Category: Congress

Dissatisfaction in Progressive circles with President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress continues to swell and grow.  Indeed, I myself am deeply disappointed that the same old legislative and partisan stalemates seem to be so firmly entrenched that even a phenomenon promising optimism and significant reform could not break old habits.  Still, rather than resort to the Howard Fineman/Maureen Dowd approach and play a game of “I-told-you-so”, I’d much rather avoid pettiness altogether and attempt to understand why we are faced with politics-as-usual when we are at a point in our nation’s history when we can least afford it.  Answers exist beyond the usual discourse though they are rarely raised when many would rather exchange philosophy for wonkery.  Wonkery has its place, but what we seek now are solutions and ideas, not process and jargon.    

Regarding our current crisis of several reform measures that have bogged down or are in danger of being passed or scuttled depending on the hours, much of the problem arrives when one considers that we are frequently confused by different allegiances to often incompatible schools of information dispersal and guidance.  Either we are in a stage in between two different paradigms or we have tried to blend together two absolutely contradictory styles, wondering why we can’t get any results afterward.  Conservatives frequently use purely linear leadership to achieve their ends and we on the left often use an uneasy mash up between linear leadership and its asymmetric counterpart.    

Linear leadership is the sort that was brought to this country by European colonists.  A small continent in land mass contained an enormous variety of different cultures, different languages, and different ways of looking at life.  With so much variance and so little likelihood of reaching consensus or finding common purpose, a forceful style of conducting affairs developed that quickly grew highly stratified and regimented.  In it, hierarchies, pecking orders, and ranking systems became of paramount importance, as did the underlying assumptions that leaders were few, followers were many, and a passive kind of obedience was to be practiced.  In all areas of Western life, this style dominated.  Speaking from a purely Christian perspective, most Christian denominations, sects, and faith groups even to this day follow this same model, whereby a leader (called by a variety of different names depending on which group one ascribes) frequently instructs fellow believers in the form of a sermon and holds much power to direct church policy.  A linear system is a passive manner of conveying a message.  I talk, you listen.  Placing power in the hands of a structured system frequently disenfranchises people and glosses over distinctions, but it is deliberate, effective, and highly successful in dividing and conquering as well as hammering home a singular message.    

Grassroots groups, however, are run on an asymmetric brand of leadership.  The idea is often not about top-down leadership, but on a more egalitarian approach where each individual voice is as important as anyone else’s.  Frequently, however, this creates problems when it comes down to agreeing on any uniform statement or platform that the entire group endorses as a whole.  What is frequently advanced is a notion that everyone has to find his or her own path towards understanding the challenges and issues the group seeks to influence and reform while simultaneously pressing the notion that no one’s path or interpretation should be ranked as more or less important by the organization as a whole.  The problem with grassroots groups is that they seek to affect policy by using one particular strategy that is not found within politics itself.  Politics is structured from top-to-bottom and rarely are those at the bottom granted the ability to speak with any degree of authority.  They are expected instead to be good foot soldiers, never question party line, with the hopes that they might rise up through the ranks and achieve greater distinction and a greater ability to be taken seriously and to contribute to the group dynamic.    

Many Native American groups were based upon an asymmetric model when it came down to making tribal decisions and stating individual opinions.  Though it was certainly more uniformly fair, its key failing was that it did not foster group unity, unintentionally creating factionalism in the process.  Native Americans never had the same sense of common purpose and common unity that Europeans did, which was why they were so easily defeated in battle and by court action.  Different tribes rarely felt any sense of collective solidarity with each other and there was often dissent and schism within tribes.  Some faith traditions, of which unprogrammed Quakers are one, have their worship services more aligned with this philosophy.  Unprogrammed Quakers have no minister and conduct worship without any element, aside, of course, from the start and the finish, planned out beforehand.  However, they often have difficulty reaching uniformity on a large scale basis and particularly from region to region, yearly meeting to yearly meeting.  As a result, different subsets and regional groups have very different priorities and very different ideas about what ought to be important and advanced.    

