Jul 29 2009

Max Baucus Is A Corrupt Coward

The American People want the Public Option. President Obama wants the Public Option. Even Harry Reid told the Corrupt Coward Max Baucus to include the Public Option.

But in a blatant and craven betrayal of the nation in favor of a tiny minority of Republicans (That is the Cowardice part) and in obvious response to the outright bribery of the Health Care Lobbyists, (The Corrupt part) the Corrupt Coward Max Baucus killed the Public Option.

Because he is Corrupt.

And a Coward.

As Howard Dean just said:

You know, this is going to be a hell of an issue in 2010 cause honestly, what’s the point of having a 60 vote majority in the United States Senate, if you can’t produce…health care reform.

Indeed, if a significant number of those 60 Democrats are Corrupt Cowards like the Corrupt Coward Max Baucus, it actually hurts Democrats to have 60 votes.

It hurts because it proves the Republicans right. It proves the Republicans right on exactly one thing after they have been wrong about everything else. It proves that the Democrats are spineless. The Republicans claim that democrats are Soft On Terror and it is true, The Democrats are Soft On the Terror being perpetrated by the Republicans on Health Care.

The voters are presented with only two Partys to vote for. One Party has proven themselves to be incompetent War Mongers and Torturers who screw up everything they touched in the last eight years. Not to mention baldfaced hypocrites and liars who support Single Payer for the Military and Single Payer Medicare for Seniors…while denying the American people even the bare minimum of a Choice via the Public Option vs their Corporate Masters Private Insurance debacle and scam.

And the other party, the Democratic Party as represented by the Corrupt Coward Max Baucus…..are proving themselves to be, well…. Corrupt Cowards.

So corrupt and cowardly, in point of fact, that they are willing to REPEAL insurance for America’s children.

Is it any wonder half of America doesn’t vote?

We have tried the Republican party way and seen the disaster it reaps. We have now tried the Bi-partisan way, the way of the Corrupt Cowards like Harry Reid and the Corrupt Coward Max Baucus. Which has deeply aided and abetted the death of the Will of the American People in getting a Public Option.

The only thing we haven’t tried is saying Fuck The Republicans, Let’s Do The Right Thing.

That has to come strongly and directly from President Obama….and from us.

Will President Obama make this tough decision in time to prevent forcing the American people to give…ugh…the Republicans another chance in the Mid-Term elections of 2010? A choice they should NOT have to make. A choice that they WILL have to make if the Democrats live up to their billing as spineless and ineffective governors? A choice they will HAVE to make if Democrats like the corrupt Dan Boren (Coward OK) favor the lobbyists over the Will of The People?


One of most recalcitrant Democrats in the health care debate said on Wednesday that his skepticism about a public health insurance option was driven by concern for the health of private insurers.

Appearing on MSNBC, Blue Dog Democrat Dan Boren of Oklahoma said that he generally agreed that a government-run insurance program could effectively lower costs for consumers.

“The problem,” he argued, “is in a state like Oklahoma, where we have a lot of private insurers, you have a public option come in and it drives everything else out and the only thing left is the public option and then you have rationed care.”

The Voters, The American people should NOT have to make that choice. We rejected the Republicans roundly in the last two elections.

Literally the ONLY thing that could let the dying Republican Party back into power is….the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party as represented by Corrupt Cowards like Max Baucus.

 

51 comments

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    • Arctor on July 29, 2009 at 20:14
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    Dem leadership in Senate truly wanted that public option and actually were anything other than the left-side of the power structure, here to placate us when the Repugs are out of power, then Max Baucus would not be able to stand in the way of progress. If they truly wanted it done, he would be swept away with no trouble. He’s doing the rest of them the favor of being the bad cop to their good cop!

    • Inky99 on July 29, 2009 at 20:37
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    http://trueslant.com/matttaibb…


    It’s been clear from the start that the Democrats would make a great show of doing something real, then they would fold prematurely, ram through some piece-of-shit bill with some incremental/worthless change in it, and then in the end blame everything on Max Baucus and Bill Nelson, saying, “By golly, we tried our best!”

    Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Max Baucus, Bill Nelson, or anyone else. If the Obama administration wanted to pass a real health care bill, they would do what George Bush and Tom DeLay did in the first six-odd years of this decade whenever they wanted to pass some nightmare piece of legislation (ie the Prescription Drug Bill or CAFTA): they would take the recalcitrant legislators blocking their path into a back room at the Capitol, and beat them with rubber hoses until they changed their minds.

