Category: Health Care

Since the Democrats intend to actually vote on the health insurance bail out next week, now that Speaker Pelosi has repeated that the Public Option is Off of Our Table, and said,

 “I’m quite sad that a public option isn’t in there. ”  

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpoin…

Sad in the Baby Seal Syndrome way, as she also said she was for single payer, herself  (eyeroll icon øø),

….   they’ve sent out a memo with the schedule (try not to laugh too hard at the thought of the them sticking to one) and some talking points for Congresspeople to take back to their districts during the Easter vacation.   They also told the members to just shut up on reconciliation:

http://www.politico.com/news/s…

http://www.politico.com/livepu…

“At this point, we have to just rip the band-aid off and have a vote – up or down; yes or no?” the memo said. “Things like reconciliation and what the rules committee does is INSIDE BASEBALL.”

“People who try and start arguments about process on this are almost always against the actual policy substance too, often times for purely political reasons.”

I take it they are going to do everything in their power to prevent just that – an up or down vote – from occurring with the Senate and the Public Option, so look for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposed amendment to mysteriously and quietly vanish into the ether.  

In a lengthy interview on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, Congressman Dennis Kucinich explained why he would not vote for the present health care bill and defended his position against attacks from people on the left like Markos Moulitsas.  He also spoke about the subjects of Afghanistan, campaign finance, and the passing of activist Granny D.

I mean, I have a responsibility to take a stand here on behalf of those who want a public option. There’s about thirty-four members of the Senate, at least, who have signed on to saying they support a public option. If I were to just concede right now and say, “Well, you know, whatever you want. All this pressure’s building. Just forget about it,” actually weakens every last-minute bit of negotiations that would try to improve the bill. So I think that it’s really critical to take this stand, because without it, there’s no real control over premiums. Without it, we have nothing in the bill except the privatization of our healthcare system.

We are now entering the final insult phase of Health Care by the Democratic Party.

Dick Durbin went on record to state that he would whip the Senate against any consideration for “public option” related amendments to be brought up in that chamber — even though over 40+ Senators are already formally on record in favor of supporting having it added during reconcilliation.  His excuse?  The House would never agree to it.  The same House that had already passed it last year. Keep in mind that the original reason why the Senate dropped the public option, was because it did not have 60 votes — not 50. Simply getting 50 was never (originally) a problem.

Durbin has since said that he will strongly support the public option if (and only if) the House moves to add it back first (before the Senate acts) during the reconcillation process. So Durbin is trying to fool people into thinking that we would have a public option — but it is just the House that is the obstacle  (the same House that had already passed it last year). In fact, Durbin could allow the public option amendment, and whip the Senate in favor of it..and then make the House vote on that.

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Meanwhile, over in the House, Nancy Pelosi is now saying that she will never take up the public option because the U.S. Senate could not ever pass the bill. But the Senate never had a problem with 50 people (it had been 60 that was the original problem), and already 40+ Senators have come out on their own and publically signed a statement pledging support for a Senate public option. Given Durbin’s artifical and phony requirement that the House must act first, Nancy Pelosi could add the public option, if she really wanted to, into the House version — as we know the House had already passed a bill last year with the public option included.

But now Nancy Pelosi (like Joe Lieberman) only supports a gutted House bill that is completely stripped of the public option.   See:   Pelosi Blocks Public Option.  Of course, Pelosi wants to just blame it all on the Senate, where getting 60 votes had been the
problem — not getting 50.

“We’re talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation.”

         —Nancy ‘Impeachment is off the table‘ Pelosi,   March 12, 2010

Cross-posted from Sum of Change

So, there is a video that is getting a lot of attention amongst the right wing nuts:

Flying assassin robot, Marc Thiessen Markos Moulitsas, enters the final stage of development.

I’m not sure if Moulitsas’ gambit is tantamount to:

The privileged stupidity of Maureen Dowd:

Maureen Dowd thinks she can walk into Mecca and demand to know what all this gol’ darned Islamic fundamentalism is all about.

Or the arrogant de-tumescence of Tom Friedman.

