Don't turn back

Rolling back reform would add $230 billion to the deficit, allow 32 million Americans to go without coverage, and put the insurance companies back in charge of who gets care.

Even though their repeal won't make it through the Senate only to be vetoed, Republicans have vowed to try to try to pick apart at healthcare reform with a plethora of small bills and court challenges. 

These are some of the things that they're hoping to do:

-- Undo steps to close the "donut hole" in prescription drug coverage that makes prescriptions unaffordable for millions of seniors;

-- Allow insurance companies to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions -- as many as half of Americans under 65;

-- Legalize the practice of insurance companies dropping people's coverage when they get sick -- just because they made a mistake on a form; and

-- Prevent young adults under 26 from staying on their parents' insurance.

Yeah, these are pretty much talking points from http://my.democrats.org/ProtectReform, so I'm a pretty much being a party shill here, but the thing is 1. I agreed with the mass email they sent me, 2. I'm being honest about it and 3. this is important.

The House leadership is using deceptive language and fear mongering again. This time instead of talking about socialism and "death panels" threatening to kill Grandma, they're calling it the "job-killing healthcare reform bill" and pretending to care about the deficit. Iowa's Steve King compares it to a malignant cancer growing on the Constitution! What a bunch of hubris!

It doesn't seem to matter to the GOP or the Tea Party movement that Bush's massive tax cuts for the richest 2% or the unprovoked war against Iraq both took us from surpluses under Clinton to the massive deficit we have and the gross negligence of Wall Street and the housing markets made more government spending necessary to prevent global financial disaster!

The Healthcare reform passed by the last Congress is almost identical to that written by Republicans back in the 90's yet they've made it central to as much fear, anger and vitriol about government as they can conjure. 

Isn't it time for this nonsense to finally stop?

How long?

Email exchange

To Ted: "Steve King in a public meeting today said and 200 people at the meeting agreed:

'Health care is a privilege not a right.'~Rep. Steve King (R), Iowa

Do we let them die in the street. No i do not thinks so. What is Steve's answer to an elderly person with out health insurance die in the street. Do we let a young women with a problem pregnancy miscarriage because of lack of heath insurance."

Ted's Reply: "Isn't that the great irony? Protect the unborn from abortion, but once you're born you're on your own. Don't teach Darwin in our schools, but practice Social-Darwinism all day long."

Survival of the fittest, if you're not rich enough or smart enough or lucky enough to get good insurance, better to let you suffer, you must deserve it. How about if conservatives and liberals agree that we need to work together to make things better for everybody? Pre-born and post-born, young/and elderly, affluent and struggling. I wish that the folks who are so opposed to reform (often- ironically- who use and want to protect Medicare) would think back to what it was like in the 60's when Johnson was working on getting Medicare. Then Gubernatorial CANDIDATE Ronald Reagan tried to scare people into believing that Medicare was the first step toward SOCIALISM and it would be a slippery slope toward no longer being a free society.

Here's what I'd love to see- Steve King propose an alternative to the Demorcat's plans.
Teddy Roosevelt had a word for it, "Muckruckers." People who rake the muck, stir the shit, but don't shovel it- quick to criticize and condemn, but don't offer any other solutions.

Here's a proposal that Iowa Republicans King and Grassley are more than welcome to call their own and take credit for- put all Iowa public school teachers into the same insurance pool with other state employees. The more members of a plan, the less the risk and the lower the cost!

Offer me that and I'll back off of supporting a national plan with a public option because I'll be taken care of. Meanwhile the deductions to pay for Welmark are practically half my monthly paycheck yet my copays and precription costs are way higher than they were under Principal last year and Welmark won't cover as many things as Principal used to.

And there's my brother and sister-in-law. They never know when they might get laid off because their company just went bankrupt. My 7 year old nephew went to the doctor yesterday and might have pneumonia. And don't forget the threat of H1N1 this year.

How can anyone continue to defend Steve King when he says idiotic things tike this? Listen, ether he's a jerk or a fool. This isn't just his opinion or a different philosophy. A privilege not a right? Then we should revoke his privilege to Congressional benefits like Government health care. I'd like to revoke his privilege to a Congressional salary, but we can't seem to get anyone strong enough to run against him in the 5th District.

How can the same people that claim to believe in a "right to life" say that health care is not a right? So, potential death, suffering, and poor quality of life due to injury, illness, or other health conditions shouldn't be prevented? That's not a human right?

Lies (and the lying liars who tell them)

lies- canned lies - talking points - inflammatory lies - distortions - mischaracterizations - propaganda - genuflection to the base -more lies - horror stories -misrepresentations -towing the party line -little white lies - fear mongering -hyperbole -

Ya know, I used to kinda like Chuck Grassley. He's always been a sightly more reasonable than Congressman Steve King, but Geez- he's just gone off the rails with this one. Ya think maybe he's in the pocket of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies? A LITTLE.

No Govt. Insurance? Fine, try this-

Dear President Obama,

I understand you’re thinking of dumping your “public option” because of all the demagoguery by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich and their crowd on right-wing radio and Fox. Fine. Good idea, in fact.

Instead, let’s make it simple. Please let us buy into Medicare.

It would be so easy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with this so-called “public option” that’s a whole new program from the ground up. Medicare already exists. It works. Some people will like it, others won’t – just like the Post Office versus FedEx analogy you’re so comfortable with.

Just pass a simple bill – it could probably be just a few lines, like when Medicare was expanded to include disabled people – that says that any American citizen can buy into the program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it.

So it’s revenue neutral!

To make it available to people of low income, raise the rates slightly for all currently non-eligible people (like me - under 65) to cover the cost of below-200%-of-poverty people. Revenue neutral again.

Most of us will do damn near anything to get out from under the thumbs of the multi-millionaire CEOs who are running our current insurance programs. Sign me up!

This lets you blow up all the rumors about death panels and grandma and everything else: everybody knows what Medicare is. Those who scorn it can go with Blue Cross. Those who like it can buy into it. Simplicity itself.

Of course, we’d like a few fixes, like letting Medicare negotiate drug prices and filling some of the holes Republicans and AARP and the big insurance lobbyists have drilled into Medicare so people have to buy “supplemental” insurance, but that can wait for the second round. Let’s get this done first.

Simple stuff. Medicare for anybody who wants it. Private health insurance for those who don’t. Easy message. Even Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley can understand it. Sarah Palin can buy into it, or ignore it. No death panels, no granny plugs, nothing. Just a few sentences.

Replace the “you must be disabled or 65” with “here’s what it’ll cost if you want to buy in, and here’s the sliding scale of subsidies we’ll give you if you’re poor, paid for by everybody else who’s buying in.” (You could roll back the Reagan tax cuts and make it all free, but that’s another rant.)

We elected you because we expected you to have the courage of your convictions. Here’s how. Not the “single payer Medicare for all” that many of us would prefer, but a simple, “Medicare for anybody who wants to buy in.”

Respectfully,

Thom Hartmann
See original website

"A Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican" By Thom Hartman

My cousin in Livermore, CA sent this one to me. I'd read it before, Thomas Harman is a very good writer and incredibly smart.

This piece came to mind recently when so many people at the town halls have been saying how they don't want big government meddling with their health care- but in the same breath say that we'd better not touch their Medicare.

Do people not realize how ironic they're being when they say stuff like that?

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.
He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, "We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have".