    The reason a real health-care bill is not going to get passed is simple: because nobody in Washington really wants it. There is insufficient political will to get it done. It doesn’t matter that it’s an urgent national calamity, that it is plainly obvious to anyone with an IQ over 8 that our system could not possibly be worse and needs to be fixed very soon, and that, moreover, the only people opposing a real reform bill are a pitifully small number of executives in the insurance industry who stand to lose the chance for a fifth summer house if this thing passes.

    It won’t get done, because that’s not the way our government works. Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters. The situation we have here is an angry and desperate population that at long last has voted in a majority that it believes should be able to pass a health care bill. It expects something to be done. The task of the lawmakers on the Hill, at least as they see things, is to create the appearance of having done something. And that’s what they’re doing. Personally, I think they’re doing a lousy job even of that. I lauded Roddick for playing out the string with heart, and giving a good show. But these Democrats aren’t even pretending to give a shit, not really. I mean, they’re not even willing to give up their vacations.

    The guy NAILS it.

    At the end, he says this:


    What’s left? Third-party politics?

    Yes.  That’s EXACTLY what is left for us.  It’s really the only choice we have.  Nobody wants that because it means YEARS of work, organizing, fighting.  

    But that’s the only option we have, really.

    As soon as we admit that the system as it exists now, both parties, is irretrievably broken, the better off we’ll be.

  3. …I’ve read in quite a while.  It’s good though, and needs to be loudly yelled from the rooftops.  Thanks buhdy.

    Inky’s comment and reprint of Taibbi is also well done and much needed.

    I’m so sick of this.  We need to tear this entire establishment down and start over.    We need a new Declaration of Independence from the corrupt, Washington D.C. beltway bandits who don’t care about anything beyond their own capital accumulation, power, and status.  To Hell with the rest of us.  They’d just as soon drown us out in another Katrina and not have to deal with us.

    What was his name again?  Max F**kus?

    • Edger on July 29, 2009 at 20:59
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    isn’t the only corrupt coward.

    As Taibbi notes quite clearly, it looks like the only health care guarantees Max and the rest of the cowards want provided is guarantees of their own economic health, and everybody else can go fuck themselves.

    As Intrepid Liberal Journal pointed out awhile back in Max Baucus Is A Corporatist Class Warrior:

    Baucus is willing to offer rhetorical platitudes suggesting he supports expanding health care but is really working to preserve the domain of the medical industrial complex at the expense of regular folks. According to OpenSecrets.org, these are the top five industries contributing to Baucus campaigns between 2003-2008:

    Securities & Investment $832,918

    Lawyers/Law Firms    $668,004

    Insurance $590,185

    Health Professionals $537,141

    Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $524,813

    Max Baucus reminds me of Senator Pat Geary, the fictional corrupt Democratic U.S. senator in the movie Godfather II, who ended up with his soul owned by the Mafia. He even looks a little like him. Life imitates art?

  5. It’s Obama and Rahm Emmanual that set the tone for this–that have killed single payer–which is the only meaningful reform possible.

    • dmc on July 29, 2009 at 22:12
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    I would propose that we go back to the basics and build a first-rate public health care delivery system that takes care of people whether or not they have health insurance, i.e. county hospitals, community health clinics, etc.

    Why the fuck should we have to pay the insurance companies to “cover” us, just on the off-chance that they might use some small fraction of that money to pay our bills in the unfortunately event that we actually do need health care.

    We can’t we just leave the insurance companies alone, for those who can get their bills actually paid by insurance companies great, you can continue on as is, but then focus our public funds on building up a quality public health care delivery system that takes care of all of those without coverage, or those who’s coverage has failed to come through when needed?

    In other words, we don’t need no stinkin’ health insurance; what we need is health care!  

    • TomP on July 29, 2009 at 22:16
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    many people are seeing part of the Democratic Party for what it is: corrupt cowards.  Now, will they help reclaim the party or create alternatives?  The first step is acknowledging the problem and the problem is certain corrupt and cowardly Democrats.  

  8. Not. I want a health care system where when you get hurt or sick, you can get treatment and not pay for it.  It’s available to you, and it won’t bankrupt you.  You won’t die without treatment. You won’t have to balance the pain in your chest against the amount it might cost to fix it.  Is this a hard concept?  I don’t think so.  I think it’s what a great majority of American voters wants.

