, Dennis Kucinich is no warmonger!"
Kucinich could certainly quit the party if he wanted to, but realizes that if did so, & ran as a Green or other type of independent, he wouldn't get elected. So there's a symbiosis there: he needs the Party, while the Party finds his "gadfly" act useful (at least temporarily).
Kucinich could also denounce big-name Democratic sellouts like Pelosi, Obama, Kerry, Clinton & so on. But he realizes that if he did so, they'd crush him. So he's careful not to cross any sensitive lines. He says a lot of very good & true things, but manages to do it without attacking the Party or any of its marquee names. He also knows when it's prudent for him to shut up & toe the Party line.
Very perceptive and well stated.
You could run as a Green and not get elected too.
Dennis got elected and is a strong voice in Congress.
Are you jealous?
Kucinich: "We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are."
We can't?
No, we can't. It is called capitalism. The insurance companies aren't nasty because that want to be, but because they have to be, or they go out of businesses.
pjd - You're not becoming a - gasp - libertarian?? :-)
I'm not quite "into it" to the extent of being able to give a moral pass to anyone picking my pocket and stifling my health care. But I'm not much of a capitalist either.
pjd412 is technically correct. Trust me though, he's not a libertarian. I would love to see Big Insurance/Pharma put out of business or at least have their profits severely curtailed so that they will be forced to behave properly.
I was joking to pjd. I know he (?) is the smiter of libertarians.
Arry, silly me. I didn't catch that earlier reply. Sorry about that. A nice long Sunday to try to feel not so unhappy about this tragedy on health care "reform" fiasco. :(
Old story:
- Man befriends snake.
- Snake bites.
- Man, dying of venom, complains.
- Snake: "what did you expect?"
Same story:
- Person pays insurance
- Person gets sick
- Insurance keeps $$
- Person complains
- Agent: "We have to make money."
As long as the companies are staffed by humans, though, it would seem some culpability might follow.
It is rare that I read a statement from a political office holder with which I can completely agree but this is certainly one of those times. Thanks DK and please run again in 2012. The beige Bush needs retiring.
Poet
Arry-pjd's no libertarian. lol. Unless you're being sarcastic.
You'll never have universal single-payer in a capitalist society. USP is the antithesis to capitalism. What's required is a shift to socialism.
I was just joking about pjd. I've added a smiley. Sometimes I forget those.
But, seriously, I believe it is not the case that we can't fault the insurance industry. We are not a capitalist/libertarian "paradise". We don't have to say that it's OK to extort money from the people. ("Can't fault it.") When we say it, it adds a drop of legitimacy. It is not legitimate as anyone would conclude from most of the rest of his article. It is one of those obligatory capitalist statements that I take exception to.
"for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem."
and the very source of "donations" aka payoffs, to our whore politicians.
"for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem."
and the very source of "donations" aka payoffs, to our whore politicians.
"a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses"
The elites will surely argue that single-payer is BAD for business. Ignore for now that elites systematically neglect the people in such arguments. The argument assumes there is only one kind of business. But this assumption is simply false. A good business supports functional markets and best value for the people according to their better interests. A single-payer system is good for GOOD businesses and bad for BAD businesses. This is because a single-payer system resonates with the idea of functional markets and best value for the people according to their better interests. In fact, only BAD businesses will suffer. GOOD businesses will thrive.
The global government of which Obama and Bush are a part of seek to destroy our independent economy in order to assimilate us better into this world government. They have sold us out much like some tribal leaders sold their peers into slavery in the 18th century.
"They have sold us out much like some tribal leaders sold their peers into slavery in the 18th century."
... astute, accurate observation
Under Bush, we have war, we don't have health care for all, the democrats are angry.
Under Obama, we have war, we don't have health care for all, the republicans are angry.
And it goes on and on with both sides dismissing third parties.
This begs the question: why do we keep voting for the assholes?
Some people don't vote for assholes. Some people have been supporting third party candidates.
Yet so many people on this site still get taken by the lesser of two evils argument (or whatever rationalization they use to vote for a candidate that doesn't represent their core values). These are the people who should be more prone to thinking outside of the box, and yet they don't.
I'm reminded of Charlie Brown and the football. He is surprised each time the democratic party snatches the football away, just before he can kick it.
Has anybody noticed that ever since the vietnam war 40 years ago, that both the democrats and republicans take us to war?
I just saw the movie Gladiators, and there are these big fat rich f*cks eating and drinking while being entertained by others who are dying. Modern life is disgusting, and the sad part is that the people go along. You don't have to. The first step would be voting third party.
