Howard Dean's Recommendation for the Current Senate Reform Bill

This comes from today's Washington Post Editorial by Dean. Oddly I couldn't find any share links on the article or I would have just posted it to Facebook. So I am putting it up on Greeleyville instead. The commentary I read initially covering Dean's role was a bit snippy. The impression I got was that the writer held that President Obama had stiffed Dean and left him out of the cherry roles in the administration. Therefore Dean is now playing the role of rogue liberal and can rally people to not back the bill rather than towing the party line.

I am not sure I buy into this analysis. It may be an odd concept but perhaps Dean is just stating the reality of how many people feel. I don't see it as a particular political strategy but it could certainly have those connotations to the inside circle. That is the problem with politics. It doesn't really matter whether the intent is there for Dean. If those "in-the-know" game players think the intent is there then they manifest it on the rest of us and the painting of a controversial relationship between Obama and Dean becomes our perception as well. A new reality so to speak. The real strategy, in my mind, is the need to create tension or increase tension when it already exists because that is what sells the news.

Here is my favorite paragraph from Dean's editorial. The whole thing is rather short and sweet but I thought this paragraph poignant. I hadn't realized that the preexisting conditions segment had been used for gain as well. Here is the link to the entire piece.

"Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG."

Senator Lieberman Takes Reform Out of Health Care Bill

Gee thanks Joe. What a swell guy.

All things I am hearing and reading point to the fact that Senator Joe Lieberman has gutted the "reform" from the health care bill in the Senate. Senator Harry Reid turned into a puddle at Lieberman's feet. I'm digging for more information and will post it as soon as I come up with something substantial to post.

If I were in the other Democratic Senators shoes I'd vote against the bill. It is gutless. Worthless from its original intent.

Sen. Reid Carves Tombstone for Public Option

Anyone have any ideas on what the tombstone over the public option for healthcare will look like? Will it be a picture of Harry Reid's face alone or can we get a group photo of Senator Reid, Ms. Don't-Snow-on-my-private-parade Olympia, Senator MyPeopleGetWhateverItell'emIwant Montana's Max Baucus (a Corporate Pinocchio if there ever was one), and our own beloved almost-democrat-but-hey-she's-star-quality-cute-to-look-at Congresswoman Betsy Markey plus a few of the other Colorado Republicans wearing democratic drag these days. Maybe we can even get a shot of the nine faces of Joe Lieberman included.

From the WSJ on Lieberman

"Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: "I'm going to be stubborn on this."

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a "public option," or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won't vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included."

Or how about that great ex-insurance salesman turned Senator Forty-two-percent-of-folks-without-health-insurance Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Maybe he'll stop in for a prime time photo-op as well. I'm sure he will want his grandchildren to understand how he helped create a second class citizenry for the other families in America.

From ABC Blog News:

"On "This Week" Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said he couldn't live with the health care bill that was just voted on last night.

He gave me a list of non-starters, including the opt-out public option. Nelson did leave a little room for negotiation on a public option. "

It is the beautiful twins of corporate irony in action. The House bill takes out the provision that would remove protections for the Insurance Industry put in place around WWII which allows the entire industry to collude with impunity. Next the Senate takes out single payer and the true public option. I doubt the movie Mafia characters could have cooked up a better scheme.

While the rest of us work for a living the insurance industry has been choosing those best dressed guys who like to sell shampoo to a bald man and nurturing and funding them for years straight into your Congress seats. Don't you love it when a plan comes together and you wake up in the morning feeling powerless in your own country?

And then these senators go home to their well tended families, whip the servants (excuse me... the undocumented workers) into a frenzy getting a round of scotch for everyone, and tuck their loved ones into their warm cozy corporate paid-for beds. It is a tale even Hollywood wouldn't dare to film.

If you want to get the undigested version the Library of Congress's Thomas is a one-stop reading point. Hey maybe we should eliminate access to the library to those who can't afford to buy the books. Seems only fair and should move America back into feudalism more quickly than what the conservatives have planned. A short trip. Just a suggestion--I digress.

Am I upset? Of course I am. I have no idea what to wear to the prison when I get thrown in as a conscientious objector refusing to purchase a government "approved" private nonprofit plan. Better garbage you couldn't snag out of Paris Hilton's boudoir than the rancid elitist fluff of hot air pumping out of the Senate.

Although prison might not be such a bad idea if I get really sick. Prisoners have healthcare. Prisoners have more status than the poor and the working class in the Senate's eyes.

So what does it take to get all these chumps out of office who sunk this ship? I'm ready to go to work to oust them. Each and every one of them.

Bye bye Harry... your arrogance to make your face in history will take you back down to the jowls of the working class. This country is going to see an election that really will make the history books the next time around. Now I suddenly understand how all those third parties achieved power and how some parties died out. I say "bury" the Republicans and reduce the Democrats to groveling choir boys.

I am not the only one disaffected. This commentary written by local chemist Ed Craig in a response to a friend asking about his feelings following Markey's House vote. It should also raise the "find a new job" on the list of priorities of some politicians. Thank you Ed for the use of this material.

"I see this very similar to what the Republicans are doing with Abortion. They make a big deal about making Abortion illegal. It get's the conservatives to show-up and vote for them. Well, the conservatives were in control of virtually everything for 8 years and they never once tried to push an Anti-Abortion bill through congress. Why? It's simple, as long as Abortion is out there they can count on the conservatives and religious idiots to show-up and vote for them. They know as soon as they make Abortion illegal all those people with evaporate.

Health Care Reform is the same on the Democrat side. As long as it's out there Democrats will line-up to vote. Once people are satisfied with their Health Care then they won't be as interested in showing up to vote. Also a lot of the people in Congress are getting huge kickbacks from the health insurance companies and health care providers. Keeping people in office that are already beholding to the insurance companies and health care providers doesn't serve us any purpose at all other than preventing us from putting someone else in office that might not be so beholding.

If Bennet, Udall, or Markey want my vote they'll find a way to vote for some type of real health care reform. Otherwise they're no better than the Republicans so why keep them around. I went through this 30 years ago... I'm not waiting another 30 years for them to

grow a set of gonads. Either they can do the job or they can't. If they can't do the job then why would I want to keep them there?"

They don't have these problems in England and France. Oh that's right, England and France shed its love-affair with Monarchies a few heads ago except for photo shots and sound bites. Here our companies crawl in bed with the Monarchs while the not-too-bright peasants serve the both tea and crumpets in the hope that someday, maybe just someday, they, the servant might also be a royal.

Personally I only bought into the Cinderella and Prince Charming on a White Horse idiocy until about age sixteen. I am not buying what the Congress is selling this time either. Proverbially, I say we set the Queen O'Hearts on the lot of them. My reasoning? Few seem to understand that Alice really lives in the real world and not everyone is so lucky as to pull a seat next to the White Rabbit.