The 9/12 and Tea Party groups have faced this same problem and are in danger of breaking apart.  Motivated only by their opposition to what they perceive as a common threat, they have frequently broken apart when unable to achieve anything resembling one coherent message.  We might gloat at their self-destructive behavior, but learning from their mistakes and not repeating them within ourselves might be the best lesson of all.  We will need to ask ourselves, individually and collectively, what school do we want to set forth?  Top-down or spread-around?  Whatever we choose will need to be soberly contemplated, because each method has pros and cons, and so long as our opposition continues to use tactics that can, as we have seen, divide us easily in the hopes of conquering us, we cannot take this matter lightly.  We might have to acknowledge that a House divided against itself cannot stand.  It will become all one thing or all the other.    

Real people … who we knew and loved … who died unnecessarily in the U.S.

Real Life Stories of Americans

THE SILENT … NOW DECEASED

“My daughter got sick with cancer after her husband lost his job. She never told anyone she was sick because she knew the financial hardship it would cause and eventually the hospital would take their house for unpaid medical bills. We lost her in the following spring … We read her diary and learned all she was feeling and thinking. Now I wonder how many others are just like her in this America? And how many before her?”

Deaths due to Preventable Diseases: Dead Last

Rankings 1st to 19th. France, Japan, Australia, Spain, Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Portugal, United States

http://www.medicareforall.org/…

Pete DeFazio Slams Tim Geithner & Larry Summers  (TheYoungTurks)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Is it finally Time to Bail Out — MAIN Street ?

Wall Street HAS gotten all their Trillion Dollar Bail Out $$$$$$$$$$$$$

AND so far NOT much of it has Trickled Down to Main Street — Where it’s Most Needed!

Something ‘s got to give — and Soon!

Before Small Town America, (and Metro-America) rolls up the welcome mat, and fades into history.

It is with no small discouragement that I put my thoughts down today.  I never expected to be this disappointed with President Obama’s leadership ability and his handling of the proceedings.  Still, I concede that perhaps part of it is that the sheer number of daunting challenges which face us must be held in check by the realization that the legislative process is plodding and slow.  Every President, to some degree or another, bases his or her definition of Executive authority in contrast to the conduct of the previous person to hold the office.  Former President George W. Bush’s desire to circumvent the legislative branch and concentrate power in the White House at the expense of other branches no doubt shaped Obama’s desire to give Congress its fair share of say and impact.  This is a noble gesture, provided it works, and thus far it has not.  My hope is that our President will realize that there is a difference between ruling like a dictator and ruling like a strong Executive, and the lines between the two are neither fine, nor blurry.    

Because the responsibilities of the President are rather vaguely noted in our Constitution, each occupier of the office has taken his own interpretation of what precisely his job description connotes.  Those who have boldly adopted a stance that the Presidency ought to intercede directly and without apology into affairs some might consider the domain of other branches have been variously criticized for threatening to rule as an autocrat.  This is inevitable, since human selfishness and common sense dictates that everyone would like as big a piece of the pie as he or she can get.  Everyone will also be reliably counted on to object loudly if that piece ends up being reduced in size, especially if one thinks it owed to him or her.  Throw in partisan rancor, exaggeration, and media narrative and here one has a familiar formula that has been levied at any number of Presidents who, with the passage of time, history has seen fit to denote as “Great”.  

The reverse of this, of course, is being too conciliatory to other branches of government, a stance that has regrettably been President Obama’s undoing in recent months.  Presidents before have kept a tight leash on Congress, not out of some desire for complete control, regardless of how much Senators, Representatives, and pundits scream about it, but out of a genuine understanding that the Executive branch must set the tone, the pace, and the direction.  This is especially true now when though both the House and Senate have substantial Democratic majorities, the leadership tends to viscerally underwhelm and no one person has the force of personality to stand out front and be the face of Congressional mettle and resolve.  With so much that needs to be done, the President cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and watch with his hands on his hips.  He needs to take an active role in the game and if that means that the other players feel as though someone’s trying to grab the headlines from them, then so be it.    

Public opinion of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and of Congress in general reflects this dire situation of which we are faced.  A do-nothing accusation lends itself easily to guilty-until-proven-innocent when no one has yet successfully sold Health Care Reform, Financial Reform, Environmental Reform, or any other measure now on the docket.  What we have in its place are overly cautious and thoroughly uninspiring pronouncements that promise ultimate success in the wimpiest possible construction ever devised.  They almost beg to not offend the hearer.  The clear implication is that the latest version of the bill is a coalition of the fragile affair that could break apart at any moment.  This does not exactly foment trust, devotion, and fidelity in the eyes of voters.      