Power Elite: Don't want Single Payer Health care. They want the war (very profitable)
The regular person on the street: Wants single payer health care. They don't want the war.
Obama: Doesn't give us single payer health care (in fact the opposite of it). Will continue to escalate the war.
I haven't given up because of the republicans. I've given up because of the democrats.
Some people think that when things get worse, people will rise up. Sorry, it's already worse than you think, and if it gets worse you won't be able to get up.
They arrested and harassed peaceful protesters outside the democratic and republican conventions; wouldn't let Kucinich, Nader or Mike Gravel participate in the debates; we just got sold out on health care; animal species are dying due to environmental damage created by humans; wars are not ending; corporations that got bailed out just last year are giving million dollar bonuses to CEOs. How much worse do things have to get before the masses of people will get off their ass?
Hope is the opiate for the masses.
tremaine writes:
"Verified. Have you noticed that anti Bush articles have pretty much dried up on the progressive Internet?"
Yeah ... nobody but the White House hackocracy is still blaming Obama's balls-free blabla on Bush, though some liberals are still petitioning Him about this and that.
Social-justice types will be happy to note that there IS black leadership, and they've pretty much bearded the Supreme Birthday Suit in His den -- although NATURALLY there's not a word in the "press" except from AFP:
African-Americans slam Obama in White House protest
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/African_Americans_slam_Obama_in_Whi_11072009.html
It'd be a good thing for the Democratic Wing to picket the White House EVERY Saturday, counter Oblabla's youtube blabla with some reality.
Can we get Jesse Jackson back out there? (Yes, we CAN . . . :^)
Excellent article but the commenters have nailed it better. Listen, I appreciate it that Dennis Kucinich tells us the consequences of putting profits before quality care and I voted for him in the Democratic primaries last year. However, even if he had won, I would have still voted for Ralph Nader because like RichM, vanmungo, and seriousprofessor have boldly and correctly stated, Dennis Kucinich is doing himself no real favors by staying in the Democratic Party and allowing the party to ABUSE him politically so that they can look like they're "progressive" when they aren't. Sometimes, I too question whether people like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich each have a strong mind and heart to just break away from the Republican and Democratic parties and form the basis of a strong progressive independent party with Bernard Sanders. Ok, Paul isn't all progressive but sometimes his values can overlap with the progressives unlike most Democrats or Republicans.
rosemarie jackowski, I still share your anger that this electorate has been too cornfed to vote wisely. Some of these voters are waking up although I still have to keep my fingers crossed until I can be sure that they will open their hearts and minds to progressive independents such as Ralph Nader who can get the issues right and straight from the heart.
Carl Broadway, what do you care about, putting the party before progressive values or putting progressive values first? You sound no different from reckless business leaders who put whole sale volume sale over quality production and stockholders over employees first. Are you telling us that you would rather persecute real progressives/liberals just to save the Democrats playing kissyface with the GOP? You remind me of the Obamabots. None of us like the last 8 years of what Dubya did but Barry is continuing it shamelessly and that makes us even more outraged. At this point, Obama and the Democrats anger me to the point that if I were forced to choose between Sarah Palin and Barry Obama with no other choice, I would angrily punish Barry by voting Sarah ! Thankfully, I'm glad that I don't have to choose between just Democrats and Republicans. I voted proudly for Nader thrice and I will vote for him again or whoever is in his place by 2012 with the way Obama's going.
Hearty post! Carlbot, your talking on this site is the same as Mr. Madoff stealing $50 billion! Quit persecuting the hearts of all of us real progressives with your talking, or we will vote for Sarah Palinbot to teach you a lesson! :(
How much is Obama paying you to troll like a cultist?
Haha! Good comment! If only there was any money left after the Bush's Republican hedgefund friends stole it all and left a global monetary crash to the next administration to fix! Sitting in their limos, squealing "troll" at anyone who remembers who caused the disaster. ;)
kickapooviking writes:
" ... why do we keep voting for the assholes?"
Who VOTES for 'em? A LOT of Democrats did NOT vote for Obama -- lots of independents and Republicans, and kids who thought He LOOKED cute DID vote for him, but even so He won by not much.
Some say bolt the Democrats for the Greens, or whomever. But it's better to STAY in the Dems, run against "your" Congressman, run for county Central Committee, give these "whore politicians" (as someone refers to them below) a tiny portion of the static they've got coming ... and then, as usual, VOTE for Greens, independents, anybody but these people.
