I, for one, would like to welcome our insurance-company masters.

Phone Calls to Wall Street:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOZTldbo2Fw

As Seinfeld would say to George, "Really-Michael, really--Now we can expect the progressive caucus that vowed not to pass the bill without what was, in my mind a weak public option, now we can expect them to get a backbone and go right back at it to make this bill better? Really Michael, are you going to go back to your familiar refrain that we need to support these cowards. Progressives, let's show Rahm that he is wrong about us, that we aren't going to be whipped in line, that real health care reform is more important to us than a tenuous party identity where we are tramped on at every turn, especially by people like Sanders and Kuccinich who once again say that no matter how they voted they are really on our side. Really- Micheal, Really Dennis, Really Bernie. I've had it with you guys-- when you learn how to stand together, hold for your convictions, and have the guts to stand up to Rahm-- let me know--you willl find me in the Green Party for now.

Michael, I believe you are a little premature. This bill does not start saving lives until 2014. Can you explain that to me?

Maybe you can have one of the insurance companies who wrote this legislation explain it to me.

Why you are at it, why don't you get an estimate on the savings to health care subscribers if a public option had been included? More than ___________ Billions?

Well, so much for what I said about Moore finally getting the point about the Dems last week, and Obama. Without a major growth of backbone in the progressives nothing will happen. You've got a President in there who has no desire to speak the words Medicare for All and showed backbone and did a lot of arm-twisting when it came to getting rid of the public option.

Does Moore really think Obama wants to sign anything that would endanger his corporate donations? It will take a lot of backbone indeed, although I would get great joy in seeing Obama have to choke back the tears as he was forced to sign something that was indeed real health care reform.

Nancy's been grinning like the Cheshire cat since yesterday and the rest of the clowns have all been doing a lot of back-slapping and I'm sure the champagne is flowing. It's been fun hearing the spin. On the front page of one of the rags: Obama declares victory for the American people. Lying sack of shit.

Yes, right about now I almost with I was blissfully ignorant, like all those who only listen to NPR and the MSM and read the rags and listen to Obama. I would probably be happier and maybe healthier, but it's just not in my DNA.

Mr. Moore is delusional. This bill will only save the health insurance industry, with the full force of the IRS.

Insurance stocks have been soaring all year in anticipation of their victory especially since all price controls have been taken out of this bill.

Goodbye Michael & good luck to you...

"D"

Now that the health insurance corporations have an additional thirty million or so captive policy holders, they'll be their usual mericless selves in raising premiums, deductible & copays, such that fewer and fewer people will be able to afford their policies. The net result will be that the number of uninsured will start climbing again. What's more, on account of runaway premiums the cost of this "reform" are likely to far exceed the predictions of the Congressional Budget Office, whereupon, opponents of universal health care (even this weak version of it) will be gleefully chanting their all to familiar mantra, "Government is the problem, not the solution". We then can expect a Republican Congress to pass "kill the HCR bill" legislation, and that'll be it for health care for all. Nice going President Obama and Congress. You may have passed HCR but you've failed the American people.

What bothers me is how well I remember the period between the election victory of Bill Clinton and his inauguration. During that short time a body of Republican psychopaths determined to destroy precisely whatever the majority of Americans had voted for. The purpose of democracy is to put US in power and when that does not happen, "democracy is not working" and so the end justifies the violent and criminal means. What it comes closest to is the adolescent mentality of a stalker.

And if health care reform had come to the United (?) States by plebiscite, no matter the ratio of Yes to NO votes, the apoplectic NOs would each become a "Kenneth Starr" and mayhaps prowl dark hospital wards, twisting valves and yanking plugs out of the wall for the good of the country.

Anybody else remember the time when, due to union disputes, Greyhound Buses needed tail gunners? God bless America. I'm still ticked at Michael Moore for saying to Wolf Blitzer - "We live in the best nation on earth."

This health care bill is a piece of crap. I am so glad it passed. We can make it better over time.

This Health Bill did not give Americans the right to health care, it only gave us the requirement and burden to buy private health care insurance.

This bill in effect has killed any chance of single payer health care in our life time.

This must be consolation for S-P advocates.

Yep, No Insurance Company Left Behind.

Doesn't do a thing to reduce ridiculous gouging by the Wall St. gang.

I will never spend another farthing on a M. Moore film, ever.

Moore is just another bought and paid for Dem shill.

"Saves lives?"

After correctly enumerating some of the deficiencies and loop-holes in the bill which will allow the insurance bastards to continue business as usual, making money by denying care, how can Moore say this "saves lives?"

Now we're going to "improve" the bill? I'm afraid to learn what the "improvements" will consist of. Will they add a mandate-to-buy apartment and grocery insurance so as to end homelessness and hunger?

"...your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls."