Pass the magic cookies please.

Tomorrow, okay or maybe the next day--on Greeleyville, a surprise guest columnist on Health Care Reform. Stay tuned.

Congressional Shocker: Betsy Markey Bats For The Other Team

It would appear that I am not the only one peeved at the Democrats voting against health care reform. Thunderhead, a Greeley Colorado resident, posted the following note to my previous thoughts about Northern Colorado's Congresswoman Betsy Markey. I thought I'd repost it here.

Thunderhead: No one wants you on their football team when you cannot come through in the pinch.The Virginia governor's race should have been example enough, Betsy. Virginia's progressive base stayed home last Tuesday because their democratic governor decided he'd behave legislatively, like a Republican, and did so throughout his term. Like Virginia, we mistakenly believed you were on our team. The rule of thumb: when there's a choice between a republican candidate, and a democrat who acts like a republican, the republican will be chosen every time.That is what happened in Va. and is why Betsy, you do not deserve, nor will you win a second term as House Representative in this district. You betrayed your base on an historical issue. You may think, like other handwringing democrats who cannot be progressive, "what will the voters do instead, vote in a republican?" Wrong reasoning:That is what the, now former, democratic governor of Va. thought.To your base you are now a republican; you cannot make it up by voting left on other important issues; you voted to keep our health insurance industry monopolized, you voted for zero competition for the health insurance cartel, your base told you clearly: single or payer or robust public option. Always do what your base tells you. If in doubt within your district, always do what progressives nationally tell you; progressive democrats are progressive democrats anywhere in the country; they're not timid shape-shifting chimeras. But you knew better Betsy; you chose to be a political hybrid and try to hold your base hostage to a republican taking your seat. But it was you who brought harm to your base. You're a lame duck now, one year in to a two year term. And you are no democrat.

Betsy Markey Votes to Support Second Class Citzenship

It deeply saddened me this morning to find Betsy Markey voted against the Health Care Reform bill. While I realize she is playing to the conservative base in Northern Colorado it is appalling to watch someone in office drive the rest of us, also on the bus, over the cliff.

Bye-bye Betsy. You have lost every voter in my family. Sometimes you have to stand up for what is logical and reasonable and in the interest of those without political power. But it takes a spine to do so in this region.

I've never taken to the idea of single issue voting. But in the case of health care reform I believe it transcends other single issues that have become before it. Voting to support the egalitarian viewpoint that there are fundamentally two types of people who live in this society--those who die early and painfully because they do not have enough accumulated wealth or status as compared to those who have status, political power, and wealth is a fundamental undermining of all the principles on which this nation was established. Generations upon generations of my family have worked their fingers to the bone to keep this country moving towards equality.

It is not the 1920's any longer Betsy. We are reaching the carrying-capacity point of many of our current systems. Those systems designed for "the few" cannot be expected to carry everyone into the future. Voting against a reasonable health care reform plan is foolish unless you hold to the egalitarian notion that there are two classes of people in our society and one of those classes deserves to work for the other but be rewarded with only as much gruel as the holders of political power will permit a second class citizen to gain.

Personally I don't want to live in a society based on those principles. My ancestors left Europe in 1660 to shed the suffocating cloak of oppression. I cannot vote for a representative who desires, whether blindly or simply for re-election purposes, to use her power of authority as an elected representative of the people to restore such an abusive and inhumane system.

Second class citizenship based on wealth is class warfare.

For more information on Democrats who voted against the bill, this morning's New York Times is carrying a list.

Betsy Markey(COLO. 4)

+12

MCCAIN

+1%

18%

Shifting Tides of American Politic Rock Healthcare Boat

The tension is in the air. It is between friends. It is in the workplace. It is in the grocery store. We have a jobless economic recovery in our front window and a nasty ideological debate on health care going on in this country rattling all the other windows in our glass houses. Plus we have the latent and aging racists and monarchists in our society bubbling over the top of the kettle throwing scare tactics, guns, Fox News pundits, and labels around like the circus has come to town. Plus the media is ducking responsibility for any worthy journalism on the topic hoping to fend off being the next cartel in line after the insurance industry gets spanked.

None of the above, by itself, is my biggest worry though. I'm always a survivor. I crave a good challenge. But the above are simply symptomatic of the change afoot in the American current. The waterfall is just coming into view and I am not so sure I want to think about what lies ahead. However, what I figure I can't survive is the changing politic in America.

My biggest worry is that America has lost touch with those who struggle in ways those with wealth rarely experience. American institutions have such vast markets that these institutions and the supporting businesses do not have any need or real incentive to cover the lower end of market spectrum. There is plenty of profit to be had by carving up the middle and upper class and developing new markets around the world. Hence needs go unmet if you are on the lower end of the market.

The American economy has done a great job of covering the most people's needs during the 20th century. But now it finds itself, albeit the consequence of too much wealth and population expansion, rather than too little capital, in a parallel situation to third world countries. Stagnated economies or underdeveloped nations have long sufferred their citizens on the lower end of the economic stratum being clobbered by those above. Basically it is a consequence that few "above" care, or need to care, because their cash needs are being met without caring. This is self interested capitalism at its best. Couple, this cash based disconnect, with government stepping out of the arena and either removing or looking the other way on almost all economic regulation between the players under the proclomation of the free market and "government is never a good thing". The resulting consequence is the smoldering embers of standard discontent in a society become open flames.

Furthermore, I will argue, that emotional or intellectual needs in modern American society can mostly be purchased with enough cash so these societal checks and balances have also been substantially eroded. Just ask yourself the question how many families or neighbors you know would approve of their son or daughter currying favor in their job or relationship for monetary gain? There isn't a lot of need to look over the backyard fence at how the neighbors are doing anymore unless their McMansion casts a shadow on yours.

Instead of being pushed to perform in this society I simply feel obligated to produce cash. For myself and for others. There aren't really any ethics or scope of morality attached to the production of that cash just as long as the cash gets produced. This has become the ethereal societal expectation from my fellow citizens. Basically I can, and they can, do as they please as long as they don't harm any little children and as long as they are making money for others as well as their own good. If one is simply making money mostly for their nepotistic "own" that can be a little sketchy too. Especially if caught. Just ask Bernie Madoff.

Now maybe I grew up in the wrong household but as a child I was raised with the expectation that I would be a productive human being. That demand was inclusive of nurturing my own well being and paying my own bills and also giving to others whenever possible so that, together, we all could be safe, healthy, and potentially happy. Hard work was simply an expectation in my working class family. It was how you lived. Whether it produced a lot of cash or just enough to live on--if you did your job well and with integrity then you had met your societal obligation. My father may have been a raging abusive alcoholic but he got up every morning and put in a very effective eighteen-hour weekday six days a week. He helped make the owners of the company very wealthy over a number of years.