(Anybody who doubts they're whores and mercenaries has only to look to HUD, where the new fresh face in the wings is said -- see the SF Chronicle -- to be ... Art Agnos, AGAIN.) (Remember Art Agnos? Remember Jim Jones?)
You done good Dennis. You are still my congressman, even tho i live on the east coast.
At least now the Democrat party is flushed out into the open and we see them for exactly what they are: Just one branch of the corporate party. We live in a corporate empire and when empires over-expand and begin to collapse, the ruling class proceeds to squeeze their own citizens all the tighter to make up for what they have lost abroad.
For the first time in history, the U.S. Government is going to try to force its citizens to purchase a corporate product--an over priced, flawed corporate product at that. This is taxation without representation, the underlying cause of our first Revolution. The class war has been ratcheted up to a new level. At least there can be no more illusions over who in Washington is on the people's side. Dennis Kucinich. Eric Massa. Bernie Sanders, and right now, as far as I can see, nobody else.
No time to despair, no time to simmer and complain. Start working tomorrow on throwing your congress person out of office. It's the only solution.
Briggs Seekins
briggsseekins.wordpress.com
It is calle SOCIALISM -- USA version:
putting on WELFARE - which suddenly sounds good - the CORPORATIONS....by taking away the WELFARE of People.
USA STYLE has always been about SOCIALIST SUPPORT for the PRIVATE CORPORATIONS at PUBLIC, SOCIAL EXPENSE.
NEVER forget that.
they tell the people "socialism is BAD"
and the people BELIEVE.
then they pass WELFARE PROGRAMS for the corporations after they convince the People "the american people don't NEED Socialism , it is BAD".
and once they've done that - they say "REFORM" - and then take the PUBLIC's MONEY to TRANSFER WELFARE to the CORPORATIONS and CALL IT
"public option".
the OPTION - the ONLY ONE - to CODDLE THE CORPORATIONS.
it's the AMERICAN way.
what americans should demand is SOCIALISM FOR THE PEOPLE - and CUT OUT THE CORPORATIONS entirely. let them wither on their vine of "free-market" and see what good that does them
but of course THAT's NOT the AMERICAN WAY.
so -- there's no way out of it but a COLLAPSE of america. PERIOD. and it would DESERVE IT so well too.
That's right teddy,
Remember the old Republican "What is good for General Motors is good for America."
So now, Don't let GM steal our socialism.
Only the people are too big to fail
the corporate world is creating the revolution. let's hope we use something besides guns. DDOS is just waiting to be used against those that treat us like cattle.
Representative Kucinich A Profile in Courage, and the best of explanations of what happened yesterday - "in our name".
Karita and Paul Hummer
Congressman Kucinich, I voted for you last year in the Democratic primaries and I will cast my vote for you once again should you run in 2012. You are one of the very few outstanding progressive Democrats who needs no pressuring from constituents to get a job done right as a Congressman. I wished everyone in Congress could be like you. Maybe that dream will someday come to pass. Until then, you and the few who voted against this monstosity are heros.
I would also like to apologize to all members of CD for my arguing too far that we must make Congress do what we want. After the sudden vote in Congress to deny funding for female patients needing abortion for emergency, I am finally done with trying to pressure Congress to listen to us. I didn't want to give up and had hoped that more pressure could be put on Congress to get anything right but most people just don't want to go through with this and I understand their tough schedules. Let the campaigning begin and let's get that new progressive party out there by 2012 just in case Dennis Kucinich can't make it.
Peace
Kucinich has always called on people to vote for the very mainstream hack Democrats who he knows full well will crush the progressive agenda he yaks about. He always places party loyalty above political principle. He is, at bottom, just another party hack with the specific assignment of sucking progressives into the black hole of the Democratic Party.
His no vote is a purely symbolic gesture that came only after he knew that the bill would pass by a safe margin.
do you have the name of a representative that does better? Kucinich pushed for his single payer bill right up to the end. is there someone out there that's done better than that? i haven't heard of them. give respect where its due and its due for Kucinich.
What difference does it make if a Democratic politican caved at the outset or on the day of the vote? Kucinich still caved, as did most of the other alleged progressives in Congress. With only three more nays, the progressive caucus could've killed this bill and sent a strong message to the Democratic leadership. Instead, their weak showing proved to everyone that progressives have no influence in the Democratic Party.
No--there is no representative that does better. And what Kucinich is doing--breeding illusions about the country's major institutional enforcer of corporate rule (the Democratic Party)--is not very good at all.
