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Sanders Says Single-Payer Day Will Come as He Withdraws Amendment
Sickening. Saddening. Maddening. And the stuff of future determination in the political struggle for healthcare for all in the United States.
On the floor of the U.S. Senate today, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont rose to offer his single-payer, Medicare for All amendment No. 2837 and to begin debate. Then, one of the two Republican doctors in Senate, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, demanded a full reading of the 700-page amendment.
From the Senate gallery, I watched as Sen. Max Baucus told Sanders the only way to halt the Republican delay tactic would be to withdraw the amendment. Sanders stated emphatically to Baucus, "I will offer this amendment." But both men left the chamber as the amendment reading went on.
The Republicans seemed to be pleased with the procedural maneuver. Periodically one of the Democratic leadership would walk over to Coburn and chat. He'd smile and lean on his stack of documents - everything being very well staged for the C-SPAN cameras.
I thought how cold and callous it all looked from the gallery - healthcare is not a laughing matter for millions of us. This crisis has killed thousands of our fellow citizens and bankrupted millions more. I fail to find any of that remotely funny or something over which any Senator ought to feel pride as he or she blocks progress towards a better healthcare system.
The words of the amendment were clear and clean. And though not many were there to actually listen, I couldn't help but hear the details of the amendment and wish people could grasp the simple beauty of knowing each of us, all of us would have the care we need when we needed it at a lower cost. Instead, we're going to have more of the mess we have now - more insurance company influence over our lives and our bodies, and in many cases at a higher cost.
Single-payer, amendment number 2837 sounded pretty good to me. I was more than willing to wait out the Republican mischief and the Democrats' worry about not passing something - anything - before Christmas. I was more than willing to listen to every word.
After two hours of reading page after page of the amendment, Sanders stepped back up to his desk and withdrew the amendment. The reading stopped. And the fight for single-payer, Medicare for all died for this Congressional cycle.
Senator Sanders stood proudly and defiantly at the microphone and delivered the floor speech on behalf of single-payer. By then it was all over except for getting his intelligent remarks and his passion on the record. Those who care about where we need to go with this nation's healthcare system should listen to Senator Sanders' floor speech from today, December 16, 2009.
The fight will go on. As surely as the deaths attributable to a lack of access to healthcare in the United States will continue to mount and as surely as the number of bankruptcies directly related to medical crisis will also continue to rise, so too will the cry for real healthcare justice. This Congress and this President are not going to get to the place we needed them to go. They are not extending healthcare as a basic human right to all of us.
It makes me wish I had purchased a little health insurance stock along the way. Because as soon as Joe Lieberman made sure that he cleared out any chance of any public insurance expansion at all from this bill, the for-profit health insurance companies saw their stocks begin to rise again.
So, how do we get through this cycle? Will there be a conference committee effort to restore a state based single-payer amendment to health reform legislation? Or will we just watch as Congress passes some messy piece of something that isn't likely to do very much at all to mitigate the healthcare crisis in this nation just to claim they did something?
And what of the single-payer advocates and movement? Well, in the words of the brave nurses who never took "no" for an answer on other healthcare issues from the "Governator" or anyone else, "We'll be back." Healthcare is a human right now and it will be when we win this struggle. It's just going to take more time and, unfortunately, more suffering to get where we need to go.
Meanwhile, many of us wait anxiously for reports out of Pennsylvania where they were having a state Senate hearing today on their state single-payer bill. We have miles to go before we sleep.
- Posted in
80 Comments so far
Show AllThis is exactly why it is imperative that people pay closer attention to who they vote for. You can call, write to, and email the current puppets in Congress all you want to but they are "free" to play these stupid games as long as they can stay rest assured that this defective foundation will be kept intact election after election. All this "make them do it" nonsense is going nowhere. It remains to be seen if the voters will have learned their lessons by 2010 and 2012 and vote for who really best identifies with them rather than falling for more status quo.
Your naive and superficial understanding of our make believe government,
I’m embarrassed to read.