You're kidding, right, Mike? Prior to that, spelled out in the bill, they can triple your premium. If that doesn't cut you, they will not hesitate to commit that "criminal act", which, if it had real penalties, say prison terms as tough as marijuana possession, well, that might mean something. As it is, predators will simply pay the usual cost-of-business fine, and you're just as dead. This is a historic theatrical sham, farce, tragedy. I'm surprised Mike has fallen in with thieves.

"If you want to hear the new theme song of the democratic party, simply pull up an old episode of MASH"

raydelcamino, Perry logan, peaceocrap, tammons, thepuffin, Kay Johnson, Samalabear, Yankee, amsocialist, Thalidomide, yourstruly, Trylon, Erroll, jimmytwoshoes, NMBill, BodhiHawk, Naturally...

I am proud to put this post here today, simply proud to be among so many good people that can recognize manure no matter how high its piled.

I am also proud to be among so many people that see Mr. Moore for exactly what he really is.

My thanks to you all for saying what I was going to.

Michael Moore performs some sort of service by getting his message out to the masses through his films. He should be banned from these sorts of sites because he has proven over and over to be a fool. He's like the corporate characters in his own films who don't realize that they're being made fun of. From Wesley Clark as President to Barach Obama ("Nat Clean Coal") to now: "Healthcare Reform" he demonstrates how easily "Progressives" rise to the bait of "Good Cop/Bad Cop". The manipulation is cunning and effective. Now the "Left" has been identified for some time to come with Barach Obama and the Democratic Party's policies. These policies can't serve the people because they're crafted to serve the corporations. Their failure and the frustration and anger generated will be directed at "The Left".
Anyone with any sense on the Left should be disavowing any association with Barach Obama and the Democrats. They should be branded as corporate stooges betraying the American people more deviously but equally as perniciously as the more identifiable Republican thugs.

Published on Monday, March 22, 2010 by TruthDig.com
The Health Care Hindenburg Has Landed

by Chris Hedges

Rep. Dennis Kucinich's decision to vote "yes" in Sunday's House action on the health care bill, although he had sworn to oppose the legislation unless the And so he signed on to a bill that will do nothing to ameliorate the suffering of many Americans, will force tens of millions of people to fork over a lot of money for a defective product and, in the end, will add to the ranks of our uninsured.

The claims made by the proponents of the bill are the usual deceptive corporate advertising. The bill will not expand coverage to 30 million uninsured, especially since government subsidies will not take effect until 2014. Families who cannot pay the high premiums, deductibles and co-payments, estimated to be between 15 and 18 percent of most family incomes, will have to default, increasing the number of uninsured. Insurance companies can unilaterally raise prices without ceilings or caps and monopolize local markets to shut out competitors. The $1.055 trillion spent over the next decade will add new layers of bureaucratic red tape to what is an unmanageable and ultimately unsustainable system.

The mendacity of the Democratic leadership in the face of this reality is staggering. Howard Dean, who is a doctor, said recently: "This is a vote about one thing: Are you for the insurance companies or are you for the American people?" Here is a man who once championed the public option and now has sold his soul. What is the point in supporting him or any of the other Democrats? How much more craven can they get?
The only good news is that health care stocks and bonuses for the heads of these corporations are shooting upward. Chalk this up as yet another victory for our feudal overlords and a defeat for the serfs.

This bill is not about fiscal responsibility or the common good. The bill is about increasing corporate profit at taxpayer expense. It is the health care industry's version of the Wall Street bailout. It lavishes hundreds of billions in government subsidies on insurance and drug companies. The some 3,000 health care lobbyists in Washington, whose dirty little hands are all over the bill, have once more betrayed the American people for money. The bill is another example of why change will never come from within the Democratic Party. The party is owned and managed by corporations. The five largest private health insurers and their trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans, spent more than $6 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009. Pfizer, the world's biggest drug maker, spent more than $9 million during the last quarter of 2008 and the first three months of 2009. The Washington Post reported that up to 30 members of Congress from both parties who hold key committee memberships have major investments in health care companies totaling between $11 million and $27 million. President Barack Obama's director of health care policy, who will not discuss single payer as an option, has served on the boards of several health care corporations. And as salaries for most Americans have stagnated or declined during the past decade, health insurance profits have risen by 480 percent.

Obama and the congressional leadership have consciously shut out advocates of single payer from the debate. The press, including papers such as The New York Times, treats single payer as a fringe movement. The television networks rarely mention it. And yet between 45 and 60 percent of doctors favor single payer. Between 40 and 62 percent of the American people, including 80 percent of registered Democrats, want universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans. The ability of the corporations to discredit and silence voices that represent at least half of the population is another sad testament to the power of our corporate state to frame all discussions.