As is my wont, in instances like these, my mind drifts to similar struggles in different ages.  Historical events roughly four and a half centuries ago shaped the formation of our Union and indeed, mirror ours in certain ways.  

The climax of the English Civil War was the ascent of a commoner, Oliver Cromwell, to head the island nation.  A member of Parliament before the war, Cromwell successfully lead the forces of the legislative body into battle against those supporting the crown and in so doing won eventual victory.  A brilliant military strategist and general, Cromwell held little patience for the delays and cross-currents which bogged down passage and enactment of reforms, which meant that with time Cromwell concentrated more and more authority into his own hands.  Though he might have been impatient, one cannot help but sympathize to a degree with his dilemma, particularly right now when partisan or even inter-party bickering has brought even the most modest reform measure to a complete halt.    

As for the legislative frustrations that typified the times, they first began in the form of the Long Parliament, which was compromised of an expansive group of dissatisfied legislators aghast at the base incompetence of a heavily unpopular King.  This then gave way to the high drama of Pride’s Purge.  The Long Parliament was dissolved in large part because it met for eight years solid but, due to factionalism and indecisiveness, could never manage to come to a solid conclusion or resolution regarding much of anything.  The largely deposed King, Charles I, stalled every negotiation by playing different factions in the Parliamentary alliance against each other to his own advantage.  When a significant faction sought to keep the King in control, albeit as only a figurehead, thereby disregarding the authority of the army, a coup d’état commenced.  The Purge brutally, skillfully removed fully half of the body, leaving behind only those who supported the army, at which point the monarchy was effectively dissolved, the King beheaded, and England’s first and only attempt to rule without a sovereign instituted.      

What came next was the so-called “Rump Parliament”, a term that, as is sometimes the case, was made by its opposition as a means of derision but stuck nonetheless.  To this day, the phrase survives and is used to mean a gathering comprised of remnants of a much larger group or organization.  Though initially successful, the Rump met its end four years later.  Its undoing was a combination of its failure to come up with a new, working Constitution and its flagrant disregard of the wishes of Cromwell, who commanded that the body dissolve, which it refused to do.  After personally observing the stalemate for himself, the soon-to-be Lord Protector bellowed,

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

After the Rump came the appropriately-titled Barebones Parliament, which was even less successful.  In disgust, Cromwell took control as a near-dictator and was kept in power by the backing by the army until his death five years later.  The complexities of those times are fascinating and cannot be done justice by a brief synopsis, but my greater point is to note the morass between then and now and, in so doing, note how much easier would be our lot if Congress could ever get a thing accomplished without bogging down into a state of maddening paralysis.  The Cromwellian Protectorate lasted only slightly longer than one modern-day Presidential term in office, at which point English citizens grew weary of it and re-established the monarchy.  It is that lesson above all others which I wish I could impart to our elected representatives and the current occupant of the White House, else they squander a golden opportunity.    

How tempting it would be if the ability existed to instantly call for new elections or even a way to rid ourselves of Representative and Senators whose stated agenda seems to be obstructionism and baseless fear-peddling.  To return to how I began this post, I know that we are stuck with the men and women we have in Congress.  I also understand that we have the theoretical right to throw these people out if they fail to be satisfactory stewards of our trust and our concerns, but one would be remiss to not note how they are often more indebted to the sway of fund raising, high value donors, and corporate interest.  Moreover, I concede that the system as it exists is patently not designed for the kind of major overhauls we desperately require.  The safeguards in place are designed in part for wiser, paternalistic heads to soberly contemplate, stroke beards meaningfully, and then cautiously proceed.  There are too many procedural rules, stalling tactics, and needless esoterica embedded deeply in a branch of government whose ways and means are frequently noted as “arcane”.