Surely none of the regulars here are of the self-absorbed majority you
appeal to, surely you should not insult our intelligence and wisdom
with such blind-alley darkness.
"Your naive and superficial understanding of our make believe government,
I’m embarrassed to read."
Exactly what is so naive and superficial about that?
"Surely none of the regulars here are of the self-absorbed majority you
appeal to, surely you should not insult our intelligence and wisdom
with such blind-alley darkness."
Excuse me but we are already in the Dark Ages trying to find the light. The only way to find the light is to get back to the root cause, the foundation, and change it.
Your desire to vote for paid actor politicians in a
make believe government, where all elections are funded
by the rich, you call that changing the foundation?
Ralph Nader is NOT a paid actor pol and government is for real even though it rots to the core. Yes, it will take more than changing Nader but do all rich people have to be the same? Shoot, I wished I could find truly generous rich people who could counter the system in favor of the people but I understand that is a fantasy. Still, if you still believe that everything will forever be controlled by the wealthy elite, then you are engaging in self-defeatism, sadly a mistake of most of the electorate. Oh never mind. ::(
SMOKE SCREEN
This is how our make believe capitalist government, run by the rich, has
been able to fool the public since 1776, by blinding the mind by burning
the emotions. A classic smoke screen.
For Sanders should never have put forward this Amendment unless he was
willing to go all out for full discussion. As his abortion of this action will burn
in the emotional guts so painful that millions of voters will never again endure
the stress of reflecting on politics, let alone feel like a jackąss fool going to
the polls.
Sanders gave a great speech today. I didn't know when I was watching him on CSPAN that he had already withdrew the amendment. I'm still not sure why he didn't go ahead and "offer the amendment." Does anyone know?
'I'm still not sure why he didn't go ahead and "offer the amendment." Does anyone know?'
This is the land of do do do, not say say say. The bizarre USan culture of do do do is why the planet is melting. So if you want to know about parliamentary procedure, you have to do do do parliamentary procedure yourself to find out. Cuz nobody will say say say. It's just like if you want good health, you don't ask a doctor. You do do do your own healthcare. But please do not despair. We on the far left are working out the new K-12 curriculum, and a substantial part of the workforce will be in the service of say say say. Think of it as a human internet. Free information for all, top quality, unbiased, almost instantaneous.
i must preface my remarks by saying that the US will reap what it has sown.
this country, by its unashamed embrace of laissez faire capitalism, has sown the seeds for the uncaring, unthinking thugs that populate our streets, and run our country.
if you teach that people are a commodity to be used however one sees fit, as this country does, then you will get people who feel no compunction treating other people like trash.
Whether by error or intent, Sanders did great harm by blinding the minds
of millions, by burning their emotions. O donated to him in the past, I now
deeply regret it.
So what if the great Senator Bernie Sanders made a great speech? That's all he does, it turns out, just like the rest of the crooks who make up Congress.
So what if it would have taken 10 hours or 10 weeks to read the bill aloud? We deserved a roll call vote, and now Sanders has collaborated in covering the butts of his venal colleagues. These guys, including Sanders, are all corrupt.
>>>> The words of the amendment were clear and clean.
Good grief! 767 pages is hardly "clear and clean".
i must admit to thinking this, also...anything 767 pages long is meant to be NOT read...and NOT understood...
That was my reaction too. What in goddess's name could possibly take up seven HUNDRED pages?!?!? That's psychotic.
The real amendment could have been as simple as:
-----------------------------------------
1. The age limits and other qualifications for coverage in the Medicare Act of 1965 are hereby removed, and all US citizens, permanent ('green card') residents, and legally-admitted refugees are henceforth covered for all procedures considered medically necessary.
2. The provisions for co-payments are hereby removed, and no co-payment shall be required for any service.
3. Coverage for prescription drugs, vision care, dental care, and mental-health care are hereby added on the same basis as for other care.
4. No service covered under this revised act may be offered for private payment to any person covered by this act. Demanding private payment for such service shall be a felony punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment and loss of federal licence as a Medicare provider.