As an adult I have learned that people are raised with many variant expectations of their own contribution to society dependent on cultural, familial, and even geographical factors. I guess I just never assumed that this nation would turn its back on people who struggle every day to do their best but don't acquire a lot of wealth mostly because capitalism doesn't value their skills, or what they have to give, as much as they do the person's next door. We pay our sports heroes and bankers mega-millions yet we pay the people who still can dig a ditch, pick up our trash, or take care of our loved ones only enough to meet minimal needs.

First insurance became a response to disaster. Ben Franklin got it right. If your home burned down the potential for replacing the shelter was improbable in times when there was minimal capital in a community. Your neighbors meant everything in a disaster not simply for the immediate response but to stabilize your future. Insurance made a lot of sense to pool the collective capital and lower the risk.

Then insurance became a need generalized to other necessities and larger investments. It at least made a little bit of sense that if you had something worth protecting you wanted it protected. Especially so from those with nothing to protect who might be a little less careful about their approach on life. It also still serviced those caught unaware by natural or man-made disasters.

Then insurance became an institution. A distinguishing and stablizing concept especially rewarding and productive for the middle class. A requirement in many states to be held up by legislation created by those with secure housing, food and water supplies, and a good education. Many legislators simply members of the "Lucy Sperm Club" themselves. By far our legislators and representatives reflect people in our society who have been equipped, mostly by birth, with the assets that open doors to success and stability. The rest of us have to clear a path to the doors and earn our keys to the locks.

Once institutionalized insurance companies have been kissing home plate. The government stepped in to cover 9/11 victims, the vast majority already well healed, to augment and supersede their insurance companies from taking them to court, where it would be plainly pointed out that most those insurance contracts, now required, put a clause in regarding "acts of war" and, too frequently, acts of Mother Nature. The nation stood by watching the misfortunes of families in Katrina. Those of lesser economic means were left without the cash to hire effective attorneys. We stood by and watched while the Katrina victims' insurance companies twisted previous promises like writhing knotted snakes to get out of fulfilling those obligations.

A century ago American media made stars out of those who worked hard and struggled to overcome adversity. As the struggle of life became less and less a standard and the wealth accumulated in families to be passed on to the generations that followed our taste for common heroes rising through the ranks fell to the wayside. The national focus tended more to those whose status came with birth or had already been achieved. The process was not the point of interest any longer. The cool factor became less about the struggle and more about the glitz and glam of the perceived treasures. The glorification of the process and struggle of obtaining status faded as Americans began to live vicariously through the society and entertainment pages.

We drive the media and we become our media. It tends to be a closed ecosystem.

I, personally, cannot think of a group that emulates, in the majority, this modern American representation of paper made icons better than Congress itself. Our for-profit media has not missed out on following the societal trends for opportunistic gains as much as for public information. It has followed these political leaders and icons for decades and held them up for emulation. House and Garden, GQ, Money, INC., Lives of the Rich and Famous, People Magazine, and so on.

Now health care, hopping into bed with its sugar-daddy, has become an extension of the institution of insurance. The idea that people, when sick, should be tended and looked after to be made well again simply because they are a fellow human being has fallen by the wayside. Senator Max Baucus' finance bill wanted every person who could not pay for health care insurance to pay $3,800. as a fine for not participating in the good enrichment of society. The moral assumption reads "If you can't pay to stay alive then obviously your not worth keeping around."

Prisoners on death row get public paid health care. People who get minimum wage get the death sentence. Great idea Senator Baucus. When people are allowed to go homestead a piece of land, cut down their own trees, plant their own vegetables, and not be fined for doing so then maybe, just maybe, it makes sense to force people with little economic means in the first place to pay to participate in the great Baucus society twisted out of the one LBJ once stood over. At least they won't have to lose their homes or go without groceries to make you feel secure in your gilded mansions at night. Or is the general idea here to enslave or outlaw people without means? Can we make the ugliness we don't like to look at go away like the unwanted bags under our eyes? Can we simply pay for someone to make everything look good on the surface and ignore the reality of the situation?

This is what frightens me the most about present day America. Watching the powerful in the Congress and the Obama Administration who seemingly think that coming up with $3,800 is within every person's means. What happens to a nation when its leaders become so out of touch with the workers that actually make the infrastructure of the system go round?

In my world Senator Baucus should have been embarrassed to even whisper such a proposal behind closed doors. We take out public servants who admit to canoodling with lobbyists in the bedroom but we leave in those who would loosen the Hound of the Baskervilles onto the throats of good honest hard working people with less accumulated wealth. We care about the boundaries and civilities of sex and marriage but not ALL the people those marriages produce. Simply because the poor are asking to have a stake and share in the essentials that society demands BEFORE a person can be a fully fledged participant in the economy we are to be fined.

Of course that is only if President Obama manages to get his way and there is some type of viable public option. Which is what the Senate Finance bill is looking to ensure doesn't happen. Senator Baucus is going to make absolute sure that the unworthy, meaning those without accumulated wealth, will suffer some type of second class citizenship if the "Have's" will be footing any part of the bill.

Suddenly I don't need to be walking inside a Castle in the Rhineland to get a feel for what it was like to be medieval peasantry. I can get it all right here in America in 2009. If health care has become a requirement to participate in the education system, to get a decent job, to be allowed to board public transportation, and just to be treated civil in society then society needs to make health care readily available to everyone they expect to participate. If not then the poor should be allowed to stake out a living space where ever they please without fines and stigma. A street corner, under bridges, in tent cities, where ever they can survive. Participation in society is already not an option. Does it also have to come with a fine for not being able to afford membership dues when a person is being actively excluded on many levels from full participation? It doesn't make sense unless we go back to an agrarian society where Senator Baucus can have his own fiefdom.

The only marker of a decent man or woman is not the property he or she owns Senator.

As an alternative we could just put every one making less than a living wage in America on a bus and send them to Canada. It would make governing so much easier for the insurance-controlled Congressional elite. At least Canada has a sense of humanity toward their own even if they would turn the buses away. America used to be the champion of humanitarianism throughout the world. How low we have sunk that we can't even champion our own.

A poor person cannot create their own economy of scale to lower costs. Nor can individuals without many collective resources easily organize political power for their own benefit. Poor people have little representation in Congress because they cannot pay to purchase their senator and representatives ears or their integrity. And often, strangely enough, the lower economic classes suffer from roadblocks on the way to polling. Not to mention that Congress, the Senate the House Richie-Rich built, is heavily invested in the industries which make a lot of their wealth from the backs of labor. Businesses, banks especially, earn a large bulk of their wealth and profit by charging the poor excessive fees, surcharges, and usury interest rates.