However, the time for real leadership arrived about four or five months ago.  While I concede that President Obama picked his strategy for Health Care Reform based on the failed example of President Clinton, it is long past due for a change in strategy.  Sometimes in seeking to avoid a mistake, we over-compensate and create new problems in the process.  Cautiousness is sometimes a viable public option, but as regards a Democratic caucus that is beholden to so many different identity groups, so much ideological difference, and a big tent that strains to be wide enough to accept everyone, else they pitch their own somewhere else, Presidential authority is the only way to get everyone on board.  If the Left has a true skill, it is in finding hairline cracks in party unity.  If the Obama of 2008 can return, then all will be forgiven and we can move forward.  Otherwise, we will be stuck with mealy-mouthed, soft-pedaled promises and over-cautious optimism.  

For a time, finding a middle ground with stated opponents was the concept of the hour, advanced by a young, idealistic President who seemed to really believe that a Washington, DC, set in its ways was ready to come to the table in a spirit of fellowship.  I seek not to be the latest to declare the effective end of a noble experiment or to register my frustrations at the true believers of the pratice, but rather to encourage the concept where, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, reason is left free to combat it.  Like so many revolutionary ideas, finding that which unites is not a passive endeavor and requires a equal proportion of self-reflection and sweat.  Indeed, it is this same effort that must be undertaken by each of us if we are to develop effective vaccines to combat racism, classism, sexism, and other infectious diseases, while knowing full well that they will mutate with time.  If only research and development could be a term-limited matter, but alas, it is not and may never be.        

Much partisan and ideological nastiness comes from simple misunderstanding, one which assumes that surface differences define the whole.  A country as large in area and diverse in population as ours could hardly be expected to adopt or develop a kind of overall uniformity.  Even countries a tenth the size of ours possess a variety of dialects, religious identifications, customs, and means of expression.  Face value is skin deep.  

As Politico’s Glenn Thrush writes,

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) has bucked Nancy Pelosi on nearly every vote – including health care – and is said to dwell deep in the Pelosi doghouse.

But he had nothing but kind words for the speaker during an appearance in his district this week – telling a meeting of high school students she was “the most misunderstood person in Washington,” according to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

“She’s very misunderstood,” the congressman said. “She’s a devout Catholic. Don’t get in a Bible discussion with her.”

Religious expression in the South is a very public matter, as are open confessions of faith.  Indeed, I do not cringe internally or grow uncomfortable when I hear scriptural references invoked to underscore larger points or become offended by those who profess their faith in Christ, but I know some from North of the Mason-Dixon line who do.  Regarding my own greater understanding, had I not deliberately befriended others who had grown up with different cultural expectations and practices, I would not have been able to correctly understand their notable discomfort and might even have assumed that Northerners as a bloc were strictly secular or that they all spoke and believed with one voice.  One such a strongly held misconception exists among some in the South, asserting if one takes a certain controversial stance, like say, the right of a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy, one cannot possibly be religious or possess any spiritual grounding whatsoever.        

Abraham Lincoln pointed out this irony in his Second Inaugural Address, given shortly before the end of the Civil War.  Who better to address this issue than a man born in a border state, Kentucky, which held divided loyalties during the conflict.  Though Lincoln himself led the eventually victorious Union forces, several of his wife’s close relatives were Southern sympathizers and many took up arms in the service of the Confederacy.  This left Mrs. Lincoln open to charges that she was either a Confederate spy or a traitor, charges that while unfounded, were nonetheless easy to make.  The Washington of their time was also a city of split personalities, indebted to both Eastern and Southern culture.  Lincoln’s remarks that muddy day in March have application to any protracted struggle where both sides of a conflict claim sole ownership over the moral high ground and direction of the debate.      

Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

Sixty years prior, our third President had emerged victorious in what had been the first, but certainly not the last contentious election for the highest office in the land.  As a child of the Enlightenment, he advanced a school of thought common to those times whereby a belief in logic and rationality could by themselves suffice to end religious intolerance and resulting persecution.  Though the theocracy so many fear has never taken firm root in American soil, Thomas Jefferson’s focus was on a virulent strain of this same repressive attitude that might find firmer footing and a breeding ground on our shores.  In his first Inaugural Address, which I have quoted earlier in passing, Jefferson sought to unify a nation which had, within just four Presidential election cycles, become a two-party nation in flagrant disregard of the wishes of its creators.  

Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.