----------------------------------
I think that might fit on fewer than 700 pages!
I agree with the three above posts, the 700 pages mentioned in the article for an, one, a single amendment, like what the heck ....
And I agree with Mairead saying that four points "might fit on fewer than 700 pages", or, rather than might, would. But don't worry; because the politicians would manage to expand so that we'd see 700 or more pages [again].
Anyway, Sen. Sanders strikes me as very suspect for having concocted a worthless brew of over 700 pages for one single amendment that should've been easy enough to present in simple, straight-forward and concise terms; requiring relatively few pages. He evidently intended to guarantee that there'd be an excuse he could use to shelve the amendment; you know, an excuse he could use to deceive the public with.
Dean should talk. He plunged the dagger into single payer a long time ago, along with every other big-name Democrat. Dean opposes this bill not because it lacks single payer but because it lacks even a semblance of the already-enfeebled public option that he was supporting.
Dean is a classic double-talker.
Well-stated Michael. Yes, kill the bill and the two party system!! Now we need to start convincing a lot of other people, which is a daunting task, but totally worth the effort.
That's right, Michael--100-percent right.
Aside from trying to build a progressive political party, we can also try to build a united front that will engage in independent mass action to achieve single payer. Electioneering is not--cannot be--the sole or even main path to single payer, as the struggle for civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movement showed.
Please see my post above about the need to start building independent mass demonstrations for single payer--to begin to get people in the streets on this issue. If you have a chance to read that post, please let me know what you think.
Alas, hope and reason are dead in this Corporate Aristocracy.
Evilgelicals and Bishops must be delighted at the pain and suffering to come.
Repost from other similar article:
What a weakxxx effort to get the single-payer amendment up for a vote. Boo hoo, we are going to have to stay late 10 hours to actually have the bill read. Can't do that after having just spent 10 months slaughtering the bill! Can't allow a vote on something a large segment of the population actually wants! Can't afford to embarrass the Democrats. Thanks for the side-show!
Saunders withdraws an ammendment that would have brought the US Health Care system into the 21st century, to stand alongside the rest of the civilized world.
Now it is back to the bleedings, leaches, and the obscene sickness-and-death-for-profit system.
it is still time to shame congress into subjecting the healthcare industry to standard antitrust legislation and abolish so their price rigging and force them to outbid each other.
additionally, as a price to do business and as a service to the nation, they should be forced to compete in states where only one insurer is active.
most importantly, a "reasonable profit" limit should be imposed on them (and on doctors, etc, who facture say more than $200k per year), a limit akin to those nominally imposed on weapons manufacturers when they sell anything to the government.
healthcare is at least as important as national defense. the government needs only to imitate the few tricks that it uses on a daily basis to keep (somewhat) in check the greed of the military-industrial complex.
even if "medicare for all" and the "public option" are killed by bribed congressmen, nobody will be able to defend the position that market-place laws meant to foster competition should not apply to a de facto cartelized healthcare sector for which competition obviously means nothing at all.
let's put the healthcare leeches and their co-bloodsucking bribed politicians on the spot using their own arguments about free markets !
and let's hear what they can invoke to justify why the weapons industry should be more heavily regulated than, and not be allowed to be as "profitable" as, the healthcare leeches.
First, on a tactical level:
Why did the amendment have to be 700 pages? The original HR676 was only about 30 pages. Can someone address this?
Second, on a strategic level:
Too much of the single-payer movement is too closely tied to the Democratic Party. Donna Smith and Michael Moore have done some great things on behalf of single payer, but both were zealous activists in the Obama campaign, and both advocated the election of a Democratic Congress. And exactly where did that get us? Obama, just as he OPENLY promised during the campaign, crushed single payer and pushed this private-insurance boondoggle--same for all the other mainstream Democrats. They're the main villains of this piece, not Lieberman or Baucus, abominable as they are. The Blue Dogs were simply a sideshow--it was Pelosi, Reid, and Obama who did the main dirty work in killing single payer and even a strong public option.