So we agree--Kucinich, basically a Democratic Party hack whose deeds belie his words, is the best the Democratic Party has to offer. There is no one better. You have just advanced the strongest possible argument for breaking with the Democratic Party.
Thank you veddy much.
Good Comment! Here's another one:
"Look under there."
"Under where?"
"Haha I made you say UNDERWEAR!"
Debaters rule! :D
English translation of Bennifer's post:
"I, Bennifer, am a rabid troll who cannot rationally think and argue. So I dance and twirl like a circus monkey."
There is, of course, a serious point to be addressed here: if a waffling, two-timing hack like Kucinich is the best the Democrats have to offer--and he probably is--then it's time to dump the Dems and forge an independent progressive party--one that is consistently serious--unlike the Green Party--about taking on the Democrats.
Well said! This plan will work out just fine for Karl Rove and his republican flying monkeys! :}
English translation: "I, Bennifer, cannot discuss issues. I am a loopy Democratic Party hack/troll. If I can't answer an argument, I trundle out Karl Rove, whether it makes sense or not. Furthermore, I cannot conceive of the American people actually every voting in their own interests--so I will continue to join Dennis the Menace in urging them to vote for a party that systematically tramples them and their interests, just like Karl Rove's party!'
"In short, I Bennifer, like Karl Rove, am an agent of the corporate class and proud of it."
We are a country that has been propelled so far right that even a "Progressive" president is giving in to the interests of the wealthy barons of big business. Obama had a real oppurtunity to have an FDR type of legacy when he took office and he has already failed in so many ways. When it's all said and done, his legacy may be as bad if not worse than Hoover or W. Bush. Unchecked capitalism is destroying our country and we are beginning to experience the effects of it under Obama's watch. He's proving to be a spineless empty leader.
Yes folks, this House bill is a poison pill.
By the single device of forbidding MediCare type payments to providers, Pelosi's bill requires that the 'public option' pays all the country's providers through contract negotiations. She has doomed true competition against the insurance giants, for the following reasons:
(1) Pelosi prohibits MediCare computers from paying providers as it has done successfully for decades. Instead, with the 'public option' bureaucrats must negotiate contracts with hundreds of thousands of providers, large and small, in thousands of locales, for varying rates and terms. This is a function only a private contractor can perform, not Medicare bureaucrats in Washington. So we are likely looking at costly private contracting, and a very slow start.
(2) A slow start means low customer count for providers. So why should providers lower their rates for the 'public option', as compared with what they charge Aetna, for example? Another potential competitive advantage is eliminated.
(3) The insurance giants often pay providers a set amount each month for every insured person, sick or not. This means that providers can profit greatly if they don't have to perform many services. Pelosi's 'public option' cannot pay providers this way, which means fewer providers would be interested in contracting with it.
(4) For the same reason as (1), (2) and (3), it will take longer, if ever, to establish a full provider network for every corner of the country. This means less incentive for you and I to pick the 'public option', as opposed to, say, Wellpoint.
Yes, by the simple device of prohibiting Medicare type payments, Pelosi has doomed the 'public option' from the start.
This, while poll after poll shows that Americans, by 2 to 1, want a 'Medicare type' public option. Pelosi's bill is night and day from 'Medicare type'. She is either very naive, or thinks we are.
"During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back."
... to put it mildly.
At Daily Kos, Diarists are trumpeting "Historic health care reform!" with this legislation.
Say what?!
The House Democrats put lipstick on a pig and they're calling it health care reform. It should be called "Health insurance bonanza".
Our family health insurance rates are scheduled to rise by 10% in 2010; that's the good news. It could be worse. Our insurance rates have climbed every year for 20 years, with less coverage and higher deductibles.
I'm with Dennis on this one.
This is how the Green Party will finally burst out of its cocoon and grow into a major party, by addressing nonsense legislation like the Democrats are pushing while the Repubs are only interested in protecting the status quo.
Here's my Common Dream.
Mr. Kucinich I don’t much care if you run for President in 2012, though in fact I hope you don’t. It will just have the usual result of dividing progressives, liberals and moderate democrats into a variety of separate camps that will grow more and more disillusioned as the election nears and as the general population won’t buy into them in sufficient numbers. This will kill liberal momentum and that will make it all that much easier for the RIGHT WING to complete its domination of the Republican Party.