Good credit has also become a need for survival. Try having a health care crisis and keeping your stellar credit rating. It has brought more than one middle class Joe into the sewers with the unwashed masses. In many jobs there are so many qualified applicants that the employers screen out those with health care issues and those with poor credit. The public education system has been repeatedly raped by financial conservatives over the past three decades so it can produce only the minimal cloned workers from the masses entering the system. Higher education has become increasingly more and more difficult to access.

In short, the competition for the higher status in society, is being systematically eliminated. Capitalism is all about competition and so is the innate shadow self of humankind. Check-mate goes to the wealthy elite and the others in this country whom they have managed to convince that government is never a good thing and thus compel these citizens in many cases to vote against their own true self-interest.

Left unchecked, both of these mechanisms, bring out cycles of destruction which the world has seen before. Let's just hope we are not doomed to repeat our mistakes of ego.

President Obama is right to make health care a moral argument. The problem still remains that he needs to let us know which side of the moral ideology he is keeping tune with rather than vaguely chastizing both ends of the spectrum. One end has all the power Mr. President and the other end has most of the day to day burdens and consequences.

If the Senate Finance Committee doesn't come up with a plan for all the people please don't just send them back to their room without dinner Mr. President. Publically expose their strategic posturing for what it really is--grotesque, devisive, and a fuedal elitism designed to reappoint and legitimize through the hands of government a second class citizenship for the peasants in America and a ruling first-class citizenship for the insurance industry, corporate monopolies, and the blue blood. Let them hang for social canoodling regardless whether a Republican, a Democrat, or a Republican in Democratic fuedal drag.

Let's just hope he gets a bill in front of him that can knit this nation of opposing forces and ideologies together for another two hundred years. Then President Obama will have done his job well, in my view, and delivered full value on his own obligation to society.

Obama's Health Care Speech: Senator Baucus and His Prissy Elitist Underclothing

A toast to President Obama. He's pulled the roast out of the fire and stuffed the apple into the mouths of Congress to chew on. Senator Baucus please review Obama's words carefully before you decide to show your prissy elitist underclothing to the public this week when you present a bill without a public option. Ms. Senator Feinstein please phone home ET wants to explain to you how government can serve all the people not just the rich and pretty. And Senator Grassley go back to your no frills pragmatic working people in your state and explain to them again just why health care reform is not in their interest. Pragmatic, sensible, and a chess player. This President is a professional and he has integrity.

And he lies in wait for his prey to come to him. Less work, more fulfilling, albeit a bit nerve wracking to watch.

Cut the politics and get the job done. And don't create a second class citizenry when you do it.

In my last position, management, I boycotted the Board approved health care plan because it was essentially worthless unless you made the kind of money management tends to make. The janitor, the office staff, and others could not afford the plan. All the Board members were quite wealthy individuals and had little relationship to the living struggles of the employees trying to make ends meet on ten dollars an hour. They had little sympathy as well.

Today, self-employed and freelancing, without health care insurance I went to see my new physician in Fort Collins. $120 dollars for the office visit. $145 dollars for a simple routine blood test. Another $75 for a return visit on Friday. That is $340 spent in less than two weeks. Cash.

For me the worst part of the visit was the stigma I felt when I told the office I'd be paying in cash. "Don't you want the clinic down the street where you will have to wait three months for an appointment, sit with a lot of sick people needing immediate care, see a physician overworked, overstressed, and mildly pissed off you are just coming in for a blood pressure check, and can we dust the chair for fleas after you leave? You are poor aren't you? Why else would you be paying cash? Maybe you should just pay us now and then we'll give you service."

Um, no, thank you anyhow. I'd like to see a private care physician, thanks for your concern. Are you Republican? And just how many years of your life have you given to public service? Nice fingernails by the way. Do they match your pedicure? Is your 401k invested in AIG?

If a person is making a wage of $7.75 an hour $340 is around 30% of their monthly income without taxes. And that would be for routine services. While I certainly would be on board for a single payer system, and yes I trust my government to keep me alive longer than any of my Republican friends would ever opt to--at their own expense, I was content for now to hear President Obama reinforce the idea that the bill that passes his pen will need to have a public option alternative for those who don't fit into the other boxed plans.

I will trust, when the time comes, that the Republicans will not take that opportunity to create a second class service for the low-life Americans who would need such an option. Such as many of the self-employed and underemployed and between employment Americans will find as they will still be trying to regain a foothold in the "jobless" recovery. It isn't just the inhuman trolls who live under the bridge after Reagan threw them out of the mental institutions that will be using this option.

Indeed if big insurance T-rexahealthosauruses don't cure their huge appetites for profit even more may be using this option.

Oh my God. Next thing you know the unwashed masses may start demanding an legit education system to! Worse, President Obama is at the helm. He may actually listen to their needs! What now? Maybe the right wing nut jobs are right their America is over--the feudal system, the elites so diligently nurture, is truly going down the toilet.

Please, allow me, in all my cynical ranting... to push the handle for a good flush.

_______________________________

President Obama's Speech on Healthcare from the New York Times
The Gallup Website where you get real poll figures from the morning after rather than Fox Math

Socialized Medicine is a Lick-It-And-Stick-It Label

Socialized medicine is such a lick-it-and-stick-it label.  It reminds me of a travel bag I had with stickers from Vienna Austria plastered all over it.  I'd been passed down the alligator trunk bag from a good friend.  I've never seen Austria.  The labels are meaningless after the first impression.  They did manage to start a conversation or two for me while I traveled around.

I've been told that debunking the junk put out on health care is a waste of time.  People do not want to know the truth.  Personally I don't buy into that idea wholesale.  Americans tend to be fixated on getting their news and facts through entertainment channels or soundbites for a myriad of reasons.  Word of mouth carries quickly in social circles and some of the more isolated states whose Senators somehow got Magic Proportion Power over our health care still trade heavily on social capital.   So I keep fighting the battle.

In the meantime it looks like the local fish-wrap, the Greeley Tribune, has a bit of a problem covering all sides of the issue.  I've heard tales of people who have written past editorials for the paper having their pro health care reform editorials gutted and placed in the Letter to the Editor section.  Gutted so that the Tribune represented at best a distorted version of the editorial argument and at worst the opinion and information the paper wants the local public to be indoctrinated with.  Social engineering in Greeley Colorado?  Please say it isn't so.

I'm posting in part an article below written by a Canadian insurance executive which a friend also from Canada, who owns one of those glide-and-slide-get-healthy Canadian health cards, forwarded to me.  It is worth a click on the link to read the whole article and to be armed with facts closer to a real knowledge source than Fox News.