Change will come only by building movements that stand in fierce and uncompromising opposition to the Democrats and the Republicans. If they can herd Kucinich and John Conyers, the sponsors of House Resolution 676, a bill that would create a publicly funded National Health Program by eliminating private health insurers, onto the House floor to vote for this corporate theft, what is the point in pretending there is any room left for us in the party? And why should we waste our time with gutless liberal groups such as Moveon.org, which felt the need to collect more than $1 million to pressure House Democrats who had voted "no" on the original bill to recant? What was this purportedly anti-war group doing anyway serving as an obsequious recruiting arm of the Obama election campaign? The longer we tie ourselves to the Democrats and these bankrupt liberal organizations the more ridiculous and impotent we appear.

"I'm ready to listen to the White House, if the White House is ready to listen to the concerns about putting a public option in this bill," the old Kucinich said on the "Democracy Now!" radio and television program before he flipped. "I mean, they can do that. You know, they're still cutting last-minute deals. Put the public option back in. Make it a robust public option. Give the people a chance to really negotiate rates with the insurance companies ... from the standpoint of having a public option. But don't just tell the people that you're going to call this health care reform, when you're giving insurance companies an even more powerful monopoly status in our economy."

As many of the Democrats have been doing, Moore selects a part of the bill that is good to promote the whole bill, ignores the overriding negative that the bill is a sellout to insurance companies, and tells us to lower our expectation and have faith the Democrats will fix the bill in the future (tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow is their recurring theme). The Democrats could have easily passed some good parts of the piecemeal and quicker although they wouldn't have gotten as much lobby money by delaying the process.

Michael Michael. Like Obama, you sound so good, so pro working class and vested in fairness. But when the rubber hits the road you fall apart like a cheap suit.

What's needed is a more effective message to counter the free market argument. Lakoff has some good ideas but he can get a little cerebral. How about, instead of calling it socialized medicine or the apparently inscrutable single-payer, we name it the Insurance Company Elimination Act. Afterall, nobody, not one single person I ever debated with, can tell me why the hell health insurance companies are needed (and most have gotten screwed by them one way or another). Other than finding ways to deny care, they are the most expensive paper shufflers ever employed.

Or what about framing the issue this way: How would you like it if you never had to worry about health care again? That there's no possibility your family will ever go bankrupt if hit with a unfortunate calamity? No endless paperwork or doughnut holes. And yes, you can choose your own doctor, who, when recommending a needed procedure, can't be overruled by some high-rise bean counter. And if you didn't like any part of the way the system works, you and your fellow citizens can do something about it (your vote).

As for the 'afford' part - that's easiest of all to address. Beyond the mountains of cash that will be saved by eliminating the insurance industry, changes in the tax code and foreign policy would provide more than enough. If not, a separate, means-tested tax with caps.

But my arguments have foundered because oppponents can't get past the idea of evil government control. Reagan implanted that vile maggot on their brains and despite how bad things get, no amount of logic can kill it.

I hate the article but love the comments but let's face it. Who will listen to any of us? People want filth for entertainment and the Obama fools found their "Rush Limbaugh" that is Michael Moore a long time ago. My otherwise liberal minded family thinks I have a mental problem for opposing Obama's sham and instead calling for single payer. I was asked about what country I am basing the idea of single payer off of and the minute I said Canada, there they went blowing out the same old propaganda on waiting times as if the US does any better ! I try to explain why the current health care system needs to be demolished and replaced entirely by single payer and they get rude and talk loud over me. Even my sister spews Reagan talk on health care for all by saying "Why should government give people free food? Make them buy their own damn insurance !". She reads Huffington Post and Wall Street Journal for all her financial news. I can't believe their Obama talk ! If this were the Republicans passing this bill, they would have been on our side. They insist that the insurance companies will be forced to comply and before I can explain to them, they go nuts bugging me to buy hundreds of shares in Exxon, Chevron, some of these insurance and drug companies, Mcdonalds because soda will be $1 soon, etc... But what's to be surprised about when half of my relatives including my idiot cousin in Canada badmouth single payer with "Dr. Helen Smith" and take articles on little guys getting arrested for selling counterfeit drugs and giving their bullshit lecture on "Always trust big name drug companies for buying your meds !".

I am totally infuriated that I was reminded of what I read from Peter Schweitzer on Michael Moore's controversy on Halliburton. Isn't this the same Michael Moore who was exposed for being a sheer hypocrite in owning Halliburton stocks even as he loudly proclaimed to be anti-war? I wonder how many shares that fatty has invested in the pharmaceuticals and health insurers. Please tell us Mr. Moore and please post it on Huffington Post and Wall Street Journal so my stupid family and relatives can blow my brains out and call me a mental case for not throwing my money in the stock market ! Yep, I should say "thank you" to this bullshit 2700 pager, read Wall Street propaganda, gamble my hard earned money in the stock market with the delusion that I'll be a millionaire, and pay no attention to the bill's 2700 page fine print. I wonder how many fools in this country are Obamabots or Republican suckers like them.