    Everything else beyond that, all of the arguments that don’t begin and end with the goal of free, universal health care, is the politics of preserving a blood sucking insurance industry.  All of the policy arguments aren’t really about getting everyone care.  They’re about the financial health of insurance companies.

    We’ve put enough wonkiness into the discussion to make it unfathomable.

    Now it’s time, finally, to deal with the broad generality: we need universally available, free healthcare.  And if we really want it, we can have it.  Maybe not right now.  Maybe we have to wait.  Maybe we have to get out in the streets.  Maybe we have ot organize, give the incumbents primaries, fund the opposition.  You know the drill.  If we really want it, we can have it.  Put another way, we need to dump every single legislator that votes no.  We need to make a single payer health care system our litmus test for voting.

  9. I prefer the single payer option.  But in building to it, if we can’t get the public option, it is because they simply don’t want to give us what we need.  One congressman on Huffpo said he will vote against because of the large number of Health Care companies in his state.

  10. An overwhelming majority of Americans want health care reform legislation to include a strong public option, but Senator Conrad doesn’t care what an overwhelming majority of Americans want.  If he did, there would have been a strong public option in his Senate Finance Committee bill.  

    Senator Conrad is corrupt.  There’s no other explanation for his betrayal of the American people, there’s no other explanation for his disgraceful conduct on that committee, there’s no other explanation for his refusal to support a public option.  The insurance industry has been spending more than a million dollars each and every day to kill the public option.  Conrad’s committee killed it for them.  Not only did they kill it, they told the media they are very pleased with themselves.

    Nothing Conrad has said, is saying, or ever will say can excuse what he has done.  In a democracy, the voices of the people are supposed to be heard.  But our voices aren’t heard, only the voices of K Street lobbyists are heard.  Corporate interests control the Republican Party, they control far too many Democrats, they control Kent Conrad.  

    No one has done more talking about health care reform lately than Conrad, but talk is cheap.  It’s actions that matter, and his actions confirm in no uncertain terms that he cannot be respected, he cannot be trusted, he cannot be believed.  When he returns to North Dakota, tell him that, tell him power corrupts, tell him he’s walking, talking proof if it.

    Calling our senators and reps is important, but we should also write LTE’s telling other people to call them.

  11. In charge of the Democratic Party.

  12. Health Insurance Stocks Soar On Baucus Deal

    . . . .

    Over at Campaign Silo, Teddy Partridge looks at the kinds of returns involved in the health care reform arena:

    News that Senator Max Baucus’ Finance Committee deal on health care financing excluded a public option sent health insurance stocks soaring Tuesday.

    Shares of U.S. health insurers rose broadly on Tuesday on hopes a health reform bill would not include a government-run option, which has drawn strong opposition from insurers who fear it would destroy the private marketplace.

    The S&P Managed Health Care index of large U.S. health insurers closed 6.5 percent higher.

    Aetna rose 12.6 percent, Coventry was up 12.7 percent and Cigna was 7.7 percent higher, all on the New York Stock Exchange. Centene rose 7.9 percent.

    This is funny, because I am reliably informed that Max Baucus has concerns that government intervention in private markets could be a disaster for the country!

  13. How Corporate Media, Sellouts in Congress and Industry Bigs Have Hijacked the Health Care Debate

    . .  . . They’ve successfully focused the health care debate on the short-term costs to the federal government’s bottom line, obscuring the potential impact that a meaningful realignment of the health care system would have on the economy as a whole. In so doing, opponents of reform have hoodwinked much of the public into believing that investments in America’s national health care system will wind up costing individuals more than they had gained from the effort.

    . . . . So, next time you see some congressional meat-puppet on TV discussing how much a plan will cost, or lamenting its limited potential for cost containment, keep in mind that it’s his or her ideology that is directly to blame for those shortcomings.

    It’s only because of pressure from industry groups, Republicans and Blue Dog Dems that congressional leaders took single-payer off the table (and threw advocates out of the room) and gave us a limited public insurance option — a pale shadow of what reformers had been promised.

    Now, those same forces are bent on killing an already-watered-down proposal. If they succeed, we can expect more human suffering, more outlandish increases in premiums, more people being denied care, an increase in the numbers of uninsured and a continued drag on the American economy.

    Single-payer is really the only plan that would actually save money and do any good period!

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