The single payer movement has to learn the lessons of the civil rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War: it's time to take it to the streets--not in a violent way, but with focused, highly organized, peaceful, legal mass demonstrations.
The next step should be a large national demonstration for single payer for this spring in Washington. It won't be a "million-man" march right off the bat, as Donna absurdly characterized it in a previous comment. The demonstrations against the war in Vietnam snowballed from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands over a five-year period. But the key is persisistence. Call one for this spring. Then another for the following fall. Then another for the following spring. Alternate local and national demonstrations from fall to spring. In the meantime, keep organizing, educating, reaching out.
Keep focused on winning over the American people. The polls show they're for single payer already--they just need to be educated and organized--but urging them to vote for anti-single-payer Democrats (nearly all of them, including the CPC, which pays lip service to single payer but wilts in the heat of battle) every two years is just self-defeating (it's also too early for civil disobedience--that can only be effective if large numbers of people are involved; and sitting in at insurance companies, as some single-payer groups have been doing recently, is a waste of time--the insurance companies aren't going to put themselves out of business--the actions have to be directed to Congress and the President, who do have the power to put them out of business).
No more Democratic Party, no more PDA, no more BS--time to forge a unified, focused, INDEPENDENT single payer movement that seeks to mobilize masses of American people in the streets.
Donna has been full of excuses and rationalizations and dodges about why she is not interested in pursuing that strategy. If she can make an honest, non-caricaturing, non-defensive contribution to that discussion, fine.
I hope others will weigh in on this as well.
Sioux Rose
VANMUNGO: You make excellent points. Donna Smith will adapt her politics in time. Please be kind to her! She's paid an awful price in the system "as is" and is on the front lines working for change. A lot of people still believe that if they don't vote Democratic worse events will befall the nation. It's probable that Obama's sell-out in the light of day may provide the great awakening that sets a groundswell into motion that sweeps up all the disenfranchised. And I agree with you that protests are important at this point.
I know that I, for one, will not be made to pay for insurance that guarantees me NOTHING in exchange. Maybe conscientious objectors to this form of legal extortion will pose as the next Boston Tea Party? Like others in this forum, I live a conscious lifestyle by staying away from most processed foods, meat, dairy products, etc. Unfortunately even these disciplined attempts cannot protect us from our exposures to the thousands of chemicals that several decades of corporate-sponsored "better living through chemistry" has so casually spilled onto the land and waters.
Just as you see the unfoldment of massive public outrage as occuring by increments, please understand that some very well-meaning people are not yet ready to give up their full allegiance to a political party. As you know, there are a great many obstacles set up to thwart 3rd parties from having direct impact on national policy. I happen to think the sell-out represented by and through Obama may be sufficient to, shall we say, lift the current to break the dam. Humiliating people (due to their political loyalties) may not be the best way to gather momentum for a cause we all support.
This business about being kind to Donna Smith is a red herring.
I have always been polite to her--if you can quote an instance where I haven't please do so. If you can't please stop peddling this nasty innuendo that I have somehow been "unkind" to her.
It is important to critically, openly, and explicitly examine the failed strategies that led to the abject failure of a policy favored by the majority of the American people in poll after poll.
If Donna Smith or anyone else considers such explicit critique "unkind," then I cannot take responsibility for their distorted perceptions.
Arriving at a winning policy involves a merciless critique of the losing strategy. If there's anyone who can't deal with that, there's an old saying: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
We especially need to clear the kitchen of "leadership" that has helped to torpedo single payer by cozying up to the politicians who manned the torpedoes--and that group, sadly, includes Donna Smith, the PDA, the CNA, et al., notwithstanding their other valuable contributions.
