Trading sex for health care?

That's how Tom Hartmann introduced me to Terri Carlson a couple of weeks ago.

She is a woman who understood that the backroom deals on healthcare 'reform' giving industry what it wanted signalled the alarm when it put Scott Brown into office during Massachusetts' Special January election.

A little summing up of the sitch from Glenn Greenwald:

Progressives:  We want a public option!

Democrats/WH:  We
agree with you totally!  Unfortunately, while we have 50 votes for it,
we just don't have 60, so we can't have it.  Gosh darn that filibuster
rule.  

Progressives:  But you can use reconciliation like Bush did so often, and then you only need 50 votes.

Filbuster reform advocates/Obama loyalists:  Hey progressives, don't be stupid!  Be pragmatic.  It's not realistic or Serious to use reconciliation to pass health care reform.  None of this their fault.  It's the fault of the filibuster.  The White House wishes so badly that it could pass all these great progressive bills, but they're powerless, and they just can't get 60 votes to do it.  

[Month later]

Progressives:  Hey,
great!  Now that you're going to pass the bill through reconciliation
after all, you can include the public option that both you and we love,
because you only need 50 votes, and you've said all year you have that!

Democrats/WH:
 No.  We don't have 50 votes for that (look at Jay Rockefeller). 
Besides, it's not the right time for the public option.  The public
option only polls at 65%, so it might make our health care bill --
which polls at 35% -- unpopular.  Also, the public option and
reconciliation are too partisan, so we're going to go ahead and pass
our industry-approved bill instead . . . on a strict party line vote.

Just a very serious and pragmatic view of reality. We get it and we aren't gonna just roll over on it. Dems better deal with their problems now or they will pay the price in the voting booth. Because we do get it.

Darn, just realized the fatal flaw in that goofy plan.

She's an actual human citizen.  Sorry, that is, she's a non-corporate who circulates blood rather than the dollars able to buy all of the free speech needed to obtain an audience with our leaders.

Remember the Baucus caucus? I guess she didn't contribute to fund Senate Finance Committee reelection campaigns, or maybe not enough.

It seems so perverse since President Obama's SOTU specifically asked for the ideas she's trying to communicate to legislators for a year.

WE ARE TURNING THE TABLES ON OBAMA -- You in?

Flowers v. Obama

SINGLE PAYER IS NOW OFFICIALLY ON THE TABLE? How do I know?

ALL OF US -- with the help of Dr. Flowers --- JUST COLLECTIVELY PLACED IT
THERE. 

The challenge is
on! 

In a comment to a post by Rabbi Michael Lerner in Tikkun Daily, Kucinich Denounces Health Care Sell Out by House Dems, Jill Schmidt asked:

I don't get why insurance companies aren't for a bill that will get them 21 million more clients. If anyone out there gets it, please reply.

Jill poses an excellent question that is shared by hard-working, thoughtful Americans from coast to coast. Fortunately, Goldman Sachs revealed the answer in a perverse ten page report posted in its entirety by Huff-Po reporter Sam Stein. (Kudos to Sam for his excellent work!)

The answer also explains why we must continue to work with the Democrats who actually voted for a health care reform bill to end the tyranny of insurance corporations over our personal lives.

At least two provisions in the House  health reform bill are very troubling, the de facto repeal
of Roe v. Wade and this.  In a powerful post on the Welcome Back to
Pottersville, poster Jurassicpork laid it out.  This is as clear and
logical a statement as I've seen on the utter contempt that
Congress has for the people.  We're creating a new criminal class,
people who can't afford health insurance.  The solution - fines and
prison.  All thanks to the Money Party which has reached depths
previously unimaginable.  Well worth a read.  Michael Collins

Meet Andy Cobb, a former professional deceiver for Blue Cross Blue Shield. He’s done all the damage he could being a pretty face for Blue Cross Blue Shield’s health insurance, so now he’s branching out toward his next big whitewashing opportunity.

Read more

Bumped and Promoted. Originally posted 2009-10-23 20:14:57 -0400. It seems that both Carol and CTMan also found this (or a very similar) video, too. -- GH

"...one of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing..."

One of the cooler expressions of guerrilla theater that I can recall!

AHIP is the powerful insurance lobby that spends 5 million dollars a week trying to kill health care reform. Billionaires for Wealthcare is a grassroots network looking to stop them - with song.