TheStar.com | Opinion | A puzzled Canadian ponders surreal U.S. health-care debate

If asked to single out an aspect of Canadian society superior to that of our American neighbours, most Canadians would cite first our health-care system. What I also might have mentioned were aspects of the American health-care debate that Canadians find puzzling, if not downright perverse. These include:

* The use of wildly misleading references to wait times in Canada even though 47 million Americans have no health insurance and, therefore, are forced to line up for treatment in hospital emergency rooms, to say nothing of the thousands who queue in parking lots across the U.S. to receive free treatment periodically provided by "Remote Area Medical" volunteers.
* U.S. opinion polls that show 77 per cent of Americans are generally satisfied with their health care when so many millions of their fellow citizens are uninsured and many millions more under-insured; when three-quarters of the families filing for illness-related bankruptcy actually have health insurance; and when insurance premiums have grown three times faster than wages between 2000 and 2008.
* The negative representation of Canadians' experience with "socialized medicine." That portrayal is at odds with reality. For example: 85 per cent of Canadians have their own primary care physician and 92 per cent would recommend that doctor to a relative or friend; 95 per cent of Canadians with chronic conditions have a regular place of care; of those requiring ongoing medical care most were able to see a doctor within seven days.
* The widespread use of an exceptional and misleading Canadian case. It involves a television commercial featuring an Ontario woman, who (American viewers are told) had to go to the U.S. to have a life-threatening brain tumour removed in order to save her life. Why? Because of a six-month wait time in Canada for treatment. The patient has since admitted to a three-month wait time involving a diagnosed benign Rathkes cleft cyst, the removal of which at a Mayo Clinic in Arizona cost her $97,000 that she is now seeking to recover from the province where its removal would have cost her nothing.
* The fact that a huge contributor to the rapidly rising cost of U.S. health care is the central involvement of insurance companies. They add significant cost due to both administrative complication and inefficiency as well as the pursuit of profit. Canada constructed a health-care "insurance" system from which insurance companies were excluded in favour of single-payer, state-financed insurance. Thoughtful Americans understand that insurance companies are needed for an efficient, patient-oriented health-care system as much as a fish needs a bicycle. Minimizing the payment of health claims by insurance companies is, for executives interested in their compensation and their careers, what the companies' role in health care is all about.

Doh! What Constitutional Right to Health Care?

The radical right is right. The financial conservatives are right it is not a right. The idea that universal health care was not a consideration when writing the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution is true. See the logic? It all makes sense now doesn't it. People don't need health care because the founding patriarchs thought we'd all be happy just having a few leeches and butcher knives around the house along with staying home when Small Pox went past our doors.

Where did these people go to school? Home Mountain ParaMilitary School of Appalachia? The logic and the reasoning behind the arguments against health care are Palinesque. Just like Sara Palin, left alone, these people all end up blowing their own feet off with their mouth-guns.

Perhaps I just need to be more pragmatically sane like my friend RCH to understand the big picture. He writes

I always like countering the right wing "strict constructionist" types who argue that something cannot be required if it is not in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights by noting that not only was paper money not envisioned by the Founding Fathers, the Federalist Papers all argue against it. So, the U.S. government during the First World War did a nifty dance around this "problem" by having U.S. currency printed by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving be distributed by the Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed is a private bank whose Chairman and Board just happen to be appointed by the U.S. President and confirmed by the Senate.

Health care is a necessity. It is a public and private necessity. Children can't go to school without their vaccinations. Kids and teens have to stay home when ill. Mom and Dad can't go to work sick and if Mom and Dad die the state will end up supporting Junior and his sugar habit. In several industries, and for the evil insurance Goliaths, you have to pass a Doctor's physical to work. When you get really ill you have to pass another one to go back to work. Wal-Mart thought it would be a peachy idea to get rid of their aging and fatter employees simply because they might be health risks--to their bottom line. Oh and try getting on an airplane while talking about the Swine Flu and see how far the friendly skies will take you.

Now this wouldn't be quite the same argument if you could run out yonder and pitch a tent in the woods and camp all year round. While you may have to vote down your eight year-old son on that family option it is well worth the family conflict. Basically the authorities won't let you do it. Not only does it violate land and planning use; federal, state, county, and a few other laws, the child-you-aren't-raising-right authorities will also have a say in this process.

So damned if you do and damned if you don't. And the logic behind maintaining this handy-dandy little status quo just keeps on getting better.

No Free Riders! No Free Loaders! You must rely on the system, our system, one-size fits all, or you go to jail and get all your loved one's taken away from you. No purple hair, no trying to making it alone, no get-out-of-jail free, just take your bread and gruel and get back to work. And don't forget to show up in church on Sunday or we'll come lookin' for you. And none of that "equality" crap. You are either equal to us or you aren't and you ain't so be happy with your salt-mine lives. You either live like we think you should live or you get kicked to the curb real, real, hard.

Can't live with us. Can't live without us. So if you die early because the rest of us don't want to pay for you to actively and fully participate in our system--too bad. We could raise the minimum wage I guess and we could manage to cover those we can't shove into the work farm doors and we may even to be able to ship off a few poor ugly unadoptable white orphan's to Mexico when we deport all those disgustingly hard working illegals without the right to stay here back home. This will all happen right after we sign over that euthanasia bill to get Granny and Grampy off our dime.

And quit your whining to our "There Ain't No Big Bang" Senators and Congressmen too. We slogged long and hard to get these award winning prize nincompoops raised in private snob school into office. It gets annoying when you question their logic, their education, their sanity, their religion. How dare you not trust us--we're the Better Gene people! Your liberal shtick about health care being a right won't even begin to fly against our insurance industry hot air balloon because "WE" the Almighty Already Insured at the Good Gene Plant think you poor unhealthy bad gene people should just continue to be slaves to our economy. We get the tax breaks, the stimulus money, and Bernie Madoff phones home every Christmas. How in Hades do you think you have any right to not suffer when you can't buy it? When ya all drop dead we'll just replace you with another Bad Luck Charlie Stiff.

You ain't got no "Right" to health care because in 1776 no body thought they'd live long enough to need it. So quit asking. Besides the Insurance Company executives are just God's Angels in a Armani business suit. They mean you no harm. We like them, we trust them, why can't you? Your Mama should ask them in for Sunday brunch. And be sure to take good care of them now because they are FILTHY RICH and deserve your Sunday best.
____________________________

They must have good genes if their rich. I get it now. Thanks I'll sleep much better tonight knowing I have no right to ask for equality in the land they once called "America".

Health Care Cooperatives--Not Good Enough Mr. President

President Obama is from a big town. In a town like Chicago, big and cosmopolitan, the idea of health cooperatives meeting the public need for health care might look sane. President Obama is already on record as having said as much.