And please spare me your condescending lectures about who is or is not prepared to break from his or her favorite political party. This is not a matter of coddling cludless progressives so we don't hurt their feelings. This is a matter of posing the realities and issues sharply so that we don't constantly end up in a swamp of political defeat. I, frankly, am more concerned about the feelings of the families who lose loved ones, lose their homes, and/or end up in bankruptcy because of this insane health-care system. I care more about attending to their feelings than the feelings of opportunist "progressives" who are more concerned about remaining "players" on the Beltway/Democratic Party/insider schmoozing/lecture/fellowship/publishing circuit than they are about winning this fight for the American people. If you are more concerned about the feelings of these opportunists than the feelings of the desperately afflicted sick and impoverished victims of this health-care system, then you need a serious recalibration of your ethical radar, Sioux Rose.
So let's cut the Nixonian innuendo and other sanctimonious crap, Sioux Rose, and focus on the issues. I raised a whole raft of strategic issues and you managed to ignore nearly all of them, so eager were you to weigh in once again with one of your irrelevant forays into Dr. Phil psychobabble.
vanmungo,
Your unkind attitude is making YOU irrelevant.
The mind of aan Einstein inside a prickly cactus is useless.
Monshe mua.
Please quote an "unkind" comment I have ever made to Donna Smith, you demented liar.
Quote one. Go ahead. Let's hear it.
I've certainly never called anyone a "pain in the ass." Is that what you mean?
I guess life has been unkind to you--you're a lonely, isolated failure who gets to feel important by nipping at the heels of someone who clearly dwarfs you intellectually.
You haven't responded to one of the substantive issues I've raised about single-payer strategy, because you are not intellectually equipped to do so. You just clutter and derail these threads with your mad-dog personal vendettas--something a paid right-wing agent could not do more effectively than you.
And a peevish, anger-addled nut like you is presuming to lecture the world about ITS shortcomings?
That's a sick joke.
Don't you think you'd be able to work out your tangle of personal issues more effectively in psychotherapy than my hurling cowardly anonymous abuse on the Internet?
I'm sure you realize you need help. But you have to go out and seek it out. Only you can help you.
I also wondered how Sander's Amendment morphed into so many pages. H.R. 676 was under 30, and his Senate version, under 200.
I think it's a good point, separating single payer from the Democratic Party. They do not support it, though I know that many Democrats do (ordinary citizens, that is), they don't even support a public option, and they haven't even supported a Medicare buy-in for middle-aged persons (those who could afford the premiums, that is). Then there's the issue of what was put into the Party Platform by John Conyers during the Obama campaign, which they are shamelessly violating. And, the issue of Obama telling Conyers that he would sign single payer legislation (IF) they could get it through Congress. Which Conyers and Smith enthusiastically discussed in a videotape interview that was posted on youtube during the Democratic Convention in Colorado.
The Obama people additionally told Daily Kos in a (backroom) interview that they were going to support getting single payer through.
I think all of these folks should be publicly confronting the Obama administration much more on these points. Holding him more accountable. As Mr. Obama seems to take his campaign commitments very lightly, including the work of the many progressives who put him in office, whom his people (like Gibbs) are now calling left-wing crazies as they cozy up with the insurance industry.
It's called "speaking truth to power" or deciding that you're not going to be the bearer of the family's dirty little secrets anymore.
Personally speaking, since the latest hatchet job on the bill, the incidents with Howard Dean and Gibbs and Rockefeller, I'm finished with campaigning or voting for any Democrats who aren't clearly on that side in the health care debate. Which means there are a lot of people I'm no longer voting for, and people I'll be voting for who have no chance of winning.
But at least I can live more at peace with myself. I like to be able to maintain my intellectual independence and voice my opinions. I worked my butt off for Democrats, I took so mujch abuse during the campaigns. Now we have this? And from people like Gibbs and John Rockefeller's great-grandson (or whatever)? Some of their "trickle-down" voices on the internet, too, are beginning to sound like another version of McCarthyites. It's clothed a bit differently, but basically, it's the same thing. If you're not with the Good Ol' Boys, you're a far-left wing fruit-cake, i.e. commie. And ironically (considering the teabaggers and their moronic posters), their legislation IS fascistic (as fascists so like to go commie-hunting), without a public option. Internet hop, too, and see what some of the teabaggers are now starting to say about what they previously hated.