• AHIP and other insurance and HMO interests spend nearly $5 million per week undermining real health care reform, including a public option.

• AHIP has resorted to out-right lying and scare tactics to block health care reform. They sent letters that lie to seniors about what health care reform means for Medicare, and they issued a report on the costs of health care reform legislation that is so misleading even the reports embarrassed authors distanced themselves from the way AHIP used their work.

• Every year, 45,000 people die because they cant get access to the health care they need. Yet AHIP continues to stand in the way of health care reform that would provide coverage to millions of Americans because the industry is more concerned with protecting profits than saving lives.

Lyrics to "Public Option Annie"

Don't you think so?

Weiner Calls on GOP Opponents of the Public Option to Give Up Their Medicare

David Barrows: "Can you trust the corporations?"

Kevin Zeese: Under George W. Bush, the US wrote "health care for all" into the Iraqi constitution!!

Originally posted Wed, 09/30/2009 - 23:05, bumped for addition of Buzzflash of post - standingup

I had the good fortune to travel to Washington, DC., and interview Senator Jeff Bingaman on September 18 about Medicare for All, the Baucus Bill and other topics related to health care reform.

Everybody's favorite diarist, Land of Enchantment, was kind enough to edit my video and post it on YouTube.

Thank you LoE for putting up with me and editing the video! It is embedded after the fold. A summary (not a transript) of Parts One and Two follows the videos for the YouTube impaired.

First, a disclaimer:

I am not a professional journalist and I happen to like my Senator. Last winter, a few New Mexico County health directors got wind of a quiet Bush Administration plan to eliminate emergency rooms serving the uninsured through an arcane change of regulations. We could not believe the lack of news coverage, and went to Senator Bingaman for help. He took on the issue (with no help from leadership in either party, or any other Senator), and successfully pushed through a moratorium on the rules changes as an amendment to the budget for Iraq.

I diaried our Medicaid Rules Adventure here and here.

He could just as easily have let all the indigent and teaching hospitals go under and then blamed the Republican Party. That's why I like him.

Here's the vid in two parts. Please don't hold the camerawork against me!

Part 1

I had the opportunity to interview New Mexico Congressman Ben Ray Lujan in his Washington office on Thursday September 17. Limited internet access while traveling, unfamiliarity with mp3 files, Rosh Hashanah and the complete failure of our household plumbing conspired to prevent me from posting the interview and transcript until today. I apologize in advance for the poor sound quality.

And I must add the following disclaimer: I am not a hard-nosed professional reporter, but rather a constituent of Congressman Lujan. I like the policies he supports. What follows is a friendly dialogue about health care between a Congressman and a constituent.

Several main points of interest emerged.

Perhaps disappointed that death panels failed to frighten the tar and feathers out of the average American, the right wing appears to have settled on a new meme to undercut healthcare reform: the CDC will force males to undergo circumcision. (h/t Avahome.)

Reprinted from JRichard's Gather blog. -- GH

Ted Kennedy's dying wish is no secret. He wanted to vote to bring in health care reform.

The right wing and the insurance industry denied him his dying wish. They played delaying tactics until he died. They spread lie after lie after lie about health care reform to try and stop it, and they kept delaying passage. "What is the rush?" Well, the reason for the rush is obvious. It was really always obvious. Ted Kennedy was dying, and everyone knew it. He was the biggest supporter of health care. It was his life work. It would cut into insurance company profits if he succeeded. If they could just delay things until after he was dead, things would be SO much easier for them.

But right now I need to introduce you to three of my friends. Don't worry. They are all safely dead, and have been for many years.

Frank Schaeffer was one of the founders of the evangelical movement. With his father, the author of "The Christian Manifesto", and C. Everett Koop and their focus on issues related to abortion, they galvanized the Christian Right.

Schaeffer believes very differently now and the author of "Crazy for God" has tried to impart to the rest of us some of the important lessons learned as an insider of the movement.

He appeared with Rachel Maddow recently to argue the actual physical danger presented by segments of the movement he helped to create.

Operation Rescue's Randall Terry wasn't named but I recalled Schaeffer's recently expressed and ominous conclusions as I watched this video.

Randall Terry Forcibly Ejected From Healthcare Town Hall With Howard Dean