The Senate Finance Committee, where this health care plan for cooperatives is rooted, basically shows how completely out of touch with the needs of the average American the Senate has become. The Senate is made of millionaires. Even if one happened to land out of their mother's womb in a small town to begin with it is obvious they have no memory of it now. Perhaps, given this scheme, they may have landed on their heads. Why else would Congress promote a design which essentially leaves the insurance industry still in power over the public's health care needs. The idea of nonprofit health care cooperatives serving the public need is a shell game. It is a cloak over the public's eyes at the behest of the insurance company profiteers and the medical elite.

I say don't play the game and don't believe it. This "option" is not an alternative to the public option or the single payer system. It is a way for the insurance and private health company executives to retain control of the health care market and have it their way.

Here's why.

First and foremost any nonprofit, especially a membership based nonprofit, is like driving a bus. Whereas a private forprofit business is a zippy little red sports car. Well funded private business, like you find in the insurance and health industry, goes even further and resembles the famed Italian Maserati. They are sleek organizations, designed to hug the road, expensive, and represent loads of capital (cash).

President Obama has said he feels that the nonprofit cooperatives should have to compete for that capital. I like President Obama and empathize the heft of his burden but he is more the attorney and politician here and less the nonprofit business man.

In a nonprofit cooperative there is a board of directors. This board, although there are no definitive guidelines put out yet, most likely will be elected by the members of the cooperative. There are specific regulations which provide the directors with the structure for governance in a nonprofit. These have distinct differences compared to a forprofit organization.

The people who run for nonprofit board positions will be similar to the same people who run for local school boards and housing cooperatives. In private corporate business the board of directors are appointed more often than not. Directors receive nice annual stipends, pay, and perks for giving advice in their special areas of expertise or using their influence to get favorable legislation. It is a nice job in the forprofit world and someone wealthy with clout and experience lands the role and holds onto it--until death, or dementia, do us part. Meanwhile, back at the nonprofit, the assets of the nonprofit belong to the public and therefore the public representatives are assigned to watch over those assets on behalf of the membership of the cooperative. How many board directors, what regional representations might be assigned, how long their term of service, all has to be established in the nonprofit charter. Any remuneration will likely be limited and contained to expenses incurred while being a public community servant.

In this spirit, allow me to metaphorically introduce you, the person needing health insurance reform, to your new bus driver--your neighbor Joe the Plumber. Or perhaps Suzy the Secretary, Gary the Mechanic, Jenny the Accountant, and/or Carol the Hairdresser.

Basically the cooperative board of directors will be made up of people from your cooperative's community.

Now if you live in the community of Chicago the pool of potential nonprofit board candidates is bigger. The select educated elite and various professional backgrounds are naturally more diverse and better candidates can be drawn upon to serve. Your Chicago Cooperative might end up with Karen the Physician and Sam the Surgical Nurse for example. These options would, presumably, be better trained leadership for a health care cooperative. Lucky you--the Public Citizen.

At least for a while.

Then Karen and Sam's term of service will be up and new board members will come on. New board members who have never driven this particular bus before. New board members unfamiliar with the history of the bus, the patients riding the bus, and the mechanic's tinkering with the bus. Never having stuck their heads under the engine of the bus and never having kicked the tires of the bus these new board members will be seated. Not to mention these new board members, "drivers of the bus", will even have to become familiar with what road the bus is going down.

And there are a lot of bumps, cracks, and potholes in the road.

This, Public Citizen to whom I write, is who will be in charge of your health care in lieu of the government. A gamble at best. A tragedy in the making at worst. Because (play close attention to where the pea lands underneath the shell) while nonprofit cooperatives may be designed to be in lieu of the government being in charge of your health care they are not in lieu of the insurance company executives remaining in power. They, the insurance executives, are just scurrying under the new shell Congress has designed to maintain the status quo for the elites.

In the meantime, the insurance company executive will be driving on ahead of the bus, happy in the newly lightened and speedy Maserati. A few small tow lines attached to the Public Citizen bus at the initial camera-op, all for show, without any long lasting effects for the Maserati driver.

In fact, is that a smile I see on the Maserati driver's face?

Of course it is, since the Public Citizen bus will be full of riders that the insurance company executives don't want in their zippy little sport car. Public Citizens add weight and cost money in gas and repairs. Plus, the evil public riders tend to complain when they get dumped out on their heads in the middle of the road. It will take a little more conniving to get around President Obama's legislation on patient dumping--but with the Senate Blue Dogs on their side, no problem. So onto the bus with you!

A private forprofit organization can make quick stealth-like decisions. It can plan a long time in advance since it has a relatively stable market. It can control, to a great degree, how much supply it wants to give in order to meet demand. The forprofit insurance company is going to set, because it can and the industry is allowed to collude, how much profit it wants to put in the hands of its executives and investors. And the profiteering will always come first because that is what the company is designed to do, and it is what the executives get paid the big bucks for... doing what is best for the company.

Is there a great new technology on the market people are dying to pay for? Great let's adopt it and charge a 200% markup. Better yet let's buy up that company and roll it into our portfolio! Full speed ahead. The zippy little red Maserati doesn't even slow down for the turns or the bumps in the road--it generates enough money to negotiate successfully all the curves and bends in the road. And when it needs repairs it just charges anyone riding along more money.

Ah, the perfect life. Neck scarf blowing in the breeze and the Senate pumping gas into the tank.

Meanwhile, the Public Citizen bus is back here trying to figure out which way to turn next. The driver has stopped and is waiting to hear from all the passengers (members). The driver has to unfasten his seat belt and walk up and down the aisles of the bus to get every rider's ideas and thoughts on which way to go next. Then there is the time spent to show that process is being done and to take these thoughts into consideration. Next compare the new ideas with the old map, explain to everyone why that might be the wrong way to go, get the board to draw a new line on the map, and then finally he can get back in the driver's seat and go forward to make the turn in the road ahead.

Needless to say, if Public Citizen, wants to get anywhere soon he or she isn't going to get there quickly by riding that nonprofit cooperative health care bus.

Could you buy a better bus or a better trained driver or mechanic? Not likely. The nonprofit will never be able to, without the government's backing, outbid the private forprofit competition for the best doctor's, nurses, administrators, and technology. Even if the, ever-changing, board can get it together to understand the strategic need and are willing to work, being semi-paid, full time to raise capital. The forprofit insurance industry will have every reason to work around any regulations and to take shortcuts to ensure it stays ahead of the bus. Effectively undercutting any strategic advantage the nonprofit cooperatives may develop.

Just ask Fannie and Freddie--they essentially got into competition with the for-profit mortgage sector. It is a slippery slope leading to the eventual abyss.