As for these times, we are justified in registering reservations and in so doing, refusing to be railroaded or ignored.  We are well within our rights to apply steady pressure and fight for our causes.  However, if we wish to make the Democratic party a more perfect union, rather than the disorganized, dysfunctional family it often resembles, it will require more than sloganeering, sweeping pronouncements, and digging in for the inevitable siege.  Behold, a Blue Dog sticking up for the oft-reviled Speaker of the House!  Will wonders never cease?  A slightly different way of looking at supposedly unresolvable differences led a member of our party from a different school of thought to assert strongly and unequivocally that, though the packaging and wrapping may be different, commonality exists.  That which one is accustomed need not blind us to see friends and allies not immediately like us or, worse yet, to confuse, as Jefferson wrote, differences of opinion which are not differences of principle.  The shovel-ready projects in front of us require us to do more than propose and purchase the needed tools.  We must also dig into the earth, for it is only then that we can move mountains.  

“Don’t Let the Perfect become the Enemy of the Good” — it’s common knowledge, right?

Important words of wisdom with Great Historical Significance, right?

OK, if you say so …

François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name Voltaire, was a French writer, deist and philosopher.

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.

* The better is the enemy of the good.   — La Bégueule (1772)

 Variant translations:

   The perfect is the enemy of the good.

   The best is the enemy of the good.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V…

Voltaire

Author and Philosopher, 1694 – 1778

Francois Marie Arouet (pen name Voltaire) was born on November 21, 1694 in Paris. Voltaire’s intelligence, wit and style made him one of France’s greatest writers and philosophers.

[…]

In 1726, Voltaire insulted the powerful young nobleman, “Chevalier De Rohan,” and was given two options: imprisonment or exile. He chose exile …

Woooo, some drama … could be a notable lesson here?  

There has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past day or so as those who follow the healthcare debate react to the Stupak/Some Creepy Republican Guy Amendment.

The Amendment, which is apparently intended to respond to conservative Democrats’ concerns that too many women were voting for the Party in recent elections, was attached to the House’s version of healthcare reform legislation that was voted out of the House this weekend.

The goal is to limit women’s access to reproductive medicine services, particularly abortions; this based on the concept that citizens of good conscience shouldn’t have their tax dollars used to fund activities they find morally repugnant.

At first blush, I was on the mild end of the wailing and gnashing spectrum myself…but having taken a day to mull the thing over, I’m starting to think that maybe we should take a look at the thinking behind this…and I’m also starting to think that, properly applied, Stupak’s logic deserves a more important place in our own vision of how a progressive government might work.

It’s Political Judo Day today, Gentle Reader, and by the time we’re done here it’s entirely possible that you’ll see Stupak’s logic in a whole new light.

This is Mike Gravel, the chairman of The Democracy Foundation.  On November 10th, we are going to be organizing a money bomb to try and raise money à la Ron Paul.  We’re not deluding ourselves that we’re raising the millions, but we need to raise enough money to pay some videographers to be able to do a documentary on the National Initiative and how it will empower the American people to be able to vote on the policy issues that affect their lives, once it’s in place.

The National Initiative is very different from the initiative process that we have in the twenty four states around the country.  Those states – you just qualify, everybody throws money at it, and the people vote.  That is not a good way to make law.  Law requires a deliberative process where you have hearings, markups, proper communications, and the like.  And in that way, the people can make laws and properly deliberate the policy issues that affect their lives.  And that’s what the National Initiative will be – it’s a meta-tool which we put in the hands of the people, so they will be able to then have an affect on how they are governed.  It will be the first time that people will have a government “by the people,” because the people will become lawmakers.

The definition of freedom is the participation in power.  Power in representative government is lawmaking.  If you don’t make the laws, all you can do is obey the law or go to jail.  And so if you really want to have freedom, what we have to do is to make ourselves lawmakers.  And the only tool available to do that is the National Initiative.  And this is a tool that will not be enacted by representative government, because it dilutes their power and they’re not about to empower the people.  

And that’s the reason why we have been struggling with an organization called The National Initiative for Democracy, sponsored by The Democracy Foundation.  And so that’s the reason why we’re making an appeal now for your help, to donate whatever you can afford so that we can pay for this documentary and then use this documentary as a device to inform people so that they’ll be aware of the potential of the National Initiative as a tool to empower them to have a more meaningful role in the governing of their lives.  