As for your comments on Donna Smith, if Donna ran for Congress, and she were in my district, I would sure vote for her. But once you're in the Democratic Party game, it's no longer only about what you think is right on this one issue. So who knows where that would lead her.
Just being there in Washington is now evidence that you're corrupted, or you wouldn't be. Even folks like Kucinich or Masa, who knows? Though they've at least been consistent on single payer.
The bottomline, even with healthcare, is that there's no respect.
This nation has really gone to the dogs.
I agree with Sanders. Single Payer's day will come, but it will not be because of anything weak people like him will do. It will come because the people will demand it and force Congress to make it happen.
"It makes me wish I had purchased a little health insurance stock along the way."
Capitalism can make us become what we hate.
I think she was being ironic.
In previous articles here and elsewhere regarding Sanders' determination to present his amendment, I decided to keep quiet for a change instead of instantly predicting that this long shot would surely be pre-empted on procedural grounds.
And I'm not sure that Senator Sanders deserves an "attaboy", or "nice try" as I first thought. I wrote earlier that if there were even a dozen senators like him I might feel a glimmer of optimism that less-ruinous politics is still possible.
But what's worse-- tilting at windmills, or galloping up to the windmill breathlessly, then screeching to a halt at the first challenge, meekly lowering one's lance, and muttering "never mind"? A knuckle-dragger like Coburn called Sanders' bluff, and Sanders quietly folded.
Yeah, I know-- I'm not even trying to understand, much less justify, this latest tapdance in terms of the Machiavellian machinations "inside politics" wonks call "reality". Sorry, I don't get off on political Wonk Porn.
At best, Sanders is a fluke, and I don't believe there's the slightest chance that "electing more and better Democrats" will achieve the cumulative result of a Sanders-like coalition.
In 2006, when I foolishly allowed myself to be fleeced by promising "anti-war, anti-Bush" Democratic candidates, I fantasized that progressive Democrats might form a new internal coalition or caucus combining veterans like Russ Feingold and John Conyers with the new ostensibly-progressive freshmen-- a group that could push Dem party leaders to the left, and hold THEIR collective feet to the fire while vigorously deconstructing the utterly evil imperialist and domestically authoritarian Bush maladministration.
But I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Sioux Rose
O.S. Everything that is right, and decent, and affirmative towards life in you expected and PRESUMED that such a progressive coalition would successfully come together because the times demanded it. These are hardly ordinary times; and no belief in the Mayan prophecy or its astrological equivalent is necessary to note the precarious nature of current events.
With the Wall St greed-mongers gorging on every illusion of wealth to the extent that their machinations have compromised the REAL economy, to the daily facts of significant elements of the natural world coming asunder, to the hellbent direction of our nation's leaders in PURSUIT OF WAR... these ghastly goings-on form a trifecta that holds inordinately ominous indications.
Those who care about life and their fellow human beings, if they have access to political, economic, or media power OWE humanity (and the creatures of this world) more than what is taking place. It's as if the vast majority of those at the levers of power are sleepwalking the rest of us into the abyss. I can't believe they all believe in End Times? Perhaps years in politics makes them susceptible to a covert disorder that turns the human heart to stone?
OK, Deepak Chopra the Second.
Now what should people DO . . . you know, POLITICALLY, SPECIFICALLY, to advance the cause of single payer?
Jesus Christ man ! Give it a rest. I don't know what she would do but here's what I would do. Call for an abolition of the current government and replace it. We need the Second Founding Fathers and this time, single payer health care will be part of the Constitution. Let's then see politics try to take away people's right to health care.
"Call for an abolition of the current government and replace it."
OK--why don't we pencil that in for next Tuesday?
In the meantime, would you care to give us a hint or two about precisely how we get from here to there?
We could push for a Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College so that third parties can make their way into office and change the government without having to abolish it.
Abolishing the Electoral College might conduce to less blatantly manipulated presidential elections, but only marginally so.