Yet some buses might be better than others--true. Big polished city buses might have bigger gas tanks and better drivers than rural or small city ones--but they still will never be able to catch up to that tasty little red Maserati ahead. There are individual health care nonprofits that are bound to be rolled out as examples. An individual does not an industry make. Overall if the bus breaks down along the way and needs more gas, private gas stations are going to give their best supply to the Maserati owner because the Maserati owner obviously can always pay more. The Public Citizen will get the dregs of the tank and the mechanics straight from medical skid row. Running on dregs never makes for a good ride--for anyone.

Even more poetically or poignantly, however you want to look at it, the Maserati driver will get to dine at the White House with all the Senators long before the Public Citizen bus limps in. All the prime rib, shrimp, and organic greens will long be gone. Congress and the Maserati driver will be snuggled into the study smoking a few handrolled cigars and sipping cognac by the time the bus pulls in. In fact, the Maserati drivers may even, if they are clever enough, be able to arrange it so that the Public Citizen gets to the White House just in time to done a servant's outfit and wait upon the Blue Dog Senators and Maserati drivers in their cloistered study.

Guess who will get the bill.

Finally, after every one else has left, pockets stuffed full of goodies for the drive home, the Public Citizens can pick at the crumbs spilt on their uniforms before heading home to wait for that call from the Grim Reaper.

Yes, Virginia, this is a class war and Santa Claus doesn't really visit the little people in America any more. Not even for Show and Tell.

Let's just hope President Obama is playing chess with Congress rather than MouseTrap.

American Health Care Reform: For Whom the Bell Tolls?

In education you learn quickly that most students learn very quickly through visualization and actual experience. You can write forever on a blackboard, overhead, or whiteboard and you simply won't reach everyone. Some people have to feel it. Live it. Know it as it happens in front of them to understand the nuances and be empathetic for the situation or learning given.

Regardless of how words appear on paper the feeling of being powerless to describe the undercurrent of what health care means to this nation escapes me. Seething underneath the floorboards there is a struggle between whether America has become a country run for the sake of business, industry, and profit or if it will be, going into the future, a country of the people, by the people, and for the people.

My mother lies rotting, slowly, in a care home. She has dementia, Alzheimer's, and Sundowners. She spent a life trapped in an alcoholic marriage escaping it only after her children left home. In the country, had there been money for a doctor, there wasn't any doctor around for casual things. My mother came to believe that health care was something for other people. People with money. The lack of health care became a part of her identity. Her routine. By the time she was old enough to retire and her children were old enough and established enough to help her along--it was too late. The high blood pressure had taken its toll. Her brain, trying to flee from the increase in pressure, shrank.

My mother, now surviving on my father's social security and her own, is comfortable. She is being fairly well tended. But when she passes on, within the next couple of years most likely, she will have spent the final twenty years of her life in a care home. Twenty years that she could have spent laughing, loving, and sharing with her grandchildren--my children and my brother's children. This is what she dreamed of doing all those years while doing menial labor and tending my father's needs. It was her planned retirement from a life of labor, service, and strife. For the five years prior to being imprisoned in the Colorado care home my mother had three newspaper routes in our local town. She walked over ten miles each day to keep her income sufficient to pay for housing, groceries, and other small needs. She stopped and chatted with the elderly folk on her route and listened to their troubles. Kids from the local school would walk along with her and talk to her. She called a doctor more than once when she found a shut-in having trouble. While the reality of my mother's checking account may have been poor--she herself was wealthy in the way many people express a desire to possess such wealth. But this community wealth never went onto a spreadsheet anywhere even though it helped many a soul beyond my mother's.

Had my mother decent access to routine health care, blood pressure checks, she would still be contributing to her community today most likely. She would still be paying her taxes. She would still be working as a volunteer at the voting polls. And she would still know my name and her grandchildren's names.

I know this is one story out of many. But that is the point. It is only one story that belongs to too many people. It is my story. It is my brother's story. It is my mother's story. It is each of my children's story. And there are many versions with different names attached. These are the stories that aren't being heard and seen above the raving blue dog howls of the manufactured Town Halls in America.

My regret? My pen simply doesn't have enough ink or enough power to paint the picture for those who are blinded to the plight of their fellow citizen. How do you touch someone who has closed the gates of their own yard to the community around them?

I've tried ringing the bell at the gate. The same gates I've stood at an argued before. My neighbors. Some of the same people who cry for babies lost to abortion cling to the idea that America should value one human life over another as long as the distinguishing characteristic is poverty or health care or education. All of which can be almost as deadly.

Sometimes I just don't understand the world around me enough to paint it for someone else to see. So I look for others who can do the situation must more justice.

The brutal truth about America’s healthcare - Americas, World - The Independent

In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an "evil and Orwellian" example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.

The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed – for eight days only – into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.
Related articles

* Leading article: The healthcare debate comes back across the Atlantic
* Christina Patterson: The big problem with the NHS isn't funding
* Rupert Cornwell: America needs to cool down
* Second MEP defies Cameron with NHS attack
* Stephen Foley: ObamaCare is bad news for Big Pharma

In the first two days, more than 1,500 men, women and children received free treatments worth $503,000 (£304,000). Thirty dentists pulled 471 teeth; 320 people were given standard issue spectacles; 80 had mammograms; dozens more had acupuncture, or saw kidney specialists. By the time the makeshift medical centre leaves town on Tuesday, staff expect to have dispensed $2m worth of treatments to 10,000 patients.

The gritty district of Inglewood lies just a few miles from the palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills and the bright lights of Hollywood, but is a world away. And the residents who had flocked for the free medical care, courtesy of mobile charity Remote Area Medical, bore testament to the human cost of the healthcare mess that President Obama is attempting to fix.

All the Kings Men are Insurance Company Executives and Hicks

Write. Don't call. Don't email. Write. Write every senator, representative, and any one of any useful power in the intimate health care circle in the White House. Write them today.

I have never felt so disappointed in my government in my life. When the time has come for Congress to stand up and fight for all Americans they have caved to the pressures of the elite. Without oil to win, provincial countries to plunder, or votes to be purchased they are turning their backs and covering their eyes on the common need. I feel I should sew a label onto my lapel that reads Second Class Citizen so I can appropriately be shamed when I go into public for being a person without the means for private health care.

To all those who have decried that the poor are poor by choice and should be entitled to suffer I have this to write to you

Just tell 'em you're gonna soak the fat boys and forget the rest of the tax stuff...Willie, make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em mad, even mad at you. Stir them up and they'll love it and come back for more, but, for heaven's sakes, don't try to improve their minds. ~Jack Burden from All the King's Men

And to all those who have spread the malicious fear, half-truths, and outright lies of government run health care while truly knowing the hurt and harm it heaps upon your neighbors

Now listen to me, you hicks! Listen to me, and lift up your eyes and look at God's blessed and unfly-blown truth. And this is the truth. You're a hick, and nobody ever helped a hick but a hick himself! ~Willie Stark from All the King's Men

Democrats Signal Embrace of Co-op Plans | 44 | washingtonpost.com

Health Care
Democrats Signal Embrace of Co-op Plans

By John Amick

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius signaled on Sunday a willingness from the White House to embrace insurance cooperatives as the main plank of health-care reform rather than pushing for a public option in the final version of legislation being debated in Washington and throughout town halls across America.