Besides the real issue is 2010. Does anyone need to be convinced about how important the 2010 elections are? This President is unable to slam dunk single payer health care because the system is designed to move slowly. (See Federalist Papers, Constitution of the USA, etc.) It’s being stopped and stripped in the Congress. Those people are the key. Had anyone ever heard of Max Bauchus ☹ or Alan Grayson ☺ before? Fill the Congress with more Progressive Democrats and there wouldn’t have to be all these compromises on the basic principles of the Obama [sic] Democratic plan.
We have to get serious about this democracy and realize what it is and how it works. We are still so hung up on the cult of personality whether it is you Mr. Kucinich or Nader or Obama (or on the Right Bush or Palin), when our government is designed specifically to halt the momentum of a strong personality. You and none of them are or have proved to be the answer, yet the answer is right there in front of you: We the people.
Like Nader did back in the 70’s, we need to create a movement. Not of people who’ll show up at rallies and pose for the media and (God help us) make speeches. We need people who will run for office and support those candidates and get them elected. And you Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Nader and others can be the spokespersons that appeal to your considerable followings to stop treating this government like a consumer product that delivers candidates prepackaged and according to our liking, but is a process that requires hard work, commitment, productive compromise and leadership at all levels to create those candidates.
Just please don’t run for office. If you do, you make it about you and it is absolutely about us. If the American people can’t be moved to support single -payer or something like it in this economy, it’s WE who will go down in history … as the worst progressive movement in American history.
A few points:
• Our current government has proven itself incapable of solving this dilemma. Too may of them are compromised by special interests (It’s an ethics issue)
• People with insurance are underserved (It’s a value for money issue)
• We are less competitive globally against all countries that don’t have to put the cost of health care into their products. (It’s a jobs issue)
• Our system is unprepared for an epidemic like swine flu (It’s as security issue)
• Our Fellow Americans are dying for lack of care (It’s moral issue)
You have 50 million uninsured that cross all party lines that you can build your base from. How many pay too much? How many get dropped for preexisting conditions or because they’ve used up a lifetime allowance? Despite what’s in the House Bill, none of this will get resolved before 2010. That’s where our opportunity lies.
Want to kill the conservative argument? Tell Americans how the costs of this will NOT put their grandchildren into poverty. That is ALL they need to hear.
And please let’s not take ourselves down the garden path of a third party. The third party idea is a non-starter. First there won’t BE a third party, there will be 30. If we start a progressive one, it will be matched by a pro-gun party and pro-life party an anti-immigration party and a Wiccan party; and dozens more on the Left. It will cripple consensus and in the end the two major parties will woo them and we’ll be back where we started. Besides it will be too hard, cost too much and take too long.
Why not just take over the Democratic Party instead? We’re half way there. Only half the Congress are millionaires. Let’s take them all out first. How hard will it be to convince people who are down to scraps that a millionaire is not their best choice for a representative?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/07-4
I know this will incur lots of dismissals but instead wouldn’t it be nice if our leadership came form below? Wouldn’t it be … democratic?
No one here (least of all Kucinich) is "dividing progressives." Obama and his administrative corporate cronies did that at every turn. The fact is, you are nothing more than a lip-service progressive and token liberal spewing obfuscations. Feel free to stay-put in the do-nothing fold of the apologetic wing of the Democrat Party and avoid lecturing the REAL Left little one.
I agree elohim, these types are apologists for the Duopoly and cannot see the forrest for the trees. They want to limit our democratic choice and continue the phony charade that voters have meaningful choice. The system we have now is a de-facto ONE PARTY STATE.
The only way Kucinich could possibly be taken seriously is if he left his corrupt party and ran as an Independent. The Democratic Party is rotten to the core as much as the Republicans and Kucinich is a tool designed to keep the left from leaving the Democratic Party.
So Kucinich is a willing sham. He knows he will win nothing and at the end he'll support a pro-war corporatist Democrat like he did in 2000 or 2004 or 2008. His clueless supporters follow him and vote for whoever Democrats nominate.
uncle_charlie, Congressman Kucinich is real. Your bitterness is baseless.
Oh yes I know he's very real. A real tool of Pelosi and Reid to keep fools "on the left" like you voting Democratic.
Sorry, uncle_charlie, you've overgeneralized your position and the fool stares back from your mirror. As your busy schedule permits, wiki DKs' wife and bite your tongue till it bleeds.
About a week ago Kucinich wrote, in an article that is here on CD, that maybe it's time to rethink the two-party system. Whether he has expressed this thought before I don't know, maybe others who have followed him closer over the years can enlighten on this. Maybe his supporters, so disgusted with what is going on, can urge him in this direction. Time to put pen to paper, folks, and ask him directly.