That step would have no effect on elections for any other office besides the president. Moreover, abolishing the EC would not ensure ballot access or equal media time for third parties--there would have to be 100-percent public funding of elections to achieve that.
While that is true, abolishing the electoral college would give third parties a stronger chance to fight for ballot access and fair media time. The electoral college is just as responsible as the media for keeping the two party duopoly intact. Abolishing it would weaken the two party duopoly.
Please explain how abolishing the EC would have any impact on ballot access and media time. The EC has no bearing that I can see on either of those issues--it just pertains to the way votes are counted, not to the degree of access parties have to the ballot or how they are financed.
It's fine to make an assertion--but I'm afraid you're obliged to back it up with facts and specifics. How would abolishing the EC affect ballot access, media time, or financing? If a party is not on the ballot because of discrminatory access laws, its votes won't be counted in any manner in any presidential election.
So please explain your assertion.
Sioux Rose
I find it useful sometimes to detach my consciousness and pretend I was an alien observing life on the earth plane. Chances are an alien would be particularly interested in events transpiring in America since it touts itself as the # 1 supreme world power.
With that reference, imagine what the aliens would think when they observed the inordinate sums being thrown at wars that benefit only the most criminally amoral and insane, while those championing such "adventures" denied their own citizens access to meaningful health care? With this species of detachment in gear, the truth becomes more glaring than the bright sun. What, the intelligent alien would wonder, can be made of this concept of "defense" when so many are left to die as the money that might have gone towards their medical needs is instead lavished on the war champions who leave other nation's people in broken tatters?
America has become a dying myth and its behavior projects a morality tale of immense significance. There is not a singular policy alive in the land that supports the majority of its citizens. By this analysis, its leaders are traitors, pure and simple. Of course their control of media allows a manufacture of consent that itself consists mostly of smoke and mirrors.
Maybe some aliens will show up to apprise the sleeping masses of the truth of their national estate?
Perhaps we should all listen to the wisdom of David Icke and the pronouncemnts made through you tube videos and Project Camelot...
It is the Corporate Elite who have gained from the economic crisis and the invasions of two nations that had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11, yet those countries were targetted by the Mass Media and The Corporate Elite.
Healthcare is Wall Street. 36 million new insurees at $7000 a year is a lot of new money........God Bless American Capitalism! NOT !
Sioux Rose
HERBERT: I am familiar with Icke and I have seen him interviewed on The History channel, I believe it was. The program had to do with Nostradamus and certain prophecies. I think Icke is right on about the Bilderbergs and their secret meetings, about the plans for war made by a small number of persons, etc. However, he really goes off MY radar when he speaks of bloodlines. I think it's probable that human life was seeded by alien strains several millennia ago, but I have to draw the line with his relating that some come from a reptilian realm and do not have red blood! A lot of people take astrology for something far-out, but Icke is far out by MY standards! I guess a lot of genuises cross the line between sanity and its supposed antithesis, the way skilled gymnasts sometimes tumble out of bounds while executing a difficult move.
I agree. Icke can be very strange.
Just a note on blood color. The iron ions in the Heme groups in our red blood cells give them the color. There are a few species on earth that have copper instead of iron in their blood cells. This gives them blue blood (no kidding). Crabs, for example have blue blood. I guess these "regal" (they've got REAL blue blood) creatures could be kings and queens.
No wonder they say royalty can be very crabby!
Sioux Rose says, "Maybe some aliens will show up to apprise the sleeping masses of the truth of their national estate?"
Several of them have showed up in the last 3,000 years. They all got killed. The first thing a crafty leader does is set up a group of watchers to "get" anyone that has the "wrong" outlook and leadership qualities.
But you and I are still around. There are millions of us totally demoralized by the despicably insensitive behavior of these parragons of arrogance and greed that call themselves humans. They keep trying to kill us off. They are making us angry. And like the "Hulk" personality used to say to people in the series, "You don't want to make me angry". Of course we are aware of the fact that life continues after the "physical body" stage so we have a more accurate perspective than most humans. However, life in this plane should not be equivalent to a grinding negatve utopia existence. That gets old.