You can read this and other fine recent Daniel Larison for an explanation of just how shameful this sort of post-hoc rationalizing of murder and destruction really is, but what actually strikes me as the most inhuman, the most anti-human idea of all the inhuman ideas lodged in the reptilian, blood-drinking brains of Thomas Friedman and his crocodilian cohort, is the horrific notion that the highest lifetime achievement is voting in an election. Seriously. The pinnacle of the human experience at the ballot box. It is quite seriously insane. It elevates a procedural aspect of one particular form of government to a categorical moral virtue. It proposes that participation in electoral politicking occupies the same plane of significance and value as orgasm or childbirth, as making a home, as cooking a meal for one’s family, as meeting a new lover, as seeing a beautiful work of art or hearing an ingenious piece of music, as singing, as dancing, as getting a good night’s sleep, as spending a day on the water, as bartering and bargaining at the marketplace, as religious ecstasy, if you’re into that sort of thing . . . I mean, there is a whole panoply of centrally human experiences, and while a weak argument can be made that these are more readily available under some forms of governance than others, acts of civic engagement just aren’t that fucking important. A life without elections or a life without lovemaking? If you had to choose. And that is what’s so goddamned monstrous about Friedman. We destroyed these people’s lives, and we propose to buy off their suffering with congressional campaigns? Jesus wept.

I personally think it’s somewhere in between.

It bodes not well, fellow detainees.

Cross-posted from Sum of Change

Today I dropped in on the health care rally in DC. Everyone who’s anyone was there (not literally, but it certainly felt that way when I was there).

Howard Dean was there. We got to ask him if he thinks the Democratic leadership is prepared to move forward without Republicans and if he agrees with the statement that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer made at the health care summit that everyone shares the same goal of covering all Americans:

video below the fold…

Over the past several months I’ve continued to document my problems with our broken health care system, particularly focusing on the options provided by those who are either unemployed, disabled, or who work low-wage jobs in which their employer does not provide the option of coverage.  My hope upon doing so is that more people will recognize the depths of the problem beyond just the soundbytes, the smears, and the distortions.  I aim to record the truth, not the fear-based rhetoric that many accept as God’s honest truth.  What I have discovered is that the problem goes much deeper than a position statement and only modestly resembles the demonizing propaganda disseminated by those who would kill reform altogether.  The real issues are just as troublesome, though they are far more ordinary and less inclined to high drama.  

Today’s latest hassle involves a matter of incorrect bill coding.  An insurance claim for lab work was not processed properly, so I opened the mailbox Saturday to find an eye-opening bill for a mere $1,323.  To say that I couldn’t exactly pay it in full would be an understatement.  Along with the bill was an itemized statement listing the cost of the twelve separate tests that were run.  Those who have a chronic illness of their own recognize that upon seeing a new specialist or doctor, he or she will often order several lab profiles at first as a means of eliminating other extenuating circumstances that might complicate the treatment of a primary diagnosis.  Sensible enough, except that many these tests are very expensive.  A test for Hepatitis, for example, cost $366, and a full drug screen cost $217.  Those with excellent insurance never blink an eye about the prohibitive cost, of course, because for them it is almost always covered in full.    

For those with sub-standard or nonexistent coverage, however, the situation is quite different.  As I have mentioned before, I have bipolar disorder, and as such take Lithium to stabilize my moods.  Lithium is a notoriously difficult drug to regulate because the most minor changes in environment or other seemingly innocuous changes will cause the levels in the bloodstream to vary considerably over time.  There is no other way to accurately measure its concentration in the bloodstream except through drawing blood and over the years I have gotten used to it, as best as one can under the circumstances.  Still, I report with much frustration that even a simple Lithium serum level costs $64 without insurance.  Someone who also has bipolar and is living in poverty could not easily afford to spend this kind of money and would likely choose to either go off his/her medication altogether, or stay on the meds and go months without having a lab profile, both of which are extremely dangerous options.    

originally posted by Will Urquhart at Sum of Change

I really hate having to come back to this over and over again. Let’s get our abortion-and-health-care basics down folks. The Senate bill does nothing to change the standard we have lived by that no federal funding shall be used for abortion.