I hope that you will be generous and give whatever you can.  Thank you – thank you very, very much.

I will be taking questions and replying to comments for a few minutes later tonight.  Please post anything you’d like me to answer, although I might not be able to answer every comment.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    I’d like to share with you all this comment that was placed in my diary yesterday by Dkos User lascaux, as I think it sums up what we as Progressive activists and the Democrtaic base MUST accomplish in order to effect REAL CHANGE we can believe in.

What I learned

What this reform fight has taught me:

it is not enough to elect a progressive president, we need to elect liberals and progressives in congress as well.

    The frustrating inability of this Democratically controlled Congress is PROOF that our job did NOT END when Obama won the Presidential election in 2008. In fact, our work has just begun, and we must face it with the same dedication, intensity and enthusiasm that we did in 2008, or we WILL lose, because we simply don’t have the money to compete with the special interests that control our Government.

    But we DO have the people, and they can’t beat that.

    So, here’s how we should FIGHT BACK.

I have seen a number of Diaries writtien over at DKos today that are just attacking Dennis Kucinich and making him out to be a villain, for having done the correct thing and voted no on the faux Health Care “reform” Bill.

As I feared, that whole site just blindly believes all the untrue soundbites, phony PR, exaggerated claims, and hype about the Health Bill, and DKos neither knows nor cares at all about the actual language of the Bill, and what this very bad Bill actually does, and what it does not do.

In fact, it is the Insurance Companies who are cheerleading even more wildly than the people over at DKos, which is a reflection of the ignorance, and dogmatic “anything the DParty or Obama does is great” mindset that DKos is hopelessly stuck in.

I am banned over at DKos.  I cannot write anything there. So this Essay is a plea and a request for someone here to write a Diairy over at the DKos site (on my behalf), that both defends Dennis Kucinich (and his no vote), and also educates the readship there on just how bad this Health Care Bill really is.

You do not have do write a new Diary from scratch.  I have already written one Diary right here at Docudharma on this very subject that you can just copy word-for-word verbatim, that detailed the reasons why the “reform” Bill deserves to be defeated.

Please See and Use this:  Why The Health Care Bill Deserves To Be Defeated!

You can just repost it word-for-word.  I also wrote a second essay here, containing an additional statement by Kucinich, that also helps provide some further background context for a no vote:

See: Statement by Kucinich on Health Care Bill

(See Update below:)

So much for progressives who promised they would vote “NO” if there was no robust public option.  Only Kucinich and Massa stood by their words.

This, from Dennis Kucinich, on the passing of the healthcare bill by Congress:

Who Said They’d Vote No on a Healthcare Bill This Bad in July, And Who Lied.  By David Swanson.

These 57 (PDF) said they would not accept a bill this bad. These two kept their word: Kucinich, Massa. The other 55 lied. Kucinich’s statement below the fold.

Kucinich: Why I Voted NO

Washington D.C. (November 7, 2009) – After voting against H.R. 3962 – Affordable Health Care for America Act, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement:

“We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

“Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

“But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies – a bailout under a blue cross.

“By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states “since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.” Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that “money will start flowing in again” to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

“During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The “robust public option” which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

“Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks’ hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy — in which most Americans live — the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

“This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America’s manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

“Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.”

Well, at least we have a list of all the progressives that didn’t stand the test — think they and all the other Dems need to hear from us BIG TIME!!!!!!!

BTW, already the health care insurance industry stocks have gone up!!!!!

Update With the Latest News:  Well, the “shine” has already been rubbed off of the “new penny.”  I don’t think this will surprise many, but — see the rest here.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

(Updated to include all 4 videos, with a hat tip to Kossacks Scarce and Miss Information)

     Not just GUTS, but HEART too.

     After reading over 8 minutes of the testimony of the people who have lost loved ones to our Murder For Profit Health Insurance, Alan Grayson invoked the name of God and pleadedbefore Congress “For Gods’ sake, I look forward to a time when we will have finally done our jobs.”

Video 1

    I have provided a short transcript of the final video of Grayson’s House floor speech, and I hope you will forgive me for not including a transcript of the first. I can not transcribe it by ear without welling up in tears myself.

    More below the fold.