At the last meeting of the Galactic Federation, my vote was for some heavy duty EARTH CHANGES. They need to be focused on $500,000 plus residences throughout the world. This riff raff is messing up our garden. It's time to clean house.
There will be huge numbers of tax defaulters.
What will become of them.
Will it have an impact.
Who benefits politically in the long term by this debacle.
THAT'S IT FOLKS. BHO's long-running Health Care Kabuki Theater Show IS NOW OVER. HOPE you liked it. BUT NOW IT'S LIGHTS OUT. COME BACK IN 25 YEARS, MAYBE. In the meantime, lube-up, you are about to be fucked to death by richfilth animals who are no longer human in their views, their appetites, or in their desires. NO LONGER HUMAN.
The measure of a human is their behavior in the presence of vulnerability.
Cannibals by any other name still stink of rancorous DEATH and rotting entrails. No amount of bathing, body powders, or cologne can cover the stench or the deadness in the eyes. What an incredible, feral, bestial country this is. Munch Munch.
Oh, and may all the deities that may be out there ALWAYS bless you Donna Smith for your heart, your efforts, and your life. You live there with Fannie Mae Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Emma Goldman. Bless.
The current amendment orders Americans to buy health insurance. So, universal healthcare is now our right and our responsibility. And private insurers can't dump us as easily as they once did. These are all positive things.
Single payer is REALLY the purchasing of public-utility health insurance: where a non-profit public company, heavily regulated, offers a standard service to a captive clientele. Its a public monopoly: you can't buy the service anywhere else, they can't NOT sell it to you. In the case of insurance, that has to be a lifetime commitment. This level of commitment, both on the part of the insurer AND the insured, lowers the risk on both sides and is a major reason single payer has lower premiums. The other reason is the 'buy in bulk' capability of an insurer that doesn't get perscription kickbacks from the pharmaceutical industry as it joins with that industry to fleece the little guy, the insured.
Those who want private insurance have made it clear, they want to pay extra for the extra choice. Those of us who want 'public-utility' single payer insurance are also clear, we don't consider 'health' a choice anyway and prefer the lower premiums. And its time for us to DEMAND the right to choose 'public-utility' single payer insurance, like they have in Canada, but only for ourselves. We must DEMAND the right to a once-in-a-lifetime choice, to choose the public option for ourselves. Once in, we can't get out of it (though we can also buy supplemental private insurance if we want). And anyone who rejects single-payer also cannot get into it, or they will go there when they get sick and dilute our premiums. And children entering adulthood should have a once-in-a-lifetime choice to choose public or private health insurance at, say, age 25.
Single payer isn't for everyone. But, it is probably more comprehensive, cheaper, and a better advocate for the insured, against the many powerful corporations that provide health to a nation. Those of us who want it should really have it as a choice.
It's a separate issue from univeral healthcare, and easily accomodates the current push for universal health insurance. When someone can't afford health insurance, the gov't pays for whatever type of insurance the person had previously chosen for themselves.
You are completely confused.
Single payer is not the purchase of anything from any public entity--or even from a single nonprofit entity.
The services are still purchased from private providers--private hospitals (profit or nonprofit), physicians who remain in private practice, private labs, etc.
The difference now is that instead of the chaos and cost-gouging and overall wacky inefficiency of having 1,300 private insurers serving as the payers of these health-care providers, there will be a single payer: the federal government. Health care fees will be collected through taxes rather than individual premiums, and they will be transferred to the providers by that single public payer. There is no monopoly--it is a monopsony that can help to control costs by pooling the purchasing power of all the customers.
There will still be complete freedom of choice of doctors and hospitals, as there is in Medicare and in Canada. So the "freedom" issue is also a red herring.
vanmungo, ypu are a pain in the ass. However, you are right.
I wish you would use a somewhat less acerbic phraseology to clarify this or any other issue to the readers. Not everyone is out to fool the rest of us (thereby meriting a snarky snipe from you).
Pashalusta, Gaspadine.