Quotes from Movie All the Kings Men :: Finest Quotes

Now listen to me, you hicks! Listen to me, and lift up your eyes and look at God's blessed and unfly-blown truth. And this is the truth. You're a hick, and nobody ever helped a hick but a hick himself!

Xenophobia Breaks Out Across Colorado

Speaking of Greeley students understanding mathematical relationships, it gets really depressing spending a Saturday afternoon reading the commentaries around the state on health care. Obama is in Grand Junction trying to raise the quality of debate amongst the provincials. Below the BBC has made an easy visual to chart the comparisons between the US system and three others. I thought I'd try a more mathematical approach to help squelch the xenophobes as everything I am writing comes up screaming my disenchantment with the perceptions people are willing to show they believe as fact. You can still dispute numbers but it gets less emotional. The arguments are limited.

Note that the day you are born in Singapore you have a better life expectancy. As a child I remember Singapore being a place my dad wouldn't buy things from because the quality was questionable. Now Singapore leads a comparison on certain health statistics.



I understand, being American, that we like to think we have the greatest, most magnificent, tremendous, biggest, bestest, most significant," everything in the world. But then again it isn't only my ego that participates in this society. The reality is that excluding better ideas that have better performance for more people is, well, a major risk factor behind the disease called xenophobia.

It is a horrid, horrid, horrid disease. Did I say horrid? Make that deadly.

I am growing weary of the health care debate and the tactics deployed. How you re-educate the over-forty crowd on doing the basic math? On unwinding the political complexities? How do you reeducate the over-forty crowd on the dangers of twisted perceptions of ideology? I have noted the young are not turning out for these rallies in any significant numbers so I focus on my own generation. The generation fed buzz words like socialism, McCarthyism, videos on nuclear explosions, and liberalism to fuel the power of the political elite. Now those words, these labels, taken out of context, have come back to haunt us all.

I fear the slippery slope if Congress does not include a public option. It will be difficult, at least for me, to have any faith in a system of government which has shown that it has compromised the throat of America by allowing the fangs of monster insurance industries and accompanying profiteers to thrive permanently embedded in American citizens' pockets. Insurance isn't an option any longer. It has been made a legal necessity to survive and operate in a manner expected by civilized society. The only option not to participate in having your blood sucked through the insurance tube is to be wealthy enough to cover all catastrophic events or poor enough to live under a bridge and own nothing at all. In essence the Lord of the Realm owns all the means of production and the Lord of the Realm isn't government.

If Congress fails in its duty to protect its people, all of its people, then the Insurance Industry will be known as the Lord of the Realm. Congress will be proven to be the jesters who dress up and dance for the Lord when called upon. The foolish plebeians will be, and are, the citizens with the pitchforks and hayforks who believe they will be saving something special for themselves by undermining the public option.

Legislative power should not be bought and sold to the highest more powerful bidder. This era of Congress should be known as the Blagoveckian Era.

This nation belongs to the people. All of the people. All of the time. We need to remind Congress who is in power here. Write. Call. Speak out. The mob can't win this one or we all lose.

BBC NEWS | Health | Healthcare around the world

Healthcare around the world

Healthcare figures

Health Care: Hollis Berendt and Brian Bacak on Reform

Here is the Op-ed piece on Health Care Reform. It is good to see leaders in the community step up to the plate. Thank you.

It is time for health reform - The Denver Post

The reality is the current system is levying a hidden tax on Colorado families to the tune of almost $1,000 per household each year. That's what you're paying, on average, in higher premiums, to make up for all the uncompensated care. We can pay up front by providing health care for everyone and working on prevention, or we pay for expensive emergency department visits, which does not address people's long-term health and productivity.

If we do nothing, the insurance premiums for a family of four will increase $1,800 each year. Thirty to 40 cents of each premium dollar you spend will go toward administrative costs and other inefficiencies in the system. And rising costs will continue to hurt our state economy.

For all these reasons, the health insurance reform bill in the U.S. House must be passed now. This legislation will make health care more affordable for everyone, lower overall costs, offer a public option for consumers, guarantee that you can keep your current coverage if that's what you want, stop insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions or gender, and ensure families have the choice and peace of mind they deserve when it comes to health care

Bullhorns, Public Protests, Gail Collins, Healthcare, and David Brooks

Love Gail Collins, tepid toward David Brooks, got a bullhorn mentality, and I am really upset about the path the health care reform is going down right now and the blue streak up the Democratic Congress' spine.

But this all reminds me of a discussion I had a while back with a group of friends around the beginning of the Iraq debacle. We were talking about how the media covered modern public protests and how much of the public seemed unmoved or irritated by these protests. Irritated by the intrusion in their daily life of the reality of democratic governance. I wonder, now, a few years and a few debacles down the road, if the same thing would happen if those demanding a real public option took to the streets in every capital city across the nation in a mass peaceful quasi sit-in on capital grounds.

We want an option designed for 'us'--not the insurance executives, not for the wealthy elite, not for the comfort of the election campaign cycle in Congress.

Although in Denver the capital building is already falling down around the groundhogs ears so maybe there is an alternative choice. But I digress.

The poll numbers had it early on. The Republican and Blue-Dog press machines and operatives are rolling up their sleeves and gathering steam. The health and insurance lobbyists are rolling out their green muscles--why can't we all show our own numbers. Those Blue Dogs would be rolling over and howling forgiveness until their bacon got fried in the next election frying pan.

Personally I'd like to see that about now. The peaceful demonstrations that is--the bacon frying has a future too but less productive at the moment. No blocking traffic so the grumpy already well-insured and insulated people can still get to work. No implants to cause trouble to discredit the whole demonstration. Just human bodies all assembled in one place to show the politicos just where the real power of this nation lies. The voter. Collectively, assembled, and demanding accountability from their representatives in both Houses.

What’s Wrong With a Single-Payer System? - The Conversation Blog - NYTimes.com

But actually, they are. And so are we. The reason the country can’t solve the health care mess is because the people with the biggest bullhorns don’t speak honestly and clearly about it. Nobody understands the Democratic plan, and that scares the public. The irresponsible Republicans are just waiting to make whatever comes out sound terrible. The responsible Republicans are working to come up with a compromise that’s going to be even more incoherent than the Democratic version.