Not to mention YES to affordable health care benefits for members of Congress.
So, it was OK to vote to burn billions if not trillions on a ginned up war. It was OK to vote for trillions in bailouts for a bunch of thieving financial crooks and sharks. Now these very same sharks are earning billions and giving themselves fat bonuses again. Hopefully someone bothered to ask them to pay back the bail out bucks.
Our tax dollars are paying for all of the above including BMW level health care insurance for members of Congress. If John McCain had to find his own health care insurance company, like so many other Americans, he would be turned down because of pre-existing conditions. If he would be lucky enough to find a willing provider, McCain would be out of pocket thousands of dollars for or bankrupted by treatments desperately needed but not covered or flat out denied by his plan.
Why are we paying for top notch care for our esteemed lawmakers when many of them are against the same for us? If they say no to us, we should say no to them and demand that the federal government rescind all taxpayer funded health care coverage for members of Congress. Let our revered leaders buy their own freaking insurance like a vast number of Americans have to do. Some may learn they cannot afford to pay for it and college tuition for their kids.
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70% of the American people want health care reform. Many folks, including sane, reasonable Republicans and Independents voted for Barack Obama precisely because he promised to deliver affordable heath care to the American people. The President is ready to do this. But Congress, including some Blue Dog Democrats, is attempting to slow him down or undermine his efforts altogether.
Here is one prime example:
Waterloo? In your dreams. Dude if anyone is having a Waterloo it is your pathetic Party.
We did not vote for the delusional jackass above and others like him. A recent Gallup poll indicates that
54% of Americans trust Obama with healthcare reform while only 34% trust Republicans. 54% trust Obama with managing the federal deficit while 35% trust Republicans. 63% of us blame the Bush Administration for the financial mess we are in while 31% blame Obama. 36% approve of Congressional Republicans while 58% disapprove. 65% of us believe Obama brought needed change to Washington while 35% said he did not.
As liberal protesters marched outside, Sen. Max Baucus sat down inside a San Francisco mansion for a dinner of chicken cordon bleu and a discussion of landmark health-care legislation under consideration by his Senate Finance Committee.
At the table on May 26 were about 20 donors willing to fork over $10,000 or more to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, including executives of major insurance companies, hospitals and other health-care firms.
"Most people there had an agenda; they wanted the ear of a senator, and they got it," said Aaron Roland, a San Francisco health-care activist who paid half price to attend the gathering. "Money gets you in the door. The only thing the other side can do is march around and protest outside."
The other side would be us, folks, and I think we can do more than just march outside.
In Texas we know damned well that our U.S. Senators Cornyn and Hutchison most certainly do not represent us where health care reform and all social services are concerned. Neither does my U.S. House Rep. John Culberson. Fine. Then let them all be stripped of their federal health care benefits and next election folks, please do fire their butts out Congress. We need people in Washington who will work for us. I am sick and tired of turning over my hard earned tax dollars to a bunch of pimps in Congress who work for fat cats who can buy their way into our lawmaking process.
Why are we paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars for health insurance premiums when these very same companies can deny the care we need and pay for? The insurance companies are on a vigilant watch to safeguard their profit margins and yet they have millions upon millions to give to lobbyists to fight health care reform.
The companies are using the money we pay them to prevent us from getting better care.
Let me repeat:
The insurance companies use the money we pay them to pay lobbyists to block health care reform that would ensure better care for us.
Yesterday most of the media except for MSNBC hosts, Ed Schultz, David Shuster (subbing for Keith Olbermann) and Rachel Maddow spewed and spun doom and gloom on Obama's approval ratings. Most pundits and hosts pretty much indicated that Obama's plans for health care reform is seriously undermined. Democrats are bailing, some said. There is great "concern" among moderate Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats said the conventional wisdom know-it-alls. Some of the print media, including the The Washington Post joined the fray.
Diarist Cenk Uygur's diary over at Daily Kos (link above) poses excellent questions about the media. Are they complicit or incompetent? As far as I am concerned some are truly complicit while others are clueless and incompetent.
What's the motivation of Politico and the Washington Post to help the healthcare industry fight back against Obama's proposals by: a) painting the effort as failing and losing momentum (if this idea sticks, maybe Obama will panic and just get reform done without a public option - which is exactly what the industry wants) b) pretending that the "centrist" politicians are on the level and totally unconcerned about where they get so much of their political funding?
It leads to the same question we unfortunately run into about the media so often - are they incompetent or complicit? The Washington Post healthcare salons give you a sense of why they might be financially motivated to play ball. But I can't get myself to believe that they are that craven and compromised. Maybe I'm being sadly naïve.
I tend to think that they suffer from DC bubble disease. They have forgotten that they are supposed to challenge politicians. They have been captured by the power interests in the capital and they are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. They have become convinced that politicians generally mean well and the only acceptable way to challenge a politician is if you have an equal and opposite politician demanding that you do (because presumably he must mean well in offering up this challenge -- after all, it is not a legitimate opinion if it is not offered up by someone in power in Washington).
There is one more layer here. If one side is being bought by corporate interests and their opposition to another politician is not genuine or based on principle, you must not under any circumstances let the public know what game is actually being played. Pretend everything is on the level - everyone's job depends on it (though I'm not sure that it does; if that is The Washington Post's calculation , I think they have gravely miscalculated).
Earth to punditry's jackasses and whores: President Barack Obama continues to be very popular whether you like it or not.
It took the Bush Administration 8 years to take our nation to the lowest pits of hell. It will take more than a few months for the Obama Administration to repair the mind numbing and pervasive damage.
Update: Concerning the media's role on health care reform Howard Dean said the following:
Speaking about health care on Tuesday, Gov. Howard Dean said the media "hate that they can't take down Obama, so they're using every Republican talking point to try." According to Dean, health reform is "doing very well."
Dean, a physician who is closely involved with the issue politically, emphasized the importance of a public health care option to compete with private insurers. A bill without such a provision is "not worth passing" as it would not control costs, he argued, at a conference hosted by Campus Progress in Washington, D.C.
"Let the American people choose" between private and public medical care, he said, claiming that a public option would force private insurers to get their act together.
If we want substantial healthcare reform we are going to have to fight for it tooth and nail. The opponents are powerful and they have millions to burn on this one fight alone. The media is firmly in bed with the powerful interests, as it was during the lead up to the ginned up war in Iraq.
That said, our hard fought grassroots efforts paid off during the November elections. The conventional wisdom jackassery told us at the time that Obama did not have a chance in hell. The powerful forces fought him with everything they had at their disposal.
Give 'em the fury from a hell they never knew existed. Speaking of which, MSNBC host Ed Schultz has been doing an excellent job in that department. He does not suffer liars and BS artists gladly. Hats off to Ed!
